Before I get started on my views, I would like to point a few things out. I’m not in high school or college. I’m 35 years old and have been in the computer business a long time. My experience goes all the way back to the hey days of punch cards. I still have a few cards over at my folk’s house. I think one of the ‘programs’ prints out a snoopy. I’ve worked for several large corporations including IBM and GTE. I’m bringing this up not to brag but to point out that I know a thing or two about computers. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll continue.Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Like any techie I do my best to keep up with all the latest news on the web. Slashdot, Wired, CNET, OSNews, etc.; I visit them all just about everyday. And frankly as time goes on, the same theme is happening on most of the tech forums: ‘Let’s all jump on the bash Microsoft wagon.’ It’s getting old, just like when everyone was on the bash IBM wagon. Is it just me or is there some kind of book or website that the bashers all read from? It just seems that no matter what tech forum I go into, the same things are brought up every time.
Let me show a few examples:
1. Microsoft sucks or M$ sucks ? ok, and?
2. Microsoft is bundling or buying everything to stifle competition.
3. And the opposite, Microsoft isn’t adding enough features to IE, Windows, etc.
4. Windows has so many security leaks, it’s not funny. I bet Linux has few too but of course, not as many.
5. Windows crashes all the time.
I get a kick of that out last one. It’s funny that all the Window PCs I’ve worked on always seem to work pretty well. Of course, I’m very proactive on making sure everything is up to date and configured correctly. And with the release of Windows XP, unless I’m doing something I shouldn’t be, it just doesn’t crash, not at all. I could go on but you’ve all seen the same things I have. I’m telling you that there has to be a website where you can copy and paste these messages into the forums. That way you don’t have to think about it anymore. If there isn’t one, I’m going to create it.
The point is, it’s getting old, get over it, move on, and get a life already. Yes, there are some things that suck about Windows but then again there are some things that suck about Linux. But if you’ve been in the IT field for any reasonable length of time you will find out one simple fact, each OS has its place in a network.
Right now, like it or not, Windows is the dominate DOS (Desktop Operating System) and will be for some time. The truth is, Linux just doesn’t have the install/uninstall abilities that Windows does. And I’m sorry but re-compiling the kernel for what ever reason just doesn’t make it. We don’t even need to mention the fact that most users in a call center are much more familiar with Windows which makes it easier to train them. Do we even bother getting into the issue of driver support for Linux which doesn?t match Windows? I would like to see Linux come up and match Windows app for app and feature for feature but that isn’t happening yet. Give a few more years and that may not be the case. But then again a lot of the people in the Linux camp keep forgetting one thing, Microsoft isn’t just going to sit around and do nothing. Linux is going to have to make some big strides in a short amount of time to compete on the desktop and I hope the Linux crowd can do it. I would like to see the day when I can go to BestBuy and see just as many games and application titles for Linux as I do for Windows. It would be nice change of pace.
In a LAN environments, I would prefer to run Novell Edirectory for handling users. Edirectory is easy to manage and is cross platform. You can run it on Aix, Linux, Windows, Novell, and Solaris. Neither Microsoft nor any of the Linux distros can handle users better than Edirectory. I would even go so far as say that I would prefer to run Novell for my NOS (Network Operating System) over Microsoft and Linux to handle users, software distribution, etc. While working at GTE, we had several Novell 4.11 servers that would run for over 400 days at a time without a crash. Sometimes, I would just go and finally reboot them just so I’d feel better. And if Novell had a decent DOS, I’d probably run that too. But that?s just me. Linux does a much better job of handling web and email services than either Microsoft or Novell. Microsoft on the other hand, in my opinion, is a great application NOS.
In this day and age, IT departments need to get away from running a single OS to handle all of their needs. They should use the best OS for what ever the situation calls for. If in some cases, you need to run Linux on the desktop rather then Windows, then do it. It just makes sense. Yes, this can get expensive but the benefits far out weight the costs. And when things are running good, I can spend more time coming up with new ways to spend the company’s money, when they allow me to that is.
About the Author:
35 years old, I’ve working in the computer field for over 15 years for various companies including IBM, GTE, and Alltel. I also ran my own small consulting/programming business for a few years. I currently live in Parma Ohio, just south of Cleveland.
Oh, may I really laugh?
“windows: easy to install and use, good driver support”
In Linux, all my hardware works after adding three modules to /etc/modules.
