You know guys, I know kona very well from a Linux forum. Frankly, a lot of the things that have been said on here are simply not true. As you claim that kona was spreading FUD about Vista, so have you been spreading FUD about Linux. I can't just stand at the sidelines and watch you guys pummel poor kona--let's set the record straight, shall we?
Microsoft might have a good OS in Vista. I have a test machine on which I am running Vista Ultimate. I also have 5 other computers with at least one Linux OS each. I can say with confidence that all of this falls well into my area of expertise (and no, I don't feel pretentious saying that).
Someone brought up a good point, one which many people have brought up time and time again when Mac OS X or Linux is compared to Windows. If Linux or Mac OS X are really that good, then why aren't they more popular? Why is Windows, as bad as so many Linux and Mac fanboys claim to be, so abysmally bad and yet so popular amongst consumers? The reason behind this lies back in history about 15-20 years. This is back when Microsoft was first getting off its feet. This is a time when there was no Linux and Apple was making good, yet expensive computers. IBM made a mistake in that it let everyone make clones of its microcomputers--Microsoft landed a gold mine because it was the pretty much the only company ready to provide a crude, yet usable OS to the microcomputer public, called DOS. Microsoft's Disk Operating System was nothing special; it was actually rather crude. Yet it was all that was needed. Apple computers needed special hardware and a special OS--DOS worked on every microcomputer manufacturer, of which there were many. There was no viable UNIX alternative because UNIX, at the time, was designed for big, expensive mainframes with costly and specialized hardware. The industry had one choice--Microsoft. Given, it was a brilliant move. When Microsoft upgraded to a GUI, then all the way up to Windows 95, it kept doing a lot of things well, like providing developer tools that were excellent, yet locked people into its platform. Brilliant. Ever since that time, Windows has been the standard. It's not because it's necessarily easy to use or more secure--it's because of the smart market moves that Microsoft made back in the early days. That is why, to this day, Windows comes pre-installed on virtually all consumer computers. It's not because it's better--it's because that's the way it has always been.
Next, people often bring up that Microsoft is just a good company and that if Linux or Mac OS X were as popular as Windows is, the amount of viruses and spyware and malware for them would be just as high. While it is true that many people don't target open-source software just yet because it hasn't gotten into the mainstream, a closer examination reveals the fallacy and one-sided thinking that lies within this simplistic argument. Linux and UNIX, on which Mac OS X itself is based, are engineered as multiuser operating systems. They have a well developed notion of file permissions and ownership. Also, a lot of UNIX/Linux operating systems exhort the user to not log in as root, something that happens on Windows all of the time. Logging in as root (administrator), is dangerous--Linux makes sure that it's harder for a regular user to get casual root access unless that user knows what s/he is doing. Without root access, any attack is limited in what it can do. It might be able to delete a single user's files, but the overall system is unharmed. The same functionality exists on XP and Vista. Mind you, from what I've seen, Vista has much improved its security. Whenever I am about to make something that might affect the system, my screen darkens and I have to give permission to continue. This is brilliant, if late. The same has existed on Mac OS X, UNIX, and Linux since the beginning. Yet, Microsoft deserves praise for the implementation--it is a step forward in the right direction. Now, back to the original argument. Take, for example, two popular web servers, Apache and IIS. Apache is open source. IIS is made by Microsoft. Apache is by far the most popular, yet the least exploited, while IIS, which is not as popular, is much more exploited. It doesn't matter how popular something is--it matters how secure it is. True, the more popular something is, the more likely there is going to be a larger group of people paying attention to it. But, if, like Linux, Apache, and most other open source tools, the code is well-designed, it should be able to resist attacks.
Now, I don't hate Microsoft. They are a good company that has created a bad image for themselves by forgetting how they got into this game and what they do. Microsoft has come up with some great things in the past. For example, Windows XP shipped with a technology called ClearType. This dramatically improved the readability of text on screens, especially LCDs. Have you ever turned ClearType off and tried to read something? It looks abysmal. Kudos to Microsoft for coming up with such a good technology--some might consider the readability of text more important than the fact that there's shiny icons. Also, Microsoft has a very good keyboard and mouse department. They make good products--I own several and I love them. Look at other technologies that have come out of Redmond, such as DirectX. That's a pretty good API, if you ask me. They also make good games, such as Flight Sim, which showcases they DirectX technology. Also, Microsoft has been a key player in the adoption of many technologies that exist today--they do have quite a bit to do with driving the way video cards are developed. They also make a pretty darn good Xbox. I don't hate MS--I like to look at things objectively and not let my random emotions guide me into hasty decisions. Some might say I'm a pragmatist.
