My New ferarri 5000 had vista on it, they refused to ship it with XP....
After 48 hours of fighting with it......fdisk, delete partition, delete partition, bye, bye vista.
CRAP!..
How is it that Vista says access denied when I am logged into MY OWN MACHINE as Administrator. Its my Fxxking machine! I should be able to delete, stop, start whatever I want regardless of the opinion of William Gates. Even if it screws the machine up, its my Fxxking machine....
Gates doesn't think so.
Chopped the disk up and have XP and Gentoo in a dual boot config. Since I got KVM going the only time XP is used is when my wife uses my computer.
I still need XP for Autocad and Outllook and, unfortunately, word which is where KVM comes in. Openoffice writer just can't handle the complex documents I do with pasting in pictures from autocad. I've tried saving the files as wmfs and then inserting in OOwriter but it just isn't there. Also, OOwriter has a hell of a time reading those word 2002 files with pictures(technical drawings, not object, pasted in as meta files) especially if some pages are landscap and some are portrait.
For simpler docs, OOwriter is great. Its almost there. calc is fine, have had no issues with it.
I still use MSppt sometimes as ooimpress can't handle some of the fancier stuff my colleages like to put in there power point presentations.
But Vista? Are you serious?
CRAP.
John
Gentoo vs. Vista
Message
- Yamakuzure
- Advocate
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Wow.... I bet this thread is one of those which never dies, no matter how useless it is... 
Maybe one day, somewhere in the more or less near future, people will see, that there is no point to compare whatever linux distro with whatever windows distro. Linux is made by Freaks'n'Geeks for the usage by Freaks'n'Geeks. Windows is made by a multi-billion world-wide operating software company for the usage by the average John and Jane Doe from next door. Full stop.
@jserink: Yes, it is your machine. But if M$ would allow you to completely screw up your machine by doing something so stupid even a complete prat wouldn't do, they would face a thousand lawsuits.
I daresay there are enough people out there who'd screw up their machine like that and blame M$ for letting them...
Maybe one day, somewhere in the more or less near future, people will see, that there is no point to compare whatever linux distro with whatever windows distro. Linux is made by Freaks'n'Geeks for the usage by Freaks'n'Geeks. Windows is made by a multi-billion world-wide operating software company for the usage by the average John and Jane Doe from next door. Full stop.
@jserink: Yes, it is your machine. But if M$ would allow you to completely screw up your machine by doing something so stupid even a complete prat wouldn't do, they would face a thousand lawsuits.
I daresay there are enough people out there who'd screw up their machine like that and blame M$ for letting them...Edited 220,176 times by Yamakuzure
to the 1st part, the last post before yours was 22 days earlier... you're the one keeping it alive. so you can keep your eye rolling to yourself.Yamakuzure wrote:Wow.... I bet this thread is one of those which never dies, no matter how useless it is...
Maybe one day, somewhere in the more or less near future, people will see, that there is no point to compare whatever linux distro with whatever windows distro. Linux is made by Freaks'n'Geeks for the usage by Freaks'n'Geeks. Windows is made by a multi-billion world-wide operating software company for the usage by the average John and Jane Doe from next door. Full stop.
to the 2nd paragraph, "freaks'n'geeks"? don't be disparaging or rude. Linux (as a whole not just the kernel) is made by some of my most talented developers on the planet, why do people insist on insulting them because they choose to give away their work for free and at the benefit of the greater community? it makes me sad to see people still continue to perpetuate the anti-Linux garbage we've had to deal with for years Linux is free and it is GREAT software, get over it. windows is not better.
and people can absolutely compare operating systems, to not do so would be stupid and unhelpful.
I tried using vista a few times, i thought windows predecessors were frustrating, i cant sit and use vista for more than 10-15 min before i have to get up because of a growing panic attack.
“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautiful.”
― Plato
― Plato
- FrankRizz0
- l33t
- Posts: 617
- Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:34 am
"Out Of Box Experience
This isn't my first Gentoo install (or Vista install) so I'm familiar with both. Gentoo is not known for it's great OOBE. Vista does have a really fantastic OOBE, all drivers are installed and there are a few programs waiting for you to start."
You have had a MUCH better experience with Vista than I have had. I tried installing it on my lap top which is older ( 2003 ) but should still run it according to the minimum requirements. I have 1 gb of ram and it's a P3 1.2 gig processor. There was no driver for the video card. Not from windows OR from dell. I also installed it on my Sempron 2600 with 1gb of ram. The operating system is a resource HOG. I've used XP on both and they ran tickity boo. My laptop now runs gentoo, and to my surprise, it has a video driver. I've also run Vista & XP on my AMD 4200 dual core ( which now runs gentoo ), and I can honestly say that on it's best day Vista could never keep up to XP, nevermind Gentoo. One other thing which I think most will agree with who have ran Vista, I never felt so "trapped" by an operating system. I could not customize it enough for my own tastes.
I give gentoo 4.5 out of 5 (the .5 off is cause it pisses me off sometimes) and Vista a .5 out of 5 ( it looks pretty ).
This isn't my first Gentoo install (or Vista install) so I'm familiar with both. Gentoo is not known for it's great OOBE. Vista does have a really fantastic OOBE, all drivers are installed and there are a few programs waiting for you to start."
You have had a MUCH better experience with Vista than I have had. I tried installing it on my lap top which is older ( 2003 ) but should still run it according to the minimum requirements. I have 1 gb of ram and it's a P3 1.2 gig processor. There was no driver for the video card. Not from windows OR from dell. I also installed it on my Sempron 2600 with 1gb of ram. The operating system is a resource HOG. I've used XP on both and they ran tickity boo. My laptop now runs gentoo, and to my surprise, it has a video driver. I've also run Vista & XP on my AMD 4200 dual core ( which now runs gentoo ), and I can honestly say that on it's best day Vista could never keep up to XP, nevermind Gentoo. One other thing which I think most will agree with who have ran Vista, I never felt so "trapped" by an operating system. I could not customize it enough for my own tastes.
I give gentoo 4.5 out of 5 (the .5 off is cause it pisses me off sometimes) and Vista a .5 out of 5 ( it looks pretty ).
