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OS Combat - Ubuntu Linux Versus Vista
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek pits Ubuntu Linux versus Windows Vista in a detailed comparison. They run down a number of points for this comparison, including installation, hardware support, software, and backup. For IW, backup was a crucial feature. As a result, the conclusion are unusual for this type of review because it straddles the fence. The verdict is: 'a tie, but only because both platforms fall short in some ways. Vista's roster of backup features aren't available in every SKU of the product; Ubuntu doesn't have anything like Vista's shadow copy system and its user-friendly backup tools are pretty rudimentary.'"
The obligatory link to the ad free, one page print version.
Reading through the article Ubuntu really should have had the edge over windows in the end, e.g. Add remove programs in Vista and the package manager Ubuntu work in simila ways but you get a hell of a lot more packages with Ubuntu than you do with Windows. but his summary puts them on equal par.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I installed Feisty this week and it's the first time I install a Linux distro and everything works. Wireless, Video, everything. Finally restricted codecs, drivers and other restricted software is 2 clicks away. Ubuntu is definitely shaping up to something much more user friendly than other/previous. I didn't had to hack any text files nor recompile anything, VMWare Player installed and 3d driver too with a few clicks.
but the fact that the author complains that their printer requires a special driver lets you know what irks them. I know its a bit fanboi-ish to say that if people think they are equal, then Linux (Ubuntu) wins. The general populace has forced many to believe that Windows *IS* the standard to judge Linux against, and now 'it's a tie' is the verdict. That is clearly a win if you look at it as how the competition shapes up against the Windows flagship.
Personally, I installed Ubuntu 6.x to see how it feels, and I'm pleasantly impressed. A couple of hours and everything I need is working fine (YMMV). I know that most of the users that I help would be good to go with Ubuntu. A great many people don't want or need all that an OS can provide. Hell, some of them probably don't need anything more than email and a browser, but that's another story. I think that Redmond needs to be getting worried soon.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Microsoft has an answer to Bash
http://www.microsoft.com/powershell
There are pluses and minuses to every OS.
Each user has to decide what is right for his or herself.
Uh-Duuuuuuuuhhh!
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
What about Monad Shell?
Not Bash, but definitely a good shell. Besides, you can always install Cygwin on Windows.
Come again? Vista has nothing like the Ubuntu software repository. Just because the two look a little similar in the screen shots doesn't make them the same.
Ho hum. It tries to be balanced, bless it, but its clear the reviewer is just going to go back to using Windows once it's all done. It fails it.
Before we get a bunch of people chiming in to say "but XXXXX is easy in ubuntu, you just open a terminal and type..."
I KNOW.
But the audience this is intended for has no intention of using a terminal. Broadly speaking, they are of the opinion that desktop computing should be easy enough that any idiot can do it without having to spend ages learning the nuances of some command you type in.
They are of this opinion thanks to 20 years of GUI R&D in home computing, from the earliest Apple ][ right the way up to Vista today. That's the whole point of the GUI. You don't have to like it, but at least accept that a lot of people do.
As soon as you say "Open a terminal and type sudo apt-get (package)", you've lost.
Frankly, I don't understand what the problem here is: I pop in an Ubuntu CD, hit yes, yes, yeah, sure, why not, and bam! A Working desktop. Not only that, but I can use the LiveCD for web browsing or what have you while the install is going. No dice for Vista (AFAIK).
Ubuntu recognizes all of my hardware at boot (and I have some rather odd hardware on top of it). No hunting down drivers from a now defunct company, or having to sell my sou^H^H^H^H^H^H^H register to a website that says they have the driver, only to find out they were lying.
Linux has all the security of Vista, minus the UAC.
Ubuntu may not have user-friendly backup out of the box (I wouldn't know, I use ssh+rsync), but the repositories for it have a plethora of options that are free.
And if you are in it for teh shiney!!1!!!!111oneoneone, then Ubuntu can cater (at least on a basic level) with its desktop effects. On top of that, you get immediate (or as near as can be) security updates, and even better a method to upgrade (quite flawlessly, from my experience) to the next version.
Oh yeah, ummm, Ubuntu = free (as in beer, choice, and ideology), Windows = $$$+DRM.
So, why the fence sitting?
FTA:
Add/Remove Applications lets you search the entire directory of applications recommended for Ubuntu -- dozens of programs in 11 categories -- and install them with little effort. I added applications like Adobe Reader and the Thunderbird mail client without too much difficulty. It all compares pretty favorably to Windows's Add/Remove Programs system, which should be familiar to everyone reading this.
I stopped reading after this. Anyone who thinks Ubuntu's package management 'compares favourably' to add/remove programs is not in his senses.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
Your right. it's not the feature count that matters. It's little things like does it have Bash (or for me Perl) that are disprortionately large factors. On the other hand, I'd be kidding my self if I thought there were a lot of perl and bash users out there. it's spit in the ocean of devil spawned end users.
Linux shoul dnot try to play microsoft's game of putting up feature charts and trying to claim them all. What matters to the user is how good a tool it ends up being and that things like consistency of use, intuitiveness and in fact hiding stuff from the user that they don't need to know about.
Windows does a better job than Linux at seemlessness. That is you can configure a lot more things in the gui, and expect them to actually work, before you have to open the hood an dive into the scarey bits. On the other hand things like KDE and GNome, do expose a lot more raw power in a very accessible gui way than windows. For a certain class of user, windows just dumbs things down too much.
For me the sweet spot between power and seemlessness and data hiding is Mac OSX. My mom, who really can't operate a 3 button mouse, is able to use it. Yet Me a power user loves it too. I have hundreds of linux machines yet my desktop machine is nearly always mac osx.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The verdict is: 'a tie, but only because both platforms fall short in some ways. Vista's roster of backup features aren't available in every SKU of the product; Ubuntu doesn't have anything like Vista's shadow copy system and its user-friendly backup tools are pretty rudimentary.'"
