Linux vs Windows a real life comparison

[piratePenguin]

Have you ever tried to keep Windows XP running for a few weeks? From people I know who tell me they have, it ain't pretty.

Maybe that's a good thing, actually. Because less people will keep their computers on 24/7 and the enviornment will be better off.











Or maybe Microsoft will sell more server editions of Windows.

[toadlife]

I dont see how you can say that with any credibility when you just admitted you had no idea what Microsoft Windows 2003 was, and assumed that it was Microsoft Windows XP.

Yeah, I've seen benchmarks that show the opposite.

[toadlife]

.....and now I've seen benchmarks that show samba 3 to be faster than WIn2k3. So which is it? It's funny how one benchmark with show one thing and another will show something completely the opposite.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Windows crashed on me when I right-Kernel panics on Redhat 9.. Interesting. Any idea what they were about (they have error messages to point in the right direction (and they worked for me))?

It's over a year ago, I'm guessing the motherboard driver. I agree with you about the error messages though - Windows is shit at reporting errors.

I suck at Windows because it crashed when I right-clicked?

Well who ever installed and set up the system lacked experiance, as well as the people using it if they didn'y know what they were doing and used Admin accounts for everything and downloaded and installed shitware from p2p.

I know some other people here have had problems with Windows but there are many people who don't, either this is just luck or it's something that some people are doing right and others are doing wrong.

How would malware be the problem? Maybe explorer.exe or something is infected.

Probably, but yes it is fucking hard to diagnose what's wrong when Windows goes wrong and yes it is a flaw in the operating system but it's something MS don't want to fix.

Know what the best way to check would be (check file sizes/MD5 sums)? It could be something that explorer.exe uses either,

Have you checked them then?

I learned nothing new in that post.

If you've listened to my advice then it's a clean install that's only used to access the Internet from a limited account and there are no shitty 3rd party memory resident security programs running then.

Have you ever tried to keep Windows XP running for a few weeks?

Windows 2000, yes but not XP since I've had not reason to but after a couple of days I haven't notice any significant degredation in performance. I know (if my hardware supports it, I'll find out) I might be able to get it to hibernate instead of closing down.

I'm not trying to say Windows rules or anything (I've already pointed out two of its faults in this post). I'm just saying that (if you know what you're doing) it isn't all that bad, it doesn't BSOD every 6 miniutes or when you right click a folder, it runs well on 256MB of RAM and boots in an acceptable time, all of the aforementioned don't make it a good OS, they're just things you'd expect from a good OS and I've pointed out some of these things that Windows doesn't have that it should.

[piratePenguin]

Well who ever installed and set up the system lacked experiance

He doesn't quite lack experience, just intelligence. We both have about the same experience with computers, but I've always been more curious about how everything worked. Ever since our first computer - running Windows 95.

Ya know, Windows makes it really hard to become intelligent. It treats every user as a fucking retard, even intelligent and curious users, and because it's not so intelligent at setting things up itself (the default settings), it makes it really hard to run it securely.

My two Windows brothers browse the web in an administrator account, because they're not intelligent (their OS/nothing educated them. I tried a small bit, but fuck them if they didn't listen.). Me and my Mac OS X brother browse the web in user accounts. Me because I got A BIG FUCKING WARNING MESSAGE when I first tried to start KDE as root (and also other reasons. Stuff I read, and Mandrake already setup intelligent defaults.), and him because Mac OS X has sane defaults just like Mandrake. It's not because we're more intelligent than the other guys. Back then I knew nothing about GNU/Linux or security or user accounts, yet I refrained from browsing the web as root because I was educated by KDE and some stuff I read, and Mandrake's defaults aren't retarded. The Mac OS X guy and the other two Windows users are probably on about the same level intelligence-wise (Nicholas may find that offensive.). None of them would think of setting up a user account by themselves (they would only have to do this on Windows. And Slackware.) for general computer use.

There's another reason Windows sucks: it doesn't make it easy for it's users to become intelligent, instead it assumes retardism (which is often true). That's alright, as long as it has intelligent defaults, which it doesn't.

So many extra Windows computers are infected by malware because of this, and it's sad. Windows brought this upon itself (note that I didn't say Microsoft did it, because what Microsoft did is develop Windows, which is the software I'm discussing. This is about Windows, not Microsoft.).

Now I'm thinking that I just accidentally found a good reason that if the market was dominated by GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, they'd cope with malware much better. All that typing wasn't quite so useless.

Now I'm thinking: WHERE THE FUCK IS MUZZY!? :p

[MarathoN]

Weird, I don't run any security software and in the 5+ years or so that I have been running Windows 2000 I have never had one problem, neither have I had the problem that you mentioned (then again, that is what happens when you use Windows Explorer for a shell )

At least in Windows 2000 you have Program Manager.

[piratePenguin]

Weird, I don't run any security software and in the 5+ years or so that I have been running Windows 2000 I have never had one problem, neither have I had the problem that you mentioned (then again, that is what happens when you use Windows Explorer for a shell )

At least in Windows 2000 you have Program Manager.

There isn't as much malware floating about for Windows 2000, so you probably don't need much security software.

