10 Things Linux Does Better Than Windows

[Alessandro17]

http://techgage.com/article/10_things_linu..._than_windows/1

 

I want to counterbalance my topic: "Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop"

In reality it wasn't a topic against Linux, but an attempt to stimulate a balanced discussion, with me playing devil's advocate.

Hence now this "pro-Linux" topic.

What do you think?

[will1384]

http://techgage.com/article/10_things_linu..._than_windows/1

 

I want to counterbalance my topic: "Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop"

In reality it wasn't a topic against Linux, but an attempt to stimulate a balanced discussion, with me playing devil's advocate.

Hence now this "pro-Linux" topic.

What do you think?

 

I actually find fault with a lot of that article

 

1 - Partitioning

Windows is still easier, I dont have to set-up any special partitions for Windows, just one, and its easy

 

3 - Customization

Windows is still easier, to change the things I want to change, and thats not much

 

5 - Troubleshooting

Windows is still easier, because I have used Windows for 17 years, I know what I am doing

 

10 - Performance & Stability

Sorry but Windows is still faster on a lot of hardware, especially Windows XP

 

 

The only reason I dont use Windows, is Viruses, Spyware and lack of security, other than that it

works perfect

 

I use OS X because its what I think Linux should be like, otherwise I would be using Linux

 

 

Things I agree with, for the most part

 

4 - Automatic User Logon

But in Windows, a lot of people just setup one user account, and used Microsoft PowerToys

to enable auto login, pretty easy

 

6 - No-Nonsense OS Updates

Yep

 

7 - Easy Installation of Common Applications

Yes, using the package manager is easy, but what if what you want is not in that package manager,

and not in a repository, that you can find

 

8 - Interoperability

Why yes, Ubuntu actually killed one of my NTFS partitions, but I enabled write access, so

what did I expect, but yea I agree with article for the most part on this

 

9 - Command-Line

Its true Linux has a better command line, so what, Is this the 1990s, are we talking the days

of DOS, and the DOS prompt, no, then who cares, I do not want to type in obscure commands

and should not have to, yet with linux it seams like its a necessity

[Alessandro17]

I actually find fault with a lot of that article

 

1 - Partitioning

Windows is still easier, I dont have to set-up any special partitions for Windows, just one, and its easy

 

Most Linux distros comes with an (easy) partitioning utility. Else you can use Parted Magic LiveCD, a great set of tools.

 

3 - Customization

Windows is still easier, to change the things I want to change, and thats not much

 

Personally I find Linux easier to customize, especially GNOME. I strongly dislike KDE4, thus I don't know a lot about it.

Also Linux allows you to choose among a dozen of Desktop Environment/Window Managers.

 

5 - Troubleshooting

Windows is still easier, because I have used Windows for 17 years, I know what I am doing

There is one distro, openSUSE, which has a great repair tool, which even a total newbie can understand.

Unfortunately I find the quality of openSUSE going down all the time.

 

10 - Performance & Stability

Sorry but Windows is still faster on a lot of hardware, especially Windows XP

 

Is that true even if you use a very light DE in Linux?

 

 

The only reason I dont use Windows, is Viruses, Spyware and lack of security, other than that it

works perfect

 

I use OS X because its what I think Linux should be like, otherwise I would be using Linux

 

Agreed on both accounts.

 

 

8 - Interoperability

Why yes, Ubuntu actually killed one of my NTFS partitions, but I enabled write access, so

what did I expect, but yea I agree with article for the most part on this

 

Sorry, but personally I find Ubuntu a very bad example of a Linux distro

 

9 - Command-Line

Its true Linux has a better command line, so what, Is this the 1990s, are we talking the days

of DOS, and the DOS prompt, no, then who cares, I do not want to type in obscure commands

and should not have to, yet with linux it seams like its a necessity

 

True, but that should be seen as an extra option. Nobody should have to use the CL.

[Moose Tracks]

True, but that should be seen as an extra option. Nobody should have to use the CL.

