As someone who has installed windows on everything from a 486/33 to a OCed Celeron 412 Windows installation is a breeze compared to a similar linux install. The thing with Windows is that it autodetects everything. Plug and Play works (much better now than the plug an pray name it used to have) and everything is automatic. WinNT will even let you script installs so the user is not even necessary. (I think you can set up apps this way too.) The hardest part of a Windows install is finding drivers and unless you have trouble grasping the "use the mouse to navigate, use the keyboard to enter data" paradigm then most people have not trouble with that. Under Linux it is a totally different story. It is impossible to get a good linux install without mucking with dozens of text files. Yes I could read the instructions, but they are often vauge and never seem to suit your hardware. I messed around with building a slackware kernel to the point where I reinstalled GCC and a host of other programs and it still did not work. To this day I still don't know why but I think it has something to do with libc5 vs. libc6. Nowhere in the HOWTO is that mentioned. Face it, machine configs are too broad to have the user input them, no HOWTO will ever be good enough for each machine type. Install a driver in windows? right click on the device click update driver and put in th disc. Under linux I have to bother with.o files pnp dump, isapnp just to get my sound card working.
I am surprised by how some people automatically dismiss NT. I have seen quotes like NT isn't a virus cuz virii do work, and such. But I would like to point out that for media, NT is probably the best. Win9x will run all the Windows media apps, but not very well. NT runs most of the 3D packages, most of the digital video tools, and very well. For these people a 2 week uptime is certainly enough, and the NT interface is not slower than KDE (on my machine (pII 400 64MB)anyway) Lastly, Linux has some problem with interfaces. Most linux rendering apps just don't have the intuitiveness of say Truespace of MAX. So don't automatically dismiss NT becuase it is not the worlds best web server, it has its good points.
I am surprised by the reactions from the Linux people on the board. I feel compelled to play devils advocate and point out that Linux has been beaten on 3 proffesional tests. However the only reactions I have seen are storys about how the had one seen NT crash or that "in their experiance" NT was slow. This may very well be true, but benchmarks do not bear it out. If Linux is to compete for mindshare it has to be faster on the benchmarks! Maybe their was something wrong in the tests, but in the end, people listen to these big name mags. ZD may not be the most trustworthy (I'll never forget how they said that the i740 was faster than a Voodoo 2 and that a Rage Pro was faster than a Riva 128) but people listen to them. Instead of complaining about how the benchmark is bad, try looking to see if their are actually problems there. And remember, PC Mag WAS trying to make an effort to be fair, they wanted to come out of this looking like the objective king, so Linux did have good support. Also, they did point out cases where the Linux people said package XYZ would change the whole benchmark but it didn't. Lastly, even if NT is 50% faster, if your job isn't mission critical (and you don't trust that to NT OR Linux) then 50% is a lot. So is 200% I bought a Voodoo 2 even though it was ONLY 70% faster than my old card, but it made a differance.
Yes so what if BeOS has a great API, who needs that, so what if Windows GL doesn't suck, who needs a file system anyway, I prefer to keep all file definitions in.files.lib.so.c.txt in my/etc directory anyway! Since when is OO slow? As I remember BeOS is much faster than Linux and is a hell of a lot easier to program. So what if Linux is not threaded. I LIKE the performance decrease on 8 cpu servers. And you whine about NT beating linux in those mindcraft test. If you hadn't realized, some people NEED quaq, oct cpu servers, and linux does didly for them. Its a good OS and all, but it is stale compared the new stuff. And for that guys 14 year old brother, old stuff DOES suck, why do you think people complain about windows?
Have you seen how quickly BeOS has progressed on Intel? This is their 2nd major release and they already have OpenGL optimized, are releasing drivers for lots of devices like the SB Live! and soon probably drivers to 3D cards, already have a good inferstructure for accelerated 3D and an awesome, consistance, fast API. You just can't do that in Open Source. Code quality is not garunteed, consistancy is not garunteed. A focused group can trim all the fat of an OS and make it fast and stable. Open Source projects don't have that and unless they are well done, they end up being bloated like KDE and GNOME. Open Source has its place, but for speed, efficiency and consistancy, it does not hold a candle to a well managed closed source project. (Unfortunatly most aren't)
Now instead of a crappy integrated all in one thing, why don't people just make standard cases that look nice. Doesn't have to be cute, just cool. The SGI visual PC cases are elegant, and much nicer looking than the iMac which looks kinda cheaply built. Secondly many tests have been made and power PCs are markedly slower for floating point than PCs. Its a fact of life, the PPC 750 (AKA G3) is based on the old PPC 603. The 603 had good integer performance but crappy floating point. the G4 will be based 604 which has much better floating point. Lastly, MacOS is worse than windows. Bad memory management, bad multitasking, annoying interface (an app should not take over the whole screen! ie. The menubar at the top), bad performance, late OpenGL implementation.
When will people understand that Linux setup is easy enough, maintaining it is hard. Why the hell do I have to go into a text file to configure my sound card? Why are there dozens of config files in/etc Why do I have to go into XF86Config to change my screen resolution!
PS. X is a bloated monster. We should not be using things on modern computers that is 15 years old. And this network even on local machines is just silly.
