Microsoft miseducates Best Buy on Linux
Just when it seemed like Microsoft was content to bag on Google and Apple, screenshots of anti-Linux training materials hit the Internet a few days ago. If these are fakes, someone certainly spent a lot of time making them look and sound a lot like previous Microsoft training materials.
According to the anonymous source, Microsoft has been sending Best Buy retail staff training material that deliberately attacks and distorts Linux. And from the screenshots below (originally posted on Overclock.net forum) it's clear Microsoft is threatened by Linux--if for the wrong reasons.
Presumably this campaign is related to Netbooks and laptops, a space in which Linux has feature parity, if a lack of interest from consumers. It would be interesting to see how Microsoft will evolve its anti-Apple message. The laptop hunters ad series focused on the expense of Apple products, but it certainly can't beat iTunes and other Apple software for compatibility and ease of use.
Microsoft didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the screenshots. Similarly, Electronista wrote that Microsoft has neither confirmed or denied the legitimacy of the materials.
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/09/08/microsoft-unleashes-retail-talking-points-attacking-linux-macs/#more-3771
Funny thing is, they turned out to seriously mislead and in some cases outright lie in both of them...
(You know? It's times like this I wish we had an equivalent of the UK advertising standards board...)
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/08/microsoft_unleashes_retail_talking_points_attacking_linux_macs.html
Hmm. Looks like grass, smells like plastic.
Must be astroturf...
Wow! What can anybody say against such an overwhelming argument, based on cientifically proven facts...
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/08/microsoft_unleashes_retail_talking_points_attacking_linux_macs.html
Really?
World of Warcraft runs flawlessly in Linux and get better latency.
Linux has considerably more hardware support out of the box.
Linux runs at least as much software as Windows.
Linux has way better printer support.
So much for absolutely correct.
As for Microsoft 'fighting back', did someone just come out of hypersleep or something? Did someonbody miss the '90s?
Please ... Why would you want to look so ignorant in from of so many people?
99% of all public websites, very likely including CNET.com, RUN ON some flavor of UNIX, mostly LINUX. EVER WONDER WHY??
Windows 7 is NOT only BETA and not out yet, it is the attept to FIX broken Vista. 99% of Windows user that moves to Mac OS X never come back to Windows. EVER WONDER WHY???
Now, if you think Linux can't use a printer or a scanner you're just dense. Obviously which printers, scanners, or all in one devices that will work correctly with it are fewer than in Windows. However, Linux does print and scan just fine.
Software compatibility? Most open source developers typically write their software in such a way that it can easily run on both Windows and Linux/BSD too. So it's unfair to make the claim that Linux sucks because open source developers actually make the extra effort so their software will work on Windows too. Now that does mean that Windows runs more software, but that's a little unfair. Linux has everything you need to get your work done. A better questions is what work can't you get done using Linux? The software program may have a different name on Linux, but it does the exact same work.
Also, more importantly, the myths of all the "Windows" software that won't work on Linux is usually just that, a myth. Software like Office, Photoshop, and even WoW actually do run on Linux. Who knew? Well Microsoft did, but they aren't going to tell you that.
Gaming? Again a quasi myth. Some games are Windows only. Some open source games are Linux only. Some like WoW run on both. Some games have even been known to get frame rates on Linux than in Windows. Really it's simpler to ask yourself this question. Do you really think Linux users never play games? Again we see how absurd the claim is. It is true that Windows is the "better" gaming system, but it doesn't mean Linux is a barren wasteland of games.
Authorized support? That's a little misleading. Microsoft owns Windows. They're the only ones that can "authorize" support. Linux doesn't work like that. You don't have to have your support "authorized" by Mommy first. You're free to buy support plans from whomever you would like. Linux is open source too. You may be able to hire on a programmer to fix an issue that only affects you. If you need to fix Windows and Microsoft doesn't feel like making a personal fix just for you, that's just too bad. You're stuck.
Again, simply ask yourself this question. Do you think companies that do run Linux have absolutely no paid support? Obviously no company runs anything without support to back it up. Once the question is phrased correctly we realize how absurd that claim from Microsoft is.
