Ten reasons Linux and BSD are vastly superior to Windows...

[Brynet-Inc]

Interesting Article I found the other day that really points out quite a few reasons why BSD and Linux are far superior to Microsofts Windows Anomaly.

http://www.openaddict.com/page.php?18 (Part 1)
http://www.openaddict.com/page.php?21 (Part 2)

Good read, People might learn from it.. (One can dream...)

[Combuster]

Like somebody said: windows is what unix is not and vice-versa

You cant compare windows to linux and say the latter is better. All you can say that one is better for you.

Now please, you've ranted enough about microsoft outside the offtopic forum, i think you better learn to quit on the topic before every thread turns into a flamewar.


Generally i'm horribly neutral about the windows/linux issue, but you deserved this one:

#1 - Linux and BSD give you complete freedom to do what the hell you want with your system.
To err is human; to really foul up takes root privs, and to mess up linux is really easy


#2 - Linux and BSD don't limit your platform choices.
tell me, who actually uses something other than the x86 platform (and thus what's this statement worth? nothing)


#3 - Linux and BSD perform better on any given platform.
False. UT for linux runs crap on non-nvidia cards (if you dont have a 3D card, Windows actually performs FAR better)
Not to mention speed-optimized OSes, like DOS


#4 - Linux and BSD distributions are more configurable and modular.
Configurability comes at a price. Windows has a solid base you can count on, no issues about the differences between wether you run bash or ksh or whatever. On top of the base, windows is just as modular and configurable as any other OS


#5 - It's easy and fun to develop high-quality software for Linux and BSD.
Everything said here equally goes for windows. Ever tried cygwin?


#6 - Linux and BSD supports more hardware out-of-the-box.
If you mean bad support, yes. My network card doesnt work properly every time, everytime i run alsaconf i get a different set of mixers for my soundcard. Stuttering sound is a linux fact of life. Why do you think we have WHQL under windows?


#7 - Linux and BSD systems are more stable than Windows.
whats the difference between crashing once every 10 years and not crashing - you'll probably get beaten by the hardware before you get of age


#8 - Viruses and Spyware are basically nonexistant for Linux and BSD.
Whatdya guess, to be able to run linux you need to be properly educated. Educated people know not to take in a virus. The fact that ms is the prime target for this sort of thing is that all the vulnerable people live here. If everybody knew how those things work, most virus writers would go out of buisness


#9 - Linux and BSD distributions give you more complete, usable operating environments out of the box.
Sadly enough, openoffice isnt as productive as ms office for most people. Once again, mediocre code rules. (Yes, the vast majority of free programs are just crap.) To get the better things, you have to buy it.
And if you've ever tried installing gentoo on an machine, you'd love the speed at which you get winxp up and running.


#10 - Total cost of ownership ranges very low to nothing for Linux.
And since boxes ship with windows installed price_linux >= price_windows


Now, shall we return to osdeving instead of flaming at windows?

[Brendan]

Hi,

Good read, People might learn from it.. (One can dream...)

I hope not - it's entirely inaccurate. Some random comments...

#10 Windows doesn't come with any software? That must be why the EU got annoyed at them for bundling IE, Outlook, Winzip, etc into the OS. Let's face facts here - an OS is meant to be an OS, not all software anyone could ever need, and bundling unnecessary software with the OS is wrong. This includes IE, Outlook, etc for Windows, but also includes all the crap you get as default with most Unix clone "distributions". If the user/administrator wants to install some applications, then make it easy, but don't make it an automatic default. BTW if people like free open source applications, I can't think of anything that hasn't been ported to Windows anyway. The only thing Windows really lacks is a package manager to make installing those open source applications easier.

For total cost of ownership, how much does a support contract cost for these things? I'm not sure if Redhat has dropped it's prices or something, but...


#9. I agree - Linux and BSD is full of useless bloat, take too long to install, too long to boot and it takes much too long to remove all the unnecessary stuff that was installed as "default". I also agree that Windows server versions suffer the same problem - a default install of something like Windows Server 2003 comes with DHCP, DNS, IIS (http/ftp), NTP, and a pile of other services that people may not want, which is equally annoying.


