http://www.osnews.com/story/7779/One_User_s_Experience_with_Linux_In_Regards_to_Windows Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:18:51 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Windows (both W2k and WinXP) is a walk on broken glass to install"

Why is that, were you trying to install a different language Windows version than the one you know?

If you think Windows installation is hard well I have nothing more to say... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Try to compare win2k with some linux from this time, not with suse 9.1 from 2004! And do not go anywhere without your cds! Lunux"s may have all after installing, but this is...All The best software is for win! Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Microsoft offers a FREE C# and FREE C and C++ compiler.

One thing i don't understand is that everytime microsoft includes a new application everyone has a cry but this guy is having a cry about not having many programs installed by default. can't please all the people all the time... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you think Windows installation is hard well I have nothing more to say...

It's hard when your video card isn't supported and cannot proceed to install until you get an older model that will work. It's hard when the drivers for your SATA interface are not included. It's hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm. It's hard when your drivers won't stay put and disappear every reboot. You getting my drift? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes, most Linux installers are pretty simple these days, I agree. I also with this would stop being 50% of peoples review.

He seemed to skip software instalation on Linux, and then dock windows for not including more software with the CD.

Ever think there is a reason so much Linux software comes with the CD?

I have spent more time hacking away at some applications to get them installed than it would have taken me to do a fresh install of another distro that includes that app with it. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? All The best software is for win!

That's a personal opinion and highly debatable. Where's the kismet equivalent for Windows? Nevermind that, can you even get a wireless card into monitor mode in Windows? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yet another linux propaganda. I like Linux and all, but please tell me something I don't know. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >You getting my drift?

Not really, I think you are an exception to the rule, if you weren't we'd have seen a significant shift in the user base which we havn't, if anything the opposite appear to be the case if you examine Google stats.

I've never experienced any of the problems you mention and I've been using Win since 3.1. I've never had a device not work and I've gone through 7+ machines and lord knows how many at work (devices ranging from faltbeds, cameras, webcams, tv cards etc). We do have a linux machine at work (to support a single user of our software) and most of our developers hate it because it takes so much time to get anything done on it (hence more dollars to support). When there are deadlines to meet the linux box always holds us up.

As for lack of applications, it is true that out of the box Windows can seem sparse compared to linux, but the number of possible downloads dwafts what's available under Linux. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Sure, initially there will be costs for education, time spent >on installing, upgrading and maintaining a new system, but in >the end there will be a positive economical effect. Why? >Because logically, nothing can be cheaper than what's free, >right?

This statement is quite naive, the cost of the OS is insignificant compared to the cost of development, we can burn a couple of 1000 dollars in a week on linux without much to see for it. It is labour which costs, software is cheap. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Not really, I think you are an exception to the rule, if you weren't we'd have seen a significant shift in the user base which we havn't, if anything the opposite appear to be the case if you examine Google stats.

Hold up. Exactly how is the ease (or lack thereof) of installation for Windows a determining factor in usage? Most people don't install an operating system.

I've never experienced any of the problems you mention and I've been using Win since 3.1. I've never had a device not work and I've gone through 7+ machines and lord knows how many at work (devices ranging from faltbeds, cameras, webcams, tv cards etc).

You're damn lucky then because I've been using Windows since 3.1 also and I've had plenty of trouble. The scanner that I own never worked on Win2000 but hasn't been trouble at all on Linux. I've had similar problems with a digital camera (works fine on Linux but not Windows). I can' imagine with all your self-professed Winodws experience that you did not encounter at least one instance where a driver that was available for the 9x series was not available the NT series.

We do have a linux machine at work (to support a single user of our software) and most of our developers hate it because it takes so much time to get anything done on it (hence more dollars to support). When there are deadlines to meet the linux box always holds us up.

How could it possibley take longer to do things for your developers? They shouldn't be installing software or drivers or any of that crap. The admin is responsible for that. Developers just need to use the applications and if they don't have the right tools or don't know how to use the applications you can hardly blame that on Linux. Most development software is not entirely intuitive and you need to learn the application before you use it, no matter what environment you are using.


As for lack of applications, it is true that out of the box Windows can seem sparse compared to linux, but the number of possible downloads dwafts what's available under Linux.

Most of it is crap though. Sure you have crappy apps for Linux too but the main focus should be on quality apps. If Windows and Linux have the a similar number of quality apps but Windows has fifty thousand more crappy shareware apps does that really make the platfrom better? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? @ Abraxas

It's hard when your video card isn't supported and cannot proceed to install until you get an older model that will work. It's hard when the drivers for your SATA interface are not included. It's hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm. It's hard when your drivers won't stay put and disappear every reboot. You getting my drift?

Either you've got very unusual hardware or, more likely, your stuff is broken. Please post specs. I am curious to what is this new stuff that's not supported under Windows. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why do you need a multi-protocol IM client if you don't have an internet connection?

I myself can't stand Windows, but sounds like you're a linux/unix apologist who is trying not to step on any toes.

Interesting article though... I liked it. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Either you've got very unusual hardware or, more likely, your stuff is broken. Please post specs. I am curious to what is this new stuff that's not supported under Windows.

Nope. The card isn't broken. It works under Linux and installed under Linux fine. It works under Windows but cannot be used to install XP. The card is an Nvidia 5700 Ultra. Same thing for SATA. There are no drivers for SATA that come with XP. There's no argument in that. Sorry. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "It's hard when your video card isn't supported and cannot proceed to install until you get an older model that will work. It's hard when the drivers for your SATA interface are not included. It's hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm. It's hard when your drivers won't stay put and disappear every reboot. You getting my drift?"

Sure, when you try to install a 4 year old OS with newer hardware, it doesn't have the drivers on the CD. Big freaking surprise there. For that matter you could probably get an 802.11b NIC from the store and ahem borrow a neighbor's connection for long enough to download new drivers, if you were really desparate.

Windows XP Pro (as a newer OS) would have done a better job of supporting your newer hardware but even then... I don't think SATA was out when XP was released, or if it was I don't think it was very popular, so you might be out of luck there. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? and the propagandha keeps coming. Another one of these "Swith to linux" articles... Seriously, isn't this hype coming to an end soon? Must these articles pop up more often then let's say once a month???

Once every 2 days is just tragic.. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How could it possibley take longer to do things for your developers? They shouldn't be installing software or drivers or any of that crap. The admin is responsible for that

I wish people would stop saying this. "the admin this, the admin that".

People don't have to spend any time doing anything on Linux, because it is always "the admin" that will do it for them.

Where do I meet this "the admin" and does he have time to fit me in? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? WIndows is still number one and will remain number one. Unless Linux really invent sometihng and quit copying stuff from unix and windows, it will always be way behind windows.

And hello you all, who just think that its just cool to say bad about windows, you know what windows is competing against *free* linux and still linux share is not increasing? Now stop writing such crap on the name of articles and go do some coding for linux to make it worth competing against windows.

Windows Rulez...Linux is only good for developers...and trust me Microsoft is aggressively capturing that market too now.

PS: To all the english teachers out there, English is my second language Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sure, when you try to install a 4 year old OS with newer hardware, it doesn't have the drivers on the CD

I'm sorry, where do I get my copy of Longhorn because I was doing this WinXP.

For that matter you could probably get an 802.11b NIC from the store and ahem borrow a neighbor's connection for long enough to download new drivers, if you were really desparate.

Sure, I'll go ahead and break the law...wait..oh yeah, NO ONE has a wireless internet connection in my neighborhood. I know, because I passive scan and get nothing. By the way, can you do that in Windows? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > Video Card problem

As others said, you really should have an odd video card, I have been using windows for a long long time ( as a network technician and user) with different video cards and installation never failed.

> Sata problem

Well your motherboard should come with all drivers. After the installation it is quite easy to install them as windows will let you know

> Worm problem

Well It totally depends on the user. If anybody who has a little knowledge of linux, who logins with root, can get a trojan easily. As far as I know in our time(up until year 2004) If you are dumb enough to accept the malicious thing, it really doesnt matter what OS you use. Windows doesnt tell you come and install it...

> Driver problem

Sorry my drivers are not doing that.


Well let me tell you this. I dont say Windows is the perfect os or I dont ever have problems with it. Of course it annoys me a lot but I see many stupid articles and people are not objective. Windows has bad and good sides but it is stupid to say Windows installation is hard when it is not hard. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wish people would stop saying this. "the admin this, the admin that".

People don't have to spend any time doing anything on Linux, because it is always "the admin" that will do it for them.

Where do I meet this "the admin" and does he have time to fit me in?

What kind of place do you work where you have development computers and no admin? You can't run a Windows environment like that either so I don't know who you are trying to fool.

Note: I never said that you NEED an admin for linux, only that developers shouldn't be messing with that stuff, that's what admins are for. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Linux gets as easy as Windows, and reasons, ihmo, are mainly two:

1) people are accustomed to paradigms when it comes to work on a computer, and Windows, like it or not, is *the* paradigm, and for sure this won't change anytime soon (other versions on win will change it perhaps, but not Linux).
2) fairly self-explanatory... try to explain to AverageJoe that he has to open a terminal, tar+bunzip2 a file named flash-install.tar.bz2, then read the terminal, type in manually *where* his mozilla installation lays just for the sake of having Flash installed... No, we're not there yet.
And this point 2 is also representative of the general installation difficulty and dependency hell so many people run into continuosly... install Mozilla under Win is a breeze, why can't it be at least as easy in Linux?

Linux software is very good (sometimes amazing), and simply not comparable to professional software for Win, that's a fact: no professional CAD (Catia is still no released afaik), no 3d Modeler (blender is great but low end), no Professional Video Editing Suite, no serious Sound editing/Mixing whatever program... list gets long.

Linux is great, but until the big dollars decide to invest on it porting the really great apps to it, it's still a 2nd class desktop system.
Or, better, a first class average desktop system, and that's what everybody's trying to sell: desktop systems which can be used like Windows in corporate networks filled up with average joes and anns who use what they are put to work with.

I have been on this train for the last 8 years, and since then, Linux has grown enormeously, but never really got any nearer Win (but for the server market, that's it)

Lorenzo Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? @ Abraxas

Nope. The card isn't broken. It works under Linux and installed under Linux fine. It works under Windows but cannot be used to install XP. The card is an Nvidia 5700 Ultra. Same thing for SATA. There are no drivers for SATA that come with XP. There's no argument in that. Sorry.

What are the specs? You mentioned almost nothing. What is the maker of the Nvidia 5700 Ultra card? What's your motherboard (Chipset, maker, etc...)?

I have an MSI Nvidia 5200 card and the drivers are not included on the XP CD but one trip to WindowsUpdate and the problem is gone. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well your motherboard should come with all drivers. DURING the installation it is quite easy to install them as windows will let you know Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well your motherboard should come with all drivers. After the installation it is quite easy to install them as windows will let you know

This is true, but you are SOL if you didn't buy the MoBo from a retailer but rather a person.

Well It totally depends on the user. If anybody who has a little knowledge of linux, who logins with root, can get a trojan easily. As far as I know in our time(up until year 2004) If you are dumb enough to accept the malicious thing, it really doesnt matter what OS you use. Windows doesnt tell you come and install it...

Uhhh...Not at all. Nice try though. You don't have to do anything to get a worm in Windows and it is quite easy to do if you are unpatched and in the process of patching the computer. Actaully installing a trojan on your computer and getting a worm by doing nothing are two TOTALLY different things. Installing linux isn't a race against the internet like it is with Windows.

Sorry my drivers are not doing that.

And? What's your point? It does happen and it has happened.

it is stupid to say Windows installation is hard when it is not hard

Why is it stupid to say that when I just showed instances where it can be a hassle? On top of that, installing Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, and even Slackware have been much easier on the same hardware. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Abraxas come on now man, don't make a fool of yourself. Everyone knows windows installation is easiest so please stop lying and show some grace. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What are the specs? You mentioned almost nothing. What is the maker of the Nvidia 5700 Ultra card? What's your motherboard (Chipset, maker, etc...)?

Like it matters? At least it doesn't for Linux. It's the same damn chipset but if you must keep questioning me...

The video card is an eVga 5700 ultra. By the way, the eVga 5700 doesn't work either.

The motherboard is an Abit NF7-S.

I have an MSI Nvidia 5200 card and the drivers are not included on the XP CD but one trip to WindowsUpdate and the problem is gone.

That's great and all but how am I supposed to visit WindowsUpdate when Windows isn't even installed? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Tell me how to get a Worm without doing anything. I really want to know.

Well, I installed almost all of the distrubutions you mentioned (favoring Slackware though) and yes they are very easy to install but I dont't believe somebody who has never worked with Linux or similar type of OS, I mean very basic computer user(which is most of the users) can pass the partitioning part of slackware installation. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Abraxas if you ever installed windows then you would know that if a driver for your card is not found, then windows installs the default drivers which gives 640x480 resolution.

Please post the errors you got on install and tell us how your installation failed. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've been using linux primary for the desktop since start of 1997, but *always* kept around a win98/2k/XP for gaming, so I do have real windows experience on decent hardwares.

Now any happy windows users could please explain how it can be used for an effective desktop with the chumpy panels, with the general lag of the start menu, with applications being able to freeze the whole desktop for *seconds*, with icons flashing every 1-2 hours showing that the graphics shell has died and got reloaded, without a decent default browser, without built-in virtual desktops, with a total braindead window manager, without task manager actually being able to kill tasks even if they dont want to die, etc.

These are so hilarious, I really wonder how people actually claim being satisfied with a windows desktop. We're not in the mid-90's anymore, time to wake up and open the eyes. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Abraxas come on now man, don't make a fool of yourself. Everyone knows windows installation is easiest so please stop lying and show some grace.

Do yourself a favor and keep quiet. You obviously know little if anything about operating systems. You have added nothing useful to the conversation unless you consider these comments useful:

Windows Rulez

and

windows is competing against *free* linux and still linux share is not increasing

The only way your comments are useful are that they clearly indicate you are not only adolescent but uninformed. Even the Microsoft whores, Gartner, report Linux marketshare increasing. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Abraxas if you ever installed windows then you would know that if a driver for your card is not found, then windows installs the default drivers which gives 640x480 resolution.

Please post the errors you got on install and tell us how your installation failed.

You're not getting it. There were no errors. The install CD just won't work with it. The screen is blank. It doesn't do anything. There is no way to get a display. As soon as the CD loads it blank screens. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You for sure are using 9x series. NT based OS don't suffer from what you have said. In terms of stability XP is comparable infact slightly better than linux + X. XP has never crashed on me though neither did linux but X (KDE) caused linux to hang on me twice where even the keyboard was not working.

Now the problem: When i rebooted my linux box by hard reboot, its file system got corrupt and no matter what i did with efsck or wtf that tool is, it didn't rectify my file system and i had to reinstall linux (redhat 9.1). So claims like XP is not stable are not true. I would agree if you say 98 is not stable because yes 98 sucked ass and it used to freeze atleast 4 times on average daily on me requiring hard reboot. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? First off let me say I use Linux exclusively (FreeBSD on my Soekris box) and I hate Microsoft with a passion. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

From the article: Okay, let's just change that in the nice Display Properties Settings Menu. Nope, no go! I have to install new drivers and reboot first. What drivers?

I thought you said "I know computers, and quite frankly I know them pretty well." If you know them well, then how could you possibly be surprised that you would need drivers to go with the hardware that you just purchased from the store on an O/S that is 4+ years old. Go grab a 4 year old Linux distro and see how much of today's off the shelf hardware you can run.

