OS Combat - Ubuntu Linux Versus Vista 559
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek pits Ubuntu Linux versus Windows Vista in a detailed comparison. They run down a number of points for this comparison, including installation, hardware support, software, and backup. For IW, backup was a crucial feature. As a result, the conclusion are unusual for this type of review because it straddles the fence. The verdict is: 'a tie, but only because both platforms fall short in some ways. Vista's roster of backup features aren't available in every SKU of the product; Ubuntu doesn't have anything like Vista's shadow copy system and its user-friendly backup tools are pretty rudimentary.'"
I would have given Ubuntu the edge (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There's nothing to compare (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite line (Score:3, Interesting)
That is the author's final conclusion. But, but, that says that Linux works better for everyday computer users, and Windows is full of the "polish" that "some people" enjoy. I find it odd that the author, as a self-professed Vista fan, would give these definitions. I thought that the draw of Windows was that it "just worked" and people would make the switch if Linux supported all their "day-to-day stuff". You heard it here folks! Linux's time has arrived!
Feisty looks pretty keen, I'll have to see about upgrading my Edgy box.
Re:(While Ubuntu++ Vista) (Score:4, Interesting)
Note: I am looking to help this person make the shift to Linux, I'm not arguing that Windows games "just work" in any distro. It does take some jerry-rigging and trial-and-error; however, there are many good guides and it's completely worth my time to help someone figure it out.
A little bit skewed results? (Score:3, Interesting)
First page:
-I need to load extra drivers for Vista before I can even install the thing I have to use another computer to download it on a USB stick, I go through a simple installation procedure for both systems, I can run Ubuntu in Live or Repair mode or install it, I don't know how to save things like settings to the hard drive for re-use in Live mode, it has memory and media integrity and backup tools though. I can restore a Vista backup and run Vista for free... for 30 days...
Result: Well, Ubuntu has a slight edge, but only because of the live mode.
Second page:
-I need to load extra drivers for Ubuntu because I have a cheap-ass printer, I can just download them, but djee, I have to look for them and read how to install them on my machine. I forgot all about the STORAGE drivers on the previous page, but anyway, I have to do the same for Windows, but I don't seem to mind as much. I plug in some stuff, it works on both machines. I try cheap-ass rebranded Lexmark scanner that doesn't identify itself properly and it doesn't work.
Result: Well, Windows works simpler with Plug-n-Pray hardware although I have to go through the same actions on both systems. Stupid hardware manufacturers make trouble.
Third page:
-The Synaptic interface (that has been around for years) seems to have been ripped off of Vista (that has been around for
Result: It's a tie
[verbatim quote]:
-Ubuntu's default e-mail client is Evolution, which contains calendaring and contact management; it's not hard to switch to another client (like Thunderbird) if needed.
-Vista's default e-mail client, the newly-designed Microsoft Mail, sports a calendaring application but is, on the whole, still highly limited.
Result: Windows, but only by a hair.
[/verbatim quote]
Page 7:
[again verbatim]
-Ubuntu's Konserve program is a simple directory-to-directory backup that works across a variety of media, including FTP.
-Vista's backup tool has been derided for having some terrible limitations
Result: A tie
[/again verbatim]
Total result (this is again a verbatim quote):
Ubuntu's best strength is handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff. Vista has a level of completeness and polish that some people find it hard to do without.
That's a start. (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree that whole-disk imaging probably isn't as big a demand on Linux as it is on Windows (probably because you have to constantly re-install Windows, which is a worse PITA than installing Ubuntu as I can personally attest, and it has all sorts of activation crap), but transparent backup is still a big deal.
Personally I think the best thing is just to set up an old machine somewhere with two hard drives (again, one for system, another for data) and make sure you can hit it via SSH, and then write a crontab for your workstation that syncs your ~/ to it every night via rsync. It's like three lines of shellscript, plus maybe 10 minutes to set it up so it doesn't need a password. You can scale it to as many users as you have room for on the backup server; the only limitation is that without doing complex rotation on the server there's no versioning, but it does give you a nice physically-removed copy, and does it all over an encrypted link, and even does some slick stuff to reduce traffic. To my knowledge, Windows doesn't ship with anything like rsync built in, and forces you to use clumsy GUI tools to accomplish the same thing. (My office uses some proprietary product which shall remain nameless to do the same thing...and it's totally crappy compared to what I can do with rsync and shellscripts.)
If you want to do versioning, it gets a little more complex, but honestly for home users, having a single "oh shit" copy of their data, somewhere safe (safe from their house burning down or the computer getting stolen), is probably sufficient.