#8 I've been running WIndows XP and Gentoo for the last few years without getting any viruses on either of them. I've never installed anti-virus software on any of the machines I've owned, and I always run Windows as "administrator" (against any sane persons advice for any OS). IMHO anti-virus software is for people downloading pirate music and porn and running peer-to-peer file sharing, who will happily click on anything without thinking. The problem here is that people who happily click on anything without thinking don't know that Linux and the BSDs exist (and probably wouldn't bother using it if they did because they're too annoying for normal users to setup, and there's no decent games).

If Linux and the BSDs were easier to use, maybe more "less well educated" people would use them, and happily click anything while running as administrator. Would they be virus free then?

Of course astute regulars may remember some of the comments I made in SimpleFS thread:

There was (and should be) a forum on my web site specifically for SFS, but a week or so ago my web host had some technical difficulties. Home directories and MySQL databases were backed up, the entire server was restored from a prior backup, and the home directories were restored, but MySQL databases (my forum's content) haven't been restored yet. At the moment my forums are online using an old backup (several months old), and none of the newer posts/users are present. The real database should be restored soon (I hope), but it depends on the web host's administrator. I've done all I can, as I'm getting very fast web hosting for free and don't want the web administrator to think I'm too much of an annoyance....

The truth here is that someone hacked into my web host's server and changed half the executable file permissions so that the administrator couldn't scratch his behind without getting a "permission denied" error. The administrator is very good (full University degree, paid professional, more knowledge/experience on systems administration than I'll ever have), and the server is running Red Hat 4.0.2-8. Of course this wasn't a virus and it wasn't spyware, so I guess it doesn't count.


#7 Linux, etc is more stable? To be honest, I can't tell - I' haven't seen Linux or WIndows XP crash in the l;ast few years, although KDE and Mozilla do crash occasionally (but they aren't part of "the OS", so they don't really count in a comparison of OSs).

Windows 95 and Windows 98 did both crash a lot, but a lot has changed since then (I'm not sure how stable Linux or BSD was back then either - I did try Slackware around 1997, but didn't use it long enough to see if it was stable or not) .


#5 Easier to develop high-quality software? I wouldn't know - I've never tried to write high-quality software for Linux or Windows. In fact most people don't. I really do hope this is true though - it'd be nice to see some of this high-quality software one day (a decent pdf viewer would be a damn good start for me). Despite this I'm not too sure what it has to do with OSs (are we comparing development tools instead?).


I didn't bother reading part #2. I'm also not sure why the article included the BSDs - they're only kernels, not complete distributions, and the only "good" thing about them is they're capable of running GNU/Linux software....


Cheers,

Brendan

[Brendan]

Hi,

Now, shall we return to osdeving instead of flaming at windows?

Let's all gang up on Brynet-Inc until he understands the basic laws of physics, like Newton's third law of motion. If you think about it, Brynet-Inc might get more people to try BSD if he attempted to convince everyone that Windows is better - raving fanatics rarely have the effect they intend....


Cheers,

Brendan

[spix]

You are all wrong. Plan 9 is the bestest OS in the world and anyone who thinks otherwise is a stupid head.

@combuster, you're not a fish. You don't have to keep biting everytime Brynet baits you.

@Brynet, stop trolling. OpenBSD is great, It's always run well for me on macppc, amd64, i386, sparc64 and sparc - but no one cares except for me. People aren't stupid because they choose to use windows. I am using windows atm (*gasp*) I don't use it for OSdev unless I am desperate, but cygwin is OK. People who use visual basic and visual whatever, well whatever floats your boat, I don't use it because I don't have it and don't know how to use it.

OK, now lets all hug each other and celebrate our differences. we are one and we are many and so on.

[nitinjavakid]

Sadly enough, openoffice isnt as productive as ms office for most people. Once again, mediocre code rules. (Yes, the vast majority of free programs are just crap.) To get the better things, you have to buy it.
And if you've ever tried installing gentoo on an machine, you'd love the speed at which you get winxp up and running.

