What Differentiates Linux from Windows? 1135
tail.man sent in a Linux Insider piece about the difference between Linux and Windows. Quoting the synopsis "So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable that wholesale replacement is again called for."
The Difference... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
The other side (Score:4, Insightful)
As opposed to Unix, where the design is so open and extensible that anything is possible, yet there is no coherent interface and none of the non-server applications work or look as good as they do on Macintosh or Windows.
Simplicity (Score:5, Insightful)
Net result is that you might get something done quickly, but you still won't understand how the thing works. This is not optimal, especially for critical systems.
Nobody understands Windows. I for one don't even want to understand it.
Everybody knows! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't tell me that Linux is easier to use and install hardware drivers for than Windows.
While I know that we are all Windows haters it does do quite a few things rather well. It isn't used by so many people because it is *completely* inferior. It serves its purpose.
Re:The Difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
dtg
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm IBM, SGI and lots of other profit-oriented companies have contributed code to Linux. Do they actually believe in "freedom"? Why not opensource all of their products?
Customization (Score:2, Insightful)
We pride ourselves in our extensive deployment of Linux servers in our environment. We find that their MySQL processing is 10x faster than our previous architecture running on SQL Server 4.1.
Which is nice.
Re:It's simple. (Score:2, Insightful)
What no wants to hear but should be said ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows is Easier To Install and Use (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly the problem with Linux. A Linux user spends(well wastes) most of his time just trying to get a simple thing like an office suite to work, where as the Windows user can happily go about doing whatever he wants to do.
Linux is good for the geeks. But for the normal everyday man, Linux is no alternative for Windows.
I am a Linux user: that's my personal preference. But I don't see many of my friends ever using it. Quite a lot of them are very computer literate. Why don't they want to use linux?
simple because they want to use a computer as a tool, and not as a source of frustration.
Windows has driver support (Score:4, Insightful)
K-12 institutions receive lots of donated hardware. How do you make, for example, a donated scanner work with GNU/Linux if SANE lists it as unsupported? Do you reserve a Windows box just for that scanner and a few other donated peripherals that the community hasn't yet figured out how to get to work with a Free operating system?
Re:Simplicity (Score:5, Insightful)
No-one understands Windows, but anyone can use it. Linux is simple, but few can use it.
It's obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, and now works on everything from calculators and old gaming consoles to some of the largest supercomputing clusters in the world.
Anybody who says that Linux isn't inherently more robust and flexible at the critical core areas is living their life under a rock.
Re:I don't think anyone says this but.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hardware drivers database (Score:1, Insightful)
Besides, if a given piece of hardware is not supported by Linux, it's not clear what the user should do.
History (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, this analysis is a little superficial but I think it's true in a broad sense.
Simple: Pet projects (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows on the other hand is sterile and ferile. No one is personally involved in one particular aspect (at least for very long, comparitively speaking.) So you get mountains of code that, once written, are rarely re-thought. They work, they go through testing, and until some new function is needed for it or some vulnerability found, never given a second thought.
Think Bit Rot.
Re:Its all about the floppy disk (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Its all about the floppy disk (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:stability, security, licensure, etc (Score:2, Insightful)
Good description of Linux IPC (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a good description of Linux inter-application communication. Linux is still stuck with a antiquated pre-object model of interprocess communication that's based on pipes, signals, forking, and sockets. The Linux/Unix world has never been able to come up with a good answer to COM/DCOM/Active-X. CORBA never caught on. The window managers and OpenOffice have totally different approaches to inter-application communication. In typical Linux fashion, there's an attempt to hack a "gateway" between the two, rather than standardize.
Because of this Mess Underneath, most interprocess communication is done by adding a bloated layer on top, usually at the language level. This leads to hacks like Java RMI, or the Mozilla "platform".
Cut and paste sucks because the infrastructure needed to do it right is missing.
main difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows is an OS driven by the desire for profit and more widespread use.
* ease of use
* compatibility with hardware/programs
* small learning curve
Linux is driven by a desire to create a more 'better' operating system with a desire for more configurability.
* longer learning curve
* more versatile
* not intended for the average user (and will not be anytime in the near future)
* more concentration on bug fixes and security, and less on user-friendliness
there are commercial companies obviously that sell linux, but mainstream usage is not #1 priority for the main developers, therefore it is a hard sell for the linux distribution vendors
Re:It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
The point that did come up multiple times, Microsoft has to rewrite large portions of windows code to take on new features, which make it incompatible with older software. While Unix based OS's can run older versions of software.
Linux (or BSD/etc) is more modular and can build on newer, better OS implementations. Paging file techniques, VM engines, OS Schedulers, etc.
It's more of a design philosophy article.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
These arguments are always stupid anyway. It really depends on what you mean by "superior." If you mean, who controls more market - as superior usually means in a business sense - the Microsoft is by far superior to all other operating systems. If you mean superior as in gets what you want done, and linux gets what you want done.. then Linux is superior to you, so why should you care what Microsoft is doing at all? I don't get it, and never have.
I personally don't run Linux. I have a lot of quirky particularities in various Windows software that I admire too much to give up. But I don't run around wondering what "those Linux people" are up to all the time, constantly trying to dig up dirt.. or gloating at an open source failure.
the differeince? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Unix philosophy: build tools which do one or a few things very well (and are trivial to develop, debug, and maintain) and build upon them.
I have yet to detect anything resembling a philosophy in the 'other' place. It seems to be build a single big-ass swiss army knife application (which doesn't seem to do anything very well).
Re:Rewrites necessary (Score:3, Insightful)
It is all about quality versus quantity. Microsoft sticks to the second one and Linux to the first one. So this means the while Microsoft has to reinvent the weel time after time, the Linux coders can actually spend their time improving on top of a very solid base.
