Life In 19x19

Marcus wrote:You know, I can't help but wonder ... why are so many so anxious to be off Windows?

Two reasons for me are that I think the open model is more economically effective, and transparency is important. There is a huge potential for hiding malicious code in proprietary software that can never be legally confirmed or denied. Free software makes this far less likely to occur, and impossible to fully hide. This is not a huge problem yet, but in the future I think it will be.

nagano wrote:

Marcus wrote:You know, I can't help but wonder ... why are so many so anxious to be off Windows?

Two reasons for me are that I think the open model is more economically effective, and transparency is important. There is a huge potential for hiding malicious code in proprietary software that can never be legally confirmed or denied. Free software makes this far less likely to occur, and impossible to fully hide. This is not a huge problem yet, but in the future I think it will be.

This is a valid opinion, and I respect that.

However, with the right tools nothing is truly "closed source" ... I consider this a consumer/social issue (to be fair, it can be a big issue) ... not a technology issue.

Marcus wrote:You know, I can't help but wonder ... why are so many so anxious to be off Windows? I mean, having done Windows support for years, I do understand some of the challenges ... but issues with Windows stability and vulnerability always seem to be blown WAY out of proportion to the reality (as are issues with Linux usability, in my opinion ... but I digress).

I understand that many of you have a preference for an OS other than Windows. I find that acceptable. I just don't believe Windows is the inferior choice overall. Different tools for different jobs, right?

I actually don't think that as a *desktop* system Linux is much more secure than a carefully set up Windows system. That of course only holds if the user in front of the system is behaving reasonably. On Windows it's still way too easy to fool the user into starting some trojan and giving it permission to do damage. But for me personally, that doesn't really apply, because I would never dream of opening an attachment of a spam mail that's called "hot_babes.jpg.exe"


For me, it's mainly a usability argument:

1) I like tiling window managers.
2) For pretty much everything exept web browsing, I prefer the console to GUI.

These two points boil down to me preferring the keyboard over the mouse. I absolutely hate having to move my right hand between mouse and keyboard. A tiling window manager that's keyboard controllable, plus a reasonable console, gets me very far without ever having to touch the mouse. The former is not available for Windows at all, and the latter isn't really able to compete, either.

3) I like package managers.

These things are a huge time-saver. On Windows, I often have to search the internet for some software. If I'm lucky I find an installer that I can just execute. If I'm not so lucky, I have to install some prerequisites first, then I have to search for them, too. For example on Arch Linux, I just do "pacman -S <package-name>". Or "pacman -Ss <keyword>" if I'm not sure how the package is called.

Ok, once I have everything I need installed, that's not really an issue anymore. But especially when installing a new system, the time saved here is huge. On Windows, I often need two or three days of my attention until the system is in a state where I can actually do some work. On Linux, that usually needs about an hour at most, and most of that unattended.

An added bonus is that the package manager keeps all of my software automatically up to date, not just the system and the few programs where the developer provides an auto-update. And that is IMHO the biggest security advantage of Linux compared to Windows, because outdated software is generally the biggest security risk nowadays.


To sum up: Yes, I actually prefer Linux over Windows on a pure usability basis. That goes as far as me having a VirtualBox running Linux on my Windows work PC, where I do certain tasks where the usability difference is really noticable, opposed to just some minor annoyance.


And to answer the original poll:
At home, I use mainly Linux. Windows is only used for SC2 (at the moment, probably for D3 when it comes out ).
At work, I use Windows for .NET-Development, Linux in a VirtualBox for pretty much everything else.

It is really strange that Linux has completely solved the package-management problem for 10 or 15 years, and Windows still has not even attacked it. I sit around with a bunch of old versions of stuff on my Windows machines just because every program has an inconsistent updating mechanism or no updating mechanism. How hard can this be? Even if Microsoft doesn't want to maintain an apt-style repository of Windows software, can't they expose some API that programs can register with to check for updates, and some central management screen I can look at to see the updates?

On the Windows side, I like to use Secunia PSI to keep track of what software needs updating. It's not perfect (Linux package manager are definitely better), but it is pretty good.

cata wrote:It is really strange that Linux has completely solved the package-management problem for 10 or 15 years, and Windows still has not even attacked it. I sit around with a bunch of old versions of stuff on my Windows machines just because every program has an inconsistent updating mechanism or no updating mechanism. How hard can this be? Even if Microsoft doesn't want to maintain an apt-style repository of Windows software, can't they expose some API that programs can register with to check for updates, and some central management screen I can look at to see the updates?

I think Windows 8 apps are their idea of a solution to that, but being tied to Silverlight is not so great.

cata wrote:It is really strange that Linux has completely solved the package-management problem for 10 or 15 years, and Windows still has not even attacked it. I sit around with a bunch of old versions of stuff on my Windows machines just because every program has an inconsistent updating mechanism or no updating mechanism. How hard can this be? Even if Microsoft doesn't want to maintain an apt-style repository of Windows software, can't they expose some API that programs can register with to check for updates, and some central management screen I can look at to see the updates?

Is there no equivalent of the Sparkle update framework for Mac OS X on Windows? It's a framework that individual applications use which checks for updates, presents a dialog if one is found, then downloads and installs the update. It only activates when you launch applications, but that's good enough for most people.

If there is, then I (A Windows developer, albeit not for consumers) don't know about it and I can't say I know of any Windows software that uses it.

cata wrote:If there is, then I (A Windows developer, albeit not for consumers) don't know about it and I can't say I know of any Windows software that uses it.

Interesting.

Sparkle is an open source thing, and a lot of indie developers, and some major companies, use it. Interestingly, the guy who created it got hired by Apple.

kirkmc wrote:

cata wrote:If there is, then I (A Windows developer, albeit not for consumers) don't know about it and I can't say I know of any Windows software that uses it.

Interesting.

Sparkle is an open source thing, and a lot of indie developers, and some major companies, use it. Interestingly, the guy who created it got hired by Apple.

Thanks for mentioning this. Apparently there are two similar open-source projects, Winsparkle and wyUpdate, which run on Windows.

Those look cute -- I'll keep those in mind next time I write something that I want to distribute to people!

nagano wrote: Thanks for mentioning this. Apparently there are two similar open-source projects, Winsparkle and wyUpdate, which run on Windows.

While wyUpdate itself is open source, you still need to buy wyBuild, the application that creates the updates. Unless somebody
else wrote another program that creates updates for wyUpdate.

And WinSparkle seems to be only an update checker, not an updater. Pretty useless IMO.

I've used computers since, uhm, 1983 or so, and I’ve used more operating systems than I have fingers on my hands (I still have 5 on each hand ).

My favourite OS is OS X, followed by iOS, but I’m also Windows-savvy, having taught media stuff and OS usage on Mac OS “Classic”, OS X, and Windows.

Greetings, Tom in Germany

I'm not there yet, but I'm wondering if in a year's time, I may be the guy who asks why Emacs isn't included as an option.

I just tried out Linux again (Ubuntu), but it can't compete with the maturity and stability of Windows 7.