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A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake 462

Posted by timothy from the look-and-feel- dept.
Mifflesticks points to this interesting "visual comparison" between Mandrake 8.0 and Windows XP. Even though it's specifically a visual / aesthetic comparison, this piece actually sums up the good things about XP -- good device detection, multiple users set up from the install, improved network configuration -- better than anything else I've seen. The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.
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A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake More

A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake

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  • nothing new in XP (Score:4, Troll)

    by unformed ( 225214 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:49AM (#2109706)
    I'm using XP at work to test our software on. Let me state that XP offers VERY FEW stability or power enhancements over Win2K. The added "features" are purely user interface enhancements, which translates into sluggish performance. It's included firewall is weak (allows microsoft programs full access, so anyone can easily write a trojan that works as an explorer plugin)

    As a developer, I've turned off all the user interface enhancements (fading menus, animations, anti-aliasing, etc) for optimal performance, and the result is, a slightly slower Win2000.

    Furthermore, the biggest turnoff from XP is that it "calls home". Turn on Zone Alarm or Tiny Personal Firewall, and watch while screensavers try to connect to microsoft.com. Why? I don't know, presumably to send information about the system.

    Win2000 is a rock-solid OS; It's stable, easy-to-use, looks good, and most importantly it's fast. XP looks a little nicer, runs a lot slower, and calls home; don't use it if you prefer speed or anonymity.

    • Re:nothing new in XP (Score:3, Interesting)

      by donutello ( 88309 )
      Win9x --> Windows XP
      Win2KPro --> Windows XP Professional
      Win2KServer --> Windows .NET Server (Whistler Server)

      Whistler Server is nowhere near ready for release or comparison right now. I believe they plan to release it sometime in 2002.

      Windows XP is a HUGE improvement compared to Win9x. The UI is a lot better - and no, I don't mean in terms of looking cool - I mean it in terms of being usable - the way things are organized, etc. And there is a lot more functionality and reliability in XP. I hope Gateway would update their damn drivers so I could install XP on my girlfriends computer - it would make my life so much simpler if I could remote assist her, etc.

      I'm using XP Professional on all my Win2K boxes right now and the major things I notice are reliability, not having to reboot every time I install anything and ease of use. I don't notice my apps running any slower - in fact I notice some apps that run lightning fast by comparison to Win2K - especially a certain *cough* MUD client.

      The thing I notice most on my laptop is how fast the damn thing boots or resumes from standby. It makes it a whole heck of a deal more convenient to take my laptop to meetings, etc. The other big difference between Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro is remote access. It's awfully convenient for me to work on my desktop at work from home.

      • Mod this up please. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by unformed ( 225214 )
        Windows XP is a HUGE improvement compared to Win9x. The UI is a lot better - and no, I don't mean in terms of looking cool - I mean it in terms of being usable - the way things are organized, etc.
        Fully agree with you there; though I think Win2000 does everything that's needed; IMO XP provides the "coolness" factor that I don't want.

        I'm using XP Professional on all my Win2K boxes right now and the major things I notice are reliability, not having to reboot every time I install anything and ease of use.
        Actually I didn't think about that; That's true, XP can install drivers w/o rebooting. I haven't had to install drivers in a -long- time, so missed that.

        The thing I notice most on my laptop is how fast the damn thing boots or resumes from standby. It makes it a whole heck of a deal more convenient to take my laptop to meetings, etc. The other big difference between Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro is remote access. It's awfully convenient for me to work on my desktop at work from home.
        Never used either of those, (don't have a laptop, and used Radmin for remote access)...

        but you've given some truly good points...thanks

        and moderators, mod this up (the parent) please
    • Furthermore, the biggest turnoff from XP is that it "calls home". Turn on Zone Alarm or Tiny Personal Firewall, and watch while screensavers try to connect to microsoft.com. Why? I don't know, presumably to send information about the system.
      Check your time settings. I bet you have time synchronization on. The default server is time.microsoft.com. Without this on, I get no outgoing traffic. So its not "calling home" just synchronizing the time. It would be patently illegal to send system information without your express consent. Ask Battle.net what happens when you do!

    • Re:nothing new in XP (Score:4, Interesting)

      by smack_attack ( 171144 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @12:20PM (#2123655) Homepage
      the Facts:
      I loaded up my collection of mp3s.
      All 4.7GBs.
      Each mp3 tried to spawn it's own WinAmp process/window.
      Resources climbed, and climbed (at peak, there was 600MB of swap/RAM being used).
      WinXP chugged.
      WinXP did not crash
      WinXP finally ran out of thread space and stopped loading more.
      I clicked "X" N-hundred times (yes, there needs to be a killall -9 in windows)
      WinXP did not crash.

      Notes:
      I am not a zealot FOR or AGAINST Windows/Linux.
      My playlist of mp3s is a little over 72 hours long.
      • interesting....i think this beats that story though:

        was running Win2000, I bought one of the those boxes that lets you switch out hard drives very quickly, though they are NOT (at least not mine) hot-swappable.

        Well, I wanted to try it out anyway. Had Win2K running, pulled out my slave drive. Windows locked for a few moments, then gave a message "Unable to access hard drive, and continued running smoothly....I'm sure XP would do the same.

        Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying XP isn't stable. I'm saying Win2000 is -as- stable as XP, and the "call home" issues of XP make me definitely not want to use it.
    • I don't know much about what XP "phones home" or whatever, but you can switch the GUI back to classic mode, which I'm guessing gets rid of the slowdown(s).
    • Let me state that XP offers VERY FEW stability or power enhancements over Win2K.

      Depends on what you mean by "power". XP will automatically throttle the CPU clock (like SpeedStep) depending on the system load - makes a big difference on a laptop (or a rack server).

      I found the boot time on XP to be absolutely amazing! Boots at least 3 times faster than Win2k on my machine.

      The DirectX support is also seamless now - I can finally get rid of that Win98 partition on my system and move all my games to WinXP. Woohoo!!!

