Windows Vs Linux

[Night Blade]

I had to chime in here, in the last week i've tried 6 different distros on my now old Dell Lattitude C400 (Pentium3-M 1.2GHz), all of them had issues, be it with the graphics card (Intel 830), wireless card (Intel 2195ABG), 1 distro failed to start the graphical installation.

The time i've spent fooling around with distro's, trying to get them to work, has been a real pain. And this is with a old notebook, I couldn't imagine how it would be like with a newer set of hardware.

I've given Linux, & it's various distros, many tries over the years, I really want to play around with this OS, but every damn time there's 1 issue or another.

For people like me who just want a working, out of the box OS, Windows will always be our main OS. If you have plenty of time to play around, track down drivers, hell even code your own, Linux might be a good choice.

My .2 cents

 

[imported_LoKe]

When was the last time you tried a distro? Ubuntu has been getting better with its wireless support, and I imagine their graphic support is on the level.

 

[Night Blade]

Going to give Ubuntu a try now, had Fedore Core 6 installed yesterday, I do hate giving up on anything .

 

[sourceninja]

I've always built my own computers, I've always made good hardware choices, I've never had to struggle to make things work. They just do.

 

[lxskllr]

Ubuntu is nice, I wish I could have givn it a better try, but my wireless adapter is one of the few that can't be hacked one way or another and be made to work. I didn't see anyone that had success useing ndiswrapper with my card, but I tried anyway and ended up hosing the system. I couldn't even boot up in recovery mode. I ended up reinstalling XP though I'll give Linux another try if I get a new wireless adapter.

 

[Nothinman]

I had to chime in here, in the last week i've tried 6 different distros on my now old Dell Lattitude C400 (Pentium3-M 1.2GHz), all of them had issues, be it with the graphics card (Intel 830), wireless card (Intel 2195ABG), 1 distro failed to start the graphical installation.

So? Windows doesn't have drivers for pretty much anything in my notebook out of the box.

The time i've spent fooling around with distro's, trying to get them to work, has been a real pain. And this is with a old notebook, I couldn't imagine how it would be like with a newer set of hardware.

IMO Windows is even harder, at least with Linux chances are the wired NIC will work so you can download drivers for the rest.

I've given Linux, & it's various distros, many tries over the years, I really want to play around with this OS, but every damn time there's 1 issue or another.

Only 1 issue? I'd say you're damned lucky then, as I said every time I install Windows there's at least a dozen issues I have to clean up before it's usable.

For people like me who just want a working, out of the box OS, Windows will always be our main OS. If you have plenty of time to play around, track down drivers, hell even code your own, Linux might be a good choice.

Oh please, Windows has like 1/100th of the driver support that Linux does out of the box, you're just more comfortable with setting Windows up.

 

[Night Blade]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I had to chime in here, in the last week i've tried 6 different distros on my now old Dell Lattitude C400 (Pentium3-M 1.2GHz), all of them had issues, be it with the graphics card (Intel 830), wireless card (Intel 2195ABG), 1 distro failed to start the graphical installation.

So? Windows doesn't have drivers for pretty much anything in my notebook out of the box.

The time i've spent fooling around with distro's, trying to get them to work, has been a real pain. And this is with a old notebook, I couldn't imagine how it would be like with a newer set of hardware.

IMO Windows is even harder, at least with Linux chances are the wired NIC will work so you can download drivers for the rest.

I've given Linux, & it's various distros, many tries over the years, I really want to play around with this OS, but every damn time there's 1 issue or another.

Only 1 issue? I'd say you're damned lucky then, as I said every time I install Windows there's at least a dozen issues I have to clean up before it's usable.

For people like me who just want a working, out of the box OS, Windows will always be our main OS. If you have plenty of time to play around, track down drivers, hell even code your own, Linux might be a good choice.

Oh please, Windows has like 1/100th of the driver support that Linux does out of the box, you're just more comfortable with setting Windows up.

Windows has a larger set of drivers for components than Linux yes, does Linux have available drivers other than the distro? Sure they do, are they complete? No, are they easy to install? No.

If you had a dozen issues with Windows i'd really like to hear them, I run 6 PCs here & issues were no exsistant, even if there was an issue it can be resolved in a timely manner, it could be i'm more used to Windows but in reality Windows is a much more user friendly OS with better driver support, that you can't argue.

If you read my second post I said I was giving it another go, I really don't like giving up on anything, especially a free OS, so in the end my opinion might change. Sofar Ubuntu is working good, LiveCD picked up everything & now doing the HD install, if all goes well i'll be playing around with this OS for awile.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I think one of the main problems is that hardware was designed with Windows in mind. Now that Linux is making advancements and starting to be used in more and more homes, the support will expand.

