PDA

View Full Version : Windows 7 vs Linux


SoundBarrier
16th Jun 2009, 20:54
Hehehe I lift my can opener to open this here can of worms....

Well any "MS Windows" thing really can now be replaced, in my meagre experience, by Linux. Of course for the uninitiated the huge list of available distributions is daunting.

For some time I was using good ole Unbuntu. I now use Linux Mint (a derivative of Ubuntu).

Firstly on my laptop it installed in 7 steps, all of which were simple, name, password, where are you type things. On reboot I was ready to go with Open Office and most tools I needed straight off the bat. Even connection to my wireless was painless, all I needed was to supply a password!

For the same laptop, I struggled with drivers when installing Windows XP/VISTA/7. Not fun at all.

In Linux I have all applications I wish to use, an accounting package, Office Package, Skype and more!

I have worked through the family slowly replacing their (otherwise appropriated) OS's with Linux and the adults and kids find it easy enough to use and rave about it's reliability.

So why go MS?
In Windows 7 they've changed the names of most things, the location of most applications and all round make a huge interface change. All for the worse in my opinion. Especially for the less experienced user who used to "Add/Remove Programs" and now has to look for "Programs and Features" Pah.

Imagine doing that with an aircraft interface...
OK, this version of the C182 is going to have a Light Blue knob for the mixture and a ddep red for the throttle. And the flap lever is now located in the baggage compartment and also the aircraft will automaically talk to ATC on your behalf with your intentions (even if you don't have any!)

Keef
16th Jun 2009, 23:10
I don't think it's quite that one-sided. For a chunk of 2008, I was experimenting with different Linux distros to decide what I would use when XP Pro stops working. Vista I've seen and used, and would not allow in the house. I have Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Mepis, Ubuntu, Slackware, SuSe and a couple of others on the "test box" here.

Setting them up and getting them to work was a long, hard job. I had to (re)learn a load of batch command language to make, configure, install etc various bits. Poking modules into the core was part of the fun. Kpackage and APT-GET and their cousins provide an impressive array of added application software, most of it easy to install - but you do get to see some very complicated "relationships" sometimes.

The resultant systems were indeed quick, and reliable. I was 90% of the way to being a Linux missionary.

Then the video card popped its clogs and a new one was fitted - of a different brand. At that point, only Fedora (of all the Linuxes) would talk to me at all. The rest gave various error messages about X-Server being deeply unhappy. I foresaw a week or two of Googling to try to find the fixes to remove the wrong video stuff and put the right stuff in. Those X-Server files are hundreds of lines long and pernickety in the extreme :(

Why Fedora rose above it all, I don't know. Had it not been for that, I would have thought it was me.

At that point, the Beta of Windows 7 arrived, and I installed that on a separate hard drive on the same machine that had all the Linuxes. It zapped Grub which meant I had to use a floppy to boot to Linux, but it set itself up completely, with never a Batch Command or a .make etc. It even found drivers for the various oddities I have installed on the machine. It was up and running, doing e-mail, and the basics in under an hour.

Installing MS Office 2003 and my usual software took another few hours, and I was all up and running. It even used the same mail folders etc (on separate drives) that I used with XP, so I could access my documents with either XP or Win 7.

The Linuxes do the same - the operating systems are on different virtual drives, but documents and e-mail etc all live on hdc6 so I can do the same things and read the same mail, documents, etc regardless of distro.

Then I tried to set it up to do OCR on my (very old) scanner. Win 7 opened a window with a message saying I seemed to be trying to set up OCR, and would I like it to do it for me. It did, too - downloaded a bunch of stuff and installed it with no further input from me. The resultant OCR was free, works flawlessly, and passes the documents straight into Word. No doubt someone will complain that it should pass them straight into Open Office, but since I don't have that on the machine it wouldn't help.

I've not used Linux since - nor XP Pro, neither.

My conclusion: if you are technically gifted, have plenty of patience, and like a challenge, then Linux is for you. If your computer is a tool to do a job, and the operating system isn't your hobby, then Windows 7 is very impressive. If you frequently add and remove hardware, that stacks the odds even more in favour of Win 7.

I remain very impressed with Linux - it gets better performance out of the PC than Windows, but Win 7 is very much faster and more capable than XP, so the gap is much narrower. If I were running an older PC that crawled with Windows, then Fedora would be my OS of choice.

