SuSE 7.3 vs XP

rutledjw writes: "This should be good for some flame wars. A story on HPWorld that I read about on NewsForge gives an interesting comparison between XP and Linux. I personally think the story wanders a little and wouldn't call it comprehensive, but it is interesting. It does point out a particular bottleneck in how the 2.4.x kernels handle asynchronous IO. Apparently this is being addressed in the 2.5 kernels..." It actually appears quite low-flame and balanced, and unlike some Linux vs. Windows comparisons, goes into decent detail rather than just glib generalizations.

Comments

better?

[spottedkangaroo]

Who cares which one is faster, or better, or more stable. Seriously. I just plain don't like Windows. I dare them to address that. I think I can sum it up: I was typing the other day... a window poped up. Something had happened. I inadvertantly hit enter (since I was already typing) and as a result, still don't know what the message said... Well, that and I lost what I was typing. The irritation factor was a 9.6.

Cygwin almost works... I use that at work. But it's all slow and icky. I've known for a million years that ext2 is slow, but I like that filesystem a shatload more than some of the faster ones... Mostly, I think that's because I know how it works. I can look it up. ls -l shows me a bit more under linux, ya know?

Re:better?

[silvaran]

Microsoft addressed that in Windows 2000 - the dialog must have popped up as a child of the active window. In 2000 and (I believe) ME and anything later, the window will appear in the background, while its title bar and taskbar will flash indicating that there's a new window that needs addressing.

You'll get the same problem in X apps under Linux - provided the dialogs popup from the active application; other than that you can always adjust your window manager preferences so new popups don't get the keyboard focus.

I had an identical problem back with Windows NT4; I was typing in ICQ and two dialogs, entirely separate from ICQ, popped up. I incidentally hit the spacebar in the midst of typing and dismissed both of them without reading what they were.

Essentially, if dialogs are popping up while you're typing, it's probably an interface issue with the application, not with Windows XP. I'm not a GUI wizard or anything, but I prefer text entry fields to validate when you click "OK" as opposed to while you're typing.

I dislike Windows as much as the next person, but I need it for development. If it wasn't for my job, I'd eliminate it entirely. But putting up with Windows is less grief than going without a job, especially with the current economy.

Other than that, complaining about intermittent dialogs is just nitpicking, and shouldn't decide your final decision on any OS.

Re:better?

[CatherineCornelius]

I think I can sum it up: I was typing the other day... a window poped up. Something had happened. I inadvertantly hit enter (since I was already typing) and as a result, still don't know what the message said... Well, that and I lost what I was typing. The irritation factor was a 9.6.

This is a serious usability problem in my view, and one that isn't restricted to Windows. With task bars and all manner of other ways to display important information nowadays, there really is no excuse for a GUI system that permits applications to grab focus for a modal dialog whilst the user is typing.

Why SuSE?

[Lumpy]

I guess you have to pick one, but RedHat, has a more Windows-esque hardware detection system. Hell I can yank out the video card and change it and on reboot the RedHat 7.2 machine will autodetect it and change the X config for it without asking for any technical information. something that SuSE, Mandrake and the likes dont have yet.

Granted a RedHAT install is really bloated compared to the others but if you want to compare apples to apples.....

The whole article could have used a second going over before it was released.

Re:Why SuSE?

[joestar]

For your information, Mandrake Linux 8.1 has the same autodetect mechanism at boot time.

Re:Why SuSE?

[noodlez84]

As Linux becomes more and more popular, the question becomes more and more important: which distribution should I use? I use SuSE Linux for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most LSB-compliant distribution. It comes with huge amounts of software (6 CDs of binaries for the Professional version, and (arguably) SuSE has the largest security team. SuSE updates are free and released often. Announcements are even GPG-signed. According to LWN.net research, SuSE has the best security after TurboLinux (which much less security-related bugs than RedHat.

On a more subjective note, many consider SuSE to be the most polished distribution, and YaST2 is considered one of the best all-around system configuration utilities.

Re:Why SuSE?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

SuSE prefers KDE, which is arguably more "window-esque" than Gnome, in terms of integration and user interface (Specifially DCOM, and applications such as Konqueror, KOffice, and KDevelop). Furthermore, RedHat lacks GUI tools such as YaST2 (SuSE) and Control Center (Mandrake).

And probably to be fair they picked the distro that you have to pay for (if you want the pretty install).

I've tried all three of the latest offerings from RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE. In terms of desktop use (not server use), RedHat is seriously lacking in comparion to the latter two, and SuSE is beating Mandrake by a narrow margin with all of its YaST2 modules (NIS, NFS, and LDAP setup wizards, especially).