From the article: Let's explore my old OS and see if there is any nostalgia to be discovered. But alas, to my surprise, there is nothing to be discovered. We have... let's see... er... Notepad and WordPad, nice for writing stuff like this, and then there is... uhm... Paint and Mediaplayer. Let's face it, Windows comes with nothing!

Depends what you like I guess. I hate distros that include so many (mostly useless) apps that when you bring up your (K menu / Gnome Menu / whatever menu) that you need a 48" monitor to see everything. I would much rather have a barren default Desktop that I could then populate with stuff that I'll actually use as opposed to 12 versions of vi and emacs, database tools, games that are so dumb they don't even deserve mentioning, 18 command line based mail readers, etc... Oh - and another 20 or 30 links to programs that aren't even installed on your system. Always fun to spend several hours cleaning and rewriting your menus before you can use them.

From the article: Sure, there is Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, so if I had an Internet connection I could browse the web and fetch some mails and viruses, since there is not even a proper firewall installed. Where's the stuff I need to get my work done? Where is my Office suite? Where is my application for creating awesome graphics for my website? Where is my compiler? Where is my Instant Messenger?

Are you sure you've used a computer before? Seriously? Without an Internet connection I don't really think Evolution or Mozilla would be of any more use to you on Linux than OE or IE would be on Windows. And as far as "Where's the stuff?" ... well - if you took the time to download OpenOffice for Linux so that you would have it available at a time when you needed it when you didn't have an Internet connection, then why couldn't you have downloaded OpenOffice for Windows at the same time? Or FileZilla, putty, thunderbird, etc... I guess the Linux faery just magically delivered all your Linux downloads to you?

bah... this article is completely ignorant. I'm not even going to waste my time finishing it. You're a clueless zealot. Get over yourself. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Alright man, we give your computer hall of fame award. It must have really special hardware to exhibit such unique behavior which i havent seen in last 6 years with thousands of windows installations. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Heh here we have another body who talks about doesnt know what he talks about.

What was the last time when you last used Windows , was it 98-99 with windows 9x?

All things you say like Virtual desktops are personal preference. I liked the idea but never got used to it as with tabbed browsing. They are totally personal preferences. I know there are a lot of people like me or like you but it is not totally related to Windows, so let say I hate tabbed browsing, do I hate FireFox, no....

I actually really like Windows GUI, I sometimes try packages like Litestep but I always come back to Windows GUI, as it is quite simple, doesnt clutter anything. What about cluttered KDE, I never liked to work with it... Besides that System resource usage of those....

I had a problem with killing some task in Linux back in time, I coudnt remember but I remember I coudnt kill it either, system halted or something like that. Anyway maybe knowledge wasnt enough, I had to read a man page. But hey not eveybody knows or cares, It has to work somehow, but it didnt work, get my point?

>These are so hilarious, I really wonder how people actually claim being satisfied with a windows desktop. We're not in the mid-90's anymore, time to wake up and open the eyes

Hehe congrats you guys catched up with Windows GUI lately, once in a time you didnt even have a gui or you had something like that but it wasnt really working. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Heh here we have another buddy who talks about something but doesnt really know what he talks about. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Alright man, we give your computer hall of fame award. It must have really special hardware to exhibit such unique behavior which i havent seen in last 6 years with thousands of windows installations.

You must be a novice if you think that kind of behaviour is unique. I'm sure in fairytale land you can install thousands of instances of Windows in six years without one hiccup, but in the real world things are a lot more complex than that. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well I must I did a couple of fresh installations and after reboot they didnt work so I had to reinstall again Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well I must say ... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's not such a strange video card problem.

I've got a machine with WindowsXP Pro, Linux and FreeBSD on it. It just so happens that the video card is an Nvidia Ti 4200.

Guess what? XP didn't like it, I had to use an older card to install the OS, and then download the driver and reinstall the card. What a PITA!

On the other hand, FreeBSD and Linux had no problem with it, so it does happen. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Linux is better, no Windows is better blablabla.
Why put up these kinds of articles they never ever bring something new or from another perspective.
These threads always end up in flamming thus a bigger comment list, euurrrr...are you satisfying your ad customers? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wolf, please re-read my comment. I always had the latest windows of the time around (currently XP). My comments are till valid (at least according my experiences), yeah, I still see these on XP.

On the other side, I could say also 'X never crashed', but that 'it works for me' is hardly a valid issue. My main point wasn't stability, it was usability, and I do see problems here (as mentioned in my post). My point was exactly, that beside a fresh desktop theme which make anyone wow, not even windows XP brought much to the usability front on desktop markets.

As for Emre, sorry mate I dont start discussions with flamebaits. I work in IT, make softwares for a living, and I do know what I talk about. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In my present company there is a battalion of "admins" for windows servers, and clients. There are at least 50+ of them (managing things like domain servers, backup servers, etc etc etc, put-your-type-of-windows-server-here). If even half of this number were linux admins, they could manage a full linux server/client network much better. And the favourite line of all the admins I talk to for my problems is: Okay, let me install that software again for you? Why? What happens to my configurations? what happens to the time I've lost? Why must such a colossal "mature" OS and those zillions of apps have to be installed again and again ad nauseum?? I am yet to see anyone say: Get that Openoffice installed again and it will run!!!
My point here is that we are blinded by Microsoft's success and somehow don't want to come out of that comfort zone. Actually its because our employers are paying those hefty dollars to Microsoft and related leeches of money that we are able to post here in favour or Windows!
Given a chance to each one of the Windows supporting trolls here, I'll bet they'd switch to linux if they had to buy each and every piece of software themselves. Here's a list of what my employer pays for:
1. Windows 2000 Professional
2. MS Office 2003
3. Symantec Antivirus, that keep bugging me everyday without fail. And this in a network that is so secure that we all have those constantly changing password cards!!!
4. Lotus Notes
5. Reflection-X, for finally getting into a UNIX machine and feeling better ;-)
6. TOAD from Quest Software

Mind you, there are host of other software which I am not at a liberty to write due to privacy issues. All our paid for and the support costs a fortune as well, not to mention the upgrades.

Oh and by the way -- every year the hardware is rendered obsolete by the software and has to be upgraded. So, the costs just keep rising all the time.

And by the way again -- there are a few Linux machines around -- running Oracle databases as "test" databases -- but let me tell you that the load on them is far more than on actual production machines since all the DBAs and application developers attack them for testing. It does not matter what distribution runs on them. They just work. And there is one linux/unix sysadmin and i don't think he works overtime like the windows sysadmins.

Finally, as a resounding example of my statement above that under windows reinstallation seems to be the norm, my windows sysadmin wanted to reinstall the entire software on the backup server because he could not trace the fault!!!! Such a ghastly event is unheard of in UNIX/Linux circles.

Maybe this post is too long but just because the Windows camp is louder does not mean they are right!

:-) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? @wtf
Yeah It is pretty obvious where you work, anyway it is not the subject here....

@Eric
My video card is Nvidia Ti4200 and no problems so far. But anyway.... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Finally, as a resounding example of my statement above that under windows reinstallation seems to be the norm, my windows sysadmin wanted to reinstall the entire software on the backup server because he could not trace the fault!!!! Such a ghastly event is unheard of in UNIX/Linux circles.

Thats pretty much right, when something goes wrong in Windows, there is almost no way to fix it without reinstalling. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Heh here we have another body who talks about doesnt know what he talks about.

Look in the mirror bud.

I always come back to Windows GUI, as it is quite simple, doesnt clutter anything

Fluxbox, Windowmaker, IceWM, XFCE

What about cluttered KDE, I never liked to work with it...

KDE is much more configurable than Windows and can be made to look however you want. You can even have a desktop without ANYTHING on it in KDE if you choose.

Besides that System resource usage of those....

Linux memory management is much more effective than Windows. It may seem like Linux is using a lot of RAM but it's just being more efficient with it. If you have it, you may as well use it. Here a good lesson:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=175419&highlight=

I had a problem with killing some task in Linux back in time, I coudnt remember but I remember I coudnt kill it either, system halted or something like that. Anyway maybe knowledge wasnt enough, I had to read a man page. But hey not eveybody knows or cares, It has to work somehow, but it didnt work, get my point?

The fact that it can't be done on Windows is completely different than the fact that you didn't know how to. Sure the end result is the same, for the time being, but as soon as you learn how the end result is completely different. That's all it takes with Linux. In fact you can read the man page for about 2 minutes and figure it out.

Hehe congrats you guys catched up with Windows GUI lately, once in a time you didnt even have a gui or you had something like that but it wasnt really working.

Do you actually have any clue about Linux at all? You make a lot of weird claims that make no sense. As the parent poster said, the Windows shell is ages behind as a Window Manager, and I think that's all he really said, and he's right. KDE/Gnome look prettier, function better, and are more configurable. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? hehe, what you are doing is exactly what interviewers do in real life. Take one sentence and talk about it, not whole meaning of the paragraph but anyway I guess you can't process all the information...

Did I ever say Linux doesnt have some windows manager which is not better than Windows GUI?

Why do you guys get so defensive all the time. You dont need to prove anything.

>KDE is much more configurable than Windows and can be made to look however you want. You can even have a desktop without ANYTHING on it in KDE if you choose.

I'm not talking about which one is more configurable, do not jump on topics.


>Linux memory management is much more effective than Windows. It may seem like Linux is using a lot of RAM but it's just being more efficient with it. If you have it, you may as well use it. Here a good lesson:

I never said a thing about Linux memory management. You dont need to let me know that Linux has better memory management than Windows.


>Do you actually have any clue about Linux at all? You make a lot of weird claims that make no sense. As the parent poster said, the Windows shell is ages behind as a Window Manager, and I think that's all he really said, and he's right. KDE/Gnome look prettier, function better, and are more configurable.

Again I believe, you have information processing problem. Tell me some of my claims that come weird to you.

BTW you still didnt answer the Worm question... But I can now understand how you get those worms. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "It's hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm."

By Abraxas (IP: ---.37.95.56.adsl.snet.net)

That sure is a dialup-looking hostname...this guy is obviously just another of the "you must convert to linux" clones, who is trying to support their argument with a bunch of contrived excuses. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If your other hardware is compatable, that winTV card has full native support and there's some really nice apps on bebits.com to utilize it.Plus software installation is as simple as unzip and run. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? hehe, what you are doing is exactly what interviewers do in real life. Take one sentence and talk about it, not whole meaning of the paragraph but anyway I guess you can't process all the information...

You just have poor comprehension skills. I'll show you why:

I'm not talking about which one is more configurable, do not jump on topics.

Yeah well I'm talking about how you can configure KDE to have nothing at all, completely uncluttered. This was a direct response to you claiming that KDE is cluttered. I guess you didn't get it.

I never said a thing about Linux memory management. You dont need to let me know that Linux has better memory management than Windows.

You are a poor listener/reader. This comment was in response to your claim that KDE takes up too much resources. It's deceiving. The link I posted will show you why.

Again I believe, you have information processing problem. Tell me some of my claims that come weird to you.

I was speaking of this one in particular:

Hehe congrats you guys catched up with Windows GUI lately, once in a time you didnt even have a gui or you had something like that but it wasnt really working.

Not only does it barely make sense, it's ridiculous.

BTW you still didnt answer the Worm question... But I can now understand how you get those worms.

Read up:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/sasser.shtml

You know, no one answered my question about monitor mode in Windows either and no one answered my question as to whether or not there is an equivalent to kismet for Windows, but who's keeping track? ;-) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That sure is a dialup-looking hostname...this guy is obviously just another of the "you must convert to linux" clones, who is trying to support their argument with a bunch of contrived excuses.

You're clueless. Yes this is a DSL connection. Does that mean I have always had a DSL connection? Does that mean I have never set up a computer anywhere else? No, it doesn't, and your assumptions make you look like a fool.

To add to your foolishness...I have never advocated that everyone switch to linux, not once in this thread and not once ever before. Use what works for you. I have no problem with that and that's what I have always advocated. Just don't try to peddle this nonsense and think you're going to get away with it from someone who knows better. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My conversations with you is getting boring but you are a funny guy.

I dont know if you are into hacking or worked as a Security Administrator or not, let me tell you something. For that things to work Attacker needs to exploit the system( as you probably read in the article , using universal exploit). It is right that Windows has vulnerable to that attack but It is quite normal. It is so stupid for you to come with something like this. There are many exploits for both Linux and Windows and you probably dont know it by now that somebody who knows how to use an exploit can gain access your Linux box, and you never even know(assuming your Linux box is not secured agains that exploit). Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It amazes me how adament some people are in thier choice of software. Personally i use Windows and Slackware 10 on my desktop, and OS X on my laptop. They all have thier uses.

And to respond to some of the nonsense bashing in this thread:

Now any happy windows users could please explain how it can be used for an effective desktop with the chumpy panels

What the hell are chumpy panels? and where can i find them i'd like to see these.

with the general lag of the start menu

Not sure what system you're running but my start menu seems to be responding just fine. Its much faster than the KDE or Gnome menu's thats for sure.

with icons flashing every 1-2 hours showing that the graphics shell has died and got reloaded

again what the hell are you tlaking about? what icons flash every 1-2 hours?

without a decent default browser

Horray! one point that seems to make sense. Ie sucks, i agree.

without built-in virtual desktops

You know 90% of people would never use them, why install them if you dont want them (oh wait thats the Linux mentality, install as much grabage as possible by default even if 90% of it is totally useless to the average user).

Added to that microsoft Offers them to download from their site if you want them.

without task manager actually being able to kill tasks even if they dont want to die, etc.

Actually if you go to the "processes" tab and kill the task it'll die imemdiatly.

Oh an also to the fellow with the geforce FX 5700, i have one, and windows xp pro installs just fine, in fact i even get a desktop that can go up to my monitors maximum resolution in 32-bit color, only thing i can't do without drivers is play 3d games.

And to clear thigns up. I'm not a Windows Zealot, I just feel that alot of the posts in this thread about normal windows usage were totally unjust. Windows works great for normal everyday work when its patched up and isnt using IE. As for business work where your data is vitally important, I wouldn't trust it. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You are so utterly clueless it's cracking me up. Are you for real?

I dont know if you are into hacking or worked as a Security Administrator or not, let me tell you something. For that things to work Attacker needs to exploit the system( as you probably read in the article , using universal exploit). It is right that Windows has vulnerable to that attack but It is quite normal. It is so stupid for you to come with something like this.

I don't know if YOU know THIS but the sasser worm (along with many others) is self-propogating, which means that it doesn't need human intervention to spread. The worm automatically scans ip addresses with open ports and then proceeds to copy itself to a vulnerable host where it repeats the process. The attacker needs to do nothing but release the worm. The worm has a trojan that will allow the attacker to take control of the system. This can easily happen when updating Windows and has happened in the past. People still get infected with worms from two years ago. This is nothing new. I'm not even pretending this is some kind of revelation. It's well known.

There are many exploits for both Linux and Windows and you probably dont know it by now that somebody who knows how to use an exploit can gain access your Linux box, and you never even know(assuming your Linux box is not secured agains that exploit).

Try it. I'm sure I can do a pretty good job foiling that plot considering:

Hardware Firewall
SELinux
Logging
Tripwire...to name a few...