I don't mind the occasional eternal rant thread. I do enjoy a rant from time to time
The latest KDM and Gnome versions are taking some big steps in closing the usability gap with Windows. I have also seen that Windows seems to have taken a similar step back from XP to Vista. I have never tried Vista, and I for one trust the wise people in this thread and so I will forgo that particular frustrating experience as long as I can.
I am working at a major UK company, and we certainly have no plans to buy Vista. I am part of a Opensource review group and we have recently been allowed some use of Mac and Linux machines on the corporate network. The choice for the future depend on Office file formats and MS exchange compatibility.
My plan for 2008/2009 at home though is a Phenom quad-core machine running Gentoo, no dual booting XP any more. Haven't touched my current XP installation for at least 6 months and I am working on converting my fiancée to become Gentoo user. She's getting there, and is starting to get familiar with the compiz-fusion cube, putting e.g. Xine on one side to watch DVB TV, Firefox on the other and Evolution on the third.
Your grandma (and indeed my 65 year old mother) is able to use Windows XP with a little bit of education. I think many of the main stream Linux distributions would be ok too without too much trouble (I am thinking the big ones, like OpenSuse, Fedora, ubuntu, PCLinuxOS etc). Remember though that Gentoo is more like a meta-distribution (there is book available in German that argues this). It is basically one step up from Linux from Scratch and naturally required a bit more knowledge than most normal distros to install and configure. Of course this also gives us the speed advantage. After all the Gentoo penguin is the fastest in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_penguin
The latest KDM and Gnome versions are taking some big steps in closing the usability gap with Windows. I have also seen that Windows seems to have taken a similar step back from XP to Vista. I have never tried Vista, and I for one trust the wise people in this thread
and so I will forgo that particular frustrating experience as long as I can.I am working at a major UK company, and we certainly have no plans to buy Vista. I am part of a Opensource review group and we have recently been allowed some use of Mac and Linux machines on the corporate network. The choice for the future depend on Office file formats and MS exchange compatibility.
My plan for 2008/2009 at home though is a Phenom quad-core machine running Gentoo, no dual booting XP any more. Haven't touched my current XP installation for at least 6 months and I am working on converting my fiancée to become Gentoo user. She's getting there, and is starting to get familiar with the compiz-fusion cube, putting e.g. Xine on one side to watch DVB TV, Firefox on the other and Evolution on the third.
Your grandma (and indeed my 65 year old mother) is able to use Windows XP with a little bit of education. I think many of the main stream Linux distributions would be ok too without too much trouble (I am thinking the big ones, like OpenSuse, Fedora, ubuntu, PCLinuxOS etc). Remember though that Gentoo is more like a meta-distribution (there is book available in German that argues this). It is basically one step up from Linux from Scratch and naturally required a bit more knowledge than most normal distros to install and configure. Of course this also gives us the speed advantage. After all the Gentoo penguin is the fastest in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_penguin
- Hamsterkill
- Tux's lil' helper
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- Aquiles
- Apprentice
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- Location: Somewhere, surrounded by my circumstances.
I've read so many comparisons between OSes that I couldn't tell the number... and still I don't see the point. I mean, seriously, no offense, but what's the point? I don't really care if OS A is assigned 4/5 on reliability while OS B gets 4.5/5. If you want an OS and are unsure about which one best fits your needs, just try both of them, and then pick whichever you like the most, for whatever reasons, regardless of how many points it gets in a review.
Aquiles
- FrankRizz0
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Just because YOU feel this way, does not mean that anyone else has to feel this way. Personally, I like to make educated decisions first, read benchmarks and other documented information, then make my final decision through trial and error. That does not mean you have to. Thankfully, we have people to give their opinions, in forums where this kind of chat is encouraged, that will eventually help others ( lets not forget freedom of speech ).
- Aquiles
- Apprentice
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- Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:45 pm
- Location: Somewhere, surrounded by my circumstances.
Yeah, and the best way to make an educated decision is, as you say, trial and error (just what I was saying), not reading what a random guy thinks should be the grade the OS deserves on reliability or whatever criteria you choose.FrankRizz0 wrote:Just because YOU feel this way, does not mean that anyone else has to feel this way. Personally, I like to make educated decisions first, read benchmarks and other documented information, then make my final decision through trial and error.
Indeed. I never said he cannot give his opinion. His opinion is always welcome, as it is yours or mine. I just said I don't see the point of this kind of comparisons. Nothing more. Nothing less.FrankRizz0 wrote: That does not mean you have to. Thankfully, we have people to give their opinions, in forums where this kind of chat is encouraged, that will eventually help others ( lets not forget freedom of speech ).
Aquiles
Re: Gentoo vs. Vista
My own views on the categories by the original poster, but comparing to XP instead of Vista because I am not familiar with Vista, but I expect Vista not to differ much from XP here. Since I also use Ubuntu, I have included that as well.
Install
Gentoo's install has to be done by hand from beginning to the end. A lot of configuration files need to be written, numerous emerge commands need to be run, and many parts take a long time but may fail at any point, effectively keeping one glued to the screen in order to keep the installation running. An utter disaster. The only really good thing about Gentoo installation is how flexible it is, being able to install from any Linux system that can unpack the tarball to rootfs. This allows installation from LiveCDs (I mean ones with graphical desktop etc) such as the Ubuntu installation disc.
Speaking of the Ubuntu installation CD, it is just great. A large selection of software is installed on the disc, allowing one to surf the web, connect to WPA-protected WiFi networks, etc. straight from the disc. If some piece of software is missing, it can be installed by using the graphical package management right there, before actually installing anything. The programs installed at this stages will be installed only in your RAM (which you need a lot of, if you want to install large programs).
The Ubuntu installation itself can be done by clicking the install button on the desktop. It asks just enough questions and provides nice preconfigured short selections (e.g. make Windows partition smaller automatically vs. manual partitioning). The questions are asked at the beginning of the installation, then a 30 minute installation phase begins and you may go do something else meanwhile. Or you can use the LiveCD environment to actually do something useful or surf the web while the installation is in progress. Unfortunately there are a few limitations on the Ubuntu installer. For example, it is impossible to install Ubuntu on an existing Linux disk without formatting the partitions first. The installer also does not allow specifying which programs to install, but I think that this is only a good thing, as the default software selection is fairly optimal.