Re:Suse go bad

[AgTiger]

The 7.2 SuSE Distribution had definite problems. At our company, we kept all of our servers at 7.1, after hearing about and then experiencing problems with upgrades and installs with 7.2.

Because we waited a bit, and did some tests first, we weren't bitten.

However, seeing these kind of "not quite ready for prime time" errors ALMOST soured us on SuSE. Almost.

We concluded that from time to time _every_ distribution is going to have a less than stellar release, and well, that's just life and business. We concluded that we'd follow the same cautious pattern where 7.3 was concerned when it came out.

When 7.3 was released, we purchased it and did a bit of initial testing. We waited until it was available via rsync from the major mirrors and set up an in-house mirror of the 7.3 tree, and waited a bit longer to allow many more users to install from the ftp sites. Then we waited to see what kind of horror stories about installs/upgrades would show up on the SuSE mailing lists or the usenet news groups. There were very few.

We upgraded most of our main servers to 7.3, all of our workstations, and so far, everything's been running _really_ nicely.

Now for the fun part: Using VMWare 3.0 Workstation for Linux, we can run Windows operating systems like Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional if that's what a project we're working on for a client calls for. We refer to it as "Windows, in Jail", complete with the jokes to "Hi Dad, I'm in Jail" from the Was-Not-Was song. :-)

For us, it can be SuSE 7.3 and XP at the same time, but we let Linux control the underpinnings.

Oh: Tip to those wanting to go this route: Use the IDE-SCSI module, and configure your CDRom and DVD-Rom drives as SCSI drives and access them as virtual SCSI devices in Raw mode. This solves the infuriating problem of horridly slow access to the drives under VMWare when accessing drives in raw mode.

The kicker's in the tail

[Rogerborg]

• Until now, conventional wisdom held that Windows wizards were a key factor in holding down TCO by countering the initial licensing costs with lower maintenance costs and lower skills requirements for the maintainers. OpenBench Labs' initial foray into the unconventional world of Windows XP puts that conventional wisdom about TCO into serious question

Well said. I have to admit, when I moved to Suse7.3 about six months ago, I really missed the handy-dandy pop-o-matic wizards that made Win98 such a no-brainer. It was a bitch having to figure everything out from scratch, with FAQ's either stopping too low down the clue scale or starting too high. I very nearly gave up (as I had done with RedHat 6.x a while back), but I stuck with it, and now I'm starting to get a clue.

Then two months ago, I upgraded from Win98SE to WinXP on another machine. I realised that I was suffering Linux cognitive dissonance (overvaluing the utility of it simply because it was hard to learn), and resolved to come to XP with an open mind. I was particularly looking forward to returning to the "one way to do it, it's our way, and we'll do it for you", which (be honest) is what Jane Homebody or Garry Gameplayer(me on that machine) really needs.

But oh dear. What's with the vile animated crap? How do I turn it off? Stop asking me if I want a passport account. Where's the network info? STOP ASKING ME IF I WANT A PASSPORT ACCOUNT. OK, I've set up TCP/IP, but how do I change the workgroup, it's not on the identification tab any more? STOP ASKING ME IF I WANT A PASSPORT ACCOUNT. Where's my single click interface? Hey, I thought I told you to stop animating those menus. No, I've already set up TCP/IP, stop asking me if I want to set up a connection to the internet. It's right there! STOP ASKING ME IF I WANT A PASSPORT ACCOUNT!

Even coming from Win98SE, it took me a long time to get WinXP set up the way I wanted it. If I'd come in cold, it would have been much worse, because I wouldn't even have known the right questions to ask. In all honesty, it's still a little easier than KDE on SuSE7.3, but it's not much easier. The gap has narrowed significantly, and - significantly - it's narrowing from both ends. Linux distros are getting better, but Windows really has got worse.

By trying to hide the inescapable fact that you do need to know what you're doing with WinXP (as you need to know with Linux), Microsoft has actually made it harder for those who do actually have a clue to drive it. How curious.

Re:The kicker's in the tail

[The Pim]

I realised that I was suffering Linux cognitive dissonance (overvaluing the utility of it simply because it was hard to learn), and resolved to come to XP with an open mind. [And then XP sucks.]

That was a really nice revelation. However, I often develop the opposite illusion. When using Linux, and having to do some tedious, unintuitive tweaking, I can't avoid thinking, "It would be so easy to take care of this with a sane config system. I'm sure I wouldn't have to do this in Windows.". But on the occasions I use Windows, I invariably find myself wasting just as much time tweaking, and further getting frustrated at the many things I can't tweak, and the arrogance of a UI that supposes to know better than I. Sure, the baby stuff is easier and more polished, but every foray into Windows reminds me that providing an enjoyable user experince is still a difficult and unsolved problem. This gives me some hope that the race is just getting started.