      As for speed - ever consider you are using a beta? Most betas are slower than the release product, this was certainly the case for Win2k and don't see why XP should be any different.
    • Furthermore, the biggest turnoff from XP is that it "calls home". Turn on Zone Alarm or Tiny Personal Firewall, and watch while screensavers try to connect to microsoft.com. Why? I don't know, presumably to send information about the system.

      Go to http://www.systeminternals.com and download TDIMon (and the other TCPIP tool - can't remember it now).

      Run it, and see what apps do what.

      There you go - problem solved.

      Simon
  • My wife demanded to be the little green frog. She refused to accept any of the other icons!!

    What's even better is that she now understands how to use her own account and switch to it without logging me off or having to type anything cryptic like 'xinit -- :1' (which only works if you know how many other people have logged on).

  • Fanboy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuiteSisterMary ( 123932 ) <slebrunNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:09AM (#2112076) Journal
    Y'all always complain when people who don't understand Linux make poor reviews of it. Well, this guy doesn't understand MS operating systems. Easy networking setup? Been there since 95. 2K will put you on a DHCP TCP/IP network with nothing but an 'ok' click. The 'temptation to use another person's account because the name is already in there?' So tell NT to clear the last user logged in dialog. But I guess things like system policies are a bit technical for this guy; after all, penguins with wrenches are more important to him.
    • No kidding. I mean, reading stuff like this:

      Well, one of the biggest reasons why people are turned away from Linux is the greater learning curve that it used to have. Used to have, I say.

      He's touting Linux as the freshest, most usable operating system out there. No learning curve left!

      Don't get me wrong, I love Linux...but until it gets to the point where you can double-click an icon and have a game fully installed and ready to go, it won't be ready for Joe User.

      Set a hardcore experienced Windows user in front of a Linux box, and have him install Quake 3 Arena...then tell me there's no learning curve left. Then set two users side by side - a Windows Guru on a Windows box and a Linux Guru on a Linux box. Have them each install their OS-respective copies of Q3a and see who's up and playing first.

      Plus, I'm thinking this guy doesn't know the meaning of the word "Aesthetic." The article pretty much says:

      Okay! We're going to compare the aesthetics between Windows XP and Mandrake Linux. This article is about the aesthetic properties. Only the aesthetics.

      Now let's get into the networking setup...

      And why pick Mandrake? For that matter, why compare Windows to any distribution of Linux? There's a fundamental concept that nobody seems to grasp these days.

      Windows and Linux are completely different operating systems!

      Yes. You can make pretty Graphical Interfaces for Linux to dress it up and make it easy to use. Great! I'm all for that! But writing articles like this is like comparing a steak knife to a hunting knife. Each of them have their uses, but one of them just happens to be used more widely than the other. (Would you use your hunting knife to eat with? You can, but it's a lot harder.)
    • actually, it's been there since wfw311 (windows for workgroups) but still, your point it right on the money. this guy doesn't know his ass from a hole in the wall. I can't believe he uses the word 'GURU' as part of his nickname.

  • So which part of these instructions sets up the DHCP server?

    Just as in Mandrake, I tell the OS what the name of my Workgroup is, the name of this particular PC on that network, and I enable DHCP. BAM! I'm on the network.

    I'm not knocking this. How could I know this? It's a NICE ADDITION that can seriously reduce the number of calls I get from people that have two PCs, bought two NICs and a crossover cable from me, but have no clue as to how to make the PCs see each other. I just find it funny that the first time I saw this type of "easy network setup" was in Mandrake.
    After all, he says these people bought two PCs, two NICS, and a crossover cable. If they have *only* that, does Mandrake set them each up with a non-conflicting IP address? I know that Win98 and up do that by just pulling an unroutable address out of its collective wazoo. Does Mandrake do the same or is he missing the step I think he's missing? Someone with a more elaborate setup isn't going to just be picking up a cross over cable, but more likely a couple of straight-through cables...possible a new Palm, a few sticks of memory, some games...but that's beside the point. =)

    Of course, we don't live in an unconnected world anymore. Most likely them have some outside access already planned. BUT, if you have a cable modem that only dishes out one address, you're still going to need a third something to NAT through to provide DHCP addresses. Or you'll have to break down and pay the extra fee most ISPs want for multiple addresses. An SMC Barricade [insight.com] can do the trick of doling out the addresses, serving as a broadband firewall, is only $99, and even works with all my VPN setups into the corporate LAN.

    To be honest, while I think this guy sounds silly in his article, comparing his apples to pineapples, he is the face of the average computer user out there in that we can see he is slightly familiar with these two worlds and are glimpsing into a decision being made.

  • Linux Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.

    Wow, I haven't used Linux in years, but I find it amazing that the setup has evolved to a point where people start comparing the ease of Windows setup to Linux setup instead of vice versa. Succulent.

    • It really is getting to that point. Having installed recent versions of Linux, I can say its true. Every time I install a new version of Linux, I'm astounded by how far its come and how different it is to the version I installed six months before it - I feel like I have to learn a whole lot all over again. Every time I install a new version of Windows, OTOH, I'm astounded by how little has changed in the couple of years that have passed since the last release. From what I've heard about XP, it sounds like MS may be starting to respond to that by actually improving things... that would be pretty neat, the OS industry has stood stagnant for far too long.