Windows Live Essentials is again software that is owned and created by Microsoft. They're free to port it over to Linux any time they wish. If they don't however, Linux has plenty of it's own software that accomplishes all the same tasks. However, let me ask it another way. If I write a program for Linux such that it only runs on Linux does that mean Windows sucks? Obviously not. Again, when we ask the question properly we see how absurd the claim is. Linux has plenty of its own productivity software. Also, the Live programs most people don't even like. Even most Windows users don't even use those.
Now for video chat on major IM networks. Again, we'll ask the question this way. Do you really think Linux users don't have web cams and headsets and never do voice and video chat? Obviously again when asked correctly we see how absurd the claim is.
Now in the interest of getting the truth, video and voice on Linux sucks so hard it's unreal and needs major improvement yesterday. However, Microsoft is just crossing it out here like it's not possible at all when it is.
It's upsetting because there's no reason for Microsoft to lie here. They could honestly point out Linux's problems and have an honest debate. But they choose not to do that because they want to make Linux seem worse than it is when the real truth is that both are awesome at certain things and suck hard at others. And also, this is software we're talking about which can be changed. All this could be different tomorrow. Who knows what some developer will release.
take a distro with -- installed - that is like drivers no? or is it just automagic?
printers that work are fewer - phew -almost thought you had a real point
software compatibility? try running Photoshop, or word, or insert name of something actually used by real people in the real world here. And GIMP aint no Photoshop by any stretch.
Windos program run on Linux? you mean with an emulator? you call that running?
quasi myth? is that like half arsed ?
paid support? on Windows? why? It just works.Of course there are people with more money than brains well like those that buy extended warrantees on stuff.
Authorized is authorized. Hard to argue, although you are trying hard.
seems that you ARE saying Linux sucks. Right there in paragraph 10
You lose.
Nice troll, but Linux isn't made by Microsoft moron. Why would you need Microsoft's permission to get support for Linux? Your lawn mower doesn't have authorized support from Microsoft either. Does that mean your lawn mower sucks?
emulator? Obviously you have no clue what you're talking about. All you can do is troll and trash something. I was trying to point out the good and bad in both because I love and use both.
The only thing that's 100 percent bad here is your frontal lobe.
I'm pretty sure he meant drivers exist, but like how in Ubuntu all the software include is only free software, proprietary drivers aren't going to be installed. You'll need a less-holy distribution that has no moral problems with enabling DVD playback by default. ;P Like Mint. Either way you can install drivers yourself, I suppose. That's how Windows did it with my HP laptop... had to find them, download them, and install them myself for the first year I owned it. :/
"Windos program run on Linux? you mean with an emulator?"
Since the above commenter, ggg sss, doesn't know how to run Windows applications on Linux at all, I don't know how he can make any sort of debate. :/
Wine is enabled in Mint by default, and contrary to uninformed belief, it actually does work for a crapload of stuff.
"paid support? on Windows? why? It just works."
This can be read as "Microsoft has never received a support call and does not maintain a support website, because they don't have to DERP DERP DERP"
Right?
"Authorized is authorized."
Define: Authorize - "Authorization is the function of specifying access rights to resources"
If it's not authorized ("unauthorized support") it has some kind of dirty connotation with it... You have only ever asked Microsoft for help? You have never googled a problem, checked a windows-related forum, taken your PC in to a local tech store, or asked a family member? Those are not authorized by Microsoft.
Linux doesn't need to authorize support. It's open.
"seems that you ARE saying Linux sucks."
he said "video and voice on Linux sucks so hard " ... "video and voice... sucks so hard "
That's "paragraph 10." I've actually cranked out 1080p video smoothly with SMPlayer for linux on an old XP-designed machine when all versions of Windows chugged on 720p video (with any media player).
Video in some cases runs slower, but runs fine on modern PCs, and I have never had to seek video drivers (as opposed to Windows).
I have no experience with voice, so I can't express an informed opinion.
Android and WebOS are a good linuces for handhelds. Mint is a good linux for getting some work done without having to worry about setting up your OS, and does plenty of work easier and faster than Windows. Many flavors of linux are powerful development tools, powerful server tools, provide beautiful eye candy, are fun to use, or provide better performance where people need it.
