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What Keeps You Off of Windows?
J. J. Ramsey asks: "schnell has already asked the question What's Keeping You On Windows? It seems only fair to ask the opposite question. For those of you who have elected to not use Windows, what keeps you away from it? Concerns about stability? Security? Dislike of Microsoft's business practices? Or are you simply a fan of your chosen platform and just don't care about Windows one way or the other?" Might recent events sway your decision to keep Microsoft's premier software offering off of your computer?
What keeps me off Windows is mainly because I don't want to be
locked-up in some savage immoral decommoditizing scheme.
The practice of scrambling and obfuscating the standards to insure
the failure of the competition is so much a threat to my eyes that
losing some compatibility and some discutable features for not dealing
with this is more then acceptable.
Death to close source, death to DRMs, long live the Open Source.
Sanity
Personally I use Linux because its free, the software is free and it runs resonable on my Dual Celeron 500 vs Win2k which runs slower. That's why I do it
I always stop my "Linux conversion" when I get to the point where I have to choose Gnome or KDE (or both).
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Curiously, in the last year I have actually started using Windows for the first time.
It has been the most difficult platform I have ever had to administer. Setting up even trivial network configurations is near impossible, with seemingly endless screens to move through, and very poor documentation.
Tasks that are trivial under Unix, have thus far eluded me. I still don't know how to set up DNS under Win2K.
Doesn't that sound like precisely the Why $FREE_UNIX_SYSTEM Can Never Succeed on the Desktop Argument? I am sure that Windows is no harder to administer than Unix. But I have fifteen years of Unix adminning experience, and zero Windows experience. To people who grew up on PC-DOS and Wintel, it is as intuitive for them as dd is to me.
So, for everything that matters to me (writing, email, network infrastructure) I use the Sun. For everything that is trivial and fun (websurfing, chat) I use the Winblows box.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
It costs too much in buying it, maintaining it, getting new anti-virus software, fighting with it... I just don't have the money and more importantly time...
Sasser keeps me off windows... then I go back on and it restarts my computer within 10 minutes!
Mac OS X.
Are you BioCurious?
Someone mod this article flamebait!
The price, almost absolutely the price....it is just to expensive to keep up with windows releases for a college student. Microsoft is really doing a disservice by selling software for hundreds of dollars and sometimes even thousands.
Last October I made the switch from Windows to Linux (SuSE 9.0) and
:-)
haven't looked back. I was a long time Windows user and programmer
(going all the way back to 3.0---just remember how great it was when
3.11 came out!), but I'd grown tired of the bulk and cost of Windows.
When Microsoft finally stabilized Windows with XP it was too little,
too late.
What keeps me going back to Windows is simply that I don't need to.
Here I sit with
0. A Unix command-shell that let's me do real work
1. A perfectly nice GUI (I'm using GNOME)
2. A stable web browser and email program (Firefox and Thunderbird)
3. A good personal finance application (gnucash)
4. Instant messaging (GAIM)
5. Outlook compatibility (Evolution)
6. A stable operating system that doesn't hide things from me
7. Speed, such speed, compared to XP.
8. No viruses, worms, and other crap targetting Windows
9. Graphics editing (The GIMP)
10. Multimedia (mplayer, XINE, etc.)
11. Complete office suite (OpenOffice.org)
12. Built in firewall (iptables)
13. A really cool spam filter/email sorter
Why would I go back?
0. Windows costs $$$ to buy and they've got this evil registration scheme
1. It seems like every week some worm or other would be able to take out my machine
2. No freakin' idea what all these services and things are doing
3. A web browser and other components integrated into the system like some sort of cancer.
and bottom line
5. Microsoft's software just isn't cool. It's like some pale imitation of cool software with just the minimum set of features to make the average Joe go "cool" while drooling into his beer.
John.
What makes me stick with Linux is the fact that when something does go wrong, there's a finite and small number of things that can generally cause the problem. I can quickly and easily narrow down what the problem is without having to understand the significance of lots of unrelated things. The 'everything is a file' mantra has some far-ranging consequences, at least IMHO, and it's the exceptions that cause most of the problems!
It helps that it's very stable, it helps that most of the config files are in ASCII, and almost always commented. It helps that there's a tremendous resource (man) available about just about every command, and of course it helps that it can be learnt piecemeal to a large extent. The K&R book starts off saying that they don't think 'C' is easily taught using a big book, that the smaller concept-driven approach works better. I think the same thing applies to unix. I don't think the same thing applies to the Win32 API. Perhaps with
To a certain extent this preference comes from learning unix (linux) before Windows - I know more about Unix than Windows, and I like what I learnt. Unix is a programmers OS, written for them, by them. I'm at heart a programmer ergo I like Unix
The old adage, "Don't fix what isn't broken" comes to mind as well - Unix has served me well in various incarnations, most recently Linux. It's not broken yet...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I find myself much more productive in a Linux / Unix environment. Linux is just much more user friendly for me.
The only thing that I get with Windows XP that is of any use to me is greater compatability with games.
I find Linux to be much more useful in that I have a lot of free tools at my disposal just from the stuff included in the default install (Debian testing user here). KDE has a built-in free newsreader, there are a lot more useful command-line utilities (Windows has no builtin WHOIS lookup utility) and overall I prefer the aesthetics of the interface (both the GUI, which is far more customizable than in Windows, and the command line).
Most of it is a matter of personal preference, but the free and fast availability of easier-to-use utilities (apt-get install vs looking for a website that has a Windows utility that matches what I want) gives Linux a greater edge.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Shoddy business practices, nerve-wracking battles with the Control Panel (I'd much rather deal with /etc thank you) and a long history of instability crises. That and UNIXish environments are much more conducive to development work, I find.
I do know that WinXP is much less crash prone than stuff I was using years ago, before I made the switch, but I just use what works. GNU/Linux is a pretty good power user's desktop platform. And of course, the price is right.
When life gives you lemons, you CLONE those lemons, and make SUPER-LEMONS. -- Dr. Cinnamon Scudworth, Ph.D
I've been very disappointed in the direction Windows is going. I'm a long-time NT user and have been a Lan Manager expert since '93. I still use NT 5.1 at work (unfortunately) and am now ready to jump to Mandrake 10 at home (where I currently have NT 5.0). I think MS has gotten themselves into a bind where they are moving too slow and in too many directions (xbox, NT, Office,...) and are doomed to recreate the IBM downsize issue when they lost focus in the '80s / '90's.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
The irony in them asking their readers why they use Linux and not Windows? I don't think thats irony, but thanks Alanis.
Not more than you need, just more than you want
I was tired of pirating software I couldn't afford. Open source software is largely gratis.
Douglas P. Price
Among the obvious reasons such as security and stability I also like the usability aspect of linux. I know, I know, Bash me all you want. For me, Linux is more user friendly than Windows. I like the command line, the config files in plain text that I can edit, and the choice of window managers (I use BlackBox, I like its simplicity). As someone said, "the only intuitive interface is the nipple, everything else is learned" most people consider Windows user friendly because they were trained to use only windows.