      I started using Linux in 1995, and installed it on my own PC first in 1996. At that stage, I had to recompile the kernel just to get my Sound Blaster to work! There were some OK windows managers, but "desktop environments" (e.g. Gnome and KDE) did not exist. There was no linuxconf, i.e. no centralised configuration system - everything had to be configured by editing its own text files somewhere in /etc. There were no graphical installs. I remember a year or two after that having to download kernel patches and recompile to get FAT32 support, and I remember having to recompile the kernel to get IP forwarding to work for IP masquerading. Internet dial-up involved editing numerous script/chat files and figuring out pppd parameters. There were no decent game API's like SDL [libsdl.org], no decent widget toolkits like Qt/gtk. I find it mindblowing just how rapidly the average Linux distro has evolved in six years. Compare that to Microsoft and you suddenly realise just how stagnant the commercial OS industry has been - in 1995, there was Windows 95. Now there is WindowsME, which has hardly changed. A nicer browser has been integrated into the OS, and has finally become more or less stable. Some more hardware devices are supported, and a few minor eye-candy changes have been added. A few bugs have been fixed, but many obvious bugs that where there in the first release of Win95 are still there. That about sums it up. Microsoft would have us believe that that is six years of development? Of course, there is also Windows 2000, which, while not bad, doesn't represent all that much development either from NT4.

      My general feeling for the past year or so was that Linux would catch up to being equivalent (and superior) to Windows sometime toward the second half of 2002. It still seems to be on track to do so. I haven't seen XP, but as I said, it sounds from what I've heard that MS might be realising that they may need to start improving their software again. Thats a good thing. There is no question of course that Linux has been behind in most things (with the exception of networking, I've always preferred the Unix networking model), but its definitely about to catch up.

  • GNU/Linux doesn't handle failure cases well at all (Score:4, Troll)

    by -=[ SYRiNX ]=- ( 79568 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @11:44AM (#2115891) Homepage

    The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP

    You can't assume that hardware is going to be supported. Every attempt I've made to install any version of Mandrake (or other Linux distros, such as Red Hat) on my apparently non-supported hardware (plug-in PCI Maxtor ATA/100 IDE controller card) has resulted in a system that locks up inexplicably while trying to boot the kernal. On the other hand, every attempt I've made to install any version of Windows on any non-supported hardware has always resulted in a successful boot and an entirely usable system -- minus sound support, minus UltraDMA support, or minus high-resolution video modes, mind you, but still entirely working and usable. When a given GNU/Linux distro can't exactly identify your monitor to feed XFree86 the correct refresh rates, it usually ends up using some defaults that are so non-standard it causes your monitor to display a rolling, flickering, totally unviewable picture -- whereas I've never seen this happen on any Windows system because Windows just defaults to the VGA 60 Hz 16 color 640x480 standard refresh rates, which work on any (S)VGA monitor. Imagine that--handling failure gracefully!

    In general, GNU/Linux distributions, drivers, and applications don't handle error or failure cases well at all. Why? Because those developers only care about making the success cases work well. Screw the poor user who can't happen to get everything perfectly right on the first try--it's their own fault for being ignorant, after all, and they should just have to keep doing the entire process all over again until they get it right. God forbid any developer should spend any time, effort, or skill making things easy to use for non-experts.

    • Have you checked to see whether your hardware was actually supported under Mandrake?

      As for me, the Linux hardware support for my home-built PC is BETTER than Windows 98 SE's. Particularly for my HP Deskjet 952: its Windows drivers are utter crap. Modem support seems to be better as well. When I upgraded my modem, Mandrake didn't even hiccup. Windows 98 nearly died.

      Jon Acheson

  • Ummm... (Score:5, Informative)

    by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:16AM (#2116126) Homepage
    Mandrake != KDE

    How can you possibly do a 'visual' comparison of a linux distro vs. anything? And that begs the question who really cares about a visual comparison? I'd rather see a comparison at how elegantly and efficiently each UI does a particular task. IMNSHO, OS/2's WPS has them all beat, and did it back in 1993 with 486's on 8MB of RAM!

    I'm on Mandrake 7.2 here, running Windowmaker + ROX-Filer. I hate any UI that depends on a braindead 'task bar' somewhere on the screen. Either I'm smoking crack, or what I'm running must not be Mandrake, eh?

    My preferred UI stays the hell out of my way, but is pretty enough to show off at the same time.

    • Well... (Score:2)

      by Lxy ( 80823 )
      I haven't been able to read the article (/.'ed?) but to me it looks like they're doing a side by side "Joe Shmoe, install XP on this machine, Mandrake on this machine, and tell us which was a nicer experience". This is good news for the linux community. Joe Schmoe, the same guy who's told that XP is the way to go, has found a free OS that does the same thing. Recent versions of Mandrake and Redhat have been very easily installed. The hardware auto-detect actually works under Mandrake, which is a huge improvement over any version of Windows.

      To get into an argument over which GUI is btter is a moot point. Joe Schmoe has discovered for the first time that he has options.. lots of them. Joe Schmoe will go command line, TWM (my favorite), Gnome, or whatever as he chooses.

  • It not the UI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by garoush ( 111257 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:32AM (#2116787) Homepage
    It not the UI stupid, its applications.

    We keep comparing Linux and Windows and how Linux is better et. al. But until when the set of available applications that are available for Windows make it to Linux, AND the marketing machine that MS has is used for Linux, I don't see Linux taking over anytime soon.

    Think of a "killer app" for Linux and than you will see MS running for its money.
    • Is that it will almost immediately be ported to Win32.

      If you think about it, most of the best apps on Linux have either been ported to Win32, or are in the process of being ported. Take Gimp, for example, often quoted as a Linux "killer app". It took a while, but even this one has now been ported to windows.

      Sure, there are some advantages to having our Linux apps available during those times when we are forced to use Windows, but the downside is that by porting all of the good Linux apps to windows, we are making Windows the universal platform.
    • I use Office 2000 at work, and it makes me miserable. It's just feature landfill.

      There are serious bugs in Word that have been there for nearly a decade! Like the section break bug! And there are new bugs with every release! It's gotten to the point where I have to print out my docs and CHECK EVERY PAGE to make sure something hasn't spontaneously broken. It defeates the purpose of using a computer to do the work.

      So, if switching to Linux means I have to use something else as my office app, I say bring it on!

      Jon Acheson

  • anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.

    Why would anyone who has used mandrake (or any other linux) care about windows xp? If you are alredy out of windows hell, why would you want to go back?

    We also alredy know that windows is easy to install. Thats the whole deal with windows. it's easy.