Different forms have different benefits. Linux might suck for some things. Windows most definitely sucks for some things. Everything sucks for plenty of things.
He was saying there are benefits to both platforms, but WHAT MICROSOFT HAS PRESENTED HERE IN THESE BEST BUY SLIDES ARE SIMPLY FABRICATION.
"You Lose."
-is generally something I read on half-assed uninformed comments.
I didn't mean video in general sucks. I was just saying "video chat" specifically. Just video in itself is fine in Linux. Video and voice chat however may require you to use some other oddball off the wall program in Linux depending on the network you want to chat over. It still works though which Microsoft would have you believe it doesn't.
What I was saying is a plugin is different than a driver. A plugin you only install once and with Mint, like I've been using lately, it's probably already installed at setup.
A driver you have to install a different one for every single hardware device you own. What I was saying is those stupid Windows install disks that come with every piece of hardware you buy you can just trash with Linux and just use your regular old file manager to get pics off your camera or move mp3s to and from your mp3 player.
Now, Windows is getting better at this, but what I was saying is that in some ways it's Windows actually doing the catching up here.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/09/08/microsoft-unleashes-retail-talking-points-attacking-linux-macs/#more-3771
But when many of the utilities you need to maintain a Linux install are built in why would you even want to spend money for them. Or for that matter a lot of the Windows utilities you need to keep the OS running aren't even needed in Linux. I think MS is beginning to see the handwriting on the wall.
The experienced user can argue that they *can* make most of this stuff work, sort of, on Linux but the majority of the consumers that Best Buy are selling to? Not quite there yet.
Plenty of software works on Linux, and there are tons of alternatives to a lot of software that works just as well, but think a little bit.
Big corporations are still going to build software for Windows first and often exclusively.
That doesn't mean Linux is useless, or even bad. It just means you have fewer of some large proprietary applications.
This would be a legitimate reason one would choose Windows over Linux. Even if I use Linux exclusively for 6 months and want my friends to switch, I'm not going to tell my gamer friend who plays Fallout 3, etc., to switch to Linux. However, my Aunt uses only a browser, my sister a music player, browser, email client, and IM client, my brother has a netbook, and doesn't own an iPod... he's not going to be running games or Photoshop, and certainly not iTunes. I suggest it to them. I'd say a large percentage of users might actually be fine running Linux. And it will eventually hit a certain marketshare (it's not going anywhere any time soon, so I can only see it getting more popular, especially as it develops more) where it will be profitable to make more games and applications for it. Web apps that work on Windows work on Linux, Adobe Flash and Air apps work on Linux, etc. To an extent we're even moving away from platform-specific software.
Linux has its strengths and weaknesses. However, even though Microsoft has a few legitimate points they could push against Linux, instead they push absurdities... Why? Do they see Linux as a major threat?
Nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with the poor choice of locking themselves into MS deathtraps.
For the record, that appliance you can buy to watch streaming netflix movies on your TV is run by Linux! So it is more than possible.
Better security
Much more stable and efficient
Thousands of free high quality software
Far more hardware support than Windows
Want me to go on, or are you just trolling like usual?
Infinite configuration possibilities- Yes
Better security- True
Much more stable and efficient- debatable, I've never had Vista 64 crash on me but ubuntu 9.04 crashes the entire desktop as much as a sneeze. More Efficient? How?
Thousands of free high quality software- The term "High Quality" is debatable, a lot of that software is also available in windows... even more so. On top of that Windows also has thousands of high quality commercial software that is made to do the job, not impress the author's techie mates.
Far more hardware support than Windows- Also debatable, Linux may be able to run in exotic processors but my wireless card, sound card, video card, PDA and Wacom tablet has issues. Windows you can easily grab drivers. In Linux you have to wait till someone does a half assed hack job to bring basic functionality.
Want me to go on, or are you just trolling like usual?- please keep going.
Can't say anything for your WiFi or PDA (don't know the makes) but the 'hack' drivers for probably the rest of the computer, especially the video and table, are almost certainly from the manufacturer themselves.
See, this is the usual dissonance. When nVidia and ATI put out broken drivers for Vista it was all their fault and not at all Microsoft's for making too drastic a change to the underlying system in one go, if hardware doesn't work properly in Windows it's considered the hardware manufacturer's fault. When the same thing happens in Linux it's because Linux sucks? Whatever.