In Windows installing hardware takes ten reboots, takes minutes time for each driver, needs all kinds of extra CD’s, I need to browse the driver CD by hand to find those drivers, Windows constantly complains about them not being “certified” and then, after a whole afternoon of installing and rebooting the soundcard driver constantly crashes the PC.
My first version of Internet Explorer didn’t come with Windows, I downloaded it and removed Netscape from my harddrive after I had used it for a few hours.
Internet Explorer 3 was a superior browser at the time, and I would even prefer it to the later versions of Netscape 4.x. Netscape wouldn’t have a browser today if it didn’t depend on the Open Source people behind Mozilla (unless they bought Opera or a similar company)
I’m almost sorry that MS included explorer in later versions of Windows, because it has lead to the myth that the only reason Netscape failed was because IE came bundled with Microsoft. Only people who either had some personal issues with MS or had a machine park with different OS’ and needed a common browser used Netscape. Some have only tried the bundled versions of IE included with Windows and thinks that IE loads faster because they have integrated the browser in the OS. It may be the case with the latest versions, but the same could be said with Konqueror and KDE
I agree that the bundling hurt the competition, but Netscape was loosing ground long before the bundling started. The companies that have been truly hurt by the bundling are those like Opera who make great alternatives, but have a small market.
Conclusion:
Don’t cry for Netscape. They had over 90% of the browser market, lots of money and was the standard browser for most ISPs, but couldn’t keep up with Internet Explorer. The real losers are those companies that makes (and would have made) better browsers.
I think you are missing the point about the MS cororation trying to dominate the software market, Dominance of one corporation is never beneficial to the consumer/ user, let alone that MS uses means ranging ftom slightly unethical bisiness methods to simple dirty tricks ( http://my.opera.com/dev/discussion/openweb/20030206/9)
Do you think MS would ever have bothered to produced an allegedly stable OS, if yhere hadn’t been a comparaison?
Frankly if you are driving a fast car on the highway, commanding a tank in the desert or flying a hightech fighter
plane, would you prefer the embedded OS to be Linux/Unix based, or made by MS?
Preben Svensson
joke is- there is no hi-end audio stuff for win.
Logic, BIAS stuff and DP is Mac- only. PT preferred platform is Mac. sorry guys.
CoolEdit Pro and SoundForge is shareware sh**, with totally screwed up audio engines. there is good win only pro audio apps (acid, wavelab etc.) but who cares?
anyway, my netatalk linux box (fileserver) rocks and works O.K. with my Macs, so linux *have* place in the studio
>joke is- there is no hi-end audio stuff for win.
>Logic, BIAS stuff and DP is Mac- only. PT preferred
>platform is Mac. sorry guys.
>CoolEdit Pro and SoundForge is shareware sh**, with totally
>screwed up audio engines. there is good win only pro audio
>apps (acid, wavelab etc.) but who cares?
>anyway, my netatalk linux box (fileserver) rocks and works
>O.K. with my Macs, so linux *have* place in the studio
you obviously don’t do any real work with pro audio.
sonar is by far the best sequencer on the market. period.
and it’s windows only.
pro tools is a joke – they have inferior proprietary
hardware that’s 20x the price of m-audio or echo and
the worst drivers on the planet (even worse than
soundbaslter), inferior software (like rtas) which is
pathetically inferior to dx and vst.
logic? can you say horrible interface design? oh yeah!!
to diss cooledit and soundforge you’ve gotta be high
cos they kick ass on *any* wave editing programs on the mac.
d3wd, wake up and smell the penis envy – mac sux for pro audio
First of all, the general Windows user probably never even heard of Linux to go bash it, hence the lesser amount of bashing. And yes, Windows crashes all the damn time cause the general users install all sorts of drivers for all sorts of versions of Windows and don’t even know they installed it. Yes, Linux crashes less cause the general user won’t go use it. If Linux had a user base the size of Window’s user base, it’ll be crashing millions of times a day. Just that the general user can’t even get Linux installed to crash it.
And so what if Microsoft steals ideas? Its a company and its out to make money. What company isn’t? You go make a company to give away everything you had for free.
Ok, all the people who are tired of M$ bashing, just ask why should M$ not be bashed. One thing everyone in this industry understand that M$ never gave anything *new* to the world with their collective creativity, all they have been doing is stealing ideas from others. They pretty well knew that people cry faul for sometime before everyone gets over with it. That is what happening now and someone comes up with a thread saying stop bashing M$.
Why? Because you are wasting your time, everyone has had an experience of Microsoft, we all know what they, and their software, are like. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘flogging a dead horse’? When you MS bash, you are either preaching to the converted or you preaching to people who will simply dismiss you as an MS basher.