Diego Rey
Close... (Score:5, Insightful)
Close. Microsoft makes something which runs like and O/S, but includes massive amounts of code for things you may never use, but fill up the disk and memory anyway. It's like the joke that inside every fat person is a skinny person trying to get out, but with Windows there's a bloated pile of software smothering an operating system.
Re:It's simple. (Score:2, Insightful)
I beg to differ. Every Linux box I've set up has been "install-and-go" - no driver downloads or installation required. Even for printers.
Start Linux install, 30 minutes and one reboot later, posting to Slashdot!
Re:Windows Obsolescence? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
My God, what a mindless mob of moderators we have today.
I've got mod points now, but rather than pointlessly mod down the parent, I've eschewed them to say this: How in the name of Linus's bumcheeks is reiterating business common sense -- try to dominate the market with your product -- insightful?
Do you not think that market dominance is not an appropriate goal for Linux? Do you think that the principal designers of NT are only interested in market control? You can't put together a operating system with marketing fiends using Powerpoint? (well, maybe windows 95 was a result of that).
Anyone care to back me up on this? Am I completely deluded?
- Oisin
Well, lets see... (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps if the Linux community were more interested in seeing what can be done, instead of wanking it's time away doing whats already been done, then it might be a more attractive platform.
another way to see it ... (Score:2, Insightful)
I prefer the Linux approach
However, going from an older version of Windows to a new one does not have a reputation for breaking things like USB or sound card drivers -- Linux does break compatibility once in a while, if you try to stay on the bleeding edge. (This is why I'm using 2.6 only from a LiveCD for a while
As an argument for Windows / against Linux, this doesn't hold much water to me though, since the simple fact is this situation is so only because with Linux and other Free software, the user is allowed to participate in the whole ride -- even the bumpy parts. It's the "bust" part of "robust", and it's something like the chance to get killed on the Crusades: the glory is a tradeoff for some risk, but if you don't want to participate you can stay at home and eat unseasoned mud, participate in cholera parties, etc.
With Windows, any bugs / breakages are ones that were *supposed* to be taken care of by beta testing at the latest
timothy
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Innovation in technology isn't necessarily a great thing. For every Macintosh you have your NeXT. Heck, even the Mac was just derivative of PARC's work. Linux plays it conservative and just does what it does.
Code Bloat - I am sure of it! (Score:3, Insightful)
What is code bloat? Evidently, it involves kludging, which is mentioned several times. Is this one programmer attacking another's style or is this a non-programmer playing a religion card?
IANA Historian, but the "Defenestration" of Prague is what started the 30 Years War, over religions' control of govenrment. I certainly hope this is not the way the author sees the IT world.
Anyone here ever worked on a project which was perfectly clean and well commented? Show of hands? I thought not.
The terms "Code bloat" and "kludging" has been tossed around quite a bit over the years about Microsoft without anyone producing any source code examples until some were recently lifted and shared.
It would not take me long to look on any project source tree to find some code, which, IMHO, I thought was "kludged"
Re:I don't think anyone says this but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ie, the only thing that seperates Linux from Windows is that Linux is the Better high Hurdler while Windows has the Superior high jump.
now, from repeated training in the off season, Windows has lowered it Hurdle times while Linux has increased its vertical jump.
both have gained ground on each other.
Knowing you will be rooted (Score:3, Insightful)
I have the same sort of nightmares about linux and I do about going to work without any pants on. Few people are experts enough to really know how to lock down their boxes and keep them up to date on linux. So you always worry you forgot you pants (did I enable SSH-KEYS over an NFS network? oops no pants. Is this apache module up to date? Which daemons have latent SUID root? Should I install the package as root or as a non-priviledged user. Should I launch tomcat as Root or as a non priviedged user. Is truly bewildering ). Keeping your pants up is hard.
With windows you know theres always a security hole lurking but at least the company is trying to help you patch it. If they could get the Lag time as short as apples they would become a real threat to linux.
Re:The Difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you assume making money and making an effective OS are mutually exclusive?
Re:The Difference. (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux does you want. Windows does what Microsoft wants.
Unless what you want is to copy and paste between applications, in which case the opposite is true.
great grammar. but it's more like this:
1.Linux does what you want if you know exactly what you want and were to find it and have all the additional modules ot compile it.
Windows does what you want, only if you want something MS thinks you want, if not you'll eventually kludge together a hack of several shareware programs to do it.
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
For non-trivial things, though, I have scads of problems just like the grandparent. He's right: the key difference between Windows and Linux is ease of hardware and software installation. Time and again I have problems with dependencies and searching down different versions of this or that library, or circular reference dependency problems such as MySQL needs Perl which needs MySQL-DBI which can't be installed without MySQL. Or trying to get a real video card working, and having XFree ask you 100 questions about your monitor frequencies, only to finally barf to text mode when it's show time.
Many things are wonderful and easy in Linux, but installing hardware and software is 50 times as difficult in Linux as it is in Windows.
Article=junk (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You'd think a journalist could write a more coherent and jargon-free paragraph, but maybe that's just me?
2. Asking what Windows vs. *nix does different is too broad. You can ask this question literally forver - if you keep abstracting down further and futher. Once again, vague journalism.
3. Ok, you can flame me (as if I would deny you that) but I don't think Linux zealots are in any position to say that windows is any less bloated than Linux. Mandrake 10.0 community from just yesterday's is 2.1 gigabytes (re: torrent), most of which is unnecessary for 95% use. Suppose I manage to start the install from CD1 without having CD2 or CD3, well I *hope* there's not a package required by default that is on CD2 or CD3.
4. Microsoft runs a few processes faster and others slower? I think he needs to define what he means by processes. Because I dont think he's using the same terminology as the rest of us when we say 'process'. Once again, too vague.
until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable
5. Is the code bloated, or are the features bloated? Or are the features bloated and the code that composes those features bloated? Once again, too much abstraction.
I think I'll stop here.
