Muzzy, why does Windows rule?

[piratePenguin]

Can we pleeeeeease get back on topic?

Complexity: Complexity doesn't matter. It's the advantages that this "complexity" brings that matters.

If A is more complex than B, then I'd guess B's better, unless A (because it's more complex) is faster, more stable, more secure etc...

Windows might be more complex, but complexity doesn't matter. It's the advantages that this "complexity" brings that matters.
I know of no such advantages. Humor me.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Even Windows does have advantages you know.

Even though Windows isn't as stable or secure as UNIX it has a better desktop and I'm not talking about the user interface either, KDE and Gnome are both easy to use. I'm talking about the the way different Windows programs can interoperate with each other. For example OLE is consistent across the Windows platform this isn't the case with UNIX, and the clipboard is another example, let's not forget drag and drop. Yes I know KDE/GNOME might solve some of these problems but KDE applications don't communicate with the GNOME desktop very well and vice versa, dependences also aren't a problem with Windows.

As I've mentioned before Windows XP boots faster than most OSs.

Not to mention (this isn't so much of an advantage of Windows more of crippleing of other OSs by MS' dominance) most software and hardware is designed for Windows but I'd rather this not be the case, I'd rather everthing be multi-platform.

These are the only  advantages of Windows, personally I'd rather use a more secure and stable operating system.

[piratePenguin]

Even Windows does have advantages you know.

Even though Windows isn't as stable or secure as UNIX it has a better desktop and I'm not talking about the user interface either, KDE and Gnome are both easy to use. I'm talking about the the way different Windows programs can interoperate with each other. For example OLE is consistent across the Windows platform this isn't the case with UNIX, and the clipboard is another example, let's not forget drag and drop. Yes I know KDE/GNOME might solve some of these problems but KDE applications don't communicate with the GNOME desktop very well and vice versa, dependences also aren't a problem with Windows.

As I've mentioned before Windows XP boots faster than most OSs.

Not to mention (this isn't so much of an advantage of Windows more of crippleing of other OSs by MS' dominance) most software and hardware is designed for Windows but I'd rather this not be the case, I'd rather everthing be multi-platform.

That it?


And because X (where X is either software or hardware; I'm not talking about X11) wasn't designed/built for GNU/Linux, that is not a valid reson to believe that GNU/Linux is any worse than the OS (Windows/Mac OS X/whatever) that X was designed/built for. GNU/Linux can handle everything that was designed/built for it (within reason).

"GNU/Linux is shit 'cause I can't use (my) X on it" TOUGH SHIT! The vendors of X obviously (assuming you did a bit of research before complaining) didn't design/build X for GNU/Linux. You're just trapped on Windows/Mac OS X/whatever because that's what the vendors of X designed/built it for.

I agree with everything else in your post, and some of those issues about the UI, clipboard, etc. will have to (somehow) be addressed (could have been already, but I dunno). But they're only minor issues, and should never put anyone off.

I'm still not convinced that Windows (XP) boots faster... Maybe technically it does, but in practice, I would seriously doubt it. I've had Windows systems boot fast (but I never thought of timing my boot speeds), and I've had Windows systems boot sloooooooow, and I've had Windows systems fail to boot (far too often).

[muzzy]

Oh my. I go away and there's lots of talk here all suddenly. With so many posts, I don't think I can answer everything. When messages get too long, all signal tends to disappear in the noise.

Mr. piratePenguin seems to have issues with windows being unstable. I honestly have to say that I'd love to have unstable windows system. Why? Because then I could fscking understand what everyone's talking about! I know win9x was unstable. However, I simply can't get my NT-based installations to misbehave in the way that I hear people talk about. Not even in the way that my mom's windows installation behaves like. I have no idea what she did, although I suspect even not running antivirus/firewall helps my situation significantly.

