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Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 10.04
Barence writes "PC Pro has performed a comprehensive test of Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 10.04. They've tested and scored the two operating systems on a number of criteria, including usability, bundled apps, performance, compatibility and business. The final result is much closer than you might expect. 'Ubuntu is clearly an operating system on the rise,' PC Pro concludes. 'If we repeat this feature in a year's time, will it have closed the gap? We wouldn't bet against it.'"
Because when it comes to software for most home users, well, the games won't work on Unbuntu without trying to use Wine, etc, etc.
And your typical home user won't want it.
Nothing to see here.
2099 year of linux on the desktop? ;)
one day...
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
is clearly the year of the linux desktop commercial success
and this post was brought for you to test your sarcasm-meter!
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
I remember hearing about this "Windows" thing back in the early part of this century and that it and another OS called "OS/2" were once competitors. I like antique software. It shows our humble beginnings.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
or, just wait until we have no choices. ah yes, that feels better already. your eyelids are getting heavier. the ?$'most popular'$? must be the best. freedumb is but one click away. ah ha ha.
I have Windows 7 on our gaming boxes just to keep things simple...but I run Ubuntu on our laptops, for size and speed considerations. We also run Ubuntu on our HTPC.
They have their purposes...I couldn't imagine exclusively using only one or the other.
Living With a Nerd
My wife got a Win7 x64 laptop and none of the older Canon hardware (printers and scanners) supported this OS. After 2 hours of trying to make it work with all sorts of hacks posted in the bowels of the internet support forums, I tested the devices on my Ubuntu desktop. They worked fine.
The only app that she uses is Picasa and that works on Ubuntu. So I installed Ubuntu on her laptop and it works great. In the last 10 years, we've come full circle. If you want hardware support, you need Linux.
I just wish that I could have paid less for the laptop without the Windows tax.
Keep marketing linux as a "replacement" for windows and you guarantee to always fail. Market it for what it is - better for many types of situations, but definitely not a rsimple eplacement for windows any more than osx is.
Otherwise you're fighting the battle on the other side's home turf - and they're bigger and more entrenched.
And when people try ubuntu and realize that it is not necessarily a matter of it being a replacement os, they tar all linux distros with the same fail.
NO Please!
when the internet was looked upon as "nerdy" by most of the people it was good (my time was about 1998).
no laywers -> no problems. And now..... adds, p2p bans, people not knowing what rtfm means....... iPhones......
Please dont do the same to linux!
BTW: Any suggestions on the next nerd-os?
In case of tl&dr, here's the summary:
Ubuntu wins by 3.04.
Go back to your Cheetos and WoW.
Trolling is a art,
It's quite interesting that PRICE is missing from the comparison. I'd say that based on their own scoring system, that would make it dead even!
I use android/linuz on my droid. Its good 4 the phone, but i don't think it wood b good on my computer. i dont have a touchscreen, i have a mouse lol.
Even among PC Pro’s technically literate readership, only 4% are running a Linux OS[...]
[...]then venture into Ubuntu’s equivalent of the command line – dubbed Terminal – and enter a couple of lines of code to start the installation. Hardly a user-friendly experience, and an unwanted throwback to the days of Windows 3.1.
Yeah...technical literacy at its finest...
I'm used to various flavours of Linux, and Windows 7 seems impressive in some respects, but strangeness makes it feel awkward sometimes.
I love how they have a category for Entertainment and Bundled Apps, refuse to mention actual games and only focus on things that Microsoft would be sued for putting into their OS.
you won't beat MS with a direct battle on the desktop. they caught the winds of technological change and are wiping the floor with MS in the mobile space while MS kept on selling the same crappy mobile OS for years while concentrating on desktops, servers and the enterprise space.
my guess is that in 10 years mobile will continue to grow and apple and google will use this as a way to introduce ARM based ^nix desktops or somehow tie the iphone to Mac's and google will do something similar and clean up the desktop market. or things will just calm down and MS will continue to rule desktops with apple and google ruling the mobile space
but linux will not have any market share worth mentioning unless it's a form of Android
As a good geek, I've tried switching to Linux many times over the years. Every time has ended in frustration. Even putting aside all the games and software compatibility problems (and those are pretty frickin' significant), I also have to deal with a confusing variety of distros, poor documentation, and an arrogant support base (asking how to do something in Linux that you could do in Windows on a Linux support forum will evoke a "Obviously you don't belong here" blast of snobbery that would make the average high school head cheerleader blush). Ubuntu has helped with some of that, but it still suffers from pretty piss-poor documentation. And downloading and installing software, even using the built-in installer, is a confusing nightmare. With Windows, you download the Windows version, double-click it, and you're done. With Linux, it's often a mess of tar files, "Is this compatible with my distro?" And I *still* don't know the fucking difference between gnome and KDE, or why that should even be an issue.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"There are also some bizarre inconsistencies in the design of Ubuntu apps. All the preinstalled apps have the Close, Maximise and Minimise buttons in the top left-hand corner of the window. Yet, others – such as the Linux version of Google Chrome – adopt the Windows convention of placing them in the top right."
Not so on mine, I wonder what they did wrong.
Not that I like the new placement or anything, but i'm getting used to it...
Games:
Ubuntu 10.04: 1
Windows 7: 9
Which quite much decides my living room PC OS choice for me.
It doesn't matter how much better than Windows any flavor of Linux gets, the only way to get mainstream consumers to start using it are to shake their beliefs that A)software must be bought and B) that anything "free" is either copied/pirated, or has sub-par quality. I don't see any advertisements for OSes other than Windows and (by extension) Mac ads.
Has got the close button of a window on the right side, like any normal user expects
Windows 7 | Ubuntu
---------------------
Yes | No
Then you have to start doing things like enterprise management and integration. Many Linux types like to hate on Active Directory but it turns out when you've actually worked with it in a big enterprise setup, and all MS's other enterprise tools, you see that it is really well done, in particular compared to many alternatives. We had a hell of a time designing a cross platform authentication system where I work because the senior UNIX guy would not accept any system that used Windows as the back end. He fought with Open LDAP for a long time before admitting defeat on that front. Sun's Directory Services and ID sync proved to work in the end, after many months of testing, customization, and fighting.