XP's installer is pretty basic, but it still does its job. There is a minimal disk partitioning program included. The installer's hardware support is poor because the OS is quite outdated and I would expect Vista to be better in this respect, but traditionally Microsoft has not bundled enough drivers on the installation discs, so network card and display drivers are likely to be missing in Vista, too. The NIC drivers are particularly important, as one cannot fetch them or other drivers from the Internet without a working network connection! Even after installing the NIC drivers and rebooting one cannot get to the Internet without clicking thru a horrible "multiple choice game" called the Internet Connection Wizard. I do not know what the purpose of this thing is, but it is clearly designed at the time when people still used dialup connections. Even if one is already online and all the other programs can use the net, the browser cannot be started without first clicking thru this unskippable wizard that does not indicate clearly which selections should be taken to use an existing connection.
Gentoo: 2/5
+ Extremely flexible, can be installed from other Linux environments
+ Can be installed on anything, in any way preferred
- Installation CD uses a framebuffer console with very limited software selection
- The Handbook (Gentoo installation manual) is an absolute requirement even for experienced Gentooists
- Kernel compilation is mandatory and not even premade .configs are provided (this is the hardest part of the installation)
- A lot of configuration files to write, a lot of packages to emerge, a lot of manual labor
- Installing takes a day or two (if everything goes well)
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ A very nice LiveCD environment to start with (can be used without installing anything)
+ One can use a graphical desktop during the installation to do other things
+ Just the right amount of questions asked
+ Can resize existing partitions
- Cannot be installed on an existing partition without formatting first
XP: 2/5
+ Just the right amount of questions asked (but no shortcuts)
+ Multiple options for installing on top of another system
- The installer will stop and ask questions from time to time during the installation
- Have to input a long alphanumeric product ID by keyboard
- Does not recognize other operating systems' partitions or boot loaders
- Almost no device drivers (e.g. most popular network cards lack support)
- Installation on SATA or large HDDs may not be possible
- Numerous reboots during installation (by the installer and afterwards)
- Internet Connection Wizard
Out Of Box Experience
Gentoo has no OOB experience because it has no "box". It all depends on what you install.
Ubuntu's installed version is pretty much identical with the LiveCD version, with everything just working. Things not installed by default are offered to be installed where needed (e.g. non-free display driver installation: about three clicks, a few seconds, a reboot and it is installed). USB sticks and CDs installed display their contents automatically. Digital cameras offer picture download. A very large selection of software, even in special domains such as medical imaging, is available for install via a very easy-to-use package manager. To sum it all up, everything just works.
XP lands on a system on which you cannot really do much. Things that you installed drivers for work, but that's about it. The first thing to do is to open a web browser and go and download another, then use that to surf the web and get all the other software that you need.
Gentoo: N/A
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ Most of the programs that I'd use already installed
+ Very good package manager for easy software installation and removal
+ Everything just works
XP: 4/5
- Poor selection of software included
- Very confusing UI by default
- Large amount of configuration required to get it working as I want
Speed + Mem/disk usage
Gentoo is quite slow and uses a lot of disk space because it uses a very large number of tiny files, accessing which is slow. However, this problem of using too small and too many files is not specific to Gentoo, but to all Linux flavors. Ubuntu uses far less disk space due to better optimized package database and due to installing development files only on request. Gnome and other popular software packages are big memory hogs, too.
The optimization for a specific architecture (-march, on Gentoo) gives almost no benefit at all, so it is better to let the distro packagers or upstream do the optimization on per-package basis, carefully choosing optimal compile flags there and possibly even compiling with -fprofile-generate, profiling and then recompiling with -fprofile-use, when the performance really matters.
Ubuntu differs from Gentoo by using a program called preload, designed to keep track of which applications are used often and to precache the files of those, in order to speedup application startup. Seems to be working rather well.
On the kernel side, XP has a design flaw causing programs to be put into swap in an attempt to free more RAM for disk cache. This completely cripples the "morning performance" if some program (e.g. a music player) has read a large amount of data while the user was away. In fact, Linux had this same issue, but it was finally fixed after a long debate, a while back.
Gentoo: 3/5
+ Alternative fast boot systems are available
- Slow boot by default
- Too small files cripple the performance
- Text rendering is extremely slow (Pango / Freetype)
Ubuntu: 4/5
~ Same as Gentoo
+ Precaching frequently used applications
XP: 4/5
- Swappiness problems
Looks
Gnome looks sleek by default, KDE is mm... okay (haven't tried KDE4 yet), Xfce4 looks great even though it is a small desktop. Compiz would bring the absolute eyecandy, but it doesn't actually work on any hardware (try running modern games under it, try doing accelerated video playback, or just see if it can render the screen with sync to vblank at full 60 Hz, not 30 Hz or lower. Once again, in Gentoo you can have any of them. Ubuntu comes default with Gnome (and enabling Compiz on that is a few clicks). Kubuntu and Xubuntu are available for those who want Ubuntu but with KDE or Xfce.
XP is seven years old, so this comparison is not quite fair, but it is included anyway. Vista is, too, as the looks of it I am familiar with.
Gentoo: 5/5
+ You can get all the latest goodies
+ Very nice animated 3D mouse cursors with shadow available (but rather hard to install)
- Very ugly mouse cursors by default
- Compiz does not work properly
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ The default desktop looks very good
+ 3D effects can be enabled easily
+ Sleek default mouse cursors
- Compiz does not work properly
XP: 1/5
- Looks crap and unprofessional all the way
- The classic look is available, but then it only looks like professional crap
Vista: 4/5
+ Aero looks rather nice (far behind Compiz, but still)
- Aero does not work very well on most machines (slowness)
Media
Video codecs, music players, etc. are identical on Gentoo and Ubuntu, so I will not discuss them separately (yes, Ubuntu ships the non-free/restricted codecs too). There are basically three video players for Linux: MPlayer, Xine and VLC (among with various frontends for these three engines). Xine is for some reason quite unreliable and it also doesn't seem very popular. VLC is a cross-platform player also popular among Windows and Mac users. MPlayer is generally the best player on Linux because it has wider format support than the others and because it is very flexible w.r.t. video post-processing, audio outputs and other things. There is a large number of music players for Linux, but the two most popular ones are Amarok (an iTunes clone) and Audacious (an XMMS/Winamp2 clone). Amarok is graphically pleasing (and does not use skins) and generally works quite well, even though it sometimes gets slow and quite unresponsive. Audacious is technically very good, fast and memory-saving, but the user interface sucks (it is identical to Winamp).