Yeah, no software is perfect, but I have my defenses. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You have trouble understanding it again. Attacker can mean Worm itself or person. Anyway what worm does to exploit the system. Do you get this? Worm exploits the system.

What you said is that Worm invades Windows, you without doing anthings, yep it is possible if there is exploit, of course this same thing applies to Linux or whatever the OS system.

So basically what you talk/defend is nothing.

FYI, do a google seach on Linux worms and you will find some Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Oh an also to the fellow with the geforce FX 5700, i have one, and windows xp pro installs just fine, in fact i even get a desktop that can go up to my monitors maximum resolution in 32-bit color, only thing i can't do without drivers is play 3d games.

That's good for you but it doesn't make it magically work for me. Neither the 5700 or the 5700 ultra worked. The same exact behaviour was exhibited, a blank screen. I then proceeded to successfully install SuSe. Then I tried XP with another card and it worked. Like I said before, it works under XP but it just doesn't install with it.

This is not supposed to be some argument about whether this really happened BECAUSE IT DID. If you don't beleive me then don't but you're wrong. That's all there is to it. The point is that an XP install IS NOT always a walk in the park. I provided factual evidence. Get over it. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think you're just totally missing the point. TOTALLY. Updating Windows from a base install, over the internet, leaves you vulnerable to worm attacks. How do you avoid this in Linux? Simple. Turn off all services. Can you do that in Windows? Nope. Get it now? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What the hell are chumpy panels? and where can i find them i'd like to see these.

Sorry to use slang, I meant cumbersome. You usually can find it at the bottom of your Windows desktop on a default installation.

Not sure what system you're running but my start menu seems to be responding just fine. Its much faster than the KDE or Gnome menu's thats for sure.

Unfortunately my doesn't, it tends to lag badly quite occasionally. Maybe you got a faster machine than me (athlon XP2500+ on nforce2, 512mb ram). I don't use KDE or GNOME menus, but in windows, it's the primary way of starting programs, so it should be as fast as possible.

again what the hell are you tlaking about? what icons flash every 1-2 hours?

It was a typical effect in win2k, but it can be seen on XP as well. All icons on the desktop disappear and reappear almost instantly, while some parts of the windows shell reboots itself during work. It especially happens after a longer uptime on heavy-loaded boxes with lots of concurrent applications. Sorry if you didn't meet this one.

You know 90% of people would never use them, why install them if you dont want them (oh wait thats the Linux mentality, install as much grabage as possible by default even if 90% of it is totally useless to the average user).

4 out of my 5 collegues in the same room use windows for the desktop. 3 of the 4 use some 3rd party virtual desktop software for effective desktop usage. I didn't know it's available from microsoft too, thanks for that piece of info, I'll tell them.

Actually if you go to the "processes" tab and kill the task it'll die imemdiatly.
..or it does not. Either it dies immediately or will go on a long wait and ask for confirmation on the kill, or nothing will happen. Stacked processes tend to go with the last two ways usually according to my experiences, but I'm pretty sure it has happened to you too.

At last, I would really appreciate getting closer to a tech discussion and lower the flame rate of these posts. (== watch your language). Thanks. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? yep it is possible if there is exploit,

To make it a little clearer, there are KNOWN exploits in currently shipping copies of WindowsXP. We already know that. The holes are there just waiting to be exploited and as soon as you hop on the web you're liable to get infected by a worm. Even if there were known remote exploits shipping on a Linux distro, you would be able to do something about it in advance of connecting it to the internet, namely shutting down the services. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, here's my opinion.

As far as hardware support goes. Yes, most HW vendors still only give drivers for Windows, but look how far Linux has come without those vendors releasing drivers for Linux.

Ease of instalation. IMHO Windows still have a pretty easy instalation procedure compared to Linux in general. The only problems I have with Windows instalation is the fact that all your drivers have to be installed after Windows has been installed (not so with Linux). And that WinXP really shuts you in, no real choices available.

To Blixel. You say you don't like the gazillion programs that Linux installs. Then you most probably did a full instalation. As a novice you would do that, just to see which programs you like. After that you can chop and change your install as much as you like.

In closing.
The real difference between Linux and Windows, for me, is not the ease of use, or the stability. It's the choice. Microsoft offers linear choice, whereas Linux gives you dimensional choice. Think about it.

PS. I'm not a Linux zealeot. I still use mainly Windows. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I understand you but you are missing some point too. First,it is correct that any regular user is using the standard windows cd( I mean, not slipstreamed sp or patches something like that, I don't really know if companies like DEll ship their systems with service packs applied, someone let us know), so like this anybody can be exploited. The thing I'm saying you are only as secure as your latest version. I mean let's say I have Slackware 8 and didnt upgrade it(no internet connection), I have the same possibility as windows users, as there might be exploit for Slackware that i need a patch to install. Besides it is not like Windows users have kernel, system upgrades like Linux users every 4-5 months.

Another thing is you need to have connection to internet to apply those patches, but worm needs the same thing, you need to be connected to internet. Besides Security patches are not really big so you can install them even on dial-up.
Don't tell me that you never do this on a Linux system.

Nobody can do anything if the user doesnt know/care about the security.

Hopefully you will understand my point now. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Microsoft offers linear choice, whereas Linux gives you dimensional choice.

It is about your choice. It is about how you use your computer. If the OS you are using completely lets you do what you want to do, you use it, why change an OS. If it doesnt do it, well, you look for other options. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? heres a link to microsofts virtual desktop app. It comes as part of the powertoys package.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I understand your point you just don't understand mine. I know for a fact that retailers don't sell slipstreamed versions of XP on their computers because a friend of mine just bought one and they offered it to him as an additional service (and additional charge). This means that copies of XP are being used UNPATCHED. Show me where in Linux this is happening right now? I'm not saying it's utterly impossible but it isn't happening with Linux and right now and it is with XP. The current itineration of XP is vulnerable to remote exploit when left unpatched.

Besides Security patches are not really big so you can install them even on dial-up.

Give me a break. Have you actually ever installed updates? It would take me a day at least to take a copy of XP and update it to current on dial-up. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? heres a link to microsofts virtual desktop app. It comes as part of the powertoys package.

Unfortunately it's just an ugly hack and doesn't work nearly as well as X. The third party ones actually work better. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? @Emre: I agree completely, that's the point.

@Brett: Thanks for the link, I'll check it out on my home box too. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If your linux cd are belonging too some old release isnt it pretty much the same that you are vulnerable to remote exploit when left unpatched?

>Give me a break. Have you actually ever installed updates? It would take me a day at least to take a copy of XP and update it to current on dial-up.

I actually installed those patches with high speed connection and with service packs slipstreamed so yeah you are right, It takes time if you think about the number of them Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If your linux cd are belonging too some old release isnt it pretty much the same that you are vulnerable to remote exploit when left unpatched?

What's your point? If you use old media then you're bound to have security issues no matter what OS it is. The point is that even the newest official XP release is plagued by security holes. Where is the equivalent in Linux right now? Which distro's latest release is plagued by remote security problems? Enlighten me. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The thing is Linux guys doing this every year Microsoft doing this every 3-4 for years.

There is no newest officall XP release, it is same as the 1st day release. Apparently Microsoft is stupid enought not to include the patches in the new retail version. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That is the whole point, that everyone seems to miss. Although some MS goons say that you should only use thier products, it's choice that make a product dynamic. And as soon as your product is dynamic it becomes more difficult for persons with malicous(sorry about that) intent to do thier thing. Having choice is good, because it keeps the wrongdoers guessing. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is getting boring. Every time an article like this gets posted a bunch of windows trolls comes out of the woods shouting and screaming. They inform us that there is no problem at all with windows, drivers are never missing and allways work, it is totally stable and secure and on top of it that they at least installed ~10,000 PCs with windows in the last 10 years, are administering about 100,000 boxes and never ever ran into a problem.

On the other hand, linux is of course totally unusable, though they never bother to inform us about exactly why linux is unusable.

But the thing I love most is that they call everyone who dares to disagree and point out that windows is far from perfect and that, imagine that, linux might have some advantages over windows a zealot. I'm wondering who is the zealot here...

Get off it people, stop making fools of yourselves, keep an open mind and use what you like best. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 09:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, if you look at the flipside of that, you'll have some Linux guy on here talking about how he tried for 10 years to get Windows installed properly, and then their 2yo def/blind/mute, parapalegic newphew (who incidentally, only has one nut) rolled out an LFS install .... in 15 minutes .... on a C64 .... with a broken 1541 drive .... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 11:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? LOL!

Equally stupid, you are right. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Microsoft includes a browser with windows and they are labelled monopolistic... And now the author of this article disses Microsoft for not having enough applications in a default install.

Microsoft doesn't have a chance. Whatever they do can't be right - there's no way to please some people. Google is the darling of everybody right now, but give them a decade of success and people will be dissing them too. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It think your video card has a broken vesa-bios. And the SATA-controller normaly comes with a floppy you insert during installation wich gives win-setup the requiered drivers. If you don't use it it's your fault not MS'
And the next time you install Win please remove everythink including "Windows Network" from your network preferences. After this you shouldn't have a problem with blaster/sasser/.
If you didn't know it, you can order a sp1-cd for free from ms (I haven't seen this kind of service from Linux-vendors). After installing sp1 updating win is only a ~3mb (security-related) download, the rest are drivers. I only have ISDN so I know how it feels to update a system with dial-up

MfG,
Chris Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Besides Security patches are not really big so you can install them even on dial-up.

I had decided to stay out of this, but this is just wrong, well, the part of them not being really big, i have installed them over dial-up before, so it can of course be done.

But in my world, a 125 Mb service pack is pretty big, and that is the size of SP1 alone, then add all the other patches you need. This takes a while, even with a fast connection, and the fact is that if you are unlucky, you could get a worm in that time.

Sure you could make this true for any operating system, but the only system i know of where this is currently a problem is Windows.

Now what i don't get is why systems/cds are still sold without SP1 preinstalled. I mean, SP1 isn't exactly new. But perhabs this is a sign that a release period lasting serveral years is too long?

But things could be easily improved. Some linux distros allows you to install updates during installation, which means that you get them installed before the system is started up for real. My personal workaround is a cdrom with a bunch of patches on it. (and commonly used drivers and utilities for convenience) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I never once saw a story of someone switching to Windows. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It seems you downloaded the full SP1. If you only download the patches that you need it's not even close to 100mb. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Microsoft includes a browser with windows and they are labelled monopolistic... And now the author of this article disses Microsoft for not having enough applications in a default install.

I think this is actually an advantage - it's better than shipping with 8 million apps with the OS, and then half of them are out of date a month after it ships. It's a waste of time and space.

I never once saw a story of someone switching to Windows

http://www.aarongiles.com

This guy is a Virtual PC developer ....

But in the middle of 2000, I finally broke down and bought a nice, new loaded Dell. I was tired of working against the MHz curve, and tired of Steve Jobs' insistence that as long as the OS looked pretty, it didn't matter how badly it perfomed. OS X was not looking promising at the time (and is still only vaguely appealing).) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It seems you downloaded the full SP1. If you only download the patches that you need it's not even close to 100mb.

Indeed, that way i only had to get it once. And i know i could do a netinstall and it would be smaller.

BUT would it also be smaller if you install it on a newly installed system? If it is, then what are all the extra patches in the full version that is not needed? :-) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I recently bought a computer with a SATA mobo.
Not having used a floppy disk in the last 5 years, and beeing old iMac owner: of cource I didn't buy a f**ing floppy drive!

Realise my horror when WinXP doesn't find my disk and the only drivers come on a floppy disk!?!? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yeah the default Windows install is very very basic. Nice One !
If it had as many apps as the typical Linux distro, then Microsoft would never be out of the courtroom for anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft has to maintain a balance between providing a useful os and not locking out competitors products. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't understand why it's so inconceivable that Windows simply doesn't work on certain hardware configuratons. It's NOT the VESA-BIOS; not if Linux installs fine. And even if Abraxus's hardware is broken, then the point just goes to show that Linux is far more fault-tolerant of hardware than XP is.

Abraxus, I totally hear you. I use Gentoo exclusively now, but I used to be a Windows guru. As such, I'm the guy that installs Windows any time my friends or family need to refurbish an old computer. Windows 98 was driver hell. Simply put, out of the HUNDREDS of Windows installations I have performed (it used to be my job, as well), a handful installed without me having to babysit it. Several times, I am simply unable to install Windows. You're kind of screwed if the install comes up with unrecoverable errors during install, because you can't just try a different "distro" of Windows. I haven't had an issue installing Linux since Red Hat 5.2 (which is because I was running crap hardware).

Does this mean Windows is *always* going to break? No, and many of you have never seen this. Great for you. When a Windows install *does* break, however, you are screwed. Time to swap hardware and try again.

BTW, whoever is spouting off about not getting worms in Windows on an unattended machine: you need to do a bit more reading and get a bit more Windows experience. It's apparent this whole "computers" thing is relatively new for you.

smashIt, when you go to v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com, the full SP1 is the only available SP1 there is. If there are incremental patches, they will still take too long for most dial-up's to download. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? X (KDE) caused linux to hang on me twice where even the keyboard was not working.

Alt+SysRq+K will kill the current VT. Then, at the console prompt, type (as root) "killall X" and "/etc/init.d/dm restart" and all will be fine.

Now the problem: When i rebooted my linux box by hard reboot, its file system got corrupt and no matter what i did with efsck or wtf that tool is, it didn't rectify my file system and i had to reinstall linux (redhat 9.1).

You probably didn't really have to reinstall. Reading up on using fsck might have been a good idea before using it. Anyway, with journaling file systems (such as ext3, now the default on most Linux distros) this wouldn't have happened. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Where are all these linux worms that Windows users keep telling me about ????
How does a worm run on a linux system ????
Do any of you muppets even have a clue about the way Linux handles files/users ?


Now, maybe if you said it was possible to get rooted by downloading and app.... changing to su to install the app... and lettings it run with su priviledges... This is totally possible, and people who have not got a clue will do this time after time as Linux adoption grows.

However a rootkit is far different from a self-installing, self-copying, self-mutating, self-propagating worm that abounds in the Windows world at this minute.

Linux will never suffer the problems that Windows currently does. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just to be fair... try to take some linux distribution from 1999/2000 and then compare it with win 2000. Im exited about the result.... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It think your video card has a broken vesa-bios.

No, it doesn't. You didn't read the rest of the comments apparently.

And the SATA-controller normaly comes with a floppy you insert during installation wich gives win-setup the requiered drivers.

Yes, I know this. Again, you must not have read anymore comments.

If you didn't know it, you can order a sp1-cd for free from ms (I haven't seen this kind of service from Linux-vendors).

Maybe that's because Linux distro's release new versions quicker than MS releases SPs. By the way, SP1 doesn't help much, you need SP2 to patch the current insecurities. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? //It works under Windows but cannot be used to install XP. The card is an Nvidia 5700 Ultra//


Funny, I've got an e-VGA nVidia 5700 Ultra -- and I used it to install a fresh copy of Windows XP, no sweat.

Maybe your motherboard is crap. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? //This is true, but you are SOL if you didn't buy the MoBo from a retailer but rather a person//

Just saw this comment from you.

Ok, then ... so ... you don't have the original drivers for the mobo ... you're having problems with the vid card ... and therefore Windows sucks.

Got it. Thanks for the stellar logic. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I already did this mate... back in 1999.

