I'm doing a research paper for my class, and I want to find a table that I can cite (I have a num_of_cites requirement that I can't fill with things I made myself) that compares Linux to Windows in terms of features.


Linux is

OS
Supports basically everything that a computer could ever support
stable
cool filesystem hierarchy that is both intuitive and simple
runs on my 2500$ PC as well as it does on a 20 year old laptop I found in the attic. (well, not quite as a fast you know, but it worked!)
X windows details, etc
window managers


Windows is
expensive
stable
a "Give all of your kids their own room to destroy, and permit them to destroy parts of the rest of the house, too. In most situations, they should stay out of the parents bedroom." filesystem

runs on things that can handle it, would NEVER run on the 20 year old laptop.

lacks 99.9% of the awesomeness of the desktop managers for linux.


and that sort of thing. It can be a table, or any other graphic, but it needs to fit on one page. Anyone know where I could find something like that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...dows_and_Linux

It is odd that.. if I go to google.com and search for "comparison of linux and windows".. that's the 1st link from the result list.

Sorry, I should have included some more details. I can't use ANYTHING from wikipedia. Also, those tables don't fit on one page =(

Dogs WTF!
Wikipedia FTW!

By the time you finish your table, I hope that some of the entries are a bit more objective.

If I saw things like this on a school paper, there'd be red pencil** all over the place:

**Teachers can't afford pens...

Yeah I know. I didn't want to write a REAL table for an example because it would only tempt me more to just BS that requirement to not cite my own work. I've found some good ones, but I really want one that is simple and not wordy.

just two colums, Linux and windows, and rows with the name of a program that counts as a feature, such as apache, firefox,KDE, etc. and under windows would be their product name, like IIS and whatnot.

My research paper is under the assumption that Windows and Linux are equally capable operating systems, only one is more secure, better organized, and free. I'm not trying to explain how things work, just that whoever still uses MS is wasting their time and their money, and earning the same bad reputation that microsoft has.

On a serious note, have you captured the fact that Linux (inherited from Unix) is a true multi-user OS?

Is it still true that--in Windows--user1 must log out before user2 can log in? (I've never used anything past XP)

another (major) difference: In Linux, the "stack" is totally modular:
Basic system (CLI only)
---kernel
---utilities
GUI
---X-windows
---Window manager
---Desktop Environment

"mix and match" at every level

XP and later have Switch User - provided you're not in an Active Directory domain. Ironically, large establishments with Active Directory are where you would MORE want to switch user. A classic problem at my university was when people would lock their computer and leave it for some hours, preventing another user from logging on unless they reboot destroying what the first person was doing.

Why can you not use Wikipedia? You should ask for a good reason for this. Claiming it's unreliable is false, as is claiming it's not properly sourced. (A valid reason might be that it's a 'tertiary source', but in that case all encyclopedias should be considered invalid).
If you can change your topic, and have some guts, write a paper defending the citation of Wikipedia in papers, that itself cites Wikipedia (but not too much - you can't use a source to defend its own validity!)

And a number of citations requirement is retarded. It artificially encourages the use of multiple sources each of which may have a very small focus and be of poor quality, and penalises the use of fewer, more comprehensive, higher quality sources. Number of citations has nothing to do with the quality of your work.

You can still use the Wikipedia article of course. It's heavily cited, so check the original sources and cite them. Don't make it too obvious you've copycatted Wikipedia. (It's an interesting question whether in such a case you SHOULD cite Wikipedia. You wouldn't cite Google or a librarian. Would you cite a literature review if you used it in a similar way, as a pointer to original sources rather than a source itself?)

Hi,

Or by logging in as an administrator and thus killing the user's session without need for a reboot. The destruction of the user's open files is the same but you'll save the time you need to reboot

Kind regards,

Eric

Yeah...but us students obviously didn't have the Administrator password.

I have a small amount of respect for my technical writing professor. He's an honest dude, and perhaps the first one I've come across, at my particular college, that has any standards what so ever. That is it, though.

Nevertheless, I debated with him briefly about why I can't use wikipedia as a source of information and his argument was that things are better when they're peer reviewed, not from the internet, blah blah, case in point --- If it says wikipedia, it gets a red x, because he is the professor.

I fear the only way to really fix anything in that realm is to replace the administration, faculty, and students with more sensible individuals. Anyone care to donate a few hundred million dollars to me so I can do that? (If you make it 100 billion, I'll do it for the whole country!)



@pixelanny -- I'm fudging some details in my multi-user argument.
I've not been able to actually pull this off, but I have xorg.conf setup with 2 layouts for 2 monitors and 2 outputs on the video card, so that I can

startx -- -layout 1 and have monitor 1 come on but not monitor 2

I can't start the next one yet, but that is the issue I'm working on.

However, if I kill the previous X session, and

startx -- -layout 2

then the second monitor will come on, and not the first.

So, I have 2 independent configurations that need to be launched in some way I don't yet understand. If I can have 2, I can have 20.

I imagine it is a matter of determining how to start n different login prompts on n different monitors, and replacing that with an x prompt that will launch X with layout n

Since a USB port can handle a lot of connections, I think it would be just fine to have something like this USB graphics card handle the task of multiple outputs.

How is that accessed?

User1 remains logged in and their windows open when switching to user2?

Start > Log Off > Switch User. Or Windows Key + L. Then you'll be at the Windows Welcome Screen if you have it, and can log in as another user. The previous user's programs will remain running and be exactly as you left them when you switch back.

I believe the feature can be enabled/disabled somewhere in the Control Panel.

I trust Wikipedia for technical info.

But I understand why it could be unreliable for things like celebrities, etc.

And don't forget the fact that Linux is FOSS!

What is the real purpose of that feature? It doesn't make sense to me to let someone else borrow my computer for a bit, but not disturb any of my running programs.. Why not just use the current user's config?

In the case of "Family Computers", well.. whatever..