On Windows the three most popular music players seem to be Windows Media Player (comes with the package), Winamp and Foobar2000. The two first ones are skinned and bloated, the last one is not skinned but has bad looks due to incorrectly sized widgets. I am not familiar enough with any to comment on their reliability.
Linux: 4/5
+ Pretty much all formats supported "out of the box"
+ Players work quite well (FFW/rewind, broken/incomplete files, etc)
- Slow HD playback (partially due to MPlayer's singlethreaded design)
Windows: 2/5
+ Windows Media Player (free upgrade on XP, comes with Vista) is quite good as a music player
+ Fast HD playback with commercial software (CoreAVC or PureVideo)
- No modern codecs or demuxers (splitters) are shipped with Windows
- Playback of files while downloading (streaming) is not supported for most formats
- Playback of or seeking in broken or strange files often makes the players totally unresponsive
- FFW and rewind don't work (have to use dragbar to seek in video)
Usability and Easiness
Using a well-configured Linux system is extremely easy, much easier than using Windows. However, things get trickier when updates need to be done or new software needs to be installed.
Gentoo cannot be left alone for a long time with no constant updating or otherwise it will stop working due to broken dependencies etc, when an update is finally needed, even in the stable distribution. Unfortunately it is also not possible to automate those upgrades, as they break quite often. More often than not the emerge world will fail because of blockers, usually because of package upgrades and solving these requires very thorough understanding of the system in order to work around them safely (e.g. remove python 2.3, but not 2.4, so that python-updater can be installed without a block, and so that python 2.4 may be upgraded to 2.5, etc... instead of removing all versions of python and breaking your system because the package manager will no longer work). Further, manual config file updates must be done, again with great care not to overwrite wrong files and not to miss important changes. Files with custom-made changes and new options need to be changed by hand because the packages themselves are too stupid to actually modify the existing config files.
Ubuntu does everything right on this sector. The Synaptics package manager is fast, easy to use and just perfect. Installing software couldn't be easier.
XP is not very good, but Gentoo makes it look great in comparison.
Gentoo: 1/5
+ Large selection of software available on the package management
- Mandatory upgrades on a regular basis (or no upgrades will be possible anymore)
- Very large amount of manual labor and skill required for software installation
- The package manager is extremely slow
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ Large selection of software available on the package management
+ Very easy to install and remove software
+ Automatic upgrades work well (and can be disabled too)
+ Package manager works quickly
XP: 2/5
- Need to find software on the web first (fear of malware, etc)
- Different kinds of installers, most of them require a lot of clicking
- No software uninstallation functionality provided by the OS
- No automatic upgrades (except for the OS itself)
Compatibility
Gentoo and Ubuntu are compatible with pretty much all Linux programs (32 or 64 bit, on a x86-64 Linux) and with quite many Windows programs and roughly 50 % of Windows games, via Wine (which has improved greatly, recently).
Windows only runs Windows software.
Linux: 5/5
Windows: 4/5
Productivity
OpenOffice is the only notable open-source WYSIWYG office package and it still has severe weaknesses in presentations and possibly in other areas. The word processing part works very well. KWord (another word processor) fails to even do proper kerning, leading to horribly bad looking printouts. MS Office comes with too many "helper functions" enabled so that the usability is actually ruined. It also does not output PDF files directly. Personally I prefer pdflatex because it allows me to concentrate on the document contents rather than on the text (font) type selections. Including diagrams, formulas or program code is also very nice with that.
MS Office also works on Linux, with Wine, and the other programs mentioned work on Windows (but LaTeX is hard to install there).
Reliability
Linux rarely crashes directly, but way too often it ends up in a situation where it just needs to be rebooted instantly, due to various design flaws in the kernel, and partially due to the macrokernel approach, central to the Linux OS. The kernel being written in C (rather than C++) does not help either. Especially the I/O problems (e.g. a disconnected network connection kills a network filesystem and after that every program that touches the filesystem in any way will freeze and cannot be killed) tend to escalate and lead to rise of system loads, thus slowing the system down to death, if not rebooted before.
Windows NT5 (2000, XP, 2003 Server) almost never crashes, and when it does, it usually turns out to be a hardware issue. It is by far the most reliable OS that I have ever used. The user-space software used on that is not so reliable, though. Explorer is known to hang for long times when browsing network shares. The Dr.Watson debugger (the program that displays the "This program has performed an illegal operation" dialog) crashes when a misbuilt C++ program or otherwise suitable faulty executable is fed to it. When this happens, no dialog appears, but the program that crashes stays frozen and cannot be killed from task manager. Only after killing drwatson32.exe first will the original program die, too.
Linux: 2/5
- The kernel frequently OOPSes for various reasons
- Programs with I/O calls in progress cannot be killed
- Filesystems with I/O calls in progress cannot be unmounted
- Any program touching a jammed filesystem will freeze too
XP: 4/5
+ Extremely good kernel
- Buggy userspace software
Price and Freedom
A very large amount of free Linux software is available from the repositories, easy to find, easy to install (except for Gentoo).
Windows software must be searched for, online, and most of it costs money. Freeware is also a popular model, but one doesn't get the source code with that, often because the author wishes that the software will get popular and then he can make it shareware instead.
Linux: 5/5
Windows: 1/5
Applications
While there may be a large selection of software for Windows, you cannot find or afford most of it.
Linux: 4/5
Windows: 3/5
Install
Gentoo's install has to be done by hand from beginning to the end. A lot of configuration files need to be written, numerous emerge commands need to be run, and many parts take a long time but may fail at any point, effectively keeping one glued to the screen in order to keep the installation running. An utter disaster. The only really good thing about Gentoo installation is how flexible it is, being able to install from any Linux system that can unpack the tarball to rootfs. This allows installation from LiveCDs (I mean ones with graphical desktop etc) such as the Ubuntu installation disc.
Speaking of the Ubuntu installation CD, it is just great. A large selection of software is installed on the disc, allowing one to surf the web, connect to WPA-protected WiFi networks, etc. straight from the disc. If some piece of software is missing, it can be installed by using the graphical package management right there, before actually installing anything. The programs installed at this stages will be installed only in your RAM (which you need a lot of, if you want to install large programs).
