Comment by mcantor
16 years ago
I've been espousing this view for months. As much as we hate it, Windows "just works", and if you have a serviceable Linux box on your LAN, all it takes is a few PuTTY shells and you're in business. Keep a cmd.exe window open to pscp things that you're working on locally (like web graphics, for example), and things are pretty seamless.
>Windows "just works"
That has never been my experience. Trying to customize my Windows install to the point where I can actually do anything with it has uniformly been a long, painful, expensive process every time I have had to do it.
Er, not to mention having to go over to friends' houses frequently to try and get their "just works" Windows installs to just work, already, when they run into problems.
Frankly, my last three Ubuntu installs (on an Acer Apire One, a cheap dual-core PC, and the old, decrepit PC that the cheap dual-core PC replaced) were faster, easier, and far less painful than my previous four or five Windows installs.
I had to do a bit of fiddling with the netbook to get wifi working (I had to install and configure madwifi-hal), but I had to do a lot of fiddling to get wifi working on the default XP install, so tit-for-tat.
Suspend just works, the low battery warning just works, remote desktop just works, multiple displays just works, and I'm seamlessly connected to my home PC and the backup server in the basement.
That's not to mention the fact that I can browse easily to remote servers using the default file explorer (Nautilus) without having to muck around with an FTP program, which is kind of handy when doing web application development.
What are you trying to do on a windows install that requires customization?
Also, fiddling with the wifi on *nix and fiddling with it on windows are...not quite the same thing.
I have no problem with it on linux (in fact, I have destroyed several keyboards in fits of rage while trying to get it working on windows.), but my mother would have absolutely no freaking CLUE how to even begin trying to get it to work.
>What are you trying to do on a windows install that requires customization?
Slipstreaming XP SP3 into a pre-SP1 ISO image, installing useful software (esp. Firefox), setting themes and desktop backgrounds, etc. I've done the first without too much pain, the second with some fiddling and mediocre results, and I don't even know if you can do the last.
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linux just works too. i can't remember the last time i had to deal with any of the garbage mentioned in the original article. it's still missing some apps (in my case i need photoshop and aftereffects), is that what you mean? that certainly is a problem.... one that is getting solved piece by piece. i see nothing but steady progress towards the linux desktop and lots of fundamental reasons that create pressure for it, eg the low price of hardware.
ChromeOS may finally bring about the "year of the desktop".
I will respond to you how I respond to everybody that claims Linux runs smoothly: When I do a default install of Ubuntu to VMware on my Macbook, which is possibly the most standards-set computer out there, the sound doesn't work, and I need to tinker around online to fix that.
Until I can get sound and graphics running without any effort, Linux does not "just work". And don't judge fucking ChromeOS until it's out. That's like the people here that were yelling how Android would knock iPhone off the market within a year. You can enjoy an OS without it winning, and it pisses those of us who've had bad experiences off when people claim there aren't problems with their system.
I have a MacBook 3,1 (Santa Rosa), and have no issues with sound, graphics, or anything else. The only things that took some configuration were copying the iSight firmware from OS X, and using ndiswrapper for wireless.
I'm running opensuse factory right now, but 11.1 works too.
I also run opensuse factory on my old powerbook and nvidia doesn't have binary linux drivers for ppc, so I'm SOL there, but I don't do any 3d stuff on it anyways. Everything else just works.
i disagree that vmware on anything is "standard". when i install ubuntu on a macmini sound, graphics, disk, wifi, everything just works. i never tried on a macbook.
also note that i didn't judge ChromeOS, i just said "maybe".
Exactly.
Currently, I have a tree full of putty sessions open to my most-frequently needed servers, and a cmd.exe window open for pscp/ftp.
Windows, for me, has become a thin client. I looked at my netbook the other day and realized that I have pretty much nothing installed on it. Everything that I do happens either in my machine room at work, or in a datacenter.