I think Linux is pretty well on par when it comes to a basic, net terminal kind of system. If you have a stand along computer and just need e-mail, web, that kind of thing Linux is pretty easy to get installed and running in most cases, so long as you aren't talking brand new hardware. However when you start looking at larger markets problems quickly develop. True, not all of them are Linux's fault, things like lacking app compatibility isn't Linux's fault, but it doesn't matter because it is a very real issue. You can't just gloss over it.
Even in that regard, there are some things that ARE the fault of Linux designs. One thing that is needed for better app support is a good installer and install system. On Windows you can download or buy an app and have a very high degree of confidence that all you need to do to install it is run setup. An installer, generally using Windows' own internal install service, then guides you through the rest handling everything such as installing libraries needed, adding the program to things like the start menu and so on. On Linux, that only happens if you use the distro's package system. Great if the software you want is free and happens to be in there, but not useful otherwise. For commercial software, it is a non-starter.
So something like that really needs to be developed and standardized to help with apps on the platform. Telling someone "Oh just compile from source," and "When there's s dependency issue just apt-get what you need," and "Modify this configuration to add it to your programs list," is not legit for normal users. The answer needs to be "Click this program, it'll take care of the rest."
Windows 7 was basically Vista SP2 with a better GUI. That said, Windows 7 is perhaps the best operating system I have ever used, including OS X. I know that's crazy, but I like to tinker with my systems. OS X is slick but it runs on very expensive hardware, and it's not that customizable. Windows 7 runs on commodity hardware, and I can mess around with it quite a bit. It's fast, snappy, and the GUI really makes life easier for me. It supports multiple monitors and Bluetooth and networking. It is very stable. I haven't crashed Windows 7 yet after over a year of constant use. Although apps crash, the underlying OS is stable. Linux is great for my VPS but Ubuntu simply is not there yet in terms of desktop use.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
.. is it really a fair comparison to compare ubuntu installed through wubi instead of a clean ubuntu install?
That's only in recent versions of Windows. More than 50% of Windows users still has Windows XP, which does not have the feature you mentioned. Also, unlike Windows, Linux is much better at the other kind of search: searching for occurances of plain text inside any file, without caring about extension (Windows supports something they claim to be similar to that, but it only works for files which happen to have a certain extension in their filename that is copied somewhere in the registry). And finally, desktops like KDE have had the ability to get a launch application utility that pops up your application while you type part of the name for ages already.
Ubuntu may be getting better. But it still looks amateurish in comparison to Windows or OSX. It just doesn't feature the polish of those other OSs. Windows has a lot of clutter, but it is still a cohesive and fairly consistent experience. It doesn't seem like they gave enough thought to usability in Ubuntu, they simply copied bits of and pieces of what Microsoft and Apple have already done.
Designing a user interface is actually quite challenging. It's not as simple as designing something pretty. Apple and Microsoft expend a lot of effort in this area. Apple has a fairly consistent vision which is why they generally do a good job, although I think they've blown it with the new version of iTunes. The problem with Microsoft is that they have too many different divisions with different ideas of what should be done and reinterpretations with every release. But even then they're clearly a lot of thought put into things, as much as possible given the complexity of functionality. And a lot of times it's small stuff that most people don't think is important, but taken as a whole becomes very crucial.
I can't speak to the other items since I haven't used the OS enough, but I would have graded Ubuntu more harshly in this area.
Comparing:
Didn't compare installing Windows (or upgrading Windows) to an Ubuntu install but rather stuck to the "let's try this Ubuntu-install-from-Windows". That won't help if you build your own computer or your computer is not bundled with Windows.
Didn't compare pricing Windows (or upgrading Windows) to an Ubuntu install
Didn't compare installing codecs in Windows to an Ubuntu install. Installing DVD support and other restricted extra's is not that hard and only due to US regulations. You should've stuck to the manual and typed "DVD support Ubuntu" in Google, the first result will have a link that can do it in one click.
Scoring:
Gave less score to Ubuntu for not supporting the investigators "Windows muscle memory". I hate some of the new features in Windows 7 such as stacked windows, it's just a pain in the neck to support any newbie computer user with a question like "we don't know where this document went".
Gave less score to Ubuntu for not supporting their WinModems (there's a reason they're called WinModems). Although with a bit of looking you can get most of your devices to work a lot of vendors simply don't see why they should support a smaller market. iPhone is natively supported in Ubuntu 10.04 so I don't know why it didn't work for them - maybe they just went off their muscle memory.
Gave less score to Ubuntu because Microsoft doesn't even follow their own specs making it very hard to make a compatible office suite offering. Again, this is not a problem with Linux but with the vendors of Windows software and Microsoft. If you use an open spec like some governments have been wanting to do over the last couple of years, you won't have any problems. Sadly, the current market penetration allows Microsoft to keep doing anti-competitive stuff.
All-in-all an honest review would probably put Ubuntu on-par with Windows. It's really easy to pick on Linux for not being Windows but give a newbie a new computer with either OS from their current Windows 2000/XP with Office 2003 and I doubt they would find Linux all that much harder.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
From the artical.
"and had to enter a couple of lines of code to start the installation"
1. It isn't the fault of Linux that the Adobe Air Installer is command line.
2. NO YOU DIDN'T ENTER ANY FREAKING CODE YOU MORONS! YOU ENTERED COMMANDS!
PRO?
PRO WHAT!
REALLY!
What I find so funny is that the new search in windows 7 which I love is really... A command line!
Wow so it is faster to type what you want than search through 25 layers of menus... Who knew.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Why do people insist on measuring boot time as the time it takes to log in? TFA says it's 35s for Windows and 32s for Ubuntu. In Windows, once you log in your wait time has only just begun. It will continue to thrash the hard drive for another few minutes while it loads a bunch of unnecessary crap, during which time you can't really begin to do any actual work. In Ubuntu, it only takes a few seconds. You can make the boot time look like anything you want by delaying everything till after log in.
Come on! Ubuntu has worse drivers and compatibility against Windows?
The fact that iTunes is not compatible with Linux it's clearly not Ubuntu's fault. Apple has no interest in making it compatible with Wine or porting natively to Linux.
I doubt Windows has out-of-the-box drivers for everything like printers, usb, video, audio, chipset, raid, wifi (+broadcom!!), ethernet and even 3G devices without downloading drivers from different sites, installing and rebooting the SO!
