Do most professional computer scientists prefer to use Linux?

[brawnypandora0]

Do most people you know who work in IT or in computer related academia use Linux?

[KiwiNZ]

In short no.

If you are referring to the Desktop the Linux users would be a small minority. Server side ,that is a different story.

[Zombito13]

At the college I work at admin would be right sadly. Only one of my teachers uses Unix/Linux, all the other teachers to my knowledge use windows, and maybe one mac

[johntaylor1887]

If you are a computer scientist working for the US government, chances are you are going to be using linux. There are many specialty application OS's that make no sense to use windows, since linux can be built up from scratch to do nothing more than is needed.

[phrostbyte]

I would say yes.

Linux is huge in academia and not just CS but physics and mathematics as well. Linux has an almost virtual monopoly on supercomputing at this point. :)

[lisati]

It probably depends who you talk to. The local polytechnic I'm currently attending uses Windows XP for the students, and yesterday was my class's turn to access the system for the first time. To be honest, after a while I began to find the logout and login sounds XP provides rather annoying, and I began to miss Ubuntu's login sound.

(no, it's not an IT-related course)

[murderslastcrow]

It depends on the area of research. Many people in my college have a deep affinity for open source, but not for Linux, while others feel like they're taking a breath of fresh air being able to talk to a student about how good it is.

Which just goes to show, that while many computer scientists may love it, it's not exactly popular in the States, or most countries where people have easy access to television. Steps are being taken to increase the visibility of Linux as a 'sexy' product now, and not just some geeky toy. I think anyone who wants to 'spread FOSS' should acknowledge this and try not to make it look like an obsessive disorder, too.

I've run into about 10 people who said they won't try Linux because of some nerd that said Windows sucks one too many times. People don't want to hear they made the wrong decision all the time by someone with a superiority complex, after all.

However, there are some fields of natural science that operate primarily on UNIX, many using Macs, but for clusters and heavy research, most of the higher ups I know of use Linux. And hey- look at IBM, Google, MIT, and Intel. If those guys aren't high on the computer scientist list, who is? It has a lot more popularity if you can land the right job/perspective of the situation.

[JDShu]

Computer related academia is huge on Linux and UNIX systems in general. I wouldn't say most people prefer it, but most CS amd IT people definitely have used it. And you'll certainly find more Linux (and BSD) enthusiasts within the CS program.

[3Miro]

Define "use Linux". Everyone uses Linux by connecting to Linux servers on the Internet.

If you mean as desktop, it depends on what the people are working on. I don't think a person making windows programs would use Linux the reverse is probably also true.

In academia, it all depends on the University. Some places run on close to 100% Linux and others hardly know what that is. In my Undergrad program, there was one Mac person and everyone else was a Linux guy (that was in the period 2000-2004). In the case of my sister, they had couple of Mac people and only one guy would teach a Unix course, nobody would actually be using Linux.

[jfreak_]

I study in one of the biggest technical college in India and here all the systems are either dual boot between windows and fedora or use opensolaris. Although I am not an IT student, I have never seen them working on windows, mostly ubuntu or fedora.

[juancarlospaco]

most professional computer scientists are not engineers.

(for me, at the place i live)
engineers didn't know nothing, or the bare basics on Computers.

[t0p]

Professionals sometimes use the "best" (in their opinion) tool for the job. Very often, professionals have no choice in what they use - the company makes an agreement with a vendor, and that vendor provides the software that they have signed a contract to use.

Fact is, Windows stuff is still ubiquitous, and if "everyone else" is using Windows then it must be the best. Right?

[BrokenKingpin]

I went through college for software development and about half my professors used Linux, and the other half used Windows. The company I work for now (as a software developer) does software for Windows, so we use all windows workstations and servers. But, I would say that a good portion of the developers I work with use Linux as their OS at home.

[DZ*]

I'm in a biostat department which is somewhat a "computer related academia" type. New recruits and postdocs are offered a laptop and a desktop and they can choose Windows, Mac, or Linux. More than half have linux on at least one computer.

[Cracklepop]

In short, yes.
I'm a (recently graduated) computer scientist. In the university I attended we had 9 Linux labs (Red Hat), 1 OSX lab specifically for first year students and zero Windows labs in the CS school (the rest of the university used Windows).

All lecture theatres on campus have Windows boxes with touch screens to run the projectors etc (there are no theatres specifically assigned to CS, they share with engineering and maths) but I never saw a CS lecturer use them (lecturers for other courses I attended did) they always brought their own laptops with them and ran the lectures from there. Most used Linux, but quite a few also used OSX. I did have one who used Windows (Vista), but he was all on his own, and had to use Cygwin during lectures...

If you're a computer scientist not comfortable, and very competent, with Linux your employment opportunities are massively, massively restricted.

