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Linux Users Try FreeBSD 5, Windows
uninet writes "Most people know what GNU/Linux is, but fewer know about BSD and fewer still have actually used one of the major BSD variants (other than the highly customized Mac OS X). Ed Hurst, a writer and a long time GNU/Linux user, decided to give FreeBSD a try. Will Ed join the ranks of happy FreeBSD users? Find out at OfB.biz." And our own Roblimo, Windows-free for five years, has spent a week learning Windows XP.
Betcha they don't.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I was 100% against MS's evil empire and Bill's attempts to takeover the world.
I think this says something about the nature of Linux users' hatred of Windows. Most of the fanboys seem to think that dislike of windows for technical reasons is evidence that MS is evil, and that the fact that Windows is ahead in the "desktop war" means that Windows is terrible. No wonder so many people don't take you guys seriously, if you don't understand that those connections aren't logical.
If you want to believe that Linux is technically better than Windows, fine. I happen to agree on that point. If you think that Microsoft is the evil empire, that's OK; you can form your own opinions. If you can't seperate the two ideas in your mind, then there's a problem, and you probably ought to reexamine your conclusions (or at least your mode of evangelism.)
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Odds are you'll be pummeled for that post, but -- as I sit at my Linux box -- it occurs to me that I can't think of one desktop-oriented thing I do in Linux that I can't do in Windows or OSX.
It is easy to find fault with Microsoft and Windows. Most of it is deserved. But, Linux has faults, too. One big problem is part and parcel of its evelopment modeL: Because there's no single entity setting and enforcing standards, the highly touted benefits of "choice" often become a crapshoot of conflicting libraries, packaging schemes, and software compiled by God-Knows-Who in God-Know-Where.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The smarmy attitude got to me after a few paragraphs. "What's this 'Microsoft Internet Explorer' thing that I keep hearing about? It's profoundly inferior to everything I've ever used. People say it's popular, but they must be lying to me because it doesn't have tabbed browsing, and who can use the web without tabbed browsing?"
Sorry, but that gets old awfully damned fast. I've been using Red Hat at home exclusively for the last 7 months or so (since I got laid off and had time to really learn to use it), and while I much prefer it to Windows--even Win2k, of which I am rather fond--the difference isn't so incredibly huge that I would rather eat a Windows CD than install it.
Also, half of his problems seem to be with Windows APPS, rather than Windows. Nothing is keeping you from using a lot of the same apps in Windows, friend. When I do log in to my wife's Win2k box at home, I use OpenOffice, XChat, Gaim, and Mozilla Firebird--the same apps I use on my RH box.
How about some honest advocacy on the strengths of alternate operating systems? That would do more to show options to people who don't know they've got them. This kind of drek doesn't help anyone.
When I was a freshman I started running servers for me and my friends (and about 30 other users). This was mostly an experimental network, for my, and other's learning purposes. I started out using slackware (which is STILL the only linux I will use) on all of my servers. This did work well, until Netatalk stopped working with the latest version of slack (I think they changed TCPWrappers and NetaTalk hadn't cought up yet). I then was forced to move to FreeBSD. I will never, ever, ever go back. System Admin under BSD is silky smooth and DAMN fast. The way I think about it is that BSD has had 30 years of lazy system admins working on it. Linux has a few years to go.
Things changed a lot in the 6 years I was using Linux. Things had changed a lot in Windows as well.
Windows doesn't crash anymore, Windows is easily updated, Windows is fast, etc.
Linux has some application support, Linux *can* be easily updated, Linux is getting better, etc.
They both have their good and bad points. That wasn't my intention for writing the post. It was to a) show that Windows is better for me than Linux b) that Roblimo was overly obnoxious in his review of his switch and c) using Windows in a Windows-world is far easier than trying to get Linux to stumble along in that same Windows-world.
I use Windows XP Pro at work, whilst being a long time Slackware user at home. Before Slackware I used various proprietary BASICs and a little DOS. At first I hated working in Windows. Nothing works the way you want it to. Printer drivers (I have never installed a single printer driver on my machine at home, my old HP Laser just works anyway) conflicting with each other, not being able to set the right screen frequency, because I need a monitor driver and so on.
After learning all the little quirks (there are probably just as many oddities with GNU/Linux that I don't notice) I can now work efficiently with XP , but would never let it replace my beloved unix at home. As long as you're doing something anticipated by the programmers, Windows is beautifully simple to use. When you are trying to ad lib, your screwed. I suppose you could set Windows with lots of little helper programs and registry tweaks, but im Linux I don't have to.
Examples:
Get a file from a Mac user, who doesn't tag .doc and .xls on his Office file names and don't know what it is? Most unix filesystem browsers use file magic, and identify these files correctly.
Want your MOD.* files to open with ModPlug Player when you click on them? Windows Explorer can't grok prefixes.