  • 90% of this stuff (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:28AM (#2117592)
    Was copied by Mandrake from Neptune and Whistler before they (Microsoft) had a chance to release code based on them to the public. A good chunk of this stuff he talks about is even present in Win2k and NT4.

    Lots of FUD.

  • != The Same (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Perdo ( 151843 )
    Yep, all operating systems will eventually be identicle. Powerfull "features", look and feel, form and function will be the same. As long as they are all expected to attach to the same internet they have to be the same. But OS(x),Win(x) et. al. will never have Linux's price point.

    This reminds me of something I've been meaning to run by the /. gurus:

    Let's say there are a bunch of clients running microsoft.net. Is it possible through ip spoofing etc. that Microsoft will not be selling time on their application servers at all but using our hardware and our bandwith to provide services to eachother? I have to run application (x), It requires a given amount of resources that I do not have onsite because I have a crippled client. I request resources from microsoft, they sell me the time and bandwidth from someone else's idle machine. Just like a distributed computing effort. Eventually, Microsoft would not even have the costs associated with running servers at all except for passport. Running my little client, I would see all this data arrive from a single IP since XP can spoof an IP. I cannot tell when my machine is acting as a server for someone else because the two "personal" firewalls that monitor outgoing traffic have been mysteriously disabled. Napster has shown that this sort of model is completely funtional. Microsoft is going to sell time on our computers back to us. It is a beautiful model for distributed computing, giving everyone access to a globaly shared beowulf cluster. Is your processor working 100% all the time? Are there times when you wished you had a hell of a lot more processing power? Do you use all your drive space all the time? Wouldn't you like to store your data encrypted on a global raid array? Need any file at all? Someone has it. Want to avoid redundant effort? Someone has done your work, and better than you could do it. Neat concepts except we could do it for ourselves for free and microsoft wants to charge us for the privelage.

    We may now know why Balmer was jumping around like a monkey and bellowing the incredibly arrogant phrase "give it up for me!!".

    Taking our culture from us and selling it back to us. RIAA,MPAA,Microsoft,AOL

    Nasty, Nasty, Nasty, Nasty. Fuck I hate This
  • Who says that windows is better at detecting hardware than mandrake. At least for my case i found that after a motherboard upgrade, mandrake 8.0 detected the new motherboard and installed all the relevent drivers for me (sound, usb). I also hav win2k on another partition and i had to reinstall win2k after the hardware upgrade. This fud about windows being more hardware friendly has to end. Install windows first, and then go thru countless reboots to get all the drivers in place. It is just plain stupid. For any linux distro u just need to do 1 reboot (if you recompile the kernel) and things start working after that.
  • The emphasis recently has been placed on making Linux easier to install and look prettier. This is great and necessary, but there are many more underlying (and difficult) issues that need to be solved before Linux can gain as much mainstream acceptance as Windows (XP or otherwise) for home and end-user desktops.

    Here is a short list of reasons that Linux has not yet become mainstream that I ripped from one of my earlier posts:

    Linux is not yet mainstream because:

    I have to look through config files and search the internet to find out if my scanner, mousepad, modem, camera, network card, 3D video card, sound card, etc., etc., is supported.

    When I go to the computer store to buy a new card or peripheral, I have to carry a small binder full of hardware compatability lists.

    To get a new TrueType font to view and print in StarOffice I have to go through three separate manual proceedures for X, Ghostscript, and StarOffice which involve editing config files that could break my system or applications. Or I could use kfontinst, which still requires a major manual setup in order to be able to be used with StarOffice.

    To get the same new TrueType font to work in AbiWord, I have to go through some addition manual procedures to those that were needed for StarOffice.

    As someone else mentioned, for all the configurability of KDE and Gnome, I still can't right click on the desktop to change my screen settings.

    To configure my system in most distributions, I have to look in several places for the configuration tools, they all behave differently, and many times don't do everything, often forcing me to edit config files manually.

    The two major desktop environment camps give me 5000 themes and two dozen window managers, but can't get together on a common object embedding API, so I will soon be faced with choosing applications by desktop rather than by features, or giving up high level interoperability.

    I have to spend extra money for VMWare express or Win4Lin and still have to spend hundreds on MS Office so I can communicate with all of my friends and co-workers who send me .doc and .xls files. (and no, StarOffice, AbiWord, and Gnumeric import filters are often not good enough). This is basically the "applicatin problem" that others have referred to.

    I like to do digital photography, and for the best results I still have to scan and print in Windows. (Most film scanners are not even supported at all in Linux.)

    Hardware and software vendors *don't want* Linux to become mainstream. They already have to support two - Windows (multiple flavors) and Mac - and adding another mainstream OS will increase their costs. They are fighting it as long as they can, hoping it will never become mainstream.

    Most of these things are not a big deal for me and other technically inclined Linux users, but if you think "Joe Sixpack" is going to find this fun, you have another thing coming

    Some of these issues are far more difficult to solve than the pretty interface, an easier installation, and better hardware detection. I don't mean to belittle these things, they are important, it's just that there's much more work that has to be done before Linux is the right choice for the huddled masses.

  • Some problems with the article (Score:3, Informative)

    by throx ( 42621 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @12:34PM (#2121625) Homepage
    Seeing how XP Professional is based on a new kernel...

    XP is based on the same kernel as Win2k and WinNT before it. Sure there's been some revisions, but hardly even enough to justify a version change - if you look at the versioning it's gone from 5.0 (win2k) to 5.1 (winxp)

    I just find it funny that the first time I saw this type of "easy network setup" was in Mandrake.

    Guess he never installed a Windows system before. This has been around since Win95 and Win2k. In fact, the XP install is almost identical to the 2k install.

    Microsoft has managed to piss off my wife by making her default to a frog icon and has now nearly completely crossed over to the dark side of the "I Hate Bill Gates" club.

