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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.
> 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 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.