Re:It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there are cases when things do not necessarily work that way. Take for instance Sony's Betamax video system. It was (and is) far superior to the JVC VHS system, but due to financial dealings with the movie industry (adult film industry, more than likely...), VHS ended up taking over the market, virtually pushing Betamax (and the Philips System 2000 too, for that matter!) out of the marketplace.
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a KDE developer I would like to know what is missing? I don't use windows much, I don't even have it at home, and I can't think of everything. What is missing? What are you looking for? You just sent an accusation to use without backing it up, and we can't tell if you are a troll; have a real concern that we need to address; or just are missing some part of KDE.
Okay, I'm not a big KDE developer, but I have done some work with it. I can write a new KDE app to solve your problem, if it can be done. I need to know what though.
Re:main difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on what your definition of average user is. We have 20 Linux desktops where I work. We went straight from Windows to Linux. These are not tech people, they are customer service and sales reps for a mail order company. These people had no problem learning the new system. That was our definition of the average user.
The focus needs to be on business use - once everyone is using it at work, the home users will follow. Linux is perfect for business - your secretary or sales rep shouldn't be installing hardware or upgrading apps anyway. That should be the responsibility of the IT personnel.
Re:It's simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." -- Linus
I don't think it should be a goal. I think the goal should be to design a stable, secure and efficent kernel. If it gains market dominance in the process, so much the better, but that should not be one of the main driving forces.
>> Do you think that the principal designers of NT are only interested in market control?
No, but I believe the team in charge of marketing it is. And the CEO... and the people that actually get to make the decisions....
>> Am I completely deluded?
No more than myself, or any other regular slashdot reader.... :P
Linux has good genes (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's not begin the quarrel of which OS has the ~better~ GUI. The point is that although a GUI can be well-designed, it will by its very nature be a greater burden on the OS than a command typed at the prompt. It's a performance burden, it's a design burden, it's a maintenance burden for the development team. (Axiom: The more complex software becomes, the less even its creators and maintainers understand it.) Eventually it produces a Support burden because users know dulcet coital nothing about their computers.
Then bring in the Internet. Make it very popular. Hell, make it commercial. People are learning that you can get things done quickly with Linux. UNIX was networking when Bill Gates was battling pimples.
Linux builds on the better tradition. So it's not just the cost, but the design philosophy of Linux that is beating Windows.
(-1, Flamebait) (Score:2, Insightful)
People, leave each OS in its place and things will just happen. Just because some MS software is crap, it doesn't mean we need to get into flamewars every time some text gives one or another the advantage.
I've seen meny people turn to free/open source just because it works, not because of MS bashing.
OK, mod me down to hell now.
Re:Good description of Linux IPC (Score:3, Insightful)
COM/DCOM/Active-X: These were designed to support GUI applications; as a result, they're pretty lightweight, but don't handle distributed applications well. CORBA, on the other hand, was designed for remove method invocation, and is really too heavy for GUI-type apps, as GNOME found out. Theres been some progress here, though: DCOP, used by KDE, is very nice; it's KParts system is the best example of its kind in Unix-land. The KDE and GNOME folks (via freedesktop) are moving towards a common protocol and desktop messaging framework,
Window Managers vs. OOo: I'm not fully aware of the issues, but it sounds like (and wouldn't surprise me to find out that) OOo doesn't follow the well-known ICCCM [x.org] protocol. There is a standard, OOo doesn't support it. Kind of like how Microdoft Office doesn't use the standard widget set of Windows.
That Java RMI "hack" comes in real handy when doing IPC operations across a heterogeneous network, btw.
The drag-and-drop argument is really getting tired. The three major DEs (KDE, GNOME, XFCE) all support the XDND [freedesktop.org] protocol... This was a problem a few years ago, and mostly to those who didn't understand how X cut and selection buffers work. But now, XDND has simplified and standardized how drang-and-drop works on X clients...
Um Windows and OSX are all USER FRIENDLY (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a programmer. I use my computer to work on projects that require typing, graphics, spreadsheets, browsing the net, watching movies, and I want to do it without having to install/setup anything. And if I do need to install somethign I just want to click the "install" file and hit "ok" and run the "shortcut" thats been put on my desktop. Windows and OSX does that, Linux has you jumping through 100 different hurdles to ge tthe simplest things to work the way you want.
Re:The Difference... (Score:1, Insightful)
Why do you assume making money and making an effective OS are mutually exclusive?
Because there are always compromises. A few bugs still lurking around but you just can't find them quickly enough? It doesn't matter, it's release day, and we have to release or lose a load of money on marketing. Don't worry though, we'll fix it in the next service pack! Well, if enough of our big-paying customers are affected by it. If only a minority of users are affected by it, it's not cost-effective to waste developer time on it.
Re:The Difference... (Score:3, Insightful)
(Answer: They aren't; globally they look similar but they cause much different local decisions. You won't catch Linux being anti-competitive, whereas Microsoft has been proven anti-competitive in court several times. There's one difference for you, and yes, this directly plays out in code quality. If you'd like more details on why this is true, I'd recommend this rather good article on the subject [linuxinsider.com].)
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, my ex girlfriend sent me a screensaver she made with photos and video clips on Mac OSX (another unix varient), and lemme tell ya, she is no 1337 "power user". As outrageous as it sounds, I sometimes I think we give Windows a little too much credit in the usability department.
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for ease of use, that's arguable. I've used Windows since 3.0 and find the continually changing and inconsistant user interface frustrating. I find Linux much much easier to use on a regular basis.
Linux != Redhat (Score:5, Insightful)
some other lean WM. Just because some distros come with large
desktop environments by default doesn't mean you need to
use them.
Re:It's simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't tell me that Linux is easier to use and install hardware drivers for than Windows.
As many people will attest, Linux works quite well out of the box. I think you are refering to the fact that hardware manufacturers often write WinXX drivers but not Linux drivers; this is entirely a market share decision, based on limited developer time. Windows, natively, does not support hardware better than Linux. I would argue Linux does, because I have gotten far more random BSOD's from Windows. One of my biggest complaints with Win2k was how sloooooow it got as I added additional hardware. Linux was not as easily encumbered.
