What Windows has Done Right

The primary difference I've always seen is that Mac is for College students and casual users whereas PC's are for Power Users. If you're editing pictures, videos, etc, you really don't care about every little setting and configuration you can mess with on your OS. On the other hand a gamer or a business sysadmin NEEDS to be able to tweak everything to precision.

“and we Windows users know we have the best OS.”
ok, funny statement…
Why don't you support and use a free OS? Because it is not so “advanced”? You don't know shit about it then. Why are you feeding those money-making machines like Apple and Microsoft? I pity OSX and Windows users alike…

Dude… I use Kubuntu 9.10 & CentOS 5.4 about 8 hours a day. I've been using them for about 10 years. So, believe me when I say, I like linux a lot. HOWEVER, at home I use Windows 7 x64. Why? Because linux is still a pain in the ass. It's great for work, but not for much else.

It requires way too much configuration / time for it to work properly, and still doesn't have decent support for gaming or other common software.

Despite what you may think, computers aren't just used for running Apache or MySQL, and wine is not an acceptable solution to run WINDOWS based software.

I know it CAN be configured to do whatever you want… but why spend HOURS configuring something that'll work out of the box on Windows. Sheesh, spend $120 and use it for 5 to 7 years. I promise it's worth it. Sure, free is better. But, there's nothing wrong with spending a little money to use something that works right out of the box.

Linux fanboys are so annoying… even to a linux fan.

Except I got my Linux box working without any trouble in less time than any Windows box I've ever worked with. Just because YOU fucked up doesn't make it the rule of how Linux operates. Linux DOES outdo Windows, even on the desktop.

Your mistake was using a ratty Ubuntu-based distro, and a distro meant for servers and not desktops. For someone pretending to know a lot about Linux, you sure fail the litmus test of actual Linux knowledge. I also smell bullshit because the likes of Kubuntu haven't even EXISTED for ten years, Ubuntu having only come out in 2004.

So, yes, I call bullshit on you claiming to be a Linux fan, because your comment practically gave you away.

Makes me laugh that you use the x86_64 version of Windows 7, as I and so many other people who have used 64-bit versions of Windows: Its support for the architecture is utter garbage.

You can call this Linux fanboyism all you want. But the utter truth is that Linux has been beating Windows to a pulp on the desktop from a technical sense for the past ten years. And when you get to stuff like KDE 4.4, you really do have a desktop that quite simply outdoes the “excellent” Windows desktop easy.

I'd like to argue the software quantity point, if I may.

A wide install base doesn't necessarily mean a wider software base. Windows may have the larger RECOGNIZED MAINSTREAM library of software. But it has one big flaw. It is not POSIX-compliant by any stretch of the imagination.

POSIX is an operating system standard with a heavy emphasis placed on source code portability and compatibility. It is based off the UNIX methods and many assumptions made of a system building from a UNIX or UNIX-like environment. What this means is that software between POSIX environments is ported without even needing to change a single line of code.

Now, if I haven't lost you, this means that not only software meant for many other OS's like BSD, Solaris and, yes, even OS X can and have been ported to Linux, but also that theres software that even predates the very existence of MS-DOS, before Windows was even created, that is available for Linux. This is NOT a small software library to draw from. Before Microsoft took on any operating systems, UNIX truly was where a great deal of your typical computing was. That or CP/M or AppleDOS for PCs, both were still relatively small usage compared to UNIX at the time.

So, we have Linux, which has its own already sizable software library, but it also has software drawn from dozens of other operating systems because POSIX allows users and distributors and even the people who make the software to port to Linux.

The nature of the open source just widens this avenue even further, allowing one to simply fetch source code if it hasn't been ported into a binary repository already. And, as an Arch user, I can point out things like the AUR where one can simply put up PKGBUILDs, which are little scriptlets meant for building packages for use with the package management system, for stuff they wanted to bring over, modify, or create. And of course, they can also start their own repository.

Now, as far as technology and options go for the desktop, Linux is definitely up for the desktop. The top two DEs themselves, especially KDE, can give Windows a serious run for their money. In fact, Windows 7 has been compared with KDE, showing more how Microsoft was heavily influenced by KDE in Windows 7, with the taskbar especially.

Driver base has been proven in a few studies, one by GArtner, to actually support more hardware than Windows, complete with a much more broad driver base. Now, there might be a quality issue with some drivers, though my experience with drivers has been nothing but good. And that's simply because if you have a particular piece of hardware, chances are there is SOME kernel hacker somehwere who does too who already worked out a driver that works. There are exceptions. Except for nVidia's provided driver, open source drivers for nVidia GPUs are… not great. nv is practically deprecated, Nouveau is a newer driver showing some promise, and as of the latest kernel, 2.6.33, has been admitted to staging. It's definitely not ready for primetime, though, though some sensationalist Linux bloggers make it sound like Nouveau is now competing with nVidia's own driver.