However, I think my Linux days are over.

green granite
17th Jun 2009, 06:48
I too have played with linux, SuSe in my case, it took ages to instal and set up the networking etc. but the biggest downside was the idea of having to learning to use new software, ie gimp instead of photoshop etc, No I'll stay with windows 7, and leave linux to the masochists.

Cheerio
17th Jun 2009, 08:33
I don't have any trouble at all with using Linux. I have Mac, XP and Suse on machines at home, so I'm not irrevocably tied to any. My personal preference is for Suse, followed by XP, and lastly the wifes Mac. My kids recently inherited an extra laptop retired from work, so I bunged Suse Linux on that, and they dived right in without any recourse to user guides. It is just as instinctive as XP to use. So I think the user feels very little discomfort in adapting. The differences are not so much in the installation and set-up either, once you have seen one DVD and GUI you have seen them all. The point where Linux knocks you out of your comfort zone is when it comes to 'Control Panel' issues. It's not better or worse, just different. It's not hard, if you can format a disk and re-install XP you can do the same for Linux, no doubt. The only downside in my experience is when you need to run specialist software (who said games?) that is Windows specific.

izod tester
17th Jun 2009, 10:04
I have not tried Win 7. I do use XP Pro and Vista at work but at home I use sidux (a distribution based on the Debian unstable branch - unstable is a misnomer, in my experience it is rock solid). OK, I am a very experienced Linux user (since 1993) and an engineer, so it is my nature to enjoy the challenge of fixing problems, but fixing problems with Linux is mostly something I rarely have to do nowadays.

Keef, the simplest way to resolve the problem you experienced after changing your video card would have been to run a live cd session and copied the xorg.conf file generated by the live cd and then used that to replace the "broken" xorg.conf file in your other distributions. Another way would have been to do cntrl alt F1 and then run xconfig from the command line.

If you run a Linux Mint or sidux live cd, there is a desktop icon to install the ditribution to the hard disk. From there to a fully working system, complete with applications such as open ofice, gimp, amarok etc takes about 25 minutes on my hardware. Windows 7 gets to basic OS with browser and email and basic apps in the same time, but you then have to spend another 2 or 3 hours to load up the other applications you need (Keef's timing - I havn't tried Win 7 yet).

By the way, virtually all Linux distributions have the good manners to recognise that other OSes are installed on your machine and provide links to them in Grub. Microsoft's assumption that someone who pays for their product is not entitled to retain convenient access to other OSes which may be installed on the their machine is arrogant and despicable.

Guest 112233
17th Jun 2009, 13:09
I too started with feisty fawn on a netbook - It installed without probs - The new version of Ubuntu ver 9.04 updated without problems on the unit - Wireless networking AES2 works well -

The fundamental issue with Unix in its various forms is that it still lacks the huge base of drivers for peripherals that the windows familty of Operating systems have accrued through time - Yes this position has improved a little, eg HP printer support and I have found that unix (kubuntu) runs faster on modest kit ( e g. an Atom powered Netbook) - Ubuntu install 8.10 can be far from streight forward. Google a search and you will see what I mean.

When Unix is as easy to install as Windows with a base of support modern perpherials, it will win.

Bottom line, unix seems to communicate with the system devices directly a bit like Dos 3.1 et al. and there in lies the problem. Who now wants to learn command line scripting ?

Unless manufacturers build the applets to run their kit - Windows drivers will prevail.

CAT III.

Mac the Knife
17th Jun 2009, 13:20
I have to say that I've never struggled as much as Keef seems to, particularly in the last couple of years.

"Setting them up and getting them to work was a long, hard job. I had to (re)learn a load of batch command language to make, configure, install etc various bits. Poking modules into the core was part of the fun."

It certainly used to be. But my most recent Linux install was Mepis and I certainly didn't have to work out scripts (I think that's what you mean by batch language) or indeed compile anything. Nor did I have to poke modules into the kernel. It installed, found all my hardware, gave me a choice between the free or proprietary driver for the video card and I was away. Quicker install than Windows and all the apps I use regularly were already there, so I didn't have to mess around with CDs and codes.

Getting things working smoothly on my heterogeneous network of Windows, BSD, Mac, Solaris and Linux machines took an evening (this aspect DOES need improving) but the essentials worked out of the box.

