OSNews

This is going to be a Vista/Ubuntu flamewar. I think the Apple faithful left OSNews awhile back. They used to have a pretty strong presence, but now I don't even know what Apple's up to anymore because we don't get very many Apple-related article submissions these days. Ever since Ubuntu got big it's just not as cool to be a Mac zealot ;-)

It's good that the Apple zealots are keeping quiet. Now if only the Ubuntu zealots would do the same, we'll get to see a lot more sensible articles/discussions here on OSNews.

So the MS whores can run rampant?

+1.

These arguments just don't stop do they? People will use whatever OS they want and are obviously happy with their decision or else they wouldn't be using it.

Nope, and those arguments probably will never stop so long as the discussion is dominated by children with narcissistic personality disorder (and little grasp of the basics of rational debate). Of course, calling it "arguing" is pretty generous - most of it's just juvenile bickering filled with post-hoc fallacies and "my anecdotal evidence is bigger than yours" duels.

Nope, and those arguments probably will never stop so long as the discussion is dominated by children with narcissistic personality disorder (and little grasp of the basics of rational debate). Of course, calling it "arguing" is pretty generous - most of it's just juvenile bickering filled with post-hoc fallacies and "my anecdotal evidence is bigger than yours" duels.

Actually, they will never stop so long as the preinstall-OS landscape is dominated by one OS - and I don't care which OS it is, though realistically it's not actually going to be anything but Windows.

Think about it. Do you get childish car drivers? Of course. Do you get endless carmake wars? No. Why? Because the market is not saturated by the products of one domineering company with an allergy to the free market.

Sure you do. Just go to any rural area, ask a group of people if they prefer Ford or Chevy or Dodge pickups, and enjoy the ensuing fistfight.

It's just that OS advocates are much better-represented online.

Sorry the last time i tried, XP was more responsive than Ubuntu on similar hardware. GNome is very slow. If you add the slowness of OpenOffice on top of it, then it was almost unusable.

It was a thinkpad with 512 MB RAM.

Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.

Even Gnome developers agree that there are slowness and memory consumption problems in GNOME. KDE is not much better either.

And don't ask me to try useless XFCE etc.

None of the options in Linux provide a smooth integrated experience of Vista or OSX.

I know i will be modded down now even though your equivalent contents are modded up just because you talk in favor of Linux and I against it.

People will mod you down because you make an offtopic comment, or although against the 'policy' - a stupid poorly constructed argument. I can look through this forum and find atleast 1/2 dozen posts that are pro-Windows, infact, the latest one was marked 5 which outlined the lack of commercial applications on Linux. Sorry, to scream 'persecution' is alot easier to accept that maybe your post was crap.

Regarding your 'performance issues' - nice that you failed to provide your machine specifications, I'm sitting here with a HP dv6209TX laptop running Ubuntu, it is vastly faster than Windows Vista Business Edition on the same machine, and as for OpenSolaris B63, it is rocketting fast.

I'm sorry, but it is absolutely pathetic when an operating system that has been in development for 5-6 years to have such dog terrible performance - even if you take hardware compatibility and software compatibility out of the mix, the performance is still terrible.

I'm sorry, but when small company's and organisations (relative to Microsoft) like Conical, Sun, Red Hat, Novell, Debian and the likes can push out distributions which are superior speed, stability and security compared to an organisation the size of Microsoft, there needs to be some heads rolling at Microsoft, because obviously their resources are poorly managed and allocated.

CrazyDude0 - what the going on about? I didn't make the below statement - about about using the reply link correctly or head back to 'web surfing school'.

Vista only needs 1GB of RAM. And even then Vista is allocating RAM that it doesn't need just so it can have it availablle, and then if something else needs it, Vista release that RAM.

Unused RAM is useless RAM.

Also, perhaps you forget, but OSX was in development for longer and the performance of 10.0 was FAR FAR worse than Vista is today, and the functionality wasn't even there.