I disagree on this. I was so bugged by MS Office that I shifted to OpenOffice Portable. And for me, its the BEST. Thats because there are many formats in which I can export my files, which are not available in MS office.

I guess Kaffiene(Based on Xine) and Mplayer are better media players than Windows Media Player(which hangs while playing scratched VCDs). Xine has some block skipping option which enables it to skip the frame. So, I guess its upto us to choose from many softwares available in the market.

I would like to add one small but very interesting point about UI of linux. While pasting a group of 200 file(100 of which already exists in the destination) and you dont wanna overwrite any. Tell me how frustrating it would be to keep on pressing one button 100 times in windows. While in Suse Linux they added a cool small thing called auto skip, which I like. Small thing but great difference.

[bubach]

Thats just stupid.

Total cost of ownership ranges very low to nothing for Linux.
My XP version didn't cost me anything..

Linux and BSD distributions give you more complete, usable operating environments out of the box.
Oh, so it's bloated with crap you don't want right from the start? Well, thats nice..

Viruses and Spyware are basically nonexistant for Linux and BSD.
Haven't had to install any AV software for 5 years or so. Spyware is no threat to anyone with computer knowledge..

It's easy and fun to develop high-quality software for Linux and BSD.
And if you don't like GCC? You'r screwed, right?

Linux and BSD supports more hardware out-of-the-box.
Again: Oh, so it's bloated with crap you don't want right from the start?
And the things not included in the kernel? No support at all.


Linux and BSD is only better then Windows as servers, to claim anything else is just to be stupid.

[Colonel Kernel]

Saying Linux and BSD are better than Windows is like saying that rat turds and mouse turds are better than hamster turds. All three architectures are equally uninteresting and dated IMO.

Seriously, if I were happy with existing OSes, I wouldn't be doing OS development as a hobby in the first place.

[inflater]

Hey Lads,
I am confused why someone wants to propaganda Linux and tell negative diferences about Windows (and vice-versa).
Simply:

If you are comfortable when dev'ing in MS Windows, develope in Windows.
If you like Linux, you can make too a operating system (and preferably more things).

Every system has advantages and disadvantages, but Microsoft has gotten to be popular with Windows95 (old times,huh?) and Linux was there with no chance.

So, a simple OS equation

Windows = Linux + (more years of work)

My opinion:
Linux is free operating system and it still isn't the best OS. I don't like the way the programmers are trying to make a NTFS (or any complicated) driver in beta version, and you use it, and you can have perfectly corrupted HD. What can that suppose to mean? A un-debugged driver that makes crazy things. That are disadvantages of some free OS'es.

MS Windows isn't free, but it is surely stable (well,XP) and it has more support than Linux. I mean this like in: drivers,3D games and so on.

And good ol' MS DOS was not free either, but that was really stable (and simpler) OS. But his functions are very,very miserable in present time.

My OS is crappy, I know it, crappier than Linux and DOS even, but I don't propagate it,like if it was the best OS in the whole world, like in the above link.

Sorry for my bad English language.

inflater

[TheQuux]

To err is human; to really foul up takes root privs, and to mess up linux is really easy

Yep, and it's easier to fix. (see the thread that you took the title from...

You are all wrong. Plan 9 is the bestest OS in the world and anyone who thinks otherwise is a stupid head.

Not plan9! the BeOS!

Or Xenon...

Saying Linux and BSD are better than Windows is like saying that rat turds and mouse turds are better than hamster turds.

Awesome...

[chase]

#2 - Linux and BSD don't limit your platform choices.
tell me, who actually uses something other than the x86 platform (and thus what's this statement worth? nothing)

I'm sitting in a room with one x86 box (my laptop that I'm typing at) and 13 systems with dual Sparc cpus. And my phone has a ARM cpu.

I use Windows when I think it's needed, Media Center seems to work better than MythTV for example but I try not to without a reason.

[Candy]

#1 - Linux and BSD give you complete freedom to do what the hell you want with your system.