In my experience, windows is stable. I've had few crashes lately, but they haven't been because of windows. How can I tell? Well, after I hit reset button, the system doesn't go through bios. If I do a quick powercycle, it goes through bios and freezes during startup. If I keep power down for over 10 seconds and then restart, it'll boot up fine. I'm not sure what's broken, exactly, but it's definitely not a software issue. The above mentioned behaviour happens everytime the system crashes, it has crashed 4 times so far. My best guess is PSU or motherboard, but could be anything. I wonder how large portion of unstable windows systems are really hardware flaws? You know, users won't be able to tell the difference.

Also, as I've mentioned earlier, I believe that computer is a tool and not a multimedia center. I find it completely ridiculous that kids learn computer by merely using it. Their parents buy them a computer, and then they poke around and see what happens. Back when I was young and had C-64, the damn thing shipped with a manual. I don't know about average users, but I actually read it. Alright, so it was simpler than the modern systems, but it really seems like that people these days learn to use computers without any reference material whatsoever. Why can't computers ship with a manual that explains what a computer is, and what operating system is, and how these things work? I suspect that even if someone made such a manual, people wouldn't read it because they think they already know enough. Nobody ever wants to learn basics

[piratePenguin]

I have no idea how the hell your system could possibly be so stable.
I know for a fact that I'm not the only person that finds Windows unstable.

Anyhow, how come my system crashed alot on Windows and not on GNU/Linux? It's the exact same hardware.
I was already told (way up there, can't be bothered to check it atm) that it's the drivers fault. If the manufacturers drivers are no good, what the hell can be done?

[Aloone_Jonez]

piratePenguin,
Which Windows version did you find unstable?

Windows XP has only locked once in a year, and I've left my Windows 2000 box at work running for months with out a fuck up. So in my opinion Windows is very stable, going back more than 5 years to Windows ME was unstable the same goes for 3.x, 95, 95.

Why has Windows gone more stable you might think?

Because they've finally ditched theie shitty excuse for an operating system called MS-DOS. This was notoriously insecure and unstable and formed the base of all Windows desktop versions previous to 2000. They've replaced it with NT which Microsoft didn't initially develop, David Cutler and the VMS team from VAX systems were drafted in, but they did it to MS' specification hence NT isn't as secure or stable as VMS.

That it?

And because X (where X is either software or hardware; I'm not talking about X11) wasn't designed/built for GNU/Linux, that is not a valid reson to believe that GNU/Linux is any worse than the OS (Windows/Mac OS X/whatever) that X was designed/built for. GNU/Linux can handle everything that was designed/built for it (within reason).

"GNU/Linux is shit 'cause I can't use (my) X on it" TOUGH SHIT! The vendors of X obviously (assuming you did a bit of research before complaining) didn't design/build X for GNU/Linux. You're just trapped on Windows/Mac OS X/whatever because that's what the vendors of X designed/built it for.

:rolleyes: Please read my post a bit more carefully.

Where did I say Linux is shit because most vendors don't support it?

Where did I saw Windows is good becuse all vendors support it?

I'm still not convinced that Windows (XP) boots faster... Maybe technically it does, but in practice, I would seriously doubt it. I've had Windows systems boot fast (but I never thought of timing my boot speeds), and I've had Windows systems boot sloooooooow, and I've had Windows systems fail to boot (far too often).

This does still depend on which Windows version you use and how it's configured, the same goes for Linux. The Windows version I'm refering to as far as boot speed is concerned is Windows XP, and I'm comparing this to Vector Linux and Redhat Linux. It's just my personal experiance and might be different to yours, anyway here are my results:

Windows
Time from when the boot selection screen disappeared to when the login screen apeared was 35 seconds.

Time from selecting my user area until the desktop appeared and the system became responsive was 15 seconds.

Vector Linux
38 seconds to boot to the menu.
Only 5 seconds to stard Xfce.