I was using an old version of Redhat.. Can't remember which one though... (too much smoke = short term memory loss hehehe)

Out of the box the Linux distro could play MP3, OGG, DVD, divx... Windows could play none of them without either codecs or 3rd party apps.... still no difference there then.

My long list of games was unplayable in Linux... ALMOST no change there.

Browsing the web was far different. Linux had Netscape, and I hated Netscape (Nutscrape more like). Windows had IE. It was just as insecure and unstable as it is now, but I liked it back then.


Office interoperability was completely rubbish. I was able to open the occasional Word document in Linux, but that was about it.

I had a great time back then dual booting between both systems, and finding the strengths and weaknesses of both. Nowadays I only use Windows at my place of work.. Linux at home instead. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I feel sorry for the guy. Be it windows, linux or any OS if you are stuck with no net connection and just an install CD its going to really be hit or miss getting anything done in a pinch. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's unlikely to be the video card. The XP cd, to my knowledge, boots up in plain 80x25 color vga text mode. The last time I heard of a card not supporting this mode it had clockwork parts :>

Do you at least get the text-only display? Or anything for that matter?

If you at least get something happening then try to install XP with a non-ACPI configuration (Hit F5 when it asks you for third party RAID drivers). That seems a more likely problem (ACPI is...weird, as the Linux developers know well) than vesa/vga on the video card especially if it borks in text mode. You'll lose ACPI, but as long as you're using a mains supplied system this isn't a huge (IMHO) problem. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Try to compare win2k with some linux from this time, not with suse 9.1 from 2004! And do not go anywhere without your cds! Lunux"s may have all after installing, but this is...All The best software is for win!"
I actually run RH 5.1 on a box just so I can shoot down stupid arguments like this. If you want, dig around for the ISO's. This is an os from early 1998 and the installation is very easy. It's a lot like the current fedora installer, just in ncurses instead of gtk2.
Well, that and it's cool to see a bit of how things were before I got into it.

The Windows install is pretty easy, but I have to admit...their installer needs revamping. Especially in the area of time it takes to copy over just over a gig of stuff. Use tar guys, it'll save us a lot of time . Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah

That sums up the article and every post about it. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Almost all are off topic and have degenerated to a bitch fest between Linux and Windows and don't even discuss the very poorly written article, English as a second language aside.

Who cares what *you* like. If you like Windows don't bitch at the Linux ppl, if you like Linux don't bitch at the Windoze ppl. Ppl using something different from you are not hurting you or your family in any way, shape or form.

STFU! Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> Microsoft includes a browser with windows and they are
>> labelled monopolistic... And now the author of this article
>> disses Microsoft for not having enough applications in a
>> default install.
>
> I think this is actually an advantage - it's better than
> shipping with 8 million apps with the OS, and then half of
> them are out of date a month after it ships. It's a waste of
> time and space.

Yup, and that is why every time I do a fresh install of FreeBSD I only do a minimal installation of the OS and then install everything that I need from ports. I don't bother installing the packages that comes with the CD as they would be mostly outdated. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think that people forget about the main purpose of operating systems, to launch other software. If you decide that user experience offered by Windows works for you better, you are still able to use a lot of free software from Linux on Windows.
- Mozilla
- OpenOffice
- Apache, Tomcat, PHP (some of these not for production, but I am talking about workstations)
- GCC
- GAIM (I prefer original clients but this option exists)
- the whole shebang of cygwin
- MPlayer (this one is damn good when it comes to broken files)
Thanks to many developers who understand that writing multiplatform software helps their product to spread more. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? About me :
I have been a fresh GNU/Linux user for less than a year, I had some experiments with some GNU/Linux distributions(Suse, Mandrake, Redhat's Fedora) before. I'm using Slackware now because I feel it's faster than Suse, Mandrake or Fedora, and because I think I will learn more if I really have to face the command line way.
Before that, I have been a Windows user since 3.x, and have been really happy with the system. I did some programming for Windows : some modules for the Litestep shell ( http://www.litestep.net/ ).


Comments/Summary for the article :
1°) Installation / hardware detection
I find the installer of Windows and GNU/Linux's mainstream distributions (Fedora-Mandrake-Suse) quite equivalent, and I might think that even Slackware's install would be as difficult as Windows' for Joe Sixpack (I had to reinstall Windows on some people's computer, because they could not do it themselves).
For hardware detection also, Windows and GNU/Linux's mainstream distributions seem equivalent to me.

2°) Programs included - and @Shane (Lack of application on default windows install.)
For me, Windows is an OS, which is different from any GNU/Linux's distributions because a distribution is a set of applications put together in a single install. Now, Microsoft could use the distribution mechanism, for example, shipping one version of Windows with other Microsoft software, and one with open source software.
In fact, some hardware vendors are already doing Windows distributions : for example, if you buy an HP computer, you will most likely have some reinstall discs, which contains Windows, some software to burn CD's, some office thing, ...

3°) About the updater
I believe Microsoft could do such a thing, but then, there could be some repositories/trust problems. The point is that you will be able to install software automatically from certain places on the internet that you should be able to trust (your OS vendor, the software maker).
Also, there's the payment problem : if you have to pay for an upgrade of your software, or prove that you actually "own" it so that you can upgrade. Linspire or Xandros has such a (pay-to-download) system, I believe.

4°) Switching to Linux
Well, my choice to switch is in part political, in part practical and in part legal.
Political : I like the open source/free software philosophy.
Practical : after some adaptation and after having ran Open Office, GAIM, GIMP, ... on Windows, I feel as comfortable in Linux as I feel in Windows - except for the firewall/antivirus part, which I still should learn.
Legal : I prefer to work (as an IT professionnal) with software I can legally use, ... and since I find myself not wealthy enough to upgrade my computer (PIII 450), I don't consider I have the money to buy Windows, Office, Visual C++, ... I used to use daily.

5°) Using Windows, I can change the look of my desktop for free too
Yay, let's be a Litestep advocate for a while : http://www.litestep.net/
Other sites give an overview of other free alternatives : http://www.shellfront.org/ , http://www.blizzle.com/ , http://www.shell-shocked.org/ .


About the comments :

@Wolf (Keep Whinig)
WIndows is still number one and will remain number one. Unless Linux really invent sometihng and quit copying stuff from unix and windows, it will always be way behind windows.

It is true that GNU/Linux has taken ideas from Windows, but Microsoft has done that too, ie with the Windows 95 start menu (thanks Apple). Another one is their patent on VWM ( thanks GNU/Linux, Unix, Litestep, ... http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/02/25/1346201.shtml )

@Lorenzo (It will take a *long* way before...)
Try to explain to AverageJoe that he has to open a terminal, tar+bunzip2 a file named flash-install.tar.bz2.
Right, but doesn't Macromedia builds and packs that software ? Put another way : get Joe Sixpack to install Firefox on Windows and on GUN/Linux ... shouldn't be much differences.

@KP (Re: To all who are contesting the statement about admins for Linux)
Given a chance to each one of the Windows supporting trolls here, I'll bet they'd switch to linux if they had to buy each and every piece of software themselves.
I agree, that's the "legal side" of my move to GNU/Linux. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Lame article by a worst than mediocre zealot. And i'm being generous. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So, Windows2000 could not properly set the paramaters for a video card released 4.5 years into the future from it's release date? You thought it would? So, can your Linux disto of choice properly set the video for a card that won't be released until around 2009? I wouldn't fault either OS for lacking that capability. Thanks for showing us that it pays to be better prepared. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just FYI, you might want to consider FC2 or Suse, both of which I know for a fact recognized my WinTV card and works perfectly immediately. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why does anyone care what somone runs and how hard easy it is...there is nothing out there at all, its all about learning.most averege users are just as clueless in windows as they are in linux it dosent even matter.its about learning and knowing something, expereance also.I honestly think linux suits me better cuz I know how to operate it and one of my freinds uses win2k ....we bouth have equal computer knowlege. he can operate linux just as well as me...my linux box is just as secure as his windows box because he know what he is doing and so do I...but here it just blew out of perortions...whats up with this troll war...infinite amount of resons why this and why that...cmon the author just wrote the article about his own experiance...Yes current linux is easier to install than windows to somone who is clueless and for the 3 year old XP or 5 year old 2k u need to patch from a cd and install drivers but for somone with some knowlege its not a problem so wtf... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That was quit possibly the worst article I have ever read. I could feel myself getting dumber as I progressed down the first page. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This author is an idiot. Who would try and install an operating system without a working internet connection to get drivers? You blame Windows? Blame yourself. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 15:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Funny, I've got an e-VGA nVidia 5700 Ultra -- and I used it to install a fresh copy of Windows XP, no sweat.

Maybe your motherboard is crap.

More probably, Windows has some issues with the Firmware version. I have a NVIDIA Ti4400 card from MSI and whenever I try to install it under Windows it crashes the system and reboots in Safe Mode. It installed under Linux just fine. I recently upgraded the Firmware to solve a Linux problem (I couldn't have VGA-mode text consoles with the latest NVIDIA drivers) and decided to try installing it under Windows again and - lo and behold - it worked.

This is besides the point, though. The point is that, sometimes - and a lot more often that the MS apologists on this site would have us believe - installing Windows can be a pain. Meanwhile, installing Linux is now easier - and faster - than ever. Compare the installation time of a regular distro like Mandrake 10 to that of Windows + MS Office + Photoshop + IIS + all the other software equivalent to what's on a typical Linux install...also, count the number of times you have to reboot for each...

No wonder the MS fanboys whine about Linux taking 10 extra seconds to boot... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 15:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "This author is an idiot. Who would try and install an operating system without a working internet connection to get drivers? You blame Windows? Blame yourself."

Just to remind you, not everyone can use the Internet to download additional software and drivers. For example, your modem or network card might not be supported out-of-the-box, then where do you get your drivers? Internet access can be so expensive ($10 per megabyte) that you really don't want to download that 10 MB DirectX update via WindowsUpdate. And, in case you forgot, not every PC on this earth is connected to the Internet!

Personally, I think this article does have value, in the sense that it shows that Windows is not perfect. And in case you want me to show it: buy yourself an 1995 Macintosh Performa with the installation CD for $10 on eBay, and see for yourself what Windows still hasn't archieved. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 15:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? unfortunately as the popularity of this site has increased the quality of the comments have gone down. I see lots of empty criticism.

I thought the points raised in the article were extremely valid. With Linux you can actually set up a complete and fully functional workstation with no internet connection and no other media besides the distro. If you are not running on really old or really new hardware, hardware detection is painless, especially if you are installing off a knoppix disk. I have cursed countless times after installing windows for a client onsite, when the network adapter is not detected. I learned long ago to bring a knoppix disk with me so I can download and install drivers. A month ago, I spent 3 HOURS trying to install the drivers for one friggin modem in Windows, and I have 10 years experience installing and supporting Windows!!! Knoppix detected it immediately!

Linux is far from perfect, and Windows is grooby for gaming and all, but its getting to the point where if you know both OS's equally well, Linux is a helluva lot easier to deal with in general. That is what I gathered from the article, and I totally agree. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 15:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't think Windows or Linux is at fault here. I personally use Windows mainly, and I enjoy it, its never broken on me, I've always been able to update, and almost always recognizes my hardware.

The only problem I ever had with installing hardware was on an old machine with a Voodoo5 and an Intel 810 graphics controller on board. Obviously it cant run with two graphics controllers, so I had to boot into safe mode and disable the i810, there, problem solved. My network was instantly recognized and I got all the nessecary drivers and its running fine.

As for software, sure this can be a problem, but then again, its kinda hard to compare open office with MS Office. MS Office is expensive, yes, but its also VERY robust, and I prefer it over Open Office. Same with Photoshop over The Gimp. Instead of instantly saying that free software is better than payware software, you have to look at quality first. For example, IE. With its security flaws, inability to block popups, etc., many people would see it has a hazard (remember though that the majority of pc users dont recognize this), but this isnt a problem. Just download the latest version of Firefox or Opera, install and there ya go, no more IE.

Also, to comment on the comment about installing without an internet connection. This is no fault of Windows. Most people know that if you plan on installing a new OS, you better have the drivers right there, just in case. Never assume you'll be instantly up and running with any OS, always be prepared for the worst. Linus didnt recognize the wireless PCMCIA on my laptop, luckily I had ndiswrapper and the drivers burned on a cd-rw, and I got that setup, and I was good to go.

My final point is, to me, Linux and Windows play the same role, they allow me to run my computer as a desktop PC. Of course you need to do some configuring to get it just the way you want it, but you have to do it in Windows as well. No single OS will please everyone right out of the box, but its no excuse to bash on other OSes, they are all the same, they just have the strengths and weaknesses. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 15:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What where the current distros on the September 9, 2002 when XP's first Service Pack was released. Use a Linux distro that was released at/near the same date and try to install it on your x86 PC. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Are you use you selected the proper tv format? Default is usually ntsc, which would cause black & white picture on a european system.. The proper mode for scandinavia is pal b/g. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "
This author is an idiot. Who would try and install an operating system without a working internet connection to get drivers? You blame Windows? Blame yourself. "


have you any sort of clue ? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? //his is besides the point, though. The point is that, sometimes - and a lot more often that the MS apologists on this site would have us believe - installing Windows can be a pain.//

Ok, props for your posting sig. That's hilarious.

Now then.

It works both ways, compadre.

I recently upgraded a system to a nVidia GeForce 5900 Ultra. The system dual-booted Lindows OS 4.5 and Windows XP.

XP booted fine after the hardware install, albeit in low-res. I popped in the driver CD, installed new drivers, voila! Full 32-bit color, massive resolution, etc.

Rebooted the PC. Launched into Lindows OS. Got a low-res login. Checked the System Settings --> Display tab. "VESA" driver installed. No option to update the driver to anything else. No linux drivers on the CD-ROM. Crap.

Am I stuck? No, I can do the work of downloading drivers/configuring XFree86/etc. etc. on Lindows.

But-- is doing so a pain, compared to what I just did in 5 minutes in XP?

Does Pinnochio have a wooden ass?

So, we must admit that installation issues are plenty on both sides. But, in my reply to the OP, he was trying to get a *brand new* vid card to be recognized from the install disc of a *four-year-old* OS. Come on. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I use both Windows XP and Debian GNU/Linux Sarge. Actually I use Windows more, but that's because I play my MMOGs that will only run in Windows, and I use some drawing apps like Corel Painter. (duhhhh) But I program in Linux.

However, there are some really BAD point about Windows...

1. After few weeks using Windows (beside me, my family use my pc), the registry gets screwed up and direct-x got messed up and I have to reinstall everything from ground-up.

2. As soon as I reinstall my windows (usually takes an hour...just OS itself!!), I hook-up into my internet. Then as soon as my pc is connected, well, my pc is infected by bunch of those annoying worms which make my pc automatically reboot within 5 minutes and making heavy load on my computer....yeah, you can do shutdown -a (is it correct???) command in cmd prompt to prevent my pc from rebooting automatically...but that's toooooo annoying.

3. After installing Windows XP, then I have spend another hours to tweaking around services and settings to make my pc do 100% of its capacity....
And that's true for RedHat Linux...they just install toooo many things and open up too many things as a default. (And that's why I prefer Debian GNU/Linux, and even FreeBSD)

4. And of course, normal installation of Windows XP takes about 1 GB about harddisk....but....only OS + Web Browser + Mail client and few small utils like notepad = 1 GB. Wow.
And my base debian takes only about 100MB.

