I started with windows 98se for about 1.5 year the worst i have ever try i have use windowsXP home sp1 for about 2.5 year now with sp2 it is much better when 98 special atfer i added sp2 but not as good as 1 mounth i have with Ubuntu 5.10 i now use Suse 10.0 Eval but i run it with KDE because i like interfase it look very much like
xp home but run much better but i have get get everything to work jet so i stil use Windows XP Home Edition SP2 as my Primary system and Suse 10.0 Eval as my Secondary system.

My opinion is simple: the only people that deserve using Windos are the M$ employees. They get paid for doing so. We don't, and I certainly don't wanna pay for such a baptism of bugs and crashes. Believe me, when I launch Win apps in cedega (The cvs version...) they work... much more stable, sometimes faster.

This discussion sure is getting complicated, and interesting... A little history lesson might be in order.

I don't know how many of you remember back when the PC revolution took place in the early 80's, but M$ became synonymous with that revolution. Gates and Co. were the Linux and IBM were the M$ - the "Evil Empire" to many hackers and PC revolutionaries. (25 years later, M$ is larger than even IBM back in the day would have foreseen for themselves.) PCs by and large were stand-alone machines running MS-DOS or an equivalent and files travelled by sneakernet. Networking was unheard of in most offices. In time, networks started to pup up - I put my first one in in 1985. Desktops were PC-XTs, our server was a 10MHz AT with 4MB RAM and duplexed 40 MB hard drives. Windows was a joke - Windows 286 anyone?

In time, networks became pervasive in business and M$ wasn't about to let that golden goose escape. NT was foisted on us, and we smiled and took it, right between the eyes! Viruses were around, but nowhere near as bad as today, and as a result, we looked more for prophylactic solutions - we piled virus checkers on top. And, as even more versions of malware surfaced, we piled more malware killers on top, until we now have a very precarious misture of OS and guardians that is at least possibly if not probably at much of the root cause of their current malaise. The hazards of leaving all the ports open by default and then scurrying around plugging them after the fact should be pretty obvious by now.

Notwithstanding the comment from our Indian colleague about Windoze's track record on OS security, we pretty much all know that Windows is porous. M$ discarded all the doors and windows and left just the openings when they put their design together. (No pun was intended, by the way.)

What we need is a way to show people in a very specific and visual way why Windoze is so risky and what they can do about it. We are all smart people, but most of us wouldn't know where to start trying to put together such a case, but some of us do. Do we have any takers on trying to do this? It would be an amazing proof of the power of open source if we were to put together a solid case that is easily understood using its principles. This is something all of us, newbies and veterans alike, technically gifted as programmers or otherwise, can participate in. I will certainly help in any way I can.

Any thoughts?

I use Linux and like it a lot. But I think that it is completely immature that some users continue to bash Windows and Microsoft.

First of all, I don't know how you use your system, but Windows is NOT usually prone to errors/bugs. I've been using Windows XP for years and never once have I gotten a single fatal error. It froze perhaps once every so often (for no more then about 15 seconds), sure, but does that mean it is an unstable, horrible OS? No, absolutely not. Is Microsoft Internet Explorer its greatest achievement? No, and the company admits that. But it's not like no mistakes were ever made in Linux, and I'm sure no one likes to use every program that Linux offers. For example, I much prefer Firefox over Konqueror. Just like with Linux, you have a choice of web browsers for Windows. Use the one you like best, and if one gives you problems, use another. But please, do not try to glorify Linux by saying Windows "breaks all the time." Because that is just false, unless you abuse it (in which case, of course it would break, just like any other operating system). Does Linux have advantages over Windows? Sure it does, but emphasize them rather then nonexistant Windows faults.

This isn't directed toward anyone in particular, of course. I'm just venting.

I think you've been extremely lucky with Windows then. I don't use Windows at all anymore, but when I did, I had a problem just about every time I booted it up.

[QUOTE=Maritime]Windows is NOT usually prone to errors/bugs[QUOTE]

"Last Monday, Coverity, in collaboration with Stanford University, announced the results of their analysis of software quality and security of 32 of the most critical and widely used open source projects in the world. The study, which was funded by the Department of Homeland Security, used Coverity's automated defect detection tools to uncover critical software bugs. In general, the analysis showed that open source applications have lower defect rates than proprietary software applications. The average defect rate of the open source applications was 0.434 bugs per 1000 lines of code. This compares with an average defect rate of 20 to 30 bugs per 1000 lines of code for commercial software, according to Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab Sustainable Computing Consortium."
http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2006031800826OSCYDV

Sorry but the facts speak for themselves.

hi guys have alook at why one bloger is in the news claming linux is destroying the world

have alook

http://shelleytherepublican.com/2006...computers.html

and hear

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/03/shelley_linux/

Touche! In those days it was wide open and M$ ran with it. We can't fault them for that. It's the same with the second revolution in the early to mid 90's. Three things came together to put the PC in "every" home. The internet craze, reasonably inexpensive hardware, and....M$ Windows. It's not their fault that the opportunity to make money presented itself and they jumped on it.

