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What Differentiates Linux from Windows?
tail.man sent in a Linux Insider piece about the difference between Linux and Windows. Quoting the synopsis "So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable that wholesale replacement is again called for."
...also wrote The Unix Guide to Defenestration, which is an executive-level discussion of making a data center profitable.
He's been a Linux advocate for quite a while...
The Army reading list
market dominance.
thelikesofwhich.com
Linux is made with efficiency and innovation in mind, by lots of people around the world that believe in the idea of freedom. Windows is made with profit in mind, by one big corporation that wants nothing besides seizing market control. Need to say anything else?
A nice unbiased article about how Linux is superior...from a Linux magazine. Perhaps we'll be posting the article from Windows Insider about how Windows is better? No? Didn't think so.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Murphy writes that "For example, cost is usually important in business only if the products being compared are otherwise very similar." I work in education and cost is everything. I can really say that my Linux OS machines (running the K12LTSP) are equal to my Windows 2K/XP machines but cost is huge. I can literally put a lab in my classroom using Linux, I'd have to settle for a couple of PC's at best under the commercial software regime.
Its actually a good idea, since it looks like nobody RTFA anyways.
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
The new conflict is design before or after the fact.
You decide which is which.
So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable that wholesale replacement is again called for.
As opposed to Unix, where the design is so open and extensible that anything is possible, yet there is no coherent interface and none of the non-server applications work or look as good as they do on Macintosh or Windows.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
I know somewhat offtopic... but the article link crashed Moz here for me.. anyone else get that? Ver 1.5
When you stick a flopy disk in a Windows machine you don't have to mount it, you can immediately read and write to it, you can eject the disk without unmounting it and put it into another computer and read what you just wrote on the previous computer. And other such obvious stuff that Linux just doesn't do because its so much better to do it the better (ie) Linux way...
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
Don't cram a paragraph of text into a single sentence.
Unix revolves around the idea of simplicity. Microsoft revolves around complex systems, and misguided attempts to hide them with friendly configuration interfaces.
Net result is that you might get something done quickly, but you still won't understand how the thing works. This is not optimal, especially for critical systems.
Nobody understands Windows. I for one don't even want to understand it.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I don't think any reader of Slashdot or Linux Insider needs to read this article. It should be posted on BusinessWeek or some non-technical magazine instead.
linux is stable, windows is not.
...we could keep playing this game, but is it really necessary? why can't we get articles about things that actually matter?
linux can be secure, windows can not.
linux is open, windows is not.
"This above all, to thine own self be true"
Despite conventional wisdom and some articles to the contrary, sometimes complete ground-up software rewrites are necessary. Windows 2003 is - for my money - one of the best server systems around. Its stability is equal to the linux servers I run, and finally it installs completely locked down.
Windows 2003 wouldn't be possible if 90% of its codebase was from the WinNT 3.1 kernel.
Even Macs - OSX is so completely different than OS9 that they can't even be compared fairly. OS9 was dead in the water before it came out - the rewrite of the OS (albeit on the BSD kernel) was necessary to allow Mac to continue to compete at all.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
.. the gap is closing between the two in terms of usability and stability - in BOTH DIRECTIONS. this is hardly ever mentioned, but Windows has improved BIG TIME since 95/98/ME -> If you have used 2003 you will note the speed is much improved over older versions as is the stability. Now before you brand me a Redmond freak, I've been a linux user for 5 years (since I was 12) and will be forever, but I can hardly help noticing that everyone thinks Linux is gaining on Windows, when in fact Windows is also gaining on Linux
just my 2 pence
Tim
tim
Windows users are productive and aren't poor so they can afford it. Linux is made by poor people for poor people and is under the GPL which the Communist Party also uses.
/ co mmunist-manifesto/"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848
Unless you are going back to good old Windows98,ME,NT(pre SP 6a) days, stability is not that big a difference.
I have a Windows XP and Windows 2000 machine at work and haven't seen the BSOD in a looonnngggg time.
Free XBox, PS2
I think the strength of Linux lies in its extensive customization option. Where else can one optimize the kernel for a specific task (say video streaming) to accentuate ROI in the organization?
We pride ourselves in our extensive deployment of Linux servers in our environment. We find that their MySQL processing is 10x faster than our previous architecture running on SQL Server 4.1.
Which is nice.
Although no self-respecting /.er wants to admit, there is a steeper learning curve to using Linux than Windows. How much more steep is debatable. There also is a tendency for closed-minded people who want to do as little thinking as possible to choose Windows, even though it paves the way for migraines later.
My two cents, be gentle with the flames. Ah heck, I'll post anonymously, so flame on!!!!
From the article:
But Microsoft -- and Intel -- remain trapped in the megahertz race because Microsoft's basic Windows OS design is unable to take full advantage of even today's limited two-way thread concurrency.
So it's like the author is suggesting that Windows is obsolete, or almost there.
OK, but what is it that's going to keep windows from dying anytime soon? It seems to that MSFT will be able to keep Windows alive simply because it's entrenced in so many business environments. (And by the likes of dirty tricks like the SCO fiasco).
Sure, there's a small momentum growing in certain companies towards LINUX. But in my firm at least, nobody is seriuosly talking about the desktop.
wbs.
Huh?
it is that one is inately evil..
This is exactly the problem with Linux. A Linux user spends(well wastes) most of his time just trying to get a simple thing like an office suite to work, where as the Windows user can happily go about doing whatever he wants to do.
Linux is good for the geeks. But for the normal everyday man, Linux is no alternative for Windows.
I am a Linux user: that's my personal preference. But I don't see many of my friends ever using it. Quite a lot of them are very computer literate. Why don't they want to use linux?
simple because they want to use a computer as a tool, and not as a source of frustration.
Nothing to see here
Boils down to something like this.
Windows: easy to configure, easy to break
Linux: difficult to configure, difficult to break
Don't get me wrong, I use both, its an apples to oranges comparison. The question is what do you want to do with it? A MS firewall is unconsiderable, but so is the thought of putting Linux on my sisters desktop.
K-12 institutions receive lots of donated hardware. How do you make, for example, a donated scanner work with GNU/Linux if SANE lists it as unsupported? Do you reserve a Windows box just for that scanner and a few other donated peripherals that the community hasn't yet figured out how to get to work with a Free operating system?
I want to copy paste between applications.
OK?
Thank you.
I also want to play PC games without having to run Windows emulators and other shite with only 30% compatibility......
On one hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, once worked with one other architecture, and has gone nowhere else.
On the other hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, and now works on everything from calculators and old gaming consoles to some of the largest supercomputing clusters in the world.
Anybody who says that Linux isn't inherently more robust and flexible at the critical core areas is living their life under a rock.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It's like driving a car you're not accostumed to every day. It's just different.
... I'm a huge Linux fan, but I also use windows. (Often tagged, albeit incorrectly, as a 'Microsoft Hater'). Anyhow, my point... what happens when someone open sources windows? Or, more specifically, comes up with an Open Source Windows clone?
But to be slightly OT...
It sort of reminds me of something
I've always wanted to write a book talking about how the two camps actually need each other. Microsoft would have more to fear from an open source windows variant than any threat Linux could ever bring.
FLR
My dad (a reasonable, intelligent, only semi-computer-literate man) asked me this exact question the other day. The best I could give him was that Linux is a hobby OS and Windows is an OS driven by business interests. That gives pluses and minuses to each of them. Dad and I talked about the good and the bad; obvious things like, security issues, lock-in, consistency across apps, integration, stability. We agreed that Linux could really benefit from some of the aspects of Windows, such as centralization and consistency across the UI in every app. We also agreed that Windows could benefit from many things Linux has, such as increased peer review, freedom (beer and speech), and community. In the end, he wasn't interested in switching to Linux or anything, but he hoped that its influence was going to get Microsoft off their rear ends and improve their product. I think whichever OS can meet the other in the middle--with a balance of security, usability, and power--will win the long-term battle.
The difference between the two, is the BSOD...
--ZardOS.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Windows have a HUGE hardware drivers database, which makes really easy to install new hardware.
Besides, if a given piece of hardware is not supported by Linux, it's not clear what the user should do.
The points in the article (and others) also reflect the fact that Unix variants came about during an era of big expensive hardware and timesharing versus small cheap (relatively) hardware and a single operator. These categories can also be looked at as Unix favoring "enterprise" tasks and Windows favoring "personal" tasks. The interesting part is that both camps are trying to became more attractive to the other's "side"; i.e. Windows han been targeting the infrastructural role while Unix variants are warming up to the desktop.
Granted, this analysis is a little superficial but I think it's true in a broad sense.
You are 100% correct.
I have Win2K at work and have not seen it either (in at least three years)
What about the server side of things? What are your thoughts on that?
will work for Karma
While he was in New York on location for Bronco Billy (1980), Clint Eastwood agreed to a television interview. His host, somewhat hostile, began by defining a Clint Eastwood picture as a violent, ruthless, lawless, and bloody piece of mayhem, and then asked Eastwood himself to define a Clint Eastwood picture.
"To me," said Eastwood calmly, "what a Clint Eastwood picture is, is one that I'm in."
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Windows on the other hand is sterile and ferile. No one is personally involved in one particular aspect (at least for very long, comparitively speaking.) So you get mountains of code that, once written, are rarely re-thought. They work, they go through testing, and until some new function is needed for it or some vulnerability found, never given a second thought.
Think Bit Rot.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
What Differentiates Linux from Windows? Ugly...
:)
I have a better troll/flame war...
What Differentiates MacOS X from Windows?
the mouse pointer is black in linux... anything else I'm missing?
Ugh, there have been far far far too many MS-bashing linux-is-so-great posts on /. recently... yes, Windows may have flaws, but it has good points too people. At least pretend to present a balanced view, lest the Linux community comes to be seen as the mad fanatics Mac users are.
It turns people off Macs, and it can do the same for Linux.
*nix is a collection of many utilities that are excellent at doing one thing and one thing only.
windows is a collection of utilities that are *ok* at doing a few things. ( jack of all trades is a master of none )
combine those with the upgrade models that surround the operating systems, *nix get better and more secure.. windows gets slower, bloated and full of more holes.
L
That's a good description of Linux inter-application communication. Linux is still stuck with a antiquated pre-object model of interprocess communication that's based on pipes, signals, forking, and sockets. The Linux/Unix world has never been able to come up with a good answer to COM/DCOM/Active-X. CORBA never caught on. The window managers and OpenOffice have totally different approaches to inter-application communication. In typical Linux fashion, there's an attempt to hack a "gateway" between the two, rather than standardize.
Because of this Mess Underneath, most interprocess communication is done by adding a bloated layer on top, usually at the language level. This leads to hacks like Java RMI, or the Mozilla "platform".
Cut and paste sucks because the infrastructure needed to do it right is missing.
Now I wonder where you got that idea
windows is compatible with drivers that come on discs packaged with devices, linux is not. this is the major barrier to my adopting linux in my home.
It's still in development, but you can boot it and run some programs on it already.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
SCO owns the code to Linux
any questions? /puts on flamesuit/
here is the (very general) main differences IMO:
Windows is an OS driven by the desire for profit and more widespread use.
* ease of use
* compatibility with hardware/programs
* small learning curve
Linux is driven by a desire to create a more 'better' operating system with a desire for more configurability.
* longer learning curve
* more versatile
* not intended for the average user (and will not be anytime in the near future)
* more concentration on bug fixes and security, and less on user-friendliness
there are commercial companies obviously that sell linux, but mainstream usage is not #1 priority for the main developers, therefore it is a hard sell for the linux distribution vendors
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
You can't expect a disk device to be in a consistent state all the time. Under linux when umount finishes you know that you can eject the disk. Under windows, you have to use your best jugement (it looks like it finished copying so I can eject, oh wait, the disk led is blinking some more, oops.)
Sure it is. I got a BSOD in a CLEAN installation of Win2000 yesterday. It's rare but it CAN happen. When was the last time your Linux kernel crashed and forced a reboot?
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Windows still has an edge in simplicity as far as installing apps. Folks who swear by apt (for RPM) do have to realize you still need to deal with adding repositories to sources.list and dealing with GPG signatures.
OTOH, that simplicity in installing apps makes Windows extremely vulnerable as well. Doesn't take much effort to run/install anything off the Internet. Spyware can cling onto your system without much consent at all.
That brings up the major difference I've seen so far. Worms, Viruses, Trojans, Keyloggers, and other forms of malware don't seem to find their way into my Linux machine. The rest of my family who run Windows, though, get infected too many times for my liking.
Is that because most Linux users know to watch out for those types of things while Windows users can be painted with the "AOLer" stereotype? That's probably a factor. But so is the general architecture of not putting yourself in danger for the sake of convenience -- by running mail programs and browsers with enough privs to bork a system.
Cheaper, more secure, and absolutely transparent. Many thanks to everyone who makes OSS possible -- from the programmers and QA testers to the advocacy groups and spokespeople. (and the large corporations backing Open Source)
It sort of reminds me of something ... I'm a huge Linux fan, but I also use windows. (Often tagged, albeit incorrectly, as a 'Microsoft Hater'). Anyhow, my point... what happens when someone open sources windows? Or, more specifically, comes up with an Open Source Windows clone?
They are working on it.
Well, here's my opinion, anyway.
The Unix philosophy: build tools which do one or a few things very well (and are trivial to develop, debug, and maintain) and build upon them.
I have yet to detect anything resembling a philosophy in the 'other' place. It seems to be build a single big-ass swiss army knife application (which doesn't seem to do anything very well).
Ads are broken.
"I have a Windows XP and Windows 2000 machine at work and haven't seen the BSOD in a looonnngggg time."
I have 100's of them (that I have to maintain) and from my experience I can honestly say Windows 2000 is the best OS Microsoft has ever produced (but, remeber what I'm comparing it to).
XP on the other hand is the biggest, most bloated piece of crap they've ever produced so 2000 must have been a fluke.
Unless you are going back to good old Windows98,ME,NT(pre SP 6a) days
Isn't going back to the 9x kernel necessary in order to run Windows on older machines? Linux can be pared down to run on older machines. Recent Windows can't.
tux the mascot penguin rules. therefore linux is better than windows
What is the difference between an elephant and a loaf of bread?