This is only the conclusion for the backup portion of the review. I looks like the submitter didn't make it to the last page. The actual conclusion?:
Ubuntu's best strength is handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff. Vista has a level of completeness and polish that some people find it hard to do without.
I half expected to see the Ubuntu and Vista development teams engaged in some sort of firefight -- blood, gore, explosions, and the like. Imagine my disappointment.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
A tie! This is a big frickin' deal, people! Remember "Linux will never work on the desktop"? And now quasi-mainstream press says it's just as good as Windows Vista?
The Ubuntu team should be very proud.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
If the author means that Beryl has all the same effects that Aero does, then I'd agree. But if he's implying that Aero has all the visual effects that Beryl has, he's lost his f-ing mind.
http://www.mhall119.com
In Vista, the package manager is mainly for removing programs unless you are talking about adding a windows component. Ubuntu's package is far superior in this case. It displays available programs in categories and you can also filter for support level such as "Open source applications", "Ubuntu supported", "Any {damn} application", etc..
Add remove programs in Vista and the package manager Ubuntu work in simila ways
:)
Not even that. I mean, in Ubuntu I can install applications with it, in Windows I just can uninstall them. I think I find Ubuntu's solution much more useful then
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
On photo editing
"50-50 -- Vista for its Picture Gallery [> F-spot]; Ubuntu for having a better native image editor than Paint."
Now, maybe the Picture Gallery does edge out Fspot (I've never used it, but author says for example bulk import is backgrounded, and tagging scores of pics at once is easier) but is this comparable to how far Paint falls behind the gimp?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
It's a tie in the multimedia category despite the Ubuntu codecs having to be added after install.
Last time I checked, XP could not even play avi files using the DivX codecs (i.e., 90% of P2P) without hunting down a codec package. Media Player just said "can't find codec". Has this changed in Vista? Because In Ubuntu 7.04 it certainly is automatic.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
"Ubuntu's best strength is handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff. Vista has a level of completeness and polish that some people find it hard to do without."
That is the author's final conclusion. But, but, that says that Linux works better for everyday computer users, and Windows is full of the "polish" that "some people" enjoy. I find it odd that the author, as a self-professed Vista fan, would give these definitions. I thought that the draw of Windows was that it "just worked" and people would make the switch if Linux supported all their "day-to-day stuff". You heard it here folks! Linux's time has arrived!
Feisty looks pretty keen, I'll have to see about upgrading my Edgy box.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
Except that this does nothing to protect you from drive failure.
Has anyone ever actually used Add/Remove programs to, you know, ADD a program?
Now we can finally settle this which-OS-is-better debate once and for all!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
This disturbs me as the person who has written the article had not previously used Ubuntu until he/she decided to write this article. Ubuntu, I can firmly say, has been around significantly longer than Vista. Granted he/she could have said the "Windows" Add/Remove.
The section concerning Image-Editing/Picture management being a tie also seems to give more credit to Vista. The fact of having GIMP alone blows vista out of the water let alone the several picture managers available on Ubuntu.
Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
but shouldn't Ubuntu win out, all other things being equal, simply because it's free (as in beer)? Come on, last time I checked, not too many people (that I know, anyway) could afford a fully-enabled Vista ($400 retail), but everyone can afford a fully-enabled Ubuntu ($0 via ShipIt).
I am not an animal! I am something worse!
Actually, I would wager that it's very much the other way 'round: Windows is best for the power user (who is generally used to Windows and knows all of its little quirks and tricks and would have to relearn these on another OS). Linux is best for the highly advanced user (who can tweak it as much as they want) or for the beginner user (who just clicks and takes what they're given, because they don't have much to relearn). The main problem is 1) software support and 2) hardware support (especially vendor-customized installations which can work around the quirks and breakage of each individual piece), which is due to market inertia (i.e. Windows is 95% of the desktop market), not innate superiority or inferiority of the platform. Of course, if Windows were not a monopoly, then even the power users would like linux, since they'd already be familiar with it, not Windows.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
So it allows for using features equivalent to cat, grep, and such forth - however, the thing which I believe makes cli on *nix superior is how so many of the programs can be manipulated via command line. For example (ok, so its kinda niche) making a custom script to manipulate a video capture program to take feed from a webcam and put stillshots into an apache web-host directory, making a cheap video surveillance viewable from a browser...
Now to do that in Windows, it would take actual C programming (or a language of the type), correct?
While Ubuntu's package management is technically much, much, much better than that on Windows since it includes application discovery and acquisition and updates, it is in some practical, workflows inferior. No matter how large your software repository is, there will always be binaries distributed via a Website or on CD or via some other mechanism. On Windows this means you do discovery, acquisition, and updates by hand, the same as every other program. On Linux it means you have a special case where you do all those by hand as well as installation and uninstallation by hand. This means users have to juggle two techniques and remember which applies to which software. This is an area where Linux in general could improve. Package managers are built around the concept of open source software and thus everything you need can be in a repository. When software is not in a repository, it is not handled well and I don't know any package manager for Linux that supports using a software package from some random Website, and managing the install, registration, and updates for that application through the standard package manager. Hopefully this deficiency can be addressed if linux ever gains serious market share on the desktop.
What games? With a little patience, most games can be run in Linux.
Note: I am looking to help this person make the shift to Linux, I'm not arguing that Windows games "just work" in any distro. It does take some jerry-rigging and trial-and-error; however, there are many good guides and it's completely worth my time to help someone figure it out.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
The author apparently forgot one important point: you also don't need to pay for antivirus/antispyware tools on Ubuntu. IMHO, that serves as a tiebreaker for Ubuntu.