 

My issue with Linux tends to be the CL. Any issue I've researched involved going to the command line. Nobody likes going to the command line, which is why a lot of people don't like Linux--it tends to even still be CL intensive at times.

[frefrefrer]

well i like to share my experience on this

 

i m using windows 7 ( hate xp to core- have my reasons ) , linux and osx ( omg big fan )

i have a graphic card named nvidia 9600 M GT 1 Gb ( I know M stands for mobility )

but its a desktop gfx .so i tried first with one and only windows .I was not able to install it .

i tried all drivers (xp, vista , 7)from nvidia site no success. Strange !

 

i though card is faulty . But when i install it under linux it takes drivers easily so prob at all

then i tried in OsX , i was pretty sure from the start that it didn't work but surprised to see it working

 

this is the first hardware for me which works in linux and even osx ( showing 9600 M GT in system profiler )

and not working in windows 7 ( xp , vista all tried ).

 

for me linux plus point it works for most common ( means common only ) hardware .No drivers installation headache like in windows.

[BlintWave]

At home I use all 3 of them Win, OS X and Linux.All both of them has it's own disadvantages compared to each other but when I get in discussion with someone else I just say, it all depends on your needs and what the reason is you want to do with a machine called a computer.

 

When someone just want to play games I recommend Windows, I know many people would se it different but it's a fact that games run better on Windows atm. But if you want a very secure and fast OS to do your things or even to run it on old hardware you can use a *nix OS which I prefer as well.And personally I think Mac is something in the middle but that my opinion

 

Anyway when it comes to decide which OS is the best it all comes down on personal preferences...

[poofyhairguy]

My issue with Linux tends to be the CL. Any issue I've researched involved going to the command line. Nobody likes going to the command line, which is why a lot of people don't like Linux--it tends to even still be CL intensive at times.

 

Interesting thing to say on on the world's biggest hackinstosh forum. I have had to do more hacking in the Terminal in OSX to kludge it onto normal hardware then I ever do with Ubuntu nowadays.

 

In fact, I LOVE the CLI because sometimes you just want want to do something that all the failsafes built into OSX and Ubuntu won't let you (for good reason sometimes)....

[Alessandro17]

Interesting thing to say on on the world's biggest hackinstosh forum. I have had to do more hacking in the Terminal in OSX to kludge it onto normal hardware then I ever do with Ubuntu nowadays.

 

That was exacly the first thought which came into my mind when I read that post.

[atari800]

"Interesting thing to say on on the world's biggest hackinstosh forum. I have had to do more hacking in the Terminal in OSX to kludge it onto normal hardware then I ever do with Ubuntu nowadays."

 

Well isnt that expected since OSX is not built out-of-the-box to run on anything except Apple hardware?

[Miguel Pinheiro]

The best damn thing is the updates, no restart required most of the times! and it updates all the apps!

[wangerman]

http://techgage.com/article/10_things_linu..._than_windows/1

 

I want to counterbalance my topic: "Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop"

In reality it wasn't a topic against Linux, but an attempt to stimulate a balanced discussion, with me playing devil's advocate.

Hence now this "pro-Linux" topic.

What do you think?

 

 

One reason why Linux is better than windows

 

Everything

[kiwi89]

I don't really understand all the hate for the command line from some people here.

 

Thats probably one of the best things about Linux, sure its not really friendly for the average user and of course you should be able to do everything in a gui that can be done in a cl, but the cl is so damn powerful when you know what you are doing.

Its much quicker do type something into a cl then it is to grab your mouse, find the app and try and do what you want from there.

[jafd]

1 - Partitioning

Windows is still easier, I dont have to set-up any special partitions for Windows, just one, and its easy

I have a single-partition Linux setup. What in the world am I doing wrong?

 

3 - Customization

Windows is still easier, to change the things I want to change, and thats not much

This should be modded -1 Troll, as the specifics are not mentioned. I can as well say that in Linux customizations rarely differ in their difficulty, but in the Windows, easy things are irrelevant to me (I don't give a cr-p about wallpapers 'cause I don't see them most of the time) and relevant things are next to impossible (say, multiple workspaces, custom daemons as services and so on).