If you don't know:
<rot13>
V'z arire fraqvat lbh gb gur tebprel fgber gb cvpx hc n ybns bs oernq.
</rot13>
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Cool, never read any of that stuff actually. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Windows is superior doing:
* OCR (gocr sucks; http://www.gutenberg.net/faq/S-17.shtml)
* PVR (ivtv hauppauge drivers stutters a lot; SageTV + working drivers rocks)
* Games (of course)
* Doing my Taxes, doing my resume.
That's about it. Linux is better at everything else.
Lets call a spayed a spaid.
I always wondered about the seemingly single-threaded nature of all MS OSes. Apparently, MS is single-threaded in fact, as "in the Windows kernel ... it runs nonthreaded internally". This may explain why NT based OSes still block for seemingly non-sensical reasons. I always thought the MS app programmers didn't understand multi-threading. Maybe the problem actually lay deeper, and the OS itself is the problem. However, that would beg the question of why other programs ported from true multi-threaded SMP type systems seem to not have multiple thread blocking issues. Guess maybe it's still a case of programmers not knowing how to properly write multi-threaded code, especially around a single-threaded OS.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Close. Microsoft makes something which runs like and O/S, but includes massive amounts of code for things you may never use, but fill up the disk and memory anyway. It's like the joke that inside every fat person is a skinny person trying to get out, but with Windows there's a bloated pile of software smothering an operating system.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Price comes to mind first. I think I've spent a little over $120 on all my (at the very least 50) different installs of linux I've had over the years. And that's $120 that I gave willingly. Isn't it around $120 every year or every other year for Microsoft OS?
.. nevermind won't go there ..
User friendliness. YES! User friendliness! I am not in kindergarten and I know how to use and learn to use an operating system. If I can't find it the online manual with linux I can always open up the source for some clues. Windows online help is a complete joke, har har knee slap. And even if you were to call in to tech support
There's too many reasons for me.
*DrugCheese rants*
I am now running Fedora core 1 on my laptop. I use mozilla as my browser. I went to the mozilla plugin site and followed the directions to install the Flash plugin. I did exactly what it said, but it would not work. I was completely stumped. Finally after about 15 minutes of googling I found out that I needed to go to the shell and execute a command:
/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3
ln -s
Wow- I can imagine trying to help someone like my mom over the phone and talking them through that. Not in this lifetime. There was a patch on the web too- apparently to fix this problem but it didn't do it for me. But maybe that works for another distro. I don't think I need to go on about the problems presented by this kind of situation.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Considering both the major desktop projects (KDE and Gnome) seem wholly obsessed with replicating the way Windows looks and feels.........not much.
Perhaps if the Linux community were more interested in seeing what can be done, instead of wanking it's time away doing whats already been done, then it might be a more attractive platform.
getting sued by sco of course. c'mon somebody had to say it.
If Microsoft has to make "design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process," with the problems that go along with that decision branch, Linux sometimes has the opposite thing: design decisions that ignore (or devalue) backward compatibility in favor of future improvements. [There are *lots* of examples showing that Linux developers are extremely concerned about backward compatibility, but they are also not bound to it by welded chains.]
:)
;))
:) If you want fewer surprises, there are plenty of Linux distros that are very conservative in what they include.
I prefer the Linux approach
However, going from an older version of Windows to a new one does not have a reputation for breaking things like USB or sound card drivers -- Linux does break compatibility once in a while, if you try to stay on the bleeding edge. (This is why I'm using 2.6 only from a LiveCD for a while
As an argument for Windows / against Linux, this doesn't hold much water to me though, since the simple fact is this situation is so only because with Linux and other Free software, the user is allowed to participate in the whole ride -- even the bumpy parts. It's the "bust" part of "robust", and it's something like the chance to get killed on the Crusades: the glory is a tradeoff for some risk, but if you don't want to participate you can stay at home and eat unseasoned mud, participate in cholera parties, etc.
With Windows, any bugs / breakages are ones that were *supposed* to be taken care of by beta testing at the latest
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
What is code bloat? Evidently, it involves kludging, which is mentioned several times. Is this one programmer attacking another's style or is this a non-programmer playing a religion card?
IANA Historian, but the "Defenestration" of Prague is what started the 30 Years War, over religions' control of govenrment. I certainly hope this is not the way the author sees the IT world.
Anyone here ever worked on a project which was perfectly clean and well commented? Show of hands? I thought not.
The terms "Code bloat" and "kludging" has been tossed around quite a bit over the years about Microsoft without anyone producing any source code examples until some were recently lifted and shared.
It would not take me long to look on any project source tree to find some code, which, IMHO, I thought was "kludged"
Have you Meta Moderated t
One has adherents that are noisy, abusive, close-minded, stubborn, silly and the other- oh, wait a minute...
--- Ban humanity.
let's see...since the source code is available, it's a buttload more portable; hell, they even have it for embedded systems, PPC's, Dec's, Sparcs, etc. (not just x86's).
.Net for linux, since that's the only reason I'm still using Windows along with Linux (need it for my classes; though I tried to convince them that Open Watcom and GCC is a much better way for learning C/C++ programming).
Bug fixes are out faster and bugs are found faster and dealt with unlike Microsoft (e.g. that vulnerability that Microsoft sat on for months before word got out, etc.). Another example, though is old, is the old port 139 vulnerability (Ping of Death). The fix for linux was out within hours while Microsoft took days (if not more).
And with KDE, WINE, etc. Linux is getting some of the benefits (the GUI) of Windows without the baggage and the disadvantages.
It's too bad there's no version of Visual Studio
Clippy.
I rest my case.
well one difference is that looking at pr0n in linux doesn't make me feel as guilty as if I did it in windows. I figure...yeah I am making jesus sad...but at least I am supporting free software.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
I have the same sort of nightmares about linux and I do about going to work without any pants on. Few people are experts enough to really know how to lock down their boxes and keep them up to date on linux. So you always worry you forgot you pants (did I enable SSH-KEYS over an NFS network? oops no pants. Is this apache module up to date? Which daemons have latent SUID root? Should I install the package as root or as a non-priviledged user. Should I launch tomcat as Root or as a non priviedged user. Is truly bewildering ). Keeping your pants up is hard.
With windows you know theres always a security hole lurking but at least the company is trying to help you patch it. If they could get the Lag time as short as apples they would become a real threat to linux.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...I use linux, so does my partner. Try grabbing a fedora core iso set and saying that is hard to install.
Go through the nice graphical installer, selecting language options etc. The only difficult bit about the whole process is setting up your network, but if more machines came with linux preinstalled that would be a moot point.
As it is, you may need some help installing the thing (very little I have found, mostly the default settings work fine). Then load up for the first time and whats on the gnome bar? Openoffice, mozilla and evolution. Office, Web and Mail. Wham bang thank-you maam. Anyone who says that is hard is either talking out of their arse or a microsoft/apple fanboy.
My digital camera, scanner and adsl modem "just work", so do the nic cards in my partner and I's machines.
There was a story on slashdot a few days ago about tech support for parents and a whole load of posters there said they setup linux and the amount of support they had to do reduced and for those times their parents couldnt fix it they could ssh right in.
I am NaN
Yes. What happens if/when Linux does overtake Micro$oft. Will all these innovative minds STILL be content to provide labor for free? Or will someone else get the greed lust.
Beauty (linux) is only beauty, as long as there is ugly (Redmond.) to compare it to. I think every one of us would have done what Gates did, if we had the chance. Only diffrence is we may not have stiffled innovation/competiton quite as long.
When Microsoft is funding SCO's actions, along with the new 2.6 Linux kernel talk, uh yes there are then going to be a lot of anti-MS comments on /., and lots of positive Linux comments.
Just try to run a Java-based app under XP. Try.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Articles like this on /. and LinuxInsider are great. But they're preaching to the choir. Great articles like The Myths of Open Source being in CIO Magazine (yes, a great article about OSS in CIO magazine), are far more influential.
/. and LinuxInsider already know the many things which differentiate Linux from Windows. What's needed is for good articles on these topics to appear in places of primarily proprietary software users (MSDN? ;). They're finally appearing regularly in business publications. But I know far too many technical people who read Microsoft-only magazines amd web sites. We could blame them for not being inquisitive enough, but if they saw these articles in the right places it could be very influential.
I would guess at least 90% of the readers of
Developers: We can use your help.
duh!
The other one is made by market driven developers, the other one is mady by THE most talented programmers in the whole world.
And just as I started to lose faith in trolls....
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable that wholesale replacement is again called for.
1. You'd think a journalist could write a more coherent and jargon-free paragraph, but maybe that's just me?
2. Asking what Windows vs. *nix does different is too broad. You can ask this question literally forver - if you keep abstracting down further and futher. Once again, vague journalism.
3. Ok, you can flame me (as if I would deny you that) but I don't think Linux zealots are in any position to say that windows is any less bloated than Linux. Mandrake 10.0 community from just yesterday's is 2.1 gigabytes (re: torrent), most of which is unnecessary for 95% use. Suppose I manage to start the install from CD1 without having CD2 or CD3, well I *hope* there's not a package required by default that is on CD2 or CD3.
4. Microsoft runs a few processes faster and others slower? I think he needs to define what he means by processes. Because I dont think he's using the same terminology as the rest of us when we say 'process'. Once again, too vague.
until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable
5. Is the code bloated, or are the features bloated? Or are the features bloated and the code that composes those features bloated? Once again, too much abstraction.
I think I'll stop here.
Windows is superior doing:
* Games (of course)
You actually get better preformance in most Linux games compared to their Windows counterpart (i get 20+ fps in nwn). Besides, you can use kernel sources especially designed for gaming to improve the experiene even more, so you can cross out the Games part.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Should I, Bill Gates:
a) design the software to make me the richest man on earth, or
b) design the software so that a bunch of penguin wankers can down load it for free while I struggle to pay my rent
Hmm...
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
As a KDE developer I would like to know what is missing? I don't use windows much, I don't even have it at home, and I can't think of everything. What is missing? What are you looking for? You just sent an accusation to use without backing it up, and we can't tell if you are a troll; have a real concern that we need to address; or just are missing some part of KDE.
Okay, I'm not a big KDE developer, but I have done some work with it. I can write a new KDE app to solve your problem, if it can be done. I need to know what though.
Manually recompiling half of your shared libraries to get a program to run : HARD Breaking half the other programs on your disk doing it: EASY Manually configuring your firewall config file for additional security : HARD Forgetting 2 lines that leave you wide open: EASY Getting X-windows to run on unkown hardware : HARD getting X-windows to ***K itself on same unknown hardware accidentally 2 days later: EASY Manually setting up an install package: HARD typing tar -cvf reallybigimportantfile ...... :EASY
Damn, that is a nice feature, care to cite a link with documentation of this.
How about:
Windows was built from the ground work of DOS, Linux was built from Unix?
Windows is commerical driven closed source software. Linux is the opposite..
Windows comes in different "versions" and "service packs", Linux comes in different "flavours" (Okay, Linux comes in different versions too..)
And of course: Billy G vs. Linus...
Mod +5 Drunk
I've been reading up on Windows vs Linux for a while now, while I weigh the pros and cons of switching to linux from windows...
I read a few articles that mentionned Xandros, which allegedly creates a partition on a WinXP hard-drive for itself... And a friend of mine told me this was not advisable, as it can create problems if data was ever written (and/or deleted or still exists) on the part of the HD that Xandros intends to use... then puts in a dual boot in the system.
Is this true or has Xandros and distros (can you tell me which other distros do this?) with a similar function become so good they eliminate all possibility of problems arising from such a configuration?
Let's not begin the quarrel of which OS has the ~better~ GUI. The point is that although a GUI can be well-designed, it will by its very nature be a greater burden on the OS than a command typed at the prompt. It's a performance burden, it's a design burden, it's a maintenance burden for the development team. (Axiom: The more complex software becomes, the less even its creators and maintainers understand it.) Eventually it produces a Support burden because users know dulcet coital nothing about their computers.
Then bring in the Internet. Make it very popular. Hell, make it commercial. People are learning that you can get things done quickly with Linux. UNIX was networking when Bill Gates was battling pimples.
Linux builds on the better tradition. So it's not just the cost, but the design philosophy of Linux that is beating Windows.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Linux and Open Source are fueled by innovation and good intent. Money is not an issue. Windows and Closed Source are fueld by greed and capitalism. Quality is often sacrificed for the cheapest labor and fastest time to market.
- Trying linux
- Using Linux on another PC
- Demoing Linux to other users
- Recovering a Windows Machine covered with viruses
Plus, if you mess anything up, just reboot, and start from a fresh plate. This makes LINUX THE EASIEST OPERATING SYSTEM EVER! There are several, well tons of LiveCDs for linux, but not many for Windows. Here are some of the most popular Linux Live CDs.- Knoppix
- MandrakeMove
- Gentoo Live
So If you think or heard myths that Linux was hard to use (which is a LIE), then try a Linux live CD today. You won't be disapointed.Windows doesn't control boot priorities. That is strictly handled by the BIOS, which a lot of people set to boot Floppy first (for emergencies). These days most boot disks have been replaced with CD-ROMS, so I just keep my CD-ROM as my first boot device. Floppies are dying, but they're not dead yet.
Thank you, try again.
As much as I like Linux, I think /. should stop posting every single article about how "linux is better that Windows because xyz". I'm sure we can find the same amount of articles on the Windows side, and none of them would be unbiased either.
People, leave each OS in its place and things will just happen. Just because some MS software is crap, it doesn't mean we need to get into flamewars every time some text gives one or another the advantage.
I've seen meny people turn to free/open source just because it works, not because of MS bashing.
OK, mod me down to hell now.
What Differentiates Linux from Windows?...Common sense. ;)
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Well done, your computer has spent over a year doing absolutely fuck all!