However, beside these things....I find Windows quite useful....especially for playing MMOGs of course!!!!

Anyway, I prefer Linux and BSDs because there are plenty of places that I can fiddle and play around.

PS: Ah...for the dreaded dependency hell...apt-get does take care of everything.
And...recently, the oft-feared DLL hell in windows is not bothering me as frequently as before. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? After you get new hardware, it is highly wise thing to re-install entire Windows system, in order to get the maximum performance out of new hardware. And that's especially true when upgrading video card.

(But you don't have to reinstall after upgrading your RAM or CPUs of course!!!)

~(-_-)~ Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'd like to back up Abraxas's points on this. Windows installation is generally a giant pain. Examples:

1) It's generally more verbose than most Linux setups. For example, it still prompts you with a network configuration window while most Linux distros will auto-detect your network.

2) It's highly inflexible. Need to install the OS remotely? Well, too bad! No soup for you!

3) When hardware doesn't work, it takes superhuman prodding to get it to work. If Windows decides it doesn't want to associate your driver with your device, well, might as well get a new one. I've seen this happen twice, once's with a USB WLAN dongle and again with a Playstation->USB controller converter. In both cases, the devices worked the first few times, but after awhile, Windows refused to recognize them.

4) Sometimes, installing Windows *is* a race against the internet. Remember Blaster? At school (where I'm connected directly to the internet), I booted my (clean) Windows install to do something, and within two hours the sysadmin had locked my ethernet port to keep my computer from spreading Blaster to everyone else. Without a good firewall, the average Windows network is a fricking hotzone!

5) When Windows bootup breaks, you might as well reinstall. I've had to fix boot failures on several of my friend's machines, and that piece-of-s*it Windows "rescue" disk has never, ever, ever, been helpful. It doesn't even have networking enabled! In each case, I ended up being able to salvage what data I could by booting up Knoppix and transferring their files over the net. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Most of the arguments going on here are totally pointless and some are even fairly moronic.

All OS's have problems. Every single one ever written. Why throw these back and forth between opposing sides? It's hardly productive and is far from an informative discussion.

There is no war between Microsoft and OSS. There's a conflict between ideologies but does that mean you have to argue technical points? Both have their merits and we should be learning from each other rather than covering up the problems.
If you find a problem in a peice of software, do everyone a favour and submit a bug report. It might be something new that the developer hasn't heard about yet.

To the author: Why didn't you go out and buy a cheap TV?
;-) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 17:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So you installed Redhat 9.1, which has never been released? And this Red Hat 9.1 gave you problems...

Thanks for bringing a good laugh to my day.

LOL. What a liar! Microsoft better spent some cash educating your sorry asses. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 17:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? j d says: this guy is having a cry about not having many programs installed by default. can't please all the people all the time...

He wasn't "having a cry"; he was pointing out a difference. And he's right. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 17:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Actually now I remember that I had the exprerience of this hardware problem.

I had an Asus board and when try to install Windows 2000 on it, for some reason serial/parallel ports would not work. I later learned that I had to upgrade my mainboard bios to get everything working.

I dont quite find this bad, it is a hardware problem, how can you guys blame the operating system for that. It is totally a mainboard company's mistake.

Another thing is , Linux guys will probably know this that Mandrake was burnig some cd drives and rendering them useless. So If I would think like you I would never want to have an OS that can render my hardware useless.

Though I really think you can not blame an operating system for harware based problems. As in the case of Windmodems used not to work with Linux. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 17:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ::Rayiner Hashem::
Thanks for the laugh; it reminds me of the time I tried to install my WLAN dongle on my XP box.... the only way that I knew it was working correctly was when I got an error message that it wasn't working. go figure.....

Then again, Lindows 4.5 didn't work out of the box with it either......

So I think I'm stuck on the fence with this whole issue. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 1) It's generally more verbose than most Linux setups. For example, it still prompts you with a network configuration window while most Linux distros will auto-detect your network.

Putting in your computer's name is verbose ????

2) It's highly inflexible. Need to install the OS remotely? Well, too bad! No soup for you!

This is utter BS. When I was a Lab assistant in school our admin had it so we could install NT remotely over the network, insert a floppy disk, boot and you would have windows and every application for a particular lab installed with no user interaction. This was in 1998.

3) When hardware doesn't work, it takes superhuman prodding to get it to work. If Windows decides it doesn't want to associate your driver with your device, well, might as well get a new one. I've seen this happen twice, once's with a USB WLAN dongle and again with a Playstation->USB controller converter. In both cases, the devices worked the first few times, but after awhile, Windows refused to recognize them.

As opposed to linux distros where thinks might never be supported. For example Xvideo on my toshiba laptop using a trident cyberblade chipset, playing DVDs causes wired split screen distortion. There wasn't a fix for that in 2002 and probably will never be. Oh before you go an say it is open source it will happens. I personnaly tried to hack the X source trust me it would take a few years to guess all the parameters to set Xvideo up.

Or How I tried for a month trying to get ALSA to compile on a kernel and use the get the damn TV tuner portion of a ATI All-in-wonder radeon to work. This was in 2002 as well and a google search reveals that not much has chnaged in 2 years. Except ALSA is now in the kernel. I am not willing to spend another week trying to get the damn thing to work

4) Sometimes, installing Windows *is* a race against the internet. Remember Blaster? At school (where I'm connected directly to the internet), I booted my (clean) Windows install to do something, and within two hours the sysadmin had locked my ethernet port to keep my computer from spreading Blaster to everyone else. Without a good firewall, the average Windows network is a fricking hotzone!

I have two windows machines and not one has ever had a worm infect it. I have setup my computer novice friends' machines, with warnings o never to download certain software and use mozilla, none of them have ever had to worms of viruses. Note, I am not claiming that windows is immune to them just that as you suggested a properly configured OS, any OS can be more tolerant.

5) When Windows bootup breaks, you might as well reinstall. I've had to fix boot failures on several of my friend's machines, and that piece-of-s*it Windows "rescue" disk has never, ever, ever, been helpful. It doesn't even have networking enabled! In each case, I ended up being able to salvage what data I could by booting up Knoppix and transferring their files over the net.

This point I will concede.

By the way, I am not a windows proponent. I am infact absoulutely anti windows, I tried, evangalised linux from 1998-2002 and finally gave up for the above two problems (pain in the behind hardware problems) plus a few other issues I have ( like installing a gazillion new libraries for every application, eventually you are far away from your base distro enough that upgrades are a bitch).

I am now happily setlled with my OS X running powerbook. I have relegated windows to certain niche purposes that linux can never fill. 1) work with my tv tuner card 2) work on my fiance's toshiba laptop reliably. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Oh I just remembered the term for windows remote installation. It is called unattended installs, just grep Google for the term there are various hits.

Here is one:
http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=3773 Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> As in the case of Windmodems used not to work with Linux. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you're judging an OS by its ability to view and capture video input out-of-the-box, then BeOS wins (although, I'm not sure it would be any better than Win2k at having drivers for hardware created after its release). Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Another thing is , Linux guys will probably know this that Mandrake was burnig some cd drives and rendering them useless. So If I would think like you I would never want to have an OS that can render my hardware useless."

To be fair, that was a problem with LG not following standard specs for a system call. Note that the hard drives were recoverable, too. But you're right, it was a bungle. To MandrakeSoft's defense, their QA department has less than 1% of Microsoft's... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It is right that Windows NT/2000 series computers supported remote installations. It is called RIS (Remote installation services) for whose dont know.

Actually by preparing and installation disk you can install Windows on every computer without even touching to computer itself after you start the installation. (I mean not even entering serial number, network configuaration and stuff like that)

I dont know about this on Windows XP though, I mean It still probably supports unattended installations but I'm not quite sure it supports network installation. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "You know, no one answered my question about monitor mode in Windows either and no one answered my question as to whether or not there is an equivalent to kismet for Windows, but who's keeping track? ;-)"

What do you mean by monitor exactly? As for Kismet you can use the software that kismet is based on, called NetStumbler which is for windows. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I have two windows machines and not one has ever had a worm infect it."

I hear this all the time in here, and so without sound like a Windows hating, Linux fanatic, I thought I would ask something. I'm guessing you know Windows security pretty well by this point. So what I'm wondering is despite the fact that you no doubt keep your machine patched and have never had a worm, do you feel you have nothing to worry about? I mean, do you ever worry about the fact that malware is getting more and more complicated, and more and insidious in it's means of entry? Are you at all concerned about MS's ability to keep staying one step ahead of the worm writers and such? Like I said, honest questions, no bashing involved. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Installing any OS without the right drivers is going to be a problem. Of course, when a 3-year-old Windows CD doesn't include drivers for new hardware, that's a mark against Windws, but when a 3-week-old Linux CD foesn't include drivers, folks usually go on a "don't blame Linux, blame the hardware companies" rant. Linux zealots can't be wrong because they're always right. Just ask 'em.

When I've installed XP on machines with new video cards, it defaults to standard VGA. Then I go off and get the right dirver for the card and install it. Seems pretty straightforward.

It isn't Windows' fault that you have a dialup link. Or, does using Linux make it go faster? I'd say pulling down, say, 80 megs of Debian updates would take just as long as pulling down 80 megs of Windows updates. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Doesn't anybody know how to use the english language anymore? And whatever happened to the editor stepping in and correcting major grammatical mistakes?

I'd actually be willing to place money on a bet that says that at least 50% of you don't know what I'm talking about. We certainly are in a sad state of affairs when we can argue about button order, but no one cares about communicating clearly with words. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's a widely touted misnomer that you cannot turn off Windows services. It's a point-and-click exercise in XP Pro. (Don't have XP Pro? Too bad...you bought the half-baked version.) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Linux zealots can't be wrong because they're always right. Just ask 'em."

Windows doesn't have zealots?? How about OS X? Just Linux? Don't you ever get tired of ranting against Linux users? Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think you missed the point. The fact is that Windows and Linux take a different approach to drivers. In the Windows world, drivers are commonly installed from the CD-ROM that came with the hardware. In other words, hardware manufacturers take on the responsability to offer Windows drivers, because they know that this represents the bulk of their market.

With Linux, it's almost always the community's responsibility to produce drivers. While this means that, occasionally, a driver won't be avaible for the odd device (or that some drivers may be buggy), it does have an advantage over Windows: the "community" drivers can all be included on the distro CD. The point of the article was that, if you don't have Internet access and the CD-ROMs with the drivers on them, you're better off with Linux.

But of course, anti-Linux zealots will use this opportunity to bash Linux, as they always do... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Don't have XP Pro? Too bad...you bought the half-baked version.

Another advantage of Linux - there is not "half-baked" version. The full version is the free version. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Another advantage of Linux - there is not "half-baked" version. The full version is the free version."
I hate to ruin your example, but with RedHat there kinda is... Sorta.

People why do we always have this stupid argument. Nobody ever turns sides because of these. And the article was really pretty silly. I mean it was basically:
Windows sucks if you don't have a way to get drivers for it.
So what? That's true for any OS, Windows just ships fewer versions than others. Do you really want them shipping a service pack every 6 months so they can keep up with all the latest drivers?

The lesson here is, that a $90 tv is a better purchase than a $70 tv capture card. Grand lesson.
MOVE ON! Fri, 23 Jul 2004 20:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? IMHO, Linux really needs some equivalent to device manager for dealing with hardware. There should be a unified driver framework and a directory with a list of hardware by type and information about the hardware and the drivers associated with it. Of course it would be easy to make a GUI over this and have it be just as easy to use at the Windows Device Manager. The main problem with this revolves, like all Linux problems for me, around the X server. X also manages hardware and has its own driver framework. Perhaps the lowest level parts of X should be split off and put into the kernel so that there can be a unified driver system. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 21:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So what? That's true for any OS, Windows just ships fewer versions than others. Do you really want them shipping a service pack every 6 months so they can keep up with all the latest drivers?

Uh, wait, that would mean Windows XP has been relesed in 1998.

It doesn't support my soundcard, which I bought in 1999, and which works perfectly under SuSE 8.2. Oh, yes, I can download the drivers, but they constantly crash the PC. And it is indeed Microsoft to blame here, as a company that makes huge profits, they should care a little about their customers, don't you think?

And oh, it neither supports my 1999 modem, just in case you want to know. So no, Windows isn't perfect.

Quite funny, actually, that everybody looks forward to the day that Linux is "ready for the desktop", mainly focussing on the installer, yet nobody wants to admit that the Windows installation procedure isn't perfect. I don't see how that goes together. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 21:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? But Linux, well maybe Mandrake, but most Linux distros still have some configuration/installation problems. They might have more/better drivers than 2000 or XP, but sometimes they don't have drivers available at all where 2000 and XP will almost always be supported by the manufacturer.

So Linux still needs more work, but its definitely very real competition that's here to stay. And I believe each year it will be growing at a faster rate than ever before. More bug fixes, more security, more drivers, more support, more apps, more freedom and more free stuff. For what it costs it can't be beat, er well, except maybe by BSD, depending on who's side you're on. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 21:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I love Linux, but this article is really "poor"... I can't believe I kept reading... Fri, 23 Jul 2004 21:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? But Linux, well maybe Mandrake, but most Linux distros still have some configuration/installation problems. They might have more/better drivers than 2000 or XP, but sometimes they don't have drivers available at all where 2000 and XP will almost always be supported by the manufacturer.

There lies the problem: manufacturers. Do not forget when Windows XP was first released, it couldn't support many drivers compared to Windows 98. Manufacturers have code sources from Linux distros so they can releae drivers. One of great example is NVidia. Therfore, the problem is the willing of manufacturers. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 22:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Funny, I've got an e-VGA nVidia 5700 Ultra -- and I used it to install a fresh copy of Windows XP, no sweat.

Maybe your motherboard is crap.

I have a simple question for you. Can you read? Because Linux had no problems with my Abit NF7-S or my 5700 Ultra.

Ok, then ... so ... you don't have the original drivers for the mobo ... you're having problems with the vid card ... and therefore Windows sucks.

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said windows sucks. You people amaze me. I simply pointed out that Windows is not so easy to install as some people like to think. Linux can be much easier in such situations because the drivers are included with the kernel. Besides that I wasn't having trouble with my video card at all. Windows was having trouble. Linux worked fine on the same setup. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 22:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What where the current distros on the September 9, 2002 when XP's first Service Pack was released. Use a Linux distro that was released at/near the same date and try to install it on your x86 PC.

That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I bought Suse and WinXP at the same time. Suse installed without much of a fuss at all. XP did not. It's not my fault that MS waits years inbetween updates of their boxed Operating System and it isn't anyone else's fault who attempts the same thing.

The point everyone is missing is that XP can be difficult to install. Linux can be easier to install on the same machine. Instead of rational responses, I am being attacked, called a liar, and am having words shoved in my mouth. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 22:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RE: Drill Sgt

What do you mean by monitor exactly? As for Kismet you can use the software that kismet is based on, called NetStumbler which is for windows.

You can put cisco cards, and others, into rfmon mode which allows you to passively scan wireless networks. Kismet is much more effective than NetStumbler because Kismet supports passive scans while NetStumbler does not.

RE: enloop


When I've installed XP on machines with new video cards, it defaults to standard VGA. Then I go off and get the right dirver for the card and install it. Seems pretty straightforward.