 

5 - Troubleshooting

Windows is still easier, because I have used Windows for 17 years, I know what I am doing

Except that if it spills some indecipherable hexadecimal {censored} on you out of nowhere and bluescreens itself, you go routinely to clean-wipe and reinstall. For all 17 years. My 9 years of Linux usage experience taught me to troubleshoot to the actual root cause and fixing it without reinstalling and losing data, and without black voodoo magic.

 

10 - Performance & Stability

Sorry but Windows is still faster on a lot of hardware, especially Windows XP

As in, it manages to crash more often?

 

The only reason I dont use Windows, is Viruses, Spyware and lack of security, other than that it

works perfect

Other than things that make it malfunction and which plague users 90% of their time?

 

I use OS X because its what I think Linux should be like, otherwise I would be using Linux

The only thing Linux is missing from OS X in its current state, is damn desktop consistency. Single GUI, single behavior, a single set of shortcuts which works everywhere. Other than that, it's the same to me except Linux is much more administration-friendly.

 

4 - Automatic User Logon

But in Windows, a lot of people just setup one user account, and used Microsoft PowerToys

to enable auto login, pretty easy

In Linux, as well as OS X, you have both ways out of the box, right here at your fingertips.

 

7 - Easy Installation of Common Applications

Yes, using the package manager is easy, but what if what you want is not in that package manager,

and not in a repository, that you can find

 

Linux: apt-get install yourpackage

If no package, find it on sf.net, wget, untar, configure, make, make install. Several commands and you're done, can be made into one for greater pleasure. While the machine is busy with its thing you can make some decent coffee.

Windows: no package management at all, so go to the step 2.

Find the software installer, point and click, point, click, click, click, click, click, click, reboot, click, click, click, OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT THAT MY PC BECAME SO SLOW????!!! Worst of all, you cannot make a coffee, because you must watch for stupid prompts to click "OK" and "Next".

 

8 - Interoperability

Why yes, Ubuntu actually killed one of my NTFS partitions, but I enabled write access, so

what did I expect, but yea I agree with article for the most part on this

Because the machine is usually obedient even to the most foolish requests. Machines must do, humans must think.

 

9 - Command-Line

Its true Linux has a better command line, so what, Is this the 1990s, are we talking the days

of DOS, and the DOS prompt, no, then who cares, I do not want to type in obscure commands

and should not have to, yet with linux it seams like its a necessity

At least I can get my work with Linux's command line. Command line in Windows is reminiscent to me of 80s: no saveable history, no sensible scripting, lame autocompletion, no job control, lame redirection.

 

I don't really understand all the hate for the command line from some people here.

 

Those people haven't ever tried to work without a keyboard, with mouse alone. And without middle button to select-paste.

[imrazor]

Too much to really list, but I'll hit the first 5:

 

1) Partitioning

 

I mostly agree with this one, but multiple partitions aren't really necessary for the average user. For a power user, or a server admin, they can be a necessity.

 

To the user who has one Linux partition, where's your swap partition? I set one up whenever I do a Linux install. Supposedly this is for performance reasons, though I've never tested the theory.

 

2) Activation

 

Major headache. Unless you have an OEM copy of Windows XP installed. Then it's not really an issue. Not sure about more recent versions of Windows.

 

3) Customization

 

For simple stuff, Windows can be much simpler. For example, on my Ubuntu box my display is stuck at 1920x1080. I could probably tweak my xorg.conf file to enable rez switching, but it's not worth the effort. For advanced tweaking in Windows, you need to start digging into the registry, which can be a nightmare. If you're lucky, somebody's written a tool that will modify the registry for you (I'm looking at you, PowerToys.) OTOH, I had a 3D compositing desktop in Linux long before it came out on Windows. Then again, enabling compositing in Linux made a mess of video playback. You win some, you lose some.

