"Ubuntu takes on XP in the gadget arena"

[Eric Dunbar]

On 2/16/06, dave <dave at rodrig.com> wrote:
> On 2/15/06, Jonathan Jesse <jjesse at iserv.net> wrote:
>
> > Why does everyone always insist that Windows crashes more?  I have yet to
> > receive a blue screen on my Windows XP Pro Service pack 2 box.
>
>  More recently, after having changed jobs in Oct 2005, I've been
> dual-booting Ubuntu 5.10 and WinXP. A few weeks ago, while in Windows, I
> kept getting a "Important Update. Reboot now or later?" nag screen every 10
> mins or so. Once I allowed the reboot, it never came back up. I received an
> error about an unfound dll or something similar. Every F8 option (last known
> good state, safe mode, etc.) gave me the same result: a non-working system.
> I pulled my important data off the Windows partition from within Ubuntu and
> I've been there ever since.
>
>  Granted, I don't administer hundreds or thousands of Windows machines as
> some of you do, but one could easily assume, given the history, that WinXP
> is not stable. In actuality, I do know it's more stable than I'm implying
> here, but I just wanted to point out that not everyone's experience has been
> as rosy as yours.

I've been trying stay out of this thread but since it won't die...

My experience with Windows has been fairly good. I do remember a few
problems (don't remember if they were BSODs) early on with Windows XP
but haven't seen those recently. Granted, I have only really had the
opportunity to use XP Pro in the past year so I don't know how the
Home version fares (that's the version that was causing me problems).

Caveat: over the years my experience with Windows has been mostly
professional (I find it a rather useless GUI design for real work
IMNSHO... too limiting, too unimaginative and just plain bad GUI
design) so in that realm I've found Windows to be _fairly_ stable,
going right back to Windows NT 4.0 SP (whatever was current in 1997).

I'm sorry to say but before 2004 Linux wasn't even a pretend desktop
OS so it's a pointless and fallaceous exercise to compare apples and
oranges. There's no way in hell you'd find sane people trying to get
their work done who didn't have a computer geek inside them (or
supporting them) that would use Linux on the desktop before 2004*!

Prior to 2004 Windows 2000 and Mac OS X offered desktop OSes that were
functional, USABLE and stable. Linux wasn't even a blip on the desktop
horizon back then!

So, all these Windows is so bad complaints are pointless (note to dave
and jonathan jesse: this is not written in response to either of your
e-mails specifically). They're either written from the perspective of
someone who is a *nix "expert" (vs. 95% of computer users who've never
touched a terminal), or, by someone who is comparing an OS from five
years ago with one today.

The only fair and USEFUL comparisons are among CURRENT operating
systems. You want to compare Linux to what's out there? You don't look
at Mac OS 9 or Windows ME. You look at Windows XP SP2 or Mac OS X
10.4! Both of these OSes certainly are significantly more useful and
useable than Linux _in its current form_ (though, Linux is rapidly
gaining ground).

I can't comment to Windows XP SP2 but I can state that I haven't seen
a kernel panic in Mac OS X in the better part of year (and, I haven't
seen a non-hardware related KP in the better part of two years). Both
Ubuntu and YellowDogLinux have gone down in kernel panic flames in
recent history (though, to YellowDog's credit, that kernel panic only
happened when I was having problems with an HFS+ partition... in the
year and a half that that server's been up I've only had to reboot due
to kernel panics only that one time (multiple kernel panics, but the
source of the problem was the same)).

Plus, one thing that's conveniently forgotten is that the BSOD/kernel
panic isn't the be all and end all of crashes. I have GNOME or KDE go
south on me, sometimes to the point where I have to give the whole
computer the three finger salute (no sshd active, vts stop
responding). And, I've even had OS X's GUI (Aqua) go south on me
(fortunately I did have sshd active that time so I could at least do a
clean shutdown rather than the three finger salute). That said, I use
Mac OS X 98% of the time, GNOME 1.5% and KDE 0.5% of the time and I
can remember the last time GNOME or KDE have gone down but not OS X
(i.e. what I'm saying is that per unit time used Mac OS X's GUI is far
more stable than GNOME or KDE).

Anyway, the point of this procrastination e-mail is that one needs to
compare apples and apples, not apples and oranges. Windows ME is five
years old. Try having your standard, fairly compentent but CLUI-virgin
computer user use Debian or Red Hat from 2000 vs. Windows 2000 or
Windows ME or Mac OS 9 and let me know which OS is functional on the
desktop and which one isn't?

PS If you want to compare Linux as a server, you need to compare it to
the server OSes that are out there.

Final PS: end users don't give a damn whether their computer crashes
due to a BSOD or a kernel panic or to a GUI crash (I sure as hell
don't). If X or GNOME or KDE go down it's the exact same thing as if
the computer experienced a BSOD or a kernel panic. If the apps didn't
auto-save the users' work would be lost in either scenario, and
_that's_ what counts*!!!

*Mac System 1.1 with MacPaint 1.3 offered more _useful_ uptime than
many modern softwares. Even if the system crashed (which didn't happen
too often) you only lost up to 10 or 20 seconds worth of your drawing
(and, what a cool drawing program it was)!

Eric