 

[Nothinman]

Windows has a larger set of drivers for components than Linux yes, does Linux have available drivers other than the distro? Sure they do, are they complete? No, are they easy to install? No.

You said out of the box, the drivers included with Windows are virtually useless on anything with recent hardware. And yes the non-free drivers are easy to install, unless you have problems clicking around in Synaptic.

If you had a dozen issues with Windows i'd really like to hear them, I run 6 PCs here & issues were no exsistant, even if there was an issue it can be resolved in a timely manner, it could be i'm more used to Windows but in reality Windows is a much more user friendly OS with better driver support, that you can't argue.

When I install Linux I have exactly 1 driver to add after the fact and that's for my wireless. When I install Windows I have to install drivers for my video, onboard NIC, wifi and sound. That's 4 right there and because neither of the NICs work I have to get drivers via CD or USB stick. Then in Windows I have to install updates and reboot for a few hours, again a huge PITA that doesn't exist in Linux. I could probably come up with more but I haven't run Windows on this notebook in months.

If you read my second post I said I was giving it another go, I really don't like giving up on anything, especially a free OS, so in the end my opinion might change. Sofar Ubuntu is working good, LiveCD picked up everything & now doing the HD install, if all goes well i'll be playing around with this OS for awile.

I did see that and I'm glad you're still trying, but that doesn't take away from the fact that you're deluded into thinking that Windows is easier to use than Linux simply because you already know how to fix all of the problems you have with Windows.

I think one of the main problems is that hardware was designed with Windows in mind. Now that Linux is making advancements and starting to be used in more and more homes, the support will expand.

Yes and no. It's definitely tested more on Windows by the manufacturer, but I would say that most hardware isn't really designed at all and the same problems have to be worked around in the Windows drivers but we don't see those problems because it's all hacked around behind closed doors. With Linux since the drivers have to be GPL'd to get any real attention we get to see the manufacturer's hacks and problems. Or maybe you're right and Windows just has so many quirks that the hardware has to do really stupid things to work properly, but that seems a little far fetched.

 

[n0cmonkey]

This tired debate again?

 

[Night Blade]

Nothinman, no point in continuing this, both OS have there stong & weak points.

Gotta personally thank Loke for putting me unto Ubunto, i'm typing this from a freshly installed copy, everything was picked up including my wireless card, really happy I didn't give up & now can finally play around with Linux, thanks.

Bonus plug about Ubuntu, it originated from the Isle of Man, birthplace of my mother, very small island with a modest 80,000 population, nice to see something like Ubuntu come out of there.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: LoKe

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
windows. not enough of the apps i use are for linux.

There's likely to be a Linux equivalent. As far as I can see, they're up to par on everything except games.

This is so far from being true.

Photoshop is professional software. It has lots of professional features that don't get used much by the average high-school kid with an illegal copy of it, but actual professionals require. The gimp lacks most of these features - see CMYK images.

There isn't anything even remotely close to Adobe Illustrator on Linux

There isn't any way to work with Microsoft Access files on linux.

There is no equivelant of Visual Studio for linux. Yes, there are IDEs, but not IDEs for Windows developers.

There is no Autocad for linux, nor SolidWorks.

"As far as you can see" is apparently limited to the average home user's typical useage.

 

[fierydemise]

Notfred said exactly what I was going to say, linux has no equivalent to alot of things that are important to alot of people. No equivalent to Adobe Premier or Final Cut Pro, nothing good enough to replace Lightwave 3D, or Adobe Audition, Open Office pales in comparison to Office 2007. Linux has enough to replace alot of things but it is still lacking plenty.

 

[Nothinman]

"As far as you can see" is apparently limited to the average home user's typical useage.

And that was who that person was talking about, I can't really see that many people caring about the lack of Illustrator, MS Access, Visual Studio or AutoCAD. I could possibly see home users wanting a Photoshop-like tool, but I would be that most of them could get by with The GIMP and don't even know what CMYK stands for.

 

[darincm]

2 quick notes:
1-Ubuntu was far easier to install than XP by a long shot. Everythng worked out of the box; no looking for drivers at all.
2.There are no compatible apps for audio creation in Linux. There are some that are getting better, but until Cubase is ported to linux (likely never) I'll have a dedicated XP audio machine

 

[postmortemIA]

Considering that XP was released in 2001, and Ubuntu of yours in 2005 or 2006, it should have more drivers than Windows does.

