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93 Comments
- nTensify, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32"1. MSDN? Who needs it. There are hundreds/thousands/millions of websites to help program in linux. "
That's the problem. MSDN is ONE LOCATION where you can find anything you need to know, whereas with Linux, you're forced to search through the internet and those "hundreds/thousands/millions of websites" to find one tiny piece of information you want to know.
"2. Common Interface."
*yawn* FUDalicious as Windows doesn't even have a single unified interface (Win32's CAPI may produce different results than MFCs or .NET, but generally "look" the same, which can be done simply by applying a skin to Qt/GTK+ [see Redhat's BlueCurve]).
"3. Common Format. "
Uh yeah. Linux has been a CHAMPION of common formats for years and years now. We've been on the cutting edge of pushing XML, compatible and accurate HTML/XHTML, and now ODF. Windows, on the other hand, has a seperate file editor for Text files (Notepad), Richtext (Wordpad) and .DOC (Office). [For the longest time, Paint didn't even support JPGs, and STILL doesn't support transparencies].
"4. Marketing. "
If you'll pay for it :D. The problem is, commercial marketing costs commercial money, and that's hard to do with something you give away for free. But then again, word of mouth is a huge factor with Linux, and the whole "pass on a livecd" is just about the best marketing I could ever imagine (Allows YOU to come to a conclusion, instead of listening to what someone else says)
"5. OEM support."
Working on it, but it's hard to get in the game when Microsoft makes you sign a contract that says "you will NOT support [alternative operating system]" in order to sell your computers at a competitive rate. But then again we have Redhat doing vender certification, we have Novell and Canonical, and new companies are popping up every day with Linux support in both hardware and software. We've finally got active development coming out of ATi with Linux drivers, and nVidia's been in our corner for years, along with Intel (which does a HUGE amount of legwork for us). The support is there, you just don't hear so much about it ;) - gookie, on 10/12/2007, -18/+42Linux gurus and big distros will not -- READ: WILL NOT -- ever unite and join forces to beat Microsoft. They're too self-centered and obnoxious, they want their distro to be *THE* best GNU/Linux distribution ever.
Ubuntu or Fedora or Suse? Gnone or KDE? Ext3 or ReiserFS or XFS? Thunderbird or Evolution? Gstreamer or xineblahblah? Rhythmbox Banshee or Amarok? Ekiga & Wengo, Totem & MPlayer, blah & etc,
More choices = good. Yes, true. But when your choices are half-baked buggy forks it starts to get frustrating.
The inside competition will eat up their own geniuses --- sad, but true.
The best day will come when all of open source developers start to work on unified set programs and actually MAKE THEM WORK. - r121, on 10/12/2007, -17/+38I agree. By this article it also seems he has very little understanding of Linux, either. He gives the impression that Linux is produced by a single, commercial company.
- MarkByers, on 10/12/2007, -10/+30Most of his comments are that Linux provides too much choice and he only wants one choice. If that's all he wants, why doesn't he just use Microsoft? Linux is not about restricting choice.
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -22/+41Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols needs to let GNU/Linux be Linux and quit trying to cram it in to a Microsoft shaped hole...
no digg! - XVampireX, on 10/12/2007, -12/+28I call ***** on the article.
1. MSDN? Who needs it. There are hundreds/thousands/millions of websites to help program in linux. There are also IRC chatrooms specific for almost everything free software. (Especially in freenode).
2. Common Interface. Well, ok, I'll agree with you partly, yes, it needs more standardization in some areas... But that's the developers job. But you gotta agree, the more choice, the better. Well, at least for people who don't care customizing their experience with the OS...
3. Common Format. If you think about it, the Microsoft Office formats are not really common, right? You can't use them on linux at their full functionality.While ODF is a common format, which you can use on all OS's.
4. Marketing. While I agree with you, again. There is enough marketing for linux in terms of knowledge. Though some marketing like names for projects should be carefully planned, names DO make a difference... a BIG difference.
5. OEM support. Again, that's not linux's job, that's the developers/manufactorers/etc... job.
So again... *****. - oyourmom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10If Linux wants to be better they should try not to be like Microsoft.
- flash200, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@gookie
This problem will eventually solve itself. Just like it's more efficient (less overhead) to sell services based on an infrastructure that's mostly FOSS (free and open-source software), it's even more efficient to do so with an infrastructure that's entirely FOSS.
The current generation of commercial distros (with the possible expection of Ubuntu, which may be the first second-generation commercial distro) are still trying to play by the traditional rules of commercial software--distinguishing yourself from your competitors by adding proprietary features to the software, rather than by focusing solely on quality of service, and adding value to hardware or related products at no cost.
