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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.'"
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.
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!
It would be interesting to see some proper statistics on how many home users actually buy/run games on windows.
From my gut feeling it might fall both ways - it may be that a lot of people need the home computer to support DirectX games, as it is a must-have feature for myself.
Or it may be just as likely that most typical home-users actually just use the computers for Web+Word, and quite likely get their gaming done on sites like facebook (which has more daily-active players than the entire PC FPS+RTS+MMORPG sales combined) or on consoles - in which case they don't really care about the PC games and Wine.
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.
> And your typical home user won't want it. Wrong. I have a very large family, most of whom are very typical home users, mostly computer illiterate - web, email, videos, and the occasional spreadsheet. My mother wants to surf the net, check her email, watch news video and view whatever pictures and video kids send her. She was always getting viruses on her Windows XP box, and after years of trying to keep her up and running I finally installed Firefox to get her used to the browser, and then a while later installed Ubuntu. I used a theme similar to XP, she loved it, and my workload dropped about 90%. She doesn't know Linux from Windows from a bag of frogs, and doesn't care as long as it works.
12:50 - press return.
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
It's also a question of familiarity. I also think Windows 7 is the best version I've ever used, but I also think Ubuntu blows it away for usability as I've now been using Linux for so long. With Windows 7 the number of dialog boxes that pop up drive me mad, the number of things in the sys tray that keep asking me if I want to update, the number of simple apps that it misses that I can't get without having to pay for (screenshots, etc), the bloated anti-virus/spyware you end up installing, having to hunt around on sites for drivers that don't get found, etc.
If all you know is Windows then Win7 is a great update, but then that is more to do with previous versions not being very good. If you are a gamer, then Win7 is pretty much your only choice. The sheer wealth of free software, coupled with being so customisable, makes Ubuntu already superior for others though. Until Win7 gets the equivalent of apt-get and a similar size software repository, it's not yet there for me in terms of desktop use.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
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.
The only real barrier at this point to having your average n00b run Linux is probably lack of support from Apple.
The fact that Apple is actively hostile to accessing their devices outside of iTunes means more people are driven to keep WINDOWS around.
Not being able to deal with their iPod or iPhone is more likely a show stopper than games at this point.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I converted my wife to Ubuntu after the 8th virus in 3 months. I did buy Crossover Pro for Photoshop, but that's about it. She loves how much faster her laptop is. She games on Facebook, uses Evolution for email, and OpenOffice for writing, etc. She's got Hulu Desktop installed, and will dock her laptop to our home theater system and watch TV that way. The number of "Hey hon, can you look at this?" type things have gone down incredibly. She's been on Ubuntu for about 18 months now, and can't fathom going back. So, I don't think that your point of, "Granny just stopped asking for help" is really valid. People are people, if you mess up their PC, you'll hear about it at every family gathering.
>>>Perhaps they should do a Mac OS vs. Ubuntu Linux comparison.
Heck I'll do it myself. Ubuntu 10.0 and Mac OS 10.6
usability - 7 - 7 (tie)
entertainment and bundled aps 8 - 6 (Mac scores same as WIN7)
performance and mobility - 9 - 9 (tie)
drivers and compatibility - 7 - 7 (tie)
business - 7 - 6 (mac not as good as ubuntu)
TOTAL 38 Ubuntu 35 Mac
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Compatibility is the goal of Wine. They spend most of their time fixing bugs caused by the "undocumented features" in the Windows APIs.