Let's also not forget what you can do now with Parallels and VMWare while happily running Ubuntu as your main OS.
A swap of a SATA cable and my Win XP machine becomes an Ubuntu 6.10 machine. I need to be able to support Linux but don't need it very often.
I was shocked that my network connection Just Worked on first install. But my screen was at the wrong resolution, and I had no 3d acceleration. Time to install nVidia drivers.
A day later, now with experience with run modes and editing config files, I had nVidia drivers installed and my 3d app worked fine. It turned out to be simple, but there are an overwhelming number of bad-advice posts to be found on googling for help. This is A Big Problem.
Google a windows problem and you'll find some easy-to-understand magazine editor to explain it, or something on Microsoft's site. Google a linux problem and you get geek-speak. And most of it is bad advice. Usually the bad advice...
"edit the conflabulating confic spec generator and type '@*$&T IU H@U HR@&*&@BFG @&(G' at the third prompt"
is answered with
"No, don't do that! You'll gaspulate the modulating interferometerizing reverse vectral sync mode!"
so you avoid those. Eventually you end up typing '@*$&T IU *^HC* HR@&*&@BFG @&(G' at the *fourth* prompt, because nobody had a heart attack over that suggestion. But then your modulating interferometerizing reverse vectral sync mode is fubar, anyway.
Anyway, I eventually found a suggestion that looked more elegant than the rest and didn't involve editing any conflabulating confic spec generators, wiped to drive and started from scratch, and the nVidia drivers Just Worked.
If I had the power to Make It So, I'd purge 90% of the online linux discussion, because most of it is crap.
I think the author is a little pre-disposed of his results here:
...2 months?). On Windows I see my installed software, on Ubuntu I can also download and install millions of software packages.
First page:
-I need to load extra drivers for Vista before I can even install the thing I have to use another computer to download it on a USB stick, I go through a simple installation procedure for both systems, I can run Ubuntu in Live or Repair mode or install it, I don't know how to save things like settings to the hard drive for re-use in Live mode, it has memory and media integrity and backup tools though. I can restore a Vista backup and run Vista for free... for 30 days...
Result: Well, Ubuntu has a slight edge, but only because of the live mode.
Second page:
-I need to load extra drivers for Ubuntu because I have a cheap-ass printer, I can just download them, but djee, I have to look for them and read how to install them on my machine. I forgot all about the STORAGE drivers on the previous page, but anyway, I have to do the same for Windows, but I don't seem to mind as much. I plug in some stuff, it works on both machines. I try cheap-ass rebranded Lexmark scanner that doesn't identify itself properly and it doesn't work.
Result: Well, Windows works simpler with Plug-n-Pray hardware although I have to go through the same actions on both systems. Stupid hardware manufacturers make trouble.
Third page:
-The Synaptic interface (that has been around for years) seems to have been ripped off of Vista (that has been around for
Result: It's a tie
[verbatim quote]:
-Ubuntu's default e-mail client is Evolution, which contains calendaring and contact management; it's not hard to switch to another client (like Thunderbird) if needed.
-Vista's default e-mail client, the newly-designed Microsoft Mail, sports a calendaring application but is, on the whole, still highly limited.
Result: Windows, but only by a hair.
[/verbatim quote]
Page 7:
[again verbatim]
-Ubuntu's Konserve program is a simple directory-to-directory backup that works across a variety of media, including FTP.
-Vista's backup tool has been derided for having some terrible limitations
Result: A tie
[/again verbatim]
Total result (this is again a verbatim quote):
Ubuntu's best strength is handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff. Vista has a level of completeness and polish that some people find it hard to do without.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Having your system and user data on separate partitions, or better yet separate drives, is certainly a start, but you're still carrying all your eggs in one basket. If the drive that the data is on fails, or you accidentally run "sudo rm -rf /home" then you're still screwed. And you don't have versioning, which a lot of people want.
I agree that whole-disk imaging probably isn't as big a demand on Linux as it is on Windows (probably because you have to constantly re-install Windows, which is a worse PITA than installing Ubuntu as I can personally attest, and it has all sorts of activation crap), but transparent backup is still a big deal.
Personally I think the best thing is just to set up an old machine somewhere with two hard drives (again, one for system, another for data) and make sure you can hit it via SSH, and then write a crontab for your workstation that syncs your ~/ to it every night via rsync. It's like three lines of shellscript, plus maybe 10 minutes to set it up so it doesn't need a password. You can scale it to as many users as you have room for on the backup server; the only limitation is that without doing complex rotation on the server there's no versioning, but it does give you a nice physically-removed copy, and does it all over an encrypted link, and even does some slick stuff to reduce traffic. To my knowledge, Windows doesn't ship with anything like rsync built in, and forces you to use clumsy GUI tools to accomplish the same thing. (My office uses some proprietary product which shall remain nameless to do the same thing...and it's totally crappy compared to what I can do with rsync and shellscripts.)
If you want to do versioning, it gets a little more complex, but honestly for home users, having a single "oh shit" copy of their data, somewhere safe (safe from their house burning down or the computer getting stolen), is probably sufficient.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
As far as the "command line stuff goes", Linux is good for people who know what they want and aren't afraid of doing a little bit of their own legwork. I've still yet to find something on any platform that does what my DVD ripping scripts do on Linux.
Something akin to a little BASIC program from the commie days lets me replicate what no shiny happy GUI tool has yet to deliver: namely an automated episode ripper for DVDs that will rip the files and give them the proper names similar to an audio ripper.
Some data (created by myself), some tools & a little bit of glue to tie it together.
The end result makes a killer video jukebox.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have a PS2 and wii (brother's) and suppose I could get an xbox360 or ps3 if I wanted. I don't really play games all that much and while I respect your decisions, I don't think it is taken for granted that gaming should be a key factor in everyone else's estimate.