Windows does so too, at least, in most versions. People would vote against this because you should not do everything with adminstrator rights and/or as SYSTEM (yes, you CAN start processes as SYSTEM) but that's pretty equal to the root/not root debate.

#2 - Linux and BSD don't limit your platform choices.
Windows runs on X86, Alpha, XScale, Arm... Probably a bunch others too. Some aren't actively being maintained, others don't support the full Windows chain but Windows certainly isn't x86-only. By design, since the NT series, there's a pretty clear HAL which eases porting. They don't have to port it however...

#3 - Linux and BSD perform better on any given platform.
Bull. It very very much depends on what you want to do and what you want to accomplish. If what you want to accomplish is expressed very compatible with Windows, it'll not run faster or better on Linux. Example would indeed include graphics.

#4 - Linux and BSD distributions are more configurable and modular.
Bull, yet again. I can't just ship you a driver and know it'll work on all BSD's and Linuxes (at least, not in binary form).

#5 - It's easy and fun to develop high-quality software for Linux and BSD.
When I'm going to make a very simple UI application to communicate using a serial port, you can bet I'm going to use C#+.NET in Windows. If I don't care about the UI, it'll probably be in my own OS. High-quality is very subjective, I describe 99% of software being sold nowadays as being pretty low quality.

#6 - Linux and BSD supports more hardware out-of-the-box.
Linux includes all drivers in the kernel and has a smaller driver set. Windows doesn't ship with its driver set updated every two months. That's not quite a fair comparison, really.

#7 - Linux and BSD systems are more stable than Windows.
Although I'm tending to agree, that's not because they're inherently more stable.

#8 - Viruses and Spyware are basically nonexistant for Linux and BSD.
Well... Viruses and spyware require noneducated users (up to a level) that are not knowledgeable about their system. People that don't care what works in the computer just take what comes with it, and that's windows. Not a reason why Linux or BSD would be better.

#9 - Linux and BSD distributions give you more complete, usable operating environments out of the box.
What're you going to operate? When I'm going to operate a nuclear power plant, a BlueGene supercomputer or a banking distributed system, you can bet neither is really fit. When I'm going to type documents, both are equally fit. When I'm going to play games, Windows might be more fit, when I'm going to program, Linux may be more fit. All need quite a lot of set up time however.

#10 - Total cost of ownership ranges very low to nothing for Linux.
TCO includes education and support, as well as lost production due to unhappiness. In that way, Linux is far from nothing. For me, Windows is also far from nothing.


By the way, are you expecting a form of flame fest from this? If so, I'm going to uproot the entire thread to the nether realm.

[kataklinger]

I'm going to comment only this one:

#5 - It's easy and fun to develop high-quality software for Linux and BSD.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Visual Studio is a great tool, you can like it or you don't, but still it's one of the greatest + SDKs + DDKs + Extension Packages for free and all well documentent on MSDN. And if you still don't like you can find port for Windows of almost all better compiler or IDE.

[B.E]

It's funny, most of you that write OSes, model them on a unix like system, but hate using linux. Also you try to conform to standard, but prefere to program in a windows eviroment.


Linux has a one point(which should been #1) that wern't covered in the articles.

Linux/BSD is more secure that windows.

#1 - Linux and BSD give you complete freedom to do what the hell you want with your system.
To err is human; to really foul up takes root privs, and to mess up linux is really easy

Only if your root can you mess things up.

#2 - Linux and BSD don't limit your platform choices.
tell me, who actually uses something other than the x86 platform (and thus what's this statement worth? nothing)

what about x64, mac, PowerPC and embedded devices.

#3 - Linux and BSD perform better on any given platform.
False. UT for linux runs crap on non-nvidia cards (if you dont have a 3D card, Windows actually performs FAR better)
Not to mention speed-optimized OSes, like DOS

for games, I must agree. The only reason is that most game are written for windows. But for Server applications(i.e apache, ssh(non-existant in windows), etc...), they are much faster due to that fact that windows uses so much resources to run and windows tends to page memory to disk even when there is still enough memory left.