Also, Compiz and Beryl are both CRAP. Not only are the effects not even close to as smooth as Vista, but the whole engine isn't nearly as powerful as Vista's.
The only reason that Vista "requires" a Dx9 video card is because it gives developers that much more room to play with as far as effects et al go, whilst know that it will run smoothly on any PC that can handle the full Aero experience.

Interesting that you talk about that; when UNIX people said this, the Windows crowd used to boohoo it and claimed it was a excuse made up for bloat - now because Windows does this through nifty new names, its all good.



Who is talking about MacOS X? I certainly didn't raise it - I certainly didn't defend the fact that MacOS X continued to be in 'beta' up until the late 10.3.x cycles, and even then, 10.4.x was as buggy as hell.

Heck, I ran Mac's for around 4 years, G4 eMac and G5 iMac, and all I can say is 'don't believe the hype' - I've used MacOS X on machines I've owned from 10.2.x to 10.4.x, all quite frankly, they're buggy; if Microsoft shipped something as buggy as the experience I had with the early versions of MacOS X, they would be crucified in seconds.



Me, I don't care. I don't use or want those affects; I want an operating system that is snappy, reliable and stable. I want an operating system that is secure, reliable and fast. Both MacOS X and Windows fail on those counts.

I don't understand the attraction to bling, for me, I've got Ubuntu here, and I certainly don't feel the need to enable effects - I stick to the status quo, and it suites me fine and dandy.

Yup. 8 times more than a Linux+Gnome (or XP/Win2K3 Server) system with equivalent functionality (requires 3rd party tools for Windows 5.x). Nice work

Unused RAM is useless RAM.

Seems that the design is taken from FreeBSD.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#TOP-...

Hear, hear. Once I got sound working (and desktop effects are off), I have no problems playing videos in Ubuntu 7.04 on my laptop, yet if I use Vista, video is very choppy, unless it's Flash or QuickTime, for some reason.

"Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about."

I guess that is true, if you consider DRM and bloat features.

Quit it folks! Let's be honest and admit that none of the current operating systems offer all of the features we want with the efficiency we expect. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, and it's really frustrating that not a single one of them offers the best of both worlds.

Desktop Linux isn't meeting expectations because the expectations are too high. Vista isn't meeting expectations because in some respects it's worse than XP. MacOS isn't meeting expectations because global climate change must be affecting the Reality Distortion Field. Anyone who actually cares about their OS of choice should be disappointed.

The only solace I take in the state of the desktop OS market is that for all of its weaknesses, Linux distributions like Ubuntu have more promise than Windows or MacOS. Things are clearly getting better in all respects. It's moving in the right direction, while Windows is two steps forward, one step back (generously speaking), and MacOS is barely moving at all.

I think that certain people are wired to perceive state and others look beyond to progress. Linux enthusiasts tend to ignore the state for the progress, and that's what leads to unrealistic expectations. Folks who look at the state of the Linux desktop here and now don't understand what in the world the Linux enthusiasts are seeing when they gush about how awesome it is. We talk of features in SVN as if they're already a part of the established stack, and if Dell is considering Ubuntu on their systems, then that might as well mean that its a radio button for every single PC they sell. If Linux will be ready for the desktop eventually, then it is ready for us today.

We think Linux is awesome because we know it will be truly awesome someday, and that's more that I can say for Windows.

Nice post!

Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.

You are seriously tripping if you actually believe this statement.

On a default Windows installation where is:

1 The DVD Burning software like K3B or GnomeBaker? Add Nero $86.

2 The full Office Suite like OpenOffice? Add Microsoft Office $680.

3 The graphics editing software like Gimp? Add Adobe Photoshop $650.

4 Finance software like GnuCash? Add Quicken Home $350.

5 Vector graphics software like Inkscape? Add Adobe Illustrator $600.

6 Audio format converter like SoundConverter? Add Switch $20.

That's an extra US$2386, probably more than the cost of the computer!

Incidentally, I didn't mod you down, because you are entitled to your opinion; you're just wrong.

