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There have been many debates over which OS is better and why. This isn't one of them.
I've created this thread to defend Linux a bit and not bash Windows. I want to defend it from many clueless ignorants who believe some stupid myths they've read somewhere and are highly offensive towards it. I'll try to show that Linux is in fact a user friendly OS, even for people considered to be 'computer illiterate'.
Note: From this point on, by Linux I mean the major mainstream distributions like openSUSE (my distro of choice), Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva etc. and not the minimalistic/hardcore/specialized distros that can be found out there.
Also, I'm going to look at everything from a perspective of an average person, unaware of all the intricacies of their OS.
The most basic arguments against Linux are:
a) you need a considerate knowledge about computers and Linux itself to be able to use it well
b) the UI and OS itself is unintuitive and complicated compared to Windows
The basics
Now, to go into the detail why above statements are false...
This WAS true long time ago. Right now, out of the box Linux is easier to install and operate than Windows. The GUI for the installer has been added which guides you through the process with ease and simplicity. It even has some advantages over Windows installer:
- it automatically divides the disc into 3 partitions (you can, of course change/set everything, including the filetype but I'll be talking only about the default settings): root (system) partition, home (user) partition and swap partition.
It's great for most people as in case of system reinstall you're not going to lose any of your vital data and unlike in Windows, swap is a completely different partition instead of a hidden file on your system partition.
- you are able to select one of many different languages for your OS.
The next major difference is that after a quick and easy process of system installation you're logging in into a fully operational OS with multimedia players, advanced graphic manipulation tools, pdf readers, games, torrent support, browser, cd/dvd burning tools, rss feed reader, discussion group reader, full office suite, mail client etc. right away. Basically, all the things a typical user might want, are already in there. And you don't have to install any drivers, yay! (You know all the discs with drivers that come with your computer when you buy it? You can just throw them out)
More advanced stuff
Now, that the system is installed, most people tend to add some new software to it to extend the functionality because of their line of work or other personal preferences.
You know how in Windows, to get some additional software you have to find the version you want on the internet, download it, then get through a setup installation wizard etc.
In Linux most of that is solved with repositories (which are truly an awesome thing). All you have to do is enter the software management screen, type in the keywords (partial software name etc.) in the search field and it's going to display all available things meeting your search criteria. Then you just select the things you want (install/remove/update), click on apply and all the things are being done automatically (including installation of dependencies).
Another big thing are security updates and bugfixes. In Linux you are automatically notified about them, you can review and install them with just 1 click and (surprise, surprise!) in 99,9% cases you won't need to reboot your system (technically, your Linux can run indefinitely without reboot, the only thing requiring that are major changes to the kernel - installing proprietary GPU drivers etc.) which are things average users do not do. I'm mentioning all that because Windows won't ask you about that, it's just going to install the updates and force you to reboot (with auto-update turned on, and that's the default setting).
Summary
To sum it all up, I can just use my wife as an example. She's your standard 'Partition? WTF is that?' user. She's been using Windows for most of her life and never even heard about Linux until I installed it for her.
It took her about 2 hours to find herself within it, configure the desktop and applications to her needs and just a couple of days to familiarize herself with most important stuff.
For the past couple of days she was forced to use Windows again (had to borrow a laptop from my father for her to have internet in the hospital) and she was raging all the time about how slow it is and how it lacks the most basic features she needs, how she had to download and install a lot of stuff and finally, how it was constantly nagging her about 'Do you really want to launch this application?'.
In her eyes (and mine too), modern day Linux is a much better choice for your average everyday user. Something being overlooked a lot.
 
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LInux Rapesd Windows anyday. First post <3. Anyway. Linux is better IMO because it has so much more freedom with open source software. Also Linux is free and runs faster thatn Windows. Downside is that Windows has all the games.
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Nice writeup. I have a question though, I've read about running windows inside of linux using virtual machines like virtualbox. I'm curious if there are any limitations to what you can do inside of windows.. for example, how about bw and iccup?