#4 - Linux and BSD distributions are more configurable and modular.
Configurability comes at a price. Windows has a solid base you can count on, no issues about the differences between wether you run bash or ksh or whatever. On top of the base, windows is just as modular and configurable as any other OS

I must agree on the points that you make, and I think this is one of the letdoowns that linux has. As for windows being modular. One of the ways viruses can attack systems is by using a function from a higher level then normal.

#6 - Linux and BSD supports more hardware out-of-the-box.
If you mean bad support, yes. My network card doesnt work properly every time, everytime i run alsaconf i get a different set of mixers for my soundcard. Stuttering sound is a linux fact of life. Why do you think we have WHQL under windows?

This is another letdown that linux has, because everything in linux is open source, hardware manufactures don't like giving out there source for there drivers.

#7 - Linux and BSD systems are more stable than Windows.
whats the difference between crashing once every 10 years and not crashing - you'll probably get beaten by the hardware before you get of age

that's if you turn your windows computer off every day, try leaving your windows computer, on for more that a month, you will see a big difference between when you first turn it on and at the end of the month.

#8 - Viruses and Spyware are basically nonexistant for Linux and BSD.
Whatdya guess, to be able to run linux you need to be properly educated. Educated people know not to take in a virus. The fact that ms is the prime target for this sort of thing is that all the vulnerable people live here. If everybody knew how those things work, most virus writers would go out of buisness

Linux is more superior in this field than in the windows. Only the root can install anything, which means that the only time you will get spyware and viruses installed is when you run as root.

#9 - Linux and BSD distributions give you more complete, usable operating environments out of the box.
Sadly enough, openoffice isnt as productive as ms office for most people. Once again, mediocre code rules. (Yes, the vast majority of free programs are just crap.). To get the better things, you have to buy it.

openoffice allows you to create PDFs from documents, (which sadly the idea yet again has been copied by M$ office.

And if you've ever tried installing gentoo on an machine, you'd love the speed at which you get winxp up and running.

I agree, but with gentoo, you only have to install it once, but with windows, becuase of spyware and viruses, you have to reinstall it every 2 years.

#10 - Total cost of ownership ranges very low to nothing for Linux.
And since boxes ship with windows installed price_linux >= price_windows

Now, shall we return to osdeving instead of flaming at windows?

lets see, average box cost $2000 with windows. average linux cost is $0.
so the equation is $0 < $2000.

[Brynet-Inc]

I'd like to quote what a user said on that article it just sums it all up(In some areas, I use BSD on workstations)..

I read some thing in the comments about it taking YEARS to learn Linux. Well maybe if you want to write a kernel.

How long does it take to learn GNU/Linux ? Well let's see I've learned pretty hot damn enough about FreeBSD in less then a year in my spare time between working hours. If I was paid to learn this stuff I would be getting certified instead of trying to pick up the other IT matters not involved in the actual SYSTEM I'm using. I'm perfectly at home doing things. I can't afford certification so my plan is to learn it then see if a company will pay for it.

Total Cost of Ownership ? Well for my desktop, laptop, and home file server I can tell you running a BSD systems my T.C.O. is about the price of DSL and Power. After hardware that is. The only problem I've seen is when you need some special piece of software written strictly _closed source_ and developed for MS Windows. That fills a little niche no one hears about. Hell you couldn't pay me enough to admin a Windows machine but I'd work hard keeping a group of FreeBSD boxes running like a well oiled swiss clock for a decent cost of living.

If you are PAID to run a Unix like system you are _paid_ because you *know* how to do your _job_. If you don't then you should be _using_ a computer not in _charge of it_

Does Windows XP have BSODs yes it does I've seen many, it's called a Software Conflict Between OS and Hardware. Not to be confused with PEBKAC

Who cares for developing software ? Well if some one didn't write it what the frig are you staring at a blank monitor and sitting at a cold dead machine for ? Open Source software for Unices are made on them because the developers prefer Unice-> Such things for windows I've often seen are done only because it makes money with closed source software and has no need to run on over 600 different operating systems with a minimal of change. Open Source software is portable, closed source is not. Closed source programs will die with it's platform(s).