Again, this comparison is just flawed or even FUDed...
Good lord, you couldn't find a more specialized "main reason"? If you want this functionality, install e.g. Gnome Do. Press Windows+Space and type anything, it finds and searches as you type among software and files, shows what it is/means/does, and the action that'll happen when you press enter. For example, if I type "bea" I get Netbeans IDE 6.8 and pressing enter runs it. Esc or clicking anywhere outside the popup makes it disappear. HTH.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Does that mean there's no driers for Linux? Because guess what? I've installed Linux on systems at work and not been able to find drivers for things. With Linux, it is usually the opposite, the system will be newer and Linux will have no driver support for the hardware. Also happens more with specialty hardware, it'll have Windows, and usually Mac drivers, but no Linux drivers since the company didn't write them and nobody else has tried.
So if it is the fault of the companies for not doing support there, then sorry but it is the same situation in Windows. You can't say "It is a Windows flaw that it doesn't support all hardware," but then say "It is not Linux's fault that it doesn't support all hardware."
If it works in your situation, wonderful, use it by all means. Computers are something people should be extremely pragmatic about, they are just tools nothing more. Use the kind of tool that gets the job done the easiest and quickest. However don't go trying to say that because your tool solved a given problem it is right for everything.
"Screwdrivers are such pieces of shit. My friend had this big nail that needed to be driven in to a board and no matter what I tried with the screw driver, it just wouldn't do it. Then I got this hammer and it worked perfectly. If you want to get things done, you need a hammer, screwdrivers don't do anything."
Around 2 months or so ago, I switched my primary OS to Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, but adds in the things most users want, like codecs for playing DVDs, Flash, etc. While I never use the Start-Search method in Windows, it is built into Mint by default, and I've used it there on several occasions.
My Tech Posts on Twitter
Games, virus prevention, usability, music & video, cross-platform compatibility, freedom from "constantly dicking with it". Those are the things that matter to most users. And before all you mac boneheads start jostling for the soap-box, forget about it. You're running BSD which just gives you a prettier wrapper around the same old unix problems.
I've been using Linux for almost 15 years on the desktop. The idiotic problems which are inherent and indigenous to windows far outweigh the complexity of managing a linux box, but that's subjective; it's a cinch for *me* to manage a unix box, but other people just haven't the frustration threshold for the learning curve (and seeming ubiquitous elitist attitudes of the community forums).
Windows is just as bad. You have to pay for everything, and constantly deal with performance issues due to spyware, malware, anti-virus and/or hardware conflicts. Then, top it off with the random weird crap that happens (blue screen, no desktop, lockups).
There needs to be a better solution for the general public's computing needs, and it's not apple or linux (yet). I would certainly recommend pushing an open-source solution however. Especially with all the clamoring about privacy lately.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
That's right guys, mod down anything you don't agree with. Speech that you don't like must be suppressed! If someone disagrees with you they are WRONG and should be SHUT DOWN!
It is rather pathetic to see this sort of thing happen in Linux articles. People who are so insecure in their choice of OS that they'll try to silence anyone who might say something different.
Dude, if you ever find an iPod touch-style mp3 player which runs Android - drop me a line. I seriously want one.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Like the Archos devices?
They withdraw Ubuntu points for "Driver & Compatibility" because there's no iTunes for Linux? What the...
What a freaking fluff Job. Windows 7, the most widely supported desktop operating systems behind Windows XP, "squeeks" in a victory by two points in the "Driver and Compatibility" rating. Yes, this guy is trying to convince himself that desktop linux, the platform with notoriously bad support for desktop drivers and very little support for games, came close!
Desktop Linux -- The Next Duke Nuke'em Forever.
Similes are like metaphors
So we're supposed to be comparing a 5 month old version of Linux to a 9 year old copy of Windows for a fair comparison? Vista (three years old) has start search.
Windows does what 90% of the users need for about 90 days. Then it bogs down or blows up.
The only glaring problem that I can find with ubuntu 10 is power management.
XP = 3.5 hours of battery
ubuntu = 2.25 hours of battery
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Install Ubuntu natively on its own disk partition (as you would Windows) and then it doesn't have to go through an extra layer of filesystem (ntfs) as it does when installed via wubi.
Comments about how easy Ubuntu is too install never seem to mention how horrendous Windows is to install ... either compare the installation of both on to a bare hard disk, or compared both systems pre-installed in a shop. Compare Apples with Apples ... its basic, guys. Really.
Install Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu, and the comments about the "drag screen to top to maximise" are no longer valid, the media player (Amarok and SMPlayer or VLC) and about the photo editor (digikam) now would favour Kubuntu rather than Windows 7 apps.
It is exceedingly easy (just use Kubuntu, really, and avoid wubi) to make all their negative comments about the Linux desktop no longer apply.
Kubuntu beats Windows 7 handily.
I have a small recording studio in which I run a 16-channel simultaneous recording firewire mixer. I use Adobe Audition 3 for my sessions. I can't really move to another platform because I already have so many recording sessions in this format (although, I don't really want to move, either -- I'm happy with Audition).
I recently purchased an i7 with Windows 7 64-bit. I tell you, it does everything I've ever asked it to do, and it handles the incoming 16-channels flawlessly.
I don't think I would trust this set up on Ubuntu. For one, my firewire mixer simply would not work with Ubuntu (natively). And if it could work in WINE, I don't see how it is better than what I have now. Isn't it just likely to introduce hiccups?
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
I did a write up like this back in 1997 with Win95 and some flavor of Red Hat. It has been thirteen years and the basic arguments still haven't changed.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Like the Archos devices?
Which aren't officially approved for the Market.
The vast majority of computer users would never notice. Most PC users don't need the games you are worried about, or want them. They want web, email, and pictures of kittens. They should be using Macs, linux is a good second best. In the meantime they use windows, and their children and neighbors stop over to remove malware and reboot the box every few months. But if assuming that your own perspective is the only one that's important works for you, then go with it I suppose.
My Dell Streak runs Android, plays MP3s, and overall is pretty similar to an iPod Touch, just with a 5" screen instead of 4".
And as AC points out, the 5 and 7 inch Archos players are Android based.