    She got pissed over the cute green frog, that you could have changed for her to just about anything (note that you can import pictures). Sheesh. Hardly a damning indictment that they kept the install simply by defaulting the user icons.

    I actually like this better and it PROMOTES others to not use your account because your name happens to be already typed into the field.

    Umm... you can turn this off in profiles if you want?

    but I'm sure there's some keystroke out there that changes users easily in XP

    Yup - right there in the help on it if you look. Window-L.

    The real problem I have with XP is that by default it encourages you to run with root level permissions. This is going to get nasty from a security point of view pretty quickly.

    Oh, yeah, you forgot that XP lets you have raw sockets just like Mandrake. Damn those evil Microsofties for implementing a standard!! The world will end! Well, at least according to Steve "Conspiracy" Gibson.
  • These types of comparisons (reviews) for Windows XP have reallly got me confused. I have been running Windows 2000 for probably a good two years now and it seems perfect. It is extremely stable, has the old interface (believe it or not, is a plus for me) and is loaded with usefull features and things that make customizing and working with the OS fine as it can be.

    The problem I am having is with all these people who say they have tried Windows 2000 and hated it for some odd reason, yet they try Windows XP and think its the thing that will save Microsoft OSs. The thing is, as far as I can tell Windows XP is Windows 2000 with:

    1. Windowblinds integrated into the OS.
    2. Product activation
    3. More MS apps integrated right into the OS
    4. The latest compatibility updates for windows 2000.

    I don't understand how anyone could say XP is better than Win2k when when you get right down to it, are the same OS. Personally, I know that there is no way in hell I am going to upgrade to Windows XP. People will always whine about compatibility with Windows 2000. I never saw it as that bad, and especially now, now that they have released two service packs with all kinds of compatibility upgrades inside, it is the best Microsoft OS.

    I really don't want to buy another OS, and have it turn out to be the same one I'm using. I am not paying any money so I can have a green and blue start menu. I am fine the way I am. I actually bought Windows 2000, and to tell you the truth, it was worth the $250 (Canadian) I payed for it.

    • I've been testing XP extensively for my software company since Beta 1, and at this point (RC2), it is very close to replacing 2K as the OS on my windows box. Your points are totally right, but you miss a couple. First, the OS boots a lot faster. My main windows box is much faster than the test box running XP (athlon 700 vs k6-400) and yet it takes a full 27 secs longer to boot than the slower box running XP. Big deal, I know, but everything about the OS seems much faster to me-- application launch, ui responsiveness, disk access. Second, XP seems much more stable. While Win2k is definitely the most stable released OS from microsoft, I've definitely had a few crashes on it. Yet since installing RC1, I've had 0 crashes on the XP box. While not quite scientific, I've had to use to XP enough by now that I'm almost convinced I'll be upgrading to it because it is already far ahead (or so it seems to me ;) of Win2k in the exact things that made me go from Win98 to Win2k in the first place-- speed and stability.

  • What this says to me; (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cluge ( 114877 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:32AM (#2123321) Homepage
    I think now more than ever there could be a serious successful push to put Linux on the desktop at many smaller companies. Many small companies I have seen already have trouble keeping up with the software upgrade/liscence number merry go round that is the MS "corporate environment". With windows XP "unique" liscencing and it's penchant for "phoneing home" to tell Big Brother everything they want to know about your machine, more companies will be willing to take the leap to Linux.

    What this article says to me is that if they can use XP they can use Linux. With the help of a skilled admin I'd say small business stands to save a good deal of money in several areas.

    • Software upgrade $$
    • Hardware upgrade $$
    • Less down time (depends on the skill of the administrator)

    Could be interesting

  • MS's 'Tight' User Interface (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @11:02AM (#2123571)
    Microsoft is coming up on a decade of interaction with users and usability testing. I think they're nearing the point that Apple did with OS 9, before they broke all the interfaces for the 'Aqua' look that pervades 0S 10.

    In other words, despite all the FUD, marketing, and anti-competitive crap BillCo is engaged in, they're getting their User Interface pretty-damn near perfect in terms of usability. Remember that because a person is employed by MS, he or she is not necessarily a borg. It looks like those who actually get WinXP will be getting a hell of an operating system.

    We're seeing a lot of the same application elements expressed in slightly different ways in different OS's now. You can say that someone is copying someone else, but what it really means is that someone has found the 'best' way to do something in terms of usability or security. Take the graphical logins. I think Apple was the first to get the whole 'Icon-Username' setup, but this is apparently the best setup for a multi-user workstation, like most family PC's.

    By the same token, I think that we'll probably see MS making their UI/Windowing System skinnable in the not-too-distant future ala Windowblinds to compete with Apple's 'themes', Kaleidoscope and all the different theme-window manager combinations for X.

    Now if only their development teams put as much effort into application security as they do into UI. I would really have loved not cleansing my Mom's PC of Code Red II....
    • By the same token, I think that we'll probably see MS making their UI/Windowing System skinnable in the not-too-distant future ala Windowblinds to compete...
      I think Stardock [stardock.com] are already way ahead of you: see this post [microsoft.com] from the Microsoft Business Connection site.
    • The UI perfect in terms of usability? You can only say this if you believe that the current way GUIs are done is the right way.

      Does anyone here honestly think we will use GUIs in the same way 10 years from now?

      I believe current GUIs (everyone of them) are horrible. They have poor interaction principles. They lack the fundamentals of task based interactions. They are overly complex when they don't need to be. They do not communicate well in abstract terms to the end user what they are really doing. Current GUIs are also heavily based on US culture.

      No I don't have any grand ideas to fix it all other than I believe the GUI should be based on basic geometric shapes for actions. Much like most embedded devices have. And that if needed, somewhere easily accessible is a further level of complexity for those that demand it.
    • pretty-damn near perfect in terms of usability.

      huh, huh, perfectly useless without $900 of additional software. Someone reported spending ten minutes to turn off the "dumb down" stuff. Why bother? When you are finished you end up with W2K, NT, 98, ME, something like Win3.1. Same old, same old, it's not FUD to call it dull. If I were to use it, I'd expect the same quirky and inconsistent junk that everyone became familiar with and now considers "easy".

