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- MasterThief117, on 10/10/2007, -9/+88This is assuming you actually pay for everything.
- Ramble, on 10/10/2007, -24/+61My cost of Windows is what I paid for it. Nothing more and nothing less.
The cost of Linux is my time, wasted (and my hardware not working). - wildfire, on 10/10/2007, -6/+38Consequently, those added "costs" even out with some things, i.e., the available software for Windows. Try installing Linux on your friend's computer to hear them bitch that their Ultimate Poker for Idiots game doesn't install now.
(Although Wine may work, it's not a cure-all, and assuming it will after formatting the computer may lead to nothing but headaches.)
Moral of story: Everyone's needs and experience are different. If your OS does what you want -- great! However if the added cost isn't jusitified, do as the article says and save some money and go with [insert alternative OS here]. - omarciddo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+28I use Linux, and even I have to admit this has been beaten to death. As a Linux user, I herby give all non-Linux users the choice of picking their own OS based on what they need and what they are comfortable with, and to ignore all blatant Linux propaganda.
- xerus, on 10/10/2007, -13/+39I bought Windows XP under a student price 2 or 3 years ago, 80 bucks I think it was.
Thats it. To this day the amount of money I've spent on this copy of windows = 80 dollars. Free antivirus programs are abundant now, free spyware removal programs... I don't see what the big deal is. - BigManOnCampus, on 10/10/2007, -3/+26Corporations do pay for everything.
- djphatjive, on 10/10/2007, -11/+34Stress? How about taking weeks to find the right drivers to get things working in Linux???? And my XP machine has not crashed in almost 2 years.
- somegeologist, on 10/10/2007, -18/+39"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota"
More than the poster can afford, damn cheap linux users can't even afford a decent web host. - rudy23, on 10/10/2007, -8/+29I can justify the cost because Windows actually lets me gets stuff done without wasting time trying to figure out how to make it work. My time is Important for me so Linux is more expensive than windows even though its free.
- DarkDakota, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19News Flash!!
Why it's cheaper to paint with Blue than it is to paint with green!!
Seriously, who cares? just pick an OS and go with it
EVERY os has flaws EVERY SINGLE ONE!
I have to work with Windows, Mac's , AS400's, Linux, Unix. I have yet to see the "All great and beautiful" OS
Just like any other tool, pick the one that will satisfy your needs and move on. the PC is just a tool to solve a problem. It's a means to an end, not an end.
Sheez Louise! - akman360, on 10/10/2007, -10/+28What is the True Cost of Windows?
With the recent upsurge of popularity in Linux based systems, IT admins have been asking the question of the TRUE cost of Linux. What impact does it have on the enterprise in regard to training, support, etc? While some claim that the cost of Linux is fattened by a little extra user training (a claim I happen to disagree with), what about the extra administration and maintenance that has to be done on Windows systems?
The general rule of thumb about computer security is that software is inherently insecure and will require updates. While Windows does keep a good handle on things with Windows Update, a few caveats exist. First off, Microsoft has been notoriously slow at providing security updates to certain critical vulnerabilities over the past few years. Secondly, Windows Update only updates software provided by Microsoft, namely Windows and Office. Third, several very severe security vulnerabilities in the core of Windows operations that have yet to be addressed, such as the “net user” command. On the flipside, most mainstream variants of GNU/Linux feature an advanced package manager that takes care of software updates for every peice of software installed by the package manager in a single process. In my experience, the best package managers that provide the most software belong to Ubuntu and Gentoo. Debian/Ubuntu’s apt may be preferable to more people because of its speed and simplicity but Gentoo’s Portage offers more code and build customizability than any other package manager and features more packages than most package managers. Because of the centralization of application administration, updates to all packages on a system can be easily scheduled and administrative overhead eliminated.
I’ve seen several computer-literate people have the misconception that package management is difficult and they’d rather do it the Windows way and download their software from whatever website they like the best and trust that its valid software and is free of malware. I have experience with this type of program administration and I can faithfully say its flawed. I’ve downloaded software on a Windows machine from so called trusted websites and gotten various forms of adware and spyware and I don’t like the paradigm. Linux package managers on the other hand are closely guarded and administered with verification mechanisms in place to counteract a bad seed administrator. Ubuntu’s apt repositories use message digests to verify that the other repositories are using the correct version/copy of the package. This discourages disgruntled server administrators or malicious hackers from placing a bogus package in the repository that may contain viruses. Package management is truly one of the greatest innovations to ever come to computing.