Knoppix
1 miniute 41 seconds

Yes Vector Linux is faster, but this is one of the lighter distros and it's running Xfce and not KDE

I remember waiting fucking ages for Redhat Linux to boot, it was noticeably longer than Windows. I'm not going to go to the bother of installing that shitty OS again just to do benchmarks on so I won't be able to give you the boot up time.

Vector Linux uses up very little recources compared to the modern full bloat distros like Mandrake, Linspire and   Fedora etc. Knoppix is also a good example of a light distro.

In my opinion Knoppix wins this test, it was the longest to boot, but it was booting from a CD and having to detect all of my hardware, so 1:43 is a verry good time to do all this in.

This proves my point that Linux can very a lot, I could probably even get Windows XP to boot faster if I tweak it a little.

[piratePenguin]

Alright.
Muzzy, why don't you like GNU/Linux?
Also, would you agree with this statement:

There are stable and secure Windows systems, but this is rare. Most Windows systems are unstable and insecure.
 There are unstable and insecure GNU/Linux systems, but this is rare. Most GNU/Linux systems are stable and secure.

?

Note that your secure, stable Windows system, and your bad experiences with GNU/Linux are accounted for in that statement. Do you agree that your experiences are rare?

[piratePenguin]

Which Windows version did you find unstable?

Almost all of them. Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP (and yes, with and without SP2).

Windows XP has only locked once in a year, and I've left my Windows 2000 box at work running for months with out a fuck up. So in my opinion Windows is very stable, going back more than 5 years to Windows ME was unstable the same goes for 3.x, 95, 95.

My systems never suffered a lock up. Well, ever since I started using GNU/Linux anyhow. Congrats, to both you and muzzy (and anyone else who finds Windows stable), on making Windows "stable" (I'm trusting you that your systems are stable).

:rolleyes: Please read my post a bit more carefully.

Where did I say Linux is shit because most vendors don't support it?

Where did I saw Windows is good becuse all vendors support it?

:rolleyes: Please read my post a bit more carefully.

 Where did I say that you said that Linux is shit because most vendors don't support it?
 
 Where did I say that you said that Windows is good becuse all vendors support it?

This does still depend on which Windows version you use and how it's configured, the same goes for Linux. The Windows version I'm refering to as far as boot speed is concerned is Windows XP, and I'm comparing this to Vector Linux and Redhat Linux. It's just my personal experiance and might be different to yours, anyway here are my results:

[snip]

In my opinion Knoppix wins this test, it was the longest to boot, but it was booting from a CD and having to detect all of my hardware, so 1:43 is a verry good time to do all this in.

This proves my point that Linux can very a lot, I could probably even get Windows XP to boot faster if I tweak it a little.

Sorry, did you say Knoppix wins in your opinion? Incase you didn't know, Knoppix uses the Linux kernel. Oh no! Knoppix is a GNU/Linux distro!


Like I said, I've seen Windows XP (and I was referring to XP, that's why I put it in brackets) take ages to boot. EDIT: My Slackware system is faster booting that Aloone_Jonez' XP system at booting, so no wonder I never noticed how fast XP "sometimes" was at booting.
:thumbup:

[muzzy]

My friends tend to have well behaving windows systems, too. Then again, most of my real life friends are programmers/or and hackers.

I have to agree that most windows systems are insecure and badly maintained, however this is only a correlation, do you know what that means? It means that even if there's a link, it doesn't mean windows sucks, although it means that most systems that suck are windows. I believe that if linux gains some significant share of the desktop systems, we'll be seeing a strong amount of insecure linux systems as well. This will have nothing to do with the system itself, and everything to do with the users.

Anyway, it's getting late and I don't feel like explaining my reasons to dislike the evil empire of GNU. Let's just state that it breaks backwards compatibility, even for programming languages, and says it's ok because "GNU's Not Unix", and that means it doesn't have to work the same way. Ultimately, this means that anything written for the GNU system will have hard time working on non-GNU systems, especially if developers aren't careful about GNU-specific functionality. Sounds a lot like why some people hate Microsoft, doesn't it? Even Microsoft didn't go as far as breaking programming languages, the java deal was about APIs. GNU happily breaks m4 and smiles all the way through it. Fine, GNU version might be more usable, but I pity anyone who has to port GNU m4 scripts to original m4 language.