      Code Red? Oh yeah, the XP call home features are much that. Expect MS.net to become very clogged and XP to be very slow or to quit working when you disconnect the internet.

    • You can skin XP right now. Unfortunately, when trying to look for more themes, there were none on the website I was directed to.

      Henry
    • Microsoft is coming up on a decade of interaction with users and usability testing. I think they're nearing the point that Apple did with OS 9, before they broke all the interfaces for the 'Aqua' look that pervades 0S 10.

      In other words, despite all the FUD, marketing, and anti-competitive crap BillCo is engaged in, they're getting their User Interface pretty-damn near perfect in terms of usability

      Either that or they've had ten years to sufficiently train most of the computer-using populace to their style of UI. A company who has developed the "perfect" product in response to consumer demand is almost indistinguishable from a monopoly which has forced their product on enough people to get them all familiar with it to the point of easy usability.

      Steven

  • Hahahah (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by nebby ( 11637 )
    That comment about XP copying Linux is pretty funny. I know I'll get modded to hell for saying this, but I just have to. I just recently installed Mandrake on a separate drive and had to nuke the whole thing after an evening of use. Basically, I try Linux on the desktop every couple months to see if it's finally getting usable. It only took me a few hours to realize Mandrake is nowhere near usable.. out of the box it's slow, the apps are still as ghetto as they were 6 months ago (When I tried running Debian on the desktop) and it just plain sucks to use. Perhaps it was because I was using GNOME, but regardless, to say XP is stealing the great features of Mandrake is simply ridiculous. (The link to the article is dead, so I can't get into much detail) It's possible that if I had tweaked the system on a geek level and didn't use GNOME it would have been better, but I simply didn't want to waste my time once again doing the "week long Linux march" that I do whenever I decide to install it. I'll never use Linux on the desktop until I can just install it and have it work and be FAST. I was impressed with how easily Mandrake installed, but the fireworks stopped as soon as it came time for me to actually get some work done.

    And, yes, I've run linux on the desktop for months at a time in the past, so I'm not a newbie and I do have a good sense of how usable the system is going to be for me in the long run based upon playing with it for a few hours.

    XP doesn't require a Passport account, and it is damn usable. The new GUI is pretty damn good, IMHO, and for the guy who referred to the taskbar being for idiots or whatever, well, you can hide it. It's configurable for the experienced and it took me about 10 minutes to turn off all the dumbing down features that are in there for the computer illiterate. One thing MS does do right is understand that not everyone is a geek.. and this is why Linux will never become mainstream unless a well off company comes in and takes it under its wing and starts a massive usability testing campaign. For example, I found the most functional and well designed apps to be (although they were notoriously slow) evolution and nautilus, and, surprise surprise, they were designed and created by companies.

    The geeks will always design for geeks, which is all well and good, but don't go saying that Microsoft products are playing catch up to Linux in ease of use. That's just ridiculous :)

    • Re:Hahahah (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SpeelingChekka ( 314128 )

      And, yes, I've run linux on the desktop for months at a time in the past, so I'm not a newbie and I do have a good sense of how usable the system is going to be for me in the long run based upon playing with it for a few hours

      I'm sorry, but thats just crap. "A few hours" isn't long enough. You've used it "in the past"? How long ago was that? If it was a year ago or more, then "a few hours" isn't enough, because the system has changed a lot in the past year. You need "a few hours" just to orient yourself. I know - I've been using Linux for seven years, and I needed more than "a few hours" just to figure out where things were etc what shortcut keys were etc when I installed Mandrake 8 the other day. It takes "a few hours" just to start to learn all the shortcut keys for the various apps and WM, and to start to configure the file managers to open the applications that I like for various file types. It sounds more to me like you spent a few hours on it, got frustrated because not all the shortcut keys were the same as in Windows, and gave up. Use it for a week - anything less is simply NOT ENOUGH to make any FAIR judgments on. "A few hours" is not a fair chance by any means.

      Something I've learned lately - "not being a newbie" on Linux doesn't mean all that much, specifically if the limit of your patience is only a few hours - Linux systems are changing rapidly, and it takes a bit of time (a few days) to adjust to a new version. This can perhaps ironically be regarded as a shortcoming, because things are not where people expect them to be when they install a new version - with new versions of Windows, normally not that much has changed, so its easy to reorient yourself. If your own personal patience limit for learning things is only "a few hours", don't blame it on Linux, just stick to systems you already know, i.e. Windows.

      The geeks will always design for geeks, which is all well and good, but don't go saying that Microsoft products are playing catch up to Linux in ease of use. That's just ridiculous :)

      Quite honestly, I've used Mandrake now for more than just "a few hours", and I've seen a number of clever, user-friendly features that have had me thinking to myself "Microsoft would do good to copy this". Its not so far-fetched at all. Compare how much Linux has changed over the last six years, then compare how much Windows has changed over the last six years - its abundantly clear which one is evolving much more rapidly than the other.

      • My problem wasn't with "getting used to the environment" .. I know that's part of the learning curve you enounter whenever you start with a new version of an OS. My problem was the damn thing just feels slow and unresponsive.. like when your car needs new brakes or something.

        If you do not feel in control of the computer, you cannot get any work done because you have a feeling of helplessness. This is a fundamental principle of GUI design, and was something I encountered with Mandrake.

  • Us and Them (Score:5, Funny)

    by grammar fascist ( 239789 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:17AM (#2125686) Homepage
    The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.

    &ltsarcasm&gtOh, I get it. Now they are copying us.&lt/sarcasm&gt

    Timothy, if you're the source of that comment (I can't tell because the site is Slashdotted) - get back in your cave.
    • Oh, I get it. Now they are copying us.

