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What Differentiates Linux from Windows?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the besides-the-random-crashes dept.

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."

5 of 1,135 comments (clear)

  1. The author, Paul Murphy... by tcopeland · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...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...

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  2. Re:It's simple. by Dylan_t_p · · Score: 5, Informative

    yea! The only drivers I ever have to install are the nvidia video drivers linux. For the most part has all my drivers and the only reason for the nvidia drivers is so I can have gl support, otherwise I could just use it out of the box without the installation of drivers.

  3. ReactOS is an open source windows clone by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 5, Informative
    ReactOS aims to be binary-compatible with Windows both for applications and device drivers.

    It's still in development, but you can boot it and run some programs on it already.

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  4. Re:Windows has driver support by cybermace5 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have found that most older hardware is in fact supported. Donated hardware is likely to have drivers out there for it. Depending on the manufacturer's attitude and device popularity, a Linux driver usually appears within two to six months after new hardware appears.

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  5. Re:The Difference... by diablobynight · · Score: 4, Informative
    More than likely you have a worm. My computer is an AMD machine running XP, and I haven't turned it off for 7 months, and it runs fabulously.

    Also if you expect us to believe that after 4 months the machine can't run IE and this is a windows problem, ummm...your on crack, none of us would put up with windows if it completely failed after just a few months. Some of these office machines here at work, are used every day, and are 2 years old, running XP, with end users, lol, and they really are still doing just fine.

    Of course I regularly run updates, and my virus scanner updates hourly and runs nightly, but you should do that with any PC.

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