[toupeiro]

My job deals heavily in supporting sub-surface earth sciences. Simply put, Linux/UNIX is the top used OS in this field of work.

[sixstorm]

I currently work for an IT consulting firm as a senior IT support specialist, we run mainly Windows. We've tried to implement some open source/Linux solutions such as Elastix and Nexenta, but both have failed multiple tests that we've thrown at it. As for the desktop side of things, we would never put Linux as a desktop solution, we keep our solutions as a tight ship.

As for personal use though, we all know that Ubuntu and other distros of Linux have their place at home, on some servers and especially older machines that need a new face. ;)

But I'll put it this way. Thank goodness for Windows and it's infinite amount of problems! That gives me a solid paycheck!!!! :D

[DZ*]

I've heard an argument from IT people (at one of the places I was considering joining) that it is easier to control Windows installations and that it is beneficial from a security point of view. Another argument in favor of Windows was that some full disk encryption programs for Windows are "certified" (whatever that means) while LUKS is not, therefore LUKS does not deliver a similar protection of sensitive data on laptops. They couldn't get away with not giving users an option of desktop Linux but they definitely wished to have Windows only PCs.

As their potential "user", I found these arguments completely bogus. With certainty, some, even if small percentage of their Windows users end up infected with malware at which point certification or tight control become rather pointless, since malware has full access to the sensitive data on a booted laptop. Statistically, they'd be better off encouraging Linux installs.

[chessnerd]

At the university I attend, the computer science department sees a lot of Linux use. In addition to having 2 Linux labs on campus, most of the professors I have had seem to prefer it to Windows. Two of my professors actually would SSH into a Linux machine from the Windows machine in the classroom instead of using Vista.

Among the students, you'll find a ratio like this: 60% Windows, 30% Linux, 10% Mac.

While not a majority, that is still a higher percentage than the general populous. In fact, if the 1-2% marketshare figure is to be believed, that would mean that computer science students at my university are 15-30 times more likely to use Linux than the average person.

If you are asking "Do a majority of computers scientists prefer Linux?" then the answer is likely "No." Windows is just too pervasive and has too much of a power-user base. But if you are asking "Do computer scientists prefer Linux more than everyday people do?" then the answer is definitely "Yes."

Also, Ubuntu is by far the most common distro that I see on a daily basis, to the point that I don't recall any specific time where I've seen someone using another one in class.

[Cracklepop]

At the university I attend, the computer science department sees a lot of Linux use. In addition to having 2 Linux labs on campus, most of the professors I have had seem to prefer it to Windows. Two of my professors actually would SSH into a Linux machine from the Windows machine in the classroom instead of using Vista.

Among the students, you'll find a ratio like this: 60% Windows, 30% Linux, 10% Mac.

Are there engineering students in these classes? I've noticed most engineers use Windows. What classes are they btw, for curiositiy's sake?

People posting here also need to remember this thread is re. CS. (This not directed at you, Chessnerd).
IT does not equal CS.
If you aren't looking at design and and analysis of data structures and algorithms, or related, you aren't a computer scientist.

[phrostbyte]

Probably less engineers uses Linux than Computer Scientists, but I would say more engineers use Linux than English majors.

This is how I see it (from personal experience):

Most Linux use to least..
Mathematics -> Computer Science -> Physics -> Electrical Engineering -> Mechanical Engineering -> Civil Engineering -> Any Science -> Rest of University. :D

[phrostbyte]

I've heard an argument from IT people (at one of the places I was considering joining) that it is easier to control Windows installations and that it is beneficial from a security point of view. Another argument in favor of Windows was that some full disk encryption programs for Windows are "certified" (whatever that means) while LUKS is not, therefore LUKS does not deliver a similar protection of sensitive data on laptops. They couldn't get away with not giving users an option of desktop Linux but they definitely wished to have Windows only PCs.

As someone who worked as a sysadmin for Linux and Windows PCs for awhile, I can say there is some truth to the first argument unfortunately. Managing a Linux desktop network can be challenging because the lack of a coherent directory and group policy implementation. OpenLDAP and Red Hat Directory Server are good directory implementations but they don't seem to address group policy (correct me if I am wrong). There is tools like puppet for enforcing policy in a machine-wise manner, but they seem to be more designed around managing a data center.

That being said keeping software inventory is much easier on Linux. :)

[dirty_harry]

Probably less engineers uses Linux than Computer Scientists, but I would say more engineers use Linux than English majors.

This is how I see it (from personal experience):

Most Linux use to least..
Mathematics -> Computer Science -> Physics -> Electrical Engineering -> Mechanical Engineering -> Civil Engineering -> Any Science -> Rest of University. :D


this reminded me of something:
http://xkcd.com/435/

[FoxEWolf]

No not really. Some of us do, but others seem to prefer Windows based systems..