I go to school at a technology center for IT studies and the class has to take care of the school’s IT maintenance needs. Just today, we did a full cleanup schedule on all the pcs in the school. The process took the entire class (25 people) all day to complete and not all the school’s 250 PCs were completed. It occurred to me that running anti virus/spyware, registry cleaners, disk cleanup utilities, and defrag consume far too much maintenance time. For an IT department to spend this much time completing a task is beyond me. Sure, some of the tasks can be scheduled to complete automatically but they still need to be verified and the task has to be scheduled to begin with. How much time does the average IT department spend taking care of weekly or bi-weekly maintenance on Windows machines? Do IT departments even bother with it? If not, what about the risk of malware infections?
I abhor having to do this maintenance at school, mainly because I NEVER have to perform it at home. At home, I use nothing but Linux based systems. I have been using some form of Linux as my operating system for nearly 10 years now (fully ditched Windows about 5 years back) and I’ve never had a virus. I’ve never had spyware. Linux filesystems don’t get nearly as fragmented as NTFS and I’ve never defragged a Linux box. It seems to me that all this talk about the true cost of Linux is taking the spotlight while no one is really asking about the cost of Windows. Not only are the licenses grossly overpriced but the cost of properly maintaining a working system wastes valuable time for the IT department. While they’re taking care of these annoying little tasks, something more important has to wait in the wings. I’d like to hear some IT managers’ positions on this and see how much time they spend maintaining Windows systems in their enterprise. - PueSi, on 10/10/2007, -8/+26Constant upgrading of what?
If you mean hardware then you're talking nonsense, you'll only have to upgrade if your computer wasn't good enough to begin with. I'm sick of people bashing Vista because of the hardware requirements, if don't want to move on with technology then stick with XP and enjoy living in the past just like the people that still uses Windows 98. - tuzziel, on 10/10/2007, -40/+57I will get dugg down, but we pay for Windows so they keep us updating and supporting, the money is for live support and working stuff out of the box, I don't expect that with Linux. Also I do not understand why are you defending Linux so much, you can't even have a stake in those closed doors companies so why bother? Also what open-source mean for a normal people? Nothing, "source" is something people do not want to mess with. Who wants to run a system that all the damned hackers in the world have a source of ?
- nephilimx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18Sounds like he has a poor IT admin group at his campus, such things can be done with batch files and novell utilities (and other parties). manually doing a virus scan on every computer at a school manually in 2007 is suprising
- eatmorgnome, on 10/10/2007, -2/+16Huh? Sounds more like user error.
- thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -3/+16"Everyone's needs and experience are different."
There speaks the voice of reason. I'm so tired of people saying "DO THIS BECAUSE I LIKE IT.". No. I don't need a damn iPhone. I don't need Ubuntu. Leave me the ***** alone. My needs are different to yours. My life is fine and I run Windows XP and I don't own an iPhone, and a big merry "***** off" to all you tiring Mac/Linux fanboys. - wazzledoozle2, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16So you're saying that you dont have to upgrade to run high-end software on linux?
Let me know if you still believe that when Quake Wars comes out. - bieber, on 10/10/2007, -16/+28Okay, Digg for some reason won't let me reply to specific comments, but why in the hell are people getting Dugg up for repeating well-known falsehoods about Windows? For instance, "we pay for Windows so they keep us updating and supporting, the money is for live support and working stuff out of the box, I don't expect that with Linux." Apparently someone has never heard of Canonical, Redhat, or Novell. Or "Who wants to run a system that all the damned hackers in the world have a source of ?" Because it's totally been proven over and over again that hiding your application's source (AKA security by obscurity) is an excellent possibility. And then there's the classic "Windows allows you to do pretty much everything. Linux is incredibly limited." Because we all know that free communities of programmers are out to limit their users, while massive corporations actually tend to let them do "pretty much everything," rather than trying to restrict them to boost profits.
For the love of Christ people, do some research before you click that thumbs-up button. - Septimus, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13What a bunch of BS. We have multiple nix, osx and windows systems. They are all centrally managed. His IT dept sucks utter ass.
Thanks for saving me click the link. - kikibun, on 10/10/2007, -6/+16There is no evidence suggesting that open source operating systems are more likely to be hacked.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11Maybe you should stay away from high-tech things like computers. Or at least learn what you are doing.
Maybe you should hire the geek squad. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+16HUH??? Its BECAUSE its visible to anyone that wants to look that it is supposed to be moderately secure as not only do black hatters look, but whit hatters as well..
However, you may want to check out the number of vulnerabilities and security holes found in vista's 1st 6 months of life compared to that of OSX and linux. Believe it or not its actually lower!!
http://blogs.csoonline.com/windows_vista_6_month_vulnerability_report - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -5/+142 words, "wifi adaptors"
Call me when linux supports them properly. - chazuk, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11No.