 

4) Automatic User Logon

 

I always, ALWAYS disable this for security reasons. I don't want some random schmoe walking up to my PC and hacking away.

 

5) Troubleshooting

 

Linux FTW. Live CDs are da bomb. As a contrast, I recently had a Windows machine start randomly crashing. The stop code in Event Viewer was 0xC0000044. WTF? Some intensive googling revealed that this meant MULTIPLE_IRP_REQUESTS_COMPLETE. Again, WTF? It turns out this was *probably* a driver conflict, and time for a Windows reinstall.

 

Under Linux, one scenario where this is not true is when you have to compile an application from source. You inevitably end up in library hell, trying to figure what out library you need to download. And when you do figure it out, you find out that that library won't compile - because it needs another library. DOH!

 

In the end, it comes down to the best tool for the job. If you want to game, Windows is your best option. For running a server (or if you need/want a free OS), Linux wins. For every day usage (surfing, emailing, multimedia playback, etc.) I generally prefer OS X, even if it does take a fair bit of work to kluge it onto a PC.

[will1384]

Except that if it spills some indecipherable hexadecimal {censored} on you out of nowhere and bluescreens itself, you go routinely to clean-wipe and reinstall. For all 17 years. My 9 years of Linux usage experience taught me to troubleshoot to the actual root cause and fixing it without reinstalling and losing data, and without black voodoo magic.

 

I can say the same about Windows, when I run into a problem I know how to fix it,

because of years of experience

 

As in, it manages to crash more often?

 

Windows crashes no more and no less than Linux or OS X for me

 

 

Other than things that make it malfunction and which plague users 90% of their time?

 

Viruses, Spyware and Malware were my only problems, I had not got a BSOD

or random sudden re-boot in years

 

Windows: no package management at all, so go to the step 2.

Find the software installer, point and click, point, click, click, click, click, click, click, reboot, click, click, click, OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT THAT MY PC BECAME SO SLOW????!!! Worst of all, you cannot make a coffee, because you must watch for stupid prompts to click "OK" and "Next".

 

WTF are you talking about, are you using a 386

 

Software installations take a few seconds for me

[Alessandro17]

This should be modded -1 Troll, as the specifics are not mentioned.

 

Fortunately we don't have that method here, and as far as I am concerned, we never will. What it amounts to is censorship (you are modding an opinion, that is what happens a lot at OSNews).

[jafd]

To the user who has one Linux partition, where's your swap partition? I set one up whenever I do a Linux install. Supposedly this is for performance reasons, though I've never tested the theory.

 

I have a swap file on my ext4 partition. Really makes no difference (and I usually try to not swap processes out).

The only problem with this is that making hibernation (s2disk) work is, say, far from obvious (compared to usual hibernation to a swap partition, which works out of the box).

 

I can say the same about Windows, when I run into a problem I know how to fix it,

because of years of experience

Yes, and it's usually clean-wipe, or voodoo registry editing. Guess that none is user friendly: the first one, because none of average Joe Users does backups, and the second one, because editing the registry is far from intuitive and documented.

 

According to far too many MSCEs out there (I have some reliable sources in that field), easy to troubleshoot things are easy and hard ones are impossible. Ask London Stock Exchange, they switched over for a reason, I guess.

 

Windows crashes no more and no less than Linux or OS X for me

From which I can only conclude that you do quite a poor job at maintaining all three of them...

 

Viruses, Spyware and Malware were my only problems, I had not got a BSOD

or random sudden re-boot in years

When I use Windows, even without an antivirus package, I just somehow manage to not infect it with malware (though the last time when I did it profesionally was in 2008). I still don't know what I did wrong.

 

WTF are you talking about, are you using a 386

 

Software installations take a few seconds for me

I'm telling that installing from repositories is far less troublesome than googling and point-and-click installing.