Not debatable. Linux supports more hardware than the two currently supported Windows versions combined.
See what I did there, I made a bold BS statement with no facts what so ever it should be taken as seriously as your BS statements.
Linux is already successful. It runs most of the Web, it has good market share in corporate servers, it is the kernel for smartphone OS's such as Android, and is also the base for Google Chrome. This web site is hosted on Linux, and everytime you do a Google search you are doing that from a Linux platform.
As for the desktop war which sees Microsoft as a clear winner, that market is becoming less relevant as more and more people just want to use the Web with its web services and web apps.
In the end, all we will need is an OS that boots a browser and all those extra millions of lines of code and expensive hardware to support the OS and to run Office, Wordpad, Paint, and Calculator will not only seem like a waste, but those programs will seem lame compared to what is on offer on the Web.
In other words, Cloud Computing will render Windows, MACos, and Linux desktops a litle less relevant each day.
Mark my words, it will happen.
Linux is relevant in and of itself.
Heck:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.cnet.com
Linux Apache/2.2 6-Sep-2009 216.239.122.178 CNET Networks Inc.
I am talking about the desltop market.
Destop OS's are bloated because they have to run programs that need local processing power, ram, etc.
Cloud Computing apps are delivered by the Internet. So long as you have a good connection, you will be able to run very powerful apps that end up being delivered to you as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc.
I stand by what I said. Desktop OS's will become less relevant.
What will matter more and more is the browser, not the OS that the browser is booted from.
Desktop OS's are bloated, expensive, and most are propietary. This makes them less competitive when accessing the best platform of all, the Web.
Linux is so malleable you can take just about any distro and put it on a small embedded device, or install it on a supercomputer cluster. Try that will a Windows install disk.
Ah, ok, I see now.
I've personally disagreed with that opinion however, since network speed/broadband (at least in the U.S.) has stagnated, whereas processing power or RAM on consumer PCs practically doubles every 18 months.
I'd still rather see powerful, beautiful, fast client software with lots of client-side information and application data, to have an always-live Cloud-based application that uses minimal bandwidth.
The user's system will always have some kind of OS, the user will want to play local media (music/movies) using local applications (WinAMP/Rhythmbox/MediaPlayerClassic/etc.), will not want to have a network connection to load up Photoshop or Sony Vegas (and in turn those developers might not want to develop software in HTML, JS, or CSS).
I see the web as a platform for social sites, news, and even to an extent business applications, maybe word processing, spreadsheets, scheduling, project management, and to an entertainment extent, some streaming live video, music, etc.
However when it comes to most entertainment, I think most people are going to want to use their machine with local apps for local data. Also, the most powerful software is sold to artists, filmmakers, and gamers, all of whose needs cannot be reasonably met by a web-based service unless most of it ran locally anyway, defeating the purpose).
Maybe if everyone has access to fast, reliable, broadband. From what I read online, even the US sucks when it comes to reliable access - unless, of course, you work in a super huge corporate giant. The rest of us don't.
As the Web gets better, and the infrastructure, more widespread and bigger, this will lead to a better Web and a better Web is better than any other platofrm out there.
The Web will slowly take over many duties that are traditionally done on a commercial OS.
linux has all the device compability one may need (mind you that "one" is a lite user that buys junk thats not even prosumer grade from best buy). camera, ipod, mp3, scanner, printer, most gpus, sound cards, and pretty much anything... sry it can't do zune without os virtualization yet, but who the hell uses zune anyways?
software compability... now that would be a problem if linux didn't have a buttload of software repositories that has anything anyone can wish for... for free... even stuff that windows doesn't have.. with an easy search button, and another easy button to install all the selected items at once.
windows live is a joke. the only thing one may need from there is the messenger, and linux has hundreds of messenger clients, some of those have all the features of the ms version if not more.
world of warcraft does run on linux pretty stable thru cider or whatever its name was, just like all the other pc games.