While I know that we are all Windows haters it does do quite a few things rather well. It isn't used by so many people because it is *completely* inferior. It serves its purpose.
I don't think it does anything "rather well"; it does the bare minimum. People have accepted Windows' flaws because they have to, but the flaws are tremendous.
The reason WinXX is so popular is primarily because of marketing; it wasn't "better" than OS/2, it was better marketed. Over time, people who did not use computers ran Microsoft software because that was what came loaded on OEM boxes. OEM's loaded Microsoft software because that is what people wanted for compatibility with their friends. It had nothing to do with Windows being a better product.
Re:The Difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention a total lack of perl or a good scripting shell on windows. I depend on scripts to help wade through log files and such.
I guess it depends on what you are used to.
Re:Simplicity (Score:3, Insightful)
At my rather large university, they have a big Exchange installation. They have Microsoft's own engineers supporting it, and it still goes down all the time. Once, the whole mail system went down for an entire week due to a bug in Exchange. It's a major expense and a pain in the ass for the IT department. In contrast, the UNIX mainframe that used to run the same mail system never had a single problem. This is kind of the point of this article.
Difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux, on the other hand, is not driven by profit. Therefore it lacks direction. However at the same time its feature set is also free from strategic bastardizations, which means no forced browsers on users, no purposeful breakage of competitor products' codes, etc.
With that said, the biggest downside to Linux has to be the fact that, since they're not profit-driven, individual authors of components don't feel much need to make it user-friendly nor intuitive. Installing/upgrading something often requires reading cryptic documentations and long hours of time wasted on debugging random install problems.
From a windows user..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple, for me it's games. It is the only thing that has kept me from migrating to linux. If I can't sit down and *enjoy* my PC because of the OS, I don't want that OS. Get real serious games on linux, and I am there.
Re:Differentiating Windows and Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS is the reason Linux doesn't get raped from viruses/worms the way Windows machines do.
The common argument is that Linux lacks viruses because it's not popular. That's partially true. But this is usually accompanied with the false implication that, if Linux were more popular, it would have the same virus problems as Windows. And that's not true. Viruses would fail to be as easily effective. You can find a hole in an email client and bork the email client, but that's as far as you'll get. Linux isn't bulletproof, and the best virus writers could come up with some successes, but it would be nothing like Windows - where most of these recent viruses take advantage of "features" as much as bugs.
Re:It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They're just Different. (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft would have more to fear from an open source windows variant than any threat Linux could ever bring.
The last time somebody tried to create an OS that was a completely compatible replacement for a Microsoft OS was DR-DOS. Microsoft killed it with spurious error messages that came up when you ran Microsoft applications on top of it.
If somebody comes up with a completely compatible Windows clone, how long do you think it would be before Microsoft put a check into Office to crash it when it wasn't running under a Microsoft operating system?
Re:It's simple. (Score:2, Insightful)
Take my digital camera, for example. Plug it in on Linux, whip out gphoto2, and away I go.
Try to install the driver on Win2k, and it also installs about 8 billion idiotic things that I in no way want or need. No where near as nice.
The only advantage Windows has is that most if not all hardware manufacturers write drivers for windows.
But heaven help you if you want to use a component that was made by a company that has gone out of business (3Dfx, etc.). Linux is much better there.
Re:What no wants to hear but should be said ... (Score:3, Insightful)
So... because I want to just turn on my computer and use Photoshop, I'm closed-minded?
I don't hate Linux... I just hate Linux zealots. Go back to your dark server room.
Re:The Difference... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Microsoft does make some effective OSes. They may not be superior to Linux (it's arguable as both have strengths and weaknesses), but they are still effective.
Re:The Difference. (Score:3, Insightful)
- Linux does what developers want. Windows does what Microsoft wants.
- Unless what you want is to copy and paste between applications, in which case the opposite is true.
Both have their flaws, but I just happend to think that Linux beats the pants out of MS, but maybe that's because I'm a developer.Re:The Difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
Bah. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's possible to have a good experience setting up Linux - and it's likely if you know what you're doing and you know what things mean. If you don't, there's a good possibility you'll dig yourself into a hole and not even know it.
I just installed Mandrake on a machine a couple months ago. The little Samba config utility just didn't work. I didn't know why. I still don't. Anywho, I knew how to use Samba from the command line so it ended up not being a problem for me - but for another guy it would have been a complete showstopper. They just couldn't have used it for its intended purpose.
Watch yourself use Linux. Be honest about the number of times you do something not entirely intuitive.
the amount of support they had to do reduced and for those times their parents couldnt fix it they could ssh right in
You've given a good example. SSH right in, eh? Imagine how meaningful those letters would be to a new user.
To do the same task under Windows XP, you'd click "Remote Assist" - and you could assist intuitively by acting on that machine the same way you act on your own. Sure, you could use VNC too - if you know what VNC is, how to enable it, and all that.
Linux is easy to use if you know what you're doing. If you're lucky, it's easy to use even if you don't - but as things currently are you'll run up against that learning curve sometime if you're really going to use the thing. Windows isn't amazing here either, but it's further down the road to usability.
My digital camera, scanner and adsl modem "just work", so do the nic cards in my partner and I's machines
If you buy the right camera, it'll work. But some won't. You may disagree, but I've tried and failed a few times with cameras (which by itself is evidence that it is more difficult than under Windows - even if it is eventually possible).
And you won't get the manufacturers programs to manage your photos. That's a plus for me - but again it's a crippling failure for others. It means the manual that came with their camera is useless.
You're just not seeing things from a new user's eyes here.
Welcome to Slashdot :) (Score:3, Insightful)
You misspelled "since day one".