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On March 10 2010 20:15 Alphonsse wrote:
Nice writeup. I have a question though, I've read about running windows inside of linux using virtual machines like virtualbox. I'm curious if there are any limitations to what you can do inside of windows.. for example, how about bw and iccup?
Did you mean inside of Linux?
I don't have any experience with virtualbox or anything like that, but I've been using WINE quite extensively and right now it runs A LOT of windows apps (read: games) without much effort/problems.
You can check out what runs and to what extent here:
http://www.winehq.org/
Note: some of the stuff there wasn't updated. I've run into things with silver down to garbage rating which run super fine on my machine and I didn't experience any of the problems people who provided the review did.
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Yeah WINE runs sc but no b.net  . I guess I should give the virtual machine thing a shot some time and post my results. That's pretty much the only thing that stops me from using ubuntu as my main os.
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i don't think there should be any limitations for VMs
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The problem is not with arguments for or against Linux. Especially with arguments as silly as yours. Why care so much about installation - a process that most people won't even experience?
Why care so much about rebooting - a process that apart from taking only a minute is not as common as you make it out to be. Besides, there are a lot of updates for Linux that force you to at least log out and restart X which is pretty much the same thing as a reboot only a bit quicker.
From my friends and family the people who know what Linux is don't use it because they can't use most of their favorite programs and it has a tendency to need a little more maintenance than they'd generally like and the people who don't know what Linux is don't use it because it didn't come preinstalled on their computers.
On my laptop I use Windows most of the time because Linux doesn't support some of its hardware and draws more energy too.
On my PC I use Windows most of the time because Linux doesn't support quite a bit of software I want to use even if it means I have to cut back on some of the nice features it offers. A few little inconveniences are better than not being able to do some things entirely.
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I use linux at home, since i am a programmer, so it suits my needs.. I use windows at work, and the only thing that bothers me with linux is that games dont play well ( unless its opengl), and that drivers are not supported that well.
Back in the days when i was playing a lot of games, i had windows, now i ll get second computer for movies and some games  <- w7 , and real work on linux.
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i like the degree of control linux gives you but windows is just way too far ahead in terms of usability. even for the most obscure windows programs it's as simple as run installer -> finished. for linux you have to go through readmes and junk if you find that it doesnt have an installer and while that's all fun and dandy when you have spare time sometimes you really just want / need things to work.
that being said i really like how robust the default file manager was with ubuntu and gnome is so minimalistic and customizable. oh and they have virtual desktops which is sooooo useful if you just have one monitor.
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Linux can get frustrating when it runs programs badly or messes round with drivers. I just use windows...
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Canada9714 Posts
for the majority of programs, it's:
yum install app
apt-get install app
etc. nothing easier than that.
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Kyrgyz Republic1308 Posts
It depends a lot on what you do with your computer. Want to play games? Use Windows. Working with Flash/Photoshop/Illustrator/3ds max/whatever other proprietary program not available for Linux but crucial to your job? Use Windows. Skype user? Better use Windows.
Also, it does rarely work out-of-the-box as easily as you say. Have you ever tried running Fedora or OpenSUSE on a modern ATI card (HD 4xxx and up)? Even in Ubuntu you need obscure hacks to make it work properly (until such time as Ubuntu updates X server - now go figure how to do your hacks again). I had random issues with wi-fi, sound card, touchpads etc. on various machines. Nothing really irreparable, but do you really expect your average user to spend all day trying to figure out how to fix the bloody touchpad?
The problem is not even in Linux itself, there is nothing wrong with it, but that most hardware/software developers don't give a shit about supporting Linux.
I don't think Linux is the better choice for the desktop yet, unfortunately.
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On March 10 2010 20:34 Alphonsse wrote:Yeah WINE runs sc but no b.net . I guess I should give the virtual machine thing a shot some time and post my results. That's pretty much the only thing that stops me from using ubuntu as my main os.