Programming is part of my hobbies, I've had to kick, poke, and prod Windows every step of the way for a decent development platform. My solution? Screw it I'm getting BSD. I wanted to learn more about the C programming language, what did I do? I looked into the FreeBSD source tree and started learning from the command line tools.

One thing I like about Windows is that it is light on software out of the box, it's more time to set up from scratch but it makes for compactness. It's also why I usually opt for minimal installs of FreeBSD and add whats needed to my system after it is ready to go online.

As I see it, FreeBSD, GNU/Linux for servers and PC-BSD and GNU/Linux for workstations. Windows for multi-media desktops and Gaming platforms. To be honest after over 10 years around computers I don't trust Windows to do any thing else better then BSD or GNU/Linux.

No virus, spyware, malware e.t.c. on *nix - fuuy. There is so little because a lot of it is targeted at Windows due to it's market share. Nothing is perfect but Unices at least make basic allowances for security. At least I know if I have malware running under a no priv account on BSD it will be harder to damage important things then on Windows XP with an Admin account. When Unices are #1 on the desktop there will be the creeps out to destroy it but it will be ready to keep them at bay faster then MS.

I've never seen the Windows server editions but if they are any thing like running X11 on a Unix box I would freak out. The closest I've come to working with a live server is a machine handling files and my printer. It runs nothing but a CLI and I'm more productive that way. Every thing I know about software including apache and similar softwares tells me I don't need a GUI for any thing that is not graphical. I'm a stern believer in the idea of a very thin software env. If you want to run a fw services that need 30~45 packages total do it. Don't upgrade it to 200~300 packages and give you more to configure, maintain, update, and _secure_ just because you don't know how to use a computer both via CLI and GUI. Not being given a choice is even worse.

Of all the computers I have owned the only one that I know for sure won't run BSD or Linux is the one that used a Intel 8088. It might take some hacking around to do it but BSD and Linux can be made to run on 386 and 486 computers easy enough.

I found this top ten very good and it the second part shows a very big truth about Windows on the desktop.

You need a lot of 3rd party software, ether commercial, shareware, or freeware, un-supported "Power toys", registry edits and a lot of fooling around to make changes to the Windows UI that take about 5 mouse clicks under KDE. Most other things can be done with a little trip to the net.

Honestly if you used it as a host for VMWare or some thing I could see Windows in a production env. Yet I still see Unix like systems as /easier/ to use and showing more respect to end users.

I don't want a machine that says "Good morning Retardo, care to make us richer?" when I boot it, I want a machine that lets me do my work. This is why I don't use Windows for more then I have too.

______________________
@Keith.W on 03 Nov : 09:51

GParted (gtk+ GUI) and QTParted (qt GUI) are very good alternatives to Partition magic and cheaper (as well as Free software). I've never lost an bit of data with QTParted using a Knoppix live CD but I make sure to take care of my data before hand.

Source code tells the computer what to do. Its what a programmer writes in a language he/she can understand easy enough. This source code is then converted into machine code that the computer can read but we don't want to try too.

Open Source programs allow this source code to be freely available. Closed Source programs prevent this. If it's open source any one can find a hole in it, and any one can fix a hole in it. Do you want to wait a week for MS Windows updates to be released or a few hours to a few days for a patch to the system to be released once a problem is found? This is one reason I like BSD.
______________________


One thing I do ask people, UNIX and similar systems account for more operating systems then any other on earth. It's made some of the biggest contributions to software development ever, it's still in use nearly 40 years later. It's still strong, rock solid and rocks and rolls.

Windows NT has been around since like 1993 and it still has concepts (crap) that was never thrown out from the DOS days and never will because it needs to be more compatible with non WinNT systems as well as Joe user.

It's not market share it's fact. Unix was a good design and could change with the times. MS-DOS was quick and profitable and was changed in the search for more money. I expect after Vista or after the OS after it MS will be turning back to Unix or stealing Linux.

Unices are so very much more useful.

Windows sucks, Get over it already