All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software
Muzzy, why does Windows rule?
toadlife:
--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---This is un-fucking-believable...
Here goes nothing:
Maybe Windows is too damn complex. Since when is complexity a good thing? NEVER!
--- End quote ---
If the design is better then more complexity can be acceptable. Vehicles of today versus vehicles from 20 years ago are a prime exmaple of ever increasing complexity of design not hampering quality.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin --- I used Windows for around about five years and I learned sweet fuck all (sure I could use the "OS", but I sure as hell couldn't make it "stable").
--- End quote ---
Sounds like a personal problem to me.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---Then, I eventually saw the light, and started using GNU/Linux, which I now love to bits (really). Ten months later, and I rekon I've learned magnitudes more about GNU/Linux than I learned about Windows in my five years or so with Windows.
--- End quote ---
So you joined the herd. Good for you. I bet you really havn't learned much about Linux. You've probaly learn what a bunch of syntax for command line programs. That doesn't mean you know anything about Linux.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin --- I guess just because feck all people understands Windows, it somehow makes it better? Maybe, but only for the one in a million (you and some others) that somehow does understand it's increadible "complexity". For everyone else, including myself (even after using the OS for about five years), Windows is an unstable piece of shit.
--- End quote ---
So you're saying that only, and elite bunch of us are able to make Windows stable? Thanks!
--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---BUT: say, approx. 70% of Windows boxes suck balls (using mostly default configs), and the remaining 30% (I'm being very generous here IMO) (like your box that you had to do alot of config'in to get it run smooth) are about as stable as the average GNU/Linux box (dream on!)...
Conclusion: Windows is shit.
--- End quote ---
I have a question for you. If, instead of Windows, everyone used Linux, do you not think many people would have problems with it? Do you not think there would be worms and viruses floating around infecting Linux boxes. If you think not, I would be happy to explain why you're wrong.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin --- Muhahaha. Windows haters (moi) are ignorant (and I might be). Well the average Windows user is ignorant too. You're just not normal muzzy...
If you asked every computer user in the world which Operating System is their favourite, I have this mad-"hypothesis", that if anyone says "I dunno" or "What the fuck is an Operating System?!", you can guran-damn-tee that they use Windows. Would you agree, muzzy?
--- End quote ---
Quite correct, which is why I think there is no operating system that will do signifigantly better than Windows if deployed to the masses. The fact is people are ignorant about how their computer works, and they will find a way to screw it up.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---Oh no! Well I guess MS made a huge mistake by giving the default user root privileges. So much for such an excellent OS design. Heh.
--- End quote ---
The overall security model of Windows is quite adequate. The install defaults are unfortunate, but Microsoft really had little choice in the matter. They wanted things to just work - and unfortunately they did.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin --- The freedom is nice, and I value it greatly, but I must disagree that free software is only an extra freedom. It's a freedom to do something! Surely I shouldn't have to explain this. A freedom is more than something to add to your list of freedoms.
--- End quote ---
Let me guess. You think free software is a "fundamental freedom".
--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---Also, muzzy, would you care to explain why my GNU/Linux box has never suffered a hard lock-down in the ten months I've been using it? And why Windows has locked down hundreds of times (on different boxes) in the five years I've used it? 'Cause I'm dying to know. The Linux kernel might well be one big hack, but it sure is a damn good hack.
--- End quote ---
Easy. You use cheap hardware and the poorly written drivers that the hardware manufacturer wrote are taking your system down. The drivers for your hardware for Linux are not written by the company that makes the hardware, but by a third party who actually gives a shit about driver stability.
Orethrius:
--- Quote ---If the design is better then more complexity can be acceptable. Vehicles of today versus vehicles from 20 years ago are a prime exmaple of ever increasing complexity of design not hampering quality.
--- End quote ---
Design quality doesn't factor into it at the barest level. The more complex it is, the easier it is to fuck it up, in spite of the best user-relation attempts. After all, we all know how GREAT XP is straight from retail. To be fair, it's more of a "damned if you do..." philosophy - it's just as easy to fuck up Linux when it's improperly configured.
--- Quote ---Sounds like a personal problem to me.
--- End quote ---
Sounds like someone doesn't consider core stability a serious issue to me. Don't ignore the message because you don't agree with the author.
--- Quote ---I bet you really havn't learned much about Linux. You've probaly learn what a bunch of syntax for command line programs. That doesn't mean you know anything about Linux.