The problem with copy/paste is that such things should be managed by the gui, or by an additional system service thqat could translate between the different object types, but it is not really a kernel issue. This is a legitamate problem with linux. There are several thing for which there is not a broad-based system. There is currently a project at y-windows.org designed to replace xfree but needs someone to manage it. These problems need to be addressed because they are truly the weaknesses of the OS. Regarding the the usb thumbdrive issue, this is a problem because of the way that linux and windows differ when dealing with file systems. it is also tied to the fact that most companies won't write drivers for linux because they would have to give up trade-secret rights in order to distribute them as open source and becuase there is no standard for installing files accross linux. the gentoo portage system is the best I have seen yet, and hope that it recieves greater adoption accross all platforms of linux.
Can I be a Luddite too?
I think TIVO would disagree.
"Under windows, you have to use your best jugement"
Yes. the user decides. Eject that puppy.
Seriously. Windows and OSX I go to a store buy a product plug it in and it works. If its a camera I plug it in a icon on my desktop or in "my computer" show sup and I can drag and drop the photos from it. Don't even need to install anything (like SMB support). Anything I want to install I just double click and it installs then the program runs. I don't have to see if some dependencies are turned on/off I don't have to install anything. I buy a new soundcard I plug it in Windows finds a driver and I hear sound instantly.
I'm not a programmer. I use my computer to work on projects that require typing, graphics, spreadsheets, browsing the net, watching movies, and I want to do it without having to install/setup anything. And if I do need to install somethign I just want to click the "install" file and hit "ok" and run the "shortcut" thats been put on my desktop. Windows and OSX does that, Linux has you jumping through 100 different hurdles to ge tthe simplest things to work the way you want.
Ave Molech Setting
Learn TeX (LaTeX). Nothing looks better. And it shows when you do, further impressing your prospective employer.
Only one of those can be top priority. Microsoft priority is making money fast. Linux priority is scratching itches.
Microsoft second priority is form, to have the appearance of function. Linux priority is nothing but function.
Infuriate left and right
Straight to the point and right on the money. It's the perfect description of the linux zealot and it's further proven by such zealots modding the post as troll and flamebait probably without having read the entire thing.
One thing that the parent doesnt do though is make the distinction between a linux zealot and a linux enthusiast. The enthusiast will actually do his best to come up with specific reasons and examples where linux shines over windows, and will also provide help to someone who would want to switch his primary OS.
Cheers to all the linux users out there making efforts to ease friends and family into using their favorite OS!
And to those zealots as described by the parent post, frankly, you can stay in the dark of your troll pits and get eaten by a grue for all I care.
#2 has been taken care of.
I have yet to find a problem w/ the copy and paste functionality in Mandrake 10. Then again, I've only been using it for the last few days.
My comment is mostly for the beanie-heads who are newer to Slashdot than us dyed-in-the-keyboard vets of many computers, so forgive me by driving home the obvious.
An operating system is an operating system is an operating system is an operating system. It's only purpose is to provide you, the user, a human-readable interface and control system for the computer's hardware and software.
How Linux, other UNIXen, and Windows handle this, however, is the big question to me when someone asks me the question that the article posed.
Applications designed for Windows are just that--developers typically use programming tools that create apps which are hardware-and-operating-system-specific. Barring an emulator such as Virtual PC (funny, that's owned now by Microsoft, too), Windows applications simply will not operate unless it has a conventional Intel-style PC hardware architecture running a specific flavor of Windows. And nope, your 16-bit Windows apps will likely break in Windows XP, so you have to hunt and peck for the app that works in the OS you have.
The UNIX family has things differently. UNIX-family applications are frequently hardware-agnostic and non-operating system-specific. You could be running Solaris, or FreeBSD, or Mandrake, or SuSE, or Darwin, or Mac OS X--generally, the code just works. (Plenty of exceptions, like OpenOffice ports to Mac OS X, but a version does work now in OS X's X11 environment, to take an example.)
Where you would walk into a computer store to buy Windows software, a *NIX user could download the source code for an application and compile it, or build it to work for their particular operating system and platform. Of course, we could buy the source code from a store as well, or the binaries for our platform, if a software maker distributed most of the UNIX software in that format. Currently, the inability of a home Linux user to visit CompUSA for the latest UNIX application is among the greatest challenges to *NIX as a popular home desktop OS (Mac OS X's inroads notwithstanding).
Nevertheless, I can download most BSD and many UNIX and Linux source code from my Mac OS X (BSD variant) workstations, compile it, and use it, without problem or complant. Windows users generally aren't compiling squat--they have to buy or find the already-assembled binaries that run within Windows--and pray that those versions of the binaries were compiled with their Windows version (and patch version, and service pack version) in mind.
The best example of a well-written application that doesn't particularly care about platform (at least in terms of its data files--binaries must still be obtained) is BioWare's Neverwinter Nights game series. It works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. While the two expansion packs for the original game haven't yet been released in an official Mac version yet, because BioWare designed the game's data to be platform-agnostic, many impatient Mac users have figured out. without a lot of hassle, how to install the game expansions using the Linux versions of the games.
Windows is a proprietary operating system, and any applications written for it feed into that mold. The UNIX world is literally open in its design and flexibility. Don't confuse "open" for "Open Source," however--that's another (related) story.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
On the other hand, my ex girlfriend sent me a screensaver she made with photos and video clips on Mac OSX (another unix varient), and lemme tell ya, she is no 1337 "power user". As outrageous as it sounds, I sometimes I think we give Windows a little too much credit in the usability department.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
more configurable. I remember Microsoft pulling theming from XP because they didn't want the hassle and expense of spending 10-20 minutes every call figuring out what a customer has changed. Working in tech support I can appriciate that. In Kde I've moved buttons around tool bars and changed keyboard shortcuts. You'll counter that joe average wouldn't bother doing this. Trust me, sooner or later he'll get board and start thinkin' about all that money he spend on his computer and want to do something with it besides check email.
/etc and /home, but there's not cool little tool to go through and do that, pulling only critical files). I'd miss msinfo32 (/proc is cool and all, but I want a nice, consistent list for a customer to read off). And msconfig and clean booting rocks. There are probably linux equivalents of all these procudures, but no nice gui tools designed to do them for you (and they'd pretty much have to be distro specific I think). I guess what I'm getting at is, Windows has had a lot of time spent streamlining the troubleshooting process (to lower costs in tech support, to be sure. But you still get the benefits whether you call in or not).
Also, since Linux isn't generally propriarty, it's a heck of a lot easier to configure once you get past the initial hurdle of working with text files and command lines. You don't run config files obfuscated to make it harder to pirate the software or figure out what it's doing.
Oh yeah, you tend to get more and better docs, because the peron you're getting it from generally isn't trying to make extra money from selling books (*cough*Microsoft*cough*). Seriously, the Knowlege Base is great and all, but if you're looking for general usage info or a detailed overview of configuration options, you're gonna be ponying up case more often for windows than Linux.
All that said, since Linux hasn't really made it to the public at large yet (Walmart not withstanding) Linux doesn't have convient dumbed down troubleshooting tools yet. There's no safe mode (run levels do _not_ count, lots of stuff can still be loaded there you don't want) no Recovery points (yeah, I know, just back up
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The key differentiators are price, customisability and the right to redistribute changes. Add to that a side order of functionalilty.
I would go so far as to say there is little than can be done with Linux that cannot also be done for Windows, often with the same software. I'd note the much of the key software that make Linux actually useful is already well established as a series of mature ports for Windows, and indeed sometimes the Windows port are superior to those for Linux. Software in this category would include for example, the Mozilla suite, Open Office, Audacity, Apache, a variety of language implementations and development tools, including GCC et al ( Cygwin and Services for Unix), the Sun JVM and Eclipse IDE, Perl and Python etc.
Often the Linux tools that are not (yet) maturely ported to Windows are those with native and older Windows equivalents. For example, the KDE and GNOME desktops are recreations of features available in traditional desktop OS's such as Windows, OS/2 and MacOS and their integrated tools.
The key difference is that anyone can see Linux, change Linux, and redistribute Linux. (and *BSD etc). Of those than can see and change Windows etc it is unlikely at best that changes can be redistributed.
Linux is also free of charge i.e. freely redistributable. This is often moot, as the cost in wages and time will probably dwarf the initial outlay.
While the Linux OS is customisable, so is every other aspect of the system. This is weakness and strength. It allows adaptation to any environment. It prevents assumptions of platform stabilty being made. The platform can and does evolve in a manner unpredictable to ISV's and packagers.
I can run DOS software from the 80's in Windows (urgh!). I can't run some software from the late 90's on Linux! The package formats, shared libraries and distributions have evolved so much. As an aside, on OSX I can run Class applications from the early 1980's.
So, for Operating System work, where it is critical to be able to see and alter the OS Kernel itself, Linux is most probably better. For users and ISV's, Windows remains as compelling as ever. All the good tools of Unix; All the hardware support of Windows; All the integration of Windows. What open source tools do not have a Windows port?
All in all, Windows has cut and paste that works; I wish I could say the same of Unix/X11.
If you don't like Gnome or KDE, run fvwm or WindowMaker or
some other lean WM. Just because some distros come with large
desktop environments by default doesn't mean you need to
use them.
*sigh* back to work...
Everyone here knows that Linux and the various flavors of windows are totally different, and meet the needs of different people for different reasons. I really don't beleive one is necessarily better than the other as a whole, but one might perform certain functions better than the other.
Some people enjoy spending hours (or days) tinkering away with their linux box trying to get some peice of hardware to work. Some people don't.
Ive been using computers and OS's of various kinds for more than 20 years, and heres my 10cents.
Linux is very flexible. You can do just about anything with it, if you are willing to spend the time learning arcane stuff. For the most part its more reliable (assuming you can get all your hardware to work). Available professional software lacks, and the gaming front is a ghost town.
Various versions of Windows are better than others. 95,98 = crap. 98SE, NT3.5, 4.0 = decent. XP aint bad, neither is 2003 Server. 2000 is the best thing MS has ever done. Me is the worst.
I use 2000 primarily for both home and work. It is very reliable. Ive used it on many machines, and once hardware issues are resolved, it *rarely* crashes. When it does, its 90% of the time from some poorly coded game. In my personal experience,a properly setup 2000 machine is just as reliable as any flavor of Linux ive used.
Now people will say "virus, worms, spyware, haxors" Windows is more vulnerable too. I say, "only if you use IE and Outlook". I use Mozilla for browsing and mail. I dont get virii. I dont get worms. I dont get hacked. I dont get spyware. Windows is not AS flexible as Linux, but its flexible enough for me to get it the way I want. I install free firewall and virus software, and im done. Rock solid machine that supports the bulk of software and games out there. And I spent one day getting driver and hardware issues worked out, as opposed to weeks.
Its apples and oranges people...which do you like better? Pick one and enjoy, but dont bash someone else if they pick different.
"happily playing games and downloading pr0n whilst you try to get your hardware to work on your linux box"
You know what's the difference? Microsoft Windows is driven by the need for profit and also strategic goals in making sure it stays ahead of the pack. Therefore it innovates only when it has to, to the direction that it deems it must go.
Linux, on the other hand, is not driven by profit. Therefore it lacks direction. However at the same time its feature set is also free from strategic bastardizations, which means no forced browsers on users, no purposeful breakage of competitor products' codes, etc.
With that said, the biggest downside to Linux has to be the fact that, since they're not profit-driven, individual authors of components don't feel much need to make it user-friendly nor intuitive. Installing/upgrading something often requires reading cryptic documentations and long hours of time wasted on debugging random install problems.
eTrade SUCKS
"So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS?"
Simple, for me it's games. It is the only thing that has kept me from migrating to linux. If I can't sit down and *enjoy* my PC because of the OS, I don't want that OS. Get real serious games on linux, and I am there.
Time to make my monitor and videocard work properly with Windows: One minute. Just enough time to install the nvidia drivers.
Time to make my monitor and videocard work properly with Llinux: Messed around with nvidia provided drivers, distributed drivers from linux distro, various modeline configs, countless configs found on the internet similar to my setup, modeline generators, tweaking setups, reading docs, searching usenet, searching mailing lists, talking to other linux gurus. Gave up after 72 straight hours of trying to configure it with no sleep. Went back to Windows.
And no, I won't just switch monitors and videocards. My videocard was $500 and my monitor was $3,500.
That seems to be the big difference. Even a 15 year tech professional like myself can't get a monitor and card to work in linux after several days of detailed workings - but on windows, it worked instantly without touching a thing.
WTF is with all these moderators modding up all these anti-linux posts 5, insightful? HAVE THEY EVER TRIED A MODERN LINUX DISTRO?!?!? (Made in 2003/2004)).
When I got my first real Linuz distro, Mandrake 8.1, I got everything I need. It was easy to use the K Desktop Environment, It had over 100 installed games (plus lots of 3D games). It was a lot easier than Windows 98, which I had on my machine. I have gone through several distros (SuSE, Gentoo, Ark, Lindows, Debian, Knoppix, Fedora) and out of ALL of thoose, I only found Debian hard to use, so maybe we should be saying Debian is hard to use but not Linux in general?
So why do people say Linux is hard to use when it isn't give me reasons! Real reasons not silly ones. So please, tell me why you are spreading rumours that are not true.
Its program installations. Every time you install a program, you have to read a manuel. If I could just go on the net and download a linux program and 'install' it the same was I could with windows, or pluck a product off the shelf and have it work... then Linux would be very similer. Killer apps in the area of every day consumer products 'like aol' would also help.
Apparently you overlooked the fact that it won't run on your Commodore PET, either!!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Windows Live CD! And internet explorer is not integrated as a bonus.
And MSN Messenger will never bug you again!
here's a great summary of why i'm moving all of my clients from windows to linux and specifically Debian GNU/Linux.
[from: http://debianuniverse.com/readonline/chapter/01]
The Debian Universe
Debian is generally regarded as a good Linux distribution with great package management but a terrible installer. However, it's actually a lot more than that. Technically it's not even really a Linux distribution in the traditional sense, and it can be a hard thing to define for those who have dealt primarily with commercial distributions like Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSE, because Debian even embraces alternative kernels such as the BSD kernel and The Hurd.