Re:There's nothing to compare (Score:3, Interesting)
Something akin to a little BASIC program from the commie days lets me replicate what no shiny happy GUI tool has yet to deliver: namely an automated episode ripper for DVDs that will rip the files and give them the proper names similar to an audio ripper.
Some data (created by myself), some tools & a little bit of glue to tie it together.
The end result makes a killer video jukebox.
Re:There's nothing to compare (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll put linux firewalls up against windows games and suggest they cancel (feel I'm being generous here) and your other problems? I'm most interested in recent fedora/redhat, suse, or ubuntu failings.
I'm definitely not saying linux is perfect, I'm just curious. I first tried Red Hat 5 like 10 years ago or something and it took another 5 before I tried again. It was pretty rough. But installs now are nothing like back then and I think they're quicker and easier than Windows now, or at least comparable.
Re:Rudimentary? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Commenters so far are missing the point (Score:1, Interesting)
All things considered, to the average user, that doesn't play high end games and uses the PC mainly for internet, music listening, school papers, etc, Ubuntu is a very attractive choice.
Re:I would have given Ubuntu the edge (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Software. He praised Ubuntu for Gimp and OpenOffice but you can download Gimp and OpenOffice for Windows. Ubuntu makes it easer to get a lot of free software but a lot of the best FOSS applications are available for Windows.
2. Printing. Printing on Linux is a pain. It has been a pain since day one. But I know of more than one person that has had printing problems with Vista. I would call printing a tie.
3. Ubuntu has issues with detecting monitors. What is worse is they don't give you a nice easy interface to let you MAUNUALY select what monitor you have. The suggestion from the wiki? Manually edit your xorg config file. If you mess it up then you loose your screen and have to go in to the command line and fix it. I still don't have it working but I made a copy of my xorg config file before hacking it. NOT a user friendly way to deal with the problem.
4. Ubuntu is having some issues with Wifi. A lot of people are having problems even when their wifi card is in the kernal and worked under the last version of Ubuntu.
As I said I really like Linux but I just don't think that Ubuntu 7 is as good as everyone seems to think. I have had more luck with OpenSuse and CentOS than the latest version of Ubuntu. Yes it has a great community but I just don't get it. I am going to try the 32 bit version on my desktop to see if it is any less problematical. I tried it on my notebook but the WiFi problems are a show stopper for me.
Re:Commenters so far are missing the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, how can anyone justify spending gobs of cash on an OS which in effect does exactly the same as a free OS?
Target audience (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Can we just deal with the obvious trolls now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. A couple months ago, my girlfriend's windows installation crapped out on her. She had heard me talking about Linux and wanted to try it. I stepped her through the Kubuntu install, answering a few questions but she did most of it on her own. There were a couple of times I pulled up a terminal to install a program, and she was worried that she was going to have to learn to use the terminal. So the next time there was a program to install, I had her do it with Adept. I tried describing exactly what she should click, and after about 2 minutes she'd found the package and installed it. I told her she could have done the exact same thing by typing 'sudo aptitude install -package-', and the instructions would have been a lot simpler. I didn't expect her to know these commands off the top of her head, and graphical interfaces are great for figuring out how to do things, but when giving someone instructions on how to do something, the command line is as easy as it gets.
Since then, she's only used the terminal to run commands I tell her to run. She hasn't learned to use it on her own, but she gets along just fine with the GUIs - she's even found some cool games in the repositories that I didn't know existed.
2 Year Old Windows Vs. Ubuntu Experiment (Score:3, Interesting)
Installation:
I formated the drive on my 2 year old son's computer. I then gave him an Ubuntu disk (5.10)and told him to go install it on his computer. I then repeated the experiment with Windows XP. He was successful in his attempt to install Ubuntu. I came back 20 minutes latter and he was playing Klotski. When I tried to do the same with Windows, he simply could not get through the install.
Winner: Ubuntu. Ubuntu is noticeably easier to install than Windows.
Updates
At 3 he is currently running dual boot, as there are 'must have' apps on each of the platforms. On both platforms, he does his own OS security updates. He only does software upgrades on Ubuntu, as there is no way he is capable of hunting down installing application updates on Windows.
Winner: (Security) Tie
Winner: (Applications) Ubuntu
Accident Proof:
In 2 years of running Ubuntu, he has not broken the install once. Yes there have been spare links strewn around the desktop, but the install was still stable. In 2 years of running Windows, he has broken the install twice to the point of needing to reinstall.
Winner: Ubuntu
Ease of Use:
Once the OS was up and running, he had no trouble figuring out how to load and shut down his programs on either platform.
