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Windows Nearly Ready For Desktop Use
wallykeyster writes "NewsForge (ed: a Slashdot sister site) has an interesting review of Windows XP Home, written from the perspective of a longtime Linux user (ed: Editor roblimo). The article clearly is intended to be somewhat humorous while making a point to the 'Linux isn't ready for the desktop' crowd. The reviewer does a fair job of pointing out the strengths of Windows along with the weaknesses that would be apparent to someone trying to make the switch from Linux." From the article: "Windows XP can't be considered consumer-ready until it has driver support for common LCD monitors during its installation and bootup procedure, especially if those monitors are easily and routinely recognized by popular Linux distributions. It's possible that the monitor manufacturers aren't willing to give Microsoft and other proprietary operating system companies the information they need to create appropriate drivers and that the manufacturers, not Microsoft, deserve the blame for this problem."
large parts of it read as a critique not of windows per se but rather of the whole money-for-software framework.
examples:
Base Cost (as compared to Linux)
CD-Key
Expense of Additional Applications
lysergically yours
Great article! On more than one level:
On the other hand, I'd like to make my own contribution as to one of the most ongoing and glaring "needs fixing" of XP....
I think one thing that will eventually make Windows XP for HOME (or PRO) ready for the desktop is fixing the START button. I'm still trying to explain to some of the people I have to support "LOGOFF" and "TURN OFF COMPUTER" are accessed by clicking the START button. It's hard to explain to them why when even I don't get it.
Yes, for those people who are cheap-asses who buy graphics cards and 3rd-rate Korean TFTs with absolutely dire or broken DDC support.
It should be noted that X.org balks particularly well on these too, and the
framebuffer drivers don't even check to see if a mode is available before
blindly switching to it.
Parody is one thing, but.. this isn't parody, it's just sniping.
Microsoft:
Linux nearly ready for server use.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I wonder if that was the point? By the standards that the ``Linux isn't ready for the desktop'' crowd apply to Linux, Windows isn't ready for the desktop, either.
I haven't tried to install OSX, so I can say that no OS that I am familiar with is ``ready for the desktop'' by those standards.
Roblimo just took the standard ``Linux isn't ready for the desktop'' article, replaced Linux with Windows and visa versa, and threw in a couple of very accurate slams at Windows weak points.
Good parody, based on truth. That's why it was funny.
See what I've been reading.
I doubt that most users would put up with this problem. I suspect that most would simply return their copy of Windows XP to the store where they bought it and go back to familiar, user-friendly Linux.
You can't return commercial software. You would have to call Microsoft and pay $35/call (or is it $35/minute?)
As far as just about every PC user is concerned.
Windows XP has always (for me, at least) been exemplary when it comes to detecting hardware. The fact that the setup (after copying files for less than a minute) leapt into high colour mode was impressive to say the least.
On my IBM Thinkpad and home brewed PC, everything worked straight out the box, apart from the TV card (which didn't work in Linux at all!).
I have had nothing but trouble configuring X for graphics - this is a bit of a cheap shot and the author should know better.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
And I don't want to start another flamewar about what the best desktop for Linux is...
Why the ferk does a monitor even need a driver?
It bugs me when mundane devices need drivers.
Like keyboards and monitors.
What's next, my power supply will need a driver?
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By the time you know that, you don't need to know that. Just like shutdown being in start, once you know it, it's not a problem.
They are both examples of things that are confusing, but only trivially so. When people harp on things like that, usually means they got nothin'.
It's a valid point of discussion if you are talking about things that could be improved in a UI, nothing wrong with that. All UIs have room for improvement. However it's stupid when you try a "My platform is better than your platform" pissing match with something like that because it's easy to find a similarity on your platform.
Ya, perhaps start isn't the best name for the button, or perhaps shutdown should be elsewhere, but it's not a big deal, and certianly not something Linux can't complatin it does. Try explaining to someone how something sounding as vicious as kill can be used to restart things, with a cryptic flag like -HUP, but also can kill things without mercy with the -9 option. You can almost see the question mark over their heads.
And I wish we'd stop deluding oursleves into believeing that somehow the cool, geeky-tweeky OSs are the same ones that users want to buy and, subsequently, actually use.
Funny thing is, so called "power users" influence the buying habits of the masses. It is just like the perfume companies that market to the trendy 30 year olds with power suits because other women imitate them. People consult any nerds they know before making the big step of buying a computer hoping for some inside tips.
The people who make purchasing descisions for large companies are also computer nerds. You can see this in the slow adoption of desktop linux in large corps and government.
Really though, you just need to take a pill, the guy was just posting some grade A nerd humor.
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the desktop needs to support the hardware the user chooses to use
I would also say that the hardware manufacturer should support the desktop OS that their users choose as well. It is NOT the responsibility of the OS developers to make 3d drivers when it is in fact IMPOSSIBLE to make them. They have made a pretty decent 2D driver, but that's because they have the specs for that part of the video card. ATI is the only company that can make 3d drivers for any OS for their cards, until they release more specs. (Tinfoil hat theory:) I wonder how much money MS pays ATI to not make good drivers for Linux? It IS possible to make high quality and easy to install (relatively speaking) binary 3d drivers for linux. The Nvidia drivers kick ass, and they install by running a script (the drivers are IN the script, neat). Although, you need to close X, and then change one line in your xorg.conf file.
In SUSE Linux, you just need to run the online update, it gives you the option to fetch the nvidia driver (no ati driver), now when you choose your video card in the SUSE configuration program (YaST) it will choose the 3d driver. It can't get easier, it's easier than Windows!
I wish more distros would give you the option to download binary drivers for both ATI and Nvidia. I believe Ubuntu and Gentoo also make it REALLY easy to install the nvidia and ati drivers.
I always thought it was the software that influenced what OS people bought. (See: Gaming, Tax Software, etc)
-]Phreak Out[-
Of course you're completely wrong :
... Then, you are surely not force to update to the latest Linux driver, and it is even discouraged on consumer grade distros. To finish destroy your stupid FUD, there is one driver per architecture for Linux, I see several one for each of the two architectures Windows support.
1) Package managers on Linux have perfectly good installers. Distribution tailored for non-techie like Mandriva commercial PowerPacks include the packages necessary to auto-install NVidia or ATI drivers. And NVidia did not have to write an installer, they used an old one created by a game company.
2) Your problem is in the "almost" all 2000 drivers work as is in XP. In Linux, ALL drivers coming with the kernel that worked in 2.6.10 works in 2.6.11. If you were not biased, you would know that the NVidia kernel driver is NOT SUPPORTED by kernel developers, it SAYS IT LOUD when you load it, and this is NO fault of Linux developers, it is caused by the choice of licencing of NVidia. That is also why free distro can't include the driver out of the box, same for ATI and Java and
3) And that is why every time there is a problem in Windows, people like you come whining that it is caused by bad drivers ? When I used Windows, the NVidia certified drivers were utter crap, only the non certified ones coming from NVidia were good. Please ! Even the certified SCSI driver blue screened XP, and it was a known problem in Windows problems base (which is HUGE).
4) I wonder what is this nonsense you're talking about. Learn what is XOrg compared to XFree before saying such nonsense. And everyone mattering in Linux world has already switched to XOrg.
I can tell you that the peopke I switched to Linux are unable to install any NVidia driver on Windows, they stay with crappy Windows ones.