I'll put linux firewalls up against windows games and suggest they cancel (feel I'm being generous here) and your other problems? I'm most interested in recent fedora/redhat, suse, or ubuntu failings.
I'm definitely not saying linux is perfect, I'm just curious. I first tried Red Hat 5 like 10 years ago or something and it took another 5 before I tried again. It was pretty rough. But installs now are nothing like back then and I think they're quicker and easier than Windows now, or at least comparable.
Lots of people don't know it exists. Ask a user what their favorite shell is, and it's a good test to see if they are a power user, whom will always answer "zsh". Bandwagon users, and traditionalists who don't keep track of new developments will answer something else. And, fellow command line users, before you flame me, try zsh. It is better in every way than all other normal shells. Command line completion of makefile targets and filenames over the network with scp pretty much sealed the deal...
RAID 1 doesn't protect you from user error, such as deleting your home directory accidentally or file system corruption. Nothing replaces the need for backup solutions, whether they're user initiated or scheduled incremental backups.
Over all I thought the article was pretty well balanced. The author clearly stated he loved Vista at the beginning but made an effort to be honest. As much as I like Linux I think in some areas it was too biased towards Ubuntu.
1. Software. He praised Ubuntu for Gimp and OpenOffice but you can download Gimp and OpenOffice for Windows. Ubuntu makes it easer to get a lot of free software but a lot of the best FOSS applications are available for Windows.
2. Printing. Printing on Linux is a pain. It has been a pain since day one. But I know of more than one person that has had printing problems with Vista. I would call printing a tie.
3. Ubuntu has issues with detecting monitors. What is worse is they don't give you a nice easy interface to let you MAUNUALY select what monitor you have. The suggestion from the wiki? Manually edit your xorg config file. If you mess it up then you loose your screen and have to go in to the command line and fix it. I still don't have it working but I made a copy of my xorg config file before hacking it. NOT a user friendly way to deal with the problem.
4. Ubuntu is having some issues with Wifi. A lot of people are having problems even when their wifi card is in the kernal and worked under the last version of Ubuntu.
As I said I really like Linux but I just don't think that Ubuntu 7 is as good as everyone seems to think. I have had more luck with OpenSuse and CentOS than the latest version of Ubuntu. Yes it has a great community but I just don't get it. I am going to try the 32 bit version on my desktop to see if it is any less problematical. I tried it on my notebook but the WiFi problems are a show stopper for me.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
When you clic on the Ubuntu logo on first page, you go to ubuntu.com. The same for the Windows Vista logo :)
No sig for now.
I have a couple of Win2k boxes, an XP box, a couple of ubuntu edgy eft boxes, and a Fedora 4 or 5 box at home, some used as desktops, some as servers. My 17 year old utterly non-geek daughter got an HP laptop recently, with Vista Home Premium (whatever that means). It was slow, rebooted occasionally of its own free will, and refused to see a shared printer on a Win2k box or see any of the shared directories on any of the other boxes. I wrestled with it for 20 or 30 minutes, to no avail. Granted, I could have gone online and researched it and figured out the stupid trick, but for what? To make a Windows box see a printer on another Windows box? Isn't that why people resist using Linux, to not have to dig around for every stupid little thing?
Yesterday I set her up with Ubuntu Edgy Eft. Everything went smoothly, just moronically pushing the OK button to very reasonably selected options. Updated all the software, and installed more stuff than she really needs, all in about an hour and a half with a single reboot. Setting up the printer was as easy as it ever has been in Windows, easy, painless, fast. The network server browser immediately shows not only the other linux boxes, but all of the Windows shares as well, and copying files was nothing more than a mouse-driven copy/paste.
Wake up, folks. Linux is ready for the desktop. It will pass the test with most middle-class college-educated grannies, at the very least. The Aunt Tilly's of the world will soon realize that spending hundreds of dollars on software is no longer a requirement.
We are there, people! Hallelujah, we are fucking there!
For both: Office apps work, I can do clickety fun with file management and search. Blabbity blab blab ad infinium.
If accessibility to great games had been on the list Ubuntu would get creamed. When a distro comes along that can cater to game developers, then the desktop war is won.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
What about the firefox users who claimed opera stole the tabs?
It has been pointed out that the /. crowd is probably not the intended audience for this particular piece. I think it is intended possibly for two sets of users - the general, non-technical home user and the corporate IT department. These are the areas where Linux has the greatest potential to expand usage. In both cases, to varying degrees, the desire is for a system that "just works" and can be supported efficiently. Ubuntu has made great strides in these two areas, but isn't yet the M$ killer everyone wants it to be. The thing that hinders corporate acceptance more than anything else is Excel (and Outlook to a much lesser extent, only by virtue of being bundled in all flavors of MS Office). I say Excel because it is used for everything and while my experience has been that OoO's spreadsheet is probably 95% compatible, it doesn't render everything flawlessly and if you are talking about production schedules, financial calculations, inventories or what have you, that 5% margin of error just doesn't cut it. (I have a couple of users using OoO as a pilot project). As for home use, for general stuff like Internet browsing or email, I no longer see any compelling case for Windows. Games, on the other hand, is a glaring weakness. Cedega/wine is a step in the right direction, but ultimately, IMHO, only native Linux games, whether FLOSS or no and readily available, will make Linux a compelling option.
dpkg -i foo.deb
.tar.gz files that they don't know how to compile. That's a legitimate complaint, but these days users who don't want to learn how to compile anything can easily stick with repositories and get everything they need.
rpm -i foo.rpm
Those work quite easily for a software package from some random Website when it's been packaged for your distro. For the people who insist that noobs refuse to open terminals, the GUIs nowadays have support for this integrated in as well. Installations this way won't do updates, but yikes, that's a really tall order and that's what repositories are for. (FWIW Windows won't update randomly installed software either.)