I don't understand how your post actually is relevant to what the GP said though?
which is totally what she said
"An Ubuntu test-drive by a Windows user" would have been a better title for the article.
There is a complaint that it doesn't work like Windows does (he's actually wrong). And also that it doesn't support some features that Windows does (again, he's wrong about pinning apps to the taskbar/panel). But *this* was the best quote of all: "Ubuntu’s equivalent of the command line – dubbed Terminal". Aha ha!
I stopped reading at "Usbility"...
What am I supposed to expect?
in the subject line, which is annoying, but anyway
Comparisons like this don't mean squat because when it comes to software for most home users, well, the games won't work on Unbuntu without trying to use Wine, etc, etc.
If developers see that ubuntu isn't bad compared to windows 7, they might make it work on both, enticing more users to ubuntu. If home users read ubuntu isn't bad compared to windows 7, they might start using it, enticing more developers to ubuntu.
To me, comparisons mean a little more than squat.
I have been waiting for this mythical "next year" when everything gets sorted and Linux makes a major inroad. A few times I thought it was going to happen (Redhat IPO, Mandrake, Ubuntu) but the reality is that chaos breeds chaos. The bazaar is cool but not for steering and vision... look at how far OSX came because of a single unified vision in a much shorter timeframe. Linux needs to have a steering comittee not for all distros or flavors but for a single base framework where a single architecture (common denomenator) is targeted and the best in class choice is made in each area. Of course this could then be tweaked or refined for specific needs or builds but would give Linux a stable and solid foundation on the desktop. Look at the kernel for a shining example of both why this is needed and how well it can work. Imagine if kernel dev happened like the rest of Linux dev!
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I'm a gamer. A PC gamer.
Sure, i have some consoles, because I like to hack. But when it comes to games, i'm mostly on my PC.
3D Vision? Have, and it rocks.
Now don't get me wrong, I like linux. It's fun to play with, it's great on old laptops and old computers.
But mainstream? good luck with that.
Most people are too stupid to use windows correctly, how the hell they ever going to figure out linux?
Be seeing you...
I, personally, have had a few recent new users almost give up, when the power died and NTFS screwed up the Wubi system image file during the necessary recovery. Guess where the blame was laid...
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
Windows Updates, Optional Updates, Windows Search 4.0. Or at least I think that's the correct location, I don't have an XP machine any more*.
Alternately, MS has a separate download for it.
*Except at work, and that one is centrally managed.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Even based on the comments of the author I would have given Ubuntu a slightly lower score. The section on device compatibility was damning to say the least and didn't deserve a 7/10 - more i n the 4-5 range in my opinion.
There's only 2 ways to get people to switch to Ubuntu:
1) (Not likely) Make Windows games playable on it.
2) (Possible!) Change the standard directory names to things longer than 3 letters. Even if you're a hyper-involved PC-user (building and fixing your own and others with tons of tweaks), the dive into the various versions of linux is a complete vocabulary shock simply because nothing says what it is. Programs are oddly named and folder titles are super-abbreviated.
Your typical game won't run on Windows7 either. *New* games, yes. But not your *typical* game.
So Windows 7 is not suitable for the desktop. Nothing to see here.
This keeps coming up, and its presence in TFA was unsurprising and seems to be the bulk of Windows 7's narrow margin of victory.
"Windows is everywhere, we've always used Windows, we may as well continue to use Windows," seems like a feeble justification of a status quo that probably can't be justified on any rational basis. Sometimes ubiquity can be its own justification, but it seems pretty obvious that Linux "won" the "business" category by a large margin on merit ("cost", "seamless network functionality", "runs MS Office 2010 without quibble via Wine", and "is more secure") , Windows 7 earned the arbitrary "points", even though its only bullet points were "Adobe Photoshop works on it", "it's everywhere", and "support staff and users are familiar with it". Except that the last two are pretty much false when it comes to Windows 7. Businesses still mostly use Windows XP, that's what users and support staff are familiar with, and Windows 7 is going to take some skill upgrades and retraining to get everyone up to speed on it because it looks and behaves differently than XP.
Would anyone care to imagine what happens to a public-sector IT department, one which has the lion's share of its budget go to purchasing Microsoft desktop OS, server OS, Office, and enterprise antivirus software licenses on an annual basis, when it gets stuck with a budget shortfall because revenues are down? It seems to become a choice between talent and licenses, which leaves them in a bad place. The rationale that "Microsoft products are everywhere" isn't going to get them out of that bind.
Users and organizations should just use what suits their needs and their budgets best. If they chose poorly, they'll find themselves gimped or poor, or both. If they choose wisely, matters of IT will progress as they always do when working properly: without complaint.
Using a default Ubuntu installation I had to search the internet to find out why my dual monitor settings wouldn't persist through a restart. Turns out I had to run the control panel as root to make them permanent. This wasn't five years ago, either. You can still find people complaining about this in 2010.
No... fucking... thanks. If you can't get the little shit right, I can't be bothered.
Installs. I mean I hear the old "Just go into the add/remove" thing and it does everything but twice already I've done installs where the app didn't actually work after I installed it. I think one was gnomad which doesn't work because a standard install doesn't have root permissions. (I googled on it and found out you can tweak a text file so it starts via sudo and then you can give it admin privileges so it would then work with a nomad zen I inherited.) I know I was having trouble with a partioning package since it also installed but didn't give me the option to start it with sudo. (The fact that after trying it for a little bit I quickly ran into these problems makes me think it's not as user friendly as some people say. Hey that reminds me, I need to tweak avast under ubuntu because that currently has problems on my machine. Yes I used a debian package in that case.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
This review is great... Until you recognise that they gave Ubuntu points when using restricted codecs.
From Popcon, it is easily observable that 70-100% of users have the restricted codecs installed.. The vast majority probably illegally. With this in mind, I wonder how soon until Canonical gets sued (because it's clearly obvious that Canonical are unfairly benefiting from their use, and aren't taking appropriate actions to protect patent owners).
Ubuntu is the ONLY distro which has deluded itself into believing it's ok with a little warning. But eventually, they will likely be sued, and that clearly wont help.