I am not losing income because I am not using Windows
There is no software that I need (yet) that is Windows-only
I'll leave the posts about viruses, worms and trojans for others to comment on.
I like microcars
So, I keep on Linux, because I like retaining control over my computer.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
It never even occurred to me to get windows. I have never needed anything that only windows offers. My linux box did everything I needed and now the mac does. There is simply no reason to use windows especially considering the cost, licensing issues, and all the invasive and obnoxious phoning home that MS products do.
I had to use windows when trying to continue the work of another student in graduate school and that little escapade probably added a year to my Ph.D. I could run the same code on the mac, ibm workstations, the linux boxes, but I would have to stop and rewrite everything for windows... stupid.
I am a hardcore Mac user back from the old days, but I gave up on Apple for a few years. OS Lineage for me: Mac->Win3.1->Win98->Debian->Debian->XP->OSX. However, my mac is not perfect and some mundane CPU intensive tasks such as Stock Streamers, just run better on XP. Recently, I got the sasser virus on my XP laptop before I knew what it was, and then, I did a clean install. Because of work (Oracle Programming and Stock Stuff), I am still forced to use windows, but at home, my windows laptop is never even touched.
On the other hand, if you look at Microsoft Software as a whole, there are some great applications. I absolutely love the new office for OSX, and microsoft Project for windows has virtually no competition - even from Oracle. Truly, XP has come a long way from the 98SE crash fest, but the fact that Microsoft leaves the systems wide open is never good.
Im not an M$ fan, but you have to admit, that if they get their act together, we could be in for some trouble. Even from my OSX world.
On a side note, I want to plug a new site that I just made live. If you are interested in Day trading or the stock market check it out: Group Shares.com.
Thanks,
Aj
-------
artlu.net
Ok, the reason I use Linux primarily [at home] is just the options it provides (for free).
- Evolution for getting all of my personal mail and OO-ximian for all of my office needs (very simple at home).
- Gentoo to compile and make my old hardware still useful
- Less chance for viri/worms and it's easier to see what's going on, or what was installed. Same goes for adware and spyware.
- Theme options are much better, much more choices and all for free. All windows themes require clunky third party packages that are slow, and some of them cost money (i.e. the ones you would really want to use).
For a development environment, I don't see a big difference other then that Linux is our production system and developing on Windows just means more testing. There are some nice development tools, but work won't even pay for them so that's not a reason to use linux over windows (or vise versa).
At work, I do use Windows -- because everyone else does, and every time I try to switch (OO, ximian connector, etc).... there are always little wrinkles that I don't have time to deal with. At home, I have more flexibility.
Oh yes, I also now use Xbox for all my gaming so I don't care if linux game support isn't that great.
--------
Free your mind.
My OS desisions are based soley on bang for the buck. I keep a windows box around because I can devop simple data apps in Microsoft access faster than I can with anything on Linux.
I use linux mostly. Because I can't beat the bang for the buck on most every other application. I love using Quanta plus.
All of the other bonuses are nice. I like the freedom to look and figure out how something works. (or doesn't work)
I like the added security of evading the Worms and Viruses that plague Windows. Most of the plagues are avoided with a small amount of expense and a fair amount of common sense, so those are not a determining factor.
I stay off Windows where possible, because it is better for society to have a strong competitor to Microsoft. Without the choice of other OS's Windows would be a poorer and more expensive product.
Furthermore, OSS ensures greater trust is possible. We can verify the source code. With Microsoft, we cannot do this and without a strong competitor they would have less incentive to keep things clean.
I use Linux, in short, because it prevents too much power accumulating with one small group.
Also, it's free and more versatile.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
1) Price 2) Viruses that target it 3) Bugs that they delay fixing 4) Anger at their arrogance and refusal to support a company that mistreats their customers 5) Less Hangs on Apple/Linux
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
OS X is cheaper, more stable, more secure, runs all the really importants apps (office, photoshop, quicken etc), has tons or fantastic apple apps, has wonderful hardware support and best of all it can run almost any linux app as long as it is not hardware dependent. Oh and PPC emulates Intel very nicely. :-p
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Open up the KDE control center, and go to the fonts tab. Drop a font in, or choose it via the file dialog. Press OK. Font installed.
As for fonts looking good, if you use a modern distribution with xft2 and fontconfig installed, fonts look better than under Windows.
I don't feel like I should have to pay a bunch of cash to some a-hole in Oregon or wherever just so I can use my own goddamn computer that I paid my own goddamn good money for.
I have no particular ill-will towards Microsoft. I'm just not gonna give them a goddamn penny. (Nor are most people; most people I know just pirate XP).
That's one reason. The other is that I feel boxed in on modern Windows systems. You can't do shit. I used to get the same feelings from Macs, which is why I used DOS back in the day.
Having worked in tech support I can see the value of desktop lockdown; but it should be a possibility, not the only way.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
PRODUCT ACTIVATION
I upgraded my wife's computer over the weekend (new Mobo, CPU, and Video) and I had to re-activate Windows. No problem? I don't think so.
I ended up having to call into their help line and read something like 25 numbers to a voice-recognition system and to get something like 25 chars back from a RealLiveHuman(tm) 5 minutes later.
So, all should be good, right? Wrong! Simply moving the HD over to the new configuration and installing the correct drivers made the MOST UNSTABLE system I've ever used. So, I tried going back to a restore point -- guess what? It was PRE-ACTIVATION so I had to call again. Still, after another call, the machine was broken.
Finally, I decided to just re-install. Guess what, ANOTHER CALL!
It's just silly that Microsoft is SO concerned about their $100-or-so per computer that they make people jump through these hoops. It's like the music business: people who want to use the product will buy it, either with a PC or stand-alone. The people who illegally copy it weren't going to pay for it anyway.
Fortunately, there's a happy ending: all this nonsense has my wife willing to try Linux (Fedora Core) so we'll be giving that a shot! (on a new HD, so we can go back to Windows if we have to...)
Cheers,
Ken
Honestly, who at Microsoft thought this was a good idea: "Start / Settings / Control Panel / Add/Remove Hardware / Next / Uninstall/Unplug a device / Next / Unplug/Eject a device / Next / Select device / Next"
I like an easy life. Free from Application errors, licence numbers, bugfix delays, unexplained crashes and unpredictability. Linux, BSD, Darwin and Inferno behave as they should, as one would expect, and according to the manual. If they don't, then it's a bug and it gets fixed.
I like knowing my systems are going to stay up, and if they should ever fail, which in general they don't, I'd like to know they'll be fixed asap without me having to take the blame and pay.
Open source makes the world a better place.
The lack of games is a big plus sometimes. I had started to play Asheron's Call 2, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, and I was spening entirely too much time playing it. I booted in to linux one day and told myself that I wasn't going to boot back. So far, I've found more interresting things to do than play AC2, and I've had a lot more free time. Don't get me wrong, games are great, but you can accomplish a lot more without them as a distraction. To sum it all up, I've been staying out of windows because I think that using linux has made me a better person.