The Ubuntu installation itself can be done by clicking the install button on the desktop. It asks just enough questions and provides nice preconfigured short selections (e.g. make Windows partition smaller automatically vs. manual partitioning). The questions are asked at the beginning of the installation, then a 30 minute installation phase begins and you may go do something else meanwhile. Or you can use the LiveCD environment to actually do something useful or surf the web while the installation is in progress. Unfortunately there are a few limitations on the Ubuntu installer. For example, it is impossible to install Ubuntu on an existing Linux disk without formatting the partitions first. The installer also does not allow specifying which programs to install, but I think that this is only a good thing, as the default software selection is fairly optimal.
XP's installer is pretty basic, but it still does its job. There is a minimal disk partitioning program included. The installer's hardware support is poor because the OS is quite outdated and I would expect Vista to be better in this respect, but traditionally Microsoft has not bundled enough drivers on the installation discs, so network card and display drivers are likely to be missing in Vista, too. The NIC drivers are particularly important, as one cannot fetch them or other drivers from the Internet without a working network connection! Even after installing the NIC drivers and rebooting one cannot get to the Internet without clicking thru a horrible "multiple choice game" called the Internet Connection Wizard. I do not know what the purpose of this thing is, but it is clearly designed at the time when people still used dialup connections. Even if one is already online and all the other programs can use the net, the browser cannot be started without first clicking thru this unskippable wizard that does not indicate clearly which selections should be taken to use an existing connection.
Gentoo: 2/5
+ Extremely flexible, can be installed from other Linux environments
+ Can be installed on anything, in any way preferred
- Installation CD uses a framebuffer console with very limited software selection
- The Handbook (Gentoo installation manual) is an absolute requirement even for experienced Gentooists
- Kernel compilation is mandatory and not even premade .configs are provided (this is the hardest part of the installation)
- A lot of configuration files to write, a lot of packages to emerge, a lot of manual labor
- Installing takes a day or two (if everything goes well)
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ A very nice LiveCD environment to start with (can be used without installing anything)
+ One can use a graphical desktop during the installation to do other things
+ Just the right amount of questions asked
+ Can resize existing partitions
- Cannot be installed on an existing partition without formatting first
XP: 2/5
+ Just the right amount of questions asked (but no shortcuts)
+ Multiple options for installing on top of another system
- The installer will stop and ask questions from time to time during the installation
- Have to input a long alphanumeric product ID by keyboard
- Does not recognize other operating systems' partitions or boot loaders
- Almost no device drivers (e.g. most popular network cards lack support)
- Installation on SATA or large HDDs may not be possible
- Numerous reboots during installation (by the installer and afterwards)
- Internet Connection Wizard
Out Of Box Experience
Gentoo has no OOB experience because it has no "box". It all depends on what you install.
Ubuntu's installed version is pretty much identical with the LiveCD version, with everything just working. Things not installed by default are offered to be installed where needed (e.g. non-free display driver installation: about three clicks, a few seconds, a reboot and it is installed). USB sticks and CDs installed display their contents automatically. Digital cameras offer picture download. A very large selection of software, even in special domains such as medical imaging, is available for install via a very easy-to-use package manager. To sum it all up, everything just works.
XP lands on a system on which you cannot really do much. Things that you installed drivers for work, but that's about it. The first thing to do is to open a web browser and go and download another, then use that to surf the web and get all the other software that you need.
Gentoo: N/A
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ Most of the programs that I'd use already installed
+ Very good package manager for easy software installation and removal
+ Everything just works
XP: 4/5
- Poor selection of software included
- Very confusing UI by default
- Large amount of configuration required to get it working as I want
Speed + Mem/disk usage
Gentoo is quite slow and uses a lot of disk space because it uses a very large number of tiny files, accessing which is slow. However, this problem of using too small and too many files is not specific to Gentoo, but to all Linux flavors. Ubuntu uses far less disk space due to better optimized package database and due to installing development files only on request. Gnome and other popular software packages are big memory hogs, too.
The optimization for a specific architecture (-march, on Gentoo) gives almost no benefit at all, so it is better to let the distro packagers or upstream do the optimization on per-package basis, carefully choosing optimal compile flags there and possibly even compiling with -fprofile-generate, profiling and then recompiling with -fprofile-use, when the performance really matters.
Ubuntu differs from Gentoo by using a program called preload, designed to keep track of which applications are used often and to precache the files of those, in order to speedup application startup. Seems to be working rather well.
On the kernel side, XP has a design flaw causing programs to be put into swap in an attempt to free more RAM for disk cache. This completely cripples the "morning performance" if some program (e.g. a music player) has read a large amount of data while the user was away. In fact, Linux had this same issue, but it was finally fixed after a long debate, a while back.
Gentoo: 3/5
+ Alternative fast boot systems are available
- Slow boot by default
- Too small files cripple the performance
- Text rendering is extremely slow (Pango / Freetype)
Ubuntu: 4/5
~ Same as Gentoo
+ Precaching frequently used applications
XP: 4/5
- Swappiness problems
Looks
Gnome looks sleek by default, KDE is mm... okay (haven't tried KDE4 yet), Xfce4 looks great even though it is a small desktop. Compiz would bring the absolute eyecandy, but it doesn't actually work on any hardware (try running modern games under it, try doing accelerated video playback, or just see if it can render the screen with sync to vblank at full 60 Hz, not 30 Hz or lower. Once again, in Gentoo you can have any of them. Ubuntu comes default with Gnome (and enabling Compiz on that is a few clicks). Kubuntu and Xubuntu are available for those who want Ubuntu but with KDE or Xfce.
XP is seven years old, so this comparison is not quite fair, but it is included anyway. Vista is, too, as the looks of it I am familiar with.