Saying that Linux has inferior technology is just unfair. Linux has a lot of great technologies--someone that has never even tried it shouldn't exactly blurt out random FUD--it's just as rude as the FUD that people have been spreading about Vista. Why can't we stick to the facts and keep it clean? For example, have you seen AIGLX+Compiz on Linux? For those that don't know, it's 3D Desktop Effects. In my opinion, they are amazing--lightyears ahead of what Vista has. But I can't speak for that--it's a matter of opinion. Some might like Vista's UI much better, some might be longing for the good old days of Windows 3.1. However, from what I have seen, 3D Desktop on Linux is much more advanced and efficient. I ran a test in which I installed Fedora Core 6 (a distribution of Linux) and Vista Ultimate on a low-powered machine. The machine is an HP Pavilion 8766C, with a 900 MHz PIII Processor, 640 MB or PC-100 RAM, and a GeForce FX5200 graphics card. This was enough to run glass on Vista. Now, the 3D Desktop effects did very well on Linux. There's things like transparencies, virtual desktops mapped onto a rotate-able cube, and an expose like feature, among others. While it did stutter sometimes under load, for the most part it was smooth, so long as there was nothing that was accessing the processor too much. Now, Vista was a different story. I understand that this is an underpowered machine--this is why I chose it for my tests. Even when I opened a Control Panel window in Vista (running Aero Glass) and dragged it around, things got laggy and jerky, with the processor usage jumping up to MAX. Again, weak machine, but you the idea. Now, I'm not bashing Vista. There were a few things in there that I saw that I actually liked, like the sidebar. Also, there's a lot of new programs that come bundled with Vista these days--like DVD-making software. This is a good thing. However, trying to run Media Center on that weak computer was probably the most painful thing that I have ever tried to do. As soon as I put it on my Kentsfield QX6700 processor with an nVIDIA 8800 GTX and 4 GB of 800Mhz DDR2 RAM, the thing flew and flew, but so did Linux. Fair is fair. However, beyond this, Linux has been the development hotbed of a lot of technologies that quite a few people have not noticed. Things like OpenLDAP and ssh. Things like a fully network-enabled X server. Linux is full of many technologies--at this point in time, with regards to operating systems, anything that Linux can do Windows can do. Anything that Windows can do, Mac OS X can do. Anything Mac OS X can do, NetBSD can do.
An area that I see Linux to be lacking in just support. There's a lack of popular applications, such as many games and tools, like Half Life 2 and 3dsmax. Yet, it's a good OS with lots of potential that excels in security, flexibility, and efficiency. The reason that Linux isn't more popular is that it doesn't come pre-installed on commputers and it lacks application support at times, although almost all applications that are available for Windows have open-source equivalents on Linux. Yet, there are a few important ones like Photoshop that keep people from switching, which keeps Linux from growing that fast, which in turn keeps software vendors from making applications for it, which in turn keeps it from growing. Although, if you look at previous trends, Linux has been growing exponentially for a few years now. Things are looking good.
Now I will end the hijack and get back on topic. There are so many things that I wanted to write that I couldn't find the time for--I do have finals this week that are important to me. One thing that I have liked so far out of Microsoft product lineup especially has been Office 2007. The new GUI is amazing, a great improvement. Good job Office development team. The text in the program itself looks much better, anti-aliased and all. Also, Windows Media Player 11 is a great improvement--I really like the GUI. Windows Defender is also a great addition for people that need to keep their computers safe. There's a lot of good things coming from Microsoft. There's also a lot of bad--I don't like the Windows EULA. Also, Internet Explorer 7 hasn't fixed any of the things that have made it so bad in the past at rendering pages--my job as a part-time web developer has gotten no easier, only harder, now that I have to check for IE6 and IE7. So, I have already decided that I will buy a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro this August for about 3500 dollars. Obviously, those come pre-installed with Mac OS X, an excellent OS. I'll probably dual-boot Linux on it. My guess is that when my dad is shopping for a computer in a few years, he'll most likely come to me and ask me for help and I'll of course direct him to a brand-name PC that comes with Vista or its successor, unless Autodesk and Dassault Systems start making software for Linux (the man makes a living off of CAD). Me, I'm happy with having Windows on a machine for games and Linux on my other machines for everything else.
The only thing I hope for is that computer users stay stupid--it's job security
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