A rant about Linux haters

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This is because Vista royally sucked—it was excruciatingly slow on all but the most high-end hardware when it was released, and it failed at a lot of basic functions. I had a hell of a time even getting it to print using a printer that was explicitly labeled as Vista-compatible.


Partially an issue of familiarity, and partially that a lot about the OS X UI is completely brain-dead.


Agreed.


True, but in this case you're only talking about self-perpetuating market inertia—everyone buys MS Office because it's the only reliable way to open the proprietary Office file formats, and all documents are in those file formats because everyone buys MS Office. My friend's dad has to use Lotus something-or-other at work, and it has its own proprietary format. If that particular word processor were more popular, suddenly Word wouldn't be an acceptable choice because it doesn't open the Lotus documents.

But anyways, I don't use MS Office at all and I haven't had problems with file formats. Bean (under OS X) and Abiword (under Linux) can both open .doc and .docx without trouble, and they can both write to .doc if need be. The problem of incompatibility is greatly exaggerated.

By Professional Applications I mean like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or Photoshop. There are tons of open source apps to replace those.

Hahahaha most people are ignorant enough to think that the only types of computers are Windows and Macs. Windows 7 is overrated actually. The best os made by Microsoft I personally think is Windows XP 64 Bit Edition.

I think a great deal of time has already been spent on this thread discussing how the "open source replacements" do not cut it. Orwell disagrees regarding OpenOffice, but I don't think he's a typical business user. As far as the Gimp vs Photoshop, that's basically beyond debate. If Linux wants to make inroads to the desktop, they need Wine, and it needs to be seamlessly integrated into the OS. I believe Wine is the single most important project in the open source world right now, and people don't even know it.

Windows XP 64-bit edition was ridiculous, I kept it for about a month and gave up due to it being pointless without adequate 64-bit drivers, as well as the higher number of bugs vs. 32-bit. I think Windows 7 is actually the first really production-ready 64-bit Windows. Granted, they may have cleaned it up by now, but then you're still running a circa 2001 OS.

Open source replacements? No. Just programs that work, as opposed to MS (and cohorts) products which are expensive, overblown, hyped and don't work.

I have had MS Office destroy its own rather large document - to the point where it crashed, should one attempt to open the file. OpenOffice quite happily opened it, and allowed be to edit andf re-save it in MS format, with minimal fuss (one large section had reverted to its initial position in the file).

Have you seen the amount of junk that Photoshop chooses to embed in its large output files, without asking? I'd much rather have Gimp. Indeed, that is beyond debate.

So far as Wine is concerned... I feel it's a classic Sisyphean task, trying to keep up with MS and their constantly varying standards. After all, MS cannot even write code that conforms to their own published standards - so how on Earth could anyone know which bit they'll change next?

I'd say that MS reached their best showing with XP 32-bit Home. At least they nearly caught up with some older OSes.

I've not had the misfortune personally to have to do anything with W7, but I'm willing to concede that, on current reports, it might remind me of 2001, or earlier.

- I'm not even going to discuss OpenOffice anymore. MS products have issues, although less with every new release. In terms of features, OpenOffice is competing with similar MS products from a decade ago. Many of those features are frequently used by businesses.

- The Gimp is limited to 8 bit channels. Case closed, nothing left to discuss until they resolve that. Professionals are not going to use it unless it's for Web development.

- I don't even remotely care what a Sisyphean task it may be to emulate Windows. The Wine developers need to make it happen, or else Linux will continue to not gain market share.

Thank you and goodbye.

Something I've noticed about Linux is that even if you're the only one using a particular machine, you still have to take on the role of "System Administrator". Its roots as a multi-user system, rather than a desktop environment, show through compared to the commercial OS's. Not that its rare to have more than one user on Windows et al., but I used XP for many years without having to think about who is allowed to read, write or execute what, whereas with Linux, I pretty quickly had to learn how to chown, chmod and sudo to get things done. From my perspective as a tech geek, this is a plus since I'm learning skills that are useful in my field, but I imagine that most people don't want their personal computer to be a responsibility any more than their cell or mp3 player.

Actually, for a lot of people technology functions partly as a status symbol; the message is "look at the expensive and hip things I can afford to acquire". The more expensive and hyped some piece of technology is, the more value it has for you; understanding how it works is irrelevant. For someone like me on the other hand, you get more value out of that technology by understanding it better; if you want to flaunt your nerd-cred, you show off how much you know about it and what you can get it to do, rather than how much it costs.

Sort of got off-topic there...

Google OS is going to be Linux based, and they are working with Ubuntu on this one. This means that Google OS may have some functions outside of the cloud, which would require Linux programs. Google. Let me repeat: Google. Linux is going to be brought to a new stage of life in the next ten years, and MS will be brought to their knees. MS even threw an insult at them: they have already developed an MS Excel for the cloud. Yahoo messed with Google and remember what happened? You have heard what is going on in China with Google? It's Google, and someone is going to post about Google not ever being able to beat MS. Google and Linux will take out all the competition, and the end user won't suffer, but the big businesses will. Remember, you don't mess with Google.

Linux has many features that Windows doesn't have.


1. Multi-desktop

2. Software Repositories

3. Root Controls

4. Multiuser Environment

5. Advanced Security e.g. Free Firewall, Antivirus, and Sandbox

6. It's Free!

7. Stability. Linux hardly ever has to reboot and can stay functional for years without reboot.

8. Pre-installed Software with Installation

9. No Drivers, just installed from the Repository or preloaded into the kernel.

10. Open Source e.g. bugs are found faster as well as system flaws

Available through third-party software.


There are plenty of legitimate sites where you can grab tons of free Windows software.


Admin access/UAC (which is much improved in Win7 compared to Vista)


Windows has that.