      Why not? WinXP being able to switch users without closing the current user's application is an example of Windows becomming more Unix like. Microsoft isn't stupid. They know how to learn from their competition. My main issues with Windows are with stability, remote management, and handling multiple users better. MS seems to get better at addressing these issues with ever release. Note: I said those were my main issues with Windows, I have many other serious issues with Microsoft itself, which don't seem to be getting batter with successive releases of Windows.

  • Latest mandrake (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mgkimsal2 ( 200677 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:17AM (#2126341) Homepage
    Having bounced around between many distros the past couple years (slackware, debian, redhat, suse, caldera and mandrake) I found that the most *recent* mandrake 8.0 was actually about the most usable, from an installation and 'login/go' standpoint.

    However, during the installation I apparently didn't say I was a developer, so it didn't install ANY compiling tools. OK, OK there may have been *something* there, but about 60% of the stuff I wanted to compiled didn't compile. So, from a 'casual/everyday' Linux user's perspective, it isn't very good. For someone like my wife, who just wants to sit down and type a letter by clicking on an office icon, it's fine.

    I'd have commented more on the article itself(!) but it appears to be unavailable. Any mirrors? :)

    • Re:Latest mandrake (Score:2, Informative)

      by robertito ( 80580 )
      Yep, this is true- stuff like lex (which gets called flex I think) which is used by tons of make/configure scripts is left out, as are all the 'devel' rpms - those rpms aren't unstable development versions, they're actually the source header files which you do quite often seem to need to compile against to Get Anything Done (TM). I think that Mandrake needs to acknowledge the difference between 'Developers' and 'People who compile from source' - tons of stuff is only distributed in source form!

      The exclusion of telnet is almost forgiveable, I think they do install ssh, and we all know we shouldn't be using telnet these days(but does your workstation have a ssh client? do all of the servers you remotely access run sshd? Um probably not)

      My tip-go to rpmdrake as soon as you install the machine, type 'devel' in the 'find' box, and install anything that looks remotely interesting- and don't forget flex too!

      Roberto
      • (but does your workstation have a ssh client? do all of the servers you remotely access run sshd? Um probably not)

        You mean... yours don't? Um I'm sorry.

        (I also administer pretty much every server that I remotely access, and the first thing I do after I install the OS is to install sshd. second thing is disable telnetd. then I go nuts on software configuration. :)

  • Switch User functionality (Score:5, Interesting)

    by evarlast ( 52885 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:18AM (#2127814) Homepage Journal
    Windows XP has an excellent feature that I have seen nowhere else. The feature is called Switch User, and is available only when the machine is not part of an NT Domain(not sure about AD). The feature is enabled in the Users/Groups control panel by a allow users to switch checkbox.

    At first glance the feature was nothing that couldn't be ackomplished with a good X session manager like gnome-session. A user logs out and another users logs in. Go back to that first users and all the programs are restored where they left off. But This is NOT the Microsoft switch user feature. In XP, the user never really logs off. All the programs are left running in the background while another person works. This is a huge contrast to current X windows usage, and is a feature I would love to see on X at some level.

    The application specific point I've found is for applications like file sharing. Brother is transfering files on napster, but sister wants to use the computer to check her email and use her Web browser bookmarks. Today in X Windows land, brother would have to close his program and let sister login. But in Windows XP land, he could simply switch users.

    I know that all this really equates to is a full GUI version of screen. But Windowing applications are much more user friendly than console applications. Try teaching your mother or grandmother to user screen.

    If anyone could come up with a model for allowing X windows to do this, I would love to see ideas. Would this kind of feature be implemented at the Display Manager level, allowing xdm/gdm/kdm to wrap each users session and let them switch?

    If any work is being done in this area, please do tell. It is a feature I am most interested in. And with Unix's inherent superiourity in multiple user features, This is something X Windows should be able to do much better than MS Windows(no NT domain support *laugh*)

    -j
    • Even my grandmother can get more than one screen with the average X virtual window manager. Most come set up with 4 screens, so you can have your different programs set up like that. My grandmother would not, however, really want multiple aliases on the same machine. If she knew that much, she would understand su and xinit -:1, heck she might even have multiple terminals.

      Your example is way off base anyway. Brother is going to tell sister to take a hike, and sister is just not going to want brother reading her email. Too bad for sister, MSIE will continue to cache that mail where brother, or anyone local or remote for that matter, will be able to read it.

      If they were really co-operative they would set up some scripts to su and call various applications, then put links on the desk top.

      call bash
      su sister
      netscape -mail (or whatever)

      Heh, I'm at an annoying NT machine at work or I'd paste a real script that worked. I think you can see how to do it from there.

    • You can do this with VNC !

    • Re:Switch User functionality (Score:5, Informative)

      by thal ( 33211 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:33AM (#2119087) Homepage

      This is already available in Linux:

      • hit ctrl-alt-F[1-6] to get out of the current X session to a virtual terminal
      • login with other user
      • xinit -- :1

      Now you have two completely separate X sessions running at the same time. I've no idea if there's a point-and-click (x|k|g)dm way to do this, but the capability is there.

  • Full of errors and FUD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:24AM (#2127921)
    I'm not even sure this guy understands what he's talking about. The network setup in XP is the same as in Win2k so obviously Microsoft didn't steal anything from Mandrake.

  • Microsoft Monolopy Money and Hardware (Score:5, Insightful)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:12AM (#2136449)
    Where Mandrake can truly succeed is in the support of older hardware. The manufacturers and Microsoft are partners, in that they both want to sell new product to consumers. However, the open source philosophy is to use what you've got to it's fullest - new or old. Microsoft can't survive in this model, and many manufacturers of hardware don't understand the impact to their business models.

    Microsoft controls the hardware market. No independent firm can develop new hardware without supporting and licensing Microsoft product. It's simply not financially possible, given the control by Microsoft of the marketplace.

