OSNews

I am running BeOS 5.0.3 with FireFox 2.0.0.4 just in case others get diffirent numbers than me.

I saved the first page of the article to my hard drive, total data 433,345 bytes in 63 files.

I then clipped the text of the article on the first page, total characters 1048!

Am I going crazy! Only 0.24% of this page is useful info! And that is with some untrustworthy ad sites blocked!

I just got a clean PDF out of it (kept the author and link back to the article to attribute the original source).

Hit the print button (right click didn't work for me but regular click did).

copy text from below the copywrite line to the start of the title.

Past into Word or your prefered processor.

Remove the "click to see score card" links along the right side

Print to PDF and stuff it in your library for later referal

Sadly, I'm limited to Windows at work so this is based on Adobe and Word.

Yer, it's not like leopard took 5 years to do, fix whats not broken now fix whats broken and then break it again.

I disagree with the Windows has more apps so it must be better, whatever happen to less means more?

Less is more, but people don't know what they want until they try it. Most people could uninstall 90% of what comes with an OS and still have more software than they need.

Windows definately has a good selection of popular applications and retains a deathgrip on the gaming markets.

osX has a smaller selection of applications though the average quality is probably higher than windows simply due to Apples tight control over the "user experience".

Foss, hands down, has the largest software library available too it. Even discounting various versions still developed and accounting for the many applications developed as truly cross platforms.

Based on a title count, you just can't compare either closed system with the numbers available within the Bazzar. In the Linux based OS relm, the kernel may be the only program that has less than three options to choose from. In the BSD based OS relm, the kernel is the difference between distributions and the applications available include everything from the Linux based OS world and any extras only available too BSD.

I mentioned in another post that I'm probably not understanding the judging criteria for that one but I also suspect the author limited the selection pool by choice or lack of understanding.

"Only in Vista is DHCP a three hour job."

They based that on hardware support and little to nothing on the actual networking stack being used. It was a stupid comparison to begin with.

Even in hardware support they fail because OSX shouldn't even be counted in the same room as Ubuntu. OSX doesn't support half the hardware that Ubuntu does. The printer comparison was plain stupid since they use almost the exact same drivers as OSX does. I sense a bit of bias here.

Yes, the article sounded like they had decided OSX was the winner from the start.
I have only toyed with OSX and it really looks like a nice, easy, solid os to me. But then it is tied to specific hardware, making the whole purpose of the comparison irrelevant. I need to spend big cash to run this.
On the other hand Vista is definitely a dead end and MS should take a completely new route for a new system. Yes, wireless works nicely in Vista, but copying files over the network is a nightmare. On the other hand networking is bread and butter for Linux. And if you are committed to it, you RESEARCH before you buy any hardware.
The other thing that these articles can't really grasp: "Ubuntu is a text based OS" it says. And yes, it is. It is a UNIX-based os, for god's sake. The GUI is just a program, like any other. That's what gives people choice and power. While I agree that we should have more GUI tools for common tasks, there will always be a time for the command line. This is not new, either. Windows power users and admins often resort to registry keys, obscure policy settings and command line. This is not really much different.

//Yes, wireless works nicely in Vista, but copying files over the network is a nightmare//

SP 1 fixes that.

no kidding... Hardware support... Ubuntu got the least?? How about all the different platforms that the operating system can run on? Would take put it even? heh

True, linux covers more architectures, but it doesnt cover them with as much depth of hardware support as windows. I felt their assessment of the current situation was fairly spot on.

If you get an OS for a machine, you want it to work with that machine. You dont care that you could also install the same OS on an architecture you are never going to use. Therefore, hardware support still needs to improve on Linux for the "average PC user". The rate of improvement is fantastic though!

I was going to post the same.

While they had a point about wifi hardware, that was a point which was made in the previous topic (drivers/hardware) therefore irrelevant under the networking heading.

Given that Windows TCP/IP stack is shocking (particularly Vistas) compared to Linux's, I really do think that either this article is biased or the author really doesn't have a clue what he's reviewing.

I was also disappointed with the value for money point. Surely only having to pay for the blank CD/DVD is 5* value for money compared to the $100+ price tag for other other products.

And finally I thought it was a little misleading calling Microsoft Office on Windows as 3rd party given that it's a Microsoft product running on a Microsoft product.

And they forgot to mention that Canonical will send you an Ubuntu CD for free via Shipit.

All round a pretty biased and ignorant review.

I think the issue here is that this document was not written, at all, for the kind of crowd that frequents osnews.com.

I'd agree that it was not meant for the crowd that frequents OSnews; knowledgable, inquisitive, not blindly accepting of poor journalism...

I'd add that it was also of no use to the crowd that doesn't read OSnews with the kind of unbalanced comparison and completely uninformed comparison it presented.