[piratePenguin]

My friends tend to have well behaving windows systems, too. Then again, most of my real life friends are programmers/or and hackers.

My friends tend to have badly behaving Windows systems. Then again, most of my real life friends are typical Windows users.

I have to agree that most windows systems are insecure and badly maintained, however this is only a correlation, do you know what that means? It means that even if there's a link, it doesn't mean windows sucks, although it means that most systems that suck are windows. I believe that if linux gains some significant share of the desktop systems, we'll be seeing a strong amount of insecure linux systems as well. This will have nothing to do with the system itself, and everything to do with the users.

Are there any other non-Windows users present who have a nice stable system (be it GNU/Linux, *BSD, or Mac OS X, etc.), but previously owned an unstable, insecure, crap Windows system? 'Cause your saying that there aren't too many. I believe that you are wrong, but I can't prove it, unless more people own up!

I pity anyone who has to port GNU m4 scripts to original m4 language.

Pity them all ya want. Which is better, GNU m4 or the original m4?
Is GNU UNIX? No, it is not. Is Windows GNU/Linux? No, it is not.
They're different OSes, incase you didn't know.


As for the whole bootup speed issue, I just timed my system booting up for the first time ever. I'm using Slackware 10.1 and here are the results:
Time from pressing enter at lilo, to login: 20.7s (almost exactly)
Time it took to get X11 + fluxbox (which is what I've used for 'bout a month now) up and running, after running 'startx': approx. 6 seconds.
Total time: approx. 26.7s
OWNED!
 
And I'm sure I could optimise it if I wanted to. But why would I want to? :p
It does vary between systems, and my system happens to be faster than Aloone_Jonez' XP system at booting.

EDIT:

I never noticed how fast it sometimes was.

I take that back.

[muzzy]

I couldn't care less about startup times and other irrelevancies. Back in the old days some systems took half an hour to boot up and it was ok. I keep my computer running 24/7 so bootup times aren't an issue of any kind.

And you apparently didn't get my point about m4, but then again you're not a programmer. Any programmer would realize what it means that the software you wrote will no longer run due to source incompatibilities, and that any software you write will not run elsewhere because of the same thing. So, it's a different OS and I think that can justify all the fluffy flags for ls, ps and other user tools. However, intentionally redesigning a programming language and still calling it with the original name, now that's nasty. Most people don't realize there's any difference, as they expect that the system mostly conforms to POSIX behaviour... yeah, right.

Then there are a lot of GNU annoyances that are only annoyances because there are stupid users. People who write bash scripts and use /bin/sh as an interpreter to them, for example. If it's a bash script, why can't they fscking name it so? Oh yeah, they have no idea what bash featureset it uses. You could say that this is because of bash, too. It should fscking enforce strict sh compatibility when executed as sh, so people wouldn't do this kind of things. This is basically equivalent to the Internet Explorer broken HTML rendering issue, where IE renders stuff fine but no other browser does, and thus users write horrible crap. The difference however, is that in context of HTML you just get visual issues, while with the shell you get functional issues. The shell issue is thus significantly worse.

Then, the quality of a lot of GPL-licensed software sucks. There's no excuse for this, a lot of the source has apparently been written by some kind of monkeys on crack. Source code so horrible that the whole world explodes because it's so bad. Then again, I suppose this could be seen as a good thing, too. Since GPL practically acts as "you have to be at least this good to make money" indicator, commercial software ends up being significantly better than GPL'd. Well, if it doesn't, it means it didn't deserve to make money anyway. However, typical GNU systems are full of crappy software, which is somewhat practical at times, yet greatly annoying when it does stupid things. Significant portion of the code is something I could write better myself, and so could half of the people I know, if they cared. As of such, the only real value of free software is freedom, not the price tag.