Gentoo: 5/5
+ You can get all the latest goodies
+ Very nice animated 3D mouse cursors with shadow available (but rather hard to install)
- Very ugly mouse cursors by default
- Compiz does not work properly
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ The default desktop looks very good
+ 3D effects can be enabled easily
+ Sleek default mouse cursors
- Compiz does not work properly
XP: 1/5
- Looks crap and unprofessional all the way
- The classic look is available, but then it only looks like professional crap
Vista: 4/5
+ Aero looks rather nice (far behind Compiz, but still)
- Aero does not work very well on most machines (slowness)
Media
Video codecs, music players, etc. are identical on Gentoo and Ubuntu, so I will not discuss them separately (yes, Ubuntu ships the non-free/restricted codecs too). There are basically three video players for Linux: MPlayer, Xine and VLC (among with various frontends for these three engines). Xine is for some reason quite unreliable and it also doesn't seem very popular. VLC is a cross-platform player also popular among Windows and Mac users. MPlayer is generally the best player on Linux because it has wider format support than the others and because it is very flexible w.r.t. video post-processing, audio outputs and other things. There is a large number of music players for Linux, but the two most popular ones are Amarok (an iTunes clone) and Audacious (an XMMS/Winamp2 clone). Amarok is graphically pleasing (and does not use skins) and generally works quite well, even though it sometimes gets slow and quite unresponsive. Audacious is technically very good, fast and memory-saving, but the user interface sucks (it is identical to Winamp).
On Windows the three most popular music players seem to be Windows Media Player (comes with the package), Winamp and Foobar2000. The two first ones are skinned and bloated, the last one is not skinned but has bad looks due to incorrectly sized widgets. I am not familiar enough with any to comment on their reliability.
Linux: 4/5
+ Pretty much all formats supported "out of the box"
+ Players work quite well (FFW/rewind, broken/incomplete files, etc)
- Slow HD playback (partially due to MPlayer's singlethreaded design)
Windows: 2/5
+ Windows Media Player (free upgrade on XP, comes with Vista) is quite good as a music player
+ Fast HD playback with commercial software (CoreAVC or PureVideo)
- No modern codecs or demuxers (splitters) are shipped with Windows
- Playback of files while downloading (streaming) is not supported for most formats
- Playback of or seeking in broken or strange files often makes the players totally unresponsive
- FFW and rewind don't work (have to use dragbar to seek in video)
Usability and Easiness
Using a well-configured Linux system is extremely easy, much easier than using Windows. However, things get trickier when updates need to be done or new software needs to be installed.
Gentoo cannot be left alone for a long time with no constant updating or otherwise it will stop working due to broken dependencies etc, when an update is finally needed, even in the stable distribution. Unfortunately it is also not possible to automate those upgrades, as they break quite often. More often than not the emerge world will fail because of blockers, usually because of package upgrades and solving these requires very thorough understanding of the system in order to work around them safely (e.g. remove python 2.3, but not 2.4, so that python-updater can be installed without a block, and so that python 2.4 may be upgraded to 2.5, etc... instead of removing all versions of python and breaking your system because the package manager will no longer work). Further, manual config file updates must be done, again with great care not to overwrite wrong files and not to miss important changes. Files with custom-made changes and new options need to be changed by hand because the packages themselves are too stupid to actually modify the existing config files.
Ubuntu does everything right on this sector. The Synaptics package manager is fast, easy to use and just perfect. Installing software couldn't be easier.
XP is not very good, but Gentoo makes it look great in comparison.
Gentoo: 1/5
+ Large selection of software available on the package management
- Mandatory upgrades on a regular basis (or no upgrades will be possible anymore)
- Very large amount of manual labor and skill required for software installation
- The package manager is extremely slow
Ubuntu: 5/5
+ Large selection of software available on the package management
+ Very easy to install and remove software
+ Automatic upgrades work well (and can be disabled too)
+ Package manager works quickly
XP: 2/5
- Need to find software on the web first (fear of malware, etc)
- Different kinds of installers, most of them require a lot of clicking
- No software uninstallation functionality provided by the OS
- No automatic upgrades (except for the OS itself)
Compatibility
Gentoo and Ubuntu are compatible with pretty much all Linux programs (32 or 64 bit, on a x86-64 Linux) and with quite many Windows programs and roughly 50 % of Windows games, via Wine (which has improved greatly, recently).
Windows only runs Windows software.
Linux: 5/5
Windows: 4/5
Productivity
OpenOffice is the only notable open-source WYSIWYG office package and it still has severe weaknesses in presentations and possibly in other areas. The word processing part works very well. KWord (another word processor) fails to even do proper kerning, leading to horribly bad looking printouts. MS Office comes with too many "helper functions" enabled so that the usability is actually ruined. It also does not output PDF files directly. Personally I prefer pdflatex because it allows me to concentrate on the document contents rather than on the text (font) type selections. Including diagrams, formulas or program code is also very nice with that.
MS Office also works on Linux, with Wine, and the other programs mentioned work on Windows (but LaTeX is hard to install there).
Reliability
Linux rarely crashes directly, but way too often it ends up in a situation where it just needs to be rebooted instantly, due to various design flaws in the kernel, and partially due to the macrokernel approach, central to the Linux OS. The kernel being written in C (rather than C++) does not help either. Especially the I/O problems (e.g. a disconnected network connection kills a network filesystem and after that every program that touches the filesystem in any way will freeze and cannot be killed) tend to escalate and lead to rise of system loads, thus slowing the system down to death, if not rebooted before.
Windows NT5 (2000, XP, 2003 Server) almost never crashes, and when it does, it usually turns out to be a hardware issue. It is by far the most reliable OS that I have ever used. The user-space software used on that is not so reliable, though. Explorer is known to hang for long times when browsing network shares. The Dr.Watson debugger (the program that displays the "This program has performed an illegal operation" dialog) crashes when a misbuilt C++ program or otherwise suitable faulty executable is fed to it. When this happens, no dialog appears, but the program that crashes stays frozen and cannot be killed from task manager. Only after killing drwatson32.exe first will the original program die, too.
Linux: 2/5
- The kernel frequently OOPSes for various reasons
- Programs with I/O calls in progress cannot be killed
- Filesystems with I/O calls in progress cannot be unmounted
- Any program touching a jammed filesystem will freeze too
XP: 4/5
+ Extremely good kernel
- Buggy userspace software
Price and Freedom
A very large amount of free Linux software is available from the repositories, easy to find, easy to install (except for Gentoo).
Windows software must be searched for, online, and most of it costs money. Freeware is also a popular model, but one doesn't get the source code with that, often because the author wishes that the software will get popular and then he can make it shareware instead.
Linux: 5/5
Windows: 1/5
Applications
While there may be a large selection of software for Windows, you cannot find or afford most of it.