--- End quote ---
So wait, you're trying to extricate X from the terminal now? Or are you implying that an amateur should attempt a kernel recompile? I wouldn't ask you to add Reiser support to Kernel32 to prove to me that you know your way around a Windows box, though I doubt you could given the utter lack of sufficient implementation code.
--- Quote --- So you're saying that only, and elite bunch of us are able to make Windows stable? Thanks!
--- End quote ---
I didn't see that, you must be hallucinating. Knock off the peace-pipe, then note that you're not the only one that can understand the complexities of Windows. Also note that this does NOT mean that you can magically fix every BSoD you encounter. However, given that making Windows completely stable (I have yet to breach a 30-day uptime with it) is quite the feat, you would be certainly in the upper .000001% of Windows users were you to make it happen. But that BSoD can't happen, and you can't have any malfunctioning drivers that can't be recoded. Ah, now the FUN sets in, doesn't it? :D
--- Quote --- I have a question for you. If, instead of Windows, everyone used Linux, do you not think many people would have problems with it? Do you not think there would be worms and viruses floating around infecting Linux boxes. If you think not, I would be happy to explain why you're wrong.
--- End quote ---
If you really believe that, I have it under strict orders to inform you that infection probability based on proportional popularity is shit. I never saw any of the older (brick) Nokia phones get infected by mobile virii, especially at the height of their popularity. Certainly someone could have exploited text messaging to do this?
--- Quote ---The fact is people are ignorant about how their computer works, and they will find a way to screw it up.
--- End quote ---
Ever lock a user out of all but their documents directory? It's simple enough to do, both in Windows and in Linux. I still maintain that no adduser command should result in a user with root privs unless root dually authorises it, something that I've yet to see as a precaution in Windows.
--- Quote ---The overall security model of Windows is quite adequate. The install defaults are unfortunate, but Microsoft really had little choice in the matter. They wanted things to just work - and unfortunately they did.
--- End quote ---
If I'm the only one who sees a HUGE problem with what you just said, then we need a serious reconsideration of the issue. So the security is adequate, but it defaults to an "unfortunate" (euphamising "unsecured" is a clever twist, I'll give you that) state. Then things "just work." Superficial functionality has surprisingly little to do with actual security and actual stability, and it's quotes like that that convince me you're really Muzzy in disguise.
--- Quote ---Let me guess. You think free software is a "fundamental freedom".
--- End quote ---
It's admittedly better than acting like software patents are a good idea (cheapshot, I'll admit it).
--- Quote ---Easy. You use cheap hardware and the poorly written drivers that the hardware manufacturer wrote are taking your system down. The drivers for your hardware for Linux are not written by the company that makes the hardware, but by a third party who actually gives a shit about driver stability.
--- End quote ---
Nice answer. Now explain why the first-party company feels that it's a good idea to continue producing shoddy drivers for their major OS share, rather than simply requesting the optimised code from the third-party. That's right: they're locked into NDAs with Microsoft, and wouldn't want to disclose previously disclosed code to potential competitors, God forbid. Colour me crazy, but this is one of the times where open trumps proprietary.
Kintaro:
The main security issue of common Windows boxes (Windows 2003 not included) is that you have no real control over execute permissions. If one thing is just a damn mess, its the way executables are handled on their workstation series of operating systems. Windows 2003 is quite sweet to run nonetheless.
(Maybe other "Server" versions of the operating system have these issues either, and you can control execute permissions)
piratePenguin:
--- Quote from: toadlife ---So you joined the herd. Good for you. I bet you really havn't learned much about Linux. You've probaly learn what a bunch of syntax for command line programs. That doesn't mean you know anything about Linux.
--- End quote ---
um. I've recompiled the kernel loadsa times. And I said GNU/Linux, being the operating system of GNU tools and the Linux kernel. I could survive on the console if I needed to.
--- Quote from: toadlife ---So you're saying that only, and elite bunch of us are able to make Windows stable? Thanks!
--- End quote ---
Ignore the fact that this is a bad thing for Windows.
--- Quote from: toadlife ---I have a question for you. If, instead of Windows, everyone used Linux, do you not think many people would have problems with it? Do you not think there would be worms and viruses floating around infecting Linux boxes. If you think not, I would be happy to explain why you're wrong.
--- End quote ---
Well actually, seeing as my system doesn't suffer hard lock-ups at all, and it did back on Windows, and GNU/Linux is running perfectly here, I'd say GNU/Linux would do far better than Windows. Prove me wrong.