I think the future mainly lies with Debian, and with the eventual 10s of thousands of custom distros derived from it (each one optimized for a specific embedded device). It's also encouraging to see what Ubuntu (based on Debian) is doing in the desktop and server space. - flash200, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16@Burmask
Ever use a DVR, or a set-top box, or a router? Chances are it's running on Linux. The more that Linux succeeds in the mainstream, the less people will be aware that they're using it. It can be adapted for anything, and its best strength is that it just works. And when something works reliably, it's easy to not notice that it's there. Plus there's no marketing bonanza drawing constant attention to it. - covertbadger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@nTensify
"That's the problem. MSDN is ONE LOCATION where you can find anything you need to know, whereas with Linux, you're forced to search through the internet and those "hundreds/thousands/millions of websites" to find one tiny piece of information you want to know."
I'm a professional Windows developer that uses/develops Linux in my own time. I just can't agree about MSDN - unless I'm just looking up some very basic API information, MSDN doesn't give me what I need. If I want detailed information about a particular method I bust out Reflector and decompile mscorlib.dll; if I want example code for doing something non-standard, it's off to google I go, which is exactly what I do for all things linux. In fact, usually if I need to search MSDN I still use google, with a site:msdn.microsoft.com modifier.
In other words, both linux and Windows have one-stop shops for developer information - and it isn't MSDN. - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7By using terms like Evil Empire it makes it seem like he's probably for "taking down the MAN" rather than promoting Linux. He must have some sort of grudge.
- flash200, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@Burmask
Good point. I think much of what I said applies just as well to desktop use of Linux, but it'd just take a lot longer to happen (maybe 10-15 years).
If the industry increasingly moves towards open standards (ODF, etc) and shifts more to a web-based model, the particular OS used will be less and less important, and OEMs will gain a competitive advantage by installing Linux rather than Windows, since there's no overhead.
It's tough to picture how this would play out, but I think the end result would be the same as in the embedded space: Hardly anyone would be aware that they're using Linux, because it would be invisibly, reliably doing its job. And the OEMs wouldn't have any incentive to promote the presence of Linux; they'd just promote that it's a Their-Brand-Name computer. - bogomill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Unless you're just trolling, these might be of interest to you:
http://os.newsforge.com/os/04/05/18/1715247.shtml
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1557459,00.asp
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18700097
What it all boils down to is how you administer your machine, Windows or Linux. It's only as secure as you can make it and it depends on you, the user to know what you are doing. However, good Linux distributions provide you with a very secure "default" setup. So there's very little to worry about from the start. In most distributions, you are logged in as an "unprivileged" user, which means that there is very little chance for malware to cripple your system if you do get them to run under Linux.
Also, most of the exploits under Linux require you to login to the remote computer. On Windows, most of the dangerous exploits can be triggered remotely and to not require you to login to the remote system.
How fast can a Windows PC be compromised?
http://news.com.com/Study+Unpatched+PCs+compromised+in+20+minutes/2100-7349_3-5313402.html
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/0,2000061744,39200021,00.htm
Less than 12 minutes in the second article? That's roughly the amount of time it takes to download the patches themselves. - harlowsmonkeys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5One problem with the zillion website approach to documentation, as opposed to the MSDN approach, is that a lot of those zillion websites are out of date. I've wasted an incredible amount of time on Linux when I've wanted to do something, did a search, read instructions at 5 websites, followed them--and had it not work, because they are talking about something that is two versions old and has been redesigned three times since then. They didn't have dates on the site or list the version, so I didn't know.
For a lot of open source, the code and the documentation are essentially separate projects, on separate schedules. That's not a good way to handle documentation. - Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@Flash200 - Great points. That is the beauty of Linux, but has nothing to do with this article. The context of it was desktop and servers systems, not embedded systems like those found in DVRs, firewalls, etc.
- jambarama, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You must have tried linux a long time ago. Unless you are using something really archaic - RHEL 3, LFS - every distro has ways to install without mucking about with source.
Debian/Ubuntu/Mepis - dpkg in the form of apt-get, synaptic, adept, aptitude (three of these are guis).
RHEL/Fedora/SuSE/Mandriva - yum is really all anyone needs.
Gentoo - portage handles binary as well as automatic builds from source
Heck even slackware has great package management. And for those who cry - "but they're different & incompatible" - Alien is a program that lets deb based systems install rpms and vice versa.
