Sometimes you can't help but compare.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Oct 24, 2010 8:19 PM EDT |
There's a lot of little things about using Linux, the the absence of which, on Windows, which I must use, makes using Windows a very frustrating experience. |
| caitlyn Oct 24, 2010 10:56 PM EDT |
For me the really compelling thing is that it just works. No constant security hassles with malware. None of the breakage that always seems to crop up on Windows systems. Linux is low maintenance and has applications for everything I do, usually at no cost to me. It runs fast even on low spec gear like my netbook. It's just plain the best choice for me. |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 24, 2010 11:49 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's just plain the best choice for me. I second that! |
| patrokov Oct 25, 2010 8:07 AM EDT |
Small things like easily copying files from the CLI. C:Documents and Settings.... Easily configurable "places" (left sidebar) on open and save dialogs |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 25, 2010 10:11 AM EDT |
I get frustrated by all the things I just can't DO in Windows. Minute control of the network interfaces, scp, choice to use the GUI or not, choice of kernels, I'm sure you have your own list. Every time I sit down to a Windows machine and try to get actual work done, I find myself shackled by the inflexibility of a GUI designed to prevent me from doing anything that the Microsoft design teams do not think I need to do. The only thing Windows "does" that Linux doesn't is particular applications that run only on Windows. That's not a "Windows" feature any more than a book published only in English is a feature of the English language. I converted my kid's laptop to dual boot over the weekend. To give credit where credit is due, Win7 did a nice job of repartitioning to limit itself to 20GB. The Debian Squeeze installer was very polite with "Install into unused space". After creating a Grub entry for Windows, it works perfectly, and all this for Wizard 101 and Pixie Hollow dot com. |
| bigg Oct 25, 2010 10:29 AM EDT |
We have to be careful about comparisons of "Windows vs Linux". I can find a lot of things to criticize in most Linux distros as well. For all the times we hear about "too many distros" only two - Slackware and Arch - are distros that I feel comfortable using on a daily basis, and even at that, I have a strong preference for Slackware. For me, it's a question about FOSS vs proprietary. The non-FOSS approach just doesn't provide an OS that works the way I want. There are too many variables involved, and finding one that does it the way I like requires that there be a lot to choose from. {And yes, I agree that the maintenance burden of Windows is a disgrace. When I started regularly using Ubuntu, it felt so good not to have to constantly think about the OS.} |
| tracyanne Oct 25, 2010 6:22 PM EDT |
For me, it's things like, being able to pin Windows "always on Top", being able to scroll the window like a holland blind, so that only the decoration is visible. The fact that on Linux Delete means Delete, not send to the "Recycle bin". That menus are logical, that I don't have to defragment the system on a regular basis (actually I've set up a separate partition and placed the Windows Swap file there to reduce the need to defragment. It still needs to be done because in spite of my best efforts the filesystem still gets fragmented). The fact that Linux doesn't require a reboot after every software update. Mouse context is detected and I don't have to tell the OS where the mouse is, by left clicking in the scrollable list, before scrolling it's contents. The number of time I forget to tell Windows which list or browser page my mouse is hovering over, and find that some other list or browser page is scrolling instead of the one I want to interact with. I don't have to regularly respond to messages from an anti virus application, that wants me to do something, like accepting virus signature updates, or check for updates. The fact that all the updates are controlled by a single application, and I don't have to respond to "There's an update for me' messages, which invariably pop up while I'm in the middle of something important or when I need to use that application right now. Basically the fact that with Linux the Operating System gets out of my way and lets me get on with what I want/need to do. These are the things I miss when I'm using Windows, which at the moment I have to use for a single purpose, running 2 applications that can't be run on any other OS, Visual Studio .net and MS SQL Server. |
| caitlyn Oct 25, 2010 7:04 PM EDT |
Everything tracyanne said plus one little thing that irks me every time I sit down at a Windows box and forget... I hate that if I highlight some text with a mouse it doesn't automatically get remembered. I can't just point to a new location, center mouse click and paste it in. The Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V thing is just plain cumbersome by comparison. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 25, 2010 7:11 PM EDT |