This is September. Ubuntu 10.10 will be out next month...Kudos for a 'fresh load' if desired or an upgrade in short order. While OS stability is nice -- supposedly when an application is written for WinXP or Vista or 7, it works on that version for as long as you have it -- however in practice this hasn't always been true. I appreciate having nice clear dependancies...which is sometimes very difficult to determine in windows.
Getting a particular version of an app running right in linux may be a pain sometimes, but at least there are published dependencies that are supposed to get something working.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
It was a response to GGP's sig. Which is why the GP's post title is "Your Sig."
Rock On Dude! This is one of many apps that I show people who thought iPhone was great until they saw my phone.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Like the search box in the start menu of my Kubuntu 10.04? Or like the search box I get when I press alt+F2? Bot of which searches all parts of the name and all words in the description.
Better or worse in a limited set of tests (they didn't talk about security & viruses, why not?) is meaningless. The only thing that matters so far as uptake is concerned is how many of each product are sitting on the shelf in the store, and how many of each product get used.
It doesn't matter if one scores better on test, it only matters what's installed on the shiny new box that Joe Public pulls out of the delivery carton and sits down and starts using. Your average user is simply going to stick with whatever was placed in front of them as either product is good enough to have no incentive to change from.
Linux is still fighting the tick-box / feature wars of the 1990's and until it moves away from that and adopts the marketing approach that we expect from successful mega-corporations, it will always be insignificant on the desktop.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
drivers and compatibility - 7 - 7 (tie)
True, Mac OS X is perfectly compatible with the hardware that Apple makes. But then Apple has chosen not to make hardware in all form factors. Notable holes in Apple's hardware lineup include a 10" MacBook and anything between a Mac mini and Mac Pro.
"Ubuntu is clearly an operating system on the rise," PC Pro concludes.
Well, they conclude WRONG!!!
LINUX (Or GNU/Linux to some) is an O/S, UBUNTU is a DISTRO!!!
I get real tired of writers confusing a Distribution from an O/S!
My biggest issue with Ubuntu is getting the sound system to "Just work" between Flash and regular Linux apps or WINE and Linux apps. Other then that it's been really great for the most part. Now and then I have driver issues for newer hardware but I ran in to the same problem with Windows 7 on a new laptop I got recently. My laptop actually worked better under Ubuntu 10.04 out of the box then it did with Windows 7 which needed me to farm drivers off Acer's web site.
I think the worst problem I had with that laptop was the ear jack not working when plugged in but regular speakers working ok. A six step processes that ran an automated script from their support forum fixed that problem. Now I just have the Flash and WINE sound issues. Windows 7 had me downloading chip set drivers, sound drivers, video drivers, etc.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Mint is much more friendlier to Windows user while retaining most of Ubuntu's goodness.
whatever the case its for sure that windows is better than ubuntu .there are a number of applications,games which just do not work on ubuntu what so ever u do....if we talk of 1 year from now we must not forget windows 8 which is to be launched 2 yrs from now...which will certainly be much much better then ubuntu.....
Well, Usability: Ubuntu 7????? Windows 7 9????? 1) Come on, Firefox on W7, to install flash it takes a couple of clicks, on Ubuntu it takes like 10 console sentences, and like 30 min package download, ubuntu shoulded get a 5 on that.
2) W7 6 on entertaiment?????, the guy that did this must be on drugs, 0,00001% of the games that run on Windows run on Linux, and ubuntu got a 8?????. Just for that this whole thing lost all validity.
I'm not saying the Ubuntu/Linux in general is shit, it's good, it's free, it's open source, but it just doesn't compare to Windows in most scenarios. People can keep on denying it, but it won't true. I used Ubuntu, so i'm based on my own experience.
Ah, thanks. I tend to filter both of those things out (albeit mentally).
which is totally what she said
Just use Crossover and you can run almost anything.
My Fedora 13 system works quite well with the latest HP printers, out of the box. I was absolutely blown away!
My latest printer, a Canon, clogged after just 3 years. Not easily or quickly repairable, especially by the end-user. So I dumped that piece of junk and went back to HP.
I was reluctant to go with HP, having seen the crap produced under Carly's reign. HP printers used to be great, but HP produced a lot of crap, ink-sucking printers post 2000. Doing a search, I discovered that HP has put a LOT of effort in making sure their drivers not only work under Linux, but are in the major distros.
So I bought an 8600 (for about half list price, no less) and plugged it in, preparing to go through the usual hassles of getting a printer working under Linux.
Lo and behold, a bubble popped up saying that the printer was installed! I didn't have to do anything! Printing and scanning just worked. In 15 years of working with Linux, this was a first.
Well done, HP. If you need to dump your older printer, there's at least a very good chance that a new HP printer will work with Linux.
Screw the other printer companies. I've come back to HP. And I have no association with HP than as a recently returned customer.
I am not as fanatical as some people who say it must be GNU/Linux instead of just Linux, but it certainly should NOT be Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a distribution, not an OS.
Sure it is one of the most used ones, but if the amount of users does not say anything about quality. Otherwise we should all just move over to Windows.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Our shop has XP as our standard OS. Instead of moving to Windows 7 directly, I suggested we use Ubuntu 10.4 as our base OS, and we make a Windows 7 VM. This not only gives us flexibility in what our clients run, our legacy guys can use Ubuntu to web surfing and email, and use XP/Windows7 for legacy development. I am impressed with Ubuntu. It found our network during install and was ready to go. Most of the packages do not need a command line, and updates work just like Windows. The thing that caught my attention though was the Windows 7 "wait" circle looks shockingly like Ubuntu's "wait" circle!
"Ones and zeros were everywhere. I even think I saw a two!" - Bender
it could be extremely attractive to businesses mostly run off of web applications
It's awful how many web apps require Internet Explorer on Windows. MLXChange and Paychex come to mind. Combine this with Quickbooks and a huge library of custom apps and you have a situation where Windows absolutely owns the small business market.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Of course, the default install of Ubuntu may be less useable than Windows 7, but kubuntu has win 7 beat hands down. It took me months to figure out how to disable the Acer's stupid "tap to click" feature in Windows, less than two minutes in kubuntu. TFA laments not being able to pin items to the taskbar, perhaps that's because IIRC the default Ubuntu uses Gnome. I've always preferred KDE. Clicking on the taskbar's pinned wifi icon gives you a lot more control than Windows does, while being easier to use. TFA talks about the close buttons being in a non-standard place, they're not in kubuntu, which is simply Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome.