K/X/Ubuntu are pretty dang easy to install. Pop in the cd, boot from it, click the install button. It'll resize ntfs partitions, and everything is automatic. It is unfair to compare it to XP install (because XP is 5 years old) but most distros are so much easier than XP to install.
Problems with DVD/MP3/whatever playback? Google "easy ubuntu" it will tell you to copy paste three (or four) lines into a terminal and you get a pretty gui that will get you flash, skype, w32codecs, realplayer etc. Or add the PLF repos to your sources.list. Or go to the VLC site, they host the dvdcss library. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9This is the first OPEN Source writer I see that has a OPEN mind.
I also disagree with the 4th and 5th items, as they are beyond the community's hands (despite the Firefox phenomena). But I entirely agree with items 1 to 3.
1. Open Source documentation is indeed spread all over the 'net. Linux.org or gnu.org are not very helpful in this matter.
2. The more Linux distributions there is, the less the standardization.
3. OLE was one of the greatest catches of the software industry. Again, no standardization. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No. Linux has ACLs too, but guess what? Almost nobody uses them, because they DON'T as you say actually need them. Basic Unix permissions (UGO) are sufficient in most cases. If you wan't finer grained control, you have to turn on ACLs on Linux. It's not used by default in most setups because it's more complicated (harder to manage, more overhead) and because, as noted, most setups don't need it.
Further, more fine-grained control, while often a good thing, is not equivalent to "better filesystem security." That's nonsense. The best security system is the one that provides the necessary functionality (in this case file access control) in the simplest way possible.
You can't even argue that, since Windows ACLs are enabled by default, it is easier to configure Windows filesystem security. Windows filesystem security is actually effectively TURNED OFF by default on its desktop operating systems. It's self-defeating, because 1) by default all users are administrators and 2) the "use simple file sharing" option or whatever its called hides the permissions settings from the user. The average Windows system has absolutely no filesystem security whatsoever. Meanwhile, the average Linux-based system has great filesystem security, since users can delete/modify only the files in their home directory. It's not even a competition.
I hate to rant, but every single thing in that post is dead wrong. - praseodym, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5No digg. The author makes it sound like Linux is a company, and makes one product. For me, Linux is still the kernel and not a complete distro like the author describes it. Common interfaces? File formats? All not related to Linux as a kernel.
- flash200, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The Open Source Development Labs is working on common standards for distros, desktop environments, printing, etc.
5 years from now, Linux should be a lot less confusing. 10 years from now, it may not even matter whether you're using KDE or GNOME, or which distro you're using. - windzero, on 10/12/2007, -11/+14What I think is:
Want everything under controlled by a single company(organization): Windows or Mac
Want freedom?: Linux - akinder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yes, because I want to google through hundreds of forum posts with "rtfm n00b LOL Windoze suxor" when trying to get help with a problem.
- AF-Geek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ummm... what about apt get ? I'm a linux noob, but it seems to solve a lot of those installation/dependency woes.
- barius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For a user like Grandma it's the same thing. Only developers truely understand the meaning of the word 'standard'. For Grandma 'standard' only means that the computer does things the same way every time, it has nothing to do with whether or not distribution X does things the same way as distrubution Y. As long as Grandma sticks with one distribution (e.g. Windows) she can be relatively sure that things are going to stay the way she is used to them.
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -11/+14@r121
I'm not sure if he thinks it is made by one vendor if he wants it to be made by one vendor. In any case he should read up on something called competition, the more choices for Linux the better the deal for the consumer.
As for his claim that there is no MSDN, he should try http://www.qunu.com which is much more personal and easier to get help through than MSDN. - flash200, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The situation is improving. From what I've heard, the installation for Ubuntu is very easy, with the exception of adding support for playing DVD movies.
Granted that's a big catch, but it's because of the MPAA, not because of any technical limitations of Linux. - flash200, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@shawnz
It takes a long time to form open, collaborative standards. The process is slow, but it's a more-valuable option in the long-run than the defacto proprietary standards of a corporation.
Progress is under way with the Open Source Development Labs. But it'll take time. - akinder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Ugh, I'm so sick of these articles and fanboy ravings that say "Oh they're already doing what is right, they're open source." Just because you're open source doesn't mean *****, your product can still suck, your support is usually non existant, and to try and convince / force your ideals on someone else is just as annoying as Microsoft printing lies about the OSS community.
- shakeyshakey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Gosh, just reading the comments here make me puke, linux users are so deluded that they cannot accept another person offering advice for they to PROSPER.
