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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."
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...
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"
A nice unbiased article about how Linux is superior...from a Linux magazine.
It's a nice change from hearing how Macs are superior from the Mac magazines.
When has MS ever hit a release date?
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
at first? It *still* says that.
The linked page links to a definition:
Defenestration Defined
"Defenestration" refers to the act of throwing out through, or of being thrown out of, windows. In this case it is used to describe a process I think of as data center defenestration in which people come to understand the technical background, costs, organizational structures, and behavioral imperatives that lead to institutionalized systems failure and then act on that knowledge to throw out the stuff that doesn't work and bring in systems and processes that do.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
oops -- didn't notice the difference unix guide vs guide to unix
don't see how that's flamebait, but whatever -- not going to cry over karma: I've got plenty to burn so have at it
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
It is 2004 and you are talking about Windows 98? Do you recommend that people run six year old Linux distros?
Jesus H Christ! Do you people talk about Windows 98 when you're talking "Windows" because you just don't know any better or are you just looking for ways to make MS look bad? Yes, Windows 98, 98se, and ME are all pieces of crap. But they are ancient history. While you may not like XP hopefully you'll agree that it is a hell of a lot more stable than 98/ME!
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
For non-trivial things, though, I have scads of problems just like the grandparent. He's right: the key difference between Windows and Linux is ease of hardware and software installation. Time and again I have problems with dependencies and searching down different versions of this or that library, or circular reference dependency problems such as MySQL needs Perl which needs MySQL-DBI which can't be installed without MySQL. Or trying to get a real video card working, and having XFree ask you 100 questions about your monitor frequencies, only to finally barf to text mode when it's show time.
Many things are wonderful and easy in Linux, but installing hardware and software is 50 times as difficult in Linux as it is in Windows.
The year 2000 called and left a message for you... They want their linux distribution back.
I use my grandparents Windows XP machine sometimes. When it first was installed, to my surprise it worked okay. But after a few months it started dying. Barely any new applications have been installed and it is mostly spyware free. The DSL connection randomly stops working, or sometimes just the DNS. It's a fairly new P4 machine and it is now having trouble running IE, Office, and anything else at the same time. Completely ridiculous.
I guess calling Windows an OS here is like cursing in church ;)
Worse. It's blasphemy =)
Uh, yes.
Of course they should have installation routines. Freedesktop isn't doing squat. We're still stuck with "RPM-based" systems that break constantly. Until Linux users stop fearing change and realize the desktop needs to be seamless and have integration with its technologies, instead of relying on x and y and z and s and w and the standards of this website and this website and this website, KDE and GNOME will always be as good as it gets.
Sigh.
"Sufferin' succotash."