Coolest thing you can do using Linux that you can’t do with Windows or on a Mac

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: February 3, 2008]

Interesting post, from the blog:

Someone asked me this recently. I don't have just one answer. I compiled a list of things I thought of and emailed it to my friend...then I thought I would post it here for future reference.

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Discussion on This Article:

Matt Says: February 3rd, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Rather childish, juvenile, etc. but amused me greatly when I found out:

cat /dev/hda1 > /dev/dsp
raw audio data (wav files I think) are played appropriately, the rest sounds like varying types of techno/house (dependent on what file system your drive has)

Or if you don’t want garbage in your term window when testing devices, instead of
cat /dev/input/event0 > /dev/dsp

Though these two little diversions aren’t extremely useful or impressive, it’s the little low level hacks that endear me to Linux. For example, I once helped a friend surpass some file system restrictions that partition magic had by a boot cd, a reverse ssh tunnel, and disk druid.
aa Says: February 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Coolest thing I can do using Linux that I can’t do with Windows or on a Mac is I can do everything I want with it but not pay a penny.
James Says: February 5th, 2008 at 10:45 am
The coolest things I can do with Linux that I can’t do with Mac or Windows… I can read/write/correct files on their file systems and they can’t read/write etc to each other or me. More so I can use fuse and cross mount each of them as if they were local to my system. This allows me to transfer files from one to the other through my system that they can’t get to each other save by sneaker net.

Next has to be dmidecode. It allows me to directly query BIOS, motherboard and peripherals getting exact details about state and components. A lot to be learned on how to use this one for sure.
rambhai Says: February 5th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
well the coolest thing is i can say that the system is MINE and its freeeeeee
Michel Matton Says: February 8th, 2008 at 12:52 am
How about doing everything without having to install pirated software!