You might be new here, so I'll clue you in on our dirty little secret: Slashdot is, in general, very pro-Linux, and anti-Microsoft. It's always been this way. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a "balanced view" on this site. However, there are many pro-Microsoft websites out there, so if the Linux-is-good crowd scare you, there are always alternatives.
Ask yourself this: on a website dominated by geeks (ie: people who tend to know much more than the average person about computers), why is there such a slant in favour of Linux/OSS?
Re:The Difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
BUZZ... INCORRECT!
It's only in the companies best interest to make products of a high enough quality as percieved by the majority of the target purchasers as to justify procuerment. Any extra quality in the product is waste.
Re:Windows is Easier To Install and Use (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is a house made of wood, linux is a house made of stone.
Yes, that house of wood is much easier to build, less skills and less effort required. But after years of (ab)use, guess which house requires least maintenance?
A correctly managed linux (debian) system needs to be installed only once, and can then be kept current indefinitely, without becoming less stable, and without becoming slower. I've yet to see a windows system manage that, no matter how competent the admin.
article is biased (Score:2, Insightful)
Lastly, and most importantly, Windows has massive number of applications. Linux is seriously lacking in this respect. This difference isn't really due to Windows architecture or anything, but nevertheless it is what seperates the two.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Can't just look for the penguin (Score:2, Insightful)
Except in this case Microtek was perfectly willing to include a Windows 2000 driver for its scanner on the driver disc.
The root of the problem is that I can't tell my folks to make sure to buy hardware with a cartoon devil or penguin on it. Unlike the Windows Logo Program, there exists no logo program for compatibility of hardware purchased at Best Buy with any Free operating system. The alternative of printing out the comprehensive hardware compatibility list and bringing it into the store doesn't cut it for those who don't already own a compatible printer.
Re:The Difference. (Score:2, Insightful)
stabiltiy, openness, control (Score:2, Insightful)
- openness: the OS will be available in the future
- control: the OS does not control me
Re:the biggest difference for me (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry but I have to say this...
After 11 years using, developing for, and administering Linux (almost exclusively) in my profession, my view is that the "Debian Way" has a very snooty view of anyone else.
I see it as the stereotypical "Linux view" of the *BSD crowd's superiority complex. It's like academia unleashed.
Mod me down, I don't care. I'm a fair and level guy, and I don't believe that there is total untruth in my opinion here.
Re:It's simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
If I wanted to install mysql, I would enter (as root, on Mandrake): and the computer would take care of figuring out the dependencies, downloading everything off the internet, verifying the digital signatures, and installing the software onto my system.
Likewise, if I want to install Postgres, I would enter and again, it would take care of everything. If you're doing more work than this, then you're not doing it right. And I would argue that this is easier than the equivalent on Windows.
Re:It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually the "problem" here is the idea that installation should be an end user task. Which is an idea which Microsoft appears to have invented.
With just about any other machine you care to think of there is a split between using and installing/configuring/etc.
Re:The Difference... (Score:3, Insightful)
Experience?
Think of Amiga, Sun, DEC and SGI, all of whom had more-or-less effective OSs, and all of whom are either already dead, or hurting. Think of MS, who has gotten rich with an ``OS'' (Win3.1) which was decades behind Amiga, even though it came out years after.
Re:Rewrites necessary (Score:3, Insightful)
It's always easy to point at flaws or pick apart people's arguments. Microsoft has done enough that it's a lightning rod for us on Slashdot. But let's say we were hired make many of the design decisions. We have people complaining about losing support for their old hardware/software, you have people wanting features, people wanting stability, etc... You have so many different types of requests and you have the business side, it becomes easy to see mistakes, but much harder to necessarily see solutions. For every solution you think you have to a problem, I'm sure others would see other problems that would arise elsewhere. How do you manage and balance all of that? Thankfully, that's not my job...
The benefit of open source is that people can pick and choose what they want. They want stability, then you can use BSD type or Debian stable. You want bleeding features, there are distributions that are always cutting edge Mandrake, Debian testing/unstable, etc. Microsoft has branches in terms of XP Home, Pro and server editions and stuff. But it has to cater to more people, which makes it much easier for those people to find complaints.
Big Difference! (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a huge difference between the two.
When I install new hardware on my WinXp machine, I turn it on and go grab a cup of coffee. By the time I get back my desktop is ready to use.
When I install new hardware on my Linux machine, I go get coffee first. It's gonna be a while....
Re:The Difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
The article speaks quite a bit about how Microsoft if forced to build in back-compatibility in an inefficient manner. Every OS has to deal with back-compatibility to a certain extent, but consider how much more important it is to a company like Microsoft.
They have a business model that could easily be described as based on market share with both business users and home users "feeding" each other's compatibility needs. The business user many be more reluctant to upgrade than the home user because reliability, transition problems and cost have different consequences for both types, yet both have large numbers of current and legacy OS users.
Consider Linux. Upgrade issues remain, but cost is negligible with home users and can be attractive (or not; depends on too many things) to business users as well. However the OS itself (with the more modern code) is available and access to the software itself is not a significant cost issue. Thus, no absolute need for "kludges" to keep older OS's ( or more typically older paid programs from other vendors) running, while a significant number of truly ancient CPUs can also run an effective, compatible "family" *NIX Operating System and necessary software.
Microsoft got where it is on marketshare; it's maintaining it's current income on marketshare, and it pegs it's future on marketshare. It drives every effort from code to sales to lobbying. That marketshare requires users to implicitly agree to paid upgrades of MS and third party software.
Although a given Linux distro does have marketshare interests, a user that switches to a competitive Linux distro is not the end of the world; potential new users far exceed current users, the user hasn't really changed his way of working, and hasn't invested in new hardware. He's still there for future growth.