I wouldn't expect I'd be able to reproduce that crash I got on the right-click. I usually can't reproduce Windows and explorer crashes, kinda wierd. It's almost like they're programmed to crash at random intervals.

Isn't Windows 2000 supposed to be more stable and secure than Windows XP anyhow? I haven't used it much at all.

[piratePenguin]

I know some other people here have had problems with Windows but there are many people who don't, either this is just luck or it's something that some people are doing right and others are doing wrong.

I know that the things you explained in that post aren't what's wrong, because I've done most of them. The Windows XP SP2 setup I had before I installed Mandrake on this system was as good as I could get it and it still often sucked. I can't remember it crashing (that doesn't mean it didn't crash), but I can remember it running slow when you try to do stuff in it like run Flash and Photoshop. I remember thinking it truley sucked at multi-tasking, but I put that right down to my "mingey" 256MB RAM (good news for the RAM manufaturers!). However, before I got down to getting another 512MB RAM I installed Mandriva (bad news for the RAM manufacturers!) and was dual-booting. I must've booted into Windows about two times after that, before removing it.

it's something MS don't want to fix.

Bad news for Windows and Windows users! If it was free, it wouldn't matter much that Microsoft don't want to fix some problem, because the door's always open for someone else to do it (that I couldn't resist).

Have you checked them then?

No, I haven't really used that computer since.

If you've listened to my advice then it's a clean install that's only used to access the Internet from a limited account and there are no shitty 3rd party memory resident security programs running then.

It's not my system to fix, and I will not fix it. The only fix I'd give it is a decent operating system like GNU/Linux, but last I checked it's owner didn't want that. I'll just wait for him/Windows to completely fuck something up, and try again.

Windows 2000, yes but not XP since I've had not reason to but after a couple of days I haven't notice any significant degredation in performance.

Sounds like a great operating system!

EDIT: Oops, I read that wrong. Anyhow, try running it for a few weeks. If your experience is anything like these other guy's, you will notice quite a degration in performance.

I'm just saying that (if you know what you're doing) it isn't all that bad

That depends on what you mean by "all that bad". To a small extent I'd agree.

[it doesn't BSOD] when you right click a folder

Well it/something did crash/fuck up when I right-clicked a folder on my brothers system. Whether that was the fault of a driver (that came with Windows and is very much a part of the operating system), some part of Windows Exploror, something deep inside Windows, or malware, I cannot say. But it happened. And it pissed me off, and brought back memories. And it's something I hadn't seen in yonks.

it runs well on 256MB of RAM

Except it has shit memory management. So 256MB is probably okay so long as you never fill it (good thing the operating system doesn't waste much space (which I've been led to believe is true)), I think.

[Pathos]

My Windows XP is very stable and I've never had virus problems.

Never update (apart from Sp2)...just use ZoneAlarm and AVG...I don't know how people have all these problems.

I've installed hundred of apps, even shit like window blinds and its still solid.

Only problem I've had is my nostromo driver was BSOD on login, I think the loadout manager was being started before the driver was fully initialised. All I did was set in to manual startup and its fine.

Vector Linux SOHO on the other hand is rather broken at the moment ...

...i know, i know ... user error...

[MarathoN]

pP : Yes, Windows 2000 is godly compared to XP in terms of speed, it runs great on 256mb of ram too, even with 128mb it runs fine.

Windows 2000 has always run great on my machine, and my machine isn't very fast at all, 1.5ghz processor and 512mb ram, XP ran horribly slow it didn't really surprise me though, as I expected it

[Aloone_Jonez]

Calm down piratePenguin please just accept that lots of people run XP and have no problems what so ever. I can see your point about Windows dumbing down computer administration - I learned about llimited accounts and security when I discovered Linux too.

[piratePenguin]

Calm down piratePenguin

Eh, WHAT?

please just accept that lots of people run XP and have no problems what so ever.

Sure, except that memory management is plain shit no matter who you are. That's not so bad if you never fill your RAM, but I did and most people do once in a while.

Then there are other problems that everybody has in certain situations. Like that piece of shit excuse of a firewall. They also don't care who you are.

[dmcfarland]

Windows on its own is a piece of shit unless you know how to tweak it. I ran Windows on my current PC, which is a p3-550, 384 MEGS RAM, 64 MB Vid card. It ran fine, but I had to put a good virus program on it, spyware, disable the stupid ass bells and whistles etc. Of course I installed Linux and its work fine without worrying about spyware, virus checkers and resourse leeching bells and whistles.

Most normal users shouldnt be allowed to use windows because they dont what they are doing, but then again they've made it possible for me to make good money for simple stuff. Its kind of sad if you think about it.

[WMD]

I'm in the same dilemma.  Should I support their usage of Windows, to fund me in my tech jobs?  (pays quite well.)  Or should I insist they do otherwise?

I'll probably end up recommending Macs to laypeople, and if they refuse, I'll mutter "sucker" under my breath.

[Pathos]

Windows on its own is a piece of shit unless you know how to tweak it.

You can only say that because you are able to choose the linux distribution that suits you.

What if Linspire was the only linux distribution, you'd probably have the same problems.

I agree with the spyware bit. Microsoft chose compatibility over putting in a proper user privileges system like linux's that would screw existing software.