I confess I do tend to drop into Paint Shop Pro on Windows if I want to do complex graphics - I know I could do it with GIMP but I get lazy. I'm not really a gamer so I don't miss it and OpenOffice works just fine (standard at my workplace).

By all accounts Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista and a small improvement over XP but I really don't feel like forking over significant sums to an abusive monopoly, particularly for several machines, when I have a quite satisfactory alternative.

:ok:

Mac

"The fundamental issue with Unix in its various forms is that it still lacks the huge base of drivers for peripherals that the windows familty of Operating systems have accrued through time"

Actually Linux supports a vast array of hardware "out of the box", far more than Windows ever did or does. The true Unixes, like BSD or Solaris lag a long way behind.

Saab Dastard
17th Jun 2009, 14:41
The true Unixes, like BSD or Solaris lag a long way behind

Mac, I would suggest that the reason is that most of the "true Unixes" like HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, Tru-64 are expensive, proprietary and intended to run on proprietary hardware (HP, Sun, IBM and Dec / Compaq Alpha respectively), for which proprietary drivers exist. Much more like the original Apple Mac SW / HW model.

You are right, though, that even FreeBSD and OpenSolaris (rather a johnny-come-lately to the open-source world) haven't been embraced like Linux. Why is that, do you think?

SD

Mac the Knife
22nd Jun 2009, 18:47
"...even FreeBSD and OpenSolaris...haven't been embraced like Linux. Why is that, do you think?"

OpenSolaris is, as you say, a "johnny-come-lately" and although Sun's CDDL licence is copyleft. it is not GPL compatible. It just doesn't have the weight of the GNU/Linux community behind it. Having said that, there's a lot to like in OpenSolaris.

The BSD groups - NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD have several licences but tend to be very non-restrictive and non-copyleft (which is why Apple could base Mac OSX on BSD).

"BSD licenses represent a family of permissive free software licenses. The original was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix-like operating system after which the license is named. The original owners of BSD were the Regents of the University of California because BSD was first written at the University of California, Berkeley. The first version of the license was revised, and the resulting licenses are more properly called modified BSD licenses. Permissive licenses, sometimes with important differences pertaining to license compatibility, are referred to as "BSD-style licenses". Several BSD-like licenses, including the New BSD license, have been vetted by the Open Source Initiative as meeting their definition of open source. The licenses have few restrictions compared to other free software licenses such as the GNU General Public License or even the default restrictions provided by copyright, putting it relatively closer to the public domain"

"The BSD License allows proprietary commercial use, and for the software released under the license to be incorporated into proprietary commercial products. Works based on the material may be released under a proprietary license or as closed source software. This is the reason for widespread use of the BSD code in commercial products, ranging from Juniper Networks routers to Mac OS X."

See List of FSF approved software licences - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FSF_approved_software_licences) for a list of FSF approved software licences and the FSF itself Licenses - Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/)
and Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses - Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html)

GNU/Linux has a lot more developers and, significantly, is doing a lot of work with hardware manufacturers to persuade them to release open drivers and, failing that, to allow the Linux Kernel community access to specifications so that they can develop open drivers. Yes, they're offering FREE driver development complete with NDAs! See linux kernel monkey log (http://www.kroah.com/log/2007/01/29/#free_drivers)

I guess that's probably why.

Finally, it does strike me as odd that Keef, despite his apparently massive Linux experience ("..Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Mepis, Ubuntu, Slackware, SuSe and a couple of others...") says "I had to (re)learn a load of batch command language to make, configure, install etc various bits. Poking modules into the core was part of the fun." because Linux uses scripts (rather than DOS' very limited batch language) and nobody calls the kernel the core. And you load kernel modules, not "poke them in".

It must be ages since I have compiled my own packages with stuff like:

# tar xvzf package.tar.gz (or tar xvjf package.tar.bz2)
# cd package
# ./configure
# make
# make install
(and maybe make clean)

(./configure comes before make BTW Keef....)

Now as to the awful graphics problems - it would certainly make a modicum of sense when buying a new card to make sure that it has some degree of support by Linux. Buying one at random may well lead to tears - having said that, most of the Nvidia and ATI cards are well supported by open drivers and certainly have proprietary drivers.