I think the cost of upgrading of the two OS's plays a significant role in the way they are coded, designed, and implemented. Linux advocates may be just a little blind to it, because it's not a consideration that drives the development process; Microsoft's corporate coders can never lose sight of it, and it does drive the code, design, and implementation.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
unless you have a non-supported hardware item (Score:5, Insightful)
or a printer
or a pen tablet
etc etc
windows: go to mfr website, download install file, run install file, (maybe) reboot. Proceed with using hardware.
Linux: go to mfr website...unsupported (dam), go to linux geek site(s)...hmmm no luck, go to google...hmm no luck, go to another linux site - helpful geek says "just download this source, read your device specs, change these numbers accordingly, compile to your kernel with this line: (insert big ass command line here) and you should be ok; tries it...works partially (not all features utilized or available). crap. *heavy sigh* *gives up*
user boots to windows...
Re:Windows is Easier To Install and Use (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd have done much better with, to name some, Fedora, Mandrake or SuSE since they have more advanced user-friendly setup tools available.
But why install a soundcard on a server anyway?
Re:It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Misc. Comments (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Yet another article that says how much better Linux is than Windows, and for largely the same reasons as every other article that says Linux is better than Windows.
2) I see all the posts from people who complain that Windows doesn't work right out of the box, but that Linux is very configurable...If you tweak Windows, it's a lot more stable than if you don't.
3) Not to say that Linux doesn't have superior tweaking ability and have some definite strengths over Windows, but Windows has some stregnths too. Like availablity of software. Now will come all the posts saying how much freeware there is for Linux. Great. What versions do they all work with? Is there a central easy way to tell if it will work with my machine? There's the classic Grandma dilema, though Linux is gaining ground there.
4) Installing Windows is easier. What, am I crazy for making that statement? No. I've attempted several installs of Linux. One has actually worked, and that was Redhat 9.0, which is now not easily available. I've installed 10s of Windows machines, and had a far smaller failure rate, mostly from hardware that had gone bad or that I didn't have drivers for.
5) Linux is arguably a better OS, but constant sniping at Windows is not just a religion on Slashdot, it also obscures the fact that Microsoft has done more to bring about the popularity of computers than anyone except perhaps Apple, which only comparitively recently switched to a Unix varient. Microsoft has certainly done more to bring about affordable computers that work out of the box, even if they don't meet exacting performance standards.
6) For computer owners, you don't need to know much if you run Windows, other than the phone number of your nearest friend/relative who can fix it. I'm constantly asking people "What kind of computer are you running" and they will say "It's a Compaq" or worse "It's a Trinitron" because that's the label on the monitor. That's arguably not a good thing, but in order to run Linux on a box, you need to know all about kernal versions, dependancies, etc. when you're trying to install software. And you have to be very careful which hardware you use because you want to make sure you are getting something that is theoretically usable with your system.
Mod parent up :) (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what? You might be right. I use Windows too (ever since I more or less had to switch from my beloved Macintosh), and it's doing a wonderful job. Even my wife can use it so-so
But the thing is, the free OS'es offer something of the same, yet differently. And since most of that difference is in essence philosophical, people are going to divide themselves into two camps. Me, I'm fine with the fact that people use/like/love Windows *and* whateverNIX, so I hope there's not too much mud-tossing between said two camps.
I will say also that I'm currently trying to escape the grasp of Microsoft (yes, for mostly philosophical reasons) and it's really not that easy. In fact, it's pretty rough sailing, and I'm rather much raised in the shimmer of a monitor, so there.
Here's saying you shouldn't be modded down, but you may be argued with.
How many errors in logic? Let me count the ways. (Score:3, Insightful)
From a practical perspective, cost is an obvious differentiator, as are access to source and the ability to run outside the Intel processor environment. But it's possible to argue that those differences are neither real nor important.
To get beyond superficialities like these...
Oh for heaven's sake. Would nearly so many small to mid-sized companies running "eShops" have considered Linux if it weren't for the phat licensing deal? Ask Grandma Tilly, heck ask 80% of so-called "SQL Server Admins" out there -- Windows is much easier to learn if your skillset == GUI familiarity. Price is HUGE.
Then ask the governments (start with China) how important open source is. Again, cost of ownership is awfully high to move from any OS to any other. There must be something awfully impressive making whole countries' governments swap from one to another, and the security and freedom to explore what you're running is open source's big "in".
Let's follow that up with some anecdotal evidence to prove whatever I'm feeling today...
"like a 1991 copy of Vsifax for SunOS 4.4 -- works perfectly under Solaris 2.9, while Windows 2003/XP server now contains both a Posix-compliant interface set and four generations of the Win32 interface"
Come on. I'm no *NIX expert and usually let Fink do most of my compiling, but I do know that compiling against the wrong version of foolib can fook builds like nobody's business. I also know that...
"On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity." [joelonsoftware.com]
VB 3 apps still run (heck, until recently the code would compile in VB 6) without much issue, and though I was upset when I tried Mosaic 2.1 on Windows XP recently, this evidence hardly shows that Windows is a kludge and Linux isn't.
I'm not weighing in that he's wrong; I'm saying he hasn't come close to proving his point with his examples. A better way to show the difference would be to, say, throw a highly customized version of Gentoo doing something very specific better than the best you could do along those lines in Windows. But why can we do this in Linux? Because it's *open*, daggummit.
such [major OS] changes[/advancements] historically have been accompanied by the addition of new layers of kludged code intended to maintain some semblance of backward compatibility with previous kludges.
I like where he's trying to take us here -- certainly a hack for SimCity today makes you hack for it again in 98, and then in 2k, etc, and could end up becoming a lot more like the Princess and the Pea than sand in an oyster. And I think a number of Window's security issues come from deadwood left in what's been described as an OS originally designed to provider home users with a workable, but not networkable, computer.
But what he misses is that its the lineage that's causing these issues, not commercialism per se. Linux comes from a server mentality. Security is key. Windows comes from a mentality that perpared itself for Grandma Tilly (and the SQL Server Admins (which I've been doing for 6 years, before you flame)) where user interfaces are nearly king. This is why Windows seems kludged -- because it's trying to be all things to all people. Linux is too, *now*, and you've seen all sorts of, "throw out X11 and use Y" articles around here.