 

Ever heard about the DLL hell? There's a lot of respectable software package which carry redistributable libraries (for compatibility reasons, of course) which they install in some system-wide location. Guess what happens if you install two packages each carrying different versions of the same redist, each tied to its particular version.

 

Right, you find your system screwed. One piece of software works but another is broken. And you have no certainty in DLL load order, no LD_LIBRARY_PATH, no chroot, no nothing to prevent the screwup — except maybe a virtual machine which is an overkill most of the time.

 

Guess what, even googling software up for windows is not so trouble free. That being because if the software in question is Windows-native/Windows-only/proprietary, I have trouble tracking down the genuine homepage — the first page of search results is invariably polluted with softpedia/cnet/you-name-it-software-portals which I simply don't trust enough to get software from.

 

Fortunately we don't have that method here, and as far as I am concerned, we never will. What it amounts to is censorship (you are modding an opinion, that is what happens a lot at OSNews).

 

I think of that in the Slashdot way. There is effectively no censorship, you just set your threshold to -1 and view everything uncut. If one is too lazy to drop down a select box and then push a button, calling censorship instead, just let him die slowly, his laziness makes him really deserve that.

[Alessandro17]

I think of that in the Slashdot way. There is effectively no censorship, you just set your threshold to -1 and view everything uncut. If one is too lazy to drop down a select box and then push a button, calling censorship instead, just let him die slowly, his laziness makes him really deserve that.

 

 

Sorry, I don't know the Slashdot way, maybe it is different. But in any case I prefer forums moderated by appointed moderators.

[Alessandro17]

Windows crashes no more and no less than Linux or OS X for me

 

That is not my experience. I have been experiencing endless BSODs and freezes both on my desktop (solved after searching for 6 months how to set the BIOS so that it would be stable) and on my laptop.

With Linux or OS X such occurrences are very rare. Besides when linux freezes you have REISUB as a last resort, and normally it works. No such thing in Windows.

[CursedHax]

I personally think Linux is superiour in almost every aspect. The command-line is clear and if you know some of the basic commands, you're all set

 

Partitioning is a little bit more complicated for the average user, but it has WAY more options then the Windows partitioner. You can format partitions in almost any conceiveable format, and it reads like...everything?

 

Windows has {censored} updates that you don't need. Linux doesen't force you to install updates. And it doesen't degrade in speed after 2 years. Windows does.

 

Bottom line: Linux is better

[will1384]

Yes, and it's usually clean-wipe, or voodoo registry editing. Guess that none is user friendly: the first one, because none of average Joe Users does backups, and the second one, because editing the registry is far from intuitive and documented.

 

I never had to do that to solve my problems, LOL

 

 

From which I can only conclude that you do quite a poor job at maintaining all three of them...

 

No Windows, Linux and OS X might crash once every few months

 

 

When I use Windows, even without an antivirus package, I just somehow manage to not infect it with malware (though the last time when I did it profesionally was in 2008). I still don't know what I did wrong.

 

Using Windows unprotected is likely your problem

 

 

Right, you find your system screwed. One piece of software works but another is broken. And you have no certainty in DLL load order, no LD_LIBRARY_PATH, no chroot, no nothing to prevent the screwup — except maybe a virtual machine which is an overkill most of the time.

 

I often install over 100 pieces of software on Windows, a lot of it freeware, never any problems

 

 

 

You hate Windows, and are exaggerating things to prove your point

[Snerler]

"For Windows XP, you actually have to go to the registry and find some specific string. For Windows Vista/7, you need to go to the command line and type in 'control userpasswords2'.

 

Those solutions work, but neither are common sense, nor too easy."

 

:D

 

This is great. While i agree this is a design flaw in windows, its just funny that a pro-linux article is complaining about having to use the command line.

[Hangten]

Umm, my rotation isn't working in Linux correctly. Both monitors have to be rotated they aren't independent. AMD RADEON drivers seem to be the likely culprit. Maybe other cards have better support but I am really not interested in looking it up.

 

NOT READY in my situation. Back to OS X, ah works more favorably in my opinion.