Clearly, this piece was done by a Windows lover; they give ubuntu a 38 and Windows a 41. I've used Windows since there was such a thing, and it's always been a total PITA. Things that are done in two clicks in kubuntu take ten or fifteen in Windows.
Free Martian Whores!
I keep hearing about this 'normal' user but I don't really know any.
I guess I'm in a specialized field, doing graphic design so most of the people I know need to run Adobe software or Autodesk software.
But then my friend's wife is in music and she needs to run specific software for that, another friend is in aerospace engineering and he has to run Matlab and various other software specific to his field, so I'm finding it hard to accept there's this large part of the computer-using population that stereotypically only uses computers for Youtube and Facebook and email and Word that I haven't had any contact with.
Thanks for pointing out Dell & Archos - the 43 looks pretty much perfect for what I want to do with it. Guess what's going on my Xmas list!
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
I've come to think of Linux as a better gaming platform than Windows. Now, when you're done laughing at me, hear me out. In Linux, I don't have to worry about some malware that comes packaged along with a game infecting my system and doing things like installing hidden device drivers or completely unnecessary services that run in the background. Most of the companies who produce games for Linux actually treat their customers with respect. We may not have the latest blockbuster game (now with a 2-weapon limit and health regeneration!), but we have tuns of older games and quality fan-made projects. I'm looking at you "The Dark Mod".
A short list of games that I love to play in Linux:
Urban Terror
The Dark Mod
Tremulous
Nexuiz
Thief 1/2
Dooms and Quakes
lots of DOS games
Prey
Amnesia
Penumbra
Deus Ex and The Nameless Mod (incredible mod!)
SiN (one of my all-time favorites)
Unreal
Unreal Tournament
UT2004
*lots more games under WINE
How many people know about this awesome tool, though? It's not built-in, and many neophyte users wouldn't even know it existed. (I haven't used Linux in so long, I didn't know Go existed either.)
Honestly, every time I've installed Ubuntu, its awesome.
But every time I've also run into about 50 crap-hole problems that need to be sorted out before it works the way it should. It's not ready for 'mainstream' until I can get through the install process, boot, and configure everything and something that 'shouldn't happen' doesn't. Just because some of us can solve the problems we run into, doesn't mean the majority of the market that these distributions would like to take part in have any idea.
As long as Ubuntu can't use iTunes (and no, not some other content mall that doesn't have all that iTunes has), Ubuntu can't compete with Windows for the home user market, or probably the school market, or even for a lot of the business market.
Yes, Apple's content monopoly is the key to protecting Windows' OS monopoly. The world is as strange as it is round.
--
make install -not war
I love these Win/Ubuntu comparisons. Ubuntu isnt even in the same realm as Windows. It doesn't really matter at this point how much publicity Ubuntu and their fanboi's seek out, they've already lost to Android, they just dont know it yet.
I have tried linux from fedora to latest fed 12 and Ubuntu 10.04 nothing worked flawless, some either wont have wireless or some soundcard driver or wont boot out of USB HDD or some issue. Synaptic drove me crazy many times or video codec for dvd. Finally i looked at easypeasy and started with USB boot now is main system for me. Very neat user inter very polished and software manager works, wireless and has code installed default. Now a day after http://www.geteasypeasy.com/ easypeasy i hardly boot t windows.
Maybe Ubuntu does look the part to compete with Win7 and it may have all the necessary apps to support it... yet I can't help but notice that I have yet to make ONE successful installation of this distro yet (ok, Kubuntu to be precise), even the latest 10.4 version I downloaded a couple of weeks back. Let alone have it work with graphics cards (I mean proper support, not compatibility mode) and audio cards out of the box.
And not that I'm a newcomer to Linux/Unix... Since '97 I've installed all major distros from Slackware to RH and SuSE and I've administered Solaris, Irix and AIX systems.
The bottom line... linux still needs a ways to go before it achieves the user friendliness of Win7. AFAIK some/many distros STILL don't include the necessary MP3 playback libraries on the dvd and you need to browse around the web for support. You still need to have kernel sources installed to *compile* a graphics driver. Hmmm, sorry folks. Things have improved a lot since the "configure/make/make install for anything" era, but there are still quite a few spots where Linux is rough around the ages. Until these spots are all evened out, I wouldn't talk about real comparison to Win7.
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
Most major games worth playing on Windows are available on XBOX 360. Some games even run better on 360 than they do on PC. The pool of games that both require windows and are not available on console is getting smaller Sure there are some users who adhere to PC gamin, but I'm thinking that the "typical home user" is quite happy with console gaming in its place.
this review is bullshit. The author is assuming windows 7 as the benchmark and comparing ubuntu to it. That is not fair. He is giving a biased review to make windows 7 feel good enough..
My Bro's a PC gamer, bought himself a nice rig. Now it's gathering dust because everything's a frickin' port from the 360. Even Starcraft II kinda stunk. Nothing wrong with it, but it's just Starcraft + Warcraft III. He finished the single player in 12 hours (doesn't like multi, and if he did he could get the same experience from Starcraft I). Anyway, games, except for the social games, don't matter anymore. PC gaming isn't dead, but it's just added value and for most not worth the effort.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Which made me think: "Oh? Ubuntu sucks *that* much?"
So... Windows 7 wins massively on almost all categories, loses slightly on one and loses badly on one.
On the one it last badly on, it lost for not having bundled software. But if it did... it would be uncompetitive, and be labelled bloatware. Nice.
On Performance and Mobility, the tested Ubuntu vs XP... and disregardful 7.
Then they handed the battery life to 7 hands down, thanks to annoying Ubuntu power saving, and yet it still lost overall.
Ubuntu is great so was there really a need to fudge the scores like this?
On my laptop, the last three versions of Ubuntu that I have tried supported my wireless interface out of the gate. On the new 10.04 LTS version, it does not work. And of course, this is just a sampling of the BS I've had to endure when dealing with linux on my personal machine. The main thing I've learned is that if you get something working, turn off updates so that your machine doesn't automagically frack up. Gee, that seems similar to some other system i'm familiar with. Sorry, but I've had zero problems with Win7 and tons of problems with Ubuntu. Linux is great, but not on the desktop. I'm eager to have someone prove me wrong though.
