Windows, Linux, The Debate: which is best?

[Henry Hartley]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 10:16 AM Cybe R. Wizard said:
>> 
>> On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:55:58 +1100
>> Sasha Tsykin <stsykin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > How is windows spyware?
>> 
>> It sends back to Redmond your computer's configuration and
>> hardware list, then once again if you upgrade your hardware,
>> won't allow hardware upgrades more than three times without
>> re-validation.  Who knows what else the closed system is
>> sending out and where? Spyware, for sure.

Actually, Windows on my machine doesn't send ANYTHING back to Redmond.
Nothing.  It's actually more secure than my Linux machines - well, at
least AS secure, anyway.  Why?  Because it isn't connected to a network.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, or not much, anyway, is that
there is software available for Windows that has not yet been produced
for Linux.  Now don't get me wrong.  I use Linux (both Fedora Core and
Ubuntu) on all my computers.  But one of them dual boots to Windows (but
to FC4 by default).  I'm not talking about general office software,
that's been done and while it still isn't perfect, it's good enough and
getting better and I use OpenOffice on both Linux and Windows.  I'm
certainly not talking about browsers or mail readers.

But there are more specialized applications that still don't have good
alternatives on Linux.  There are half decent CAD programs, graphics
programs and accounting programs on the Linux platform but let's don't
kid ourselves.  They aren't up to their Windows counterparts yet.  Yes,
GIMP is pretty darn good and I use it, both on Linux and on Windows but
there are times I just need to do things that I can only do in
Photoshop.  I also find Photoshop easier to use but that's partly just
because I'm used to it.  GnuCash is fine for personal finances but I
wouldn't run anything but the smallest business on it.  There are some
commercial applications for Linux in these areas (including accounting)
but there isn't anywhere near the selection there is for Windows.  In
this case, Windows gives you more freedom than Linux.  Okay, there's
only one window manager and it's even more annoying than Gnome but
there's more to computing than that.

I'm certainly looking forward to the day I can format my Windows drive
but we aren't there yet.  Not for me, anyway.  

-- 
Henry