 

[NaOH]

Dual boot for me (just in case). I primarily use linux but switch over to windows for photoediting (can't get used to gimp), itunes (i have an ipod) and gaming. If these other issues were taken into consideration in linux. I would only boot linux on my desktop. For my laptop (which I don't use itunes or game, i only boot linux)

Also, fyi, I run ubuntu distro.

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: LoKe

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
windows. not enough of the apps i use are for linux.

There's likely to be a Linux equivalent. As far as I can see, they're up to par on everything except games.

This is so far from being true.

Photoshop is professional software. It has lots of professional features that don't get used much by the average high-school kid with an illegal copy of it, but actual professionals require. The gimp lacks most of these features - see CMYK images.

There isn't anything even remotely close to Adobe Illustrator on Linux

There isn't any way to work with Microsoft Access files on linux.

There is no equivelant of Visual Studio for linux. Yes, there are IDEs, but not IDEs for Windows developers.

There is no Autocad for linux, nor SolidWorks.

"As far as you can see" is apparently limited to the average home user's typical useage.

For what it's worth, I am the average home user. Mind you, Photoshop can still be installed under WINE, and progress is being made towards other things.

 

[Nothinman]

Considering that XP was released in 2001, and Ubuntu of yours in 2005 or 2006, it should have more drivers than Windows does.

There's nothing stopping MS from releasing new discs with updated drivers, SP2, etc. I know they do it for their server discs. The problem would be getting them to their users, they'd need some way to verify your XP license before shipping you one.

 

[xtknight]

Use the free VMware server and you can run all the Photoshop and AutoCAD you want. Many of us have some Windows apps we miss. There's a solution for that. Performance should be very decent after you install the accelerated VMware SVGA driver. The only thing that is a problem is games.

 

[notfred]

This thread is full of a lot of "this is how linux is almost as good as windows" and "this is how you can get linux to do things that windows does standard" sort of talk, but it doesn't have a whole lot of "These are the things that are *better* in linux than in windows" posts, except for one post by Loke a couple pages ago.

No one is going to be convinced to switch OSes because the new one can do *almost* as much as the old one.

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: notfred
This thread is full of a lot of "this is how linux is almost as good as windows" and "this is how you can get linux to do things that windows does standard" sort of talk, but it doesn't have a whole lot of "These are the things that are *better* in linux than in windows" posts, except for one post by Loke a couple pages ago.

No one is going to be convinced to switch OSes because the new one can do *almost* as much as the old one.

No one tis trying to force a switch, we're simply just saying why it wouldn't be such a bad idea, and answering questions/explaining things for those who are unsure.

Consider is all educators; we all have our different subjects.

 

[xtknight]

Linux 'pro's over Windows XP:

