Comment by orbifold

8 years ago

For a non-technical user Windows is the infinitely better product than typical Linux desktops, you should see the pain that people go through that use commercial software nominally supported on Linux such as Cadence tools compared to the same experience on Windows, not to mention the lack of any serious well made office suite.

Heck in direct comparison Ubuntu 16.04 looks like a joke system compared to Windows 10, for example Ubuntu doesn't let me use my on board sound and only displays the dedicated sound card, but only half of the time. It has a horrible toy like ripped off user interface with ugly buttons, I can't think of a single application that is actually better than an equivalent application that is also available on Windows.The only reason I'm using Linux is because in a lot of areas including the field I work in it has achieved the same lock in that windows has for the general desktop market.

It is kind of sad that the only two alternatives are a clone of 70s technology or a clone of 80s technology. I feel like there should be a way to get things unstuck, but research into operating system design has all but ceased, with very few exceptions, many of them ironically coming from Microsoft.

Ubuntu is backed by Canonical Ltd. so it's corp vs. a much bigger corp. Linux as server vs Windows Server might be a more appropriate comparison for this.