Linux not so perfect?

[TechnoGuRu]

Here's an interesting article: Why Windows Isn't Hell Or Why Linux Isn't Bliss. The author is sort of bringing the the Linux geeks back to planet earth. Flame on?

 

[Nothinman]

It's OSNews, anyone with a keyboard can put an article there. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it means the quality of articles can be fairly low and frankly that article is pretty bad, mostly because it's all opinion. Most of the stuff he finds difficult in Linux I find simple and the things he says are easy in Windows I find they don't work well most of the time.

For example:

"if we forget the ease with which it is installed" - Mandrake and RH are both just as easy or easier to install than Windows, installation isn't even that important as you should only have to do it once anyway, although with Windows I guess people do tend to reinstall it over and over and over.

"if we forget the great hardware support" - The fact that drivers are there doesn't mean there good, most BSODs are caused by sh!tty drivers which Windows has a lot of. If you're smart you stick to certain brand hardware which has known good support in Windows and in Linux it's no different.

"if we forget the uniform look of all the programs" - Yea like WMP, MS Office, WinAMP, etc because all those apps look just like all other win32 programs...

"if we forget InstallShield and look-a-likes" - Installshield is still 16-bit, WTF is that.

"if we forget the clear structure (Program Files, My Documents etc, and of course this only goes for the not-so-technical end-user)," - Clear structure? Mac OS X has clear structure, Windows has 95% of it's files dumped in winnt\system32.

"if we forget Windows Update (still beats the Distribution-specific update tools, in my opinion)." - Everyone forget's WindowsUpdate, otherwise things like Nimda wouldn't have happened. And those that don't forget it fear it because there's a 50/50 chance the next fix you install will break something.

Noone said Linux was ready for the masses, but frankly I don't think Windows is either. The only reason people know anything about Windows is because it's what everyone else runs, if you gave a completely new computer user a box with Linux and one with Windows they would have almost the exact same amount of trouble.

 

[notfred]

About the author:
You could say I'm an expert user, but I think that is a bit overrated. When I think of an expert, I think of someone with programming skills. And I'm already happy if I can succesfully edit my Lilo.conf or my XF86Config-4 file! I'm a bit more experienced in Windows, since I have been using MS-DOS/Windows since 1991 (that's right, I was seven at the time!). In 2001 I bought my own computer and from that time the fun really started. I installed Mandrake, played around with BeOS, SkyOS, FreeBSD and so on. But Windows and Linux will always be my favourites.

Main points from his bio:

The author was born in 1984. That makes him 19.
He bought his first computer in 2001. That gives him 2 years of computing history. (aside from using his parent's computer)
He can barely edit lilo.conf, doesn't make him much of a linux user.
He thinks that programming and using linux are somehow related... huh?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Great thing is, he's not getting ripped off by linux. If he can't figure it out, he didn't lose much by at least trying it.

He also seems kinda dumb. I didn't have a computer in my HOUSE until spring 2001 (at seven years old, I probably hadn't even touched a computer.. I can remember still using Apple IIs in junior high) (I just turned 20, btw), I didn't get started with linux till fall of 2001. And _I_ feel like I'm behind everyone else. 😉

Articles like this get a big yawn from me. All operating systems suck ass in a lot of ways, and all have some nice aspects to them. It's just a matter of finding which one sucks the least, according to your taste.

 

[Nothinman]

He thinks that programming and using linux are somehow related... huh?

It definately helps more than it does in Windows, but it's not a requirement.

He also seems kinda dumb

He wrote for OSNews, doesn't that sort of insinuate that? heh

I didn't have a computer in my HOUSE until spring 2001 (at seven years old, I probably hadn't even touched a computer.. I can remember still using Apple IIs in junior high) (I just turned 20, btw), I didn't get started with linux till fall of 2001. And _I_ feel like I'm behind everyone else

I didn't have a computer in my house until late '95, all I had used before then was Apple IIs and diskless 386s (woohoo pascal programming!) in high school and I didn't get started with Linux until some time in '98 and I feel like I'm behind everyone else. =)

 

[Smilin]

Nothing real new in the article, IMO. Even with his obvious inexperience he's seemed to realize that both Linux and MS have strengths and weaknesses which puts him ahead of most MS/Linux zealots. Nothinman is a Linux guru with some good MS experience, I'm a MS guru with some good Linux experience. We're probably the only two Linux/MS guys who never seem to bump heads on things because we realize that just because we're good in one doesn't make the other automatically suck. I don't think this article really says much more than "Zealots please flame me"

 

[TechnoGuRu]

He clearly states several times that the article is not Pro-Microsoft or Anti-Linux in any way. He is simply saying that there is a false impression that Linux is the perfect OS and Windows is the worst piece of software there ever was. I, for one, agree with him on this. The Windows bashing needs to stop, because we all know that Linux is far from perfect... No matter how much we say it is.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: TechnoGuRu
He clearly states several times that the article is not Pro-Microsoft or Anti-Linux in any way. He is simply saying that there is a false impression that Linux is the perfect OS and Windows is the worst piece of software there ever was. I, for one, agree with him on this. The Windows bashing needs to stop, because we all know that Linux is far from perfect... No matter how much we say it is.

But that's the thing - NO ONE says linux is the perfect OS, and anyone that does is generally considered ignorant or stupid or whatever.

And windows bashing is a completely seperate issue. People bash everything to an extent. The fact that windows is ~98% of the desktop market means that it will receive the lion's share of criticism. That's just life. It's not going to change.

 

[Nothinman]

We're probably the only two Linux/MS guys who never seem to bump heads on things because we realize that just because we're good in one doesn't make the other automatically suck.

It's much more fun to pick on the Win32 guys at work than on a forum =)