ATI support is… well… I don't recommend ATI to Linux users. Their drivers are ALL very hit-or-miss, and Catalyst, ATI's primary proprietary driver, is SO bad that many distributions toss it out into oblivion or unsupported repositories.

But oh goodness, the availability of drivers for just about everything else is very good. Wireless hasn't really been a hassle since 2.6.24 (Two years ago at least.) and anyone who says otherwise is frankly trolling or FUDding. My sound and ethernet work without any input from me. My wireless USB keyboard and mouse work fine, all buttons work without any setup.

I'm more down on Ubuntu not for being a n00b distro but for being lacking in quality and for having devs that really don't listen to what the community wants, despite appearances. Despite heavy protests to the contrary, they punished their users with Pulseaudio, which proves to be a real regression in sound for any Linux distribution that deploys it, they didn't listen when we protested their removal of Pidgin in favor of Empathy, and they didn't listen when they removed GIMP on the LiveCD and in favor of F-Spot, which is… quite simply… NOT the same. Not to mention Mono is just bad news all around and the developers, not a single legal mind of the bunch, felt Microsoft *isn't* waiting for a chance to exploit it, despite the Software Freedom Law Center's findings to the contrary. You know. Actual experts.

Good god, I'm digressing.

Pretty much the ONLY things stopping Linux right now are mainstream developers not going for Linux as much as we'd like. They're not ABSENT, mind you. Even some major game houses like Id greatly favor Linux with their creations. Mozilla champions Linux web browsing with Firefox. And in the business sector… well.. Your movie visual effects are given the full rendering, if not animation treatment, from Linux workstations and servers. Another thing Linux needs is OEM support. That's growing, though, with Lenovo, Asus, Acer, and Dell as examples of OEMs offering Linux-enabled desktops and laptops for NON-business users. And so many many more OEMs having put Linux on their servers (To the point Linux is the dominant operating system of the Internet today.). And finally, Linux needs to get away from nay saying FUD-sters who like to bring Linux down with no real purpose or justification. People who tell the same sad stories that have stopped being true well over a decade ago: “Linux has no users.” “Linux supports no hardware.” “Linux is hard.” “Linux has no GUI.” “Linux is just a hobbyist OS.” etc. Some of it has NEVER been true, too.

It overcomes those three problems even Microsoft's ever willfull attempts to secure their monopoly won't stop it. We're already seeing widespread Linux adoption just about EVERYWHERE. And what's happened to Windows' install base in the past two years? Late 2008 showed a decline to well under 89% now. And dropping, despite the marketing force behind Windows 7.

As for Apple. Frankly, Apple's *always* been a niche. Even on the desktop where most their user base is. Linux might have already surpassed OS X in user ranks. I can't speak definitively on this. iPhone and iPad popularity is overstated, and people and some tech pundits are starting to notice that Android might actually be on more devices these days. I actually believe the lawsuit Apple has against HTC is a DIRECT reaction to seeing Android's popularity, especially when it comes to HTC's devices which are, I'm sure you agree, exceptional.

Apple has never been a threat to Linux. And a lot of Apple's GPL'd projects are widely used in Linux today. libXML2, CUPS, and Webkit come to mind, though they are either bought out or forked from something else.

Now, if we MUST think on things Microsoft has done right is that they helped align the PC market the way it is today. One standard architecture, more or less. x86 or derived. Back in the day there were MANY PCs on MANY architectures running MANY different OS. And it was IBM and Microsoft who got this going, employing the established x86 architecture from Intel which is still used today. However, Microsoft was more responsible for providing IBM with an OS rather than actually designing the architecture. Nothing Microsoft has done before or since was really innovative. Providing BASIC interpretors, even distributing their own flavor of UNIX briefly, then doing what they do now, following in the dust of their competition, starting right with Apple.

A LOT of people like to make what Bill Gates did with Microsoft sound a lot more ethical and less hostile than their processes actually are. Bill Gates himself admitted to dumpster diving for discarded code. The very operating system that launched their empire was BOUGHT for 50 grand, and actually turned out to be based on CP/M already. Windows turned out to be overt industrial espionage for the GUI concept Apple licensed from Xerox. Then began the long climb to a monopoly, Microsoft grabbing hold of OEMs, threatening them, anyone who gets even a whisper of fair competition and market share for Windows get snuffed out (Look up Be.). NT, which current versions of Windows were based on, was the central topic of the IBM/Microsoft split. Microsoft has BETRAYED numerous partners of theirs, like Spyglass, who they promised Internet Explorer royalties for the use of the Mosaic engine. Microsoft then made IE free of charge and drove Spyglass to bankruptcy.

For all the good they did this market, they've done it a lot worse. Microsoft's stranglehold is the #1 reason PCs aren't as advanced as they could have been.

Okay, I am sorry for ranting. I just wanted to show a little perspective. For all the things right they did for the industry, they seemed to do five things wrong.

You don't know what you're talking about. “Linux features”? Do you know what Linux is? Perhaps you mean features of individual distributions. Whatever you mean by it, you basically voided whatever else you had to say. Congratulations dumbass