1 The DVD Burning software like K3B or GnomeBaker? Add Nero $86.

CDBurnerXP pro. It's free. http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

2 The full Office Suite like OpenOffice? Add Microsoft Office $680.

What's stopping you from running OpenOffice on Windows? Please, at least you have the option of running MS Office natively with the least hassle on Windows, as opposed to jumping through hoops with Wine.

3 The graphics editing software like Gimp? Add Adobe Photoshop $650.

Again, GIMP doesn't exist on Windows? And at least you have the option of running Photoshop natively on Windows, something you lack on Linux.

4 Finance software like GnuCash? Add Quicken Home $350.

http://www.gnucash.org/ read up on the news. There is nothing stopping you from running GnuCash on Windows. Why compare GnuCash to the most expensive personal finance manager on Windows?

5 Vector graphics software like Inkscape? Add Adobe Illustrator $600.

Funny, http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en lists a windows installer ...

6 Audio format converter like SoundConverter? Add Switch $20.

Do a google search for your own format converters, ok? Free ones exist too.


You and all Linux fanatics need to do a reality check. Windows is only more expensive than Linux if you factor in the initial investment of purchasing a Windows license. After that, there is a plethora of free (and Free) software that's available for use.

There is *no* point in comparing OSS alternatives with what are arguably high-end applications. Inkscape vs Illustrator is just laughable. You can always argue that the average user isn't going to need all the features of the commercial package. If that is the case, what is stopping them from using the Free/OSS alternative? Those exist on Windows too.

The only significant difference, is that Windows allows you to run all those commercial software packages with the least amount of hassle. Sure, it's not perfect but it beats messing about with Wine.

So, for those who can't be arsed to read a long post, the short version is this: Most free software packages are available on both Linux and Windows. Don't fudge the cost of running a Windows computer by adding ridiculously expensive high-end commercial software, while allowing Linux to use Free software that is just as available on Windows.

You comparing cdburnerxp pro with k3b ? Now come on



True, if you know all those pieces of software, or how to find them. When you install a decent linux distro, it's all just there.

Please read the quote I was referring to before responding.

Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.

We are talking about a DEFAULT install on Windows. The issue about whether you can install something later is not relevant.

Why did I list GnuCash to the most expensive finance manager on Windows? Because GnuCash is a Quicken clone. It was deliberately designed to work like Quicken. It even uses Quickens' .QIF files.

In addition, CDBurnerXP is limited, it has problems with Video DVDs. K3B does not.

Also, the apps I listed are by far the most popular applications used for those purposes under Windows.

Do you really think that the average desktop computer user has the computer literacy level to find, download, and install all of those packages on Windows? I sure know that my mother doesn't, or my father, or my grandparents. Can you name one "Average desktop user" that could?

In comparison, to install a new software package under Ubuntu, the average desktop user can click Applications, fire up Add/Remove, search for "graphics," and install The GIMP in a matter of minutes without any fear of spyware or viruses.

Edited 2007-05-08 11:20

I'm sorry, no cookie for you. Most of that software is available free for windows also and a whole lot more that's not available for Linux. As an Ubuntu user, It frustrates the hell out of me to have to boot windows to use open source software that simply sucks in Linux, such as video and sound editing apps. So please don't use the argument that windows users have to buy all that software, because it's simply not true!

First of all, most of those Open Source packages you mention are available on windows as well. Secondly all of commercial those packages are far more capable than their open source equivalent. Thirdly if you don't need those advanced features and for some reason don't want open source software, there are much cheaper alternatives available on windows than the ones you mentioned. Finally if you need all those advanced features then at least under windows you have the option of getting them, something you don't necessarily have under Linux.

In fact, for basically any class of software you mention, the available choice under Windows far outstrips that of Linux. Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is great and use it every day, but available quality software is not Linux's strongest point.

"Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is great and use it every day, but available quality software is not Linux's strongest point."

I think you're confusing quality with quantity. Granted there is a LOT of software for Windows but in all honesty most of it isn't very good. How many inferior Notepad clones are there? Win-Zip clones? FTP clients? Probably billions and the majority of them are crap.

It is clearly possible that Ubuntu is slower than XP. But other persons claim Ubuntu is faster.