No matter if you like Windows on your computer or something else, Microsoft has managed to alienate many people. It did so in the desktop computing area, and as it now tries to venture into other areas of computing (mobile, embedded etc) it does it again. Just take a look at the case that British mobile phone maker has filed in court against Microsoft. Microsoft went into a partnership with Sendo to develop a mobile phone based on Microsoft’s Stinger system. It turned out to be a cunning attempt from Microsoft to get their hands on mobile phones know-how and suck Sendo empty. This is symptomatic for everything Microsoft touches and the reason no mobile phones manufacturer wants to do business with them anymore. So yes, Microsoft basing is still justified. They are too dominant to be liked and unfortunately everyone not knowledgeable enough to choose a different desktop platform is stuck with them (and pays a lot for it).
can you say- “hardware processing”?
i do not use Digidesign hardware (yes, PT sometime, but no hw), i have MOTU stuff (1224, DTP).
you have win exp with PT, right?
)
and yes, Logic is the King.
sorry, if you tooooo lazy for reading manual- its up to you.
People like you( I’m refering to the author of the article ) give a bad name to IT professionals like me. You see, posting your comments on a forum is one thing, writing a whole article about your thoughts is another thing. At least, if you would have written an real article instead of just giving your own opinions about things you don’t even understand( and don’t go giving me that I’ve worked for big comapanies blah blah, as I don’t really care about that ). As for the whole I’ve been around for a long time and what not, I’ve also been around for quite some time in this biz and I’ve had a chance to analyse what’s really happening in the computer world. And it’s easy to see that even though Microsoft is still the DOS( Desktop OS ) of choice, things are starting to change as more and more people also use Linux as a second OS mind you but still, they have a Linux distro installed also. Linux is still at an early stage, we’re only starting to see some good offerings. And as time progresses, we’ll see more and more. I don’t know where you’ve been for the past 2 or 3 years, even though I guess you were probably stuck in a basement with no windows or something, but people are starting to realise that OSS is the way to go and that knoledge belongs to the people. Something which Novell & Windows and others as well are starting to see as a threat. Maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee before posting Articles. Get yourself some good books and magasines about the computer biz and read them. Then you can try and post a constructive article. FYI, if you would like to reply, I’d appreciate it if it would be via e-mails as I don’t usually spend time reading the comments on articles since most of the times, the articles on this web site make sense but for your article, I had to take some precious time from my job to post a comment.
Most of Microsoft products are now mature, if you have anything negative about MS, I guess you are still running olg programs. The guys in Redmond are working hard! WinXP is simply cool,big driver database and does not hang and crash! Win2003 is another great product on the way.If Microsoft was that bad how come the world has accepted their products, they never forced anyone. Apple has always been there, how come they have not dominated the world?
Wake up guys and face reality!
I have to ask this question, does it really matter what OS you are using, so long as it does the job you need it to do?
These posts have amused me immensely, I usually hate reading MS vs *nix articles as they serve no purpose, but I have to read one from time to time to see what the latest arguments are, and Im pleased to say they are still the same!
Use what ever is good for you!
Altough I agree with the author that there is too much Microsoft bashing by Linux fans, I think that some Microsoft bashing is justified especially when it comes to business practices. The way Microsoft just want to impose their closed proprietary formats is just not acceptable. And when it comes to security, so much security holes in a professionnal system is inexplicable.
There are to many of these messages saying M$ sucks or Micros*ck is shit. Windows (at least NT , 2000 and XP) can be stable with good configuration and if you check often for vicious spywares ( at least Linux doesn’t have any of them as I know, at least not yet ). And for some specific needs it might still be the best choice.
But using Linux on my system ( I first used it as a replacement for my crappy Windows 98 and never wanted to go back ) made me feel free from the Microsoft monopoly. I was happy to see that Linux was much more stable with that same old hardware. I since bought a new PC that came with Windows XP and I use it from time to time to get used to it ( I work in the technical support field ) but still finds me using Mandrake Linux 90 % of the time.
Actually, I am more tired to see Linux bashing from Linux fans saying that RedHat is better than Mandrake or that Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, X, Y or Z is the best distro around. The strenght of Linux is about choice and you choose what best fits your needs. I strongly hope that LSB help some standardization but I don’t want the distributions to loose their distinctive feelings. Be happy that a user is using Lindows because it makes one more user freed from Microsoft monopoly !