authorized support in linux distros are payed per month or year, and they actually do help you out. on the other hand you gotta pay about 50 bucks for each email you send to micro$oft, or per hour on the phone while some indian dude tries to 'solve' your problem and ultimately redirects you to another vendors customer service (you still pay for the non-support from m$)
and finally, yea you cant do video chat on linux.... 4-5 years ago that would be a valid statement
pluses:
linux is free, more stable, open source, manages system resources from memory, to cpu, to power in a way that ballmer cannot even dream about.
whoever made that chart is a jackass for pushing retailers to openly lie to the public. not that best buy employees don't lie, but this is an extra.
i'll go to best buy on 7's release date, and act like i don't know where the power button of a computer is, and get them to tell me about windows vs linux. if they pull this crap on me, i'll come back at night with a truck load of toilet paper and ruin the place
It is just like open office, it has all the features 95% of the population will ever use. So why pay for bloat if you aren't going to use it.
Your trolling has dropped below Vega standards, and is speeding towards Future Guy and Dee.
This is about as good as the guy I came across claiming Paint.NET to be better than any open source paint program when it's released under a modified MIT license.
One brand new Vista-64 SP2 Gateway SX2800-01 runs like a top...fast, crisp and reliable!
Another identical Vista-64 SP2 machine is on quite the opposite side of the spectrum (I might take it back to the store tomorrow). Some issue causing a driver to mess up the update process: even MS and Gateway techs are stumped! (I'm a programmer, yet the cause has certainly stumped me!) The machine spit out all kinds of error messages, although after a complete nuke and reinstall, things are stabilizing a bit. I suspect it's some proprietary Gateway issue, probably software.
My third new Vista-32 laptop SP2 is running fine after a complete wipe and reinstall, but the first attempt to upgrade to SP2 sent it into an unbreakable reboot cycle (none of the usual fixes for that worked).
My two-year-old Ubuntu 9.04 laptop (Compaq c762nr) is the best of the lot, despite the fact that it's greatly inferior to the others in terms of hardware capability. It just works and works: I do all my business correspondence on it, I play games on it, I watch youtube movies on it, I watch the space shuttle launches on it, I play GnuChess on it,...I even solve differential equations on it using the free Maxima program (which has amazing graphics capabilities for a free Mathematica-like program). I actually prefer the Linux freeware to Adobe and MS alternatives: they're more stable and have some features not available in MS: try the GIMP, OpenOffice and MySQL to see what I mean.
I write C++ code, however, on the MS boxes: although I like Eclipse C++, Visual Studio better meets the needs of my MS-user clients and that IDE is probably the best on the market.
Which is better? I give Ubuntu the edge for serious computing and MS a slight edge for home multimedia computing...I hear there are certain distros, such as Mandriva, that do multimedia better than Ubuntu. Ubuntu, however, is catching up there as well: in some ways, it's better for artists and movie-makers (Blender).
What's next? Win 7 upgrades on all the Vista boxes, and Ubuntu 9.10 in October when available...will dual boot from that from one of the Win 7 machines also.
Some of the people may become curious about this Linux thing, since Microsoft is comparing it side-by-side with Windows, try something like Ubuntu and discover that it is a very fast, easy, powerful & secure OS.
Like they say: What goes around comes around.
Microsoft's doing a great job by providing free Linux advertising.
World of warcraft runs flawless in Linux, and gets much better latency.
And World Of Warcraft run well in Linux... great, Linux can run a 5 year old game. Congratulations, maybe one day you'll like to join us in the present.
What does it lack that you would need?
True! Perhaps the Linux Foundation or Canonical (Ubuntu) already have some material like that.
Plus, if you prove one thing Microsoft said is a lie, doesn't that discredit most/all or the other things?
Microsoft should just focus on producing quality, innovative products, based on open standards. Then, people would naturally WANT to use their products, instead of needing to be COERCED to use their products.
1. It's free, you don't have to pay someone to get it an use it.
2. Free support via online forums.
3. There are thousands of applications available, usually free ones, some pay. Linux equivalents are available for most popular commercial apps.
4. The GUI more closely resembles Windows than OSX, so Windows users have an easier time switching.
5. It supports more hardware than either Windows or OSX
6. There are pre built configurations that allow you to create an appliance just by installing the OS. ex..MythTV, Server OS, Freevio.
7. The GUI, or Window manager can be swapped out for a different one if you like features not available in your current version.