Calling Gnome slow is pretty much impossible since the performance of Gnome depends highly on the configuration. Gnome on my system is extremely snappy and beats the crap out of XP and even Windows 2003 Server (which is very snappy I might add). Of course I have more ram, and that may make a difference here considering the differences between NT 5.X and Linux utilisation of memory.

However it is perfectly possible that a bloated version of Gnome on Ubuntu on a machine with too little ram is slower than a streamlined version of XP. But then we would be comparing apples with oranges.

You are as usual really good at spreading undocumented claims and using big words to express little ideas.

Nobody is modding you down for liking Windows and disliking Linux. Or at least I hope it is not the case. I have modded you up on occasion and down on occasions. More down than up because you tend to be off-topic or being offensive (representing personal preferences as evidence is offensive by my standards). Claiming XFCE is useless is a good reason for modding you down - you don't even specify why you consider it useless. Despite the fact that your claims prove you haven't used Linux+Gnome/KDE in the last 5 years.

If we were talking about common Gnome 2.12 compared with Windows 2003 Server I'd grant you that Gnome was slow. But newer versions have seen spectacular speed improvements - and it was about time I might add.

If I made a post that described something as "useless" and then failed to provide any substantiation of my opinion whatsoever, I probably expect to be modded down too.

But I do realize that affecting self-pity over easily-predictable reactions has become a rather popular rhetorical device around here, so hey - carry on.

this article reminded me of those commercials where they show happy clients; and they expect us to believe that those happy actors are actually use the products in real life.

But..but we believe them when they are talking about Macs, don't we?

Astroturfers for either company shouldn't make it onto OSNews. Especially when they're as transparant as this one is. It really pisses me off that some real news stories I submit get refused while this kind of crap makes it on.

I dont think that is correct sir. Vista runs fine on 512 RAM just as OS X would. But that is definitely not recommended. Yes Vista comes with a lot of crap out of the box but I can tweak it with vLite and I can use websites like speedyvista and their knowledgebase to tweak it even more. Vista requires a lot of RAM for full performance simply because its memory management is quite aggressive in that in loads up frequently used apps and keeps it memory resident till time comes for it to be used or for it to be dumped. I was under the impression using up all the RAM was the whole point of a smart operating system. I am sure Linux does it the same way. How else would my 7.04 Ubuntu install be taking up 1.13 gig after being up for a duration for a couple of weeks?

Vista IMHO is not a terrible piece of engineering. It is quite polished and quite complete. Just all it needs is a bit of time at the beginning for it to settle down a bit what with all the indexing etc etc. I am no fanboy of any operating system. I am more of a hobbyist. I have tried the RC2 of vista and hated it. I tried Home Premium with my XPS laptop and its very nice to use. I quite like it. Just like I quite like Linux with Beryly/Compiz running. In fact I am gonna give Gentoo a twirl.

Vista does have shortcoming in terms of drivers though as their performances are subpar. That would explain the gaming issues and lack of gaming performance people are having but believe me in a year all that will be gone. I am guilty of just blaming a brand new OS release to be utterly crap etc etc but now I realize after seeing how bad OS X was when it first came out and what a refined gem it has turned out to be now...same thing with XP...uterrly crap until SP2 came out. Blame MS for screwing up the way people look at Vista but not the OS itself. It really isnt resource hungry if people take a step back and then take another look at Vista without carrying any sort of "I hate Vista" baggage or MS SUCKS sorta baggage.

Mac OS X feels much faster than vista on the same hardware, ive tried it.

I'm a Mac user, and a Windows user, and a Linux user. I can promise you, Vista is the most resource-demanding OS out currently, by a long way.

I'm talking of a real Unix, not just an operating system who bought the trademark. By the way this article is mere flame bait, so nothing to worry about. I don't know why people keep discussing about mere flame bait ...

it's a bug in bootcamp (what i've read)

Ok so if this is a bug in boot camp isn't it possible that his NTFS partition could also be lost?

