There are obviously a lot of alternatives for MS active directory and exchange though I happen to manage AD as well. But then that works well when the clients are windows only. But LDAP is more mature than AD in sense it can handle windows clients as well as Linux.
But some features that AD gives is quite nice.
I do not know about exchange that well. i have not used it much and I like Qmail for that.

This is what Microsoft says:
Quote:
Even Microsoft admit their product is flawed
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/l.../cc512587.aspx

its simple windows is not linux and linux is not windows
so you cannot compare them they all have there upsides and downsides

For about the last 15 years or so, I been trying to find a "upside" to windoze. I'm not holding my breath either. I quit my computer job when windoze 3.1 came out. I burnt out real fast.

Nope I disagree! One can compare different types of cars, washine machines.
Operating systems are no different. It's not like comparing a texted based os with one that has a gui.
They both do the same function and they run on the same hardware.
Same of the applications look the same e.g firefox, opera, open office. etc

Agreed. You might not be able to say "This operating system is the better choice for all people who try both operating systems in question", but you can report facts about the differences between the two so each individual can make their mind up which OS is right for them.

Also, since many programs run on Linux *and* Windows, you can compare outside of feature sets (i.e. performance).

what ever you choose AVOID PROPRIETARY APPS AT ALL COSTS
on windows and linux i only use free and open source (prefer GPL).

So it's nearly been a week now, and I have to admit that Windows 7 is very, very cool. It is probobly the best desktop system that I have ever used. How can Linux or any FOSS compete with it?

I mean, it is fast, rock-solid, and feature-rich. Ubuntu can't even touch it, and it's straight-up the best that Linux has to offer.

So what's next? Is this the beginning of the end?

For me, it may be . . . I may be retiring my Ubuntu box soon once and for all.

My spidey-sense suggests that this may be a troll post. But heck, what is a forum without some good debate every once in a while...

How can Linux or any FOSS compete with Windows 7, you ask? The same way it always has... open source development. The most important edge Linux will always have over Windows is that Linux is free and open source software.

But to keep the discussion going: care to enumerate for us a few specific, concrete details of why you think Windows 7 is better than Linux? "Fast, rock-solid, and feature rich" could describe my washing machine. Give us a few specific enhancements and so we can either show you that Linux already has them or start working on adding them.

I agree, Coderman...troll post. But...

You say you're going to 'retire' your Ubuntu box. You are aware that there are many more distros, right? Different desktop environments, all with different features? I think it's more likely you loaded Ubuntu, played with it some, decided it was too much effort to learn, and didn't go further. Ubuntu isn't the 'best that Linux has to offer'...it's a good distro, but (like any other distro), could stand improvement.

I've seen Windows 7...there's not a thing I've seen in it, that Linux doesn't do now. If there *IS* something, and it's a decent feature, Linux will have it in six months, tops, and take it much further.

Enjoy your Windows 7...Linux will continue to eat market share, as it's done for years now. People aren't moving TO Windows, but away...the only reason I have a license key, is that it came with my Vaio. Never even booted Vista...formatted the disk when it came out of the box.

He only has 7 posts. Take a look at them and judge for yourself.

Nope win7 won't do any more than any other version of windows. IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu/Canonical, Dell, Lenovo and may other companies are building and selling more linux servers, laptops. desktops, and other devices than ever before. And the numbers just keep going up. Google is working on their own OS that will be based on Debian. Linux and FOSS are the future, windows is the past and the sooner M$ learns that the better off the rest of the world will be.

Yes, Ubuntu can absolutely be the default Windows alternative | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com - http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=26606

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?.../02/05/1919259

Slashdot Linux Story | IBM's Answer To Windows 7 Is Ubuntu Linux http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/1...Linux?from=rss

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/200...he_future.html

Which is really better?
Comparison of Windows and Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...dows_and_Linux for being a wikipedia article, it actually covers a lot of areas.

Thank you... yes, quite an interesting post history. He stated in first post "I am an UBUNTU EXPERT" and then a few posts later is shocked and dismayed to find out that Slackware has a text-mode installer.

Evidently we aren't dealing with a kernel programmer here.

No way, they're making to many mistakes (to put it politely) nowadays. We have had the 9.04 with Intel video driver issues and now we have 9.10 with Huawei modem issues (borking your internet connectivity so you can not even download updates that will fix it).
They don't have the balls (anymore) to delay a release to fix it.

Bug reporting/fixing is a total different can of worms that I rather keep closed.

I have been an Ubuntu user for years, but for me they have lost it.

@smeezekitty, please don't react on this This is not related to Ubuntu's security model

Who put this Win v Lin in the wrong place? Now I have to go and tidy it away

Win 7 is a nice OS, but it may be too little, too late...