Linux itself is grounded in community involvement and accessibility, concepts it inherited from the GNU project. But when we think of Linux distributions today they are almost all commercial ventures. What goes into each commercial distribution is a decision made by paid employees with the company bottom line in mind. That may not in itself be a bad thing, but it does leave them open to the possibility of commercial failure as we saw recently with Mandrake. If an organisation needs to make money to survive, that danger always remains.
But Debian is different. It's a totally open, cooperative project involving a great diversity of people, each doing what they do either because they want to or because they feel it's worthwhile. In fact Debian doesn't really exist in the legal sense. There is no Debian Inc, there are no shareholders, no board, not even a non-profit organisation. There is an umbrella organisation called Software in the Public Interest (SPI), but Debian itself is really just a big cooperative project. It's probably one of the best large scale examples of a true 'bazaar' style project as described by Eric S Raymond in "The Cathedral And The Bazaar" that exists today. It doesn't have to make any sales, it doesn't have to meet investor expectations, its members just get on with doing what they do best: create one of the best ever collections of open source software.
That can be both a good and a bad thing. One of the recent problems, for example, has been obtaining AMD x86-64 prototype hardware for porting and testing. AMD have limited supplies of hardware, and while it's still at the prototype phase they will only release machines to organisations that can both demonstrate a need and enter into a non-disclosure agreement. Because Debian doesn't really exist legally, it can't enter into an agreement binding on all it's developers and so AMD have been unable to provide hardware for Debian developers to test on.
However, problems like that are few and far between, and for the most part Debian's lack of structure is its strength. It's diversity and inclusiveness have resulted in its ability to package a huge range of software on more hardware architectures than any other distribution, or indeed any other operating system.
Something that many people don't know is that Debian officially supports 11 different hardware architectures: x86/IA-32(i386), Motorola 68k, Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, MIPSel, HP PA-RISC, IA-64 and S/390. And that doesn't mean that everything is developed for i386 first, with other architectures lagging behind and treated as poor cousins, with distribution releases delayed by weeks or months. When a release such as Woody (Debian 3.0) happens, it happens simultaneously on all 11 architectures.
That's a pretty mind-blowing concept when you consider that even the big boys such as Red Hat only officially try to support one or two. Managing development on 11 architectures has required Debian to put in place a very sophisticated auto-builder system that allows a developer to create a software package on whatever their local architecture happens to be, then upload the package to a build queue. Once in the queue the package is sanity checked, then distributed to machines in the build farm: a group of machines loaned or donated to Debian that represent all 11 architect
I did have a linux only pc for a while, but I missed the huge amount of games that I can play on windows so I set up a dual boot system with XP and Fedora. It's good to be able to have both, it stops me become another of those tiresome linux zealots.
Mod this man up.
I read the article all the way through.
Now, I like Linux: don't get me wrong. But that article was bull.
...It was quite one-sided, for one thing.
I've run windows, red hat 8, debian testing, and now mandrake 10 at various times with the gui. XP is not significantly slower. Despite what "kludge"-type hacks are in the source code- and there might be many- I'm certain there are- Windows and Linux run at comparable speeds.
The author did not go into any advantages the Windows way offerec in any detail, whereas he was careful to point out disadvantages, and the advantages in Linux.
Next time I see an article, I'd like to see a less-biased article!
/b
|f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
My Gentoo installation used to have kernel panics anytime I tried to use my IDE CD writer. I had to boot Windows up to write a CD.
Linux kernel crashes are rare too, but they still happen.
Quit trying to circle-jerk me and step back and just accept that, for the universe of games, in toto, Windows is better. You're reaching and it makes Linux look bad.
I can get one or two games working in Linux, and I guess I could Winex emulate more, but what's the point? Windows is better for games, because that's what the game was written for. Everything else is a hack that just happens to work -- it is sufficiently good in some cases, but "games" in general "work" better in Windows.
Fanboy!
Linux is *WAY* *MUCH* EASIER to break. It usually just involves logging in as root and mistyping an argument for the rm command!!!
Any of you every typed rm -rf * in the wrong directory?
Technology aside... People who use Linux believe in what they use. Linux is created by the community, for the community, and it will always grow and evolve with its community. People trust Linux because we feel that Linux hears our voice and cares for its users. Microsoft will always be a commerical company first. As a business, Microsoft will always put profit ahead of people. It can never form as close a community with its users as Linux can; that's the big difference. People believe in Linux not because of the software or technology, but because of the community and relationship it represents. Linux has brought its users and creators together as neighbors, whereas Microsoft is often reviled by its users.
Ok, fine, UNIX is great, Windows sucks, stop preaching to the bloody choir.
I am sure there are plenty of employers who are happy with that sort of thing, and plenty who don't accept word anyway, or whatever, but you obviously haven't had much real world experience dealing with Sally Jane Rottencrotch trying to open your files.
In the world of "Office Space," you just use Word and STFU and "go along to get along." Nobody likes a James Dean.
Sad but true.
The difference between linux and windows is that the former has tons of useful POSIX utilities like sed, grep, wc, tr, xargs... and I know how to use them, and do so almost every day. There's probably a way to do that sort of thing in windows, but I haven't a clue how.
What?
You gotta be kidding me.
Linux may be catching up, but you are saying they are on equal footing?
I don't think so.
Are you kidding me? XP has everything 2000 has and more. How are you saying that XP is *not* better than 2000?
Hell, if you don't like anything XP does except the stuff 2000 also does, you can configure XP to run identically to 2000 in about 3 minutes worth of checking boxes in preference panels.
Here's two things I'll grant you:
1) The default theme sucks. Solution: CHANGE it. The Windows 2000 theme is still in there, just switch to it.
2) Windows XP Home sucks. It's better than ME, but it sucks compared to the Professional version.
Comment of the year
I had Windows 95(BSOD every 2 days) for games and Suse 6.2(stable but not user friendly) for work on 2 partitions for 2 years I switched to WinXP (2 months between BSOD, games, good enough OS) but I will switch to Linux (it's free, it does the job, it's improving and I like Gnu/GPL) as soon as some requirements are met : When Linux will be as user friendly as the present windows When games will be released on the Linux platform, When the few apps I really need and use everyday will be ported/have a clone on Linux I fear that this is only going to happen when a majority of cmp-user turn to linux as well, so you might as well add the condition (for businesses) When there is an good-enough clone of Office on Linux. As for me....the difference between Windows and Linux is : Windows is the present and the past (a thing we won't forget, it'll bring fond memory) Linux is the future.
A few years ago (2002 IIRC) we got some free few-year-old Dells from which ALL (non-BIOS) software had been removed (I believe the term on the stickers was "sanitized").
I installed RH on one (my first Linux install onto Intel hardware, my ~3rd Linux install period), a co-worker of mine (who fancies himself a fairly experienced Windows user) installed NT.
- Time for my co-worker to install NT: 4 days.
- Time for me to install RH: 30 minutes
- Being able to gloat about it until the end of time: priceless
For the record, NT choked on the SCSI drivers. I'm sure that when they originally came from Dell everything worked perfectly.Actually, my experience has been that the driver set for Linux is in *some* ways more comprehensive than Windows.
Tell that to any owner of a Microtek Scanmaker 4850 scanner, which is still marked as unsupported in SANE. What should a school do with donated hardware manufactured by a company that refuses to work with the community to develop drivers?
... Clippy!
Please try Linux again, your complaints sound like your using Redhat 7.x. Please try a distro such as Mandrake 10 or Xandros. I can plug my camera in and an Icon appears on the desktop. SMB works automagically, Dependancies are automatically solved for you (Even redhat has solved depency hell in Fedora 2 test 1), you can buy a new sound card and hear it instaltly as well.
They all come with a full office suite, graphics programs, with no hoops whatsoever. So please stop spreading the flamebait and see how the Linux community as bent their backs over to breaking point to make Linux user freindlier than Windows (And as a former Windows 98 user, I am glad i switched to linux).
If you don't have the ability to adapt a driver, post a message, and odds are someone will do it.
The SANE people already know about the Microtek Scanmaker 4800 scanner (which is close enough to the 4850 that was donated to me) but don't have enough information about its insides to write a useful driver.
You are free to create what you need to get the job done, and given the resources to dundergo the task, without waiting for any corporate decision on wether creating such code for a few lone users is cost efficient (usually a resounding NO!).
The problem here being that they still have to wait for any corporate decision on whether creating such documentation for a few lone developers is cost efficient (also often a resounding NO!).
You mean like this?
I can't play on my chess servers with Linux, so as much as I hate microshaft, I won't be moving to Linux. Windows with chess beats Linux with no chess.
You can switch to linux today. Get a distro with KDE 3.2! Its so more user freindly than Windows XP its not even funny anymore. There are THOUSANDS OF GAMES FOR LINUX with HUNDREDS preinstalled on most distros. There is also WineX to run propreitery Windows Games on Linux. There is crossover office to run those apps you need, OpenOffice 1.1! Its fast, its free, it is a good Office Clone for linux, plus if you really want office you can use crossover.
So make that day today, grab a distro such as Mandrake 10 and be part of the future, today!
What Differentiates Linux from Windows?
A license to use code from SCO?
'Same speed C but faster'
Anyone who says that is hard is either talking out of their arse or a microsoft/apple fanboy.
It's possible to have a good experience setting up Linux - and it's likely if you know what you're doing and you know what things mean. If you don't, there's a good possibility you'll dig yourself into a hole and not even know it.
I just installed Mandrake on a machine a couple months ago. The little Samba config utility just didn't work. I didn't know why. I still don't. Anywho, I knew how to use Samba from the command line so it ended up not being a problem for me - but for another guy it would have been a complete showstopper. They just couldn't have used it for its intended purpose.
Watch yourself use Linux. Be honest about the number of times you do something not entirely intuitive.
the amount of support they had to do reduced and for those times their parents couldnt fix it they could ssh right in
You've given a good example. SSH right in, eh? Imagine how meaningful those letters would be to a new user.
To do the same task under Windows XP, you'd click "Remote Assist" - and you could assist intuitively by acting on that machine the same way you act on your own. Sure, you could use VNC too - if you know what VNC is, how to enable it, and all that.
Linux is easy to use if you know what you're doing. If you're lucky, it's easy to use even if you don't - but as things currently are you'll run up against that learning curve sometime if you're really going to use the thing. Windows isn't amazing here either, but it's further down the road to usability.
My digital camera, scanner and adsl modem "just work", so do the nic cards in my partner and I's machines
If you buy the right camera, it'll work. But some won't. You may disagree, but I've tried and failed a few times with cameras (which by itself is evidence that it is more difficult than under Windows - even if it is eventually possible).
And you won't get the manufacturers programs to manage your photos. That's a plus for me - but again it's a crippling failure for others. It means the manual that came with their camera is useless.
You're just not seeing things from a new user's eyes here.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Ugh, there have been far far far too many MS-bashing linux-is-so-great posts on /. recently
:)
You misspelled "since day one".
You might be new here, so I'll clue you in on our dirty little secret: Slashdot is, in general, very pro-Linux, and anti-Microsoft. It's always been this way. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a "balanced view" on this site. However, there are many pro-Microsoft websites out there, so if the Linux-is-good crowd scare you, there are always alternatives.
Ask yourself this: on a website dominated by geeks (ie: people who tend to know much more than the average person about computers), why is there such a slant in favour of Linux/OSS?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
We know that Lindows MEANS Windows... at least according to Microsoft... IF AND ONLY if you keep the "dows" (Lindows changes name).
So if we remove the "dows", we have Lin vs. Win, and it's pretty obvious now isn't it??
Wasn't that easy? I don't know why people have to constantly rehash this!
I think SCO owns "ux"... so don't even try that argument!! (don't tell HP though)
The big difference is that Windows is not just an OS, it is a strategy for Microsoft. The end goal of Microsoft is to get a Windows based product on everything - and they have a centralized strategy to do so. First, by making the Windows "look and feel" the defacto standard so every consumer understands the Windows interface. Second, by leveraging their desktop dominance and integration to get into every market they can. Linux is missing this strategy (which isn't bad, but relegates it to a niche player who can only compete on cost)
When you think about from a consumer standpoint Linux is the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft & Apple. Whilst mac had the shiny market cornered, its market capture has been pretty much stagnant for close to all of the companies existance. Both apple and microsoft had piss poor innovation and were in no hurry to change. Apple forced nothing on MS because those that were going to use apple by and large already had changed platforms.
Along comes Linux and there is now a contender to shake things up. Apple and MS can no longer accept the status quo and were both forced to improve do this competition. As a result Apple and MS both saw the writing on the wall, and were both forced to actually try to innovate and make a superior product.
Apple was particulary vulnerable since their market was made up of as many "not microsoft" people as "yes apple" people. The resulting market share has since proven this with Linux now outplacing Apple, and this has forced apple to make dramatic improvements in both hardware and software to avoid collapse.
Microsoft couldn't buy Linux though, and they didn't have the market vulnerability that apple did to Linux. They have more resistant to forced change from Linux, but have had to make some measures that are beneificial bacause of this. Primary example of this is their backing off of cutting of 98, which has about 25% of the market from support.
The short of the matter is that neither company can ever afford to sit on its laurels again. Linux now has widespread market acceptance on the server front, and can no longer be dismissed as a toy. Since it cant be bought, they can't make it go away, and they have to compete. This can only benefit all consumers as they get better products.
I think a good bit of difference is the name and the type of stereotype it holds behind it. Windows is a common word in every day life, relatively at least. Linux is unknown and unheard by most people, only familiar with a computer geek holding it up.
When people choose their first operating system, they're more likely to go with something they feel comfortable with. The "tried and true". Even if the word "windows" and the operating system have nothing to do with each other, there is still a sense of familiarity.
Linux, on the other hand, can seem rather intimidating to those who have never heard of it.
Frankly, as someone in a different article comment pointed out, if you're starting from scratch, learning windows, mac os, or linux can be equally challenging. They each present abstract concepts which take some getting used to. If you learned windows first, linux may seem strange and complicated. If you learn linux first, windows may seem like a bunch of weird nonesense (as this is the impression some of my Mac user friends have of windows).
It all depends on where you start, and where you start, I think, depends a lot on the stereotype behind the name.
