Windows or Ubuntu for an Electric Engineering student?

AI Thread Summary
Choosing between Windows XP and Ubuntu for an Electrical Engineering student involves weighing support and compatibility. Windows XP is unsupported, making it a less favorable option despite its use in some academic departments. Ubuntu is recommended for its learning opportunities and better support for robotics and hardware interfacing, as it offers easier access to source code and simpler parallel or serial interfaces. Dual booting is suggested as a viable solution, allowing the user to benefit from both operating systems. Virtual machines can also be considered, but the choice of host OS may depend on specific needs, such as hardware interfacing or gaming. Ultimately, Ubuntu is favored for its advantages in project focus and reduced complexity in interfacing.
SuperMiguel
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Im an Electric Engineers student and I am trying to decide to use Windows XP or Ubuntu.. Most of the programs i need will run in both if not wine will do...

What do you guys think?

System has a quadcore CPU, 2TB HD and 16gb of ram.. (I know kinda overkill but i got it for free)
 
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Find out what your department uses and go from there?

You shouldn't use XP 'cause it's unsupported and ubuntu is a good way to learn other operating systems, but at least at my school the EE department mostly uses XP and I'm stuck encouraging ubuntu for robotics projects.
 
story645 said:
Find out what your department uses and go from there?

You shouldn't use XP 'cause it's unsupported and ubuntu is a good way to learn other operating systems, but at least at my school the EE department mostly uses XP and I'm stuck encouraging ubuntu for robotics projects.

they use windows xp :(
 
Why not dual boot?
 
zpconn said:
Why not dual boot?

i guess i could do that
 
SuperMiguel said:
i guess i could do that
Or use a vm since you've got enough gigs for it. Use the OS you want to stick with as the host and throw the experimental os on the vm.
 
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story645 said:
Or use a vm since you've got enough gigs for it.

whats a better host for vms ubuntu or windows??
 
Ubuntu linux will be a smarter choose as for robotics and other hardware interfacing stuff … you will realize linux has tons of source code available …. and parallel or serial interface in linux systems is easier if you try ..that in windows … you have to go through elaborate NT kernel apis to do so .. or if you could use some libraries in VB.

But VB as such sucks for moderately complex setup … or where u want to use some functional programming language like Newton script or haskell and want to call some C libraries or vice versa. So use Linux it will save u lot of trouble and you can focus on the project instead of vast Interfaces to the operating system.
 
SuperMiguel said:
whats a better host for vms ubuntu or windows??

*shrugs* Depends on what you want to do. If you game a lot, you may want windows to be the host system 'cause I've heard of some issues with mouse response times in vms. I've also heard of some issues with hardware interfacing issues with vms, so you may just want to make the host system whichever one you expect to use more with hardware.
 
  • #10
story645 said:
*shrugs* Depends on what you want to do. If you game a lot, you may want windows to be the host system 'cause I've heard of some issues with mouse response times in vms. I've also heard of some issues with hardware interfacing issues with vms, so you may just want to make the host system whichever one you expect to use more with hardware.

no gaming at all
 
  • #11
+1 for dual booting.
 
  • #12
bah ubuntu it is
 
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