I agree wholeheartedly. What OSS needs is a marketing campaign to push further into the desktop, home, business, etc. user market. Backend and power user stuff like servers, databases, compilers, etc. will tend to sell themselves with minimal advertising because the end-user (IT professional) is more discriminating. The key word here is "professional."

I mean, have you ever seen an advertisement for a National Semiconductor LM630 operational amplifier? Probably not, because the engineers looking for a solution requiring an op amp know where to find the information they need. They make a comparison of the LM630 and the uA741 based on technical specifications. If I put that LM630 or uA741 in a cell phone...now I need a marketing campaign because I want to sell it to everyone.

IMHO, Linux is at a point to seriously invade the home market. There's four things that bring me to this conclusion. First, my mother-in-law. She's a first time computer user as of four years ago. She bought an off the shelf box with Windows and I hooked everything up for her. If something stops working or whatever, I gotta go fix it. It wouldn't be any different if she was running Linux and she probably wouldn't know the difference.

Second, I watched my not quite 12-year old son install Debian and the only question he asked was whether the mirror at msu.edu was Michigan State (closest to us). Everything worked for him right away. He doesn't spend a bunch of time fiddling with except to download something with synaptic, try it out, and keep it or uninstall it. Very Windows-like from his viewpoint, except he doesn't have to buy a CD to install the software.

Third, that same son is off the opinion that Linux is more stable than Windows (and GNOME is more stable than K). Point is, the average computer user is able to recognize a performance difference without any knowledge of or concern about the technical underpinnings.

Finally, my niece's Win 2k PC is so infected with viruses, spyware, this-bot, that-bot, whose-bot, etc. that a complete reinstall of the OS is probably the quickest and cleanest solution regardless of whether it's Windows or something else. When I do a needs/use analysis, there's no reason she needs Windows to surf the net, instant message, write a paper for school, and listen to music. Hardware's not that important and her parents can put off a new PC purchase for a few years if I drop Linux on the box.

So, OldSeaDog, I'm not an IT professional and may have nothing to offer, but if you have some thoughts, I'd be willing to help.

[Some of the URL is ommited from the quote because I cannot post them in full yet.]

Statistics may be quite decieving. Nevertheless, you're probably right. Stanford University isn't exactly very disputable. Also note that it says propretary software, not just that from Microsoft, but I'm sure Microsoft makes up a good portion of propretary software anyways.

But I still believe that if you use Windows with intelligence, you will not have very many problems at all. Thirty to fourty errors per every one-thousand lines of code didn't make a difference to me, and I'm sure it would be the same way with every knowledgable person that uses Windows. If you have problems with it, there must be a reason.

When people complain about problems in Linux, many people answer that it is most likely because something isn't configured correctly (which, indeed, is probably very true), thus rationalizing the problem. But when was the last time a Linux user tried to configure Windows in order to get it to work properly?

blah blah. You've painted far too rosey a picture of Windows. If your estimation is that machines running Windows generally go "for years" without crashing then you have overgeneralized from too small a sample.

Nevertheless, the comparison to Linux is irrelevant. Windows is proprietary software written by a company which has conducted itself in, at best, a questionable manner. Whether or not you get a kernel panic in a year while not getting a crash in Internet Explorer is just irrelevant.

Furthermore, your "nonexistant Windows faults" is completely laughable. Go find your self a nice Windows forum and see if your hypothesis that Windows has no problems, or generally goes years without problems, is founded.

Have you ever bothered to look through any of Microsoft's Knowledge Base articles? Many of their supposed solutions require changing magic numbers in the registry, without giving anything in the way of explanation, which may actually educate the user. This just seems quite uninformed.

This is some of the funniest shit I've ever read....

http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/mcse2.htm

And here are a few more from the same guy, just as hilarious...

http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/windows_no.htm
http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/...yshootout.html

You're missing the point. I never said that nothing was ever wrong with Windows. All I said was that it seems that some were just making up problems in Windows to make Linux look better. I think that is very immature and just makes the Linux community look bad.

Whether or not Microsoft has conducted itself with questionable business practices is another issue entirely. In fact, they may have. I don't disagree with you on that subject.

All I want is for Linux users to stop bashing Windows by saying it's "error prone," because it usually simply isn't the case. If you disagree with Microsoft's business practices, then all the more power to you. Just focus on bashing their business practices instead of the software.

That smart guy is confessing how Windows user spend most of their time

Quoted from http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/MacMini2.html

When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time.

Thanks for the links, rofl...

BTW, jlliagre, you appended a colon to the end of the mac link