I've never used Red Hat/Fedora, but there are plenty of utilities for configuring your X-server without struggling though "X-Server files are hundreds of lines long and pernickety in the extreme". The only times I've ever had to do that was ages ago when setting up a dual display. And few minutes Googling comes up with stuff like redhat.com | (http://www.redhat.com/advice/tips/rhce/gui.html) which seems to cover most of the bases.

I have various bitches about Linux but they're more to do with things like setting up Samba users than Keef style problems.

Just a few passing thoughts....

Ho hum!

rotorcraig
22nd Jun 2009, 23:28
I am a Ubuntu convert. It runs on all 3 of the machines that I want it to run on.

I had problems in the early days, but two tips sorted all of them out:
Don't use the GUI based installer. Download the "alternate installer (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors#alternate)" CD image and use the text based but otherwise identical installer.
Don't try to get nVidia drivers working. Either stick with the default drivers that install with Ubuntu and sacrifice the nVidia "bells and whistles", or bin nVidia and stick with Intel based video so that you can play with the special effects.That's it. Once I worked those two points out, everything just works.

RC

Keef
22nd Jun 2009, 23:57
Finally, it does strike me as odd that Keef, despite his apparently massive Linux experience (..Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Mepis, Ubuntu, Slackware, SuSe and a couple of others...says I had to (re)learn a load of batch command language to make, configure, install etc various bits. Poking modules into the core was part of the fun. because Linux uses scripts (rather than DOS' very limited batch language) and nobody calls the kernel the core. And you load kernel modules, not poke them in .
Xore, Qernel, middle bit, heart of the system, wha'ever. Load, poke in, likewise. I think I recall a word something like "modprobe" which sounds a bit like "poke" but let's not worry. Somebody DOES call the kernel the core - Keef does. As Humpty Dumpty said... QED. My kernels are also highly-strung devices - I am well familiar with the expression "kernel panic". Me, I don't panic. The "batch" I refer to is not DOS (that Johnny-come-lately), but stuff from the 1970s and 1980s when I was doing stuff with a Honeywell 6060 . That, too, required one to learn mumbo-jumbo. Sadly, I then used up my free brain cell for something else (I forget what). The Honeywell has gone to the museum now, and the manuals for the wondrous QX and other batch processing commands presumably went with it. It must be ages since I have compiled my own packages with stuff like:

# tar xvzf package.tar.gz (or tar xvjf package.tar.bz2)
# cd package
# ./configure
# make
# make install
(and maybe make clean)

(./configure comes before make BTW Keef....)
Yes, thassa one. You've been there too, eh? I've typed that lot too many times in the past couple of years - and other similar stuff. Say what you like about Windows 7, it doesn't require me to remember that - or what order it goes in. OK, I have it all written down in one or more of my Linux notebooks (which is how I remember what I did, so that I can do the same again if I need to).
Now as to the awful graphics problems - it would certainly make a modicum of sense when buying a new card to make sure that it has some degree of support by Linux. Buying one at random may well lead to tears - having said that, most of the Nvidia and ATI cards are well supported by open drivers and certainly have proprietary drivers.
BUYING a NEW card? Well, maybe acquiring a new-to-me card. The offending PC has one of those newfangled AGP slots, for which cards don't seem to be made any more. When I started the offending machine (with its replacement graphics card) in Windows, there was a brief moment of activity, and it worked. When I started it in the various Linux distros, it sat and looked at me for a while, then provided half a screenful of error messages. Except with Fedora - that worked. I'm sure there is a simple string of commands (batch or otherwise) that will modprobe out the offending wrong graphics driver(s), and modprobe in the correct one(s), and tell Xorg all about it. I don't happen to know the sequence for the various distros and cards involved. Some day... I have various bitches about Linux but they're more to do with things like setting up Samba users than Keef style problems. Yep, I too have done the -smbd -this +that /the other (and nmbd ditto) thing till smoke came out of my ears. Wonderful, innit! I actually got all the distros to work Samba with the other machines on the network, so I'm obviously not as incapable as I feared. {Yes, I did format all that stuff up there into paragraphs, but it got squished. Trying again to make it format correctly...}

Jofm5
23rd Jun 2009, 03:06
I find this discussion quite interesting. I probably go against the norm in my arguments but I will explain.