Anyhow, you get the point. The fellow goes so low-level while keeping a very bird's eye view of what's going on that he's basically saying nothing. Hey, it's all 0's and 1's. You can grab any of your favorite anecdotes and point to places where one wins over the other -- it's nearly as bad as the PowerPC vs. x86 MHz wars Mac/Windows trolls fought nearly daily on comp.sys.mac.advocacy for so long. Sure, if you r
Interesting read except... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example:
Another of the ways in which the preference for technical choices that favor a small number of core processes is expressed in the Windows kernel is in the fact that it runs nonthreaded internally. This choice avoids "object blockage" to trade off concurrency and context switching in favor of increased efficiency for, and better control of, a small number of key processes.
So... I guess my TaskManager is lying to me right now in that I have 28 processes and 294 threads running on my machine (by my count, that's 10:1 threads/process). Granted, this doesn't tell me how many are in the kernel at any one time but past research has proven to me that the Windows kernel is more threaded than the Linux kernel. Solaris is more threaded than Windows though.
Also, he actually states that he has never seen the source to Windows but assures us that their method of page management works a certain way and is somehow detrimental to this other behavior that he thinks is important (is it really important even or is this just one way that the two kernels are different and since he likes Linux more then the Linux way is somehow obviously better?)
Just another advocacy article it looks like to me.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
Software doesn't have to crash. There are systems that can run for years with no maintenance; Microsoft just doesn't make them. Instability is not a necessary part of technology.
Re:Optimism vs Pessimism (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux developers didn't start anything, they just copied Unix.
Windows developers simply built on layer after layer on a system they knew was imperfect, adding extensions willy-nilly as the need arose; effectively, adjusting the limits to match a constantly-evolving state of the art. The result is a compatibility nightmare
I don't know what to say here - have you ever written code for Windows? "Compatibility nightmare"? What do you call having sixteen different distro package formats? Compatibility heaven?
Things often don't work properly together for no obvious reason; the most likely cause is a logic trap triggered by a number of unconnected events occurring in the right order
So what you're saying is that this is a Windows problem. Right? I guess you've never had to deal with some app that can't compile (or run) because you have the wrong version of GTK or QT or lib-whatever-1.0.23.56.123. Never, eh?
Open Source programmers know their work is going to be seen by many pairs of eyes around the world, take care to avoid stupid mistakes
The "given enough eyes all bugs are shallow" parrot line has been disproved enough times I can't believe people are still using it.
Closed-source programmers, believing that nobody will ever see their code, can take bigger liberties with their code.
Sorry, but what a crock of bullshit. Under your logic, all open source developers write perfect code and all commercial software developers write crappy code. Score one for meaningless sweeping generalizations.
By having higher limits to aim for, Linux developers have been less fazed by new developments
Yeah, I love having to recompile all my drivers whenever I upgrade my kernel. Does "Higher aims" mean "we're just coding for the hell of it and we don't give a fuck about what we break"? Maybe that explains a lot.
Re:The Difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
My network card drivers were source only, my drivers I recieved for my sound card were source I had to compile and then it didn't support digital audio, Ummm...actually only a few things didn't come as source.
And if you haven't run windows in 5 years, you really wouldn't miss it, because you can't even comprehend how far its come.
That's like saying, I had a 386PC it wasn't very fast so I am sticking to my Dual Processor G5, it's much faster. Your comparing oranges, to old apples, you bought 4 years ago. Maybe you should try a nice K7 Athlon system running XP, even from 2000 to XP, the OS came a long way.
Re:My gripes with Linux (Score:1, Insightful)
I think some people try to install linux and THEN look for a reason. And, as in your case, they are often disappointed, or overwhelmed at the choices.
Not every distro is on 8 CD's. The one I use requires no media at all. I boot and install completely from the network.
You don't need 8 text editors. Rather, you're supposed to be happy that there are (more than that) available, and you get to choose the one that's appropriate for your needs. If you don't find one that meets your needs, you're given the tools to create one. (A text editor is no more than a first-year C programming assignment, you know.)
Re:Good news. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mac & Win: control/command X, C, V; everywhere, all the time. Period. (Well, a couple exceptions here & there, but not the ~50% failure rate I get with Linux.)
Difference? Simple! (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows asks "where do you want to go today?"
Linux asks "Where do you want to be tomorrow?"
Windows: Because sometimes you just have to run 1980 vintage software on modern hardware.
Linux: Because sometimes you just have to run modern software on 1980 vintage hardware.
Ha ha, only serious!
Re:extra quality (Score:2, Insightful)
True. Which is why you have to make sure the customer has no other options than to buy your product. (cough, cough, MONOPOLY)
And besides, conusmer loyalty is a myth. Nobody cares anymore. My experience is that it's more important to most people to buy whatever is fashionable/popular than to buy the best product for their needs. People buy cheap crap that breaks and they go back the next day and buy from the same company again. Look at Ford Explorers. Look at Big Mac's. Look at Nike. Look at the GOP. It doesn't matter how bad the product is, if everybody else is doing it we are like lambs to the slaughter. Like lemmings.
"If you can make your product that much better with a reasonably small amount of cost, then why not?"
If you could create something from nothing, wouldn't everybody? If getting something for nothing was as easy as trying hard the world would be a very different place. But you can't. You never get something for nothing. Sure, you might be able to shave a little off the top with lots of ingenuity, but that won't be cost-effective either - ingenuity is *expensive*.
Somebody much wiser than myself once said that neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed, only exchanged. I think he was onto something. If the price tag is cheaper it's because the product is cheaper, not because the company is better. It's because you're buying the lowest common denominator.
"MAG-Lite flashlights are extremely well made. People buy them, and the company is succesful, because they made a great product, as opposed to just another flashlight."