- shazow
While the original poster mentioned "Unix variant like Linux",
:)
something SCO still can't seem to figure out and I'm surprised we're also not noticing - Linux Ain't Unix, or a variant of Unix, or a derivitive of Unix. It is *similar* to Unix and impliments some open Unix protocols. However, thanks to the morons like SCO, just using the term Unix in relation to Linux is like walking on eggs...
Other than that - more eyes makes it better than Microsoft. But then, that also makes BSD and family better, and any number of other openly developed systems better. Close it up and stuff all yer "secrets" into little hidy holes and/or try to patch in stolen [oops - borrowed] secrets and you'll get... well... Microsoft. Ditch your products and hire lawyers instead and you get SCO.
Needless to say, the article is severly biased against Microsoft. The biggest difference between linux and Windows is that Windows is easy to use whereas linux isn't. As of now, Windows is also more innovative than linux (I'm talking about the desktop side; linux servers are better). People always bash MS for innovation but Windows has a lot of things linux doesn't. Desktops like KDE and Gnome are light years behind Windows right now.
Lastly, and most importantly, Windows has massive number of applications. Linux is seriously lacking in this respect. This difference isn't really due to Windows architecture or anything, but nevertheless it is what seperates the two.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
diff -iEwByr windowssourcedir linuxsourcedir
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
Except in this case Microtek was perfectly willing to include a Windows 2000 driver for its scanner on the driver disc.
The root of the problem is that I can't tell my folks to make sure to buy hardware with a cartoon devil or penguin on it. Unlike the Windows Logo Program, there exists no logo program for compatibility of hardware purchased at Best Buy with any Free operating system. The alternative of printing out the comprehensive hardware compatibility list and bringing it into the store doesn't cut it for those who don't already own a compatible printer.
KNOPPIX!!! Give me a bootable Windows CD and we will talk... In fact there are some devices that Knoppix recognzied rigth away on my computer, while XP requires me to install drivers for...
Trust me, my grand mother can use knoppix rigth away on a new computer (simple inserts the CD) but have no clue at all on how to install Windows!
If W2K does everything you need, why upgrade? Because MS says so?
Winders was created by a marketing company with a single eye toward profit. Linux was created with the sole purpose of creating a technically correct tool to leverage use of a computer. You don't have to be a psychologist to determine the quality of output.
I don't think that's the issue.
As one who has made a few games, I can say that Linux is certainly the better platform for running games well.
The problem is that there aren't many games actually *made* for linux. On windows you can choose from hundreds (okay thousands) of games.
On linux, the number of decent games is probably in the area of a few dozen.
Yes Linux does lose out in the area of games, but it's more of a business decision and market share problem than a technical one.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
On one hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, once worked with one other architecture, and has gone nowhere else.
I like Linux too, but this is a silly argument. Variants of Windows have run on a lot of things and quite a few different processors. Ever used a Pocket PC or a Dreamcast? Portability/flexibility is great - but it's hardly the defining characteristic of Linux, nor close to the central way it's different from Windows.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
- stability: the OS will work today
- openness: the OS will be available in the future
- control: the OS does not control me
Other than very slight differences in stability and usability, the OS's themselves are much more similar than they are different.
In fact, there are so many different ways to interact with computers that aren't being explored because we're stuck with the ridiculous "everything is a file" interface that plagues both Unix and Windows. Both OS's are brain-dead.
You want an OS that is different in a worthwhile way? Throw out the filesystem. It's a ridiculous waste of time. All the hard disk should be is permanent storage for run-time data. RAM in a system should be nothing more than another cache between the permanent storage and the CPU.
I don't have to explicity page data in and out to the CPU cache, why should I have to page data in and out to files, just because of some misguided attempt to shoehorn a dumb "file philosophy" onto everything?
Security is pathetic from an ideal standpoint too. Why are there only two, arguably three, levels of privilege in these systems? Why do I have to become root just to bind to a low port? Shouldn't I be able to allow specific applications that specific privilege, and that specific privilege only? OS's should have much finer grained controls. This isn't impossible.
A truly innovative OS would resolve these issues. You could start by mapping devices to specific areas in the address space, and controlling access to specific areas of memory for each process/thread. There are research papers all over the net describing exactly how to do this. Nobody's implemented it beyond a toy system.
For all the back slapping and self congratulation about Linux on this site and others, and the "innovative" rally cry of the free software folks, it's pretty sad when you see that all they've done is recreate 30 year old technology with minor implementation improvements.
I'll say "innovative" when you can turn your computer on and in a few seconds be right back where you left off when you turned it off. Or when you can enable a thread to bind to a port by giving it access to the address space where the "bind" function resides, instead of giving it total control of the whole machine.
That's innovative.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
One experience of many that I have had:
Spent 6+ hours with my brother-in-law working on his computer trying to install Windows and drivers on his new motherboard and hard drive.
Concluding that maybe some of the hardware is broken, I dropped in a Knoppix CD. Less than two minutes later, everything was working. We were surfing the net with sound and everything. Proved that the hardware is good.
"But, I want to run Windows," says he.
"Fine, you figure it out then, I'm done wasting time on it," says I.
He still doesn't have it all working right. I'm ignoring his phone calls...
You mean there really is a difference between Linux and Windows??? God, I never realized that... it's a good thing someone took the time to make an article to say so ;-)
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
and no one but geeks care about it at all. It reminds me of the everlasting geek debate; "Who would win in a battle between Captain Kirk and Captain Picard." Or the other big geek debate; "Who is more powerful, Gandolf or Belgarath."
No one cares. Both Linux and Windows have their purposes. Can we move on please????
Windows is easier to use - the first time. *NIX is easier to use for every time after that.
In windows you are typically hand held through each task. This is great when you have no idea what you are doing. It becomes bothersome when you know what you are doing because the hand-holding slows you down.
In *NIX you can automate *anything*. You constantly learn tips and tricks and build your knowledge. Every single day you become a more proficient user.
There\'s no place like ~
Windows dude: But wait isn't Windows superior?
Slashdot geek: Dude you are on Slashdot!
Windows dude: Oh yeah... Now I remember! Windows sux! Linux Rules!
Slashdot geek: Marks down 1-0 for Linux.
Windows dude: Goes back to his blue screen...
Slashdot geek: Cool, we got one more dude converted to Linux! Write some article on how Linux is better in a Linux Magazine!
Of course, no biased whatsoever...
Most Windows users couldn't install Windows either. The guys sitting there playing games and downloading porn probably got machines with Windows preinstalled as most people do. If your system came packaged with Linux, you'd be playing games and downloading porn right out of the box.
Join Tor today!
It's only in the companies best interest to make products of a high enough quality as percieved by the majority of the target purchasers as to justify procuerment. Any extra quality in the product is waste.
That's to get one sale. Most companies really like it when you come back to them for future purchases, which is why having extra quality, something to set your product above others, is always a good thing. If you can make your product that much better with a reasonably small amount of cost, then why not?
You can take a bit more joy from making a better product, you look like a better company, you get higher customer loyalty. For example, MAG-Lite flashlights are extremely well made. People buy them, and the company is succesful, because they made a great product, as opposed to just another flashlight.
I submit it's always a good decision to make a better product.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Anyone able to explain this quote? I'm fairly well versed in OS architecture, but I definitely don't see how an application could abuse that first point. I also don't understand how limiting an applications address space will cause compatibility problems in the future when there's more address space available. Can anyone explain?
Windows is absolutely crawling with it. Until some good spyware programs run natively under Linux I won't be migrating towards it!
Quack, quack.
linux is free, windows is not, linux is open, windows is not, linux has blahFS, windows has ntfs, this is quick, that is not, this is bloat, that is not bloat... whatever, they both do the same thing --give users an interface to do stuff on the gadget they have. this or that doesnt matter, yah yah, but you can do everything that can do in this, plus infinity^3. so what, doesnt matter to me. security- a valid point, but hey, depends on the size of the target, meh, both have security and both are improving but what matters is crummy business practices, stifiling progression and hurting the spirit that is the spark of this whole thing that is computing. possible conspiring with big brother back doors and the like --also not good. thats why i linux, that is why alternatives are preferrable to i. technology is more or less the same, but its the philosophy that is paramount just opine that gets thrown with wreckless beercap abandon, no time to read, plenty to blather
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Lets find out...
% echo "windows" > windows
% echo "linux" > linux
% diff windows linux
1c1
linux
%
Apparently, everything is different between the two. Maybe I'm wrong. I did this on on an OpenServer box, and since SCO owns everything...maybe they are the same.
There's a huge difference between the two.
When I install new hardware on my WinXp machine, I turn it on and go grab a cup of coffee. By the time I get back my desktop is ready to use.
When I install new hardware on my Linux machine, I go get coffee first. It's gonna be a while....
So why do people say Linux is hard to use when it isn't give me reasons! Real reasons not silly ones. So please, tell me why you are spreading rumours that are not true.
Because the masses simply do not want to play OS. They just want to send their email and forget it.
If they have to think, then forget it. Linux will head the same way if all of these GUI only people get their way
Its time for all these distros to die..die..die.. and time for Linus Torvalds to get off his ass and write a truly free OS without an commercial fingers in it.
The Dreamcast was built around running Windows CE and DirectX 5. I can't remember how it all worked - I think most games included a rudimentary version of Windows that handled basic functions, and DirectX for doing the graphics work.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Well, it kind of shows.
One of the most blatant is the NT4 security APIs; at least up through W2K and current patches (I've not investigated XP yet), they're severely broken.
I mean, broken to the point that you have to fall back to the older NT 3.5 APIs to do nontrivial things. One of the worst is stripping portions of ACLs when you try to write them. For simple objects it's not (usually) a problem, but for anything non-trivial.
Hit google groups and browse some of the results for "SetNamedSecurityInfo" or "SetSecurityInfo". Results like this one, which are characteristic of the problems I've run into.
I didn't believe it could be that bad, until I tried writing code against these APIs myself.
Most of the Windows subsystems aren't quite that bad, but it's not _that_ far from the pale even so.
I assume this means that the developers just aren't looking at them very much. The alternative would be that they don't just give a crap...
DNA just wants to be free...
"I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy R2: let the Clippy win."
Add that to the mysterious MySQL errors the server I mentioned before has been having- it simply stops listening and won't restart. It went an entire semester without problems last year: now it doesn't last two days before crashing again. Nothing on the MySQL site about the error and I can't find much of use with Google. So I upgraded- read the "Upgrade MySQL 3.x to 4.x' document some time for amusement- the official method has you downloading/installing source RPMs (So where are those, and what versions should I be using?), force installing 4.0 since dependency checks fail and then running scripts (with known bugs) to alter permissions on the DBs.
Ugh. Now I'm sitting here with crossed fingers hoping that the upgrade fixed the problem, and wondering how I can get something other than text mode through SSH to access the staging server.
My brand new (yesterday) WinXP box got everything perfectly- it installed the USB printer driver the instant it was plugged in, got the dual monitor setup right and even found a driver for my graphics tablet. I love Linux but there are days it just pisses me off.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
This article is going to have a high s/n ratio. NOT!
I like to think that it's where the errors come from. With Linux, errors usually occur because you did something wrong, misconfigured something, etc. With Windows, it's usually some bug in Windows code. Put another way: When you use Linux, you screw it up. When you use Windows, it screws you up.
This is the big difference.
_ ____
Why are people willing to pay for Windows? They have been using it, it is what they know. It has problems, they are willing to pay to have those problems fixed. Further, so many people use MS word that they have to buy the new version because they will get some random new word document they cannot view or edit otherwise.
Why is CompUSA stocked with Windows software? Because it is commonly used, so the market is bigger, so more software is written for it. Even if you are willing to pay more for a similar product under Linux, often it is not available. Of course, what is available is often free, but it may take an expert hours to complie it or set it up properly.
Why does so much hardware come with Windows drivers, but not linux drivers? Again, market size.
Why do some websites only work right under Internet Explorer? Guess.
Of course there are regions where the opposite is true. Often in science tools are only available for use under linux/unix - further, most expect you to be running some kind of unix if for no other reason then that you have xterms.
It's basically a historical accident - one came first, it became popular, people could switch, they are, but it is taking a long time and maybe Linux will become a huge desktop monopoly, maybe it won't.
_________________________________________
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
The latest in a long history of failures, the Linux operating system has flushed half of a US$820 million project out of the crapper hole on the side of the space shuttle. It seems that somebody came up with the bright idea of running the Mars rover on an Apple Macintosh "Supercomputer" controlled by Linux.
Oh, I suppose that that extra license fee for an actual quality operating system would have broken that $410M dollar budget. There's no way they could have afforded an embedded operating system that isn't cheap communist software. They could have gone with QNX RTOS, VxWorks or any number of other quality and time-tested real-time operating systems for the Mars rover, from a reputable company. But NOOOOO, they went with bullshit free-as-in-fix-everything-yourself Linux. Some long-haired balding fat Linux zealot, sucking up oodles of tax money with his blob-like presence in the NASA "engineering corps", with a certain penchant for cheap software, came up with the brilliant idea of running embedded Linux on an Apple Macintosh of all things. Of all the idiotic things that have happened under the current administration, this by far makes me most ashamed.
Unix/Linux are operating systems for computers.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
like a scanner
or a printer
or a pen tablet
etc etc
windows: go to mfr website, download install file, run install file, (maybe) reboot. Proceed with using hardware.
Linux: go to mfr website...unsupported (dam), go to linux geek site(s)...hmmm no luck, go to google...hmm no luck, go to another linux site - helpful geek says "just download this source, read your device specs, change these numbers accordingly, compile to your kernel with this line: (insert big ass command line here) and you should be ok; tries it...works partially (not all features utilized or available). crap. *heavy sigh* *gives up*
user boots to windows...
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
These are the guys that were publishing strangely pro-SCO articles DESPITE the increasing amount of bovine feces they'd been spewing about IBM conspiracies.
Now this article. The tagline paragraph atop the article tips me off that it isn't even PRETENDING to be objective. The article feels like an over-the-top attempt to compensate for kissing SCO's ass a week ago. There are several things I could call this article--journalism is not one of them. The whole publication appears extremely contrived. I wouldn't listen to a single word they publish.