--untwisted
- lack of cross platform compatibility
- OS lockin through products or development languages (SQL Server, C#, etc)
- poor security
- poor stability
- code bloat/ excessive functionality
- lack of choice; choices are forced down your throat on install
- no built in firewall or other security features
- closed environment that cannot be modified
- want to do everything for you
I like choice and Microsoft doesn't. That's pretty much it.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I'm a UNIX guy myself, but a few months ago we started co-locing a Windows server. The "Manage Your Server" program (under Start->Programs->Administrative) has to be one of the easiest things to use when you're not entirely sure what you want to do.
I'm not talking raw power, or admining 50 boxen, something that you'd want someone who knows the ins and outs of the system for. I'm talking easy basic server administration looking for a "good enough" result.
Even the individual server admin screens are pretty easy to follow. I needed to add a new virtual domain to IIS - something I can do to Apache in my sleep. Followed the linky to the admin page, right-clicked on the "Web Sites" folder, chose "New...". Entered a description, the folder, IP, port, etc. Chose the default "Read" permission.
Did that take me longer to do that it would have done in Apache? Absolutely. Was it faster than it would have taken an IIS wizard to accomplish the same task? Almost certainly.
It gets more interesting though - right click on the new website and choose "Properties." Hmm - performance. There's a checkbox/field to limit network bandwidth to this site. Cool. Not something that I need, but the exploratory nature revealed it and - I have to admit - I don't know how to accomplish the same task using Apache. I've never needed to, and I'm sure that I could figure it out with a lot of STFWing...
But, for lone box / untrained admin situations, I have to say that Windows Server is surprisingly, even remarkably, easy to use.
For this UNIX admin, anyway.
Oh, and as for DNS - on that same program (which starts by default on your administrator account unless you've disabled it), you can choose "Add role" and then "DNS server" and be walked through the entire process. Just a thought.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
My reasons:
- Slow bloated feel
- Awkward UI
- Buggy
- Insecure, always virus concerns
- Expensive
- Everything takes 10 clicks.
Mac OS X showed me how great an OS can feel
- Smooth slim feel
- UI feels right (can't explain it much better than that)
- never crashed
- software update is nice and elequent, pretty secure.
- inexpensive ($129 isn't to bad)
- minimal clicks.
Overall: Higher quality, gets my vote every time. Windows is just an inferior product.
Because...
* Windows isn't as elegant and pleasant to use as other alternatives.
* Windows isn't as well integrated (hardware / software / OS) as alternatives.
* Windows (and some other OS') make me work on the OS before I can get to doing what I'm *actually* trying to accomplish.
* Windows makes me spend significantly more time on patching & security compared with alternatives.
I *do* use Windows2000 / XP / 2003 daily at work, and can say with certainty that it's more effort to manage by comparison.
I usually run KDE or GNOME (neither one seems to really have a speed advantage on the other) and sometimes XFCE (which does seem a little bit faster) on Fedora Core 1 and Mandrake 10.0 but running the same program (Open Office.org or Mozilla) it definitely runs slower in Linux. This is noticible both on my Athlon XP 2400 and my 450 Mhz laptop. Just basic things about the GUI seem to run slower (moving windows, etc).
Am I missing something here? Should I be messing more with the configurations? Are people who talk about the speed of linux using blackbox without any eye candy whatsoever? I know this is slightly off-topic, but I'll tell ya, the speed issue makes me more likely to start up Windows instead of Linux, and I'm wondering why people say linux is faster.
I would say that I'm cheap (or perhaps I just hate wasting money) and I don't believe in pirating software. Most people that I know who are loyally committed to Windows pirate a great deal of their software. It bothers me that someone would dismiss Linux and praise Windows but will not pay for Windows or Windows apps. Also, if a "free" application is just as good as a "non free" application its logical to pick the free version. Even when the "free' version is not as good it still makes sense to pick it if it meets your needs. Let face it, I eat more ground beef than filet mignon even though the filet mignon is better. It is simple economic logic. I bet if someone could end all pirating of software it would not be long before the majority of people where using Linux.
Why do I avoid MS?
Because I never had to submit to the Borg in the first place. My background is in graphic design and type design, and all the cool stuff in that little world was on the Mac OS, so I never had to get a Windows Machine. I *did* have to aquaint myself to the Borg Mind that is Windows, and when I was doing technical support in the late 1990s, I had to get *really* good at it (win3.1, 95, 98, NT). Everytime I found myself in the depths of the living pit of despair and mediocrity that is Windows, my love for that which is not MS only grew.
I still think the MacOS, specifically OSX, is superior to Linux, but I am also fairly well convinced that Linux OSs will be of comparable quality and ease of use in less than 5 years. Once the apps on Linux get GUIs worth using and looking at (which I also believe will be in the next 5 years), then Apple will have an interesting dilemma, but not half as interesting as what MS will face in the next few years in trying to get the travesty that is Longhorn out the door.
At first, I detested Windows because of its instability. Look at it sideways and the BSOD would come visit. Woof. MacOS v7 - 9 wasn't any prize for stability, but it did improve over time, and would often fail in a less spectacular way. Linux has always (to me) been more stable than either, except for OSX.
Another thing I dislike about Windows is its gamma. Looking into a windows machine is a dim and dingy thing compared to Apple. (I wish Linux were brighter as well...) And the OS has always been cumbersome, ugly and just plain nasty. Remember IRQs? What a load that was - just to hook up a freaking scanner or install a CD drive was often a nightmare in Windows.
So, let's see- it was ugly (still is, IMHO), unstable, unfriendly, and owned by a rapacious monopolistic enterprise run by an autistic geek and Monkey Boy. It's an insecure system in continuous need of updating, it's the source of continuous viruses and worms because of the Swiss Cheese nature of the OS and VB.
What exactly is there to BRING me to Windows? So I can trade .doc files with every other office drone?
So: that's why I don't use Windows. It's Just Not Worth The Hassle.
HW
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Ahhh, so you are evaluating your software based on looks of the people in the company? Wow. Can it get any more closed minded than that?
You know, I feel sorry for you and the people expressing similar sentiments. I like WindowMaker and X-chat, OS X and Qt, iTunes and Excel. And, Lord help me, I love my TiBook. It's pleasurable to work with tools you enjoy, and let you extend yourself. What they make you use at work is one thing, but I can't imagine sitting at a home computer boiling with demented rage at Rob Enderle. I doubt if the ex-Mrs. Enderle* does that.
* Purely hypothetical -- I have no idea if such a person exists or not, or what OS she uses.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Then I made the mistake of connecting to windows update... Suddenly all my programs started crashing,
Perhaps there was a specific issue with one of the patches and another piece of software you had installed? I find it extremely hard to believe that your entire system would begin to constantly crash for some unknown reason.
If you're savvy enough to use SSH and VNC and all that, why didn't you at least educate yourself about the updates a bit before installing them?
Yes, some of the patches have caused problems that were not disclosed or known beforehand, but this is relatively rare, and you can generally either uninstall the patch or fix whatever issue it has caused.
the windows on the desktop would pick a stacking order and not be convinced to alter it,
This is so inane, it's funny. What, you couldn't figure out how to move through/around your various program windows? Give me a break...You sound like one of those people that equates everything they don't understand about computers to ghosts or magic or something.