Winner: Tie
Conclusion: Winner - Ubuntu
I have been using my son as a yardstick for determining whether a person is an idiot or not. I don't expect people to be computer experts, nor do I expect them to know everything that I know. I do, however, expect an adult to be able to grasp anything that even the brightest 2 year old can understand. I don't think that is too much to ask.
This experiment may or may not still be considered relevant, as both Windows and Ubuntu have seen updates since I did it. I would be interested in hearing the results of this experiment being performed by others. The two things that I would want to see changed would be to up the age to 5 or 6, and to use Vista and Feisty.
Re:Yeah, here's a bad 50/50 (Score:2, Interesting)
Well... [youtube.com]
I did not RTFA. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've run Vista and Feisty Fawn. I've installed them both on a few machines. I've also been using other OSes for > 10 years.
Now, that's a small modicum of experience as compared to many
Installation:
1. Vista: Total pain in the neck. Took forever, installed lots of random extra crap that slowed my machine(s) down. Many of my old apps and games stopped working.
2. Feisty: Breeze. Very fast, I could even surf the web during installation. Very clean initial install, minimal wasted resource stuff installed. Most old Linux binaries still work, but coming from Windows XP, many of my old apps and games stopped working, however, more than were broken by Vista.
Initial Setup:
1. Vista: Word Pad. Terrible CD burning interface. Windows Media Player is still bloated and >>>>>>> than Aero, seriously. I'd like a better Nintendo 64 emulator. Mupen works well, but it lacks many features and some of the speed and compatibility of 1964 on XP. I'd like a 3d chess game. There are several free ones out, just grab it, clean it up, release it with the OS. Make it easy to play online against a friend via GAIM. Make ekiga easier and better. Actually iChat pretty much ruins all the open AND MS offerings in this department, which is tragic, because SPEEX is free, and better than the codecs that even iChat chooses to use, so (what were they thinking?!?).
I wanted to like Vista, I did, but it's such an obvious downgrade from XP in so many ways: Networking, Games, DRM, speed, stability... It seems like the only thing they got right was eye candy, and they are so far behind Ubuntu at this point that it's ridiculous. Especially since Ubuntu is FOSS, I mean, couldn't they have just grabbed all the compiz/beryl stuff and applied it natively via DirectX or something (what were they thinking?!?)? I really honestly don't know who's in charge at MS, and why they chose to shoot themselves so clearly in the foot with this release. They were already falling behind Linux in key areas: IE vs Firefox, Paint vs Gimp, WMP vs (just about anything, really), and now with the added DRM, more difficult security measures and networking setup.... It's like they WANT to lose all the desktops or something. I do miss Windows Live Messenger though. That is one app that they almost got right, at least as far as video conferencing goes. I look forward to getting a VM up and running so I can still use it in Ubuntu.
I want to stress again that Ubuntu is a great OS. I've been using it for > a month now, and it is fantastically easy, beautiful and fast, even on much older hardware than I currently own. I got beryl running nicely in 256 mb of ram, on a geforce 4, and Athlon (not XP!). Even on that ancient hardware it is much better and faster than Vista on a core 2 duo with 2 gb of ram, and an 8800 GTS. Hopefully somebody somewhere repackages Feisty to include better default apps and colors, because I think the time for Linux on the desktop has finally arrived, and there are A LOT of positives for humanity if FOSS wins this war.
All that being said, though, for most of my clients I'm still recommending XP SP2. The reason is simple: Games. They want San Andreas. They want WoW, CoD, and Outrun. Wine is just not good enough yet, and I wouldn't recommend Vista to people I actively dislike, much less people who are paying me. For those people who don't care much about games, I am install Ubuntu, adding beryl, and setting it up so on first boot they have Tvtime on one cube side, Mupen64 on another, Rhythmbox on a third, and Firefox on a fourth. The average end user thinks I am a wizard, but it's really all very simple in Ubuntu, now if only they could lose evolution and the shit brown.....
Re:There's nothing to compare (Score:4, Interesting)
Commercial software companies won't use the package formats or the repositories. Official repositories are not an option for them because they need to control redistribution rights (legally and for risk management). Further, even if they did use the official package format and the repository they still need to contact their own servers to handle registration of the software and updates to the software (since not all updates are free). Given that, it makes more sense right now for them to roll their own installers that include all this functionality.
Package managers are insufficient for commercial companies because they don't include:
Unless this changes, any commercial games or applications that are ported to linux will bypass the package manager and thus be just as limited as Windows, except that users have to juggle two different methods of doing things.
I'm all for standardization, but I'm not really seeing .deb as the ideal package format. Rather, I'd like to see a new format that is an extension of OpenStep packages. This would allow for portable packages that can be run off of a USB drive or CD without modification, that can be e-mailed or IM'd, that can be moved anywhere on the disk without problems, that support FAT binaries for different distros, OS's, and chipsets, and that can include source and build instructions for custom binaries all in a single "file." It would also allow OS X and Linux to share a package and would make it easier to find and extract resources from the packages.
I mean if we're going to choose a single package format for the future, lets make it a versatile and extensible open standard one appropriate for desktops of the future.
Re:unhelpful linux geeks (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Lot of information out there is outdated. You can find HOWTO's about configuring something by editing a config file. The problem is that these days most distributions use some sort of GUI config tool, and in order to accommodate that, the config file was moved, split into several other files, etc, and even if you manage to find it and edit it, next time you run the GUI config tool, all your edits will be overwritten. Then there are HOWTO's for ipchains and iptables, XFree86 and Xorg, and so on. Some of them are clearly described as obsolete, and point out newer, more relevant version, but some of them were not even updated for 10 years.
2) Formerly most of the discussion took place on the usenet. Every once a while some good soul extracted the useful information from the usenet discussion and other sources and put it on the web. So if you searched the web, most of the stuff that came up was already processed in some way. Now nearly all discussion boards are web based, and so if you search for something, all the raw discussions, arguments and flamewars come up, and you have to sift through it to extract anything useful. Also, the usenet hierarchy was somewhat organized, so if you for example wanted to post a question or answer about a newsreader, there were only one or two groups you could go to. These days everybody is posting on their own blog, and the whole discussion, if you can even call it that, is completely fragmented.
3) As Linux is becoming more popular, more people end up posting advice, and often they don't really know what they are talking about. Most of them are trying to give back to the community, which is good and should be encouraged, but combined with what I wrote above about web based discussions, it can actually create more damage then good. Perhaps some sort of centralized linux documentation wiki should be created, where all people can contribute by editing a document, rather than arguing on a web forum.
4) In addition to that, Linux is making inroads in corporate world, which is followed by more and more Linux related "corporate speak" on the web. So you search for some problem, and you end up with pages and pages of Novel generated buzzword dripping marketing drivel, which tells you how the stuff you are trying to configure is wonderful, but which is totally useless as it offers no information about the configuration process itself.
I have no idea how to fix it, and I expect it will actually get much worse before (hopefully) getting better.
Re:I would have given Ubuntu the edge (Score:5, Interesting)
The reviews I've read on Ubuntu that are the most insightful are written by those with very little prior knowledge of either environment: as such they reveal their expectations about those products, expectations that reflect more of the 'average user's' needs than that of the expert.
I've been a daily Linux desktop user for 8 or so years, but only now am I seeing reviews by people that start with "I really like how in Ubuntu I don't have to websites to download and install software" and howtos that begin with "So you've just installed Ubuntu and want to change your theme?".
These are very good signs. People are actually trying out this stuff and getting there on their own. The software is working. Our ideas are good.
Re:There's nothing to compare (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't remember a time in Windows where I didn't download something(.msi or
I'm going to put this here since I don't feel like making a new conversation. I was talking with my girlfriend which I set up her computer with linux. 2nd thing she asks me about was how to install new applications. I showed her the package manager and told her that most things she'd want are in there, just look around and see if anything tickles her fancy. She looked for a while and saw a few things but then promptly asked me what they looked like. And this is the great failing I see with current package managers. We need screenshots. Any regular person would at least like to see what they are getting before they try something out. They aren't going to waste their time downloading and installing, then promptly uninstalling stuff because it doesn't work the way they think it should.
Re:Can we just deal with the obvious trolls now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Even in Windows, the command line has a power the GUI doesn't. The Windows cmd is actually quite powerful. Its just that the syntax (and lack of documentation) would scare a Unix geek. There are all sorts of useful things (like deleting a service) you can do easily from a Windows command prompt that you can't do from the gui.
In Windows, the man pages are accessed through HELP. You can just type HELP to get a list of commands. The two most useful commands for batch files in Windows are FOR and SET.
I once had a consulting job setting up disaster recovery for Oracle failsafe and SQL server. It was a 2 week job and involved scripts for configuring the clusters, managing the EMC software, the Oracle failsafe, SQL server, and everything else. The project was a total success, the client was happy, and I produced exactly 3 windows .BAT files to implement the solution.
Supporting end users is always easier with a command prompt. I can simply email them the commands I want them to run and have them email me the output back. I may have to tell them how to start a command prompt and copy/paste into it, but that is still easier than talking them through a complex gui. Of course, I'll take a BASHJ script anytime over a Windows one.
Have you ever had an option that you wanted in a gui greyed out, and you have no clue why it is greyed out? Totally miserable, especially if you have to support a user.