Lately I have been spending more time on various Linux distributions. For production I mostly use Debian and Ubuntu (which is itself based on Debian). There are few things that I have come to love about them, and I though I would share:

- On my laptop, I have both Windows 7 and Xubuntu. When I boot into Windows, my fan immediately hits maximum and it takes a while for it to cool down. When I boot into Linux, the laptop stays cool. It also has a better battery life. I know it's a matter of drivers, but with equal driver quality (my laptop has good support for Linux), Linux OSes would normally run much leaner and cooler. Or at least they can be made to.
- My Window OS has grown to more then 20 gigs of size. Most of it in WinSXS, and I have not found a safe way to remove this crap without risking damage to my system in some way. My Linux install is still under 4 gigs, and that's relatively a lot for a Linux-base system.
- "ssh myuser@myvps.somewhere.com -D 8080" will create a SOCKS proxy on my computer with a secure tunnel to myvps.somewhere.com. I can configure my apps to use this tunnel and avoid any cache, proxy or security issues. I just wish I knew an easy way to make the proxy transparent.
- It is easy to clone. You can run the same system under VirtualBox, then upload it to some VPS provider and run it there. I haven't really tried with Windows but I know they have added copy protection which makes cloning more difficult.
- It is a great platform for running server software (apache, MySQL, etc.). Installing and updating the software is really easy through package managers.

These are some of the things that come to my mind, I'm sure I could think up others as well!
rolf wroteLately I have been spending more time on various Linux distributions. For production I mostly use Debian and Ubuntu (which is itself based on Debian). There are few things that I have come to love about them, and I though I would share:

- On my laptop, I have both Windows 7 and Xubuntu. When I boot into Windows, my fan immediately hits maximum and it takes a while for it to cool down. When I boot into Linux, the laptop stays cool. It also has a better battery life. I know it's a matter of drivers, but with equal driver quality (my laptop has good support for Linux), Linux OSes would normally run much leaner and cooler. Or at least they can be made to.
- My Window OS has grown to more then 20 gigs of size. Most of it in WinSXS, and I have not found a safe way to remove this crap without risking damage to my system in some way. My Linux install is still under 4 gigs, and that's relatively a lot for a Linux-base system.
- "ssh myuser@myvps.somewhere.com -D 8080" will create a SOCKS proxy on my computer with a secure tunnel to myvps.somewhere.com. I can configure my apps to use this tunnel and avoid any cache, proxy or security issues. I just wish I knew an easy way to make the proxy transparent.
- It is easy to clone. You can run the same system under VirtualBox, then upload it to some VPS provider and run it there. I haven't really tried with Windows but I know they have added copy protection which makes cloning more difficult.
- It is a great platform for running server software (apache, MySQL, etc.). Installing and updating the software is really easy through package managers.

These are some of the things that come to my mind, I'm sure I could think up others as well!
For N3:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VPN_over_SSH#OpenSSH.27s_built_in_tunneling
There is socksify commands also
Linux is definitely lighter than Windows.
Tried mainly Ubuntu.
The only reason I can't switch is the lack of gaming support. Using Wine or similar apps is still not an option.
steam works natively for me, but not much games, as in windows. Still, quite good amount
Thank you! I had found this:
https://github.com/darkk/redsocks/tree/master
But it requires configuring iptables, so I think I prefer socksify.
Georges00 wroteLinux is definitely lighter than Windows.
Tried mainly Ubuntu.
The only reason I can't switch is the lack of gaming support. Using Wine or similar apps is still not an option.
For me it's Adobe Photoshop. No I'm not using GIMP, the name alone puts me off. But basically Adobe Camera Raw is what I use mostly. If only that could work under Linux. I'm not a snub or anything, I just don't want to mess around with photo rendering, or compromise on photo quality. If ACR works well then I'd rather stick to that.

By the way, Ubuntu is good for many cases (ease of use, wide support and compatibility). It's not the lightest distribution, though.

I have tried a distro called Alpine Linux, which is quite light and minimal - I managed to have a working system including xfce4 desktop in less than 1GB disk space. But it has a few downsides. It is not binary compatible with most Linux distros because they use a different library for linking the binaries. It seems to be good base for configuring lean servers to be deployed "on the cloud" or as a base for docker images.
nuclearcat wrotesteam works natively for me, but not much games, as in windows. Still, quite good amount
Good to know!
I'm falling in love with "iptables" command and security tools in Linux.
amkahal wroteI'm falling in love with "iptables" command and security tools in Linux.
If you have a a week to loose, type man tc and try to use it!
Iptables is pretty good.

One thing I like, generally, about linux, is that most tools (I'm thinking command line) seem to be designed to be reused, and to have an interface built on top. They are easy to script, and to interpret and reuse the output.
On windows system, trying to automate or build an interface on top of some tool usually feels like a cheap hack.
rolf wrote
amkahal wroteI'm falling in love with "iptables" command and security tools in Linux.
If you have a a week to loose, type man tc and try to use it!
Iptables is pretty good.

One thing I like, generally, about linux, is that most tools (I'm thinking command line) seem to be designed to be reused, and to have an interface built on top. They are easy to script, and to interpret and reuse the output.
On windows system, trying to automate or build an interface on top of some tool usually feels like a cheap hack.
I tried tc many times, but never mastered it, it's on my list, since im deciding to build my own firewall.
That's what I love the most:
root@scorz:~# uptime
 17:59:22 up 294 days, 21:57,  1 user,  load average: 0.04, 0.06, 0.05
root@scorz:~#
amkahal wrote I tried tc many times, but never mastered it, it's on my list, since im deciding to build my own firewall.
I used it a long time ago. After some research, I found a document describing the different "disciplines", and it is actually not that difficult, but the interface makes it somewhat hard to configure and to monitor.

I used it to prioritise ACK so that download will not slow down when uploading. It made a real different in these cases, but maybe not worth the time spent on it. Some time later, I was outside of the country, someone else was brought in to look at the internet and they replaced my Fedora Linux gateway with ISA.

Nowadays embedded routers often have traffic control software, and the connections are a little better, so there is less need for it in this case.
rolf wrote
Nowadays embedded routers often have traffic control software, and the connections are a little better, so there is less need for it in this case.
you are almost right, i know it's not feasible to re-invent the wheel and building what nowadays routers already have, but it's all about customization and flexibility, i bet you know the pleasure of writing some piece of code dear rolf, especially on top of linux tools :)
The wheel was "invented" a long time ago! But nobody has made a wheel exactly like what I need, so I know what you are talking about, and I'm guilty of it too.
rolf wroteThe wheel was "invented" a long time ago! But nobody has made a wheel exactly like what I need, so I know what you are talking about, and I'm guilty of it too.
Exactly.

in this concern, i'm glad to hear some words from nuclearcat, since he is a real master of Linux.