Windows may have some odd quirks, but unless you're infected with a virus or trojan or have some extremely rare issue that i'm not aware of, your program windows do not pick screen positions and refuse to move.
and the new and improved active-X made all of my favorite games (diablo) unusable.
Utter rubbish.
First of all, what you're referring to in this context would be DirectX, not "active-X".
Secondly, your claim that it suddenly made all your games stop working is even more laughable. More specifically, i've been using Diablo, Diablo II, and Lord of Destruction under 3 different versions of DirectX (including the most current) over the years with absolutely no problems at all. So have thousands and thousands of other people.
I cannot recall more than one or two old non-DOS-based games that do not work now, and several that new DirectX versions actually improved.
Oh yeah, I occasionally boot windows to see how crappy my various websites render under IE.
God, could you be any more determined to ignore and twist the facts to suit your ranting?
I'll help you out on this one - if you don't like IE, try this. Works as good or better than IE for pretty much everything except Shockwave and Flash. There's a Windows version of Mozilla, too. And Opera.
So final answer: I keep off windows because it sucks. Also I do not want to support an abusive monopoly.
Judging from the complaints you bring up, I find it extremely hard to believe you have used Windows recently, if at all.
Feel free to respond, I have a feeling i'd enjoy it.
Actually, what ticks me off is that Windows makes it easier to unplug a device incorrectly than it does to do so correctly.
On Windows, if I want to eject my iPod or my camera, I have to click unplug device. Then I have to click the device i want to unplug. Then I have to select the device. Then it tells me I'll also be turning off the filesystem on the drive (duh). Then is asks if I'm sure. Then it tells me it ejected okay.
That's 4 windows opened. If I just pull the cable, I only get one window. Guess which one I do?
On Mac OSX, if I jack the plug on my iPod or my camera, I get a single message telling me I did something stupid and probably screwed my file system (whcih, on the camera, i probably did). If I drag it to the trash, or click the eject button over the volume in the finder, and i'm not using a file on the drive, it ejects and doesn't even give me a window. It becomes LESS of a hassle to do it right!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I use it because Windows is completely closed. I love programming and Linux makes it easy to screw around with (screw up?) anything.
Heck, Windows doesn't even ship with QuickBasic anymore. They've certainly made it clear you aren't welcome to explore (unless you have several hundred for VS.NET).
Too bad too; I think a lot of youth are missing out on the excitment of programming because of this too. I don't think MS is really interested in fostering more programmers. They have the ones they feel they need.
So anyways - like I said before I started rambling. I love to program and I'll never run out of possibilities with Linux so I love it. I'm like a kid in a candy store.
It motivates me to participate and grow.
BTW - I can relate to 'easier to diagnose problems' argument too.
"Honestly, who at Microsoft thought this was a good idea: "Start / Settings / Control Panel / Add/Remove Hardware / Next / Uninstall/Unplug a device / Next / Unplug/Eject a device / Next / Select device / Next"...when the Apple engineers tell you: "Unplug the device from your Macintosh."
That's funny, when I eject a device, a little icon appears on my system tray. Double click it, pick the one you want to turn off, and a message tells you it's ready to go. How would anybody know that? If you unplug something without doing this, you get a nice little message explaining it to you, and it shows you what to do.
I doubt it's as nice as what Apple has, but it's nowhere near as dramatic as you're making it out top be.
"Derp de derp."
Yes, I used atari from it's beginning.. I always disliked windows, which is user unfriendly and very buggy and unstable. At one time, I was kind of forced to use windows, cos linux was so primitive, and atari was a little bit underpowered for the time. So at about P1 133, I began using windows, without liking it much at all. When I saw there was an alternative that was customisable and useable graphically, I began to love linux.. Now I adhere to opensource philosophy. I must admit I used windows for 4 years or so, this was about the period I was nearly away from computing because I had not much interest in it. Now I use Linux and OpenBSD, and I have regained interest in computing as I am now working in IT...
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
Microsoft refuses to allow me to run MS Windows. This is because I can't agree to their EULA.
I'm going to reply to my own comment to remark why my wife currently uses Linux. I'm a technical person (sysadmin) but my wife has her BA in Literature and her MA in Theology. No technical background there. And she also is as non-technical as you can get.
But my wife asked to move off Windows. Why? Because she was tired of Windows viruses, of always having to apply updates to Windows (sometimes that would break her system ... usually when a paper was due the next day.) Generally, she considered Windows to be buggy, and Microsoft software (Office, ..) to be just as buggy.
Today, my wife is happily using Fedora Core on her 600MHz 128MB laptop. Try running Windows XP in that footprint. She runs Mozilla for her browser and to check email, she finished her thesis work on StarOffice (she felt a little better about using an office suite she had to pay for - no problem on my end .. whatever makes her more comfortable with Linux.)
She's writing a book for publication using OpenOffice (after the thesis was finished, she decided to give OpenOffice a try.) She visits web sites that use flash or java plugins, and is able to see all the content.
As far as my wife is concerned, Linux is just as good as a Windows box. Or rather, Linux is even better. When she sees that another round of Windows viruses has appeared, she sort of cackles about those "poor Windows users." :-)
Ahhh, so you are evaluating your software based on looks of the people in the company? Wow. Can it get any more closed minded than that?
Actually, I'd say it's ironic, not just close minded. I mean, have you seen some of the gurus of "open source" lately?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Dragging the disk to the trash/recycle can always seemed like a strongly counter-intuitive practice to me. The trash can is for deleting things. Why would I put my 4,000 page thesis document, that I just completed after 6 semesters of hard work, which I'm keeping only on a single floppy in to the trash can? When undocking my laptop, I don't stick it in the local waste recepticle.
Much more intuitive IMO would have been an eject icon over which you can drag items (similar to how OSX's recycle can appears while dragging a disk). Better yet, what about a button on the case labeled "Eject?" I understand that purely mechanical ejects aren't feasible for performance reasons (floppies on PC's have to write immediately because of this), but why not have one that sent an eject request to the system, performing the same internal tasks as when you drug a disk to the trash?
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Okay, I'm a Windows user who somehow got a magic computer that runs it just fine. I'm more or less happy. I'm productive. Maintaining it hasn't been a problem. Stability hasn't been a problem. All my software works. I can do my job. Etc. I kind of thought some of you would find hearing from somebody with this experience kind of interesting. I can't answer the question "What's keeping me from Windows", but I can answer "Why would I want to leave?" Simply put, as my work load goes up, my time to tinker with computers goes down. I have reached a point where endlessly tweaking everything I've got is no longer fun. I've got my basic needs, now I want a appliance-esque machine that's ready to go and never need configuring.
So where do I want to go? Not Linux. Sorry folks, too much tinkering and looking up how to do basic things. I've tried, lots and lots of times. Instead, I'd rather go Apple. I can go buy an Apple laptop right now, have everything ready to go, and get just about all the software I want to run for it. No more Windows rot. Installation of new toys such as iPods or wireless routers etc is painless. The stand by mode doesn't rot over time. I could keep going.