Now, I'm not going to start talkign kernels and intimate details with the non-OSnews, non-techie type but I'd at least provide a balanced review of all three platforms running on the same hardware. I'd probably include BSD in there too if I was focusing on the more technical but not techie reader.. say.. the type who would read computer magazines.

thats what I thought...

copying 20 10k files...
estimated time remaining ... 12 days 13 hours and 6 minutes remaining ..

Vista? WTF!

And as far as drivers go... Linux might not compare to XP but in my own opinion they are more abundant and better quality than Vista (think creative labs for a start)

Why? I would say they are right.

I am laughing too. Funnier one is that MacOS X is winning on the field of bundled software over everyone else. Let's make it clear: you get hardly anything more than raw operating system with MacOS X, and you get full software stack from Ubuntu (or almost any other distribution).

The case of drivers... it was said many times before - but you can't really compare driver's support for MacOS X and Linux, because one is designed to run on only one vendor's hardware - the other one has about 20 architectures supported.

Networking... ugh. No comments.

Let's make it clear: you get hardly anything more than raw operating system with MacOS X, and you get full software stack from Ubuntu (or almost any other distribution).

It's not clear at all. Mac includes iLife, which includes music-production, movie-editing and DVD-playing software -- all things you *WON'T* find in most default distro installs.

Of course you can get them afterwards, but then exactly what was your point? Mac also has a free office suite (NeoOffice) and plenty of other free and open-source software available that you can install after the fact.

Edited 2008-03-11 09:46 UTC

You sound like you never used Linux, the wifi implementation is a mess.

Ubuntu's low score is no surprise to me because they're not talking about performance or underlying design, but Vista's high score and tie with OS X are nonsense.

Finding and accessing network shares was a factor. Setup interface should have been. Both count strongly against Ubuntu because they opted for the simplest, flimsiest, default GNOME way of handling those things even though much better, more powerful, and more intuitive applets exist. When GNOME accesses SMB shares directly, a few programs can't touch the files because they're not actually mounted in the VFS. There's almost an NIH thing going on with Ubuntu, but instead of creating their own way, they take the "purest" option native to the DE. Unfortunately, the distros that create their own redundant tools (real NIH) have the best ones (drak, YaST), and often fail to give them back to the community.

The latter issue (setup interface) would have beaten Vista's score to death and kept going. Trying to help my neighbor with her new computer, it's like Vista's network control panel consists of one button labeled "Internetz. Plz find them kthx." I'm not a fan of networking voodoo when it takes over and doesn't work.

When I was playing with Vista on my laptop, the main reason for which was to experiment with media sharing to my PS3, it wouldn't let me share media. The reason? It blacklisted my wireless network as "public" because -- ready for this? -- it uses WPA2 with TKIP. It's secure, so it's public. Brilliant.

I don't know what they were smoking when they found networking problems in Leopard that didn't exist in Tiger. WiFi reconnect after sleep has been a minor issue for me, but clicking on the menu bar and selecting a network is something you have to be able to do if you're going to own any wireless networking equipment to begin with.

It's all very silly, but not as bad as when they said IE7 is slick and Safari is bad. They must really like shiny objects.

Why would you want to do that? Just so you can make Ubuntu win? How about lets see how well each fare on PowerPC Platform. Or lets put it on Some very closed Laptop format where there are no Open Source Drivers?

To be fair judging each OS they needed to be running on a common platform that they all run smooth on.

That would be an Apple, wouldn't it?

Exactly. What the author obviously missed is that the numbering system for os X is not the same as most OSs. 10.4 to 10.5 is a major upgrade similar to XP vs. Vista. 10.5.1 is a service release and now 10.5.2 is a major service pack akin to Vista SP1 or XP SP2. Apple does not charge for these types of updates. Also they are much more frequent. Look how long it took MS to finish SP1 for Vista, more then a year. And they stated when Vista was originally released they were going to speed updates and upgrades up. Pfft. Yeah that is speedy.

Yes. Even if you know what you are looking for, Ubuntu is hard to find. I usually end up having to read the spiel about their Open Source PC's featuring the incredible FreeDOS operating system before I am able to find the Ubuntu offerings. And the Dell website usually "Recommends Microsoft Vista Professional" about 5 times before I *do* find anything offered with Linux.

They improved their PR techniques with the Linux community a bit this time around. But it's really the same old game of "Find the token FOSS PC" when you actually go to their site and look.

Dell, I have one thing to say, and it's a Yoda quote: "Do! Or do not! There is no try.".

It's an economic decision ... they don't want to spend a fortune supporting their Linux computers just because some clueless grandma thinks her computer is broken because the Start button is not in the bottom-left corner.

They chose to sell it only to people that know what it's about.