You know what, keep it like that boys, it seems to be working. 0.23% desktop share, that's like, great! - MarkByers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No, I think he was talking about a common, well documented framework for constructing GUIs.
- MarkByers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I don't think he was talking about average users. He was talking about developers.
- mabhatter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would say there's too much "choice" in windows and that is a tool that contributes to MS position. A fresh install of windows XP SP2 isn't really that interesting either. You still have to update Acrobat, flash, shockwave, Divx, active x controls, WM? 9 &10 and a myrid of other things every time you hit the web for the first few days. Granted, everything is downloadable... even hidden from you! All things being equal, any common Linux distro can do all the same things, just for formats are different.
To repeat the cry of so many people, why aren't people using the most common/free formats to encode their documents, music, videos, animations, etc. The tools are out there, free, and cross-platform very few things are Linux-specific, but we need to get people in the habit of downloading OSS formats just like they eagerly down load the latest Acrobat or Shockwave. - SirZRX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3the only thing that linux need to do is to merge all distros into two distros, home and bussines(servers), linux developing takes alot of effort and lot of effort is being wasted doing so much distros, the world doesnt need another flavor of linux, if u guys merge u will reach goals faster!
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i would not have said it better myself
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"the only thing that linux need to do is to merge all distros into two distros, home and bussines(servers),"
I agree with this...I don't think it will ever happen,but if everybody just got behind two
and went for the gold,I think a lot could happen.
Of course, saying this and doing it are a world of difference. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Finally someone gets it..
I dont want to work for my PC, I want it to work for me... - lkallion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Variety is linux worlds blessing and curse, Not only does new users have to make many decisions but also developers have to make many decisions why on earth there are many competing basic libraries, programs made for gnome don't work well on kde and vice versa, why does wheel get invented all over again?
- chrismm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You can summarize this entire article in one sentence. Many hands working together can create a better product than many hands working on many projects.
This is why MS has a better UI. You've got a bunch of people working together for the same goal. It may not be the UI *You'd* personally want to use, but for the average user that picks up a keyboard and mouse it works quite well. That's not so true of the 23904829048234 different ways a Linux Desktop UI can look. If you could have a handfull of projects with a concerted effort to work together to build a solid product by opensource coders, then you'll have a chance.
The only commercially available Desktop Linuxes have done just this, they've paid coders to spend time and effort making the Desktop, applications and subsystems work fluidly, because no one else really has.
Until the OpenSource community decides to start working together instead of fragmenting their work and efforts into 5 million tiny little things, this is how it will always be. - nickiank, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ petbo2:
There's a thing called package management which handles all dependency checking, configuration, and installation for installing new software to your machine. It's *great* because you don't have to search all over the internet to find out where to get a given application - the package manager does it all for you. There's even GUI front-ends for most package managers so you don't have to use the command line if you're afraid of it or don't like it. Installing applications on a modern Linux distro is generally less legwork than on Windows. - Magadass, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Linux is a joke, its a cool little hobby project but thats about the extent of it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whoops, that should say they DON'T state that Microsoft Windows security is a clear winner. Except the one from Microsoft itself, of course. Also, they are not working ON fixing this.
Profreading... - Icebreeze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What is the deal with the same 3-4 types of articles getting posted on digg every single day? Did we get stuck in some type of infinate loop? All I see is Ubuntu is great, oh dear another celebritiy switching to osx, microsoft is evil, then microsoft actually has a good model.... not only are these topics redudant but also contradictory to each other.
I don't think people realize that in windows the difference between Xp Pro and Home is minute. Windows 2003 server is essentially XP with all the useless services disabled. If you are going to argue that microsoft has new features in either, it is because works to their buiseness model to make a profit. In an GNU/Linux distro you get these new features for free which become the current release you use.
To even think to merge all the linux distros into a set of two systems is rediculous. This is like competition at its best. The strong usefull distros continue to exist while the less useful die out. No only does this help the OSS community go in a direction of progress, but it promotes the ideal of creating new and usefull software. - Scruffydan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To many choices can be a bad thing. I cannot imagine my mom figuring out what Linux distro would be best for her.
Didn't people bash MS for offering to many versions (read: options) for vista? - JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Having a 'standard' desktop is as easy as picking your favourite and ignoring the others."
Sorry, this is a personal preference; not the same as a 'standard'. - flash200, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think the point is that you should be able to compile a native app for Linux, and have it install and run on just about any distro. That level of binary compatibility does not exist at present, but it's one of the things that the OSDL, and other standards efforts, are addressing.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ROFLMAO. This is a joke, right?