Do not read LinuxInsider.
--
Get around the hardware issues by installing Windows XP. Then install VirtualPC and install Linux in your virtual PC. Now you can run all your Windows apps and all your Linux apps all on the same box and don't even have to mess with a dual boot system. You can browse the same site with Mozilla on Linux and IE on XP at the same time on the same hardware. It's a huge time saver for me as a site developer that has to make sure my sites are cross compatible between not only different browsers but different OSes.
1) Yet another article that says how much better Linux is than Windows, and for largely the same reasons as every other article that says Linux is better than Windows.
2) I see all the posts from people who complain that Windows doesn't work right out of the box, but that Linux is very configurable...If you tweak Windows, it's a lot more stable than if you don't.
3) Not to say that Linux doesn't have superior tweaking ability and have some definite strengths over Windows, but Windows has some stregnths too. Like availablity of software. Now will come all the posts saying how much freeware there is for Linux. Great. What versions do they all work with? Is there a central easy way to tell if it will work with my machine? There's the classic Grandma dilema, though Linux is gaining ground there.
4) Installing Windows is easier. What, am I crazy for making that statement? No. I've attempted several installs of Linux. One has actually worked, and that was Redhat 9.0, which is now not easily available. I've installed 10s of Windows machines, and had a far smaller failure rate, mostly from hardware that had gone bad or that I didn't have drivers for.
5) Linux is arguably a better OS, but constant sniping at Windows is not just a religion on Slashdot, it also obscures the fact that Microsoft has done more to bring about the popularity of computers than anyone except perhaps Apple, which only comparitively recently switched to a Unix varient. Microsoft has certainly done more to bring about affordable computers that work out of the box, even if they don't meet exacting performance standards.
6) For computer owners, you don't need to know much if you run Windows, other than the phone number of your nearest friend/relative who can fix it. I'm constantly asking people "What kind of computer are you running" and they will say "It's a Compaq" or worse "It's a Trinitron" because that's the label on the monitor. That's arguably not a good thing, but in order to run Linux on a box, you need to know all about kernal versions, dependancies, etc. when you're trying to install software. And you have to be very careful which hardware you use because you want to make sure you are getting something that is theoretically usable with your system.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
The difference between them is that one actually has a sane desktop, installation/uninstallation procedures, and an application base. The other requires you to go to IRC channels to spend hours setting up a sound card, only to get back responses like "man alsactl" when you ask anyone to help.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Here is why it makes sense. The OS product is only successful if it has user software. Breaking backward compatibility costs serious market share.
Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here's the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn't free memory right away. That's the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95.
As we know from Kuro5hin's code windows code review:
It's noticeable that a lot of the "hacks" refer to individual applications. In some cases they are non-Microsoft. [...] Microsoft does not steal open-source code. Their older code is flaky, their modern code excellent. Their programmers are skilled and enthusiastic. Problems are generally due to a trade-off of current quality against vast hardware, software and backward compatibility.
To conclude, M$ writes good code but has to use dirty hacks for backward compatibility. It's not their fault, they have customers to care for.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
Hi diablonight.
:D (oh I hope she won't stumble across this).
:o) Klay
You know what? You might be right. I use Windows too (ever since I more or less had to switch from my beloved Macintosh), and it's doing a wonderful job. Even my wife can use it so-so
But the thing is, the free OS'es offer something of the same, yet differently. And since most of that difference is in essence philosophical, people are going to divide themselves into two camps. Me, I'm fine with the fact that people use/like/love Windows *and* whateverNIX, so I hope there's not too much mud-tossing between said two camps.
I will say also that I'm currently trying to escape the grasp of Microsoft (yes, for mostly philosophical reasons) and it's really not that easy. In fact, it's pretty rough sailing, and I'm rather much raised in the shimmer of a monitor, so there.
Here's saying you shouldn't be modded down, but you may be argued with.
"Good news, everyone!"
We start off with a bang:
...
From a practical perspective, cost is an obvious differentiator, as are access to source and the ability to run outside the Intel processor environment. But it's possible to argue that those differences are neither real nor important.
To get beyond superficialities like these...
Oh for heaven's sake. Would nearly so many small to mid-sized companies running "eShops" have considered Linux if it weren't for the phat licensing deal? Ask Grandma Tilly, heck ask 80% of so-called "SQL Server Admins" out there -- Windows is much easier to learn if your skillset == GUI familiarity. Price is HUGE.
Then ask the governments (start with China) how important open source is. Again, cost of ownership is awfully high to move from any OS to any other. There must be something awfully impressive making whole countries' governments swap from one to another, and the security and freedom to explore what you're running is open source's big "in".
Let's follow that up with some anecdotal evidence to prove whatever I'm feeling today...
"like a 1991 copy of Vsifax for SunOS 4.4 -- works perfectly under Solaris 2.9, while Windows 2003/XP server now contains both a Posix-compliant interface set and four generations of the Win32 interface"
Come on. I'm no *NIX expert and usually let Fink do most of my compiling, but I do know that compiling against the wrong version of foolib can fook builds like nobody's business. I also know that...
"On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity."
VB 3 apps still run (heck, until recently the code would compile in VB 6) without much issue, and though I was upset when I tried Mosaic 2.1 on Windows XP recently, this evidence hardly shows that Windows is a kludge and Linux isn't.
I'm not weighing in that he's wrong; I'm saying he hasn't come close to proving his point with his examples. A better way to show the difference would be to, say, throw a highly customized version of Gentoo doing something very specific better than the best you could do along those lines in Windows. But why can we do this in Linux? Because it's *open*, daggummit.
such [major OS] changes[/advancements] historically have been accompanied by the addition of new layers of kludged code intended to maintain some semblance of backward compatibility with previous kludges.
I like where he's trying to take us here -- certainly a hack for SimCity today makes you hack for it again in 98, and then in 2k, etc, and could end up becoming a lot more like the Princess and the Pea than sand in an oyster. And I think a number of Window's security issues come from deadwood left in what's been described as an OS originally designed to provider home users with a workable, but not networkable, computer.
But what he misses is that its the lineage that's causing these issues, not commercialism per se. Linux comes from a server mentality. Security is key. Windows comes from a mentality that perpared itself for Grandma Tilly (and the SQL Server Admins (which I've been doing for 6 years, before you flame)) where user interfaces are nearly king. This is why Windows seems kludged -- because it's trying to be all things to all people. Linux is too, *now*, and you've seen all sorts of, "throw out X11 and use Y" articles around here.
Anyhow, you get the point. The fellow goes so low-level while keeping a very bird's eye view of what's going on that he's basically saying nothing. Hey, it's all 0's and 1's. You can grab any of your favorite anecdotes and point to places where one wins over the other -- it's nearly as bad as the PowerPC vs. x86 MHz wars Mac/Windows trolls fought nearly daily on comp.sys.mac.advocacy for so long. Sure, if you r
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Linux developers started by envisaging how a "perfect" computer would behave, if there were no inherent limitations, and went on to try to make real-life, limited hardware behave in as close a manner as possible to the ideal. So all storage devices try to emulate SCSI discs, and all printers try to emulate Postscript. It gives programmers on both sides of the interface an identifiable, acheivable and verifiable goal to aim for.
Windows developers simply built on layer after layer on a system they knew was imperfect, adding extensions willy-nilly as the need arose; effectively, adjusting the limits to match a constantly-evolving state of the art. The result is a compatibility nightmare. Things often don't work properly together for no obvious reason; the most likely cause is a logic trap triggered by a number of unconnected events occurring in the right order. And it's still easier just to put up with it than to try to do anything about it.
Furthermore, Open Source programmers know their work is going to be seen by many pairs of eyes around the world, take care to avoid stupid mistakes -- but accept that even if they are temporarily red-faced, the worst thing that can happen in the long run is that they get to learn from the experience. Closed-source programmers, believing that nobody will ever see their code, can take bigger liberties with their code.
By having higher limits to aim for, Linux developers have been less fazed by new developments; and it's my guess that 64-bit technology will be well established long before the 32-bit timestamp space limit hits home.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
What weird, weird universe do a lot of these posters live in where you don't have to "fiddle" with Windows to get it to work? Hell, even SuSE required less fiddling than Win2k3.
All's true that is mistrusted
Gentoo's a bad example. You compile your own kernel. And if you use genkernel then you're even worse off.
:(
(Warning and disclaimer to moderation zealots, my Linux box dualboots fedora 1 and gentoo. I'm not spreading anti Gentoo FUD)
Try running Redhat or Debian with a default kernel and tell me how much it crashes?
As for your CD burner, burning CDs in *nix isn't always easy, I know
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
perl -e "print 'Windows' gt 'Linux'"
on the other hand running this on windows usually results with:
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
...the fact that some of his points are just wrong and many are simply opinion based on pure speculation on his part.
For example:
Another of the ways in which the preference for technical choices that favor a small number of core processes is expressed in the Windows kernel is in the fact that it runs nonthreaded internally. This choice avoids "object blockage" to trade off concurrency and context switching in favor of increased efficiency for, and better control of, a small number of key processes.
So... I guess my TaskManager is lying to me right now in that I have 28 processes and 294 threads running on my machine (by my count, that's 10:1 threads/process). Granted, this doesn't tell me how many are in the kernel at any one time but past research has proven to me that the Windows kernel is more threaded than the Linux kernel. Solaris is more threaded than Windows though.
Also, he actually states that he has never seen the source to Windows but assures us that their method of page management works a certain way and is somehow detrimental to this other behavior that he thinks is important (is it really important even or is this just one way that the two kernels are different and since he likes Linux more then the Linux way is somehow obviously better?)
Just another advocacy article it looks like to me.
It's too cute, this technical criticism of Microsoft's code vs Linux!
What do the dollars tell you has been successful?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I just set up a windows machine and connected it to my broadband internet connection.
Within the hour I had a fully functional email server running on it, along with VNC capabilities, and was using my bandwith to the fullest.
Of course, I don't remember installing any of it...
The site linked to by the story contains a double-click ad that loads fine in IE but crashes Netscape 7.1.
Fuck 'em... I won't read it!
I'll repeat it even though everyone here R'd TFA...
In contrast to intrinsic weaknesses affecting reliability and security, most simple problems affecting scalability can be kludged -- meaning that Microsoft can add temporary fixes as problems are recognized simply by adding code to isolate and work around each kind of special case as it comes up. Thus the "stack" idea found everywhere in NT 5.X, in which one processing object calls another -- which calls another until the process happens to hit one that deals with whatever the problem is -- presents an object lesson in institutionalized kludging.
"institutionalized kludging". Love it.
What a fucking idiot.
That's all that need be said.
The Registry is the real difference, and the registry exists solely to protect the property of third party application developers such as Adobe etc.
OK, it's a philosophical and cultural difference as much as a programming one, but the registry just about sums everything that really matters up neatly.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Are a genius. That does not deserve the flamebait label.
I recently purchased an IBM Thinkpad 600e from ebay for real cheap. I read up online and it seemed to have excellent Linux support. I felt it was finally time, as a CS major, to learn Linux inside and out.
I purchase the laptop, download Fedore Core 1 and whip out my 1000+ page Linux manual. Install goes fine. I know why Linux distro's needs 3-5 cd's now. Why on earth do we need 8 different text editors? Especially when all of them are pretty slow (I didn't bother messing with vi/vim or emacs since I heard they were complicated, Kedit and Gedit were good enough for me).
Now, I *try* to install the operating system with as little things installed as possible. My reasoning: I want to learn Linux, what better way than to download the programs and install them myself. I figured it'd get my comfortable with compiling source, RPM's, etc. So, I *don't* install apache, php, mysql, mozilla (or any browser for that matter), only Gnome, and a few other programs. Why is it, then, when I boot up Fedora for the first time, is there a Mozilla icon on my quickstart menu that doesn't work when I click on it? It's these small, but VERY frustrating things that drive people away from Linux. I chose not to install apache, but httpd was still installed as a service. Was this necessary (someone please tell me, I don't know).
Internet access is still a big thing for me. At my apartment, I only have wireless. I can't get my wireless card to work on Fedora yet. Thus, I have to download everything on my Windows machine and burn them on a CD and then put them on my Fedora laptop. Thus, using all those apt-get and emerge and what not is not an option. I know windows update requires Internet access, but at least my wireless card worked as soon as I plugged it in. No compiling anything.
Anyway, I'm sure its just because I'm such a novice that I don't understand anything, but since I'm one of the target audiences of Linux transformation (knowledgable computer user who desperately wants to learn Linux), its something the greater Linux community should understand.
-Vic
My buddy just bought a copy of Visual Studio .NET - at an ungodly price. Now, this is software written by Microsoft, and he's installing onto Windows 2000 - arguably the best OS Microsoft ever put out. 16 hours later, after many service packs and security updates, after over 4Gb of his hard drive is used up, he still does not have VS.NET running properly. And this guy has been a developer for over 10 years. Windows is not simple. This is doubly true if you want to talk about some potential user who knows nothing at all about any platform - the learning curve of linux? FUD
I don't really care about any other feature.
The primary thing that keeps me using Linux is
the support of high resolution text consoles on a
framebuffer device. Yes, I use X11, and various terms. But I will NOT do without at least a 160x64 text console, 8 of them, each running screen. I don't care that I can get "almost the same thing" with an xterm. Nothing beats the text console on a framebuffer for my work. Nothing. Actually, back when SVGATextMode was still alive, things were a bit simpler, so long as your card was supported.
Today, and ever since 2.5.x and 2.6.x, there are serious problems with the Radeon and Trident fbconsole drivers. But at least the vesafb still works. (I *wish* this could get fixed.)
I have not found anything at all for Windows 2000 or XP that even begins to compare with the framebuffer console. The best I can do is 80 columns. And they generally run in some very slow emulation. And they don't make a pleasant terminal.
I really do wish I had this feature under Windows.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Having better weapons does not win the war.