My background is that I started on branded versions of unix (MAI systems boss vx/ux to be precised tho little references that now on the net). I think my attitude is totally different to alot on here in that I no longer go that route and sing along to the microsoft tune so to speak lol.

I know so many people that have gone the various linux routes - my own dad being one of them - I dont have a problem with that at all - alot of what I have to support in work in linux/unix based.

when developing software I do it for the mainstream (most clients are windows based so thats the obvious platform) but on the back end side of things I get left with do I go with apache or IIS.

I will go with IIS every time because it is supported, when using a microsoft technology agaist a microsoft platform at least I can get help - or to be a realist the answers to issues are more likely to be found online.

I think the key issues are at the moment is that whilst linux is omnipresent in many forms they dont and wont have the coverage to be able to support the potential user base.

Linux installs are so way advanced in some respects but the lack of compatibility is cripples them. I use both because I have to - but to talk between the two I need to install freeware or shareware apps.

Linux should be the way to go and it should be and easy choice. the reason it is not is cause it just does not have the support or functionality.

Its okay saying it does x x and x but when y comes out you cant do it till it is supported - its no good if your playing catch up.

Keef
23rd Jun 2009, 09:58
Sorry - I tried to get my earlier post to format and paragraph etc correctly, but all the spacing disappeared again. The " changed into &quot and then into &quot so there's obviously a batch language gremlin lurking somewhere...

Gertrude the Wombat
23rd Jun 2009, 15:38
Well any "MS Windows" thing really can now be replaced, in my meagre experience, by Linux.
But not in my experience.

Some of what I do (to earn a living) will run on both, but quite a bit of it will not run on Linux. So ... do I want to:

(a) eat, or:
(b) willy-wave about my Linux installation?

Hmm ... difficult decision, that.

Mac the Knife
23rd Jun 2009, 17:44
I thought it wouldn't be long before Microsoft's astroturfers came out of the woodwork!

:ok:

Mac

(For those who are confused, see Astroturfing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing) )

Bushfiva
24th Jun 2009, 08:33
Shabby little response there, MtK. Wot Gertrude can't say anything because she disagrees with you? Especially since you admit you can't do without Windows for "complicated graphics".

meagre experience,

If all your spreadsheets have 3 tabs called "Sheet 1", "Sheet 2" and "Sheet 3", of which only Sheet 1 is used, then yes I guess Linux and OpenOffice will work for you.

One benefit of being a Linux user is that after you run out of fun bashing Windows, you can always start knocking others' choice of Linux distribution.

Meanwhile, the Gertrudes of this world are using whatever tool gets the job done.

SoundBarrier
24th Jun 2009, 08:58
I can totally appreciate that some applications, that are required for ones business, may not run on Linux and therefore moving to linux is too hard or not even an option.

As for using simple spreadsheets, well no, I use multiple sheets in a spreadsheet each referencing eachother and some get rather complicated. One sheet queries an SQL database and one prints to pdf directly. The power is there and it works.

I also concede that the millions of distributions out there can be a massive pain for any user to try a choose one. I suspect the overcomplicated selection may drive some people away from the Linux world. I've been through many and found mint to be bloody good, in fact it has come leaps and bounds over the past few years.

Fundamentally, I don't like MS, however, without it I would not have a job. My company writes software which runs on MS only and moving it to Linux is no small task.

Every tool for it's job and an O/S is certainly no different. Choose what is right for you, or at least get help choosing. Don't go MS if you don't have to but don't be forced into linux if there is a bunch of work required to get your apps going.

Mac the Knife
24th Jun 2009, 10:56
"Especially since you admit you can't do without Windows for "complicated graphics"."

Actually I said, "I confess I do tend to drop into Paint Shop Pro on Windows if I want to do complex graphics - I know I could do it with GIMP but I get lazy."

Truth to tell, I don't have a quarrel with Dave Cutler's Windows NT kernel after v5.0 - well implemented, its very stable and can certainly be make secure enough. What I don't like is Microsoft's business practices, which I don't believe are good for any of us and certainly not good for the industry. Running a business is tough and competitive, as it should be, but MS insistence on crushing all competition in the egg (apart from Apple, kept on for cosmetic purposes) certainly hinders innovation and detracts from consumer choice.