Want to download a URL to a local file? Write an HTML document with a link, or download the Windows version of the standard GNU/Linux utility wget.
Windows package management just simply sucks.
Want to set reasonable defaults for new users, like how their Start Menu behaves or what theme they get? There might be a way to do this, but I still haven't figured out how.
I have no idea how to download streamed media so I can watch it behind our corporate firewall. At home, this is my preferred way of watching online movies, due to bandwidth uncertainty.
I have seen less than ten GNU/Linux crashes in my eight years of Linux experience. Last week, some program or other in my XP box had a BSoD shootout with my printer, but aside from that, I get perhaps one crash every two or three months, which is still a lot. This is not, I believe, caused by Windows, but rather by poor applications and drivers. Somehow, though, Windows seems to attract poor applications and drivers.
Granted, a lot of my problems stem from me not knowing my way around the system, but I think this is why you don't see many "I switched to Windows" stories. People tend not to do this to themselves voluntarily.
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
It seems to partly go the other way around, but just as illogically - their hatred of the "Evil Empire(TM)" causes them to nit pick or outright fabricate technical issues with Windows. And the "popular == bad" theme is certainly tangible. It reminds me of Indie Rock Pete from Diesel Sweeties. ;)
Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V is universal to Windows, Mac, and Linux. Deal with it. Windows Update lets you pick which items to install or not install. You can make yourself a non-priveleged user in WinXP too. And holding Linux up as an ease-of-install bar for Windows to meet is a joke.
There are certainly issues (default user is admin, IE sucks, OE sucks...) but I don't know how a lot of these "Linux guy using Windows" complaints get created.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Some probably do, and as you imply, there's little reason for that.
However, some of us think that M$ is evil for their business practices. Is it ethical to systematically buy out or destroy their competition? To deliberately spoil users' experience for the sake of market share? To use their massive cash pile and their monopoly in one field to (try to) gain it in others? To deliberately flout the legal system? And so on, and so on - the details have been debated enough already.
(For example, what does it say about them that their most credible remaining competitor in the OS market is one that can't be bought out, sued to oblivion, 'partnered' into docility, embraced and extended, or any of their usual tactics?)
If M$ behaved ethically, then their technical failings wouldn't be such a problem; people would be able to use alternatives, and M$ (like everyone else) would have the choice of improving their products or losing out. It's their immoral and illegal business practices that make such deep technical problems possible in the first place.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
It's hardly an objective review for several reasons. One, a lot of major programs available for Linux are likewise available for Windows. Even though I run Windows XP most of the time, most of the applications are free, open-source alternatives like Gaim, Mozilla, and OpenOffice. These are all nearly effortless to install under Windows. Unless they come as a package or has a nice install script, it's not as quick or easy to install most programs under Linux. But really, he can't complain about Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, or any of those. He has just as much choice as on a Linux system to pick a different program to suit his needs.
He couldn't figure out how to add things to the taskbar. Click and drag. You might have heard of this amazing technique before. Now, admittedly, I think taskbar optimization is a bit easier under Linux (especially under KDE), but let's not kid ourselves - it's not horrendously difficult under Windows.
He complains about forced downloading of patches, which is something you can disable. But let's be honest - critics of Microsoft can't have this both ways. They complain when it pesters the user about updating, and then they complain when people don't update because of the bugs that proliferate. It's circular damned-if-I-do-damned-if-I-don't logic. Dare I say, to fully update a distribution like Red Hat 9.0 takes little over 300 megs worth of downloads. Thankfully, you can save the patches off in both OSes for a later point in time and burn them to CD.
Lastly, he doesn't play computer games, which is perhaps the single greatest reason why people would choose a Windows desktop over a Linux desktop. There just aren't many professional games being written around Linux. Linux mainly gets ports or has to run them through Wine or WineX. Epic Games, at least for UT2003, made the smart move of bundling the Linux version on the Windows CDs (albeit it only worked for NVidia cards and had a clunky install procedure). As time passes, we'll definitely see this trend change, but for now most games are very Windows-centric. There aren't enough Linux users to warrant a store carrying a seperate boxed edition, so what Epic did was the best solution.
For what the writer of the article needs his PC for, Linux is certainly more than enough. It is superb for day-to-day office work, e-mail, and Internet browsing. It is superb as, in general, a desktop operating system. But for the gamer like me, it's hard to switch away from Windows since most games are written for Windows.
Windows bashings aside (it is getting old) but the new found fashionability of 'Linux' bashing is pretty silly.
Can't think of one thing you can't do on Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)? Let me give you a hand: Fire up Mplayer to watch any video you want. Interpolate with a large number of different machines. Secure your network. Remote X Session over ssh.
I'm just throwing out what's on the top of my head, but you get the point. 'Linux' isn't perfect, of course not. But it isn't less then Windows and has strengths that make a highly technical group very fond of it.