> Flash is no worse on 32-Bit Linux than any other platform.
FTFY
Even default 64-bit Ubuntu installations have many flash issues.
Adobe is planning to release a 64 bit version, but it's been a long time coming and no sign on the horizon.
Yet far more complex 32-bit apps in WinE run fine.
You agree with me.
It's interesting that one of their complains was that when they encountered a problem they had to use the command line. This is probably a place where Ubuntu users could do better in supporting other Ubuntu users. It's very easy to send them to the command line, but it re-enforces the idea that you HAVE to go to the command line to solve problems.
Most problems can be fixed using the control panels, gconf-editor, or nautilus, but it's easier to provide 2 lines of text to a user. I just wonder if that's perhaps shooting ourselves in the foot.
That is my opinion.
Why is it, in this day and age, that it's an unreasonable assumption that your washer will call your cellphone to let you know your wash is done?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Not only that, it's a shit-ton faster and more efficient at figuring out what I want than windows start-menu search. It also handles being program dock/taskbar (but I don't use it as such).
I installed wine, downloaded the windows application (Picasa for windows, for example) and click on the installer. Followed the instruction. I ended up with a menu entry and an icon on the Desktop, from which I can easily run the program.
Now, what's exactly difficult about that?
yeh, 2012 will be the year of linux. 2012.. 2012!!!
I don't think I've ever read a more unfair and biased review of operating systems. I couldn't even finish reading it because it made me feel sick.
Are we going to do this comparison every damn week?
I stuck with Windows 7 on my netbook (Toshiba N205) for a few months and decided to bite the bullet and try Ubuntu Netbook Edition. Everything (with one minor caveat) worked out of the box. I only get sound if I'm using headphones but the speaker on my netbook is so piss-poor I don't consider it an issue. :)
I'm extremely pleased with it
Maybe that's where CrossOver comes in.
I switched years ago from MS Windows to Linux then OSX and haven't found a need for Windows software. Then again I haven't played any Windows games. The hardest part is MS Office macros, OO.org does not do macros. But Office can be run in CrossOver, with 2007 being supported.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I've had issues getting the wifi to work on Macbook 5.1, 5.3, 6.1 and iMacs
I've got a MacBook Pro 3,1 and am about to install Lucid on it. The only thing I see that may not work is Apple Remote Control though there are remarks for Keyboard functions (Brightness,volume,...).
Now before I install Lucid on my internal drive I'll go ahead and install it on an external drive and test drive it. I still use Leopard but will install Snow Leopard on an external drive first too.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Windows Tax ?
I've always suspected it's pretty close to $0 or maybe even a subsidy?
All that preinstalled crapware is there by money paid to the manufacturers.
Numbers paid for Windows range from $29 back in Win95 days to estimates of $80 or more now. Heck.. MS may even refund you $105rather than tell you how much the manufacturer paid.
So even if Windows ends up adding $15 to the cost you get media licenses and can include it in a resale. Get the rebate and you come out ahead!
I think the reason people will continue to use Windows rather than Linux is the relative certainty that any peripheral you buy will work with Windows. This is because if you're a hardware manufacturer, and you're only going to build one driver, it's going to be the Windows driver.
I use Windows XP. I can plug in the newest blackberry, the newest iPhone, my Hauppauge HD PVR, my logitech webcam with integrated mic, my canon camcorder and point-and-shoot, my son's speaking bear that downloads custom songs, my eSata card interfacing with external hard drive enclosure, my network all-in-one HP printer/scanner/fax, and anything else I choose to pick up off the shelf from Newegg or Best Buy.
Before you post telling me how you can run all these things on Linux, please understand that with Windows, I get to use the manufacturer's drivers, which is what the hardware was probably developed and tested with. I don't have to wait for the reverse-engineered open source version, or the crippled Linux beta driver from the manufacturer. I don't have to worry that the integrated mic on my webcam won't work, or that all the fancy features on my wireless mouse and keyboard are not supported by the driver.
Again, it's not that you can't get any single one of the peripherals above to work with your chosen flavor of Linux, if you try hard enough (maybe). It's the fact that I *know* that any current or future peripheral (with all its features) will be immediately supported by Windows. There's no such guarantee for Linux.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
I can say that Ubuntu has nothing on w7, absolutely nothing. I normally use w7 but was "forced" to use Ubuntu for 1month starting from end of July.
I'm a business owner and web developer, who like to play the occasional game too. (gaming was not really possible with ubuntu, wasn't looking on spending on transgaming or fiddle around)
Ubuntu vs w7 ... Ubuntu performance is OK when you use it for short periods of time (ie. reboot daily, or restart software every couple days by latest)
Performance: Ubuntu performance simply sucks, memory leaks ALL OVER the place. It's funny to see how a basic media player consumes 600mb ram, or firefox 1.7Gb
Usability: What a stinking pile of mess in ubuntu. .... (w7 sticky bar thing big thumbs up! esp. important for someone like me handling sometimes 30+ putty sessions) ... Others not so much. Also disables the above mentioned menu)
- Clipboard: Doesn't work seamlessly, requires all kinds of tricks. Copy & paste from FFOX input field to Terminal or Putty... or from Putty to anywhere (Note: Can be done, just not that trivial. Hint: Mouse middle button... Hint 2: You will begin to lust to change scroll to simple button)
- Shortcuts: Or the lack off in Ubuntu. Try to minimize or maximize window like in W7 in ubuntu... Or change the side of the screen... or launch applications
- Menus: Some menus cannot be reached at all (ie. Putty, after you've connected, that menu where you can get to settings to change translation etc. or save session)
- Close, minimize, maximize buttons on the wrong side (mac users love this
- Some things requires you to run through some hoops (ie. get mp3s to play, not much of a hoop but a taster of what's to come)
+ tons of tiny things. (+ application specific problems)
Software:
- Ubuntu has easy to access installation of a lot of good apps (tho some important things, or should be default, are not or replaced by inferior apps)
- Under ubuntu, you are kind of required to choose a lot of apps immediately to install
- Under windows i can get by with actually installing less new apps out of the box than under ubuntu (how bizarre that is?) and thus get setup faster from vanilla installation
- Some important apps just are not there in Ubuntu, and have to use vastly inferior apps (Photoshop vs. Gimp is the ages old debate, OpenOffice vs. Office another)
Despite all of that, it was kind of a nice experience. But i was really excited to get back to use w7 after that 1month. Workflow is just so much smoother under w7 despite i had to get reaccustomed to and some badhabits are now ahrd to get rid of, which i had to learn to get through some ubuntu usability issues.