Windows is working just fine for me. But I am sick of being paranoid about making backups. I am sick of knowing I have to reinstall Windows every 6 months or so. On top of all that, I'm tired of explaining to people that I don't have the problems they've had. Most of all, I'm tired of going into over-analytical mode when the minutist thing happens.
Windows isn't the worst thing in the world to me by any stretch of the imagination. Moving to Apple would be a nice luxurious move for me. I can't really say that I'm being forced in that direction, though. Maybe one day the Linux community will figure out that usability really is an interseting aspect to pursue and I'll be able to be more 'luxurious' for free.
If Microsoft had CRUSHED Apple years ago, that wide-open market wouldn't be there for Microsoft to grab... they'd have to have thought of it themselves, implemented it, gotten it to sell.
The advantage of competitors is that your competitors do some of the foot-work for you, take some of the risks for you. What you want to do is wait until the copmetitor has made a new product work, then beat their product.
Of course, that's what Microsoft is so good at...
One of the things that annoys me about windows is that your machine becomes part of a very open and highly competitive marketplace. Every application you install wants to take over as much of your space as it can, and does its best to elbow out any competing applications.
For example, my Mum has an XP machine. She has a flatbed Epson scanner, but her Lexmark printer can scan too. Plus I got her a Canon digital camera. If you install the bundled software that comes with all these products (and you have to install at least part of all of them) your machine is a total pickle. Sometimes images pop up in one application, sometimes in another. They fight over who is going to control the printer. They all have a simple image editor, these editors are all completely different, and worst of all, they all have elaborate skins to emphasise their branding. The Canon one was the worst: my Mum is 70 and has trouble reading buttons where the button text is a fixed size rather small bitmap in an unreadable "futuristic" font and is (wait for it) dark grey on mid grey. In fact even working out which bits of the screen are buttons and which are decoration can be pretty challenging.
By contrast Macs are a delight to use because (almost) the only software available is made by Apple and actually (gasp) cooperates. And Linux, erm, well it's not a delight to use, but if you enjoy tinkering it can be OK, and at least most projects try to rub along discreetly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Having worked for an ISP for some time now, I have grown accustomed to using vim, sed, awk, grep, and a variety of other tools. I utilize command shells for practically everything (force of habit,) and I am actually more error prone in a drag/drop environment than using a command line. I'm extremely unhappy with the quality of the Windows 'cmd' command line interface. At this point, the only use I have for Windows is to play the everpopular first person shooters, for which I dual boot. I dislike the lack of remote control in windows. I'd really like to be able to SSH in and do everything from a command prompt that I could do with the normal interface, but the Windows XP Telnet interface is crippling. There is something quite inflexible about Windows, and I find it disturbing. When I leave home, I must check to make sure my dual booting system is running in Linux (the default,) or I won't be able to access it from elsewhere. Diverse filesystem access is also lacking, as I can access my NTFS partition read-only from Linux, but I cannot access my EXT3 partition at all from Windows. I think that just about sums it up.
I've been off of windows for 3 years. I have 3 Redhat machines and just bought a PowerBook last week. The main reason for me to not swtich from Windows was that I couldn't give up all of the games. These days I have one windows machine that I use for Battlefield.
The main thing keeping me from going back to windows is that I realize that I don't need windows to do what I want. I'm happy coding java in vim and NOT having lockups. The alternative software is getting better, and for most everyone OpenOffice or AbiWord will do whatever they want. Evolution is one of the best email apps I've used, except for Mail.app now. But, it's just that I know I don't have to use windows that's keeping me away from it.
I bet there's a lot of people here who would seriously switch completely to Mac or Linux if they could give up their games, or get different games. Frozen Bubble is only really entertaining for the first few weeks. As far as doing real work like websites and java, anything BUT windows is the way to go.
Would you blame Ford if your friend borrowed your car and wrecked it?
No, I would blame Firestone.
Maybe no looks but it's a metaphor. Balmer, Gates, Alchin etc are very slimy people who run a slimy company that does slimy things.
To me the fact that MS paid ADTI to write a book sliming Linus and open source is reason enough to shun them. Add to that funding SCO, paying the likes of Enderlee and DiDio to publish bogus research and the thousands of other sleazy tactics.
To me It's important to support companies who act ethically. I realize that every dollar I spend can either make the world a better place or a worse one. I don't buy GM modified food, I don't buy Microsoft.
evil is as evil does
I use effects software (distortion, flanger, recording and etc) and this software would cost a bundle to get it all on windows or the mac. Also, I have been able to configure my machine to run on a fairly minimalist setup (Kdrive X Server) and a shrunk down kernel and found through trial and error that the deadline schedular is the fastest hands down for audio. (uses less than 32megs of ram) I use creox, ecamegapedal, gtkguitune, ExEf, Audacity, Xmms, Kguitar ... and several other pieces software. I would say for a garage band with little $$, linux is the best way to go. It also seems to have a larger software selection than OSX and windows when it comes to guitar software that is cheap or almost free. I also get the best responsiveness and least latency compared to windows or OSX, even though the kernel still has some nasty bugs that I can make my system crash(took a lot of kernel customization though). I think the customization aspects scare the non-savy people away. But if you don't mind a little frustration with getting things working right, linux is the best platform hands down for a budget musician.
All and all it just works the best if you are into audio and sound tweaking. I did not take linux seriously until about a year ago and it was always just a hobby platform and now I never boot into windows. Even word processing with Microsoft Word or Open Office seems to work great (thanks to the folks at winehq). Linux is more like hardware was in the late 70's and early 80s. It is sort of like building stuff from kits and making it work. It has rough corners, but once it works, it always works.
-Ron
Rather than ask amongst Slashdot users "What keeps you off of Windows?", perhaps we should ask the rest of the computing public a much more interesting question.
What keeps you off of Linux?
The first question merely allows us to puff out our collective chests and bleat for the rest of the assmbled throng. Then we nod appreciatively at our confirmation of the "obvious". Tell it brother!
But why don't more people use Linux or BSD (and their collective assortment of redheaded step-children)? What aren't we doing right that there isn't greater acknowlegement of the beneifts outlined in countless posts here. The question is not that far removed from the ease with which some snake oil salesman from the land of de Tocqueville is able to con the masses about Linux and Open Source.
Open Source and Linux need a really good PR guru that can get our voice heard. A few shouts in the wilderness ain't doing the job.
Then again, maybe we need to spend more time on improving this mouse trap so the world will beat a path to our door.
That's the exact same method used to install fonts for over a year now in Gnome. I'm guessing that KDE has the same thing.
-Mark
I would love to stop using Windows. Problem is, I can't - on my desktop at least (15/17 servers run Open/FreeBSD).
There are some simple reasons why the desktop switch won't work for me:
1) Application Support!
The work I do fits into 2 categories, artistic/creative and technical - mainly for the web, homebrew intranet apps, and the oddball video production.
I need Photoshop (Gimp, while mature, is not a good replacement). I need Premiere. I need IE (for testing purposes, I swear!).