As for things that are not packaged, these are often installed quite easily. I installed RealPlayer (I know, I'm crazy) a few days ago in Ubuntu, straight from the Real website. Worked without a hitch. Google Earth installs very easily. So do many other apps such as Moneydance.
People are making a problem here where there really isn't one. I think people are complaining about ramdom
Penny - plain text accounting
This is not a joke. I am being absolutely serious. I did an experiment...
Installation:
I formated the drive on my 2 year old son's computer. I then gave him an Ubuntu disk (5.10)and told him to go install it on his computer. I then repeated the experiment with Windows XP. He was successful in his attempt to install Ubuntu. I came back 20 minutes latter and he was playing Klotski. When I tried to do the same with Windows, he simply could not get through the install.
Winner: Ubuntu. Ubuntu is noticeably easier to install than Windows.
Updates
At 3 he is currently running dual boot, as there are 'must have' apps on each of the platforms. On both platforms, he does his own OS security updates. He only does software upgrades on Ubuntu, as there is no way he is capable of hunting down installing application updates on Windows.
Winner: (Security) Tie
Winner: (Applications) Ubuntu
Accident Proof:
In 2 years of running Ubuntu, he has not broken the install once. Yes there have been spare links strewn around the desktop, but the install was still stable. In 2 years of running Windows, he has broken the install twice to the point of needing to reinstall.
Winner: Ubuntu
Ease of Use:
Once the OS was up and running, he had no trouble figuring out how to load and shut down his programs on either platform.
Winner: Tie
Conclusion: Winner - Ubuntu
I have been using my son as a yardstick for determining whether a person is an idiot or not. I don't expect people to be computer experts, nor do I expect them to know everything that I know. I do, however, expect an adult to be able to grasp anything that even the brightest 2 year old can understand. I don't think that is too much to ask.
This experiment may or may not still be considered relevant, as both Windows and Ubuntu have seen updates since I did it. I would be interested in hearing the results of this experiment being performed by others. The two things that I would want to see changed would be to up the age to 5 or 6, and to use Vista and Feisty.
And, this may come as a shock to you, but the average Windows user does not even know the Device Manager exists. For those that have taken the time to learn enough about their Windows computer to know where to find the Device Manager, they could take the same amount of time to learn how to deal with devices in Linux. It's not done in exactly the Windows way, but it's not rocket science either, people who want to can learn how to do it without much more effort.
By the way, if you want to see detailed information on the hardware in an Ubuntu machine, go to Administration -> Preferences -> Hardware Information. The window that comes up is even labeled as "Device Manager".
I understand that Linux still has some growing up to do, but once people understand that things are done differently, not necessarily worse, that can help a lot with people being able to pick it up. And for all of mega-hyped releases with all of the new features... I really think Windows has just as much growing up to do. I certainly have as many annoyances with it as I do Linux, if not more.
I love how USB devices in Windows are tied to the port you plug them into. Plug your mouse into a different port on the laptop? "OMG IT'S A NEW DEVICE BRAIN HEMORRHAGE" says Windows. Reinstall yet another copy of the same driver... somewhere, then it eventually works. Seriously... how stupid is that?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
...
Yeah, maybe a few years ago. How I installed Java, Flash, mp3 support etc. all in one go:
Installed the meta package 'ubuntu-restricted-extras', that was it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
So, when I click on "Add New Programs", it comes up with a list of thousands of programs that I could install? No, you say? I know you were refuting the GPP's point, because you technically can add a program through there, but you almost never do in practice. All programs have their own installers. The Ubuntu package manager takes care of finding the program you want, getting it and installing it. Windows will just install whatever disk or install.exe file you point it at. There is no comparison.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Yeah, Windows only has 1 free version of Minesweeper, but Ubuntu has 34!
Come on, "lots of free software" is just not important to most computer users, who spend almost all their time on a few standard applications: Web browsing, e-mail, word processing, number/data crunching, and building presentations. And in this area, any OS not supported by Microsoft applications (that is, any OS except Windows and Mac OS) loses ground because of compatibility issues.
The price of the product.
If windows can just barely beat it then it is not worth the money your paying for it.
They are right that some install stuff dropping to terminal needs to end. It is a single blocking point to full adoption for a lot of people.
Remastersys Made for Mint, works with all Ubuntu-like systems. sudo remastersys backup = Backup your system. sudo remastersys dist = Make a distributable copy of your installed system.
I'm going to call you on the insulting tone. There was no reason for that at all. Of course, that's the basic problem with open source advocates. Calling people idiots when you're trying to get them to see your point of view isn't really productive but it seems to be the only tool in the box for about 80% of you.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
(FWIW Windows won't update randomly installed software either.)
Hell Windows won't always update it's own software. GDI+ vulnerability anyone? I was amazed that the fix for that involved directing you
to a website that says look through the list of hundreds of programs that may be vulnerable and decide for yourself if you need to do anything.
It held your hand a bit more then my short description might suggest but it certainly isn't something my Mom would bother with. She'd read for
about thirty seconds and then call me.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Actually, yes. On NT4TSE if one did not install programs using this method, there was no particular guarantee that those programs would work correctly when users remoted in.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Because I already know it's somehow biased. TIE?!?
/. readers, and I'm sure my knowledge and experience is horrifically limited compared to other /.ers, but still there's a pretty clear win here in this battle, and I'd like to run through the list real quick.
I've run Vista and Feisty Fawn. I've installed them both on a few machines. I've also been using other OSes for > 10 years.