READ PEOPLE. READ BEFORE YOU MAKE COMMENTS. The install CD won't even display ANYTHING. It's a blank screen. No error messages. No other funky behaviour, there is just no display. This required that I install a different video card to install windows.


It isn't Windows' fault that you have a dialup link. Or, does using Linux make it go faster? I'd say pulling down, say, 80 megs of Debian updates would take just as long as pulling down 80 megs of Windows updates.

Again your poor reading comprehension skills come into play. It is imperative that you update Windows immediately if you want to be safe from worms. This is not the case with Linux.

It's a widely touted misnomer that you cannot turn off Windows services. It's a point-and-click exercise in XP Pro. (Don't have XP Pro? Too bad...you bought the half-baked version.)

XP Pro is a waste of money for most people. It's outrageously priced at that. I wasn't about to install XP Pro when it wasn't needed, especially at that price. It should be quite embarrassing that MS ships a crippled OS at that price. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This sums it up in a fairly quickly:

http://www.netstumbler.org/archive/index.php/t-6101 Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >It is imperative that you update Windows immediately if you want to be safe from worms.

It is imperative that you update any OS to be safe from malware. Linux included.

>This is not the case with Linux.

Case 1. A widespread hacker penetration of Linux computers in Stanford U. Google for it, and read carefully their statement. Bottom line: carelessly unpatched systems.

Case 2. A well known Linux advocate and security specialist got hacked through Sendmail. Why? He never applied Sendmail patches because he did not use Sendmail, then decided to run it for some purpose and as soon as he started it- got the worm exploiting old unpatched vulnerability for which patch existed for long time.

You should learn a platform of your choice before screaming "praise the Linux."

>XP Pro is a waste of money for most people. It's outrageously priced at that.

Oh,- you can't afford XP Pro? How about XP Home for $50 when bought with new computer, preinstalled and properly configured.

Judging from the article and some comments, I am becoming a strong believer that people like you and article author should be thankful to Microsoft for selling preinstalled OS cheap, but retail version very much overpriced.

That overly high price should stop some people from pretending to be computer geeks capable of installing an OS by themselves. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It is imperative that you update any OS to be safe from malware. Linux included.

I never said otherwise but what are the chances of being attacked before you can update in Linux as opposed to Windows? I'm talking about the real world, not hypotheticals. I'm not talking about people who leave their systems unpatched. I'm talking about people who do patch their systems but just don't have enough time to do it before they get attacked by a worm.

You should learn a platform of your choice before screaming "praise the Linux."

It's funny that you put that in quotes since I never said that or implied it. The only thing that may be taken the wrong way was that I insisted that the hardware worked on Linux when it did not on Windows. This was purely to show that the hardware was not defective, but it was taken the wrong way, obviously.

Oh,- you can't afford XP Pro? How about XP Home for $50 when bought with new computer, preinstalled and properly configured.

That doesn't help when you build your own.

Judging from the article and some comments, I am becoming a strong believer that people like you and article author should be thankful to Microsoft for selling preinstalled OS cheap, but retail version very much overpriced.

Huh?

That overly high price should stop some people from pretending to be computer geeks capable of installing an OS by themselves.

Amazing. Simply amazing. I've installed several different operating systems successfully so I don't know what you are talking about. Even with the problems I encountered with Windows and Linux I was able to install them in the end. The point I was making is how much of a pain in the ass it can be. Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Here's a better site that describes the differences.

http://tipsybottle.com/technology/wireless/RedHat-Kismet-HOWTO-FAQ....) Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? XP Pro is a waste of money for most people. It's outrageously priced at that. I wasn't about to install XP Pro when it wasn't needed, especially at that price. It should be quite embarrassing that MS ships a crippled OS at that price.

XP Pro is correctly priced for what it does. It's also light years ahead of all Linux distros, in every department (except price and security).

Stop trolling. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "No, it doesn't. You didn't read the rest of the comments apparently."

I've read all the post here, but couldn't find a statement that you tried to run it in VESA-mode on linux.

"Maybe that's because Linux distro's release new versions quicker than MS releases SPs. By the way, SP1 doesn't help much, you need SP2 to patch the current insecurities."

And everytime they have a new release I have to pay for it?
How much support do I get for the money I spent on it?
IRC Suse gives you 60 days. Not much if you consider that you have to pay 90 Euros for a product they didn't even develope themselfes.

"I never said otherwise but what are the chances of being attacked before you can update in Linux as opposed to Windows?"

Reread my first post an you know how to get online without having problems with blaster&co.

"That doesn't help when you build your own."

As soon as you buy a mainboard+cpu+harddisk you have qualified for an OEM-license. I payed 80 Euro for XP-Pro. And a Student-license costs 6 Euro with a pressed cd. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? And everytime they have a new release I have to pay for it?

Nothing, if you use Mandrake.

How much support do I get for the money I spent on it?

How much support do you get from Microsoft if you buy a retail version of Windows XP?

IRC Suse gives you 60 days. Not much if you consider that you have to pay 90 Euros for a product they didn't even develope themselfes.

Actually, putting a Linux distro together is a lot of work. But, as I've already pointed out, you can just download Mandrake for free...though, personally, I like to give them a bit of money every year to show my support.

Speaking of XP...it seems SP2 isn't quite ready for release yet. CRN did tests, and 3 out of 5 machines didn't work after installing it...

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessio... Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As I sayed before I only have ISDN, so downloading ISOs is no option for me.

"How much support do you get from Microsoft if you buy a retail version of Windows XP?"

You still get the ServicePack-CDs for free Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ""XP Pro is correctly priced for what it does. It's also light years ahead of all Linux distros, in every department (except price and security).

Stop trolling.""

As if that comment wasn't a troll? Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? mmmm... linux is better! no windows is better! and it and goes on and on.... hey! nothing wrong with using both. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 02:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The $50 price with a new computer isn't too bad, but I can't afford a new computer right now. Also I highly doubt that this machine would run XP in any form at all. Home is totally out of the question, why would I let processors sit idle with a OS lacking a basic feature like SMP? Even if I could get a new computer right now, I'd have to use Linux to take advantage of it, theres still no 64bit windows for x86-64.

Linux is just the better choice for me. Slack from my experience is only a little harder to install than Win2k Pro (and really, how often do you install either of those?), and Dropline works quite nicely as a easy to update desktop. Perhaps not quite as fast as Win2k (although not by much), but a much better experience overall, as (at least for my hardware) the support is better, and I like Gnome's UI more. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 04:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? my penis is bigger Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You still get the ServicePack-CDs for free

Upgrades is not the same thing as support.

Russian Guy

Good for you, you got a whopping total of two cases to support your argument!!!

Tell me, how many worms and viruses are currently "in the wild" for Windows? Now, how many worms and viruses are "in the wild" for Linux?

Just answer these two simple questions.

Ronald

It's also light years ahead of all Linux distros

Light years? Really? Explain how you came to that comparison. Give examples, please. Because I use both Windows and Linux and in no conceivable way is WinXP "light years" ahead of, let's say, Mandrake 10.X. In fact, in many areas, Linux is ahead. KDE 3.2.3, in particular, is a more advanced GUI than Windows, and Konqueror is better file and web browser than Windows/Internet Explorer.

Remember, you're talking about the OS here, not the apps. You specifically said that "Windows XP Pro" is light-years (a hyphenated word, btw) ahead of "all Linux distros", not "there are better apps for Windows than Linux."

I'm sorry, but you calling anyone a troll is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >I can even change the looks of my desktop as I desire, for
>free! =o)

there are lots of free desktop shells for windows.
i.e litestep
Including a few ports of blackbox, so you can get that linux feel on your windows box.

When you say windows doesn't come with extra software...that's probably because you paid for and are installing an OS and not the application software that goes with it. same thing would happen with a minial gentoo install.

Althought, you could create a windows slipstream cd, maybe put office on there, firefox, thunderbird, gimp...wow look at all the software that is also free for windows. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Oh,- you can't afford XP Pro? How about XP Home for $50 when bought with new computer, preinstalled and properly configured.

That doesn't help when you build your own."

Even when building your own, the price of Windows is still worth it. The amount of time I save though the ease of setup and configuration is well worth the money paid. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wish people would stop saying this. "the admin this, the admin that".

People don't have to spend any time doing anything on Linux, because it is always "the admin" that will do it for them.

Where do I meet this "the admin" and does he have time to fit me in?


I think you are on to something. In windows environments you dont meet him, as the admin is supposed to be yourself. This is why management is led to believe that Windows is cheaper. In reality it is not. When you do the system administration you will not do any productive work.

In Unixlike enviroments with a sysadmin on the payrole the administration cost becomes much more visible. This means that it will be easier to detect and remove bottlenecks in the system. Problems will be handled more efficently as there is less risk that the same problem is solved over and over again by different users and you wont end up with a dozen solutions wher half of them are incompatible.

This line of reasoning works well at least in large organizations where there is enough to do for the person with the sysadmin role. In small organizations windows may be more cost effective since the sysadmin guy is able to handle 1000 users, and have salery requirements accordingly but this helps you little if you only have 10 employees. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://fftv.sf.net Sat, 24 Jul 2004 07:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? WIndows is still number one and will remain number one. Unless Linux really invent sometihng and quit copying stuff from unix and windows, it will always be way behind windows.


For one thing Linux is ahead of Windows in flexibility.
Try doing something like integrating your login database with your SQL based employee database in windows. Linux is also ahead of windows in security. I'm thinking of things like mandatory access control. The buffer overflow protection stuff that many people think will break windows applications when introduced in Windows XP sp2 is already part of many Linux distros.


And hello you all, who just think that its just cool to say bad about windows, you know what windows is competing against *free* linux and still linux share is not increasing? Now stop writing such crap on the name of articles and go do some coding for linux to make it worth competing against windows.


It is called vender lock in. If you have your data in closed file formats that only can be read by applications available on windows you can't change platform regardless if the alternative is free. You end up paying through your nose using windows but can't do a thing to make it stop. Switching to Linux is out of the question, no matter how free it is.

Secondly, if we talk about Linux on the desktop, there have not really been any Linux desktop suitable for ordinary Joe Users for more than two years or so. This means that there are not so many applications available yet. But now when things like drag & drop and copy & paste follow the same standard in all new applications we can expect that number to increase. Just like the number of applications exploded on the server side once the Linux server platform was resonable feature complete. Today there is no problem finding server software for Linux, the same will be true for the Linux desktop in two to five years from now. If existing companies like Adobe, Macromedia, AutoDesk won't develop them, the free software community will. As the Linux toolkits get better and better cross platform abilities, these free applications will eat the bottom line for companies only developing for windows, giving them incentive to broaden their user base. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 07:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RE: Ronald

It's also light years ahead of all Linux distros

Yeah sure. Where is 64-bit support? Where is support for other architectures? How many processors does Windows support? How about NX? LiveCDs? Logging? The list goes on and on.

RE: Anonymous (IP: ---.rb.vcr.centurytel.net)

Even when building your own, the price of Windows is still worth it. The amount of time I save though the ease of setup and configuration is well worth the money paid.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I just don't agree at all. You would have to pay me to use Windows again. I just can't fathom paying any more money for such a limited product. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 08:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Linux software is very good (sometimes amazing), and simply not comparable to professional software for Win, that's a fact: no professional CAD (Catia is still no released afaik), no 3d Modeler (blender is great but low end), no Professional Video Editing Suite, no serious Sound editing/Mixing whatever program... list gets long.


If Blender is too low end for you, why not use Maya. There are also quite deacent CAD programs available. The problem is that they not handle common windows formats such as AutoCAD well, especially if you have done a lot of add on scripting stuff. But in principle you are right, the biggest obstacle for Linux in overtaking the desktop is the lack of applications. However the list is getting shorter each day either because software is ported, or free software gets more feature rich and better at import commonly used file formats. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 08:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 2) It's highly inflexible. Need to install the OS remotely? Well, too bad! No soup for you!

This is utter BS. When I was a Lab assistant in school our admin had it so we could install NT remotely over the network, insert a floppy disk, boot and you would have windows and every application for a particular lab installed with no user interaction. This was in 1998.



Yes, you could. But in my experience Linux is better at handling inhomogenous hardware in such networked installs.

This is probably due to the fact that in Linux all the drivers there is comes with the distro, and if it isn't in the distro you are probably out of luck. While you often can solve the problem in windows by downloading a driver from the vender of whatever hardware that needs the driver.

This is no problem if you installs machines one by one, but if you install a classroom of them there will always be some machine that need extra attention. In Linux it usually just works. Of course you could solve the problem in windows by having the same hardware everywheere. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 09:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Installing any OS without the right drivers is going to be a problem. Of course, when a 3-year-old Windows CD doesn't include drivers for new hardware, that's a mark against Windws, but when a 3-week-old Linux CD foesn't include drivers, folks usually go on a "don't blame Linux, blame the hardware companies" rant. Linux zealots can't be wrong because they're always right. Just ask 'em.


I think that you misunderstand what Linux users complain about. It is usually not that new drivers are not included. If you get new hardware, your OS might not support it out of the box. It's annoying but thats a fact of life we can't do much to change. I also think that most Linux usrers are quite willing to forgive Microsoft for not having drivers for new hardware in a three year old OS.

Instead the complaint is that hardware venders doesn't cooperate in either developing drivers themselves or releasing specifications so that other people can develop them like they frequently do to Microsoft.

On the other hand, Microsoft have a well developed update system, why not use that to automagically update the drivers when installing old but still supported OSes. It may not work with drivers for devices that hold the install media, but it would be a good solution for all other devices. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 09:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Now I just have to add some information, since you obviously didn't bother to look for it yourself:

> Where is 64-bit support?
Right here.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/
http://www.planetamd64.com/ has the drivers.

> Where is support for other architectures?
Windows XP supports x86, x86-64 (AMD64) and Intel Itanium/Itanium II. In former times, there have been more architectures though. You can find Windows 2000 for SPARC and Alpha processors if I'm not mistaken, NT4 runs on half a dozen other architectures.

> How many processors does Windows support?
You want the absolute maximum? For Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, it's 128 processors (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/features/high...). Windows XP Pro is licensed for two processors and Home for one.

> How about NX?
Supported in all WinXP 64 Bit editions and with 32 Bit Service Pack 2.

> LiveCDs?
Microsoft doesn't consider them useful for Home users, but WinXP can be run from CD without problems.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/sa/support/winpe.mspx
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

> Logging?
Logging what? There's the Event Log (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323006), Website and FTP logging (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/iis/htm/core/iienblg...), extendable logging support for IIS (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windowsserv/2003/d...) and possibly lots more I don't know about. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 09:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Architectures: you admit it yourself: Windows XP only runs on i386 and Itanium, all other ports are either discontinued or still beta. Linux runs on many more: Debian 3.0 supports at least i386, motorola 680x0, sparc, sparc64, alpha, PowerPC, arm, mips, HPPA and the Itanium, and there already exist distributions for amd-64, including commercial ones.

Processors: great, 128 processors. We have recently seen that Linux scales to 1024. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Pity you. Just admit it, you can't keep up with people bashing you with windows this windows that. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 12:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>The point of the article was that, if you don't have Internet access and the CD-ROMs with the drivers on them, you're better off with Linux.

That's an inane point. The fact that current Linux CD's contain drivers for hardware released since XP was originally released has nothing at all to do with either OS. It ought to be blatantly obvious that you can't put drivers that don't yet exist on a CD.