Linux on the desktop has come a reaaally long way in usability in the past 4-5years, but it's still behind years in usability. Usability is pretty much all what matters in the end, to get the smoothest & most efficient workflow.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
because any article, any rational examination of the competition, only serves to prove the following point:
:-), because I had to go thru 16 million steps to make the Plymouth bootloader do anything but 640x480. I love fooling around with all different types of Linux and Unix, and I have had said as my desktop OS many a time. I do it because it's fun, because it piques my interest as a nerd. Do I smash the keyboard in a fit of rage when I get booted from signing onto WoW for the 7th time and then succeed on the 8th for no apparent reason? You bet your ass I do. And then I install Windows 7.
If it was truly the Year of the Linux Desktop, if Ubuntu offered everything that Windows 7 does; overarching ease-of-use, wide ranging software compatibility, (mostly) seamless integration of certain apps, support of the big software developers...
IT WOULD BE WINDOWS.
The market has evolved to best suit the front-runner in a game of percentages. Why does 'everyone' run Windows? Because the big apps are built for Windows. Why are the big apps built for Windows? Because everyone runs Windows!
I've used Ubuntu extensively. Loved the no-frills media players, the customization options, apt and the huge software repository, the freedom that comes from the command line. Why am I running Windows 7? Because World of Warcraft via Wine suffered from a kernel bug on AMD64 systems post 2.6.33. Because I couldn't interface with my Zune except thru VirtualBox (I didn't buy it, it was a gift
I love open source, I get a kick out of installing a Linux distro, but I go to the status quo for the it-must-work stuff. And I have no problem with that, because you can't be all things to all people, and for Ubuntu to have the scope of something like Windows it would have to forgo so much of what makes it great.
To make an overly simplistic (slashdot-approved) analogy: You see a really nice car. It's nicer than yours. It has a Bose audio system and BBS rims, a turbo. You drive a Pinto. You are overcome with lust. You buy this car, and then you realize it still shifts the same, the sound, while better quality, is still the same music, and it gets you faster to a place you didn't really want to go. But the top is down, so you're free, as in freedom. You garage it and drive the Pinto. Why? Because the seat fits your ass _just_ right.
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I've been looking more at the latest Archos's and I'll just point out that the 43 has a resistive screen instead of capacitive (while all the other new models are capacitive), and none of them have the Android Market. If you're just wanting to play MP3s that shouldn't be an issue though, and there are Android Market alternatives if you want more apps. I used the "Slide ME" marketplace on my cheap tablet.
which is totally what she said
Hell, Windows must stay the default operating system. If Unix opens itself to the mainstream, everything that's always been better will be lost. The fools of the society must keep using Windows or Mac, whereas the wise ones may continue with Unix.
Twice I've bought an Acer laptops, drove to the service center (mailing works too), and returned Windows. I got a $65 check each time. When mailing, the price is almost a wash, but it sends a message.
Do not open the box at all when you buy the laptop or this doesn't work.
It worked for XP and Vista. I haven't bought a Windows 7 laptop yet. One needed a Webcam driver packaged, so "make && sudo make install" after kernel updates (in driver source) solved it until the next Ubuntu packaged it.
I'm not affiliated with Acer.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
What options does Linux have for the above case where we need to fine tune network and computer policies on thousands of PCs?
If the hardware is the same then it's easy to set up one PC the way all the others are going to be then cloning the disk. The same used to be doable for Windows as well, Norton Ghost cloned disks, but now that MS has gotten strict with activation and spyware I don't know if people can do it now. A quick google for linux remote administration tools show that remote admin can be done.
Not a sarcastic question as I am not very Linux savvy.
Neither am I, that's why I find Google helpful. I'm about to install Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid, on my MacBook Pro and I've been using Google to map out a strategy to make it a smooth process. Sure, as some say Ubuntu is easy to install however I will be dualbooting and will use the same user files and datastores in both OSes. I'll need to calibrate my monitors, I'll have two of them. I also want to use KDE in Ubuntu and switch between Gnome and KDE.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I ended up reverting my personal computers and kept my workstation on 10.04 only because I don't really have time for reverting at work. Ubuntu 10.04 sucks pretty bad.
9.10 was niiiiiiice! B)
Not only games...Autocad, ProEngineer, Photoshop, Cubase, Altium, AvrStudio, AlteraQuartus...etc..
There are alternatives to some of these. "BRL-CAD is a powerful constructive solid geometry solid modeling system". Architosh: "the leading Internet magazine dedicated to Mac CAD and 3D professionals and students worldwide." Pro/ENGINEER runs on Solaris and Red Hat Linux. There's a version of Photoshop for OSX and Photoshop CS 2 runs in CrossOver. For those who do not need all that Photoshop has they can use GIMP, Cinepaint, or Krita. Cubase runs on OSX. For Linux there's the AGNULA Project and other alternatives.
I'm in a rush now so I won't go through the rest of your list but I bet there are alternatives for them as well.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
As a programmer I have to say FUCK WINDOWS! I program this piece of shit at my day-job on API level and it's API is so god damn horribly BAD! to get this piece of shit doing things, you need at least 4 times the code and 10 times the documentation reading that you'd need on linux. and I'm a graduate computer scientist - how tf can a regular programmer get ANYTHING done on it without a framework that gives you a posix-like API!?
and why would you write things on a bloated, slow OS and pay for (dozens-hundreds of licenses for) a framework which kills your performance even more, just to get to a level that you can have MUCH cheaper and with far better performance? oh, because the users are f*cking idiots and thus demand this nonsense, i see...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I think it's really amazing that THIS even got published - everything looks like they didn't even try ubuntu for more than a day before making this comparison. Do you call THAT journalism? This could well be written by Microsoft!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
User maintains more than a dozen sockpuppet accounts on Slashdot.