Linux bashers and Windows apologists are just as pointless as their Linux/BSD/Mac counterparts.
Quack, quack.
Rob's article was incredibly biased. His first complaint is about copying and pasting, which is simply a result of the fact he's used to the other method. No method is greater than the other.
Then he says Windows "ordered" him to download patches, and that it didn't tell him what they were or whether or not he could install them. This is COMPLETELY FALSE. Windows Update, whether in IE or in the system tray, allows you to view every patch. If it's the system tray app, it lets you uncheck any patch you don't want. If it's the website, you can click the button to remove it from installation.
Then he complains that Windows doesn't come with office productivity software, which is a little bizarre considering you know he'd be bitching about Microsoft and their monopolistic practice of including an office suite. They're damned either way.
He mentioned installing mIRC didn't require a root password, and goes on to mention spyware problems. Of course, his account is set up with administrator privileges, and if he was set to a limited account, he could prevent installation and so forth. The standard Slashdot argument against this is that installation should ask you to do this by default, but since we're dealing with RobLimo the Suse Linux user, you'd think that'd be the first thing he do anyway due to Linux experience with managing user accounts. But, of course, now it is a "security risk."
Then his complaints are with mIRC and his inability to uncheck the dialog box so it stops popping up. At this point, I stared at the screen with my jaw dropped. Was RobLimo purposely being stupid? I've used xchat and mIRC, and mIRC wins hands-down as an IRC client. Even if you don't like mIRC, it's so customizable you can create your own IRC client using its scripting capabilities. xchat is godawful, interface-wise and customizability-wise.
But, again, that has nothing to do with Windows. In fact, xchat for Windows works just fine (and retains the ugly-ass GTK widgets), so RobLimo should have stuck with it, but he needed something to complain about, right?
He rightfully complains about Internet Explorer, but then waits four hours before bothering to get Mozilla (Opera is the best one anyway, just not free). He just needed to bitch about Internet Explorer for a paragraph, when most Linux users switching to Windows wouldn't bother with IE to begin with. He's purposely dumbing down his using experience to complain about Windows.
He does the same for Outlook Express. Why would he use Outlook Express if he just downloaded Mozilla? Again, he's purposely dumbing down his using experience to have more complaints. His spam comments don't even affect me since I use Outlook 2003 which has great built-in junk mail filtering.
Windows Messenger is easy to disable from starting up. Especially for an advanced Linux user like RobLimo. Another biased complaint.
Apparently, RobLimo's only slowdown problem is CTRL-C and CTRL-V. Of course, for Windows users, those are incredibly fast shortcuts for them. I use them all the time. If this is all he can offer alongside pointless IE/OE bitching, there is no other point for his article than to be Windows flamebait. In fact, I find it amusing he complains about the copy/paste shortcuts and ignores the fact that Linux can barely copy/paste anything between apps. With Windows, it's almost sickening what you can play around with and copy between apps. But that never gets mentioned. In fact, there are no real positives mentioned.
RobLimo vaguely mentions "slowdowns" and "idle time" problems. Huh? Nice specifics, there. I've experienced weird little quirks in all Linux distributions as well. I chalked it up to cache flushes, swap space, whatever. Since RobLimo never, ever mentions what exactly he's talking about, we'll never know what he meant.
Then he goes on to mention "little specialty programs" that he would have to pay for on Windows, which, of course is false. There is tons of freeware for Windows,
"Sufferin' succotash."
FreeBSD 5.x is clearly documented as being still "alpha-quality" and is certainly not for newcomers. 4.8-RELEASE (preferably with patches, since 4.9 is almost done) or 4.9-RELEASE (due in a week) would have been the proper platform for this new user.
Duh. That's the whole point of the article. IT'S SATIRE. His Linux-to-Windows review is written from exactly the same perspective as the many Windows-to-Linux reviews that you see in the mainstream press. The viewpoint of someone who is not an alpha geek and doesn't feel comfortable wandering around this strange new OS. Did you notice his intentional usage of the phrase "not ready for the desktop"?
An ordinary person (raised on some mythical Microsoft-free island) using an OEM-default Windows PC would have an experience 95% like Roblimo's.What's amusing about this article is that it is usually the other way around. It is quite often the Windows-centric viewpoint (and occaional "fanboy" or "zealot") making some half-true observations about a Linux desktop environment. Sometimes the observations are accurate. More often they show a lack of understanding or experience with the environment in question. And if the forum allows it, they are often followed by a string of replies from more experienced Linux users addressing the various issues outlined in the article.
The article and discussions will be intermixed with additional banter. There will almost always be a Linux elitist disparaging the abilities of the author. And its just as likely that there will be a true Windows fanboy/zelot making snide comments about "defaults" and "standards" and "grandma" users being unable to make use of the information mentioned in the article responces.
The interesting thing is that we're now to a point where names "Linux" and "Windows" are almost interchangable in these desktop environment conversations.