Now, that's a small modicum of experience as compared to many
Installation:
1. Vista: Total pain in the neck. Took forever, installed lots of random extra crap that slowed my machine(s) down. Many of my old apps and games stopped working.
2. Feisty: Breeze. Very fast, I could even surf the web during installation. Very clean initial install, minimal wasted resource stuff installed. Most old Linux binaries still work, but coming from Windows XP, many of my old apps and games stopped working, however, more than were broken by Vista.
Initial Setup:
1. Vista: Word Pad. Terrible CD burning interface. Windows Media Player is still bloated and >>>>>>> than Aero, seriously. I'd like a better Nintendo 64 emulator. Mupen works well, but it lacks many features and some of the speed and compatibility of 1964 on XP. I'd like a 3d chess game. There are several free ones out, just grab it, clean it up, release it with the OS. Make it easy to play online against a friend via GAIM. Make ekiga easier and better. Actually iChat pretty much ruins all the open AND MS offerings in this department, which is tragic, because SPEEX is free, and better than the codecs that even iChat chooses to use, so (what were they thinking?!?).
I wanted to like Vista, I did, but it's such an obvious downgrade from XP in so many ways: Networking, Games, DRM, speed, stability... It seems like the only thing they got right was eye candy, and they are so far behind Ubuntu at this point that it's ridiculous. Especially since Ubuntu is FOSS, I mean, couldn't they have just grabbed all the compiz/beryl stuff and applied it natively via DirectX or something (what were they thinking?!?)? I really honestly don't know who's in charge at MS, and why they chose to shoot themselves so clearly in the foot with this release. They were already falling behind Linux in key areas: IE vs Firefox, Paint vs Gimp, WMP vs (just about anything, really), and now with the added DRM, more difficult security measures and networking setup.... It's like they WANT to lose all the desktops or something. I do miss Windows Live Messenger though. That is one app that they almost got right, at least as far as video conferencing goes. I look forward to getting a VM up and running so I can still use it in Ubuntu.
I want to stress again that Ubuntu is a great OS. I've been using it for > a month now, and it is fantastically easy, beautiful and fast, even on much older hardware than I currently own. I got beryl running nicely in 256 mb of ram, on a geforce 4, and Athlon (not XP!). Even on that ancient hardware it is much better and faster than Vista on a core 2 duo with 2 gb of ram, and an 8800 GTS. Hopefully somebody somewhere repackages Feisty to include better default apps and colors, because I think the time for Linux on the desktop has finally arrived, and there are A LOT of positives for humanity if FOSS wins this war.
All that being said, though, for most of my clients I'm still recommending XP SP2. The reason is simple: Games. They want San Andreas. They want WoW, CoD, and Outrun. Wine is just not good enough yet, and I wouldn't recommend Vista to people I actively dislike, much less people who are paying me. For those people who don't care much about games, I am install Ubuntu, adding beryl, and setting it up so on first boot they have Tvtime on one cube side, Mupen64 on another, Rhythmbox on a third, and Firefox on a fourth. The average end user thinks I am a wizard, but it's really all very simple in Ubuntu, now if only they could lose evolution and the shit brown.....
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
If you forget which technique applies, you try the first. If you were wrong, you try the other...
You don't understand how that can be a usability issue? Think of a new user who has only used Windows before. They install Linux from a CD, then stick a CD with the Linux program they want to run into the drive and double click on it. Will this user ever realize there is a way to download packages from a repository or will they assume Linux operates like Windows?
Picture the new user who installs Linux and reads how Linux manages packages for them. They then install it and grab some stuff they want from the package manager. One day they download a game from Web site and it has an installer which they run and all is good. A year later they want to trash the game to free up space. Will they remember they used a stand alone installer. How long will they look in the package manager for the application? Will they be frustrated?
Picture the same new user, but instead of a game they are downloading, they download a tax return software package that has an installer. Will they trust the installer of decide maybe it is malware since it does not install the right way? Will they just do their taxes on their roommate's Windows machine?
Windows doesn't make this any easier by 'sticking with one technique,' because all the different vendors have different agendas in mind for you when you install. They set up new tricks, new startup scripts, new registry entries, new 'license managers', which may or may not get wiped clean with the vendor's proscribed uninstallation technique, or and may or may not get fully removed using Windows Add/Remove. This isn't less confusing for anyone, and it's a long way from 'one technique.'
First being as good as Windows for usability is kind of like being as good as China for civil rights. This should not be a goal, but rather an embarrassment. People in general don't choose to use Windows because it is good, they just use it because it is the only option they've seen for sale. If you want them to make a choice, you have to actually give them a good choice. Second, you're not looking at this from an end user perspective. They don't see lots of techniques and problems. They don't know something didn't fully uninstall. They just know to double click on the installer and to go to the remove programs setting.
Now, Linux package managers are far from perfect, but they have a better goal and a better execution. .deb and .rpm managers handle somewhere between most and the vast majority of the software, and they can uninstall that software cleanly.
That's true. It is also true almost all Linux software is OSS distributed via repositories. You don't think this will change if Linux users finally convinced commercial developers like games developers to target their platform? Package managers are significantly better on Linux, but only if developers use them, which most people selling software won't. If Linux wants to retain this advantage, they need to adapt package managers to handle all packages from any source the same, including auto-updates even if the software ships on a DVD or is sent via e-mail or is downloaded from the publisher's Web page. There needs to be a way for commercial publishers to host their own downloads, but also let users discover their software via the package manager. There needs to be an official, built in way for developers to handle registration of their software, so they are discouraged from all doing this differently and using custom installers for that purpose.
Anything that's more trouble than that is a major exception, but it's the same hassle you would get in the Windows world.
