Mathew, could you please set you mail program to wrap lines at about 72 chars? That would make reading a lot easier! Thanks!
On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 02:01:10PM +1000, Mirabella, Mathew J wrote: [...] > Windows and redhat might cost similar regarding the enterprise > edition of redhat vs windows xp pro, but the average person would > probably just get the normal redhat cds or download the os and > install it for pretty much next to nothing. So from this > perspective, windows XP is more expensive for a base system than is > red hat. Actually, I think the average person still would simply buy a PC with 'doze preinstalled and hence (think they) pay nothing for XP... It's still some way to go before the same can be said for Linux. > Also, with a Windows system you do have to purchase MS Office to get > a suite of products like openoffice which is free with red hat and > new linux distros, or at least free to download. [...] My impression is that most "average" people just copy that stuff from someone else -> no costs. Maybe I know the wrong people... :-) [...] > However, there is another side to the story. Windows does come with > full mp3 support, Which is easlily added to RH and does come included with other distros. > types, a web browser that does really support css and xslt/xml stuff > properly and has a horrible security history. As for CSS, I'm no expert, but I *have* heard the same story the other way round as well. Problem for me is to figure out which one is true. In addition, Mozilla has - AFAIK - more features (pop-up filter, tabs - all stuff that IE didn't have or still doesn't have). [...] > very feature rich (still more so than openoffice), and an email > client that is very easy to configure and again has a horrible security history. This can't be stressed enough. Same goes for MS Office, by the way. It is absolutely *vital*, that this gets into the minds of the consumers, especially, with more and more computers getting networked. We've seen the waves of viruses & co. in the past. [...] > In short, from the cds of windows and office, the install process is > very easy, it has worked well every time i have tried to do it, and > once everything is installed, you can basically do everything right > away without worrying about any special files to edit, things to > compile in just the right way with the right files in the right dirs > or they don't work, etc. etc. Same is true for a RH install (haven't tried 8.0, though). In fact, I found the Windows install to be far more complex and to take far more time. > The user interface of windows [...] > is and has been more intuitive This is just plain wrong. It's a myth. Take an absolute computer newbie, install him before a MS Windows machine, an Apple or a GNOME or KDE setup and watch. (S)He will struggle on any of those systems. I've seen my father start with Windows - *forget* intuitive! The *only* reason, MS Windows is *perceived* as "more intuitive" is because there are so many people who were already in contact with it - it's almost omnipresent, unfortunately. [...] > updates from red hat (or whatever distro) are often difficult to > manage. e.g. the glibc problems people are having, the issue of > kernel updates being different from other ones, etc. With windows, > just installing the update and rebooting results in at the very > least nothing broken that was not before. I have seen many posts to > the litsts recently where people say "i installed the latest red hat > update and now application x does not work, but it did before... > what has happened". this has never occured for windows in my > experience. Are you talking about updates as in new version of the OS or updates as in bugfix/security updates? If the latter, I'd say, RH (and other Linuxes) are *way* ahead of MS Windows. Just plow through a couple of MS Windows groups and read the stories about how Service Pack X broke app Y and you can't install Z anymore or you have to do it in the right order, etc.pp. I *never* had this type of problems with RH updates. > There may be some windows 95 apps that dont work in windows xp, but > you can usually get newer versions for the nt style of windows > anyway. What i really mean here is that any updates to a particular > version of windows (e.g. updates of windows xp) do not break any > currently running apps. But they do break drivers and stuff like that - I see oodles of hardware being sold off cheaply with the sole reason being "doesn't work under XP". That stuff happens a lot less with Linux, i.e. you get more value out of your older hardware. > I know that more immediate support with hardware is likely to be > better for windows because most hardware like sound cards etc are > comercial in nature, and thus usually come with windows drivers as a > default. [...] Yes and no - see above. The commercial nature also makes that those manufacturers have no interest in supporting older versions. [...] > 3. it has to work really well out of the box for the average user > with the kind of hardware that people are buying now as well as > older stuff, not only the kind of hardware that people had available > a year ago. e.g. creative labs audigy 2 requires significant kernel > patching to work, and even then people have issues in linux. All > apps have to work well together without conflicts, and the package > management system has to automatically install and configure > dependencies etc. the dselect and apt-get stuff for debian is > slightly ahead of rpm on this latter score. Ok, that one is certainly true. Though even on RPM systems, the package management is ahead of MS Windows' 'DLL Hell', IMO. > It has to be powerful and app rich, and linux is just that, but it > also has to offer the basic user a wide range of ready to go > applications that people want to use every day with minimum of fuss > to get them going and no sudden rude issues of something not working > right after an in-version update or patch that fixes an old bug. Also true, especially, as MS has never achieved the latter part of it. [...] > If i have time to muck around, install and re install, configure, > experiment, work out how this and that works, and i have time and > want to learn the finer points of networks and programming etc, i > would choose linux. or maybe even free bsd! and i might choose to > live with the exentricities, taking them as a challenge. > > but... > > If i just wanted to start doing work, edit documents, write email, > chat on the net, browse the net, play audio stuff, and do all of > this right away with a minimum of fuss... I would use Windows with > no hesitation, and i would live with the issues of instability. The problem is, that this comparison still doesn't work. Just *how* many "average" people *do* actually *install* MS Windows? I'm 100% convinced that the vast majority still buys it pre-installed - or lets "the neighbour boy" install a new version. That's the way I observe it around me. The day you can buy a preinstalled Linux box as easily as you can buy a pre-installed MS Windows box (e.g. Linux PCs at MediaMarkt), you can make that comparison, but not yet. Also, if someone asked me what to buy to "just do work with no fuss", I'd actually recommend an Apple over MS Windows, especially, if (s)he's a computer newbie. Cheerio, Thomas -- ==> RH List Archive: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=redhat-list&r=1&w=2 <== ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org "You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!" -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
