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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.
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
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
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
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
I take it you've never heard of automount, eh?
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.
I know somewhat offtopic... but the article link crashed Moz here for me.. anyone else get that? Ver 1.5
I'll AOL that.
Actually, this is a good opportunity to pinpoint all those Internet Exploder users within the slashdot community and excommunicate them once and for all.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
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!!!!
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?
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 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.
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
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.
No, and why should a user who just wants to use a computer, not configure a computer, need to know about that? This is the kind of stuff that really makes Linux and Windows different. Linux is for those who care about THE computer windows os for those who care about USING a computer...
This, however much a troll, is a good point. I'm fairly new at Linux but I installed Knoppix on my laptop about two months ago. I have a USB thumb drive that I spent a week figuring out how to mount. It took me another two weeks to figure out how to get the built-in wireless card working on booot...the first week was spent just getting the wireless card to work. And now, I'm spending what I expect to be another week trying to get StarOffice to render my fonts correctly on the screen. Now, about the mounting and copy and paste issues: couldn't those just be programmed into the kernel, for Pete's sake? I mean, maybe common stuff like copy/paste, mount/umount and stuff like that could just be made to work on boot? Having said that, one of the reasons I love Linux is that I can tinker with it all day and make it work like I want it to.
"We are accountable for not only what we do, but also that which we don't do." -- Moliere
linux is stable, windows is not. Been living under a rock? The whole Windows being unstable issue went away back in 1999. linux can be secure, windows can not. Actually neither can be secure. What a dumb statement. I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but why bother posting things like this? It doesn't help the Linux-users case when zealots are just mouthing off nonsense like 'Windows is unstable'.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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
Actually most of his points were about scalability and eficient use of hardware. Both are not so important for desktops. I think he was talking about the server not the desktop.
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
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.
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.
- Insert a floppy into a Windows machine.
- Start up Word and type up whatever.
- "Save as..." to the floppy drive.
- With your document still up and running in Word, remove the floppy and replace with another, different floppy, maybe one with some important files on it.
- "Save" (not "Save as..", just "Save") and see what happens.
You may not have to "mount" and "unmount" but it's not like these operations don't exist in Windows. The difference is that Windows will hide this operation from the user, much like "automount" tries to do on Linux. Another difference is that because the operation is hidden, users aren't aware it's an issue. I work in a campus lab, and just yesterday one of the profs did this exact sequence of steps and lost alot of work... oops.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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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
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...
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.
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 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)
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 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.
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.
- stability: the OS will work today
- openness: the OS will be available in the future
- control: the OS does not control me
I should respond better. Which Internet Chess server do you play on? Or better yet which server software does it use. I seems to me that there several Chess Server interfaces for Linux, like Jin and Knights. They interface with FICS. Eboard also works with several. I wonder if really checked the list of available clients to see if there was one to meet you needs.
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.
Similar problems exist in windows. It even common enough to get itself the nick name: DLL Hell.
The difference between DLL Hell in windows and the problems in Linux is that in Unix/Linux the shared libraries are verisoned. This means that you can use applications that requires different versions of the same lib in a way that is not possible in windows. Not only is the files versioned, there are also multiple places where you can put them and you can configure what libraries to use with the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. So in my oppinion Linux is superior with respect to handling of shared libraries
However. I do think the Feodora team should have tested a commonly used application like the Flash plugin before shipping. The link should be set up automaitcally on install. Ordinary users should not have to fix things like this.
There may be some special issue in your setup. I can't remember that I had to do this when I tested Fedora. Even if I didn't find this bug, I found Fedora Core 1.0 very buggy and not near the same quality as e.g SuSE or Mandrake. I suggest that you report it as a bug to the Fedora team and switch to a distro of better quality.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
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?
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....
"I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy R2: let the Clippy win."
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.
--
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
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!
...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.
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...
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
That whole "select == sucked into clipboard" thing is one thing that keeps me from using Linux in a big way. I always want to *replace* code. Select snippet #1, copy, select snippet #2, paste, and bam! snippet #1 is now where snippet #2 used to be. I do that about a million times a day. On Linux, as soon as I select snippet #2, snippet #1 is no longer in memory. Also, that only copies--I actually use *cut* and paste just as much as *copy* and paste. Granted, this isn't on all apps, but it is the case on many; enough that it is a dealbreaker.
Mac & Win: control/command X, C, V; everywhere, all the time. Period. (Well, a couple exceptions here & there, but not the ~50% failure rate I get with Linux.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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.
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.
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.
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
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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.
One thing they have in common:
Both are now open source.