Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 23, 2007 22:30 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643)
In reply to: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek) by zooko
Parent article: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

This is just not my experience at all - I use Windows at work and home, and Linux at home. My Ubuntu Linux PC at home has never crashed, and only once locked up (due to Picasa) - it was recoverable without rebooting. I recently installed a new monitor and then a new video card, and in both cases it was really quite trivial to get them working - virtually plug and play.

My work laptop using Windows has frequently locked up when docking or undocking, or decided to not wake up fully from sleep, and occasionally crashes.

The home Windows PC takes far more time to administer and keep secure than the much older Linux box, even though it only uses Firefox as the browser, and has frequently caused nightmarish problems such as very high CPU usage (due to Windows Update). This required significant registry hacking and update de-installation to fix.

Generally, Linux takes quite a lot of setup (I'm on an older Ubuntu at present, newer versions should be better) but works incredibly reliably. Windows just never stops consuming time.

For friends who are non-technical and can afford Macs, that's what I recommend (they can run Windows apps via Crossover or Parallels virtual machines if needed) to reduce the security/admin nightmares.

For technical friends, I recommend Ubuntu, but it's not quite as plug and play as a Mac (yet).

I've been using Windows and Linux a long time, and am considered somewhat of a Windows power user at work, but I really want to get away from it as far as possible...

One tip for Windows users - install Microsoft's Process Explorer instead of Task Manager, it lets you suspend processes that are killing your system responsiveness (often installed by IT departments to try to make your system secure) so you can get some work done. I've never needed a similar tool on Linux, using top or the KDE equivalent is enough.

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