[CS-FSLUG] NI: LXer: 10 Days as a Windows XP User: A GNU Perspective on Things

[David Aikema]

Well, it seemed to me that a lot of his problems were due to his
internet service, and in general whining about a lack of broadband. 
That should not be part of an OS review.

He talked of the hassle of configuring Netscape as they used some
proprietary dialup software, and if you established a connection via
the standard mechanisms, then you wouldn't be supplied any DNS
servers.  He noted that this was a temporary setup, and it doesn't
sound like he set this up on his linux box or anything as well. 
Basically, the one of the main problem seemed to be that he chose to
use a terrible ISP (or two) that decided to impose such restrictions -
it doesn't sound like it would even be possible to use either in Linux
to any extent without a whole lot of extra effort.

Guess what - it's possible to write crappy applications for any OS,
and that includes Linux.

He also griped about device drivers - well, I would expect that to be
an even bigger problem in Linux, as a fair number of devices are
unsupported.  And guess what: it takes time to download stuff.

He desperately wanted to adhere to X's copy-and-paste conventions over
those of Windows / Mac OS.  Well, guess what, each style of copy/paste
has its advantages and disadvantages (on a typical day I use at least
two of Linux, Windows, and Mac OS).  I'll admit, though, that X's
different focusing methods offer a little more flexibility, but at the
same time I personally like the standard conventions (click-to-focus -
the default or only focus method in Windows, Mac OS X, and all Linux
distributions that I've used).

He may be write about security problems, but seems a little bizarre
when he talks of firefalls.  Well, you change to a different firewall
in Windows, and it'll behave a little bit differently.  He could, for
example, have configured Zonealarm to behave in a less user-apparent
fashion.  Zonealarm's capabilities do seem a little more flexible in
application-level filtering than I've seen with typical IPtables style
firewalls.

As far as the number of patches required to bring the system up to
date, there tends to also be a fairly high number that come through
most linux distributions' update utilities (admittedly you're covering
more than just the OS there - you're also covering some user
applications).  He mentioned that one had to be installed in Windows
separately from the others, but in the case of update tools for most
linux distributions they sometimes won't even update kernels.  I also
have issues in Linux with some device drivers that aren't included in
the kernel packages, and need to be manually rebuilt for each kernel
release (unless you want to wait half a week for an RPM version to
come along).

I think that the reviewer's familiarity with Linux applications should
count against him for this review - as it seems that he goes quite
quickly over to cygwin rather than looking for more full ports.  This
may suggest that he was happy with the Linux tools he knows, but
doesn't really mean that they'd be "better" to a person familiar only
with Windows applications, or with none at all.  While a large number
of cygwin utils are useful, the attempt to map the windows file and
directory structure onto a unix-style filesysem is a little bit hokey.

It also takes a little time to adjust to new things - be it a new
version of Windows or a new version of Linux.  Was one week enough?

David

On 9/28/05, .mash <re.mash at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am doing a 23:00 - 8:00 shift so didn't read it in much depth due to
> brain drain, but after skimming each section and feeling ill, the
> author summed it up perfectly.
>
> "I do not consider Windows ready for the desktop. I found it difficult
> to use, buggy and lacking in security. I also found technical support
> lacking."
>
> 'Mash
>
>
> On 9/29/05, Fred A. Miller <fmiller at lightlink.com> wrote:
> > http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/44050/index.html