Linux: 4/5
Windows: 3/5
Last edited by Tronic on Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
There are no alternative energy sources to fossil fuels. Whoever claims otherwise doesn't know the difference between mW and MW. -Kurki-Suonio
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you "forgot" SabayonLinuxOut Of Box Experience
Gentoo has no OOB experience because it has no "box". It all depends on what you install.
Ubuntu's installed version is pretty much identical with the LiveCD version, with everything just working. Things not installed by default are offered to be installed where needed (e.g. non-free display driver installation: about three clicks, a few seconds, a reboot and it is installed). USB sticks and CDs installed display their contents automatically. Digital cameras offer picture download. A very large selection of software, even in special domains such as medical imaging, is available for install via a very easy-to-use package manager. To sum it all up, everything just works.
XP lands on a system on which you cannot really do much. Things that you installed drivers for work, but that's about it. The first thing to do is to open a web browser and go and download another, then use that to surf the web and get all the other software that you need.
Gentoo: N/A
then it's Gentoo/SabayonLinux: 5/5
the most is applicable for windows xp too (at least for me), so in that regard linux takes a small lead in that areaLinux: 2/5
- The kernel frequently OOPSes for various reasons
- Programs with I/O calls in progress cannot be killed
- Filesystems with I/O calls in progress cannot be unmounted
- Any program touching a jammed filesystem will freeze too
https://github.com/kernelOfTruth/ZFS-fo ... scCD-4.9.0
https://github.com/kernelOfTruth/pulsea ... zer-ladspa
Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004
https://github.com/kernelOfTruth/pulsea ... zer-ladspa
Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004
I would say 4/5 for SabayonLinux. The "just works" factor is not so complete with it (or wasn't the last time I tried).
There are no alternative energy sources to fossil fuels. Whoever claims otherwise doesn't know the difference between mW and MW. -Kurki-Suonio
You're not though, you're comparing a source-based distribution of Linux to Windows.Ramble wrote:I'm offering my thoughts on exactly what's wrong with Linux to a forum.
You could pick a better orange if you tried (Windows is an apple).
A better comparison would be a more Windows-like distribution of Linux (Debian (guess, I don't use it)).
- erikderzweite
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Gentoo's install has to be done by hand from beginning to the end. A lot of configuration files need to be written, numerous emerge commands need to be run, and many parts take a long time but may fail at any point, effectively keeping one glued to the screen in order to keep the installation running.Compatibility
Gentoo and Ubuntu are compatible with pretty much all Linux programs (32 or 64 bit, on a x86-64 Linux) and with quite many Windows programs and roughly 50 % of Windows games, via Wine (which has improved greatly, recently).
Windows only runs Windows software.
Linux: 5/5
Windows: 4/5
So if Windows only runs windows software how does it get a 4/5? Would that not be a 1 or 0 out of 5?
When I bootstrap my system I walk away from it until I get to configuring my kernel ( scripts/boostrap.sh && cd && emerge -e system && emerge -e world && emerge gentoo-sources && emerge genkernel && genkernel --menuconfig all ). If I do a stage 3 install it only takes about an hour to an hour and a half then I emerge xorg-x11 && emerge kde-meta:4.1. I get up in the morning and I have a fully working system.
Speed + Mem/disk usageGentoo: 2/5
+ Extremely flexible, can be installed from other Linux environments
+ Can be installed on anything, in any way preferred
- Installation CD uses a framebuffer console with very limited software selection
- The Handbook (Gentoo installation manual) is an absolute requirement even for experienced Gentooists
- Kernel compilation is mandatory and not even premade .configs are provided (this is the hardest part of the installation)
- A lot of configuration files to write, a lot of packages to emerge, a lot of manual labor
- Installing takes a day or two (if everything goes well)
What do you need more in your installation cd? XP nor Vista don't have anything during install. Sorry, I don't need the handbook anymore to install Gentoo, I use memory. I enjoy the kernel config, I have my system set EXACTLY the way I want it without any uneeded clutter to slow it down. It takes me overnight to install Gentoo, how slow is your system?
Gentoo 5/5 - if it's a stable environment you never have to worry about any packages failing.
Gentoo is quite slow and uses a lot of disk space because it uses a very large number of tiny files, accessing which is slow. However, this problem of using too small and too many files is not specific to Gentoo, but to all Linux flavors. Ubuntu uses far less disk space due to better optimized package database and due to installing development files only on request. Gnome and other popular software packages are big memory hogs, too.
I have 4 systems running Gentoo, using distcc I never have to worry about resource usage, but if I was worried it would not be with Gentoo. Gentoo out performs any other OS I've used. I give Gentoo 5/5 because it outperforms everything.
Gentoo looks GREAT, and with KDE 4 it is as slick as @$*%! Gentoo 5/5 Ubuntu who cares and Vista 3/5.
Usability and Easiness
Using a well-configured Linux system is extremely easy, much easier than using Windows. However, things get trickier when updates need to be done or new software needs to be installed.
Once again, who cares. We're using Gentoo, and as they say, it's not for the faint of heart!
And so on, and so on, I would have to say that Gentoo tops em all. Good luck to you and Ubuntu!
- Dominique_71
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Hopefully, I don't need vista or beryl to impress my wife 
More seriously, I want the power of my box to be usable for the programs, not to make some completely futile effects.
What I like with gentoo is that it is more flexible that everything else and that it can be more stable that debian (if you are careful with your USE flags and ~arch setting).
More seriously, I want the power of my box to be usable for the programs, not to make some completely futile effects.
What I like with gentoo is that it is more flexible that everything else and that it can be more stable that debian (if you are careful with your USE flags and ~arch setting).
"Confirm You are a robot." - the singularity
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And the ~arch is more and more stable because of the Overlays.Dominique_71 wrote:What I like with gentoo is that it is more flexible that everything else and that it can be more stable that debian (if you are careful with your USE flags and ~arch setting).
In fact, they test the newest package inside an Overlay and after that it enter the ~arch.
- Dominique_71
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My two cents:
I use posix (linux from 1996 as server, before was a unix system from 1980) and M$ (from dos 1.0 to XP) systems at work (I am something similar to a tax consultant). In fact the only reason to have windows is than I live in Italy and I am obbliged by law to use some crappy programs or internet dedicated accesses (in some cases working only on IE/windows with the most insecure configuration) for my work.