8. Installing applications (Ubuntu) is as easy as checking a box beside the application you want.
9. Many popular Windows games and applications will run on Linux using WINE.
10. Free virtualization software exists for running Windows within Linux.
Cons
1. Support isn't free if you want an equivalent support structure to MS or Apple.
2. Substitute applications on Linux sometimes work very differently from their Windows counterparts, making them operate differently.
3. Not all applications are created with GUI support, so at times you are forced to the command line to perform a task.
4. Hardware support can be spotty with only partial support enabled. Driver installation and configuration can be difficult on some hardware.
5. There are many flavors of Linux, so finding the right one for you could be a challenge.
6. Not every application written supports every window manager.(GUI)
7. Not all software creators package their apps for every distribution of Linux. Some applications must be compiled before installation, installed from the command line, or both.
8. Windows emulation isn't perfect. If you have a fast machine direct X titles will run fine using WINE and similar apps, other apps that require a higher degree of integration in Windows will perform oddly in Linux.
9. Virtualization at present doesn't work well in all cases with regard to peripherals.
So there it is. I may have missed a few, but I think I hit the highlights.
1 is misleading because it implies that Windows support is free. Sure, if you do it yourself.
2 is bizarre because modern applications 'work differently' from those of 10 years ago. In this case, we call it an improvement. You can't imply that 'different' is inherently a bad thing and list it as a con.
3 This is becoming so very less common. You've neglected to mention exactly how likely this is to be true for the average user.
5 and 7 are non-issues. Anyone not using one of the top five distros has special requirements, everyone else can ask for a recommendation (although if I find one more person recommending Fedora to a newbie I'm going to hunt them down and beat them to death) and use a well supported distro. They can buy Linux Format or Ubuntu Magazine if they like.
6 is outright garbage. Any GUI application written with any library will work with any Window Manager including using KDE and Gnome programs with XFCE and Blackbox. I have never, in over a decade, seen a problem with this.
9... what does this have to do with anything? This is true on any O/S.
So, that leaves 4 and 8. Safe to say, yeah, you missed a few things.
8. Wine performs no emulation at all
So all 9 of your cons are bunk.
You forgot a lot of pros:
It bends to your will unlike windows which bends you to its will.
No DRM
No phoning home once or twice a week to ask permission to run
No activation
1. Windows support is free, just for a limited time frame. typically from the hardware vendor.
2. When Linux apps work differently from their Windows counterparts (Which are often more popular) the average user has trouble with them.
3. How about installing an app that isn't listed in the repositories? Granted the average user probably wouldn't being doing this, but it's still a Con.
4. I currently have a sound card that works, but Ubuntu's volume control doesn't. Yes, it's a few years old, but part of the beauty of Linux is that is runs well on older hardware. Having partial support for hardware, however old is a Con.
6. It's been a while since I had trouble with this. I resigned myself to just using gnome or web based apps, but 10 years? I think that's a stretch. :)
7. I was thinking specifically about Galleon on this one. It's a consumer app with GUI support, yet to install it you have to edit config files, install a few things from the command line and then add a launcher to run it, if it works. I've run into similar apps with the same issues, but they are likely obscure and not an average user app.
8. You are splitting hairs. WINE does not DO emulation, but the effect is the same.
9. I have run virtual Linux on a windows box and frankly it works great. No hardware issues and configuration is easy for forwarding ports to the guest OS. I don't have the same experience with Linux even though I prefer it.
and another...
10. Networking can be a bear for the average user. Like OSX, Linux is a great client on a network, but in order to do any networking with it beyond simple internet access you are again at the command line or editing config files. I'd really like to see an app that makes networking easier on Linux, I just haven't found one.
@pentest
I like your additional Pros, but I think Windows bends more easily to your will than OSX.
So, that's (1) crossed off as 'not an inherent feature of Windows, can easliy apply to Linux'.
2) This is also a criticism levelled at Vista. It's called 'time taken to relearn'. If somone moves from WinAmp to iTunes or vice-versa they will have 'difficulty'. This doesn't mean that the prior interface is better than the latter, mostly it's down to personal preference. Now, I'm willing to concede a number of interface issues where Linux is concerned but 'it's different' isn't a valid criticism, it's just whining. It's only a bad interface if (and I mean _if_) the user still has difficulty after a certain period of time.
