As if we are watching an episode of The Scary Door, Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth has praised Windows 7, and welcomed Microsoft's latest operating system into the fight. Shuttleworth made his remarks in a short interview with The Register.
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RE[2]: IE > XP > Vista > 7
Member since:2008-10-23
Member since:2005-06-29
Rockwell, what's with the obvious trolling?
Anyway, Linux isn't "for" any specific purpose; it exists still as a project for students and enthusiasts to learn from. You would have been more correct to say that Linux is meant for multiple users, which is very true. It just so happens to also be pretty damn good at nearly any task it's thrown at, whether serving web pages and databases, or powering a home desktop, or making possible a powerful, open cellphone platform. It's the swiss army knife of the OS world, malleable into nearly any conceivable use, and ported to almost as many platforms as NetBSD (maybe more by now, I haven't kept up).
Some would say the only better UNIX than Linux is BSD, and even that is debatable on several different fronts. Myself, I prefer OS X for its speed, power and simplicity -- and the fact that it doesn't use X11 as the UI server.
Member since:2008-06-03
My Linux install boots in less than half a minute on my desktop... not too bad, I think.
...and Vista cheats with the boot process.
I only consider it fully booted up after it finishes it's thrashing of the hard drive after the desktop appears.... it's unusable before that.
Edited 2009-01-22 16:34 UTC
Member since:2006-06-05
I use Linux on my desktop full time, after years with Windows. I switched for security reasons. I don't know if Windows 7 is measurably less secure than my Linux distro now, but for me Linux still has an aura of security and peace of mind that Windows does not provide.
As for performance, well, let's just say that I did not switch to Linux for performance reasons. Boot time is about twice as long with Linux. Login to the desktop takes longer on Linux. The Nautilus file manager, which is comfortable for me to use, is inexcusably slow on directories containing more than about 25 files. I could go on. I'm fairly content with my Linux distro at the moment, but if you're looking for a "snappy" but familiar desktop, keep on looking.
If your comfortable with it, I suggest looking at your what services are starting at boot up. I'm sure you can trim down your boot up time if you did a small audit
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Member since:2005-08-07
atari05 pointed out...
. THIS! Also if your particular machine supports it concurrent booting can make a big difference in boot up performance.
Just like in Windows, Linux can and must be tweaked to your hardware if you want to get the best performance from it. Most good Windows OEMs do this for you, but unfortunately many OEMs 'supporting' Linux expect you to do this on your own. To be fair, many Linux users would prefer to do their own optimizing...
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:2007-02-17
I beg to differ. Vista booting takes aeons. On netbooks, Linux boots faster than XP.
Especially with Ubuntu Jaunty, due to come out in April, where the boot time is considerably reduced again, Windows 7 has a very difficult target to catch up with Linux.
http://www.techbreak.net/ubuntu-904-jaunty-jackalope-can-boot-in-21...
Member since:
2006-05-11
But since Linux already stomps Win7 on both performance and security
I use Linux on my desktop full time, after years with Windows. I switched for security reasons. I don't know if Windows 7 is measurably less secure than my Linux distro now, but for me Linux still has an aura of security and peace of mind that Windows does not provide.
As for performance, well, let's just say that I did not switch to Linux for performance reasons. Boot time is about twice as long with Linux. Login to the desktop takes longer on Linux. The Nautilus file manager, which is comfortable for me to use, is inexcusably slow on directories containing more than about 25 files. I could go on. I'm fairly content with my Linux distro at the moment, but if you're looking for a "snappy" but familiar desktop, keep on looking.
Edited 2009-01-22 13:28 UTC