And guys, no windows file system is "unixy", for it to be "unixy" it would have to have no drive letters, a single root ("/") and symbolic links understood by all applications.

Wow. you need to read up on filesystems 101.

The OS file address space is NOTHING to do with any specific filesystem.

The Linux address space (starting at: "/") is really just a frontend to a big hierachical, untyped database. Different entries and indexes can be stored in different files/partitions/filesystems/devices/computers/drives/etc...)
but are accessed through one unified system.

Check out the /proc directory. That is created on-demand by a kernel driver, not a static filesystem.

In fact, windows pretty closely follows this philosophy now. NTFS has some inbuilt features that can mimic the linux functionality. 1) Junctions, act like linux hard links. (OK. so no symlinks, but this isn't usually a problem).
2) NTFS volumes can be mounted as sub-folders of other NTFS volumes. Therefore if you deal entirely in NTFS, you could mount all volumes under c: and just substitute c: for /.
Secondly, the internal representation for files (since the LVM was introduced) uses a unified address space similar (conceptually) to Linux, of the form:
disk(0)partition(1)volume(10)windowssucks.txt

I have been using 4 macs for 2 years without a hitch. How did his crash in one year?

Because there is such a thing as 'bad hardware'. It does happen.

You had an unrecoverable error on OSX so you decided to use Vista?

Yeah, he obviously enjoyed the unrecoverable error eXPerience and had a Vista of where he could get more!

My guess is he already had Vista and was using a BETA disk partitioning utility (BootCamp, as he mentions it in the article), getting ready to install it anyway. This has nothing to do with OS X directly and Apple warns the user about using BootCamp.

- especially weak was the part about security. it just says "vista is damn secure, especially ie7". do you get paid for this?


Answer your own question. How many serious Vista/IE7 security bugs have we seen? Not many. So far, it's holding its own against the competition.

- all that talk about 300-500$ worth of functionality now being built-in... well, you're not telling me that a new screengrabber is worth the hundreds of bucks for a windows update!?! such software (including burning software etc.) can be found free and open under other OSes.

Yeah, but poorly integrated, not very user-friendly, and poorly documented.

How many serious Vista/IE7 security bugs have we seen? Not many. So far, it's holding its own against the competition.

Considering how long Vista has been out in the wild (and how popular or rather unpopular it is), that's not saying very much.

I might just as well say that I am a model parent, because my kids have never killed anyone, taken drugs, stolen anything, sworn in a public place or so much as farted in bed. If you haven't guessed where this is going already, then here you are: All of that is because I don't have any kids.

Seriously, you Windows fanboys are going way beyond pathetic. The English language is replete with vocabulary from thousands of sources, and yet I still find myself at a loss for a word to describe it.

Considering how long Vista has been out in the wild (and how popular or rather unpopular it is), that's not saying very much.

Hackers have had access to prerelease builds of Vista for a LONG TIME -- on the order of a couple years. You mean to say that they couldn't find a raft of serious flaws in that time? Puh-lease. The alternative to your illogic is that Microsoft actually improved the codebase substantially. Which isn't all that surprising, given how much it improved stability/robustness with XP over Win9x.

So you (Microsoft[cheap joke]) changed the way the OS operates significantly, it took you 5 years to do that. Give the Virus writers at least 2 years[from the official release date (end of Jan 07)] to adapt to all the changes before claiming that it is perfect.

Edited 2007-05-09 22:56 UTC

This is some of the best geek prose I've read in a long time. ROFL. Best rebuttal EVER.

You mean "blog," not capitalized, unless you were using it for emphasis (which was not clear at all).

He will come back to OS X. His Vista journey will only be a temporary one.

Yeah, I'm sure that crashed OS X partition is really tempting ... ;p

Yeah, because my Windows and Linux partitions have never ever crashed...

Yeah, like, a clean re-install of OS X is BEYOND the capabilities of a Mac user! Oh, wait.

You understand that when you buy a Mac, the OS isn't installed? You have to install it yourself.

*Every* Mac user is able to install the OS. That says something about the confidence Apple has in their installation procedure.