It helps but doesn't win. thats why Windows is #1 and everybody else is not. They have very mediochre to bad code but they have good marketing and speak the same language as the people buying the software. thus they win. The features people want are percieved to eb there and thus they buy it. In business perception = truth. Linux is percieved to be hard to use, and thus you have to work twice as hard to prove it's not.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Windows, as in the operating system and its code isnt better for games. Infact, quite the opposite when you look at some of the performance hacks you can do on the Linux kernel.
The gaming-industry write alot more games for Windows, that makes it better for playing _those_ games, even if you get way more juice of your hardware in Linux.
And about I can get one or two games working in Linux: Let's see, the good games i can come up with that run natively on Linux is: UT, UT2003, UT2004 (demo), NWN, NWN SoU, NWN HoTU, RTCW, RTCW:ET, AA. And those are GOOD games, that you can play for months.
You also have a bunch of open-source games in varying quality.
And finally you can get most of the popular games (W3C, CS etc.) to run without any real problems in Wine(X).
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Windows asks "where do you want to go today?"
Linux asks "Where do you want to be tomorrow?"
Windows: Because sometimes you just have to run 1980 vintage software on modern hardware.
Linux: Because sometimes you just have to run modern software on 1980 vintage hardware.
Ha ha, only serious!
Do you like Japanese imports?
More precisely, OS is the tertiary product. Their primary product is a solid, supported, consistent API to attract and retain developers. The secondary product is a slick user interface for their desktop API.
In all practial aspects, for most people Linux is a Unix-like environment first, an OS second, and any semblence of a desktop API or slick desktop environment is not really all that important.
Microsoft could sell Win32 on Linux without too much pain... it would not be the first time they changed OSes for their environment.
Everytime anybody posts anything which might be evenly _remotely_ construed as anti-MS/Windows, the MCSE Army marches forth to do battle. Is this what they are taught to do in that extensive one month course, or do they actually have time to skim the first couple of chapters of TCP/IP For Dummies...?
I find the biggest difference in switching between the various Windows and the Unix flavours can be summed up right there. Despite the fact that NT/2k/XP say they are 'multi-user', the OS and applications behave like there is a single user per machine. Unix expects there to be more than one user per machine, and the applications are written accordingly. With Unix it's trivial to share applications over the netowork through NFS. With Windows it's not even close.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
From the article:
Can somebody explain to me how that design decision leads to application-level kernel crashing?
Linux is easier to learn than a Microsoft OS. But I prefer to learn with the aid of books, mentors, and documents, rather than by random exploration. Windows is easier to explore randomly, but that is not how I like to learn.
Some talk about Linux as having a steeper learning curve. That you have to learn more to achieve the same level of productivity. And I admit for some very simple tasks that can be true, but in general, I don't buy that either. I have found there is more to learn with Linux because there is more I can learn with Linux. Not because the learning is necessary to reach any similar level of productivity as on a Windows system.
is a simpler entry than one of the formI suppose I am unique in my reliance on cheat sheet files.I find Linux to be easier to use than Windows, but then, I like text filters and the CLI. I find it easier to make cheat sheet files for Linux. I think
I don't think I need to read this comparision, I already read one at WindowsIsTheBestOS.com
linux rulez, windoze sux.
"What really are the most fundamental differences between Windows variants like 2003/XP and Unix variants like Linux "
What the hell is Windows 2003? Did I miss something?
Back in the 1850's - it didn't matter that the plantation system was super rich, it didn't matter that the people who ran it were super smart, and it didn't matter that they were ultra powerfull and influencial arround the world.
What mattered was that technology had "commoditized" the labor market, meaning that it was more important that society had a skilled and mobile workforce rather than one that was controlled like the slaves. After that it was only a matter of time before the south tried to fence themselves off from the onslaught by breaking off from the union which then caused all hell to break loose.
Well, today the internet and other technology has commoditized the software industry, the music industry, and if not already the movie industry and information in general. It is more important that it flow freely than be controlled. They are trying to fence themselves off using a wall of laws and DRM, but now as then society can't and won't let them be successfull. Warning: SCO and the RIAA are just the tip of the iceberg - all hell is starting to break loose.
Gee, that's three whole games, PLUS their expansion packs!
Winex doesn't count -- it's illegal and basically just hacks to run Windows code.
This is obviously something you feel relgious about. By all means, go ahead deluding yourself thinking Linux is the perfect gaming platform. No amount of evidence (such as the fact that you've defined "games that work" == "all the games that matter") is going to persuade you.
Again, the flaw in your reasoning is not: "No Linux Games Work." Some work great. But, for the "Universe of all games" (and those you play games don't want to write off 2/3rds of them as "stupid"), it's not as good.
Winex is ILLEGAL.
Okay, I'll grant you that Linux plays hypothetical, nonexistant, imaginary games better than Windows.
Isn't this cicular zen nonsense? The problem with Linux is that it is not Windows and the problem with Windows is that it is not something else.
My Ford Taurus is not a Honda Civic. There is no spoon, Neo.
If you want to install something in windows you just install it. it just works.
If you want to install something in Linux you have to build it, build what it depends on, etc.... ad nauseum. It doesn't 'just work'.
Windows is for people that just want to get things done. Linix is for people that want to tinker and play at getting things done.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
No, Linux plays real games better than under Windows.
:)
Some examples include:
Quake3, Tribes2, Unreal (Tournament, UT2003, UT2004), Return To Castle Wolfenstein, TuxRacer
Hell even Jedi Outcast runs under WineX about the same as natively under Windows (Jedi Academy plays slightly better than under Windows)
Real games, just not very many of them.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
This is an annoying article, it fails to address many of the features of linux that make it so much better than windows.
...
I am not in any way a kernel hacking guru (so please forgive my brevity!), but simply from a usability standpoint. Linux does many many things so much better than windows. The way it multitasks, the way runaway processes dont bring down the whole machine. Linux just seems to do things properly, and when things do go wrong I can usually understand why, and ten to one its my often my fault.
Many years ago, (before I got into Linux), I discovered the Amiga, I've never used an OS, before or since that was so adept at handling multiple processes. At some stage, the Amiga died for me. At which point I moved onto PC, running Windows. I never ever liked windows. It always seemed like a shoddy OS, multitasking was a joke, and I experienced a lack of control. Stupid things like the inability to perform other tasks while formatting a disk, this and other issues really tugged my chain. How could that underpowered 68000 series machine do such simple things so much better? about 1999, I moved over to Linux, and, although in some respects its not quite the same as my die-hard old amigaOS , It has many of the qualities that my old sweetheart had back in the day. Linux just gets better and better. Kernel 2.6 series is awesome, all my hardware works perfectly without patching etc.
The problem with this article is that it seems to address the design philosophies of Windows series operating systems and Linux kernels. It is masquerading as a discussion of the technical merits of each but fails to address some of the core features and also fails to address how the implementation of core features actually affect the behavior and operation of the systems in question.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
difficult to remove essential OS components or corrupt program files.
With Windows, any user can delete any file so long as it isn't
resident in memory. With Linux, processes can safely be killed. On
Windows, killing a process might corrupt the state of the OS and
require a reboot. Also, Linux has less security problems than Windows,
and when Microsoft learns about security problems, they are not always
prompt or even responsible when it comes to resolving them.
Microsoft cannot be trusted. They steal technologies and innovation
from other organizations like Xerox, Sun, and the WC3, and use their
financial power and lawyers to stomp out competitors. Sometimes, they
make modifications to the innovations others have come up with and
modify them so they will not interoperate with the originals.
Furthermore, Microsoft has been known to be untrustworthy by employing
technologies that are anti-competitive. They also use patent warfare
as a way to make themselves money and supress the technological
community. Linux is free to use, modify, and distribute, so long as
you give authors credit. That is not much to ask. Moreover, there are
thousands of great programs and utilities for use with Linux. These
are free as well.
If you use Windows, you are doing yourself and the world a major
disservice. If your reason for using Windows is because of the
application support, you should change your applications or write to
vendors encouraging them to port their software. There is no excuse.
If you use Windows because it is user friendly, that may be true in
the short term. It is not true in the long term because your dll's
will overwrite one another when you install a new program causing
binary incompatibitly. Also, programs are free to modify the registry
as they wish which generally results in slower OS load times, system
corruption, and other bad side effects.
I urge everyone to stop using this Operating system in favor of a
*nix OS. Please stop supporting Microsoft and start supporting more
viable OSes. Reasons you can't refute have been stated above, and the
software is readily available. Now go to www.linuxiso.org and get
started.
Right, and the imaginary, nonexistent games would run great too right!
A perfectly unbiased article that concentrates equally on the merits and downfalls of Windows and Linux.
If only all journalism could be as balanced as this, we would not need independent news outlets, and could just let our respective governments deal with the dissemination of all information.
Just one issue I did not as mentioned. The author talks about how the NT 5.x kernels can't scale to 8-way systems and beyond without major rewrites.
But it seems to fail to mention that for those kind of machines, Datacenter Server is used. And that is a different version of the NT kernel built for 8 way systems and up. Windows 2003 Standard and Enterprise are not exactly same as 2003 Standard or Web. At the least, Enterprise and DataCenter are NUMA aware. The claim may still be true, but without looking at those version, I'm more skeptical.
Also, the criticism that Windows had to undergo big changes seems a bit unfair. Of course Windows is growing and changing. It's barely a teenager, really, where UNIX is heading towards its 40s.
UNIX evolved and changed drastically in it's youth. And UNIX never had integrate single-user OS ideas and requirements (PC, not on the network, one user, etc) into the multi-user network, because nobody had their own computer.
Look at the radical changes from OS 9 to OS X. Granted, you can argue that Apple handled it better, but having a smaller user, application and hardware helped there, in my opinion. They could get all the third-parties lined up and on-board with the changes, and they still had to quite a bit to support "classic" apps.
How similar is Linux 1.0 to 2.6 really? Change is not bad, drastic or otherwise.
I recently purchased an IBM Thinkpad 600e from ebay for real cheap.
You lost me with this statement. You can't get a cheap laptop on EBay. Do trolls even try anymore?
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Yes, XP is a big step forward when compared to '98 (let's not mention ME).
No, it is not secure, robust or flexible enough for my computer work.
If I absolutely had to use MS-Windows, it would be 2003 but even here I spend too much time fighting the OS to try to acheive (or even find the controls for) what I can achieve with a one-liner in Linux.
As to compiling from source, who are you trying to kid? I'm installing KDE 3.2.1 binaries in about 20 minutes (when it finishes downloading) and that was a one-liner, too. Yes, it could have been point and click if I didn't find typing faster than mousing through menus.
In fact, there is even a Linux utility which automatically finds and installs (and then runs) a program for you on the fly if you try to run it and it's not installed. I'm not personally comfortable with this idea, but in terms of automation, it's hard to beat.
My wife uses Linux and she's not exactly the world's greatest computer literate. My 4yo boy uses it too, even though he has no sensible understanding of what's really happening. Unlike MS-Windows, I can pretty much instantly lock down his desktop using the kiosk features.
I'm happy for you and your uptime, but I'm afraid it's atypical except in carefully managed environments. The norm on a home PC is to have XP do something weird about daily, and lock up every few days (that is, ten times better than '98). My wife doesn't bookmark stuff, she just minimises the browser window, and those minimised sessions typically stay there for weeks. She doesn't save as she goes, either, and didn't even know that OpenOffice.org had crash recovery until a power failure last week (hadn't saved that document in about a week).
However, this is still almost majoring on the minors. I don't have to sweat about licenses, spyware, viruses or a zillion and one other "parking meter" nuisances. Those alone make it worthwhile using Linux.
If I need to run an MS-Windows-only app (which is one of two remaining gripes with using Linux: hello software manufacturers, port now before a FOSS app arises to blow your market away - the other being indifferent interest from hardware manufacturers), it can often be done.
"On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity."
[...]
this evidence hardly shows that Windows is a kludge and Linux isn't.
Are you kidding? That Sim City example is a massive kludge. In the Linux world, the bug in Sim City would have been fixed instead of adding a workaround to the operating system.
GUI's are fine for things you're new too or use rarely.
.pekwm/keys file is rather large.
It's much easier and faster to see and click a button, than to search the man-page for the keybinding you need.
However, if you use things often, you manage to learn these keybinding and then it becomes MUCH faster to just hit 3 keys with your fingers than to move your hand to your mouse, move the pointer to a button and click it, move your pointer back to the main frame and click into it to give it focus back, then move your hand back to your keyboard.
And what application do normal people uses everyday? Right, their desktop. So WHY, why, why do you have icons & menus on a thing that you use daily? It's a productivity killer.
Ok, the Start Menu has some merrit for finding programs that you use so rarely that you forgot their name, but desktop icons and the slowlaunch bar are just too inefficient compared to keyboard shortcuts and if you remember the name of a program, firing up a shell and typing the name is faster than searching in the menu.
And no, a GUI is not better because people "just wont learn keybindings". Make it gradually, add an agent that automates adding keybindings (but less annoying then Blinky) and everybody will end up using keybindings over icons.
My desktop is pekwm, and it is blank.
My
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
A lot of network cards that don't work with linux are because the company making it will not make a driver for it. It is just like microsoft not supporting 233 pents yes I run one of these a a file server running linux. Reason for 8 different text editors is competion and partical text editors work better with partical window managers. ie Kedit works better with KDE and Gedit works better with Gnome due to the screen drawing layer they link to.
These interface faults are getting fixed.
And Httpd installed will install if you install the externel admin system called webadmin. Also there are still fault from time to time of the startup script being installed and the httpd program being not install on some version of linux.
And the 3-8 cds it is the amount of programs on the disk space is need note it is able to be burnt to a dvd if storage space is a problem. Note is is able to link usb to usb for transfer of file. Might be the work around.
The bigest problem for me is not network cards I can nornal work around that. It is dam unsuported scanners.
>more robust and flexible
The average user cares fuck-all about 'more robust and flexible'... they just want their damn desktop computer to work. Currently, the easiest way to do that is to run Windows.
I notice that most of the slams against Windows don't apply to XP/2003 versions, which are very stable and secure as long as you avoid obvious fuckups like running IE and Outlook. I run XP, and yeah, I know you guys have years of uptime, but I find that rebooting XP once every 3 months doesn't really cramp my style... and the reboot is usually the result of a memory allocation problem in Adobe software, not a problem in the OS itself.