    Alas, trade secret laws sometimes makes Linux support counter-productive, as reverse engineering become tricky (if not impossible) business. As Ted McFarson said, "Trade Secret encourages Microsoft's Monolopy". How true.
    • Trade secrets aren't 1/10 as bad as patents. Patents can make Linux support illegal. And the way they've been extending the patents, that could be forever. Of course, patents aren't usually significant forever, but just suppose, e.g., the MS were to purchase the hyperclick patent from BT. And then decide that it could only be used with the windows os. ...

    • Why can't Microsoft survive in this model?

      That's weird. Surely there are far more drivers, and far more support, available for Windows for all ages of device than there are for Linux?

      All manufacturer x needs to do is dust off some old driver diskettes and stick them online and Windows is covered. For Linux, they've got to go out, find if someone has made them a driver, check it (cos no one wants to risk their brand on an untested driver or employ someone to write their own.

      Why would they bother?

      Because an odd handful of 5% of the desktop computer population might find some old hardware in a second hand store? And this helps them how?
    • Where Mandrake can truly succeed is in the support of older hardware. The manufacturers and Microsoft are partners, in that they both want to sell new product to consumers.

      You raise a good point. I write device drivers for a variety of OSs. If a new OS comes out it's not a high priority to update drivers for older hardware that we aren't selling anymore. Even if it is a relatively simple job to update the driver, revalidating the driver on a new OS, and releasing it as a product is a very time consuming task. There's always a seemingly unlimited about of work to do on new products, so it's hard to justify spending the time (and therefore money) on supporting the old hardware.

      A Linux driver writer may be a person who just happens to have one of those devices sitting around. The hardware manufacturer is much more likely to give out hardware specs on old hardware than the latest and greatest stuff, so as long as the developer has the time and interest in developing the driver, then he can do whatever he wants. The Linux developer also doesn't have to go through our ISO9000 approved process of testing and producing a product. If he so chooses, he can just release and patch as necessary. Of course, someone could do this just as easily for a Windows driver, although they do have to come up with the $500 for a MSDN Professional Subscription, and whatever the cost of Visual C++ is these days. Unless they already have these, the cost of getting started writing Windows drivers might be prohibitive.

      However, the open source philosophy is to use what you've got to it's fullest - new or old. Microsoft can't survive in this model, and many manufacturers of hardware don't understand the impact to their business models.

      I guess you can lump me in with those that don't understand the impact of this on business models. Hardware manufactures make money selling hardware. If you're using old hardware, you're not buying new hardware. Old hardware is supported to avoid pissing off customers, which is a good business policy as long as supporting the customer doesn't cost more than losing the customer.

      Microsoft controls the hardware market. No independent firm can develop new hardware without supporting and licensing Microsoft product. It's simply not financially possible, given the control by Microsoft of the marketplace.

      I agree that for most hardware it's true that MS OS's represent the vast majority of the market and that hardware manufacturers would be stupid to ignore this market. I'm just not sure that this really means that MS "controls" the hardware market. Yes you have to pay some money and license some software, but these are relatively cheap compared to a lot of other development tools for other non open source OSs. I just not sure what you mean by control here.

      Alas, trade secret laws sometimes makes Linux support counter-productive, as reverse engineering become tricky (if not impossible) business.

      I'm not sure it's actually the trade secret laws as much as the hardware developers wanting to protect their investment from their competitors. No one likes to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars developing something, only to have someone else get the profits from it. The trade secret laws to help the hardware manufactures in "protecting" their trade secrets.

      Another reason that Linux developers might support older hardware is that it's often easier to write drivers for. The simple fact that newer hardware is often buggy. As a developer, you're going to spend a lot of time doing the following:

      1) Reproducing and documenting bugs in the driver/firmware.

      2) Convincing the hardware/firmware developers that it really is a bug in the hardware/firmware.

      3) Convincing hardware/firmware developers that the bug really can't be worked around in the driver. If it can fixed in the driver without serious side effect, then fix it in the driver and report bother the bug and driver fix.

      4) Learning how wierd test equipment works (like PCI bus analyzers), because the hardware/firmware developers aren't going to believe the bug isn't yours unless you can prove it. Besides, if you can't prove it isn't your bug, then there's a good chance that it is yours.

      Enough ranting. I've got a driver I need to get done.

  • Love the Eyecandy!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by neoshmeng ( 467015 )
    One of the things that drew me to linux in the first place was how dang cool it could look. I loved having little widgets here and there that would tell me the amount of CPU or Ram usage, or even the temperature of my CPU. When I first ran across enlightenment i could't believe how freaking cool it was. (and this was in the days when only winamp had skins).

    It takes windows so long to adopt these kinds of things. Look how long it took them to be able to change single color on a window title bar.

    If only they had native desktopX support in WXP. That would be the shiz.

  • Finally read it (Score:4, Funny)

    by mgkimsal2 ( 200677 ) on Monday August 06, 2001 @10:43AM (#2148257) Homepage
    Finally got through to the article! What was just so surprising about it was this this person seems to have never used an MS OS before. Well, never installed one before, anyway.

    "The first thing that popped up that made me think about this parallel during the set up was the Network Connection Wizard built into the tail end of the set up process. Of course, XP being as new as it is, has a very large database of native drivers for NICs, so odds are that XP is going to find your NIC while it's installing itself on the PC...much like Mandrake 8.0 currently does. Once it finds this NIC, a wizard pops up wanting to set up your network!"

    Wow, so Mandrake 8 finally has network card detection, and pops up a wizard. This happened back in Win95, when IIRC, Mandrake wasn't even around - certainly not for sale at Best Buy. Yet the author somehow implies that MS is *copying* Mandrake!

    Then we're get to read about which icons he and his wife prefer. Ok, so XP 'chose' his login icon for him - he apparently didn't want to be a guitar, or whatever. *IT'S BETA*. I have a feeling you'll be able to choose your own login icon in the final release.

    Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (61) in /usr/www/users/syslogic/temp/layout/discussions/1. php on line 7

    Hmmm... perhaps using pconnects isn't such a good idea if you're going to get slashdotted. :)

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