Windows/Linux Users like and dislikes...

Some of you my not care about so please ignore, but I just want so opinions.
What is it about Windows that you like or dislike...
What is it that would stop you swappin to another environment, not just Linux but may Mac OS (main reason I guess would be mac's ain't cheap).

Just try to get some ideas and reasoning from people, as I'm fed up with supporting Windows and want to see people arguments for not switchin. Then see if I can find ideas as to why they should think about switchin.

I had two PCs at home. One was in the living room and had windows (for web surfing, dvd watching etc) and the other was in my 'mess room' (as Mrs Wyrdness calls it), which had Linux and was used for anything important (documents, photos etc).

Mrs Wyrdness compained that the Windows pc was too noisy so I bought her an iMac. Wow! OS X is just amazing. It's easier to use than Windows, but with the power of Unix under the hood. It was so good that I started using it instead of the Linux PC, which has now been replaced by a Mac Mini, which is running a web, email and DNS server (apache, posfix and named). I'm now looking at 2nd hand powerbooks on Ebay.

The best two things for me about OS X are:

i) It just works. No messing about with drivers, rebooting or anything.

ii) It's Unix. Secure - no spyware or viruses. And all of the familiar Unix tools are there. It can even run Linux software like Gimp.

[timwilky]

What don't I like about windows

1 cost
2 quality
3 support
4 functionality
5 bloatware


1 cost, MS have a monopoly and scream about piracy, no wonder they are ripped off. The price of products is not affordable to joe public

2 Quality, part of the problem is legacy. MS don't seem to be interested in developing from scratch and reuse old product code etc. Therefore the code tends to be very hacked and not designed

3 support is non existant. getting a bug fixed is really a wait for the next release, they are getting better at patches but still damm slow

4 functionality. No wonder MS steal others ideas. they always follow the competion and are never leading

5 bloatware, whilst at odds with point 4, they cram their products with unnecassary features adding complexity.


I like the open source models. It enables talent and ideas to be distributed. By seperating an operating system from applications etc. there is a concept of an owner for components and generally a choice.

For instance you can choose the display manager, the mail environment, the database, the application server, the web server etc. yes it does add complexity of interoperability. But also enables the user to select what suits their purpose best.

Macs. Never used one so can't comment. I can't see a place for them. I come from the centralised systems model. and dislike PCs full stop. they are guilty of hiding/locking away most companies knowledge. Users tend to store information in spread sheets, wp documents, personal databases etc. where it would be of most use is well designed corporate databases and data warehouses. reuse is key. But you also get clerical staff who insist on storing internal memos they typed 5 years ago. The paper copy is on file but they still want the electronic version for some reason. Take the pc off them and give them back their typewriters

I keep forgeting about mac mini's... they do seem rather cool. Nice and cheap way to get into mac's though they are a little underpowered. Then if you are switchin from a old PC I'd imagine they are still much more powerfull.

Would like so info from Windows people who don't like linux or are scared of it...

I've tried a few flavours of linux - red hat, slackware and something else. Not very friendly or as well supported as is claimed. Tried several mac OS's and the same - irrirtating bugs that are hard or seemingly impossible to fix and you have to live with them. This is from an end user view rather than a support view though. Since windows 95 I can't see why any end user would be bothered (apart from art/design stuff being better on the mac in some cases) with anything but windows. Like it or loathe it, it's way better than the other stuff out there, and a damn sight easier to use and work with.

Originally Posted by SVeeedy Gonzales

I've tried a few flavours of linux - red hat, slackware and something else. Not very friendly or as well supported as is claimed. Tried several mac OS's and the same - irrirtating bugs that are hard or seemingly impossible to fix and you have to live with them. This is from an end user view rather than a support view though. Since windows 95 I can't see why any end user would be bothered (apart from art/design stuff being better on the mac in some cases) with anything but windows. Like it or loathe it, it's way better than the other stuff out there, and a damn sight easier to use and work with.

Can open...... worms everywhere!