I use my computer as a digital swiss-army knife for solving all of my computing problems, and I choose the best tools for the job, regardless of who made them... and I've already got a personality, thanks, so I don't need the rabid fanboy aspect of linux that seems to mean more to some of you than the operability of the OS does.
Telling me that you can get linux to run on your fucking toaster gives me a raging soft-on.
he's talking about the actual dead tree representation, you know a lot of HR departments still like those, and honestly nothing beats TeX for printed output.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
I think people who use Windows really want a Set Top Box, to serve up email M$ Office stuff and Maybe some games and music.
... the above statement really works for most.
My actual feeling though is, the reason some one uses Windoze is either:
A) They are too cheap to buy a Mac,
or
B) They are too stupid to use Linux.
There are some other minor reasons like needing a winbox for some specialized software that runs on nothing else, but if you think of it
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I guess you've never installed software or updated a windows machine. Every single time it requires a reboot for stuff that is not even remotely related to the core operating system. Whereas in linux, when you update a package, it never needs a reboot for that unless that package has something to do with the core (the kernel itself). So for you to have your wonderful uptime in windows of so long you have to be running mostly unpatched.
There is a difference between Object Oriented Programming, and Object Oriented Languages. Linux is written in C because it was more efficient, standardized, and well-known than C++ when Linux was started. It's still object-oriented though. Look at the Module, Pseudo Filesystem, Pseudo Terminals, Block, Character, and Event Device interfaces for example.
I can name at least 3 things. 1.) Penguins vs Windows icon 2.) Ultra Rich Nerd vs no-where near as rich Ultra Nerd. 3.) 3d pinball vs pengu racing now, it's all up to you...
one sucks, the other doesn't
This argument gets pulled out alot as a problem with Linux. In fact, this argument only really says that Windows is more wide-spread than Linux, hence the availability of drivers for various devices.
It's been really quite amazing to see the increase in availability for drivers in Linux recently from the companies themselves (hats off to these companies for opening up their "proprietary" systems). And kudos especially to those writing drivers for various peripherals whose specs were never publicly divulged. This can be serious hard work, in some cases, with little recognition afterwards.
The obligatory "Let's Start Today's Flame War" topic?
/. Sorry, I thought it was Ars Technica or someplace where people have a clue.
The article has technical comparisons between Windows and Linux design philosophies. Can anybody on Slashdot make a technically correct comment on the article's technical points?
Or are we just jacking off (yeah, that movie.)?
Oh, wait, this is
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
As someone who supports more modern Windows releases, I can say that on a desktop-to-desktop basis the difference is, basically, less needless crashes and fewer unnecessary reboots. Better management systems, yes, and a robust email system...but it is still a version of the NT systems he remembers. Beyond the operating system, too, there are still many, many business applications, that were birthed in the late '80s and early '90s, or are running on obscure programming libraries that aren't nearly as robust as the Windows operating system (say what you will about that statement). Supporting the sort of Management Culture that Windows invites can be...challenging, even today.
So I can easily understand why he wouldn't want to use it at home...InstallShield and all.
===--===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Not counting the machine with fried (shorted to ~600V briefly) RAM, or the machine that had the faulty CDROM (overheated), 1996. And that one was my fault.
Someone please give this guy +5 Funny!
The difference between Linux and Windows is the same as the difference between swiss army knife and pitchfork.
There you are, staring at me again.
Check out Raymond Chen's blog, especially the History category. There are some gems in there, like Why 16-bit DOS and Windows Apps are Still With Us and Hardware Backwards Compatability.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Actually, if you bothered to read my post, I've installed much software and have a wonderfully working Windows machine. Every time a software install says reboot, I ignore it, and 95% of the time everything works fine. The only time a reboot is required is when the software replaces drivers or DLLs that are currently in use.
You know, if you grew a personality you wouldn't need to be so dependent on meaningless external fluff (like OS preference) for a sense of identity. You should give it a try.
Bluecurve on Redhat 9 is crap, but you can easily throw it out and install fvwm and fvwm-themes instead.
Get to a text root shell somehow, do a 'switchdesk twm', 'rpm -e gdm' and then install fvwm and fvwm-themes (for which there are source rpms on the net, but these require small tweaks to build cleanly on RedHat 9). Finally, in $HOME/.Xclients-default, comment out the line that starts twm and insert 'fvwm-themes-start' instead.
That's all there is to it. You can change themes after you start fvwm. There's CDE, and Redmond98 (Windows 98 look-and-feel), and many others.
If we scroll down below from the article, we get an interesting reply from Mark Russinovich... he is one of the leading authorities in Windows kernel although he has originally had a Unix/Linux background.
l )
Re: What Differentiates Linux from Windows?
Posted by: Paul_Murphy 2004-03-11 15:52:44 In reply to: Paul Murphy
I just received this email:
--
From: "Mark Russinovich"
To:
Subject: Linux and Windows
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 17:30:24 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
Thread-Index: AcQHwNOxdSTMYl4xToudyRPyZYimCg==
Hi Rudy (aka Paul Murphy),
I read your article (http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/33089.htm
posted today at Linux Insider comparing Windows and Linux from a design
philosophy point of view and am writing to tell you that its full of blatant
innacuracies, misconceptions and ridiculous postulations on the reasons
behind the way Windows is architected. Your descriptions of Windows memory
management, process management, and kernel behavior demonstrate almost
complete ignorance of the Windows OS.
Its exactly this type of irresponsible writing that the Linux community
always accuses the Windows community of using to promote FUD. If you're
interested in maintaining journalistic integrity for Linux Insider (or your
psuedonym of Paul Murphy), reply to this e-mail and I'll provide you
point-by-point corrections for you to publish. You can also research the OS
yourself by reading the official book on the internals of Windows NT/2000
that I coathored, Inside Windows 2000.
-Mark Russinovich
---
Don't try to use the force. Do or do not, there is no try.
Church of Euthanasia? I'm a member too! Wanna fuck?
One thing they have in common:
Both are now open source.
It just wouldn't really *know* (or care) whether the hardware exists or not.
As for your CD burner, burning CDs in *nix isn't always easy, I know :(
I think K3b is much better than anything else. There is nothing like it in the Windows world, and damn is it easy....
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
There is a difference between the two cases which may be relevant: boxes of cornflakes is pretty much just a unit of quantity (like bottles of milk, pounds of butter etc.); whereas 'boxen' just means 'computers'. They are the objects themselves, not '3 boxen of computers'.
anyway... OT
Posters recognized by their sig,
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
I was once a Linux advocate, but articles like
...)
... sorry but, Windows
this one have made me so ashamed and disappointed
with the Linux community, that I no longer know
what to think. I'm so outraged that I feel
compelled to defend Microsoft here. Is the Linux
community so shallow that it welcomes any article
that favors Linux and bashes Windows, no matter
how biased and full of gibberish? Are Linux
advocates afraid of an honest comparison?
I can hardly remember reading an article that has
offended me more. It is not simply the outrageous
level of distortion in describing Microsoft's
operating systems, nor even the blatant
imbalance. It is that, between his refrains
about Microsoft's kludges, this charlatan
pretends to be comparing Unix with Windows in some
kind of technical or objective manner.
Sad to say, I am just as disapointed with the
discussion here at Slashdot, which has hardly
taken this article's gibberish to task. Are we
really so biased that we must stoop to defending
this muck? Where is the integrity? I'll tell
you, I'm starting to really understand why the
default name here is "Anonymous Coward."
Contrary to what the fool who wrote this article
claims, there is nothing mysterious in the
Windows architecture, certainly no more than
commercial Unices like Solaris. Microsoft has
allowed access to its kernel source code for many
years to academic researchers, who are free to
analyze it, write about it, and hack on it,
(but of course, not to publish it, release it,
For anyone who wants an introduction to a real
comparison between Windows and Unix, I suggest
that you buy any modern university textbook on
operating systems, such as the popular one by
Silberschatz, et al. They'll all have examples
or comparisons of some version of Windows and
some Unix variant. If you do that, you'll find
yourself much more illuminated than if you read
a thousand polemic articles by goofballs like
Paul Murphy. You'll also find that Linux is not
superior to Windows, at least, not in any
ordinary sense of the word. Yes, there are
plenty of reasons to like Linux, but if you
compare the Linux kernel with the Windows kernel
component for component
really comes out looking pretty good in that
kind of comparison.
About 5 bank accounts, 3 ounces, and 2 vehicles?
Its remarkable how this post has evolved. It has, for the most part, avoided the actual point of the post in favour of 'my OS has a bigger dick than your OS'. The added bonus is the number of people who display their ignorance to the highest degree.
It happens on both sides, the Windows boffin saying 'yeah well linux is too hard to use, i can get what i want done within a decade with Windows' and the Linux boffin saying 'Windows is bloated commercial crap which crashes all the time'.
Its so very very reminiscent of the long running debate between NetWare and Windows. Now, with its incredible stability and homgenous nature, NetWare has long since surpassed Windows as a NOS. Active Directory, technically and in operation cannot hold a match to NDS. Not for a second. HOWEVER, Novell saw that Windows, Unix, etc had their own uses, and developed their NOS to integrate these and leverage their power. This long since ended the debate. If you can't beat them, join them. And so an entirely unique way of operating was born.
What I see from both sides is a reaction to an impossible question. "What is the difference between Windows and Linux" - this is an ambiguous question which can only be answered by a matter of opinion - there is no factual answer to this question, it will always be down to the perception of the individual user.
Personally, I dislike all OS' in some way - I'm far from an expert in all, but quite the jack of all trades. I have trained as a MCNE, and enjoy the benifits of Solaris, Digital Unix, Linux, Windows, OSX etc etc, as they all perform essential tasks within our organisation. Windows for the end user familiarity, Digital Unix on Alpha for its amazing Oracle scalability & linking ability, MacOS for the communications students who need to use a tool they will be expected to use in future employment, Solaris for the mathematics school, Linux for sendmail, apache and squid...etc etc....and all brought together under a single NDS tree, a single sign in for all.
I know that the topic is not about Novell NetWare, and I'm sure I will get a number of ignorant posts like 'NW is dead - get over it' etc etc, but I ask you this - are you really the great sysadmin/geek/technostudent if you comprehensively dismiss ANY OS? Because you had a bad experience, does that mean that the product is shit? Each OS has very significant pro's, otherwise they wouldnt survive. Regardless of marketing or money, each OS continues to exist because its users find it useful in some way. Flaming out Windows with claims that it is utter shit and serves no purpose is a denial of the facts.
The my OS has a bigger dick than your OS is what should be dead. The geek in most of you cries out intolerance like the 'other OS' is some darkie off the boat. You might not find a personal use for Windows, or Linux, or BeOS, or MorphOS etc etc, but someone must. And just because they recognise a use for the given OS doesn't make them 'ignorant' or stupid. If we are to evolve technology to OUR needs, we CANNOT be reliant on one OS. Myself, I'm a NetWare nerd, but if there wasn't the diverse splits between each OS' abilities, then it would not exist now. It has survived on the integration of diverse systems.
If you are in the area of providing end user service, and insist that there is only one true OS for the masses, then you are behaving quite like a large Redmond company we know.
Would you dream of rendering a feature movie's special effects on anything less than SGI? If not, then why would you consider running WinXP as a 99.99% uptime server? How come so many people take an OS out of its native context, then run it down.
The fact is, that if you install any of the aforementioned OS' *correctly* and *carefully* then they *should* run stable for your needs. From my own experience, I am completely capable of installing a fresh copy of Win2k or WinXP, and have it run into the months for uptime - whilst being used as a workstation daily.
Ah, this has turned into much waffle, and
...it lets me get MORE WORK DONE!
One works, and one doesn't.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
On one of our IIS servers, Explorer.exe has ceased working. You can double click on My Computer, and Explorer says "Unknown or invalid argument." This makes absolutly no sense. We do all our file work from cmd.exe on it now. It's very odd. Sure a reboot would fix it.
Had this problem with some NT machine at the previous job I had. Took the whole day to find out what caused it (as Im not _so_ familiar with all the NTs registry stuff). Anyway, after browsing through some hughe books about Windows registry, the problem was solved. Im sorry I cant remember anymore the exact field that caused the problem but I think you could find it by comparing the registy of the server to some similar server you have. Sure it takes time..
Dont know however what originally caused the change to the registry.
The fundamental difference between Windows and Linux is that Linux is for people who can think.
Windows is for everyone else, including the morons who pay for AOL and think they're on the internet.
With Windows you don't need a command line/shell.
Chances are if you're on AOL and have a command line you'll break your computer.
The majority of Windows users don't know how to use a *computer* they know how to use a mouse.
Linux is inherently powerful, but *you* have to unleash the power.
It's not going to fool you into thinking you have that power without you doing a bit of work.
I found it funny... I don't understand these fscking moderators...
They're not really suited to being compared like this.
Of course, they're probably referring to GNU/Linux...
It's interesting to think that when GNU was started, Windows was little more than a shell.
Join the Free Software Foundation
UGLAUGALUGLUAHGLUAGLHAUG
Most of your other problems, are probably from the core setup. Ever set up 6 linux servers, have them doing MySQL, mail, and the likes. If you don't know what your doing. You'll see errors.
You use shared printers from the desktop? This is an option Microsoft gave to help people, but no system admin should allow it. What kind of printer is it? More than likely this is a printer driver issue. Almost none of the things you mentioned have anything to do with the OS.
I have never had a problem with IE freezing on a users desktop, check for worms, not all virus programs catch worms.
That ping your running constantly? Stop that imediately. And instead look at the DNS or LDAP on the exchange server. Look in the system logs.
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0011 .0/0142.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi ons/archive/25/2003/11/4/116309
http://lists.suse .com/archive/suse-kde/2002-Sep/0018.html
Those are just many of the threads I had to go to while fixing a few linux boxes. search for locks up and any distro name, or even Linux, and you'll see a billion links. I am just pointing out that it isn't so special.
What are you talking about?
Windows has used protected mode for a decade.
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "