PC Today Article - Why Windows Beats Linux
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Why Windows Beats Linux In The News May 2004 • Vol.2 Issue 5 Page(s) 14-15 in print issue
Why Windows Beats Linux Scot's Take Commentary by Scot Finnie Let's not kid ourselves. I'm a Windows guy. Have been since Windows 3.0 came out, when I hung up my Mac to take a job as a reviews editor for a PC magazine. Sure, I've dabbled with Linux for years, including multiple versions of Mandrake, Red Hat, Lindows, Corel Linux, and others. But I'm far from being a Linux expert. Take that as what little disclaimer I'll offer for what follows. You see, I think Windows XP (or 2000) is twice the desktop operating system Linux is. Even though I would love to see a full-blown, twohorse desktop OS race, the way it stands now, Linux doesn't win, place, or show. If you're a Linux fan, by all means, email
[email protected] with why you disagree. But I'm a firm believer in facing reality head on. The fact is Linux is acceptable to only about 10% of the desktop PC population. There's probably another 10% who could use it but just don't want to. The remaining 80% are never going to learn the quirky ins and outs of Linux well enough to adopt it in droves on the desktop. Linux OS makers should take this as a call to action. Do you strongly disagree? Good. The best way to show your disagreement is by proving me wrong. There are a few areas in which Linux outstrips Windows: Operational reliability (especially over long periods without rebooting) and basic TCP/IP networking are the two that come to mind. Also, Linux requires far less hardware; it displaces less hard drive space and uses up less memory. (Of course, Windows gains some important advantages with the extra hardware oomph it demands.) Flip the coin over, and here's why Windows is better than Linux:
Drivers, Drivers, Drivers Windows doesn't come with every software driver you'll ever need, but Microsoft ships each version of its OS with a large driver pack. It also provides generic drivers that can serve in the place of more specialized drivers. If you've ever installed Linux distributions on multiple PCs (including brand new PCs and ones that are five years old), you've probably run into the problem that your Linux distro either wasn't able to detect some piece of hardware or wasn't able to assign a workable driver to it. What's more, you may find it very difficult to find a Linux driver for the device at hand. Even if you do find one, you may be totally perplexed about how to install it. And once you've installed the driver, you may find that it only partially supports your device's feature set. Some Linux distros have improved markedly in this area over the past couple of years, but they're still not as good as Windows on this score.
Installing & Uninstalling Applications Windows has a standard process for installing and uninstalling programs. Microsoft provides an infrastructure for program setup that helps independent software makers conform to a set of standards while taking advantage of range-of-installation flexibility. Linux aficionados tend to
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PC Today Article - Why Windows Beats Linux
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downplay how varied an experience application install/uninstall is, but this is a Linux weakness. There are two main areas of difficulty: 1) End users don't know what the process is, and the distros in many cases don't provide much instruction; 2) Some aspects of the process vary from one distro to another, or among different versions of the same distro. In fact, most Linux distributions offer multiple installation methods, and specific Linux applications may require this or that particular method. Managing app installs can be among the more frustrating aspects of the Linux experience for first-time Linux users.
GUI Controls For Hardware & Settings Windows offers consistent, easy to understand, and reliable GUI (graphical user interface) controls for managing hardware configuration and other settings—such as boot options, audio, video, and screen resolution. More advanced Linux distros are working on these sorts of controls, with greater or lesser degrees of success. (Personally, I like the Mandrake Control Center in Mandrake's last two or three builds.) But there are no standards across distros, and many confirmed Linux users aren't big fans of these tools, possibly because they're a bit buggy. This advance is urgently needed to make Linux habitable for the majority of PC users.
Support For The Latest, Greatest Technologies Even though Windows users have tended to grumble about the lack of built-in support for newer technologies, such as DVD-burning, Microsoft has done an admirable job of supporting new technologies over the years. For example, WinXP supports USB (Universal Serial Bus) 1.x, USB 2.0, FireWire, CD-RW, and a long list of others. Linux has not kept pace with this, although some distros are showing signs of solid improvement.
Operating System Patches Whether you love or hate the Windows Automatic Updates feature, Microsoft has made it easy to install security patches in Win2000/XP. While Linux aficionados love to extol the virtues of the open-source community's commitment to offering Linux patches quickly and effectively (with good cause most of the time), the solid truth is that most of the distros have very different end-useroriented update processes. Some distros do make this fairly easy, but the lack of an accepted, unified experience is an ongoing problem.
Peer Network Integration Networking is not a Windows strong suit, but it nevertheless works pretty well in peer environments with shared hardware resources. It may seem an unfair requirement, because I'm asking Linux to work in what's essentially a Windows province. But that isn't unfair. Any new desktop OS that comes along has to target the installed base and do what it takes to work in that environment. To date, few Linux distributions have made that easy. Anyone who has tried to enable two-way Windows/Linux networking or network printing work in mixed Windows and Linux peer environments knows just what I mean.
Documentation & Support Many people are surprised to learn that Linux distros contain basic help screens, called "man" pages. And there are reams of Web pages out there that offer useful help and instruction. Most Linux distributors provide some sort of documentation with their paid distributions and offer at least some help on their Web sites. But the honest truth is Windows doesn't need much documentation. Its built-in Help And Support feature isn't great, but it makes what Linux has to offer seem like scribbles on a pad.
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PC Today Article - Why Windows Beats Linux
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When the largest Linux distributor, Red Hat, announces that it's basically abandoning support for many of its desktop versions so it can concentrate on its Enterprise Linux offerings, it's not a good sign. On the other hand, it's hard to blame Red Hat. Supporting this OS on the desktop is not an easy undertaking.
Consistent User Interface & User Experience Although each successive version of Windows has tweaked the user interface, the Microsoft Windows user experience has evolved in only small ways since Microsoft introduced Windows 95 nearly 10 years ago. Open-source software's strength (multiple companies with wide-ranging development teams) may also be a weakness when it comes to operating system GUIs. Most Linux distributions come with at least two "desktops" (GUI controls, file-system access, and program launching) that are sometimes customized specifically for that release. The multiplicity of interfaces throws fuel on the fire of confusion for desktop Linux users. At its core, Linux is a character-based operating system, like DOS. Right now, Linux users should all learn to use both graphical and character-based consoles and editors to manage their systems. But Linux needs to evolve significantly out of that necessity before millions of Windows users are likely to accept it. As it was for DOS/Windows in the Windows 3.1 timeframe, there's only one way out of this mess: A single interface must emerge as the best one. In Windows' case, that was Win95. Linux doesn't have a single company guiding its future and growth. But to succeed on the desktop, it will require the singular vision and expedited execution of someone like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Either that, or Linux needs a killer desktop, a new piece of software that's tightly bound with the OS and so obviously better than any previous Linux desktop as to just clearly be—the one. All or most Linux distributors would then need to rally around this desktop software (at least for their desktop versions) and work together to integrate it into the roots of the operating system. It could happen. But will it happen? I guess we'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I'm still using Windows. by Scot Finnie
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