If you don't have net access and you don't have drivers for your hardware, you have a problem regardless of the OS you use. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 14:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 1. I believe you didn't get around to shouting about that "blank screen" for several posts. People can't read what you don't write.

2. Yes, Windows needs to be updated, because it has been a few years since it was released. Install a Linux released when XP came out and you will also find dozens of security patches and code updates need to be applied. In any case, how do you intend to update Linux, once installed? By magic?

3. Your opinons about the cost of XP are just that: opinion. It is, however, a fact that services can be disabled in XP. Your assertion to the contrary was wrong.

4. In general, one way to gain respect and credibility is to address facts rather than shout and slander other readers. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 14:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ROFL. I never said Windows runs on more architectures than Linux, I didn't even compare it to Linux. I only gave Abraxas the information he was missing. Why would I care if my OS can be compiled for microcontroller XYZ? Same goes for processor count. If you give me a machine with more than 128 processors, I'll gladly use Linux. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 14:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hardware vendors do not exist to "cooperate". I'm sure they see creating and supporting drivers as an unwelcome cost of business. If they don't create drivers for Linux, it is because they make the business decision that the return won't justify the expense.

As for releasing specs, if Linux developers could use those specs to create drivers, then Windows developers could create Windows drivers and competing hardware manufacturers would have insight into that product. Neither of these possibilities are attractive to vendors. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 14:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? From enloop:

Your opinons about the cost of XP are just that: opinion. It is, however, a fact that services can be disabled in XP. Your assertion to the contrary was wrong.

In WinXP: Run > msconfig

Go to the services tab and select Disable All. Reboot. Now that RPC and Plug and Play are disabled, how do you expect the computer to run now? I doubt very efficiently. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 14:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's amazing what people will do (or spend) to keep from having to buy a cheap, $100 television set! Sat, 24 Jul 2004 15:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? [quote]
In WinXP: Run > msconfig

Go to the services tab and select Disable All. Reboot. Now that RPC and Plug and Play are disabled, how do you expect the computer to run now? I doubt very efficiently.[/quote]

Uh, dude, that would be like doing 'chmod -R a-x *' on /etc/rc.d or init.d. I don't think that would make Linux very happy either. The key is to turn of the services which you do not want; not all services are bad. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? any articles here that point out that linux is better than windows always ends in a slagging match.

windows zealots shout long and loud that their os is far better than any other.. here are some reasons

1: Microsoft is a successful company with excellent business practices.

2: Linux is controlled by communists

3: No-one uses Linux

4: All software ever created was written for windows

5: My games don't load in linux.. (well a bit true I suposse)

6: If linux is used more then linux is totally insecure compared to windows

7: I am a computer expert because I know how to use windows

8: Linux is crap because I tried it but was too dim to do anything useful.

9: I had my windows installed with my pc, why would I want to change ?

10: linux is a big step backwards because it is only the equivilant of windows 3.1/windows3.11/windows 95

11: windows is not expensive because all the software is available on kazaa

I could go on but whats the point ? Everyone here can add their own urban myths about Windows and Linux, but this will probably be modded down as most people around here have no sense of humour.

BTW - Abraxas, don't let them grind ya down! Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i dont think ive ever heard of anyone having that kind of painless migration to linux....

when it comes to the install process, he's right. linux has far surpassed windows. in fact, theres half a dozen different os installers in the linux world that are better then the windows one.

after you install it, what then? we get to configuration. gui user level configuration is comparible to windows, but quite honestly gui system configuration sucks in linux. that means you have to set stuff up the real way, which is with bash, vim and the /etc folder, and that takes some learning.

when it comes to applications out of the box, windows has by far the worst number and lowest quality apps in any os ive used before. beyond that, some are actually dangerous to use. first thing i do after i install windows is install bsplayer, firefox, and winamp. but alot of people who use windows dont know this, and end up using some of the worst software available for the platform.

when it comes to software, i find on average software in linux is comparible to software in windows. im a programmer though, so i use some of the best software available in linux (compilers, IDEs, etc) which your average joe wouldnt. but honestly, if given a choice between an 800$ copy of photoshop, and a 0$ copy of the gimp, i would take the gimp any day as i dont need the stuff in photoshop that makes it an 800$ app. thats just an example, but can be applied to most things in linux. whats there right now is either great, or at the least "good enough". the problem comes if you are a graphics professional who needs that 800$ copy of photoshop. theres a reason jimmac still uses adobe products....

when it comes to software installation, it can either be pure living hell that will send you into fits of weeping and violence to your pc, or it is the easiest thing in the world and you wonder how anyone could use something as out dated and clunky as software installers in windows. you all know what im talking about, the incredable apt. the problem with apt is again, its not on every distro, takes effort and knowledge to set up on most distros. its "native" distro debian is one of the most painful for newbs that i can think of, only thing for frightening then debian for someone with no linux experience is gentoo. whats the most popular installation form? rpm. for my opinions on rpm, refer to the beginning of this paragraph ;-)

now when it comes to numbers of software available, i really dont care. linux has way more apps for way more things then ill ever need. i dont care if windows has 300,000 apps available, and linux has 100,000 apps available, cause im only gonna have 20 or so installed at the most at any given time. quantity of software is a non-issue on linux or mac, but alwas seems to come up in these kinds of discussions.

last but not least, the system itself. linux is painful to learn, especially comming from a windows background. everything is different. (some shells look similar, but thats where it ends) learning windows took me about two months. i would say i was a "power user" by then. linux? i would say six months of much more intense focus then windows to lose the noob title. even now i would consider myself at a moderate level of knowledge at the most, and ive been using it as my main operating system for the last year or so.(my windows partition exists solely for blizzard games ;-) ) and i am a very technologically minded person. i pick stuff like this up really fast, and find it easy to understand and assimilate. however, ive now become used to partitions not being degragged, operating systems not being installed every few weeks, not having to reboot unless i do a kernel update rather then rebooting every time an app crashes, not having to worry about virii or spyware, having truly mutable and flexible UIs available, etc. i would say even with my level of knowledge of both, that linux takes far longer to learn, and will be the source of many headaches and frustration, but the effort pays off.

we see real innovation from the free software world. try and name one thing in longhorn (not counting .net) that is not a copy of either linux or mac. DRM i guess, but thats not a feature its a shackle. feature for feature, youve got everything that will be in longhorn and more in tiger, which isnt gonna take another three years. im not saying linux is that much better, but you do see significantly more innovation and improvement in the linux world then the microsoft world, and that is inexcusable for a company with the size, money, and market share of microsoft.

linux is not the silver bullet, the magical panacea. you pay a price to use windows, you also pay a price to use linux. with windows, the price is monetary. with linux, its knowledge. to say one is better then the other is quite presumptious, it depends on the person. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i dont think ive ever heard of anyone having that kind of painless migration to linux....

when it comes to the install process, he's right. linux has far surpassed windows. in fact, theres half a dozen different os installers in the linux world that are better then the windows one.

after you install it, what then? we get to configuration. gui user level configuration is comparible to windows, but quite honestly gui system configuration sucks in linux. that means you have to set stuff up the real way, which is with bash, vim and the /etc folder, and that takes some learning.

when it comes to applications out of the box, windows has by far the worst number and lowest quality apps in any os ive used before. beyond that, some are actually dangerous to use. first thing i do after i install windows is install bsplayer, firefox, and winamp. but alot of people who use windows dont know this, and end up using some of the worst software available for the platform.

when it comes to software, i find on average software in linux is comparible to software in windows. im a programmer though, so i use some of the best software available in linux (compilers, IDEs, etc) which your average joe wouldnt. but honestly, if given a choice between an 800$ copy of photoshop, and a 0$ copy of the gimp, i would take the gimp any day as i dont need the stuff in photoshop that makes it an 800$ app. thats just an example, but can be applied to most things in linux. whats there right now is either great, or at the least "good enough". the problem comes if you are a graphics professional who needs that 800$ copy of photoshop. theres a reason jimmac still uses adobe products....

when it comes to software installation, it can either be pure living hell that will send you into fits of weeping and violence to your pc, or it is the easiest thing in the world and you wonder how anyone could use something as out dated and clunky as software installers in windows. you all know what im talking about, the incredable apt. the problem with apt is again, its not on every distro, takes effort and knowledge to set up on most distros. its "native" distro debian is one of the most painful for newbs that i can think of, only thing for frightening then debian for someone with no linux experience is gentoo. whats the most popular installation form? rpm. for my opinions on rpm, refer to the beginning of this paragraph ;-)

now when it comes to numbers of software available, i really dont care. linux has way more apps for way more things then ill ever need. i dont care if windows has 300,000 apps available, and linux has 100,000 apps available, cause im only gonna have 20 or so installed at the most at any given time. quantity of software is a non-issue on linux or mac, but alwas seems to come up in these kinds of discussions.

last but not least, the system itself. linux is painful to learn, especially comming from a windows background. everything is different. (some shells look similar, but thats where it ends) learning windows took me about two months. i would say i was a "power user" by then. linux? i would say six months of much more intense focus then windows to lose the noob title. even now i would consider myself at a moderate level of knowledge at the most, and ive been using it as my main operating system for the last year or so.(my windows partition exists solely for blizzard games ;-) ) and i am a very technologically minded person. i pick stuff like this up really fast, and find it easy to understand and assimilate. however, ive now become used to partitions not being degragged, operating systems not being installed every few weeks, not having to reboot unless i do a kernel update rather then rebooting every time an app crashes, not having to worry about virii or spyware, having truly mutable and flexible UIs available, etc. i would say even with my level of knowledge of both, that linux takes far longer to learn, and will be the source of many headaches and frustration, but the effort pays off.

we see real innovation from the free software world. try and name one thing in longhorn (not counting .net) that is not a copy of either linux or mac. DRM i guess, but thats not a feature its a shackle. feature for feature, youve got everything that will be in longhorn and more in tiger, which isnt gonna take another three years. im not saying linux is that much better, but you do see significantly more innovation and improvement in the linux world then the microsoft world, and that is inexcusable for a company with the size, money, and market share of microsoft.

linux is not the silver bullet, the magical panacea. you pay a price to use windows, you also pay a price to use linux. with windows, the price is monetary. with linux, its knowledge. to say one is better then the other is quite presumptious, it depends on the person. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As you say, to support or not to support Linux is a busines decision. However, if you do make the decision not to support Linux, you can hardly complain if you get bad publicity for not supporting Linux users.

And again, not having drivers for hardware venders making that decision is not a fault in the Linux kernel. It is just a statement from these venders that they don't want the business of the Linux community.

There is no problem finding hardware that works for Linux so I consider it a vender problem. When I buy hardware I always checks if it is Linux compatible if it isn't I don't buy it.
It doesn't matter if I actually intend to use it with Linux, you never know what OS you will run in the future.

The people who whine is often windows users that try out Linux for the first time and are upset that their no name hardware doesn't work, not the experienced Linux crowd. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hi, I wrote the article. I haven't been able to keep up on the comments, since I didn't have an Internet connection.
Sorry to see all those misunderstandings, though.
I pointed out some differences between Windows and Linux (distributions and kernel). I know the article was a bit of a nisch, because I didn't have an Internet connection at the time, I still don't, but I know MOST (not all) has got one.
FYI, the machine I referred to in the article is 4 years old, but it is still a little unfair to compare a 4 year old system with a completely new one, I know. Still, that was how I started out, the rest of the article was about Linux and Windows in general (including XP).
Windows installation is not hard, but it is more work than with some Linux distros nowadays. Fact.
With Linux I can install all the software I like from the CD, and when i find too old, I just use the package manager for the distro in question to upgrade it. With Windows I have to uninstall it, or at least re-download and then re-install every application for itself, sorry that I didn't spell it out for everyone to see.
Kosta: "All the best softare is for win"?!? Absolutely wrong, but I already stated that some of the best ones are for Windows. "...do not go anywhere withoug your CDs" Thank you very much, but don't call on me the next time you're moving.
Blixel: Yes, I have used computers before, I was trying to add some "litteraturesque spice" to the article. Thank you for reading it! =o)
Wolf: English is my third language, and FYI Linux community has come up with tons of great apps and ideas before Windows copied them. But you saw them first in Windows, because that is what you use.

Enough with the fingers! I said in the article that Windows is a good platform, and I stick to my story! However, I have the guts to check around and see what is going on in the rest of the OS-world, and I like what I see.
Could everyone now please pay attention to the message in the article and not to some arbitrary phrases in it?

Hope you all lead good lifes, mine is coming together fine! ;o)

-Jalle Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Logging?
Logging what? There's the Event Log (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323006), Website and FTP logging (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/iis/htm/core/iienblg.....), extendable logging support for IIS (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windowsserv/2003/d.....) and possibly lots more I don't know about.


I think the complaint was about the configurability of the logging facilities. E.g. the possibility in Linux to send log informaiton to name pipes (good for debugging), or send it to a line printer to make it impossible for an intruder to remove logged traces of his doings.

The actual log messages are usually much more human readable in Linux and can be used by people that are not fully trained programmers. In windows it is often just some error number or memory address. Not much help if you don't have very good knowledge of the inner workings of windows, and most people outside Microsoft don't. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "The lesson here is, that a $90 tv is a better purchase than a $70 tv capture card. Grand lesson."

See aubject. Nothing to debate, except that your fallacy is BS. Cheap != shit quality, expensive != good quality. Otherwise people wouldn't have PC's, they'd have Apple and SGI computers because these are far more expensive (and therefore, ''by definition'', better). It all depends on price/quality, budget, and wishes of the user. There are more TV and DVB cards which *are* better [and most likely more expensive], but is that what you really ''need''? Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Althought, you could create a windows slipstream cd, maybe put office on there, firefox, thunderbird, gimp...wow look at all the software that is also free for windows.

Can I create a Windows LiveCD so I can try it out before I buy it? Or give it away to people so they can try it? Or help the third world get legally connected?

Proprietary, commercial OSes only make sense for limited, specific uses. For general use, they make as much sense as proprietary roads and highways - and they give an unfair advantage to the company that produces them. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That's an inane point. The fact that current Linux CD's contain drivers for hardware released since XP was originally released has nothing at all to do with either OS.

Once again, in your tireless crusade to defend Windows, you have COMPLETELY missed the point. I never mentioned hardware that came out after XP was released. Let's go back in time to the very moment XP was released, shall we? Linux still has all its drivers ON THE CD, while with Windows you most likely need the vendor's CD. So, if you don't have those CDs and no Internet access, you're still better off with Linux as drivers will be installed and configured out-of-the-box.

Gee, the time and energy you guys spend in defending an anti-competitive, abusive monopoly...makes one wonder what you get out of it. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As for releasing specs, if Linux developers could use those specs to create drivers, then Windows developers could create Windows drivers and competing hardware manufacturers would have insight into that product.

Ever heard of reverse-engineering? If a driver exists, you can learn a lot from how it communicates with the OS. Not releasing specs has more to do with the general climate of unjustified paranoia that prevails among corporations today. Case in point: USB specs are widely available, and yet it doesn't prevent anyone from making money from USB devices...

