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A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake
Mifflesticks points to this interesting "visual comparison" between Mandrake 8.0 and Windows XP. Even though it's specifically a visual / aesthetic comparison, this piece actually sums up the good things about XP -- good device detection, multiple users set up from the install, improved network configuration -- better than anything else I've seen. The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.
Who says that windows is better at detecting hardware than mandrake. At least for my case i found that after a motherboard upgrade, mandrake 8.0 detected the new motherboard and installed all the relevent drivers for me (sound, usb). I also hav win2k on another partition and i had to reinstall win2k after the hardware upgrade. This fud about windows being more hardware friendly has to end. Install windows first, and then go thru countless reboots to get all the drivers in place. It is just plain stupid. For any linux distro u just need to do 1 reboot (if you recompile the kernel) and things start working after that.
That comment about XP copying Linux is pretty funny. I know I'll get modded to hell for saying this, but I just have to. I just recently installed Mandrake on a separate drive and had to nuke the whole thing after an evening of use. Basically, I try Linux on the desktop every couple months to see if it's finally getting usable. It only took me a few hours to realize Mandrake is nowhere near usable.. out of the box it's slow, the apps are still as ghetto as they were 6 months ago (When I tried running Debian on the desktop) and it just plain sucks to use. Perhaps it was because I was using GNOME, but regardless, to say XP is stealing the great features of Mandrake is simply ridiculous. (The link to the article is dead, so I can't get into much detail) It's possible that if I had tweaked the system on a geek level and didn't use GNOME it would have been better, but I simply didn't want to waste my time once again doing the "week long Linux march" that I do whenever I decide to install it. I'll never use Linux on the desktop until I can just install it and have it work and be FAST. I was impressed with how easily Mandrake installed, but the fireworks stopped as soon as it came time for me to actually get some work done.
:)
And, yes, I've run linux on the desktop for months at a time in the past, so I'm not a newbie and I do have a good sense of how usable the system is going to be for me in the long run based upon playing with it for a few hours.
XP doesn't require a Passport account, and it is damn usable. The new GUI is pretty damn good, IMHO, and for the guy who referred to the taskbar being for idiots or whatever, well, you can hide it. It's configurable for the experienced and it took me about 10 minutes to turn off all the dumbing down features that are in there for the computer illiterate. One thing MS does do right is understand that not everyone is a geek.. and this is why Linux will never become mainstream unless a well off company comes in and takes it under its wing and starts a massive usability testing campaign. For example, I found the most functional and well designed apps to be (although they were notoriously slow) evolution and nautilus, and, surprise surprise, they were designed and created by companies.
The geeks will always design for geeks, which is all well and good, but don't go saying that Microsoft products are playing catch up to Linux in ease of use. That's just ridiculous
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Ya, it's all been there since win95 he smugly says.
Have you ever tried to freaking network W95 computers with each other? (or heaven forbid with other versions of windows?)I have done it with home LAN's and LAN parties and never once has it been easy. Even when you do everything 'right' Win9X refuses to recognize other comps on the network etc. What planet are you from anyway?
Unless you want a total spam of gay porn in your browser...
Except for the M$ EULA, all the proprietary code that no one is allowed to touch, being required to signup your personal data on Passport which has been shown to be quite breakable and insecure (after all, it's a companies website which has had a notorious history of bad security - Code Red, Sircam, the list goes on), and the fact that I can't install XP on the new machines that I buy after the original one gets outdated and no longer used.
Sorry, but for all of Mandrake's (and Linux in general) shortcomings, I'd trust my important things (and personal data) to Madrake before XP. XP runs better, sure, but it's M$'s arrogant attitude towards it's 'stupid' users I have a problem with, not how well it's software runs. And to prove I'm not a troll: I've got 2 machines at home, one is running Mandrake8, the other Win98. the Mandrake 8 machine had a major system fart over the weekend and X isn't working now, my Win98 machine is still fine. But I'm still determined to wrestle with Mandrake until it's working again before I even THINK about buying XP.