Just say, stop worrying about what OS, car, console, phone, and anything else others use and let people make their own decisions! - chazuk, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12Yeah.
I suppose Windows is way un-user friendly than linux....... - puma, on 10/10/2007, -19/+28WHO CARES!!! another one of these articles!! soon as linux has a larger market share not to mention corporate footprint then you will need anti-virus and all that crap just the same and it will be the target.
Man what would all you linux, apple fan boys be doing there wasn't a microsoft?? you would have nothing to do. - dsterry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9The problem with this article is that it has nothing to with the headline. Nowhere does he talk about actual monetary or quantifiable cost.
That just leaves us with something of an opinion piece. Now I use GNU/Linux primarily for my desktop in the form of Ubuntu but at times I need to run Windows or OS X to support my clients. There's a huge time investment in learning to use a computer and unfortunately that initial investment is generally done in one OS(Windows). A more rounded techy(as many digg users would claim to be)should try to give the major players equal time to learn what's best about each OS. So that's why I recommend if you are light in experience on one OS or another, spend a little time with it and draw your own conclusions. See you in #ubuntu. - grumpyrain, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Please name (and info link) just one vulnerability discovered in Win 3.1 that remains unpatched in XP, 2003 or Vista.
I tried for 15 minutes on secunia and google and still can not locate this unpatched net user vulnerability referenced by the article, so a link to that would also be appreciated. - dsterry, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Unfortunately this guy doesnt' really talk about the cost of anything. It's really just griping.
I use GNU/Linux and the main reason is I see it as the future. It's not that people are cheap or that they hate MS. It's that they want freedom to do what they want. Linux doesn't restrict you. Plus, I grew up in a Windows world and find it fascinating that all the technologies I learned about in Windows can be viewed from a totally different(and sometimes superior) perspective. If you've spend your who life in Windows or Mac, give Linux a try. You won't forget all the wonderful things you learned about Windows. You'll just come to appreciate an enhanced understanding of the technologies you'll be living with for a long time to come. - snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8I served as a Helpdesk Manager for a while at a prominent UK Construction Firm as well as a 2nd/3rd line IT support tech which gave me a few insights...
Costs in terms of time and money are very hard to pin down. Not just direct costs but the balance between indirect costs and direct or indirect benefits. Both costs and benefits must be covered under a CBA. One indirect *benefit* which is not entered into the accounting equation is the value in terms of IT expertise the average employee brings in to a company Free of Charge. Most office positions now assume a level of IT competency yet the companies themselves are increasingly reluctant to provide training and expect employees to somehow "muddle through". Short-sighted probably, bad for overall employee efficiency definitely. This "muddling through" by leaning on the employee's home experience with Windows is a hidden financial benefit to companies.
One has to put a value in the "free" training which employees bring from their home environment. Employees under say 25 years old can be assumed to be very likely to have Windows experience but few can be assumed to have an equivalent level of Linux competence. Certainly not enough to be able to deal with minor panics such as printer configuration/troubleshooting or file-sharing issues.
Where an office moves entirely or primarily to Linux then the equation changes significantly. Competent IT support which was previously expendable by cheapskate companies and departments now becomes an essential item since issues which could be muddled through before will now halt business. User training which could be ignored by middle-managers as a means of reigning in budgetary expenditure and covering up personal "screwups" now becomes an essential item. It is hard under-exaggerate the problems which a group of reluctant employees can cause within an office environment if they dig their heels in. Just switching from Win9x to Win2k where everything pretty well looks and works the same and the apps are identical can trigger possible walk-outs so those who suggest that Linux can be dumped on an employee's desk without some degree of pain are either 12 years old, not experienced in business or just whistling in the dark.
It has been my own experience that Windows maintenance has been very sadly lacking. I have seen no company which has had *serious* policies on virus signature upgrading let alone regular scanning. (This includes a major UK energy company with around 15,000 users). So far Ive encountered no company which takes the threat of non-viral malware seriously. Backups are still the cinderella of company IT and other than centralised server backup local employee file backup is still pretty well nil. Defragmentation is something usually performed if a conscientious IT technician services a PC and the same goes for clearing out TEMP files. Hence some companies are better than others due to the calibre of the staff employed.
Given the situation out there in the real world it is a genuine testimony to the robustness of Windows that more problems are not encountered. I don't say that as an MS "fanboy" - I genuinely disapprove of the MS monopoly and wish there was a real and practical alternative however so few of those advocates for alternatives have any practical experience in real-world end-user support other than perhaps in a money-no-object "blue chip" environment.