--- Quote from: toadlife ---Let me guess. You think free software is a "fundamental freedom".
--- End quote ---
Yes, actually, I do.
--- Quote from: toadlife ---Easy. You use cheap hardware and the poorly written drivers that the hardware manufacturer wrote are taking your system down. The drivers for your hardware for Linux are not written by the company that makes the hardware, but by a third party who actually gives a shit about driver stability.
--- End quote ---
"cheap hardware", I doubt it. Anyhow, I guess that means GNU/Linux is better here?
jtpenrod:
If the design is better then more complexity can be acceptable.
The question, though, is the design better? Now I can show you lots of highly complex circuits for audio amplifiers which are quite complex. Indeed, it looks like the end result of a competition for the "fanciest" design. However, not a single one has the performance of a simple design that originated in 1964 (which, in turn, was adapted from a far older design from the "glass FET" days) when it is implemented correctly. Complexity for the sake of complexity is a marketing ploy, nothing more.
--- Quote ---
piratePenguin: I used Windows for around about five years and I learned sweet fuck all (sure I could use the "OS", but I sure as hell couldn't make it "stable").
toadlife: Sounds like a personal problem to me.
--- End quote ---
No! This is not a "personal problem" for piratePenguin or anyone else. The documentation for Win-Doesn't is horrible. Just this morning, I saw yet another advert from someone calling himself the "Video Professor". He was advertising his latest version of Windows training CDs. This guy has been in business for at least five years now, doing the very same thing. Furthermore, these adverts do not appear on your run-of-the-mill "prime time" TV stations, but rather on specialized stations whose audience is presumeably above average in intelligence, and professional folks. Once again, the Windows user has no choice but to turn to yet another third party provider to compensate for the manifest inadequacies of this "operating" system. It is unacceptable that there is nothing comparable to the Linux Documenation Project. It is doubly unacceptable that the documentation for Winderz remains so piss-poor that the Video Professor could still be in business. The attitude at Microsoft is the customer be damned. "We're Microsoft: we don't care because we don't have to."
--- Quote ---
piratePenguin: Then, I eventually saw the light, and started using GNU/Linux, which I now love to bits (really). Ten months later, and I rekon I've learned magnitudes more about GNU/Linux than I learned about Windows in my five years or so with Windows.
toadlife: So you joined the herd. Good for you. I bet you really havn't learned much about Linux. You've probaly learn what a bunch of syntax for command line programs. That doesn't mean you know anything about Linux.
--- End quote ---
This is rich: accusing someone who leaves the Redmond fold to join the Linux users community of following a "herd". What's the market share of Win vs. Linux? How the hell would you know what piratePenguin did -- or did not -- learn about Linux? Or is it that you presume that all computer users are as clueless as your typical Win-luser?
Two days ago, I had occasion to use the neighbor's XP rig (a Sony VAIO -- OEM installed Win XP Home) to download a Linux ISO, as the landlord here won't install cable, and I don't want to tie up my ISP for two days to download it over dial-up. During the time I did this download, the following occured:
[*]Coming out of the screensaver, I found myself logged into the wrong account, that of her third-grader. Upon finding a file "Einstein.doc" I decided to do some snooping to see what a third grader had to say about Einstein. It took MS Word so long to load that I was beginning to suspect that it had crashed before the Word welcome screen appeared. It took another ten seconds or so before the actual document opened. (The kid writes quite well for his age, BTW.) I could have opened the thing two -- three times with Abiword in Linux. So much for the myth that Win is faster.
I have never had any Linux system log me into a different account upon exiting a screensaver.
[*]Using "Explorer" to burn the ISO to CD, the damn thing never asked what I wanted to do with the file. It just burned the raw ISO to disk. I had to re-burn with cdrecord to produce an actual bootable CD.
[*]Upon logging out of the Linux mirror site, Internut Expl-Horror popped up windows faster than I could mouse them away. These looked like "official" XP dialogs, but were not as I had seen the same things before getting Firefox. This caused IE to crash, with a "Windows needs to shut down now. Sorry for the inconvenience" message, followed by a "Report error" dialog that refused to take "No." for an answer. Trying to mouse that one away a few times finally resulted in a hard lock, requiring a reboot.
[/list]
That was less than ten minutes' worth of XP useage, and the damn thing went down hard. I'm quite glad that I chose Linux, as I don't have to put up with that bullshit every day.
In conclusion: Windows does, indeed, suck mightily. :p
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