Wine does run b.net, via both iCCup and blizzard. There is a problem in that the graphics don't get cleared before being drawn over, which makes things messy. (My workaround is that I have my workspaces hotkeyed so I just have two empty workspaces, one running SC, and I flick between them with the keyboard to clean the cruft. I love those multiple workspaces, even when they're not just compensating for some other brokenness)
Ugly cosmetic glitches aside, wine+sc over bnet/iccup does work for me, and once in-game it's more or less indistinguishable from Windows.
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If this blog is NOT about Linux vs Windows then don't call it like that.
I am open towards both Linux and Windows (not so much Mac). Currently I only use Windows though. Imo it heavily depends on what you want to do with it. No current OS is best for everything.
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On March 10 2010 21:59 spinesheath wrote:
If this blog is NOT about Linux vs Windows then don't call it like that.
I am open towards both Linux and Windows (not so much Mac). Currently I only use Windows though. Imo it heavily depends on what you want to do with it. No current OS is best for everything.
It is about Linux vs Windows but not in a sense used most often (let's bash the other OS). I'm not saying anywhere in it that everyone should quit using Windows and just jump on to Linux.
And I really don't understand so many people here bitching about poor hardware support in it... I've yet to experience a SINGLE problem with that and I tried it out on various computers with various configuration. There MIGHT be some problems with certain ATI cards (I didn't experience any with Radeon x1950 Pro) but that's ATI's fault and their crappy drivers (even on Windows I used third-party drivers for ATI cards). With nVidia you can have the most recent whql drivers with ease. In openSuse there's even a '1-click install' on the website (awesome feature of openSUSE, most software that isn't in the repositories has the 1-click install version on the net).
Oh, and Photoshop works flawlessly under Linux. The problems come when you need to do something in C# since Mono is a bit behind.
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Funnily enough, I just installed fedora 12 on my laptop yesterday. However I've had 2 major problems with it.
-Getting my wireless card to work. Had to trawl though loads of stuff, obscure firmware updates etc. Put on the wrong stuff first which completely stopped it working, even when I booted into windows. Now its sort of working.
-Nvidia drivers. Complete mess.
After about 30 hours of messing around with stuff, I do have it working, and hopefully stable (but I'm not too sure about that) But considering the amount of effort I had to put in I completely disagree with it being perfect and amazing out of the box. I do intend to go on using though, and I do like it.
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Any OS is easily sufficient for tasks like surfing, office work, or software development. What draws me to Windows is that many applications don't exist for other OSs, and of course gaming. Linux or MacOS may even be "better", but if there is no software for them, what use are they?
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I'm surprised nobody mentioned how bad OpenOffice is. I like Linux more for software development, command-line tools, and the like, but I care about Windows applications (and drivers -_-) a whole lot more.
On my previous laptop I dual-booted, but since I'm no longer hacking/compiling wireless drivers for school-related work, I get by on Windows with MinGW. All my simulations run on a Linux-based cluster anyway.
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I don't think "the most basic arguments against Linux are:
a) you need a considerate knowledge about computers and Linux itself to be able to use it well
b) the UI and OS itself is unintuitive and complicated compared to Windows"
I think the most basic arguments against Linux are:
a) My hardware doesn't work (bad driver support).
b) Progam XY doesn't work and there is no Linux equivalent / the Linux equivalent is not as good.
I like Linux but can't use it because of a) and b).
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On March 10 2010 20:41 Samurai- wrote:i ll get second computer for movies and some games <- w7 , and real work on linux.
This is what I do. I have my nice new computer with nice new components for playing games (and entertainment more generally), and I have my great little fanless solid state mitx box running archlinux with a bunch of text-based crap (mmm, ratpoison) for work. Work for me just means reading and writing papers, so vim and tex and gv are about all I need.
Also, needing to physically switch between computers (and turn the other one on) is a little barrier that helps me stay on task when I'm working.
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