I need to be able to encode to Windows Media A/V formats (the best in streaming for 90% of any web author's target audience - Quicktime doesn't have the install base, and Real is... well Real is Real!)
2) Game Support
While I don't play games much for Leisure, I do need them for work (www.gotfrag.com).
If they would all run under Wine easily, legally, and the first time without and screwing around, I'd be game in this dept - but they dont, and therefore I'm not. There's been a lot of progress here, but there are those of us who can't spend hours to get a game running.
3) Desktop Support
No matter how much I try, I still can't get used to KDE/GNOME. It's not that I'm adverse to using something without a start button (haha.. well, nevermind that in this case) - I love OS X, but the feel that KDE and Gnome exhibit is, well, a bit rough around the edges. Not to mention the problem of having to choose one and live with all of the repercussions of not being in the other.
In my opinion (as the average user), here's what Linux/BSD needs to be king of the desktop:
1) A standardized UI/API that the developers can get behind. Sorry, but someone has to champion this thing. Microsoft is GREAT at getting developers behind their UI design choices, KDE/GNOME haven't done so well. Apps need to feel right to all users regardless of settings, etc.
2) Commercial software developers have to have reasons to port their software. I don't have the answers here, but 9/10 software companies won't devote the engineering resources to port software unless they see the money in it. I think that one real shot here may be to work through distributors/VAR's to put the pressure on here, and show the sales potential (hopefully it exists).
3) DirectX. Native. OpenGL (and other fringe, unrelated libraries) are no longer useful. DirectX is the platform, and rightly so - it's the best out there. Linux needs it in the worst way, and having it would make porting games incredibly easy. Not to mention that many multimedia related desktop apps are using DX components too!
4) Developer Environment and tools support. Linux/BSD are doing well here. Eclipse is where it's at, everyone should rally around it with the proper plugins to make a fully universal IDE. It works on Windows, perfectly. It will allow more Windows developers to work at porting their software to other systems, because they can jump right in without re-learning the tools and techniques.
That's about all I have, but there's a long way to go. We're making good progress though.
One important note, Linux doesn't have to have a 70% desktop share to win, not even close. What does need to happen, is for MS share to drop significantly. If MS were to drop to around 50% of the market (with Apple, Linux, BSD, WHATEVER!! eating up the rest), it will force developers to port software, OR it will force developers to standardize their users on a single platform. While the 2nd will be messy, it will make them consider what platform to standardize on. Linux does have a lower TCO in most situations, hopefully by that point the masses will be more educated about it's requirements, and the do's and dont's.
Anywho, I can't leave Windows yet. Soon maybe?
I don't mean to sound like an Apple switch ad, but I got jealous of seeing people on Macs never have the problems I did on my PC laptop. They were never the computer-savvy types either. They never had to bother with any technical issues, while I found myself constantly fixing my computer instead of using it. One of the Apple switch ads had somebody saying they got tired of "the operating system always getting in the way", and I was sold. I'm desensetised and numb to advertising like everyone else, but that line really snagged me.
My old laptop would constantly hang whenever I tried to shut it down or put it to sleep. I would have to unplug the AC power adapter and pull out the battery because the power switch wouldn't work. Now that I switched to a PowerBook, I just love being able to wake up my computer and be on the net, using a broadband connection, literally in a second or two. I can turn it on, get on the net for a brief moment, then turn it off.
With my old laptop, I would turn it on, go to the kitchen and start to prepare a meal, come back and hit return, go back to the kitchen to make sure I'm not burning whatever I'm cooking, then come back to browse the net. I remember timing it once and it was something like 15 minutes. That was average. Turning it off would be a similar experience. I couldn't just get off the net and leave the flat. It was like waiting for someone to get dressed to go out. I would shut down the laptop and wait a while until it would hang, because I wouldn't want to interrupt the power in the middle of a disk read/write process in fear of damaging the hard drive. And then I would unplug the AC and battery.
I also got tired of worrying about security vulnerabilities in software I used to hook up to the net. I was really glad to be able to stop using Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. I knew there were other browsers, but I didn't have enough hard drive space to use more than one, because of the bloat-ware factor involved with upgrading to Windows 98 on a Windows 95 laptop. I couldn't get rid of IE because I was using Visual Studio, which required it. The security holes in OE were ridiculous, with email viruses able to infect your computer without you even having to open up an attachment. But I do miss being able to place hyperlinks in an email.
However, I can't say that I'm totally satisfied with OS X. It has great features, but doesn't have the technical feel of previous Mac OS versions at the filesystem level. I keep encountering strange bugs- garbage for permissions names when doing a get info, gigabytes of missing hard drive space on my external drive after using applications, and now the help viewer application won't launch in the Finder. I would know what files to replace on a previous OS version to fix these sorts of problems, but now it is more complicated with OS X. The OS arrangement on the hard drive resembles a Windows system more now, with the graphical front-end feeling more like a superficial facade, rather than a view of the computer's internal workings. It feels like a blind-fold. Application install processes place tons of files all over the place, making them difficult to remove. I remember the old days when, if you installed software that caused conflicts, you could just manually drag out a file in the extensions folder and re-boot. You could remove software and feel secure in knowing that you would end up with the same amount of free space that you had before you installed it. Now you just don't know.
And I preferred it when the file type was separate from the file name.
As much as some people like might to whine about the theoretical security problems of Linux, the fact still remains that it is WinDOS boxes that get rooted and turned into spam gateways.
End users shouldn't have to be neurotic about applying security patches and they shouldn't have to fear email attachments.
This is strictly the Microsoft engineering mentality at work.
Fortunately, we have Linux and Apple.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's even easier with Mac OS X. If you have the Fonts folder in a Finder sidebar or on the Dock you just drag the files to the folder icon and they are installed. The Font Book application that comes with Mac OS X is also great for managing your fonts, as well as installing them.
Not only that but also Mac OS X has much better typography than Mac OS 8.6. It's Display PDF all the way through from font handling to printing. The antialiasing is smarter, the kerning more exact, better handling of Unicode and right-to-left character sets. The text just overall looks better and more consistant.
Sapere aude!
There are some serious security problems inherent in the windows style of user operation; windows users are "Always Root", so to say. This is a BAD THING. Even if Linux were the most widely used operating system out there, few virii would exist for Linux. A trojan (the most common type of virus) cannot infect programs as an unprivileged user.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
... that an operating system called "Windows" would lack something called "Transparency"?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well, lets see. Just this weekend, a friend decided that, since I'm their only computer literate friend, that I would be doing the tech stuff for their nonprofit artists co-op. ;) Well, in Windows, I could have paid tons of money for an NT license and paid for all of the different services I needed, and if I encountered a problem (if??), I'd have to call MS tech support.
;) Every so often I have to use Windows, and almost always I run into the "I-Need-Some-Capability-But-I-Would-Have-To-Pay-Ex tra-For-It" scenario, and not only does it frustrate me, but it blows my mind.