Yes, MS licenses are grossly overpriced but unfortunately the Western corporate business structure and things like "Preferred Supplier Agreements" (Closed shop purchasing/back-scratching arrangments) don't help and are an open invitation to corruption. Modern corporate structuring guarantees that all that has to happen is that a free holiday or other perk has to find it's way to the right Director for certain "software products" to continue to be adopted. Few at directorship level understand software to the level where they can debate a decision on what or what not to adopt. Sad, difficult to believe but I've watched it happen and for example, Lotus Smartsuite dumped in favour of MS office with mind-boggling cost implications both at the time and for the future - thanks to the decision of one person at board level who was a genuine MS "fanboy".
Another point worth adding is that specialist companies apart, few use features of MS office over and above those which could be provided by Wordpad. Plain text documents perhaps with the odd table or illustration and page numbering (if you are lucky) are pretty well the norm. Why in the name of God companies spend millions of pounds/dollars on MS Office to produce plain text documents still remains a mystery to me. - heavyd14, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10That may be the case in some schools, but I know for a fact anything I get through my school's agreement I keep.
- AstralSin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9i personally havent had hardware incompatability issues in about 5 years (if not longer). i think you're just spreading the fud
- DaleksUnited, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9We have nearer to 400 PCs at my school - and there is 1 person in charge of maintaining them [now two]. The only virus that ever infected the system was the Blaster virus after someone installed it intentionally. None of the other stuff happens. Why not? The software is updated so often it doesn't have to. 1 image is made for all the computers bought in the year x and then that's deployed across the network to them. IF something goes wrong on a PC - redeploy. The process takes 30 minutes at peak network time and is input free.
- bhattsan, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10No, just use an OS that you find most comfortable. No use for blatant idiotic fanboyism.There is no clear cut choice,you know.
- Septimus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Neither OS is limiting.
- snoolyagain, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6i choose hardware to wrk with linux. laptop works best. IBM Thinkpad yay
- chazuk, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Fishin for digg's i see.....
- troyallen069, on 10/10/2007, -7/+13I build my own PCs. Window's cost no more than any other OS. It's cheaper than a MacPro and servicing is non-existent. If you are a gamer, it only cost keeping up the video cards and the games itself.
- mrmacky, on 10/10/2007, -4/+101.) You spelled *adapters* wrong
2.) My wireless card works absolutely fine... I put in my WINDOWS driver CD, copied the .SYS off like I read on the 300 message board posts... did ONE console command to get the NDIS GUI, and in a matter of minutes I had full wifi capabilities... on my laptop the process was actually automatic.
3.) It's not the linux developer's job to implement drivers, it's the wireless card vendor's job to GIVE linux drivers in the first place... it's not Microsoft that releases drivers... it shouldn't be Ubuntu releasing drivers - victorc26, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8No, no it's not.
If you get properly written drivers for your hardware, and don't do amazingly stupid things with the OS install, XP and Vista is rock solid. Just like OSX, and Linux are.
Too many people want to evangelize their platform of choice, on all three/four(UNIX) OS camps. - grumpyrain, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Or if you would prefer, bury my post because you are unable to backup your claims with facts.
- AstralSin, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9installing linux is easier than installing windows. give ubuntu a try. if you can't install ubuntu, you cant install windows, either
- Phocion55, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7...............if you don't know how to use Linux.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -7/+12What can Linux do that Windows can't? I'm not really sure what you mean by "the amount of control that we have over our environment".
If you have time to sit around confiiguring things then fair play, some us like stuff that just works - Tanath, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Which can be remedied.
People on Digg don't seem to get it. It takes time to learn a new system, but once the initial investment of time is made, it pays off in the long run. - bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5because it isn't necessarily bs. yet you parrot that it is without, seemingly, putting any thought into it.
- ffleming, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6By that logic, a Windows machine can run OSX apps.
- bonesaw, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9@roberto_deneero FYI, Mac is basically Unix with a proprietary windowing system. @ttucp...It seems silly that you wouldn't know that both Evolution and Thunderbird are great alternatives to Outlook. I've got both of those to sync to exchange and imap. Also, as far as your synching is concerned...what kind of PDA that is worth anything doesn't directly sync over it's web connection?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8Yes, linux will save stress in my pockets but it'll cause a lot of stress with hardware & software compatibility. I rather pay for windows.... unless I'm a starving student.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8I'm sorry, but if you say "I truly love to use it" when talking about an OS you ARE a kool-aid drinking fanboy in EVERY sense of the word!
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