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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.
I've been testing XP extensively for my software company since Beta 1, and at this point (RC2), it is very close to replacing 2K as the OS on my windows box. Your points are totally right, but you miss a couple. First, the OS boots a lot faster. My main windows box is much faster than the test box running XP (athlon 700 vs k6-400) and yet it takes a full 27 secs longer to boot than the slower box running XP. Big deal, I know, but everything about the OS seems much faster to me-- application launch, ui responsiveness, disk access. Second, XP seems much more stable. While Win2k is definitely the most stable released OS from microsoft, I've definitely had a few crashes on it. Yet since installing RC1, I've had 0 crashes on the XP box. While not quite scientific, I've had to use to XP enough by now that I'm almost convinced I'll be upgrading to it because it is already far ahead (or so it seems to me ;) of Win2k in the exact things that made me go from Win98 to Win2k in the first place-- speed and stability.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Y'all always complain when people who don't understand Linux make poor reviews of it. Well, this guy doesn't understand MS operating systems. Easy networking setup? Been there since 95. 2K will put you on a DHCP TCP/IP network with nothing but an 'ok' click. The 'temptation to use another person's account because the name is already in there?' So tell NT to clear the last user logged in dialog. But I guess things like system policies are a bit technical for this guy; after all, penguins with wrenches are more important to him.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
Wow, I haven't used Linux in years, but I find it amazing that the setup has evolved to a point where people start comparing the ease of Windows setup to Linux setup instead of vice versa. Succulent.
Code Red II huh? Maybe SirCam?
Maybe you made this up to make Windows look worse?
Was copied by Mandrake from Neptune and Whistler before they (Microsoft) had a chance to release code based on them to the public. A good chunk of this stuff he talks about is even present in Win2k and NT4.
Lots of FUD.
Yep, all operating systems will eventually be identicle. Powerfull "features", look and feel, form and function will be the same. As long as they are all expected to attach to the same internet they have to be the same. But OS(x),Win(x) et. al. will never have Linux's price point.
/. gurus:
This reminds me of something I've been meaning to run by the
Let's say there are a bunch of clients running microsoft.net. Is it possible through ip spoofing etc. that Microsoft will not be selling time on their application servers at all but using our hardware and our bandwith to provide services to eachother? I have to run application (x), It requires a given amount of resources that I do not have onsite because I have a crippled client. I request resources from microsoft, they sell me the time and bandwidth from someone else's idle machine. Just like a distributed computing effort. Eventually, Microsoft would not even have the costs associated with running servers at all except for passport. Running my little client, I would see all this data arrive from a single IP since XP can spoof an IP. I cannot tell when my machine is acting as a server for someone else because the two "personal" firewalls that monitor outgoing traffic have been mysteriously disabled. Napster has shown that this sort of model is completely funtional. Microsoft is going to sell time on our computers back to us. It is a beautiful model for distributed computing, giving everyone access to a globaly shared beowulf cluster. Is your processor working 100% all the time? Are there times when you wished you had a hell of a lot more processing power? Do you use all your drive space all the time? Wouldn't you like to store your data encrypted on a global raid array? Need any file at all? Someone has it. Want to avoid redundant effort? Someone has done your work, and better than you could do it. Neat concepts except we could do it for ourselves for free and microsoft wants to charge us for the privelage.
We may now know why Balmer was jumping around like a monkey and bellowing the incredibly arrogant phrase "give it up for me!!".
Taking our culture from us and selling it back to us. RIAA,MPAA,Microsoft,AOL
Nasty, Nasty, Nasty, Nasty. Fuck I hate This
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Win9x --> Windows XP .NET Server (Whistler Server)
Win2KPro --> Windows XP Professional
Win2KServer --> Windows
Whistler Server is nowhere near ready for release or comparison right now. I believe they plan to release it sometime in 2002.
Windows XP is a HUGE improvement compared to Win9x. The UI is a lot better - and no, I don't mean in terms of looking cool - I mean it in terms of being usable - the way things are organized, etc. And there is a lot more functionality and reliability in XP. I hope Gateway would update their damn drivers so I could install XP on my girlfriends computer - it would make my life so much simpler if I could remote assist her, etc.