Windows has all that.


For some people, it is. I got my legitimate copy of Windows 7 Ultimate without paying a dime.


I can't see any significant difference in stability among the major operating systems out today, at least not for the typical user's purposes. Long uptimes don't matter when reboots take at most a minute or two. Besides, to go years without reboots means you haven't applied a lot of important updates.


Granted, but many OEMs probably purchase and bundle stuff like MS Office, and it's not hard to go get software anyways. The lack of support for PDF, Flash, Java, etc in a default Windows install is frustrating, but remember that Linux doesn't support Flash or Java out of the box either.


What the hell are you talking about? You have to have drivers if your hardware is going to work, and if you really think it's that easy under Linux I doubt whether you have ever attempted to install Linux. You go ahead and spend a week trying to install drivers for an incompatible wireless card.


The modern commercial systems (Win7, Snow Leopard) have relatively few serious bugs, and they have people being paid to fix any problems that arise. Money is a powerful motivator, and these people want to keep their jobs, so you can usually expect reasonable speed in fixing bugs. An open-source developer, on the other hand, can decide that they don't really feel like coding on a given day, or they might just abandon their project.

I tried installing XP on my computer, and not only did it not support my wireless card, but it also failed to support my LAN! I couldn't even use an ethernet? Same problem with vista, which it came preinstalled with, but I needed to reinstall after formatting my HD. Both worked with Ubuntu, and surprisingly W7. Drivers are a universal problem, but Linux seems to handle it a bit better.

Can't help this conversation. I'm a FreeBSD guy myself.

Available via 3rd party vs. part of the normal install. This is still a win for Linux.


The benefit of repositories isn't just that there's tons of free software, it's about installing any of a number of things, possibly at the same time, from the same place.

If I want to get the latest version of firefox, OO.o, emacs, the gimp, and a free astronomy program, I can do that by opening up the repository, doing a couple of searches, clicking checkboxes, and then hitting apply, and doing something else while it installs in the background.

For Windows, I have to manually find each website, manually download the installer, manually click on the installer, manually click next a lot and generally babysit the installer, and after it finishes, repeat for the next one.

Neither is particularly difficult, but the Linux way is easier and more efficient.


Reboots that only take 60-120 seconds aren't bad, but they don't beat not rebooting, which takes 0 seconds.

On a Linux system, the only thing you'd need to reboot for would be kernel updates, anything else can be installed and/or updated with the system running, most of the time without disrupting web-browsing or whatever else you're doing.


Having seen OEM-installed software and the stuff that gets pre-installed on a typical Linux system, Linux wins big here. Some Linux distros don't support the official versions of Flash and Java out of the box, but some do.


It can be incredibly difficult to get a driver working on Linux. It can be just as irritating on Windows. I've done both.

I think what he's talking about is the relative ease of getting a driver installed when the driver works perfectly. Generally in Windows, it's either locate the install CD or download it from the website, then run the installer and click next a lot. In Linux, it's generally plug it in and use it.

When a driver doesn't work perfectly, it can be in incredible pain on any OS.


Many open-source developers are employed by a business to work on their open-source project. You're also ignoring commercially available support for open-source systems.

Agreed. And subjectively I will always take GNOME 2 over Windows Aero. (I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about GNOME 3, though...)


Linux also has the benefit of security with the repositories: I trust the Debian/Ubuntu maintainers not to put malware in my Firefox. But I'm not sure I entirely agree with your assessment.

In Windows, you can run multiple installers at once. In Ubuntu/Debian, you have to wait for Aptitude to finish before you can move on to the next task. Yeah, I know, you can try selecting everything at once, but sometimes that's not what I want to do. I go ahead and use the noob graphical package manager (Ubuntu Software Center?) to install most of my programs, but then I have to open up Synaptic or use aptitude on the command line to fix some stuff that Ubuntu broke (the growl knock-off notifications suck balls) that is not accessible from the new Canonical-approved package manager.

Also, you don't always get the newest version. If you run Debian Testing, be prepared to wait about a month before you can get a new Firefox or OOo from Experimental. With Ubuntu, you can use intermittently-working tools like Ubuntuzilla, third-party PPAs with varying degrees of trustworthiness, or wait until the next six-month release to update. Sometimes you have to wait a whole six months because something just barely missed the feature freeze deadline. (Also, who wants the newest version of Emacs? Real programmers use Vim)

What the hell are you talking about? You have to have drivers if your hardware is going to work, and if you really think it's that easy under Linux I doubt whether you have ever attempted to install Linux. You go ahead and spend a week trying to install drivers for an incompatible wireless card.

I have installed Linux I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 right now I also use Debian and Free BSD. The hardware support has really improved! Check it out

My Bad...
By No Drivers I mean that you don't have to get a CD and install the drivers. The Drivers are preloaded into the kernel or repository. e.g. I just bought a new printer instead of just using a CD and taking like 5 minutes to install the driver like on windows on my linux box it automatically worked. What Distro are you using by the way?

How did you get Windows for free and legally? The Beta?

Compiz can be unstable at times, though it seems to have settled down in recent versions.


My webcam still doesn't work. It took until 2.6.31 or so before I had any workable sound coming from my speakers.


Oh yeah, I've had printer problems in Windows. Meanwhile Debian automatically found and configured a printer over my home network without me even telling it too. I mostly use Ubuntu, but I've played with Debian and Fedora as well.

My university has a deal with Microsoft. I get free copies of Windows operating systems and Office, among other things.

There are rolling-release distros like Arch, and Debian Testing isn't meant to be used for anything but testing. Debian Unstable gets relatively frequent updates.

However, for some distros, you have a point. For example, I'm running Debian Stable right now, which makes your 6-month Ubuntu releases look positively speedy.