Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2522 mails)

[jbarnett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jack Barnett)]

> Advocacy. If someone asks "why, specifically, is Linux
> better designed than Windows?" I want the answers to hand.

First, what market are you talking about, the desktop or server market.
They are differant and not one in the same.  It is like "which is better a
tractor or a car".  Well now that depends if you are talking about driving
an hour to work or plowing a field.

> On the desktop, NT is pretty stable. Everyone's got horror
> stories, but for the most part it'll run for days or weeks
> just doing Word, Excel and IE. W2K is supposed to be better,
> and after a few patches - sorry, service packs - it will be.
> So stability is a drum the Linux community will not be able
> to beat much longer.

1) Not everyone has $5000 bucks to shell out for a "desktop" operating
system.  No "normal consumer" is going to pay $2000+ bucks to get NT over
98.  Sure in the server market, maybe.  But not (in your words) "On the
desktop".  Everyday forks (ie. people that don't work in the computer
industry) can't afford to be spending that type of money so they can have a
60 uptime on Word97.  They will either have to go with Windows98 (more then
or likely) or with another OS like Linux or BeOS (less likely).

> Desktop usability is largely subjective and people will
> argue until blue in the face about which is better. Same
> with extend and embrace over openness. Windows is now a
> network enabled OS. The implementation might be a kludge,
> but the GUI hides that to most desktop users. No clear Linux
> advantage here.

"desktop usability" have you checked out KDE, Gnome or Enlightenment
recently?  The Linux "GUI Desktop" can be tweaked out to look just like your
kludge windows GUI, but with cleaner code and more stability.

 > The "it runs on older hardware" is wearing thin too, at
> least on the desktop. Have you tried KDE or GNOME on a 486?

No.  Have your tried building a linux router out of a 386?  Have you tried
building a W2K router out of a 386? Hrm, pay $500 of this cool looking Web
Ramp ISDN router or spend $10 at a flea market and build a just as fast
router from Linux?

> We have the choice, which is a good thing, but in practise
> the low end window managers don't realistically compete with
> Windows.

Have you checked out IceWM lately?  I used it all the time on a 486 and it
was a ton faster then Windows95 and Windows98 won't even install on it.

> But no one can argue that the modularised and network
> transparent design of X is worse than the kernel level
> graphics of Windows and the horrific Terminal Server kludge,
> so that's one thing we can push. The ability to connect and
> disconnect both local and remote disks to your directory
> tree at will is another thing: no doubt that that's better
> than tying devices to C:, D:, etc

I have no idea what you talking about here.  But for the record there is NFS
that can mount remote drives, and oh yea there is a bunch of options you can
tweak out so you don't get really slow access to remote media.

>
> I was pondering the question, and my responses dried up
> there. Hence the question.

I just think you are a troll.  Learn some about CS and operating systems.
Come back in a while when Bill doesn't have you under his voodoo magic.

Jack

> > Where is this question leading ?
> > >
> > > What are the fundamental differences between Linux and
> > > Windows these days? I can think of graphics, which is
> > > totally different, and disks/mount points which are handled
> > > differently. With Windows becoming network-ed (albeit
> > > badly), what genuine differences does that leave for the
> > > Linux community to exploit?


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