Instead, I tweaked my sendmail config, setup pop3, created them user accounts, made a simple cgi script to enable them to create more at will, installed and setup majordomo, created them a new directory for apache to serve, and didn't spend a dime. All they had to schill out was 10 bucks for the DNS. And the same weekend I setup a streaming radio station so I can listen to my home music at work, using icecast and mserv (ah, mserv... if only they'd iron out the bugs and make it easier to use...)
That is what keeps me off Windows. I'm bloody cheap.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Wow, I haven't even bothered to read any of the other comments, and I'm sure I'm going to add nothing new here, but the reasons keep growing by the day.
//c, an incredibly open archetecture, and I just got used to being able to twiddle with things any way I wanted. I still remember a few of the hex codes for assembly lang. instructions (Ex: 0x20 = JSR, 0x60 = RTS,...)
I started my computing career on an Apple
My Apple broke and for a few years, I didn't have a home computer (gasp!) Of course, at the time I was working as a programmer, so I got plenty of computer time. I quit my job and went back to grad school and decided I wanted a computer. By this point I had heard about the *BSDs and this thing called Linux, and since I decided I loved Unix so much, I thought that I would give Linux a spin.
Of course, I had a dual boot machine at this point. I liked playing with Photoshop (this was in the days before GIMP) and a few other Windows apps, but I couldn't help the feeling of being... restrained. W95 was fun to play with at first, but I was frustrated by the fact that there was only so much you could tinker with. I was a math grad student, and so the fact that TeX was installed by default helped me to stay in the Linux environment most of the time. I played a few games in Windows, but for the most part, Linux was my choice. Viri were around at that point, but they were a relatively minor nuisance, compared to today. And spam? Hadn't really been invented yet. Ahhh, to be able to go back to those days....
Well, to cut a long, rambling post shor.... well, never mind, way too late for that. (Note: Quantity of single malt scotch is directly proportional to length of posts/e-mails.) At this point, it works like this: Every time I turn around, I find another reason not to use Windows. At the end of the day, as much as I love Linux, I'm still not one to slobber over it and denounce Windows; it just seems so childish to do so. On the other hand, I love Unix/Linux so much, and administering said systems, that I've decided to make a career switch to system administration, despite all the outsourcing/bad economy/whatever.
Linux is great technology, and it isn't just the technical part that is great. It's the people. The people I know who are into Linux and Unix are , by and large, enthusiastic about what they do, and that just makes it so much more fun for me. There are of course Windows admins/users like this, but I've met so many pissed off/frustrated ones that it just brings me down.
Oh well, that's my 2 cents (ok, more like four bucks) worth.
1) Stability.
.NET... a *free* ADC account beats the hell out of MS developer program prices. Most apps I need ( and some I just want ) come for free with the machine, which is bundled with a complete OS. The machine is so easy to use, my two-year-old navigates the desktop, web browser, and filesystem. It's easy enough to admin that I've been able to provide him with an account that he can't screw up.
I have a windows machine. It just stopped booting one day. I couldn't get it going again without re-installing the OS. It's done this before. So I stopped using the windows machine, even after taking the time to re-install the system. I still have a mess of drivers I need to install to get the thing working right again, but why bother ?
2) Windows XP broke a chunk of win32 app compatability. I don't feel like buying new versions of those apps, or paying for XP, for that matter. Microsofts' inclination towards per-machine licenses and subscription-based licenses are spooky, too. I'd like to keep my costs down once making a hardware/software purchase.
3) Windows has improved in ease-of-use, but it's still a patchwork of utilities in many ( most ) ways, and there is a bare minimum of inter-application conformity and support.
4) Unlike many people, I want a computer system I can program without spending a lot of cash for a set of libraries and compiler.
5) It's not my first consideration, but the business practices of Microsoft make my stomach churn. I'd like to see at least a _few_ viable software companies out there, rather than one monopoly.
That said, (1) stability is my main reason. If my PC had never hosed itself to the point of requiring a system restore, I'd still be using it at least occasionally.
As it is, I've gone on to OS X with the purchase of a flat-panel iMac, and I haven't looked back... programming Objective-C with a powerful, freely provided IDE beats the hell out of Visual Studio
The reason that I use Linux instead of Windows as my primary operating system is that Linux just works better than Windows at the tasks I do. I think the deciding factor in it all though is the fact that no matter how hard I try, Windows just can't in a million years handle my cheap built-in sound card. When I run any program that plays sound it will always give cruddy playback (including going out "randomly" for no apparent reason at all.) Running other programs while using sound is a definite recipie for problems with sound playback. In Linux both OSS and ALSA have worked beautifully for me and never given me a problem (other than a bit of initial trouble setting up ALSA.)
:-P.
Then there's the fact that I run many servers on my desktop computer and don't quite do "desktop computing" with it. Word processing? I certainly don't need that, just need Vim. Anyone with a good distro gets automatic updates of their software, or at least automatic notification. That way I can get security updates the day they're released instead of having to visit each server's page daily to check for updates, were I to try to use the programs in Windows. Besides, I'm sure there's something that I use regularly which lacks a Windows port (I know my webcam software which I wrote myself wouldn't work under Windows.)
I like to see my computer as the "ultimate setup" where everything I can do it so easily accessible. One of the few reasons I used to boot into Windows was to burn CDs and use Paint Shop Pro, but I've since learned that PSP runs fine with Wine and once I get off my lazy butt I'm gonna figure out how to configure this system to burn CDs
Same for programming environments. My editor (emacs or vi) edits; may syntax checker (lint) checks syntax; and my complier (gcc) compiles. This ends up being a far more flexible environment than any of those GUIs that do one thing well (set a breakpoint) but suck at everything else (editing, etc).
For example, many of the best book publishers from the first half of the last century made money to execute business. Victor Gollancz published the Lord Peter Wimsey books to make the money with which he underwrote his Left Book Club. In this country, Random House and Scribners were publishers that used the profits from their bestsellers to underwrite books that they wanted to published - some of which have become the classics of our literature. Nowadays, of course, those once-superb houses have all been gobbled up by corporations, and it's all astrology, diets, and self-help.
Obviously, it's easier for a privately held company to re-invest its profits in doing work that the owners feel should be done; but it's not impossible for a corporation to have a conscience - or a sliver of a conscience, in any case. The much-maligned automakers, I think, do have a commitment to building high-quality vehicles, however, bad they are at it; if they didn't, they would get out of the business altogether. And there are others as well. Perhaps fewer now than there once were; but they're there.
As for Microsoft, I find it hard to believe that its management gives a rat's ass about software; if they did, they wouldn't ship the crap that they do. But I'm not a billionaire, so what the hell do I know?
[this
I mean, have you seen some of the gurus of "open source" lately?
Whatever can you mean?
From the links in my previous post, I learned two things:
a) Alan Cox, you are a scary, hairy man; and
b) I now know why Perl is such a mess: clearly larry couldn't see the code he was writing from behind that moustache.
No offence, you're all smarter than me and I love you, but by the law of the school yard that makes poking fun of you okay.
Ok I hit the wrong button (dumb dumb dumb)
Myr reasons for avoiding windows.
