Linux isn't a threat to Windows on the desktop and is losing steam on the server as customers separate the operating system from the development model, according to Microsoft's chief platform strategist. Bill Hilf, general manager of competitive strategy at Microsoft, said pundits have predicted for years that Linux will gain momentum on the desktop, but that won't happen because of the complexity involved in delivering a tightly integrated and tested desktop product.
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Member since:2005-11-11
// ]]Linux supports more hardware out of the box than Windows [[
This may be true 'by numbers' but if you discount the 100s of Ham radio interface drivers and obsolete Tape archive drivers, the issue is very different. //
Au contraire, the original statement is absolutely true.
For nearly every install of Windows I have ever performed there is some part of the hardware that a Windows install disk does not recognise. I am forced to either insert an additional driver disk from the equipment manufacturer, or I must hunt for a driver on the net.
The most recent time I installed Windows, only half of the audio driver components installed. No amount of searching under Windows turned up a driver on the net or even a name of the chipset.
Of the machines I have installed Linux on, for most modern distributions, the success rate of having a correct driver out of the box is significantly higher.
Windows rarely installs with all drivers working out of the box.
Linux installs rarely miss installing all drivers out of the box.
Member since:2006-02-15
Of the machines I have installed Linux on, for most modern distributions, the success rate of having a correct driver out of the box is significantly higher.
Windows rarely installs with all drivers working out of the box.
Linux installs rarely miss installing all drivers out of the box.
Your mileage definitely varies. You wouldn't, by any chance, be installing mostly on older hardware? Not using wifi? Not trying to support USB web cams? Not installing on laptops? Not using bluetooth? Not running NVidia or ATI graphics? Not running Intel gig-e motherboard nics?
I ask this, because in the last month, I've had XP installs work fine for all of those devices when identically configured Ubuntu or FC5 systems have either not had drivers, have required me to load third party drivers, have required significant hunting around on the net for drivers, or have turned up with broken drivers.
Member since:
2006-06-03
Linux supports more hardware out of the box than Windows
This may be true 'by numbers' but if you discount the 100s of Ham radio interface drivers and obsolete Tape archive drivers, the issue is very different.
So I want to install drivers for my Radeon Graphics card. 5 days later and I'm bodden down into some legal discussion about the legality of Binary Blobs linking their headers into an open-source kernel driver. I mean WTF.
Likewise, my TV Card. Windows: 10 minutes. Linux 10 Hours, and I end up with , after having to edit config files, a flickery image that keeps dropping out. Altho I'm told that my TV card should work 'out the box' with Distro X.