Hi all,

see this:-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLT8IU7TXX8

Sorry, but that is a terrible video. I watched for maybe a minute and could not discern what the point was.

Perhaps if you told us what we are supposed to be looking for......

he was just comparing linux and windows.

i didn't see the full video

some of the points he mentioned about windows are as follows

1) in windows no sharing of libraries , multiple packages may have the same library, which leads to library redundancy


2) in windows anti virus cant tell if firmware is patched or not

3)there is no package manager in windows and every package that you install in windows has got its own updater

3)proprietary source code and proprietary h/w drivers

4) no office suite, image program by default

5) microsoft is moving is moving in the direction of making OS for their own closed architecture

6) no free O.S updating

7) no free utility s/w for CD- writing,screencast etc , by default

I'm glad you had the patience to get all that out of the video----did you learn anything new?

An hour and 55 minutes of that???

I lasted about 30 seconds. Guy sounds like a stoner.

Not to defend windows or anything but his points are really kind of pointless.

1) in windows no sharing of libraries , multiple packages may have the same library, which leads to library redundancy

He gets half credit. All the core functionality is in shared libraries called .Net, Direct X, and standard C. The extra stuff may or may not be important.... Yes binaries may be bloated in some cases but I also install a lot of programs on my system that require a dependency that NO other packages use. In this effect, nothing is being shared at all... just a potential to share. This is just as pointless.


2) in windows anti virus cant tell if firmware is patched or not

I don't know enough about it to concern my self with anti virus other than it's not a huge deal on linux even though one could still be concerned about it. Either way, I would guess that antivirus on linux wouldn't be able to tell either without keeping hashsums of said firmware or communicated with several different package managers.

3)there is no package manager in windows and every package that you install in windows has got its own updater.

This is in it self a package management system. Granted it could be better. But even on linux, the package maintainer for that OS has to provide some sort of management of their own. As far as 'updaters' go, some programs on linux are capable of doing this. Openoffice, Eclipse, and Firefox. The reason they all got their own updaters in windows is because Windows can not be held responsible for third party software that YOU installed afterwards. The same is true of linux OSes. Your distribution isn't going to update packages that they don't support.


3)proprietary source code and proprietary h/w drivers

I don't know about you, but my USB midi keyboard, printer, and video card don't work properly without proprietary drivers that are closed source. Also, I've installed Unreal Tournament 2004. That is definitely Closed Source. OK OK the main os is opensource but still...


4) no office suite, image program by default
OK he's got half of that one... Word Pad and Paint can hardly count. HOWEVER, Word Pad does support office documents (7 supports openoffice) and Paint in XP and above can actually save to formats other than bmp.


5) microsoft is moving is moving in the direction of making OS for their own closed architecture.

There is no denying this point. They are also moving towards software subscriptions. It is indeed a sad day for computing. Hopefully their closed architecture stays with their xbox.

6) no free O.S updating

What do you call service packs?! If I were to buy every version of slackware I use, I would have to buy it every time they change the version number too. Other than that, I get security updates just like Windows XP. This point is completely pointless. If you are already downloading linux for free you can't even make this point. You have to say "My OS is free" and just stop there.


7) no free utility s/w for CD- writing,screencast etc , by default

Have you seen XP? you actually can write basic CDs at least with one of the service packs. It's not fancy but you can write data CDs with data that is all on your hardrive. And why does the average user need to screencast? I don't even have that installed on my computer.



There are plenty of things to complain about and I'm sure he went into detail on these topics. However, with the main topics listed, windows and linux really do offer a comparable set of the same features. I just like that linux is largely Open Source and Donation Based (It's not free, lots of people put a lot of work into it everyday.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this dependant on your distro?

I mean, a lot of distros come with s/w (eg. Open Office and Gimp) but they are separate applications, not part of the operating system (be it kernal or window manager). Do any distros ship w/o an office suite or image program?

Didn'T MS get fined millions of euros for supplying a free (as in beer) media player and browser with their OS? Wouldn't they risk a repeat of this penalty if they included an office suite?

So, even if this would score a "point" for linux, MS is not allowed, by law, to do the same.

Just as a matter of interest, I wonder how people would react if MS included a "download and install Gimp and OO from our repository" button in windows7. Anyone?



Dutch

wasn't the issue with MS including unfair advantages over the fact that they don't give you proper ways to completely uninstall said applications? not to mention earlier versions of Internet Exploder didn't let you download applications that were over a certain size which netscape at the time just happened to be right out side of the range.

True for IE at one point, not sure about Media Player.

I'm don't recall all ther details, but the basic premise was MS using their (almost) monopoly on OS to gain dominance in non-monopolized markets.

Even if you could uninstall, many people would not out of laziness, ingorance or "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I'm still hoping one day Linux, Open office and Gimp will become as mainstream as Firefox, so I can finally get my *#$x# printer to work.

Dutch