1. Poor quality of UI.
2. Inconsistant UI
3. Age of the technology
4. Number of security holes
5. Lack of applications (Ok the big names are here but the range of applications and things I can do are really small.)
6. Spend more time getting things to work, vs time working to get things done.
7. Two words, Memory Hog
8. Slow as molasses.
9. Poor interoperability with other OS's
10. Poor interoperablility with Windows OS's
11. Poor networking ability.
12. Too many things done autmagically that I can't control or turn off.
13. Too many decisions made by Bill as to what I want.
14. Controls and commands that do what they want despite what is claimed or I want.
15. Preponderance of ancient technology. (IE and Outlook for example)
16. Lack of knowledgeable support (it costs more to get to your problem, than it does to solve your problem. (Yes my monitor is turned on, how does this make Outlook crash?))
17. High cost of hardware. (I have to replace to keep running, not replace when EOL is reached.)
18. I don't like renting software. (or cars, or clothing, or or or.)
19. Lack of configurability.
20. I don't like communism and I don't like M$ for the same reasons.
21. Poor inter application communication.
22. Did I mention that it is butt ugly?
23. I'm sick and tired of Blue and Grey.
24. Poor language support. (If it ain't MFC or C# they don't want it to work.)
25. Forced upgrades.
26. Gates and Balmer support the shrub
27. Lack of control of what my computer is doing.
28. Poor Quality control
29. One size does not fit all (are you listening RH?)
30. Because applications install and run like leaches hanging on a hikers leg memory control is lacking.
31. No true multi-user environment.
32. Poor multi-tasking support.
33. Poor or no documentation of commands available.
34. Poor Double Byte and Unicode support
35. Poor Memory management.
36. And on and on and on and on and on.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
First of all, a little introduction to my environment. I primarily use Mac OS X (TiBook G4), and keep a Linux server running on the Internet somewhere. I use Solaris 2.6 at work (though it is now more or less a dumb-terminal for the Linux server).
What is unusual about me is that I actually grew up in the world of Microsoft. My first programming uses MASM (Microsoft Macro Assembler) 2.0. I hacked the internals of MS-DOS, hacked the internals of Windows 95 when it came out (for the record, I also hacked Windows 2000 a bit later on). The internals (things like how to override system interrupt tables) were secrets that you don't find in many places. I read books written by other people who reverse engineered, and followed their examples to reverse engineer a lot of stuff. However, doing so violates the EULA. But what did I know? I was only 16. A stupid age.
I didn't find out anything about Unix (other than the fact that MS-DOS filesystem somewhat resembles it) until much later. I started using Cygwin on Windows 2000 and gradually became more dependent on the command line tools. One time, I messed up the system so bad, but I did fix it without reformatting my hard drive. It was more hacks through the registry and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. But then I decided to switch to Linux for something different.
At first, I kept a dual boot, but I just never switched back. So I eventually reclaimed the disk space too.
Linux was a very pleasant surprise to me, because everything I want to know (not necessarily I need to know) is available to me. I think that's a great beauty of free software. It's all about freedom of knowledge. I've spent too much youth doing reverse engineering, and I'm sick and tired of it (*). Also, as a yongster, I spent too much time on Windows downloading warez. We didn't have KaZaa back in those days. On Linux, everything I use is perfectly legitimate. And it's good enough for me.
(*) Incidentally, nowadays you can find more developer documentation about Microsoft products on MSDN website, which I would have very much liked earlier.
Now came Mac OS X. It's a nice hybrid of what Windows and Linux have to offer, at the same time. It has a nice UI, and it has the power of command line tools. You can configure a personal site using Apache through point and click (default in localhost/~user), or you can customize /etc/httpd/httpd.conf using vim or emacs. You can configure or compile a program from the command line, or you can use Project Builder (now Xcode) for a nice integrated development environment.
Nowadays I tend to use a lot of remote services like ssh (with X forwarding) or web applications, particularly because I usually keep my machines online, and then I go from one place to another without bring any computers with me. And it's a nice thing (very convenient) that I can use my computers without bring them around. It's what I call ubiquitous computing. I can do that without signing up to some ad-supported and soon-to-be-bankrupt free online services. I can setup whatever service that suit my purpose, instead of what some company thinks I need. Linux does that. Mac OS X does that. Windows is not quite there.
Even if you can run Apache on Windows, you know it never runs as good as on Unix because Apache is not designed for Windows. Even if you can run sshd with Cygwin on Windows, too many things just can't be done because Windows is not designed for sshd. There is Terminal Service for Windows, but you need a Windows Server edition to run it. But hey, I still want to use my machine as a desktop when I get home!
So if you want a punch line ... I use Mac OS X and Linux just because they work for me. I haven't used Windows for a good 3 years now, except where Windows machine is the only kind available to use, and I don't miss too much from it.
P.S., my friends are surprised when I'm able to remotely use my computer running Mac OS X or Linux from their Windows machine. I thank Microsoft and some third pa
I once had a signature.
I started using Unix in 1982 and have found it preferable to everything else I've encountered. I have always had Unix available at work, and since I first installed GNU/Linux in 1995, I've had it on my personal machines as well. So basically I've only used MS Windows (and before it, MS/DOS) on personal machines before I knew about Linux, and occasionally when I have used somebody else's machine or had to write something in MS Word or something like that.
Unix gave me a powerful, flexible system. The command-line is much more powerful than a GUI, with history, aliasing, shell scripts, file globbing, completion, shell variables, loops, and i/o redirection. The Unix philosophy of combining lots of little programs each of which does one job well is extremely powerful. The programming environment is superior, as are many of the individual tools, such as emacs and awk. X Windows from the outset was vastly superior to MS Windows, both because it ran over the network and in its configurability and lack of idiotic restrictions. As I recall, until fairly recently in MS Windows child windows were constrained to be positioned within the parent. Awful! All in all, I have always found Unix to be more powerful and flexible and generally easier to use.
The superiority of Unix documentation is also important. The five volume BSD manual set may not have been as easy going as "Windows for Dummies", but it provided the information I needed to do my work. The various books on Unix internals and programming, starting with the Lyons book, provided real insight that was impossible to get for MS Windows. Most of the time I also had the source, first with BSD, then with GNU/Linux, which both provided the ultimate documentation and allowed me to make modifications.
Being used to a stable and practically bug-free system, I was simply appalled when I discovered how unstable and buggy MS Windows was.
An added attraction of GNU/Linux is the associated community and the ideals of the FLOSS movement. Naturally, there is no such attraction to Microsoft. (I should note that merely being commercial and proprietary doesn't necessarily turn me or other people off. I'm sure that Im not alone in having fond memories of DEC, a company which we felt was on the side of technical people and willing to work with us. For example, when the Microvax came out, our DEC rep gave me a copy of the architecture manual. When a senior researcher from Xerox PARC saw it on my desk, he commented that he, a senior Xerox employee, could only get access to the comparable Xerox manuals on a need-to-know basis.)
Microsoft's disgusting monopolistic behaviour has certainly added to my unwillingness to use Microsoft products, but that is a relatively recent development and just adds to my long-standing technical dislike for MS Windows.