From the initial anouncement of the latest Linux based OS offerings, Dell has provided the hardware and installed image while all software related support calls where forwarded on to Cononical's call centre. I believe that was the big reason Dell chose Ubuntu over other OS.

I don't think that Dell is trying to intentionally sabotage its Ubuntu sales; rather, it's probably trying to avoid the situation of a user accidentally buying Ubuntu, finding that it doesn't run his game and accounting software, calling customer support, and then returning it. Let's face it: Ubuntu sales are a niche market, no matter how you slice it.

from http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs...

"Not sure Open Source is for You?

The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don’t get a Windows® operating system. If you’re here by mistake and you are looking for a Dell PC with Windows, please use the following link.

Shop Dell PCs with Windows"


you can't accidentally order one

Loading the Broadcom firmware makes other things not work? Exactly *what* would those other things be that the Broadcom firmware breaks? Please be specific.

Edited 2008-03-10 19:03 UTC

Loading the Broadcom firmware makes other things not work? Exactly *what* would those other things be that the Broadcom firmware breaks? Please be specific. "

The Synaptic Package Manager/Software Update broke from that point forward. It would not complete any installation. It resumed working after I removed the firmware.

It doesn't matter whether they're logically related or not. That was the only thing that changed either time.

I was just thinking the same... I don't know any photographers who use Windows... I've only seen them using a Mac though.

And certain 'techy' types also like to use Macs for their laptops.

Pretty good article all in all, but sometimes they jump too conclusions too quickly...

Broadcom's wireless chipset works neither well on a Linux distro nor on Solaris (SXDE, Indiana, Solaris).

I've read, without any quoting from my side, that broadcom support on Linux is reversed engineered and only partially works.

I have the same grief with my pcmcia linksys 54gs based on broadcom chip. On that particular old machine I take the extra five minutes to copy the right .ini (driver) file too my Mandriva partition and use ndiswrapper. It works like a charm unless you need the one or two advanced features you'll miss.

On an thinkpad T60; seamless. It just works. (crap, now I owe old stevey royalties for his catch-phrase)

Fluffy is ok as long as it's not filled with errors and glaring misunderstandins. Unfortunately, this article is just that.

Really? The only time I ever had to use the terminal to install something in Ubuntu was with vmware.
And more times than Windows 3.1? Way to show off that you never used 3.1, mate.

Hehe, and I installed vmware without using the command line. My mom uses Ubuntu and she is damn scared of the command line (it's considered magic).

Btw, my 10 year old sister also uses my mother's computer to surf and play games. Who wanna bet she has never even seen the command line? Or even know what it's for.

You don't even need to do that for server or player, just enable the partner repos in the GUI and update synaptic.

Really? The only time I ever had to use the terminal to install something in Ubuntu was with vmware.
And more times than Windows 3.1? Way to show off that you never used 3.1, mate. "

I used Windows 3.1 (even 3.0!) and I remember it very well.

Why people like you spread lies (that's it! LIES!) about Ubuntu and its magical friendliness and "one-click-does-all" myths. Its not true. Linux (Ubuntu included) IS text-based system. It is much more capable that way than DOS was, but it is still text-based. Why just not admit that if someone wants to learn and master Linux must learn Bash in the first place ? It would be much easier and spare most of the flamewars. There is nothing wrong with Linux. But it is console-based OS.

What is the best way to troubleshoot application behaviour in Linux ? Isn't it to start it from command line and see error messages in terminal output, which do not display at all when started by mouse ? Azureus is fine example of this. Windows applications display all their messages in graphical mode. Linux application do not.

And what to do when GUI application make mess with some critical system configuration files like xorg.conf ? Isn't that you will edit those files by hand in text editor like nano ?

Can you honestly say that you NEVER - I repeat: NEVER - do such thing during your whole Linux experience ?

Telling people truth about Linux-based OS from the very beginning is much simpler way to introduce them to that world.

*claps*

Transparency, flexibility, and power are what I love linux for. While it is *possible* to use linux with the commandline, taking that essential bit out of the equation makes it a hell of alot less attractive. You end up with an interface and applications that are anywhere from a year to five years behind everyone else.

Linux has a hell of alot going for it, and its a shame it is being pushed onto people as something that is "good enough, and free". I would still use it if it cost 150$, but not for the UI, for the commandline, config files, and editable source code.

Edited 2008-03-11 01:54 UTC

Then you'd also remember that it was a lot worse than Linux today, in every way.



They're not lies. I've never had to use the commandline to install a single application in Ubuntu with the exception of running vmware-player's vmware-config.pl after installing the RPM. I didn't have to use the CLI to install the RPM by the way, it works just fine clicking on RPM"s in Nautilus.




Can you read? I never said it's not.