No, people bought them because police officers, plumbers, and other working professionals in need of a professional-grade flashlight used them conspicuously until the public (or often, the public's wife) wondered why *they* didn't have flashlights that nice, at which point the public demanded them, at which point the market was flooded with cheap mag-lite clones.
And the company is succesful because the price point for maglites, in the context of the flashlight marketplace, makes it a luxury item. Maglites cost more than they have any right to considering they're an aluminum tube, a switch, and a bulb assembly. Maglites are probably succesful for the same reason SUV's are - the markup is so huge.
Re:unless you have a non-supported hardware item (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, but what happens when the device is no longer supported for Windows? If you have a non-supported hardware item for any OS you face the exact same problem.
Sure, all the crap you buy at Office Depot or Best Buy will probably have Windows drivers for it, and maybe not for Linux, but big fucking deal. Most of that crap won't work in an SGI or Alpha box, and I doubt the crap you buy at those places will come with drivers for anything but Windows, even at the manufacturers' website.
If you can't do some research before hand on what works with what, you have no one to blame but your self.
I have three scanners, eight printers a serial pen tablet and a USB tablet that ALL work in Linux, but don't in BeOS.... Should I get on Slashdot and cry about it? No, If I want devices that work with BeOS, I go out and do some research until I find the device that does work with BeOS.
I also have a bunch of components (video cards, network cards, etc.) that I can't get to work in Windows, even after cruising the mfg's website, but work perfectly fine in Linux. Why you might ask? They are Macintosh parts.
Not trying to flame, just point out that not everything works in every OS.
Re:It's simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you figure? If you write your driver to WDM, all you have to do is recompile it twice: once for the 9x kernels and for the NT kernels.
Meanwhile, Linux kernel modules are not only specific to a certain kernel version (see the driver porting guides to go from 2.4 to 2.6), but they even restrict themselves to a certain kernel release -- requiring a reinstall and recompile when you upgrade your kernel.
Re:The Difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
To read the posts here you would think that XP is an unusable pile of dung that won't even boot. That is why these arguments posted here carry no weight at all in the real world. These guys come off as hacker freaks who squint at sunlight and curse anything that isn't built by hackers. I've worked with people like the folks who post these things. They aren't successful people. It's the "my shit doesn't stink" because it is open source, yada yada yada.
These guys hurt the cause more than help it. Some M$ products do need help, just like any other software package. But when it is destructive instead of constructive, what good will it do?
Desktop GUI's ... bah (Score:3, Insightful)
It's much easier and faster to see and click a button, than to search the man-page for the keybinding you need.
However, if you use things often, you manage to learn these keybinding and then it becomes MUCH faster to just hit 3 keys with your fingers than to move your hand to your mouse, move the pointer to a button and click it, move your pointer back to the main frame and click into it to give it focus back, then move your hand back to your keyboard.
And what application do normal people uses everyday? Right, their desktop. So WHY, why, why do you have icons & menus on a thing that you use daily? It's a productivity killer.
Ok, the Start Menu has some merrit for finding programs that you use so rarely that you forgot their name, but desktop icons and the slowlaunch bar are just too inefficient compared to keyboard shortcuts and if you remember the name of a program, firing up a shell and typing the name is faster than searching in the menu.
And no, a GUI is not better because people "just wont learn keybindings". Make it gradually, add an agent that automates adding keybindings (but less annoying then Blinky) and everybody will end up using keybindings over icons.
My desktop is pekwm, and it is blank.
My
Re:The Difference... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Simplicity (Score:1, Insightful)
Damn right. People who think Windows is "easy" and "normal people" can install stuff and fix stuff on Windows are talking out their arse. I'm the "computer guy" in my immediate circle of friends and family and I have to fix broken shit on Windows for near 2 dozen different systems.
I'll give you the most recent example. Windows ME, the mouse stopped working. No indication why. Error message said the "mouse was not installed". Reinstalling the driver didn't help. Eventually I find on an obscure chatroom that the SYSTEM.INI has corrupted itself. WTF? Edit the SYSTEM.INI by hand, remove the binary garbage, and the mouse works.
There's no way that normal people can figure this stuff out. I have to install hardware for these people. Fix their broken systems. I'm not doing it for gratis; these people are grateful for my time and I get unrequested beers, bbqs, meals, whatever. I'd do it for free because I'm like that, but these people are too proud to accept charity even from a close friend. It's costing them a small fortune to keep their supposedly "easy" Windows systems working.
Windows is only "easy" for the home user because there is a huge unofficial workforce behind it. Friends, family members, the computer guy next door: I reckon most of that workforce is unpaid. Microsoft has a lot to answer for.
Re:It's simple. (Score:2, Insightful)
These days, I find doing some research on the company is as effective as researching the device. Lexmark are one of the worst for 'difficult' behaviour. Ive found that some other unhelpful souls in the past have been Realtek, Turtle Beach and Lucent.
Some companies either co-operate, release specs, or release an open source driver, these are the ones you want to look out for. nVidia, Intel, Via, Atmel, HP are all good in this area.
Re:Optimism vs Pessimism (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux developers started by envisaging how a "perfect" computer would behave, if there were no inherent limitations, and went on to try to make real-life, limited hardware behave in as close a manner as possible to the ideal. So all storage devices try to emulate SCSI discs, and all printers try to emulate Postscript.
I disagree. I think it's more about the "small components doing one thing well" philosophy.
Take the printing example you gave. Postscript is simply used as an API between the applications and the hardware. The people writing the printer drivers needed a standard format to recieve the document in, and the people writing applications don't want to worry about printer types when printing. As it happens, a lot of printers understand Postscript, so they standardised on that format, and added a driver layer to fix up things when the printer didn't understand Postscript.
The same goes for CD burning, etc. ATAPI is basically SCSI over IDE. We already have a SCSI layer, so it made sense to simply re-use that.