And still a huge pain in the ass. Personally, I'd like to see major Linux distros deprecate all their current package formats and move to something portable and contained and with room for expansion, like OpenStep. I'd love
Granted maybe he should have used a better unit, like "almost two kilodozens" ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Ubuntu will not, however, keep that package up to date by checking anywhere other than the repository for updates. Commercial software developers who are selling a program, won't use .deb or the official repositories. Every repository would need to negotiate redistribution rights. The repository and installer still would not handle registering that software. If the developer already has to handle helping the user discover the software and connecting to their servers for registration and their own update system, then they will almost certainly combine those functions in an installer and bypass the package manager entirely. This is because the package manager is not functional enough for their needs. To fix this problem, you need to expand the functionality of package managers. Unless this happens, installing and maintaining software on Linux, for the home user, will be as bad or even worse than on Windows.
Commercial software companies won't use the package formats or the repositories. Official repositories are not an option for them because they need to control redistribution rights (legally and for risk management). Further, even if they did use the official package format and the repository they still need to contact their own servers to handle registration of the software and updates to the software (since not all updates are free). Given that, it makes more sense right now for them to roll their own installers that include all this functionality.
Package managers are insufficient for commercial companies because they don't include:
Unless this changes, any commercial games or applications that are ported to linux will bypass the package manager and thus be just as limited as Windows, except that users have to juggle two different methods of doing things.
The *real* solution is for Ubuntu to achieve World Domination so thatI'm all for standardization, but I'm not really seeing .deb as the ideal package format. Rather, I'd like to see a new format that is an extension of OpenStep packages. This would allow for portable packages that can be run off of a USB drive or CD without modification, that can be e-mailed or IM'd, that can be moved anywhere on the disk without problems, that support FAT binaries for different distros, OS's, and chipsets, and that can include source and build instructions for custom binaries all in a single "file." It would also allow OS X and Linux to share a package and would make it easier to find and extract resources from the packages.
I mean if we're going to choose a single package format for the future, lets make it a versatile and extensible open standard one appropriate for desktops of the future.
Perhaps the following will explain this tendency:
Serdar Yegulalp:
The reviews I've read on Ubuntu that are the most insightful are written by those with very little prior knowledge of either environment: as such they reveal their expectations about those products, expectations that reflect more of the 'average user's' needs than that of the expert.
I've been a daily Linux desktop user for 8 or so years, but only now am I seeing reviews by people that start with "I really like how in Ubuntu I don't have to websites to download and install software" and howtos that begin with "So you've just installed Ubuntu and want to change your theme?".
These are very good signs. People are actually trying out this stuff and getting there on their own. The software is working. Our ideas are good.
Computers don't exist simply to run Microsoft Office.
Take "creating textual documents". Sometimes a word processor like OOWriter is appropriate, but other times there is a better tool. Sometimes you want a desktop publishing program like Scribus, or a document processor like LyX. You may even really want an HTML editor like Bluefish.
Or image editing. Microsoft office really doesn't do that. Ubuntu comes with GIMP by default, but also provides tools OODraw and Inkscape for when a raster image editor is not appropriate.
Number/data crunching. Sometimes you want a spreadsheet like OOCalc. Sometimes you want a high end toolkit like Numeric Python or even a Fortran compiler.
Sure, you can get tools for most of these tasks on Windows. Sometimes those tools even have features that the Free Software programs that come with Ubuntu don't. Even ignoring software freedom for a moment (which is never a good idea), each one of those programs for Windows requires an expensive single seat software license. If one person wants to legally use Windows, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, and Illustrator (for example), that'll cost almost $3000 at full retail. Sure, maybe you can get discounts. On the other hand, maybe that person uses other software occasionally too - and that doesn't even consider later upgrade costs. With Ubuntu, you get very similar functionality to all of that built in at zero cost - for every user in your organization.
Maybe some of the Windows stuff is more feature packed - but with Ubuntu, every user gets all of it automatically. You never have to think "I only use photoshop every two weeks, is it really worth getting the license for *my* desktop?"
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
"Buy supported hardware"
Tell me what printer says works with Linux on the box? Actually I have a supported printer and it does work just fine. Finding a supported printer is a pain. And actually you are better off getting a printer from 2002. The latest and greatest may or may not work because no one has had time to test it. A less then brand new printer is usually a safer bet. I am looking at it from the point of view of an average user. BTW a lot of printers also don't work with Vista which I did mention. Why should I throw a printer that is still working in the landfill for sake of Vista or Linux? Printers don't really go obsolete. Printers should last for years and office printers do. Lack of Linux printer drivers is an issue. And yes more printer makers should provide drivers, but it is still a pain.
For the monitor problem Ubuntu should adopt SAX2 it works very well but I have one more suggestion for everyone. Auto detection is nice but let me also select my monitor from a list a lock it. Auto detection can have a fit with KVMs and I use them KVMs are home and at work. One of the things that drives me crazy at work is that Windows doesn't auto detect my flat panel so on boot up I have to unplug the monitor cable from my KVM and plug it into my Windows box. The nice thing is it seems that Suse fixed that in an update. I don't have to play swap the cable on the Suse 10.1 box on boot up any more.
And I don't think this is one specific card. I have seen a lot of people complaining about WiFi not working in 7 and not all of them are using the Prism card that my Thinkpad does. I think it is a bug in the Wifi manager because I can see my WAP but I can not log on to the network. Again it worked fine in Suse 10 and 10.1 and it worked under Ubuntu 6.
Notice that you jump on me about the printing issue yet every Linux user knows that printing is a mess. Why do you think there is a site called Linuxprinting.org? This isn't a problem that is limited to Ubuntu. When I shop for a printer I always ASK the salesman does it work with Linux even if I know that it doesn't. Every Linux user needs to start asking so the people that sell things like printers or scanners that we are their and we do spend our money or not based on it working with Linux.