The fact is that specs, while often available, are not essential, which is why there are Linux drivers for the vast majority of hardware today. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think you've all missed the point.
- The question of linux vs windows should never be application support, since almost every linux application (evolution being the only major exception I can think of) has a windows port. I think that it's more important that all of these applications are free, and that they were written for linux first.
- In terms of crappy apps being written for linux, and there being more of them for windows, I beg to differ. Sure, there are more games for windows, but that has far more to do with higher education, and it's tilt towards Visual Studio et. al. that has more to do with it than anything. I'm not a developer, but as far as I can tell, the difference between linux and windows is whether or not you can get away with sloppy programming. With linux apps, it's pretty much a dog-eat-dog thing: either your app works, and you become the dominant appp, or it's brokern and other people use it. It's that simple. Also, anybodty who says there are more apps for windows, and has been looking for shareware recently know, that just isn't true. there a way more apps, usable ones, for linux. The majority of shareware for linux is written to complete functionality built-in to the core of every linux distrobution.
- As far as needing an admin, to install apps or hardware, it's becoming equally difficult to do on windows. I currently server 10-20 people, on a regular basis (on windows) keeping their systems up and running smoothly. My linux clients needs my help less frequently that anyone using windows.
- As far as the linux learning curve, and the installation of both OS's; linux is easier to install and maintain: _seriously_. Even gentoo makes it easy to download and install apps, and even gentoo could be installed by a newby: the instalation instructions are far more detailed than a windows install, far more explanation is given. Someone said that no one installs windows, and they're right. but by the same token, this only demonstrates with greater relief that the problem with linux acceptance has far more to do with rebates and OEM's than it has to do with real quality, and market. creating a linux image for a computer doesn't take that much more time, for an OEM, but apparently only IBM hasn't sold out whole hog to Microsoft. Clearly kickbacks are the only reason to stick with the proprietary product. What's more, if you want ease of use, instalation, and package install/uninstall reliability, use debian, and synaptic.
- In addition, It seems that hardware compatibility IS an issue for windows, since even huge incremental updates don't include new and improved drivers. Obviously the 4 year product update cycle isn't putting Microsoft on top anymore. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 18:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What "tireless crusade to defend Windows"? I use Linux. Do you believe taking note of reality amounts to a "crusade" or labels anyone as using one OS rather than another?

This is simple:

1. No CD can contain drivers that have not been written yet.

2. Linux distributions include drivers because, with rare exception, hardware manufacturers don't release Linux drivers. Therefore, if Linux distributions did not include these drivers, these Linux distributions would, in most cases, fail to install themselves.

3. If someone releases a Linux driver today, it will never be included on any Linux CD created before today. Users will be required to obtain it from another source. This is directly analagous to updating Windows -- or any other OS -- with drivers released after the OS was released.

4. None of these facts have anything at all to do with the merits, technical or otherwise, of Windows, Linux, or anything else.

See? That wasn't hard. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 18:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sure, I've heard of reverse engineering. Given a choice, though, I'd use a driver written by someone who wasn't dependent on reverse engineering.

I don't know and I don't care if "paranoia" colors the corporate environment. I'm just pointing to the common sense notion that businesses (they don't have to be big corporations) have an incentive to not release their hardware specs if they believe doing so may benefit their competition. Whether you, or I, believe that perception is correct, or whether you, or I, might believe they have a moral obligation to release the specs, has no impact on reality. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 18:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is probably due to the fact that in Linux all the drivers there is comes with the distro, and if it isn't in the distro you are probably out of luck. While you often can solve the problem in windows by downloading a driver from the vender of whatever hardware that needs the driver.

In case you had bothered to read the linked article and do some research, you can put all the drivers on the server

http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=3773
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Uno Engborg

It was in the linked article. And this article was written in 1998. And for your kind information there is more hardware that vendors support on windows than on linux. So drivers is not and issue.

This is no problem if you installs machines one by one, but if you install a classroom of them there will always be some machine that need extra attention. In Linux it usually just works. Of course you could solve the problem in windows by having the same hardware everywheere.

Trust having done both windows and linux remote installs, this is the case with PC hardware regardless of OS.


I think the original poster claimed it couldn't be done. It can. Wether it is easier on linux is open to debate. BTW, commercial Unixes have been doing remote installs painlessly for over a decade, no boot disks or cdroms.

On SPARC systems at the open boot prompt type'

ok boot net

or

ok boot net:dhcp

and you are done. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 20:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 3. If someone releases a Linux driver today, it will never be included on any Linux CD created before today. Users will be required to obtain it from another source. This is directly analagous to updating Windows -- or any other OS -- with drivers released after the OS was released.

The reason it won't be included in linux os because there will be a huge war as to which license the damn driver uses. And by the time, that issue is resolved the will have been two new versions that hardware:)

Of course, the driver will be in the Z generation of a distro rather than the X generation which is when the hardware was current. So in the end you would have the same problem as Anonymous mentioned.

Sorry coudln't resist. Sat, 24 Jul 2004 20:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The reason it won't be included in linux os because there will be a huge war as to which license the damn driver uses

this should be

The reason it won't be included in linux is because there will be a huge war as to which license the damn driver uses Sat, 24 Jul 2004 20:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The reason you got black and white TV, I'm guessing, is the bttv module had been loaded for NTSC mode instead of PAL. You should be able to fix that and get colour. Sun, 25 Jul 2004 01:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No CD can contain drivers that have not been written yet.

For the Nth time, that is besides the point.

Linux distributions include drivers because, with rare exception, hardware manufacturers don't release Linux drivers.

Indeed. However, the point that a couple of us were trying to make is that this constraint has in fact turned into an advantage, i.e. you don't need the hardware vendor's CD when installing Linux, which means that hardware can be recognized and configured at installation time. Anyone who's used a Knoppix CD can attest to the merits of this method.

Well, it took some time, but you finally validated my argument.

If someone releases a Linux driver today, it will never be included on any Linux CD created before today. Users will be required to obtain it from another source.

Or wait a couple of weeks until their distro is updated...

enloop

Given a choice, though, I'd use a driver written by someone who wasn't dependent on reverse engineering.

Agreed. Fortunately, some large hardware vendors (such as NVIDIA and Epson) have started to release their own drivers. Of course, you have to download them or install them for CD-ROM, so it's not as convenient as having them on the distro CD-ROM, but it's a start!

Raptor

The reason it won't be included in linux is because there will be a huge war as to which license the damn driver uses

Don't be ridiculous. There won't be a "war" of any kind - if it's not a free license (i.e. GPL or BSD), then it won't be included, simply because then the distro wouldn't be redistributable. Thus proprietary, closed-source, non-redistributable drivers must be obtained from the hardware vendor (or licensed redistributors) only.

And in the case you were insinuating that releasing it under the BSDL would someone spark a holy war, then I'm sorry to say that you're either grossly misinformed or just full of it: there are numerous programs and apps on a Linux distro CD that are licensed under other licences than the GPL (BSD, MIT, Apache, etc.). Linux users don't care about which license is used, as long as the licenses are compatible with the GPL. It's only anti-GPL zealots that are obsessed with licensing wars, because of their own personal agendas. Sun, 25 Jul 2004 16:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's only anti-GPL zealots that are obsessed with licensing wars, because of their own personal agendas.

Are they, Now?? Didn't you see the smiley at the end of the sentence?
Who is uptight now????

Regardless, licensing will prevent it from entering a distro was my point. Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Quite intresting, however, I have used the redmond developments since it was well a black screen with a cursor. To be totally honest, I fail to see where Windows even comes close to the linux platform.

To be honest, if you spend thousands a day on either platform, you have some pretty dum users, who do some pretty dum things anyway, so we won't worry about your developers.

I have done technical support across three platforms, and no matter how you spoon feed it, they are all easy for a user to botch up and its also just as easy to fix in most cases. I am currently providing support for a GNU/Linux distribution, and to be honest, I havn't come across a user who couldn't open a terminal and follow directions, which again leads us back to the "dum" users in user land.

Since the windows innovation people have decided it is no longer important to read any dialoge or do any research on nearly anything at all. It makes the interrnet and O/S development fairly useless. Regardless of the O/S you use, it is up to the end user to be educated enough to understand what dialoges mean and when to click yes and when to click no.

IMHO, I have to totally agree with this article. Software is by no means cheap. Windows provides a shell of an O/S, and the user has to foot the cost for anything else. Win XP is a revolution in development, but only one step in the right direction for M$ development. M$ Often fails to support old,exsisting, and new hardware out of the box, becuase they believe that it is the OEM responsibility to make the hardware communicate with the kernel on a hardware level. Linux standard often include support for all but the newest hardware out of the box, and while it may not be blistering 3d support, it is high resolution support nontheless. If anyone can claim that they have never had a problem with a device in windows, they are unequaled liars. While 80% of user do not install M$ 100% of user have to reinstall M$ at some point in time, other wise they get to pay the local shop a few hundred dollars.

Windows, does not contain all of the best software. I have found many applications that are written cross platform, of far better quality then windows applications. In fact, some of the biggest corprate software is ported from linux to windows. I.E Maya 3d rendering software is actually built on the linux platform and ported to windows. As are other features and applications. Windows has a user front end that makes it easy at best to navigate, however, if user fails to read anything, one sees the same problems that you would see on any platform.

Lastly, anyone, who can regergitate FUD, I.E. "linux rips of unix ad windows" have absolutely no clue as to the actual underlying of any of the 3 O/Ss. Unix and Linux are not the same, they are written in different languages, and at best the concept is the same. However windows also follows the same concept. To make instant claims that linux some how rips windows off, is bbeyond unintelligent, and simply out of the scope of even a development stand point.

As for linux development, Im no zealot, I just like to use it, I find it works better. The computer im using hasn't been reset or had a virus in since I installed linux which is oh a year ago now. As for useless, programs on a linux distribution, I'd have to say that most ditributions come with a little excess, but not as much as someone here would like to claim. If you need a 48" monitor to see your kmenu you must honestly have some shitty hardware. I have over 1500 applications installed and my menu take less then a quater of my 15" monitor. *shrugs*

Oh well, its all opinion and experience I suppose. My final answer would be linux at this point. Its what I Like and its what works. I out perform every computer on the network that has windows, and I have lower specs then the other boxes on the network I work on.

It's just beyond me though that user would take the skewed standard that M$ pushes. I mean Do you all really want your next O/S to have a minimum memory (ram) requirement of 1.5 gb just to start the installer, if you do, look at longhorn, and enjoy the 400$ you have to pay for you ram, I know Ill be just fine with my 256mb Sun, 25 Jul 2004 19:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Are they, Now?? Didn't you see the smiley at the end of the sentence?

A smiley doesn't make an inaccurate statement true.

Who is uptight now????

No one said anything about being uptight. Your statement implied some religious struggle preventing drivers from being included into a distribution, while in fact it's very practical considerations that are involved.

Regardless, licensing will prevent it from entering a distro was my point.

Unless the drivers are released as BSD, GPL or any other free license, yes. Your conclusion was correct, but not your analysis. Sun, 25 Jul 2004 20:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Let me point out one very important fact that everyone thus far has overlooked.

Microsoft is good for the economy.

Before you flame me, look at the facts. How many antivirus firms are getting rich? How many MCSE's are busy running around chasing down viruses and script kiddies every day? How many people, like myself, charge outrageous hourly rates to do onsite repairs and reinstallations of XP when it hoses itself? Quite a few is the answer to every question. So many, in fact, that most of the earlier posts, from people in the IT industry that claim Windows is flawless, are simply people trying to insure their job security.

If a magical troll appeared and forced everyone to install one of the Top 3 Linux distributions, where would all these paper MCSE's work? They couldn't adjust in time to save their necks. Not only that, but a small handful of experienced Linux admins can take the place of a whole Lakers basketball team sized Windows admin group. Save money? Most definitely. Even if you're paying your Linux admins double the salary of the Windows guys, you're still saving. On things like hardware costs, uptime, overtime pay for unscheduled (surprise) maintenance, seat licenses, you name it. Microsoft is losing the ROI war against Linux.

About the only thing Windows seems to be good for anymore is introducing you to frustration, or letting you play the latest shootin' someone in the face games. I'm a fan of these games occasionally, and I'll admit, at times I dual boot into XP. Linux has it's fair share of games (thanks id) and will continue to for some time. For my own personal uses, it's little more than Wintendo.

Well, that's about all I have to say about this whole argument. Linux has it's place (on my commercial webservers and my desktop) and Windows has it's place (on my list of things that pay me ungodly sums to fix). Long live Microsoft, may the newest version be filled with more bugs and spyware exploitation holes than ever. My bank thanks you, and I thank you. Sun, 25 Jul 2004 21:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Good for the economy" is relative. I mean, I could go out and break all the windows of parked cars on my street and claim it will be good for the economy, since garages will sell more windshields. However, that doesn't create any new wealth, but rather simply shuffles the money around. There's no plus-value in this, if you will.

Linux, on the other hand, allows to do more at a lesser cost, therefore there is a definite positive effect on the economy.

I know you were being ironic, but it had to be said. Sun, 25 Jul 2004 23:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm not supporting your argument. I'm pointing out the idiocy of attacking an OS because its installation CD does not contain drivers written after the CD was pressed.

I like using Linux, but the childish comments of most of the pro-Linux comments expressed on this site are enough to make me wash my hands of it. Mon, 26 Jul 2004 03:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm not supporting your argument. I'm pointing out the idiocy of attacking an OS because its installation CD does not contain drivers written after the CD was pressed.

And I'm repeating that this isn't the point. The point is not about drivers written after a CD is pressed. The point is having drivers as part of the kernel, so you don't need additional CDs. So everything's installed right away. So you can make Live CDs...

Please read the preceding paragraph over a couple of times. I'm tired of repeating myself. Drivers distributed with kernel == good.

I like using Linux, but the childish comments of most of the pro-Linux comments expressed on this site are enough to make me wash my hands of it.

You have some nerves calling other childish when you don't even listen to what they say. Or when comments read on an Internet board make you reconsider your computing habits. I must have read thousands of idiotic pro-MS comments over the years, that still won't prevent me from occasionally using Windows (office computing notwithstanding).

Childish, eh? Look in the mirror, buddy. Mon, 26 Jul 2004 04:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Half of the things you mention are still in beta. It's already supported by Linux. Mon, 26 Jul 2004 05:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nah, I just don't have as much time on my hands as some people on here seem to. Mon, 26 Jul 2004 05:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I guess no one can understand a simple fact in this whole thread. The point is not whether or not XP is better than Linux. I never even made any contentions that it was, unless you consider my little tirade about 64-bit, smp, etc, but that was just a response to someone's ill-informed opinion that Windows is "light years" ahead of Linux (NASA doesn't seem to thinks so, neither does the NSA). The simple fact that I pointed out was that it can be difficult to install XP under certain circumstances. Is it MS's fault. No, not always. That doesn't take away from the fact that it can be difficult. The MS users in this thread are the same ones that bash Linux for not having drivers to hardware that does not have open specs, yet they defend not having drivers on the CDs. If MS really wanted to they could release updated CDs with all the newest drivers in a much more timely fashion. Still I don't hold it against them but it doesn't make the problem go away. The MS users have turned this into a Linux vs Windows argument when I never intended it to be. They seem to be looking for fights to pick. Maybe you all can finally understand I'm not trying to bash your beloved OS. I'm just pointing out a misconception that Windows is always cake to install. It isn't. It doesn't matter who's fault it is, or whether or not Linux does it any better. What matters is that Windows can be more difficult to install on certain machines than Linux is with the latest install CDs. Mon, 26 Jul 2004 06:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments