Vista Vs. Gutsy Gibbon

ricegf writes in with the account of one Rupert Goodwins writing in ZDNet UK. Goodwins has 7 computers running various versions of Windows and Linux, and explains why he chooses to do most of his work on the Gibbon. "So here's the funny thing. I've used Windows since 1.0. I've lived through the bad times of Windows/386 and ME, and the good times of NT 3.51 and 2K. I know XP if not backwards, then with a degree of familiarity that only middle-aged co-dependents can afford each other... Then how come I'm so much more at home with Ubuntu than Vista? It boils down to one abiding impression: Ubuntu goes out of its way to get out of your way... Vista goes out of its way to be Vista and enforce the Vista way."

Re:Another one

[Farakin]

As many as it takes? (I'll leave it up to you as to whether I'm trying to make you fed up or cheering on the success of Linux)

Re:Another one

[HybridJeff]

You're pondering how fed up you are with the success of linux.

Re:Another one

[Donniedarkness]

Don't fear the penguins.

Geesh, it even says it on the top of the page.

I wanted to say something witty...

[BronsCon]

like "First Post"

But this insight came out instead.

To the end-user, Windows has "security through obstruction", which annoys and gets disabled. To that same end-user, Linux has "security through obscurity", which stays out of the way.

Yes, I know, open source, all the flaws are right there for everyone to see, not obscured at all. That's not what the end-user sees. The end-user just knows that it's more secure because that's what their geek friend told them; they never see why, they never care why and they never need bother with it. This is a good thing. What doesn't annoy them enough that they go out of their way to disable... I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.

Let's review what we've learned so far this year:
Linux - driver issues. Vista - driver issues.
Linux - learning curve. Vista - learning curve.
Linux - secure until you work around the security in the name of convenience. Vista - secure until you work around the security in the name of convenience.
Linux - annoying until you learn it. Vista - annoying until you learn it AND disable the security features.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon getting out of your way to let you work: $0

Windows Vista video ad playing under a slashdot article favouring Linux over Windows: Priceless

Re:Why do they always do this

[Chandon Seldon]

they can't be compared as if they were cars; they are Different Things

They absolutely can be compared like they were cars.

Vista is like a short bed gasoline pickup truck. You can perform most day to day tasks with it, but it gets horrible gas mileage and can't handle edge cases (4 passengers, seven foot long cargo) very well at all.

A distro like Ubuntu is more like a VW Golf TDI that can transform into a panel van or 18 wheeler when necessary. It's obviously superior in every way, but people complain about stupid stuff like gas stations that don't sell diesel and how hard it is to get through a 10' tunnel when you're in 18-wheeler mode.

There's an ad?

[Gr8Apes]

Darn Firefox plugins, I missed a classic bit of irony

Fill in the blanks and save for future use

[Seismologist]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you _____ fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a _____ (a _____ w/_____ gigs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my ancient _____ running _____, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this _____, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that. In addition, during this file transfer, _____ will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even _____ is straining to keep up as I type this. I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various _____'s, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a _____ that has run faster than its _____ counterpart, despite the _____'s same chip architecture. My _____ with _____ megs of ram runs faster than this _____ mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that _____ is a superior operating system. _____ lovers, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use _____ over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

Problems with Ubuntu GUI.

[serviscope_minor]

The main problem with ubuntu is the interface. It doesn't come with ratpoison installed by default. Then, you have to dig around in config files to get it working. And, frankly the bash shell and vim editor are horribly bloated compared to lightweight counterparts, like sh and vi.

It's a GUI problem, so I'll just stick to Vista... oh. Never mind.

Re:Fill in the blanks and save for future use

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Prepend a "Dear Penthouse editors: I never thought this would happen to me, but" and that's /really/ general-purpose.

Re:Another one

[mrsteveman1]

OH SNAP

no one cares anymore

Re:Different experience here

[kcbanner]

So then the sarcasm truck came and hit the dude, slow speed but he couldn't figure out what it was...then it backed up and hit him again...turns out he was fine but he still didn't know what it was.

Re:Another one

[ShieldW0lf]

You should try it out by grabbing the DVD Install/LiveCD off of bittorrent here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/dvd/current/ [ubuntu.com]

Disclaimer: My download will get faster if you do this.

Re:That's because:

[xaque]

We're working on it, just give us a little more time.

The mantra of all true programmers.

Re:I agree

[ozmanjusri]

Pro-Linux threads generally are. It's a sensible marketing approach from Microsoft, and a lot cheaper than good engineering.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we'll take your word for it. You seem like the kind of guy who would never misrepresent facts or anything like that. Got any more truthyness you want to send our way, or are we done for now?

Re:I agree

[FishWithAHammer]

Koreans also eat, sleep, and breathe StarCraft. You think that they're a reliable baseline?

(Kidding...sort of.)

Re:Ugh iPhoto

[Chaffar]

What if you want to send it to a friend and your friend is still using a 56k modem?

What is this "friend" thing you speak of?

Re:I agree

[1001011010110101]

If they use they mod points to silence us, they cant use them to shill.

Go to MSNBC.COM and leave us alone!

Re:Another one

[jon_anderson_ca]

Cancel or allow?

Re:It's a bad review.

[Bob-taro]

If the guy said "boxen", maybe you'd have a point. Maybe "tower". The fact that he runs 7 computers at home puts him a bit beyond Joe Sixpack.

At least it puts him beyond Joe Sixbox.

Re:Why Vista Security is like the TSA.

[fwarren]

But there you have it - Windows Vista's vaunted security is about as logical and effective as banning water bottles in carry-on luggage.

Hey back off man.

You can't imagine how many times terrorists have been stopped from boarding planes because they did not want to be thirsty.

I am sure Vista's Security relies on there being that type of tangent effect.