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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."
Good job guys! Typically, you don't post the conclusion of the article as the blurb, you put the intro. Very simple idea really...
Long live the French!
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"
$ uptime
11:23am up 480 days, 20:43, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01
the difference is windows just works while linux is a big piece of trash that never works.
plug in usb keychain drive
windows - detected and ready for use
linux - just sits there
i could go on and on with examples but there isnt enough memory on this computer to list them all
" 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."
and how is this different from linux?
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."
what is the difference between Windows and Linux?
Everyone knows that Windows is a computer and Linux is a hacker tool that runs in a DOS box...
do() || do_not();
FRESHLY SQUEEZED DONGS FOR SALE AT THE MIDLAND DONGERY!!!
:(
MMMMMM CHOCOLATE DONGS AND GLAZED DONGS AND DONGS WITH RAISINS
DO NOT BE INSULTING SIR! OF COURSE I INTEND TO PAY FOR THESE DONGS!!!
$10.67?? BUH BUH INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE! FREE KEVIN ETC.
I WISH DONGS WERE LIKE LINUX
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I also hear he sucks a mean cock.
in Linux? It's a horribly architected, monolithic system designed around failed concepts that are 30 years old, fer chrissakes! The only reason people use it is because it's free (zero upfront cost). If it cost money nobody in their mind would install this crap. In 21st century it's a shame to have a system that doesn't have role-based security, is not modular (so that HW manufacturers could release drivers without much pain), doesn't have a good, common component architecture and doesn't allow a user to copy and paste between apps :0). Any solution remotely diverging from the standard LAMP concept is either a huge dirty hack that will break as soon as someone tries to change anything at all or a completely custom (and expensive) piece of code. What happened to OOP and component based programming? What about any kind of decent architecture for web services?
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.
SHOCK AND SURPRISE
ps wich iz better windoze or linnux??? plz help
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 don't need to worry about Linux fscking up my system by auto-detecting hardware that I can't get a driver for.
You fsck your Linux system, not the other way around!
I guess calling Windows an OS here is like cursing in church ;)
Worse. It's blasphemy =)
Linus is to ass what Linux is to Arse. Note that Linux is a steaming pile of shit.
*BSD forever*
And any desktop linux distro I know sets up soundcards automatically (redhat might not, but that is emphatically targetted at servers, not desktops).
I see people coming in to chatrooms on freenode all the time with soundcard problems. It's common knowledge that drivers are a problem with Linux--hardware manufacturers don't always cooperate.
WTF are you talking about? Neither has a sane desktop (you need STEP/OSX or Amiga for that), and neither has sane installation procedures (you need STEP/OSX for that), and one has a large, reliable application base (unix), and the other has a small reliable application base and 10000 bad shareware clones of the good applications (windows).
Right, vi, binutils, and Emacs are a reliable application base compared to Wordperfect, Office, InDesign, Photoshop, etc.
Yes, before games will be ported to Linux desktops, Linux desktops must have their own installation/uninstallation routines. This means--gasp--installers that can run from CD and even put their items in the start menu.
This is really obvious.
"Sufferin' succotash."
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."