I have to agree with this to a certain extent. For average home user who wants to browse the net, play games and have their children type up their homework... Windows is the way go.

[Kylie]

I use linux (Fedora) at work and XP at home. I write software and to do that any *nix system is the way to go - lots of excellent and free editors, compilers, debuggers, version control, etc etc. Its also way way easier to script and automate stuff. Some folks here try and use windows as development machines but I don't think its up to it.

But for home I am forced to use XP because windows is the standard. If I want to connect to my garmin gps, ipod, webcam, camera or nokia phone it has to be windows. If I want feature rich webserving (flash and all) then it is *so* much easier on XP. Then there's other stuff like my creative labs wireless music streaming whatsit, thats got to be windows too. I tried using linux at home (Fedora and Xandros) and as an OS for most normal stuff its just fine but then you want to plug in your toys and you're stuck.

I've always used Windows (well, except for macs in 1994 briefly and hated it) and haven't tried Linux.

Personally, I'm not that fussed over what I use to do what I want to do. At work that is my job which is Notes development and the entire network (barring 2 people) are on Windows so I develop on windows. It doesn't actually make much difference as Notes works as well on Linux and Macs as on Windows.

At home I've XP, this enables me to do what I want to do at home - surf the internet, keep my accounts etc, play games and store music.

As I've said, I haven't tried anything else but I haven't felt the need to. XP enables me to do everything I want to do without any fuss.

[northwind]

For my uses, nothing competes with Windows. It does what I want it to do, it runs every game I can throw at it, and it's more flexible IMO than OSX. When Mac OSs do something you don't like, you're usually stuck with it- the hubris of Apple seems to prevent them from admitting that you might want to turn off the "features". With Windows, when it does something irritating there's usually half a dozen ways around it. But Apple seem to say "This is the best way to do it. You won't want to do it any other way".

Plus, my budget got me a very competent PC, and would have got me an absolute bottom-end Mac. And when my PC gets tired, there's so many more upgrade paths than a Mac would allow.

I think if I was more demanding of the machine, it'd annoy me more- WIndows has always seemed to get less stable as you push what it's doing.

Originally Posted by SVeeedy Gonzales

I've tried a few flavours of linux - red hat, slackware and something else. Not very friendly or as well supported as is claimed. Tried several mac OS's and the same - irrirtating bugs that are hard or seemingly impossible to fix and you have to live with them. This is from an end user view rather than a support view though. Since windows 95 I can't see why any end user would be bothered (apart from art/design stuff being better on the mac in some cases) with anything but windows. Like it or loathe it, it's way better than the other stuff out there, and a damn sight easier to use and work with.

Some of the clients are not very friendly of which Redhat and Slackware are... You might be better of with another distro... line SUSE or my current, can't believe how easy it was Ubuntu.
I also don't think Windows is better then the other stuff, people have just learnt to accept the things it does badly. As when things go wrong the option you get given most of time it reinstall, and when I have fixed things its been a very long fix. I have tools that help me sort stuff but still things go wrong. The last thing was that .NET is now dead (no bad thing).
On top of that you can spend 3-5 hours reinstalling Windows, downloading drivers and setting up you applications/e-mail. Why? So you can mainly read your e-mails and surf the web, you don't need Windows to do this. It comes with to much which can and will go wrong. If it wasn't so insecure I would say run win 98.
Northwinds hit the main problem, Windows based games, don't run on Linux to well or even at all. Though there is a big Linux gaming movement and you can get some games. Like Wolfstine and Quake, plus some rather lovely smoother running Linux only games.
So if you just read e-mail, surf, and write a few word doc then I would give it a go.
After all its free, don't need to change your hardware, and you can 'dual boot' your system so you can still run Windows if you cant live without it. Do save your data though as everyone makes mistakes.
Most come with live Cd's now that will run the Linux in your memory so you can look about and see what you like before you install. Ubuntu 6.06 will even let you install from this live CD and surf the web while it installs, how neat is that.