Oh my, this post is getting long already, I better stop here

[Orethrius]

Actually, for the most part, I agree with Muzzy on his last post. There is, however, one comparison that I must call into question: Messy v. /bin/sh. Seriously, where do you come up with this crap? Internet Explorer is a mass-distributed web browser. /bin/sh is an individualised command line interpreter (certainly better than a mass-produced one, for efficiency reasons). Really, I have no problem with people writing horrid page code with one provision: KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. Publishing that shit is just flat out irresponsible, and it seems a disproportionate number of "professional publishers" are using false standards to maintain compatibility. BASH scripts are quite another story. I have yet to see an implementation of BASH scripting so consistent across distributions that someone could use a non-standard subset of commands on one machine and expect them to come across with the same result on another. The straw man you slipped in so eloquently there falls apart under the same rationale: KEEP MALFORMED CODE TO YOURSELF. I don't see techs going out of their way, all willy-nilly, to enforce non-standard BASH scripts, so why does Microsoft feel the need to enforce non-standard HTML?

[Aloone_Jonez]

muzzy,
While boot speed might not be important to you it is for me because I don't waste power by having my PC on 24/7.

My friends tend to have badly behaving Windows systems. Then again, most of my real life friends are typical Windows users.

Are there any other non-Windows users present who have a nice stable system (be it GNU/Linux, *BSD, or Mac OS X, etc.), but previously owned an unstable, insecure, crap Windows system? 'Cause your saying that there aren't too many. I believe that you are wrong, but I can't prove it, unless more people own up!

Pity them all ya want. Which is better, GNU m4 or the original m4?
Is GNU UNIX? No, it is not. Is Windows GNU/Linux? No, it is not.
They're different OSes, incase you didn't know.

Let's just agree to disagree on this our personal experiance will vary. I may have not had a problem with Windows NT but you obviosly have. I've had more problems with Redhat Linux being unstable than Windows XP, but Vector Linux is very stable.

As for the whole bootup speed issue, I just timed my system booting up for the first time ever. I'm using Slackware 10.1 and here are the results:
Time from pressing enter at lilo, to login: 20.7s (almost exactly)
Time it took to get X11 + fluxbox (which is what I've used for 'bout a month now) up and running, after running 'startx': approx. 6 seconds.
Total time: approx. 26.7s
OWNED!

I wasn't dissagreeing with you on this, you run Slackware with Fluxbox, that's my point exactly. Now try Fedora core's default configureation and  compare it with Windows XP's default configureation on both resource usage and boot speed, I can assure you Windows XP will win!

And I'm sure I could optimise it if I wanted to. But why would I want to? :p
It does vary between systems, and my system happens to be faster than Aloone_Jonez' XP system at booting.

Of course it will be, Vector Linux is slackware based and is faster booting and uses less resources than my Windows XP system. I know I could optimise both Windows XP and Vector Linux if I wanted to but I'm happy with the boot speed of them both. Redhat Linux on the other hand was very slow which is why I no longer use it. Hence my original point stands true, Linux varies a lot form distribution to distribution and how it's configured.

As far as GPL is concerned here is my point of view:

GPL software isn't better or worse in general.

The quality of software depends on who writes it.

If a company writes software they employ professional programmers who are trained to write software well and have had many years of experience.

If a group of amateur programmers on the internet get together while some of them may be very skilled on average they won't be as skilled as the professionals.

Companies often write software and then GPL and this is often where the best GPL software appears from like OpenOffice for example.

The arguement that the Licence a piece of software is released under greatly affects its quality is flawed.

This is also true with electronics.
I've seen many bad circuits on various internet sites, but at work when we design a circuit we ensure its designed to a very high standard, it has to be tested and tested again before its approved for manufacture.