3) I've installed non-repository programs just fine. A downloaded .deb for Ubuntu installs just fine so long as the developer doesn't have any obscure requirements that they don't provide themselves (no more difficult than providing the right DLLs for a Windows program); double-click and Synaptic just handles it. OpenSUSE has even done the 1-Click install so you don't even have t download the package, it just installs from the web-page.
I don't know what distro(s) you've been using but you need to catch up with what's doable now, not five years ago.
4) That's a problem specifically with Ubuntu (yes, I have encountered this).
6) I don't. I've been using Linux since about 1997 and I've never had this problem.
7) Yes, obscure and poorly supported Windows apps have the same problem. Setting up MinGW properly to support wxWidgets requires several separate downloads (including downgrading binutils to avoid a bug in a later version) and manual editiing of Windows environment variable. For some reason, I don't mark this down as a flaw in Windows, but in MinGW.
You're really stretching it to have to pull up the example of an almost dead and forgotten web browser considering the number of web browsers (FireFox, Konqueror, Opera) that don't require any such thing. If it's been perfectly well demonstrated that there are plenty mainstream applications of the same type that don't require command-line configuration then it's safe to say that it's the application, not the O/S, at fault here. It's not that Galleon couldn't have proper GUI configuration, it's that the Galleon devs suck. You're right, these apps are obscure; the reason being that they're not very good.
8) The end perception is the same but actually ABI replication is more integrated with the running O/S and has significantly less overhead as it's not running an entire other system on top of the main O/S.
9) You haven't said which virtualisation system you're using though.
If some obscure program required esoteric hand waving and special knowledge just to get it up and running in Windows, I doubt many people would claim it's because Windows is crap (except maybe Pentest), they'd correctly determine that the program was a badly put together and supported bag of arse.
When you have a problem getting some obscure-as web browser running that no-one's used for years (it was superseded by Epiphany some years ago, mkay?) when there are at least four other browsers that run and install just fine without resorting to CLI then the problem is not Linux, it's the crappy 6th rate browser and the monkeys who made it. Seriously, I can install Internet Explorer 6 on Ubuntu for website testing without touching the CLI so if a web browser that's supposed to be native can't do that, I'm going to guess that the operating system is _not_ the problem.
Think it through.
On a related note, an app that has been working for months suddenly stopped. It launches and then dies with no messages. Checking the system monitor it seems to be in a wait mode. And since I have been using a different box than this one for several weeks and installed nothing, I can only assume that some update broke it. All that aside, it would be nice if there was a message when an app failed to run properly.
Google makes more money from Internet Ads than Microsoft makes with Windows.
They will still make a ton of money, but they are on the way down and that is what is important.
Un-readable.
Is this the reason why downloading a file 20 megabytes in size can only be achieve at a couple of hundred kilobytes per second ? LOL LOL.
Seriously Cnet, I have a broadband and achieve downloads from many other servers at approx. 24 megabits per second on files as large as 400 megabytes. You have to do something about your Windows / Download Linux servers because they are pittyful.
Just a joke on the Linux part, but true on the download issue.
Anyone from Cnet like to comment ? Loading all your services including Cnet TV work fast on Internet Explorer 8. What is the problem with the Download Servers ?
If I ran a website that generated such a massive amount of traffic, I wouldn't want people sucking away all my bandwidth from downloads.
I'd put money on it being capped that 'low.' But I have doubts if you can honestly say 200kB/s is slow.
- by pacco1973 September 9, 2009 9:00 PM PDT
- i use fedora on my Toshiba laptop,and I use ubuntu server 9.04 on my HP elite m9500f.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (90 Comments)And i am completely happy with linux, i will never switch back to windows.
me and my family are 100% linux fans,besides whenever some of you M$ morons wan't to switch let me know i'll send you linux sticker to replace that nasty god foresaking sticker.
And yes the above screenshots is BS,just go to the linux forums,you can see that the support there is more great than that of M$. Oh i forgot,what is your credit card number please?, so that i may help you resolve this issue
Linux all the way 100%