> I hate that if I highlight some text with a mouse it doesn't automatically get remembered. YES! I'd forgotten this one. The last time I used Windows to reply to YouTube comments, that highlight/paste middle click thing (which I learned on SunOS in 1992), I had to go back and ctrl-c over, and over. |
| hkwint Oct 25, 2010 7:44 PM EDT |
Yeah, GPM (the select / middle-click thingy) is a good one, as it effectively creates 'two buffers' without shitty clumsy copy / paste windows, as in Windows, which remembers about 20 things you Control-Cee'd. So, let me add another thing: The ability to diagnose problems, copy error messages (with GPM of course!) and search for them, fix them if possible, and if not, see if someone reported the problem or else do it yourself, and be able to see what is _done_ with the report. Troubleshooting in Windows IMHO is a nightmare. My sister was suffering from a network card which seemed to be "broken". So I put a Linux-USB stick in, and it 'worked' again. But I couldn't find out what Windows thought the problem was, as Windows doesn't "dmesg". Yeah, Windows has some crappy "look for problems" dialog / wizzard (if you can find it clicking through gazillion windows) which told "everything was working allright". But, no internet, no ping. So, the network card disappeared from some configuration out of the blue. The easiest solution was, put in a second network card, and done, Windows was happy again. How stupid is that? Needless to say, Linux USB sticks / LiveCD's are far better recovery tools. I surely can't remember the last time I used Windows to recover Linux, but the other way around is pretty common. |
| gus3 Oct 25, 2010 8:58 PM EDT |
Now, for all the bragging I've done about all my family using Linux... Cut/copy/paste is still a novelty to my mother. She got a shipping notification today, with a 6.02*10^23-digit tracking number. She manually re-typed it, clicked the Track button, and nothing happened. Right, NoScript was blocking it. So, she enabled the site's JavaScript, the page re-loaded, and the number she had typed was gone. That's when she remembered the little instruction sheet I put up next to her monitor. Select, Edit/Copy, flip window, click in box, Edit/Paste, then click Track. She may yet learn to make the computer do the work for her. |
| tracyanne Oct 25, 2010 10:24 PM EDT |
The funny thing is cut/copy/paste are the things that people have the most difficulty dealing with, whatever the OS. |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 26, 2010 12:48 AM EDT |
Quoting:The Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V thing is just plain cumbersome by comparison. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are hardwired into me Caitlyn, I would do it even if I didn't have too. Since the day I typed my first digital document I have used it. There's no stopping me now. ;-) I am with Tracyanne on her whole list though, nailed it. |
| tracyanne Oct 26, 2010 2:07 AM EDT |
Just had another Windows annoyance. Set up a beta site on a old XP machine, at my client's office, problem is IIS is crippled on non server versions of Windows, and only allows 1 or 2 client connections, making it difficult to impossible to demonstrate the changes I've made to the site. Windows it's crippleware. |
| gus3 Oct 26, 2010 10:32 AM EDT |
Doesn't the Mozilla family have settings for maximum connections and maximum proxy connections? |
| jdixon Oct 26, 2010 1:36 PM EDT |
> Doesn't the Mozilla family have settings... IIS is Microsoft's web server. The connection limit isn't actually a function of IIS, it's in the OS itself. Microsoft added it back in the NT 4.0 days when people were using the regular version as a server, since it didn't have any such limit and could handle the load. First they added it in the license agreement, then later coded it in. |
| gus3 Oct 26, 2010 1:50 PM EDT |
Yes, I know that. The problem is that the browser goes for a maximum of N connections at a time. If that's greater than what the server will handle, then the first one or two things get fetched, and then several more connection attempts are rejected. If the browser fetched only one or two things at a time, the chance of retrieving all the resources for a web page goes up substantially. Firefox has a "network.http.max-connections-per-server" in the about:config, which on my system is set to 15. Setting it to 1 would slow down normal browsing, but it would make the crippled IIS more serviceable on the LAN. |
| jdixon Oct 26, 2010 1:58 PM EDT |
> Yes, I know that...but it would make the crippled IIS more serviceable on the LAN. Duh. Consider me chastised. Yes, it might help, but it would depend on the timeout delays involved in both. Of course, that doesn't change tracyanne's absolutely valid point that Windows is crippleware. |
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