Re:The kicker's in the tail

[pubjames]

I agree.

I'm an XP user (Linux too!) and one thing that really pisses me off is that they've taken away the little icon that used to be bottom left of the screen that would give quick access to the desktop.

Personally I think that it is a good thing to have a simplified desktop for my old ma and pa, but I am what Microsofties might call a 'power user', or I prefer to call an IT professional. I think it would be simple to make it so that when you set up your account on your machine for the first time they ask you "Do you have difficulty using computers?" or whatever and if you reply yes then they give you the simplifed desktop.

I have Windows XP Professional. When I set up my user account it assigned me an icon of a yellow plastic duck. I mean, a bloody yellow plastic duck on a professional level computer! That will really impress my clients. What are MS thinking? But thankfully, this is one configuration option that is easy to change. I can change it from a bloody yellow plastic duck to a fucking green stuffed frog.

Linux vs everything....

[ACK!!]

I am not sure where these comparisons are going.

Each major operating system has its advantages and disadvantages depending on how it is implemented.

Listen there is no way I would want to move a brigade of secretaries over to Linux. I remember how much trouble my wife's law firm had getting those folks off of WordPerfect 5.2 for god's sake!

However, if I want a solid inexpensive server with lots of GUI tools to help me set things up then I go with Linux any day of the week. If I have a bunch of sysadmins, developers and geeks and I want to stop the endless bitching over the limits of WinNT as a desktop environment I tell them to install linux on their own and don't call IT when they screw it up. They love it. They get all the power they want and the corporate IT boys get a whole group of people they can tell to screw off when they call in for support.

Each OS has its own set of issues and strengths. Listen, if I had a rich aunt who never used a computer before and wanted to get on the internet I would tell her to get a mac.

Everything has its place. The trick is for Linux to clue in on its target audience of small server implementations and geek IT desktops.

________________________________________________ __

Re:Linux vs everything....

[nagora]

The best successes I've had moving people off Windows and onto Linux is with the various secretaries and temps we've had here. I simply don't tell them that they're using Linux and Star/Open Office! It works a treat.

The hard ones are graphic designers and the worst are DTP people who can't handle the Linux command line and automatic document production via piped commands chains.

TWW

Something that isn't pointed out enough

[Flavio]

I can't read the article (it's slashdotted), but there's something about Windows (specially XP) that I rarely hear people talk about: it uses outrageous amounts of RAM. Yes, RAM is cheap, but I find it extremely suspicious when simple applications consume so many resources.

I have 128 MB of RAM and with Linux it's enough for everything I need, _including_ Mozilla (which as we all know, can use a lot of memory).

I find it ludicrous that I can't even boot XP without swapping and it takes forever to open up apps like the media player. Should I face this with a smile and say "well, I'm at fault because 128 MB of RAM clearly isn't enough"?

I can't bring myself to respect an OS which needs this many resources to do nothing. Yet I know people with 64 MB of RAM who praise XP in favor of Linux. I firmly believe that they either don't use their computers for anything productive or they lie.

Can't do without either

[dgb2n]

I've got two computers at home and I currently use both Linux (Mandrake 8.1) and Windows XP Home. I need both boxes to accomplish what I need to do.

The Windows box is still a necessity. I have a 4 year old who likes educational games and without Windows, they simply don't run. Windows XP has also proven very adept at guiding my non-techie wife through moving pictures between the digital camera and the hard drive. XP is a huge improvement over ME in both stability and capability. Before, emailing pictures from the digital camera was an ordeal for her. Now, she just selects the picture out of a "filmstrip" view and clicks "Email the Picture". XP automatically resizes it for her (if desired) and attaches it to an email in her preferred email client.

I also wouldn't do without Linux. I use it as a firewall/proxy/Samba server and occasionally run a webserver on it with DHCP. Windows doesn't come close to being as capable for these services on my home network. I use the Linux box whenever I want to automate something through scripting or to use the superb open source utilities that come preinstalled. Got to automatically crop a bunch of pictures to a specific file size, hard to beat Imagemagik from the command line on Linux. Please don't ask me to get it working on XP.

I don't think of it as an either or. I look forward to the day when Linux can meet all my needs. I've long since given up or even looking forward to the day when Windows can.

Have you read the article?

[Juju]

They are talking about *laptops*

I don't think they are interrested in changing the video chip ;o)

But I guess the main reason for SuSE is that they have some kind of agreement with SuSE.
Besides, IIRC they also mention something about everything being recognized directly by the SuSE install whereas there were some glitches with Red Hat...