Linux is a community as such it will not get better unless we are honest about problems. Ubuntu seems to have become a sacred cow. My take on Ubuntu is that if you are one of the people that the install just works for then you are golden. If you have to tweak anything it is a royal pain. Ubuntu doesn't suck but I think it is over rated compared to OpenSuse and probably Fedora.
The real overlooked Linux has got to be CentOS. The latest version has a lot of desktop friendly additions and has the stability and testing of Red Hat Enterprise addition. It does lack Ubuntu's frendly marketing but it looks like a rock solid project if a little dull.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Of course it's a usability issue, but Windows is worse, especially when it comes to uninstalling. No one tells Windows users to use Add/Remove, and a good lot of them don't use it. Half the programs put their uninstall script in the Start Menu, sometimes in Add/Remove, sometimes nowhere (you just have to cross your fingers, search and delete). And then, uninstall only works sometimes. Sometimes, when you click 'uninstall' in Add/Remove, you open a window that looks like you're updating, and maybe even hides uninstall in a submenu like "other actions'. Anyone lazy enough to not figure out that there's a package manager in a Linux isn't going to make it through a Windows uninstall in one piece either. Why do you think these proverbial Joe User people buy new machines to surf the internet and check email? Maybe because dropping $300 at Best Buy is easier than figuring out how to clean off the smiley program that eats up all their processor time.
These are problems with human intelligence and behavior patterns. An OS can only do so much, but at least Linux aspires to enforce some kind of good user habits.
being as good as Windows for usability is kind of like being as good as China for civil rights.Let me clarify. Linux installation is no better than Windows when Linux's PM system fails, that is, when a developer distributes software that doesn't participate or comply with the PM standards. Civil rights and good organization: both require practice and active participation or you'll lose them.
If Linux wants to retain this advantage, they need to adapt package managers to handle all packages from any source the same, including auto-updates even if the software ships on a DVD or is sent via e-mail or is downloaded from the publisher's Web page. There needs to be a way for commercial publishers to host their own downloads, but also let users discover their software via the package manager. There needs to be an official, built in way for developers to handle registration of their software[...]Like I said, the Linux system is far from perfect. What you're describing is better than Linux, better than Windows, better than both combined. For now, Linux PMs are a good start. If someone offers a .deb and a couple of .rpms, the package manager will handle it, whether by email, DVD, airmail or ground shipping. We're getting to a point where a few systems cover most bases, and then an 'other distros' .bin hopefully covers the rest. I hope distro developers keep hammering away with their PM system, because I really think it will lead to something like you describe. This is one place where Linux is clearly ahead.
You don't think this will change if Linux users finally convinced commercial developers like games developers to target their platform?It would be nice if it didn't. Crap/ad/nagware is what drove a lot of us to try out Linux, and it's the only thing you really lose when you comply with a package manager system. Registrations and serial validation systems don't change. It's just as futile to try to prevent piracy in Linux as it is in Windows, so there's nothing stopping you from offering a locked version of your software through a package manager (I've seen this done in SUSE). It would also probably be pretty easy to put a registration-code check in at installation time, if that's not already built in somewhere.
I think most Linux users who cared about having a desktop that worked simply and intuitively have already jumped ship for OS X,We were discussing Windows, but ok. I like OS X, but I'm the one who has to install OS X apps for my non-computer-savvy girlfriend on her iBook. So there you go. No system is simple enough.
It seems like he'd be less biased if he didn't assume that the windows way of doing things was somehow the correct way of doing things.
I think the ubuntu devs have done a very good job, in that respect, of copying the windows/mac philosophy of usability. Just like with those two platforms it is very easy to use as long as you want to do what the developers want you to do with it in the way they want you to do it. Too bad none of them ever take into account speed or comfort when designing their systems.
The Farewell Tour II
Again, Serdar is not a Windows shill. He may not be completely familiar with Linux, but he's partial to free/open source software and recommends a lot of free stuff in his columns for one of the IT newsletter subscriptions I get.
In all, I considered the review pretty fair considering.
His reference to Add/Remove is probably correct, except he said "Vista" when he meant "Windows". Windows Add/Remove DOES predate Ubuntu and any other Linux. That was the first thing I thought when I first saw Kubuntu's Add/Remove.
And he said GIMP was better than Paint.
You all know I hunt down and kill Windows shills as much as anybody here, but Serdar isn't a shill.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I started using this backup software by R1Soft. It can take consistent point-in-time snapshots of an ext2/3 file system similar to Microsoft's volume shadow copy. It even has a whole system that tracks changes to hard drive blocks and can send changed blocks to a remote backup server. So these tools do exist for Linux.
Wouldn't this also be indicative of a problem also from the general users point of view? There is no consistency in what you say. If there is no package in the repository you download and use the command line(bad). Sometimes you can download from the website directly and get it working... Sometimes. And for everything else there's Synaptics or your package manager of choice. I mean all these things are well and good for us who know what we want(which is always choice) but not for those who want consistency. OS X also fails in this regard for a few things... not as much as linux but some.
.exe) from some website then install using whatever installer they provide. Say what you want about a good number of packages being available via the package manager but until they're ALL in there it's not going to provide a better experience.
I can't remember a time in Windows where I didn't download something(.msi or
I'm going to put this here since I don't feel like making a new conversation. I was talking with my girlfriend which I set up her computer with linux. 2nd thing she asks me about was how to install new applications. I showed her the package manager and told her that most things she'd want are in there, just look around and see if anything tickles her fancy. She looked for a while and saw a few things but then promptly asked me what they looked like. And this is the great failing I see with current package managers. We need screenshots. Any regular person would at least like to see what they are getting before they try something out. They aren't going to waste their time downloading and installing, then promptly uninstalling stuff because it doesn't work the way they think it should.