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As someone who has installed windows on everything from a 486/33 to a OCed Celeron 412 Windows installation is a breeze compared to a similar linux install. The thing with Windows is that it autodetects everything. Plug and Play works (much better now than the plug an pray name it used to have) and everything is automatic. WinNT will even let you script installs so the user is not even necessary. (I think you can set up apps this way too.) The hardest part of a Windows install is finding drivers and unless you have trouble grasping the "use the mouse to navigate, use the keyboard to enter data" paradigm then most people have not trouble with that. Under Linux it is a totally different story. It is impossible to get a good linux install without mucking with dozens of text files. Yes I could read the instructions, but they are often vauge and never seem to suit your hardware. I messed around with building a slackware kernel to the point where I reinstalled GCC and a host of other programs and it still did not work. To this day I still don't know why but I think it has something to do with libc5 vs. libc6. Nowhere in the HOWTO is that mentioned. Face it, machine configs are too broad to have the user input them, no HOWTO will ever be good enough for each machine type. Install a driver in windows? right click on the device click update driver and put in th disc. Under linux I have to bother with .o files pnp dump, isapnp just to get my sound card working.
I am surprised by how some people automatically dismiss NT. I have seen quotes like NT isn't a virus cuz virii do work, and such. But I would like to point out that for media, NT is probably the best. Win9x will run all the Windows media apps, but not very well. NT runs most of the 3D packages, most of the digital video tools, and very well. For these people a 2 week uptime is certainly enough, and the NT interface is not slower than KDE (on my machine (pII 400 64MB)anyway) Lastly, Linux has some problem with interfaces. Most linux rendering apps just don't have the intuitiveness of say Truespace of MAX. So don't automatically dismiss NT becuase it is not the worlds best web server, it has its good points.
I am surprised by the reactions from the Linux people on the board. I feel compelled to play devils advocate and point out that Linux has been beaten on 3 proffesional tests. However the only reactions I have seen are storys about how the had one seen NT crash or that "in their experiance" NT was slow. This may very well be true, but benchmarks do not bear it out. If Linux is to compete for mindshare it has to be faster on the benchmarks! Maybe their was something wrong in the tests, but in the end, people listen to these big name mags. ZD may not be the most trustworthy (I'll never forget how they said that the i740 was faster than a Voodoo 2 and that a Rage Pro was faster than a Riva 128) but people listen to them. Instead of complaining about how the benchmark is bad, try looking to see if their are actually problems there. And remember, PC Mag WAS trying to make an effort to be fair, they wanted to come out of this looking like the objective king, so Linux did have good support. Also, they did point out cases where the Linux people said package XYZ would change the whole benchmark but it didn't. Lastly, even if NT is 50% faster, if your job isn't mission critical (and you don't trust that to NT OR Linux) then 50% is a lot. So is 200% I bought a Voodoo 2 even though it was ONLY 70% faster than my old card, but it made a differance.
Yes so what if BeOS has a great API, who needs that, so what if Windows GL doesn't suck, who needs a file system anyway, I prefer to keep all file definitions in .files.lib.so.c.txt in my /etc directory anyway! Since when is OO slow? As I remember BeOS is much faster than Linux and is a hell of a lot easier to program. So what if Linux is not threaded. I LIKE the performance decrease on 8 cpu servers. And you whine about NT beating linux in those mindcraft test. If you hadn't realized, some people NEED quaq, oct cpu servers, and linux does didly for them. Its a good OS and all, but it is stale compared the new stuff. And for that guys 14 year old brother, old stuff DOES suck, why do you think people complain about windows?
Have you seen how quickly BeOS has progressed on Intel? This is their 2nd major release and they already have OpenGL optimized, are releasing drivers for lots of devices like the SB Live! and soon probably drivers to 3D cards, already have a good inferstructure for accelerated 3D and an awesome, consistance, fast API. You just can't do that in Open Source. Code quality is not garunteed, consistancy is not garunteed. A focused group can trim all the fat of an OS and make it fast and stable. Open Source projects don't have that and unless they are well done, they end up being bloated like KDE and GNOME.
Open Source has its place, but for speed, efficiency and consistancy, it does not hold a candle to a well managed closed source project. (Unfortunatly most aren't)
Now instead of a crappy integrated all in one thing, why don't people just make standard cases that look nice. Doesn't have to be cute, just cool. The SGI visual PC cases are elegant, and much nicer looking than the iMac which looks kinda cheaply built. Secondly many tests have been made and power PCs are markedly slower for floating point than PCs. Its a fact of life, the PPC 750 (AKA G3) is based on the old PPC 603. The 603 had good integer performance but crappy floating point. the G4 will be based 604 which has much better floating point. Lastly, MacOS is worse than windows. Bad memory management, bad multitasking, annoying interface (an app should not take over the whole screen! ie. The menubar at the top), bad performance, late OpenGL implementation.
When will people understand that Linux setup is easy enough, maintaining it is hard. Why the hell do I have to go into a text file to configure my sound card? Why are there dozens of config files in /etc Why do I have to go into XF86Config to change my screen resolution!
PS. X is a bloated monster. We should not be using things on modern computers that is 15 years old. And this network even on local machines is just silly.