I'm using XP Professional on all my Win2K boxes right now and the major things I notice are reliability, not having to reboot every time I install anything and ease of use. I don't notice my apps running any slower - in fact I notice some apps that run lightning fast by comparison to Win2K - especially a certain *cough* MUD client.
The thing I notice most on my laptop is how fast the damn thing boots or resumes from standby. It makes it a whole heck of a deal more convenient to take my laptop to meetings, etc. The other big difference between Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro is remote access. It's awfully convenient for me to work on my desktop at work from home.
Mmmm.. Donuts
the Facts:
I loaded up my collection of mp3s.
All 4.7GBs.
Each mp3 tried to spawn it's own WinAmp process/window.
Resources climbed, and climbed (at peak, there was 600MB of swap/RAM being used).
WinXP chugged.
WinXP did not crash
WinXP finally ran out of thread space and stopped loading more.
I clicked "X" N-hundred times (yes, there needs to be a killall -9 in windows)
WinXP did not crash.
Notes:
I am not a zealot FOR or AGAINST Windows/Linux.
My playlist of mp3s is a little over 72 hours long.
Hammer of Truth
The UI perfect in terms of usability? You can only say this if you believe that the current way GUIs are done is the right way.
Does anyone here honestly think we will use GUIs in the same way 10 years from now?
I believe current GUIs (everyone of them) are horrible. They have poor interaction principles. They lack the fundamentals of task based interactions. They are overly complex when they don't need to be. They do not communicate well in abstract terms to the end user what they are really doing. Current GUIs are also heavily based on US culture.
No I don't have any grand ideas to fix it all other than I believe the GUI should be based on basic geometric shapes for actions. Much like most embedded devices have. And that if needed, somewhere easily accessible is a further level of complexity for those that demand it.
--- I do not moderate.
Having bounced around between many distros the past couple years (slackware, debian, redhat, suse, caldera and mandrake) I found that the most *recent* mandrake 8.0 was actually about the most usable, from an installation and 'login/go' standpoint.
:)
However, during the installation I apparently didn't say I was a developer, so it didn't install ANY compiling tools. OK, OK there may have been *something* there, but about 60% of the stuff I wanted to compiled didn't compile. So, from a 'casual/everyday' Linux user's perspective, it isn't very good. For someone like my wife, who just wants to sit down and type a letter by clicking on an office icon, it's fine.
I'd have commented more on the article itself(!) but it appears to be unavailable. Any mirrors?
creation science book
Windows XP has an excellent feature that I have seen nowhere else. The feature is called Switch User, and is available only when the machine is not part of an NT Domain(not sure about AD). The feature is enabled in the Users/Groups control panel by a allow users to switch checkbox.
At first glance the feature was nothing that couldn't be ackomplished with a good X session manager like gnome-session. A user logs out and another users logs in. Go back to that first users and all the programs are restored where they left off. But This is NOT the Microsoft switch user feature. In XP, the user never really logs off. All the programs are left running in the background while another person works. This is a huge contrast to current X windows usage, and is a feature I would love to see on X at some level.
The application specific point I've found is for applications like file sharing. Brother is transfering files on napster, but sister wants to use the computer to check her email and use her Web browser bookmarks. Today in X Windows land, brother would have to close his program and let sister login. But in Windows XP land, he could simply switch users.
I know that all this really equates to is a full GUI version of screen. But Windowing applications are much more user friendly than console applications. Try teaching your mother or grandmother to user screen.
If anyone could come up with a model for allowing X windows to do this, I would love to see ideas. Would this kind of feature be implemented at the Display Manager level, allowing xdm/gdm/kdm to wrap each users session and let them switch?
If any work is being done in this area, please do tell. It is a feature I am most interested in. And with Unix's inherent superiourity in multiple user features, This is something X Windows should be able to do much better than MS Windows(no NT domain support *laugh*)
-j
One of the things that drew me to linux in the first place was how dang cool it could look. I loved having little widgets here and there that would tell me the amount of CPU or Ram usage, or even the temperature of my CPU. When I first ran across enlightenment i could't believe how freaking cool it was. (and this was in the days when only winamp had skins).
It takes windows so long to adopt these kinds of things. Look how long it took them to be able to change single color on a window title bar.
If only they had native desktopX support in WXP. That would be the shiz.