Linux has scripting languages that are technically far superior to VB. Python, Ruby, TCL/Tk, and Perl just to name a few.
VB ( - jambarama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1umm? Autopatcher is universal. As are the Java packages distributed by Sun for linux (.run files). Many other devs use these same format too - anything with .run. Not to mention alien which provides compatibility between deb and rpm systems (the two most common by far).
The specialized software does present a problem to adopting Linux. It isn't because all Linux users are hippies and don't understand business, it is because so many businesses are so far in with Windows, it'd cost them a fortune to swap. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Continued from my last comment -- what happened to the rest I cannot guess.
VB ( v6 and less, no comment on .NET) is a terrible pain to work with. I took a class on it and was horrified by its lack of expressive power, its verbose and redundant syntax, its unfathomable inbuilt limitations, and its support for highly questionable "features" (ON ERROR RESUME NEXT, anyone?). My biggest complaint, however, was its absolutely incomprehensible error messages. MSDN would list dozens of cases where each of these errors could occur. Apparently it has been promoted from a messy scripting language to application programming language with the advent of VB.NET, but I can't say for sure having not tried it. - BobTurbo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@mcspang
Yes Internet Explorer did once have defaults that turned out to be the wrong choice. Mainly because they didn't expect malware companies to register for certificates to validate ActiveX controls. But of course any administrator could have changed the defaults before Microsoft did it themselves.
"It's a bit late however, as most of us are happy with are *nix systems, and I don't see Windows ever surpassing these systems in security."
Well I am not sure who most of you are, because Windows Server 2003 is now the dominant server as far as I know.
"The obvious example of this is Windows XP with it's fully functional but irrelevant security model since users are administrators anyway."
Yes that is true. But they are slowly evolving with the market. Security is now a major concern in these kinds of markets and Microsoft are responding. Running non-admin in XP is probably out of the question, but in Vista it will be the default.
"Microsoft is not likely to fork their code either, so their server products will continue to suffer from design decisions influenced by their desktop products."
Mmm.. actually they are thinking about it.
"So to mirror your wonderful troll: If you make decisions based on the millions of people that run a system (such as Windows) and /assume/ its the best for a particular task, then you are going to make a lot of wrong decisions in your life."
I believe the evidence. And in fact you will find most problems experienced by administrators with desktop Windows these days are user problems. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1BobTurbo:
Gotcha on the Microsoft plans to fix their mistake with the kernel/user space thing.
However, the word "fanboys" as used by you to discredit people like me is quite inappropriate. I have first hand experience of both Linux and WIndows systems getting compromised security-wise. With Linux it happened once. A friend of mine had a weak root password and was running SSH. Needless to say a rootkit soon turned up on his computer. We searched througth the logs, identified what happened, and needless to say it's not going to happen again. The attacker never had a chance to do any damage, since we patched it up only about an hour after the rootkit was installed. This compromise was NOT due to any kind of system flaw, but rather by user idiocy (weak password). With Windows it has happened countless times. I recall several times visiting web sites with Internet Explorer (on Windows XP, but pre-SP2 since it wasn't out yet) only to discover later that some new malware processes were running on my computer. This happens all of the time on Windows. Have you ever encountered an AIM virus? In many cases users never have to take any action other than clicking on a link to have their Windows box compromised. Studies done on "number of flaws," "security response time," etc are only mildly helpful because they usually don't acurrately reflect actual experience. This is partly due to Windows security flaws almost always allowing full privileges, while Linux security flaws almost certainly allow only limited computer access. It takes a second privilege escalation flaw for attackers to get full access.
"Fanboys" aren't just mindlessly repeating what they've heard on the Internet. They see things like this every day. Those with first-hand experience with both systems will almost inevitably find Linux to have superior security.
I agree that Windows is certainly getting better over time. It's a bit late however, as most of us are happy with are *nix systems, and I don't see Windows ever surpassing these systems in security. The reason for this is because Microsoft's #1 priority is ease-of-use, and that always has and probably always will cloud their decision-making in the realm of security. The obvious example of this is Windows XP with it's fully functional but irrelevant security model since users are administrators anyway. Microsoft is not likely to fork their code either, so their server products will continue to suffer from design decisions influenced by their desktop products.
So to mirror your wonderful troll: If you make decisions based on the millions of people that run a system (such as Windows) and /assume/ its the best for a particular task, then you are going to make a lot of wrong decisions in your life. Those who have tried the alternatives and evaluated them themselves will be better-equipped in the end. -
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