• User mode by default. Enter your admin password and gain privileges only when needed. Using root has been strongly discouraged since the beginning.
• Less crashes. Everything is more controlled and maintained by the same people. The distro manufacturer can test all the included open source drivers. Install closed-source like nvidia/ati at your own risk, but they are generally very stable (nvidia more so).
• No viruses or spyware (not to any extent worth mentioning).
• Default settings are less irritating for long time users (no "hide system files" or "fisher price" to disable).
• MS-DOS command prompt is laughable compared to the bash shell&bundled utils.
• Much better recovery console ("init=/bin/bash") and rescue mode.
• Your OS is still extremely functional without a shell.
• A 64-bit distro is extremely close to being as functional as a 32-bit one, unlike XP. Thank open source for that.
• TONS more bundled software. Software repositories make installing and updating common apps easy and ensure compatibility with that distro. Yes, they can be a couple days late. Ubuntu has over 18,000 packages available. Search all of these packages with the click of a button!
• More hardware is fully functional at a default install. I don't have to install sound or network drivers. Drivers are up to date in the latest distros.
• No CD keys or activation. No more nags about how you changed your hardware and need a new key.
• Such insecure software like IE simply doesn't exist.
• No more rat's nest of a registry.
• Partition the system (usr,home,etc) how you want, in the install wizard.
• Menus in GNOME are more organized and straight-forward.
• Try Xgl/compiz and other new/beta software as you wish. You don't have to wait for a new OS that implements it (like Vista w/ Aero).
• Much easier to debug problems with and much more verbose logs. You don't need to install these MS analyzers. You already have all you need: dmesg, /var/log, etc.
• Cool GNOME applets included by default like Weather and temperature sensors.
• Much more involved and dedicated community. Almost any Linux user is aware of this and are more likely to submit bug reports.
• Many GNOME dialogs are now simpler and easier on the eyes than their Windows counterparts. No insulting dog popping in my face. Just the damn search dialog with a text box and some options.
• Play around with any file on the system. Nothing is hidden from you. If you do break something, rest assured it's much easier to fix.
• Multiple workspaces built-in.
• The whole system is less complicated without all the shell registration and GUID stuff. GNOME has some IIDs but that's it. Less weird stuff is likely to happen, like all of a sudden your whole explorer.exe freezing because you came across a faulty shell extension (like spyware or otherwise) somehow.
• "Magic number" identification system for files. Type file <filename> and it will give you a detailed description of the file format. The extension of the file is not paid attention to. Instead, the header is read to determine the file type.
• Manuals for commands are easier to bring up. Just type man <command>.
• Themeable by default. No uxtheme patch, no StyleXP to buy. It just works. Huge selection of themes using gnome-art (it displays all themes off of art.gnome.org in a GUI and you can preview/install them).
• From my experience, detection and use of USB keys is more solid. Sometimes XP will just fail to detect the key or assign it a drive letter conflicting with a network share.
• Naming system is more consistent. /dev/hda is your first hard disk, /dev/hdb your second. /dev/sda for SATA/SCSI. No C:\,D:\,X:\ that can vary depending on config. The devfs is consistent across any Linux.
• Choose how and where you mount your drives. Read only and lots more options.
• Symbolic links are easier with ln -s /path/realfile /path/link. XP's fsutil is rather obsecure/unpopular and only supports hardlinks.
• Locate any file in an instant with the locate <file string> command.
• Execute batch instructions at the terminal. Want to combine all those separated (and in alphabetical order) transport stream .ts files into a big one? cat *.ts > bigfile.ts Unzip all the zip files in one directory? find *.zip | xargs -l1 unzip
  streameditor is also awesome.
• Change the resolution at a keystroke. Ctrl+Alt+Plus/Minus traverses available resolutions.
• Fonts look amazingly keen with much better sub-pixel hinting than ClearType.

The downsides for me are:

• Hardware acceleration takes longer to come over to the Linux platform. NVIDIA/H.264 acceleration doesn't work yet.
• So many websites use Windows-proprietary stuff. Fortunately, there are WMV9 codecs but you may need to read up more.
• There are few Linux games. However, the Linux counterpart often runs faster and smoother.
• Many good Windows apps don't have Linux versions. I use the free VMware server for this. It's great. You could also use this for the Windows-oriented sites containing Windows-proprietary stuff. You can even expose USB (1.1 as of now) devices directly to Windows and install drivers under Windows for them.
• Compiling software not available in the repositories can be difficult. Fortunately I haven't had to do this in ages.

After using Ubuntu Linux for 5 months now, I will never consider setting Windows as my primary OS ever again. I had tried Mandriva, Fedora Core, SUSE and switched back to Windows shortly thereafter. Ubuntu kept me here, and I'm glad it did.

 

[sourceninja]

I just wanted to note someone said there was no linux equivelent of MS office and final cut pro and others.. First, there is a lot of high end production video editing software for linux in the same price range as final cut pro. In fact in my search I found a lot of it was too powerful for the small job I needed it to do. Second, what features of MS office are you missing in open office? I use open office every single day (although I use abiword for document editing and google spead sheet now for spreadsheets). I have not found a feature I needed missing (except for compatablity with MS office formats). I'm just wondering what I'm missing? When searching for cad linux I found over 300 cad programs for linux. Some where very high end cost wise, some where free. Visual studios makes sense. Why would a linux user want to write windows software. When I need to develop windows software, I install windows. It just makes sense. There are many ways to work with MS access on linux. Another quick google found hundreds of linux on accessing access files. Plus open office has its own access like implementation that lets you choose the database backend and I feel is a lot more powerful.

Linux does have faults, but a lot of times the solutions people look for when they try to solve their problems is "X program does not have a linux version", or "there is no free replacement for x", when the answer is usually out there in the form of paid linux software, or free linux software.

Linux is not for everybody. Use the right tool for the job.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: notfred
This is so far from being true.

Photoshop is professional software. It has lots of professional features that don't get used much by the average high-school kid with an illegal copy of it, but actual professionals require. The gimp lacks most of these features - see CMYK images.

There isn't anything even remotely close to Adobe Illustrator on Linux

There isn't any way to work with Microsoft Access files on linux.

There is no equivelant of Visual Studio for linux. Yes, there are IDEs, but not IDEs for Windows developers.

There is no Autocad for linux, nor SolidWorks.

"As far as you can see" is apparently limited to the average home user's typical useage.

How many of these programs listed do average home users use?