I won't bore readers with a long list of MS' misdeeds, they can always read Judge Penfield Jackson's "Findings of Fact" in the US vs Microsoft case - U.S. v. Microsoft: Court's Findings of Fact (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm) - but the recent, largely successful attempts to subvert and discredit ISO, the International Organisation for Standardisation over the (unimplemented and unimplementable) OOXML "standard" is typical. The recent disappearance of Linux from netbooks, in the face of MS threats to manufacturers is another. And there are many, many more.

It is somewhat worrying that here we have a company that is SO wealthy that it is able to absorb a 2 billion dollar fine by the EU as merely the price required for it to go on doing what it wants.

Several posters have brought up the subject of compatibility and this can indeed be a problem. But the fact remains that the vast majority of these incompatibilities are deliberately manufactured by MS to shut out potential competitors. The purposeful corruption of the old IBM SMB protocol in order to make problems for heterogeneous networks, the corruption of Java so as to make OS agnostic applications fail, undocumented binary blobs in file formats, the corruption of HTML in an attempt to own the Web.....the list goes on and on.

Certainly, no company can be expected to facilitate life for competitors, but that is a long way from using your wealth and power to actively hinder them.

I think we should have a REAL choice, and if MS could be compelled (or persuaded) to concentrate more on improving its products and less on undermining other players we would all be better off.

Mac

Gertrude the Wombat
24th Jun 2009, 20:13
Microsoft's business practices
Wot, like paying me lots of money when I did freelance work for them for a couple of years? (Long time ago now.)

[Gertie is a "he" btw.]

Shunter
24th Jun 2009, 20:51
I am forced to use XP on my work laptop. My personal laptop is a MacBook Pro. The former is a dog, the latter is like a cold beer after a day's hard labour in the baking sun.

Macs are fantastic for people who want to use a computer without knowing anything about how it actually works, however if you want to get down and dirty you can get your rocks off with a bash shell and its supreme power all you like. Their renowned stability is due to the tight control Apple retain over the hardware on which their software runs. They are one of a very few who have this luxury, and the only major vendor of desktops who fall into this category.

The modern Microsoft experience is born from the fact that their business model makes it easier to illegally crush superior products and pay the fines than it does to play fair and win on merit. Some of their products are outstanding; SQL Server and Exchange are 2 points of note - neither of which were the result of Microsoft "innovation". Every good Microsoft product has been the result of acquisitions. Their products fit together like pieces from a jigsaw, but some of those pieces are so rotten they can never be fixed. The current incarnations of Windows are built on a fundamentally flawed monolithic architecture which has gone so far down a road it simply cannot turn back; UAC is the ultimate example of a dirty hack to camoflague the immature security model beneath. When you load Windows you're submitting to the "get what you're given" methodology (of which Apple are also guilty, to a large extent), but fortunately for Microsoft the average user who knows absolutely nothing about computers or how they work is oblivious. For most people this is of no concern. These people consider antivirus, firewalls, religious patching and anti-spyware software to be "normal". Active Directory today still fails to provide even basic features that Sun and Novell were incorporating into their directory services 15 years ago.

Outside the mainframe territory, Unix platforms remain the only real option for enterprise-grade, mission-critical infrastructure. Ask your bank what it runs... does it run Windows? Does it bollocks. I've contracted for most of them and it's z/OS and Solaris all the way; andfor good reason. Microsoft have matured in terms of their server offerings, but they're still micky mouse as far as the big picture is concerned.

As someone with a stack of certs from most of the major vendors I like to try and remain solution-agnostic, and for most people Windows suits their needs and they've long since been brainwashed into simply accepting its shortcomings as "normal". Almost like speaking English; it's a bastardised, hack-job language, but most of us prefer it to the many pure and logical alternatives out there because it's what we know.

Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Sorry, but it isn't. I'd stake my life on it for a globally scalable, mission-critical server installation, but it lacks the ecosystem of software built around it that Windows has. Driver issues are certainly not the fault of Linux developers.

I occasionally used to help friends out with their computer problems. These days I simply don't have time. My advice to them? Buy a mac. I've never had such a quiet life.

Guest 112233
24th Jun 2009, 21:27
Are You sure that He is a She - I thought from a safe distance that Girt referred to that splended Otter ?

CAT III