[piratePenguin]

I wasn't dissagreeing with you on this, you run Slackware with Fluxbox, that's my point exactly. Now try Fedora core's default configureation and  compare it with Windows XP's default configureation on both resource usage and boot speed, I can assure you Windows XP will win!

Why would I do that? You just said, and we all know, that it all varies between distros. Are you seriously asking me to install the distro that you seem to believe is the slowest-of-all-distros, and compare it to Windows XP?
Well guess what? It's not gonna happen. Slackware boots faster than Windows XP.
I've used Slackware for the most of my time on GNU/Linux, and I'm very, very happy with it. Each distro has it's advantages, and each distro has it's disadvantages (the worst thing about Slackware IMO is that it installs lilo by default and doesn't ask the user what he/she wants (I prefer GRUB)). There's so many distros, there's infinite choice (slight exageration).
Why would I compare what you seem to believe is the crappest of GNU/Linux distros to Windows? OKAY then, I'll do the test. As long as you allow me to corrupt the shit outta the XP system first. Do we have a deal? Didn't think so.

Of course it will be, Vector Linux is slackware based and is faster booting and uses less resources than my Windows XP system.

Umm.. Why the Vector Linux specific? Windows XP wastes (or uses inefficiently, if you prefer) lots of resources. It's a well known fact (but, again, not known enough).
I have yet to find a GNU/Linux distro more wastefull (when it comes to resources) than Windows. And don't lie, fedora is not more wastefull than Windows. Else, I dunno how anybody would be fit to use it.


EDIT:
@muzzy: GNU is not UNIX. If it was, it would've vanished some time ago (probably). But it's still alive. Since 1980 something. It's still alive.
Sometimes, you gotta move on to survive. Leaving the old, and now, crap stuff behind.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Why would I do that? You just said, and we all know, that it all varies between distros. Are you seriously asking me to install the distro that you seem to believe is the slowest-of-all-distros, and compare it to Windows XP?
Well guess what? It's not gonna happen. Slackware boots faster than Windows XP.
I've used Slackware for the most of my time on GNU/Linux, and I'm very, very happy with it. Each distro has it's advantages, and each distro has it's disadvantages (the worst thing about Slackware IMO is that it installs lilo by default and doesn't ask the user what he/she wants (I prefer GRUB)). There's so many distros, there's infinite choice (slight exageration).
Why would I compare what you seem to believe is the crappest of GNU/Linux distros to Windows? OKAY then, I'll do the test. As long as you allow me to corrupt the shit outta the XP system first. Do we have a deal? Didn't think so.

Well I would say Linspire is the shittest distro in my opinion. I agree with you about slackware though after all Vector Linux is just a more newb friendly versoin of slackware.

 Umm.. Why the Vector Linux specific? Windows XP wastes (or uses inefficiently, if you prefer) lots of resources. It's a well known fact (but, again, not known enough).
I have yet to find a GNU/Linux distro more wastefull (when it comes to resources) than Windows. And don't lie, fedora is not more wastefull than Windows. Else, I dunno how anybody would be fit to use it.

Iried Fedora and it was the most bloated piece of crap I've ever seen. Yes I know you might be able to make it fast by recompiling the kernel and removing half the shitty services but I'd rather stick with Vector Linux or even Windows for that matter. I'm glad other people find Fedora fast but many people find Windows stable too people's experiancies vary.

Minimum hardware requirements for XP

Windows XP only requires 64MB of RAM bare minimum. I've run it with the recommended 128MB and I found the speed is more than acceptable.

Minimium hardware requirements for Fedora

Fedora core requires 64MB of RAM just to run in text mode, and 192MB for the full GUI. I've run it with the recomended 256MB and it was about the same speed as XP run with just 128MB of RAM. On my machine with 256MB of ram XP is quite fast and I very rarely have a problem with it.