This is just not true. Many windows applications logs their errors to the event log, not to the GUI, and many Linux apps shows errors in the GUI.



Don't be silly. Of course not but we're not talking about my entire Linux experience. We're talking about the current Ubuntu version.

Edited 2008-03-11 02:56 UTC

Who's talking about mastering Linux? It's not necessary to be a chief mechanic to drive a car and neither is it necessary to be a master at Linux to run Ubuntu.
Most people have no interest in mastering it, they just want to to perform tasks for them.

Who's talking about mastering Linux? It's not necessary to be a chief mechanic to drive a car and neither is it necessary to be a master at Linux to run Ubuntu.
Most people have no interest in mastering it, they just want to to perform tasks for them. "

Right. Joe Average has to stay Joe Average, and you will gladly "provide support services" for him and his "free operating system" - for a small fee.

I would sort of agree. It's a historically text-based system that is slowly moving toward, but has not yet reached, GUIness.

Once it's running, it tends to run quite well without command line intervention, however. That is, if my experience is typical.

I've long since lost interest, however, in how simple Linux installs are for people who know little-to-nothing about computers. It's a "nice to have," but not essential for me.

I agree that there are *many* flaws by design in Linux(Not the kernel but the user land) as a Desktop OS, derived from its Unix ancestry. I agree that most of them have been worked around in a way similar to how Windows worked around DOS limitations and that the Linux people will try to hide it from public view.
However, I disagree that the CLI is one of those problems.
The lack of a "cross-platform" clipboard is blatant. The substandard Unicode text support(just so we can fit the for loop in a line) isn't very nice either. The lack of a unified GUI, 2D, 3D, IO, Sound and Input API makes developing anything a PITA and forces the user to have many redundant software around.
The fact that the command line can actually help you to hack your system into working when your hardware and software combination would make it otherwise impossible is not a problem, it is a feature.

Maybe the first is to explain to Windows users that the command line is a feature, not a bug.

There are many things that are so much easier to do through the command line...

My friend at MS who masters the OS uses the CLI to do stuff that can't be done with a GUI.

Make your own conclusions out of that...

Well what do you expect for the advanced users?

Frames per seconds for Gamers?

Hardware Features it uses? For the Computer Engineers

Power Usage? For the environmentalist?

Load handling? for Computer Scientist

The problem for judging an OS is the fact that people use computers for different things... I would actually agree with most of the comments by PC Mag... And would give a similar rating. I tried Ubenu and I wasn't Impressed. Vista is actually on the whole a bit better then Ubentu but still it is kinda funky. XP is kinda bland but gets the job done. And I prefer OS X, it seems like the best design I have found.

Someone else already mentioned that any comparison would have to be done on the same hardware or it's nothing more than guessing and grabbing at page views.

They reviewed osX so they had an Apple platform right there. The could simply have gotten four of the same Apple notebooks from the lab and put Ubuntu on one, XP on another, Vista on a third and left the fourth with native osX. Run the update for patches, confirm that the hardware all works and put a little more effort into apearing objective as a journalist. It's PC Mag so they must have a stack of review units sitting on the workbench already.

It's not like it would have been rocket science but it seems the article has been torn limb from limb already.

Actually he commented about an article pointing to synaptic, but it didn't fit his agenda to go back and correct his glaring error a few pages prior.

;-)

Well, it's not like synaptic is that good. Aptitude is far easier to use. However, it surely beats the crap out of windows' find-some-novel-to-read-while-i-populate-the-list package manager even for commercial closed-source applications as long as they provide deb packages(Windows isn't helpful with custom installers either).

Seems he overlook the eeePC too unless I've missed all the comments about average users having to do more than use the Asus provided GUI when working with it.

I think it was already decided who the "winner" would be before this article was even written.

Ubuntu got hammered very unfairly on two items - interface and networking. And as far as the "bundled software" category - it couldn't have been any more obvious that Ubuntu was leaps and bounds ahead of Windows and Mac. Yet, Mac, somehow, "won" that category.

Reviews like these are fun, but I'd rather see a more knowledgeable/honest comparison between the three.

Even as a gnu linux / bsd user, I'm gonna have to agree with the 'bundled applications' nod to mac. I mean, Ubuntu includes everything you need, but as to what the reviewer seemed to be going for - slickness, integration - Ubuntu is definitely beat (not just by mac: a well done, minimalist KDE setup would easily best both in slickness, although the only place I've seen this is Arch's kdemod, which is far from 'bundled software').

One thing that really surprised me, though, was the total absence of Compiz. One-click activation of it was a touted feature of Gutsy (not to mention Compiz's massive hype among workstation distros), and the fact that it was totally ignored really would most definitely impact the interface scores (but then again, including it would worsen the driver situation).

Oh well; the march towards a perfect distro continues.