Because my work is to calculate the tax amount and send it to the governement, note than if not comunicated (rejected by errors is same as omitted) in the right time the amount of taxes will increase to the 300% (and can be persecuted as crime), and I use more than a single program also; the time to restore the sytem after a fault is critical.
In case the entire computer will fail (due to MB or CPU by example) with gentoo the only thing I must do is to restore the stage4 (or reinstall a new gentoo form binaries packages or simply move the HDs to the new computer) and rebuild a proper kernel and some drivers for X etc.
This will cost one or two hours (I have done two times in last year) in order to have a new working system on linux; up to 20 hours on M$ systems (time to download and install all patches and bugfix and reconfigure XP before SP3 release on my laptop).
Evaluation? gentoo: 3/5 M$: -10/5
Updates: all updates on vista and xp needs reboot on linux systems no, at least restart a single service (one minute? Some seconds at least. On a system as mine with 8 removable HD and more than 20 partitions the boot will require more than 5 minutes to post, check the filesystems and initialize the system, with every OS).
The only problem with gentoo is than an ugrade of the libraries can break the system or even a sigle service (by example an upgrade of cups need a rebuild of samba), I have solved by using a dedicated chroot to build, do the necessary revdep-rebuild, and later I can update directly the running system (max time take from the operation 20 min, without reboot; with xp, to be sure to not break the system, I must have to stop the work for more than a hour in past).
Some updates will reset to default the configuration of the user interface or restart services disabled on xp or on vista, more time wasted to fix all.
The automated download and upgrade can start without preventive notice and break critical operations due to timeout in http send of the data, overload in meantime of a database rebuit and similar
gentoo 2/5 (must be improved the support for binary packages and distributed build IMHO) M$ 0/5
Interface and look: All I need is a simple interface (I have used only afterstep before kde 3.0) to start openoffice and the accountings programs, beryl and the new vista are unusable in fact and especially on vista and xp activate the mode for focus under mouse without autoraise (very useful if you need to read data from a program or from internet and retype or write on it on another) is not immediate and will be reset at every update.
For security or to prevent problems some programs must be never installed as chat systems and games (or my secretary will spend it time without work) or email client. With M$ outlook cant be uninstalled, at the first update the damned msn will be installed etc.
And, in a real working environment, using the mouse for everything as a stupid monkey is not so useful and friendly.
Can be understimated but the appareance is very important, having the own logo on everything is important and with M$ I have the M$ logo and substitute or disable it is not so easy.
I am short-sighted and if the default look of vista (as I have say is easy to have it back against your will) seems eye-catching for a short use after 8 hours your face is tanned and your eyes are ko.
gentoo 5/5 (the only real advantage is than gentoo remain one of the most customizable distribution) M$ 2/5
Security: The security is not only prevent intrusion or be reasonabily sure than the system cant be cracked.
Security is also to be sure than is a fan stop or an HD warm up the system shutdown immediately, than if power down the system will prevent to continue the work if the ups has not the necessary power (or prevent to work until the ups is fully charged at startup), be sure than the backups are done (by example my sytem will automatically request a cd for every single weekly backup, if not supplied halt immediately and only I can resume).
All of this on gentoo require manual settings now but can be done with vista ... no in fact.
gentoo 4/5 M$ 1/5
hardware support: There are too much products marked as M$ compatible than works better under linux (the first example is my techmade webcam, is reported as not supported but in fact under linux works fine, with windows xp the driver crash too easy) and some products reported as supported but never usable under linux (I have a xerox printer, before the release of splix i was not able to use it because the crappy driver supplied will only break cups in order to use a single printer).
The only way to verify if a pc is compatible is to use it in fact but I think this can be solved with gentoo.
gentoo 1/5 M$ 1/5
cost: In fact, with my know-how, for me linux is gratis, thats all. But...
Is wrong try to compare the cost of a posix system and of a M$ sytems also, dumb to compare the cost of linux vs vista.
Without the necessary ability linux is not gratis, it has a heavvy cost but the minimal cost of a linux sytem (and especially a gentoo system customized on a per-machine basis) is even more than the cost of a full vista installation, the base cost of M$ is concentrated at the acquire time and the gentoo/linux cost can be distributed in years, the sofware supplied and the ability by the systems are not direcly comparable.
In fact all posix system are thinked for a long time (more than 5 years) investement on an evutive basis, th M$ system are thinked to buy and use immediately for a low/mediom time (fro 2 to 5 years) without reuse, this is call "buy and waste" or "disposable product".
I some cases is better a long time fractionated invest in others immediately buy and use for waste after the needed lifetime has ended is better also, but the solutions offered for so far needs never can be compared.
Try to compare is only a way to make right the false assertions by the M$ marketing than we all need only short run-time for our computers (and for this only M$ has too much advantage and have very excellent products, but only for this).
I use posix (linux from 1996 as server, before was a unix system from 1980) and M$ (from dos 1.0 to XP) systems at work (I am something similar to a tax consultant). In fact the only reason to have windows is than I live in Italy and I am obbliged by law to use some crappy programs or internet dedicated accesses (in some cases working only on IE/windows with the most insecure configuration) for my work.
Because my work is to calculate the tax amount and send it to the governement, note than if not comunicated (rejected by errors is same as omitted) in the right time the amount of taxes will increase to the 300% (and can be persecuted as crime), and I use more than a single program also; the time to restore the sytem after a fault is critical.
In case the entire computer will fail (due to MB or CPU by example) with gentoo the only thing I must do is to restore the stage4 (or reinstall a new gentoo form binaries packages or simply move the HDs to the new computer) and rebuild a proper kernel and some drivers for X etc.
This will cost one or two hours (I have done two times in last year) in order to have a new working system on linux; up to 20 hours on M$ systems (time to download and install all patches and bugfix and reconfigure XP before SP3 release on my laptop).
Evaluation? gentoo: 3/5 M$: -10/5
Updates: all updates on vista and xp needs reboot on linux systems no, at least restart a single service (one minute? Some seconds at least. On a system as mine with 8 removable HD and more than 20 partitions the boot will require more than 5 minutes to post, check the filesystems and initialize the system, with every OS).
The only problem with gentoo is than an ugrade of the libraries can break the system or even a sigle service (by example an upgrade of cups need a rebuild of samba), I have solved by using a dedicated chroot to build, do the necessary revdep-rebuild, and later I can update directly the running system (max time take from the operation 20 min, without reboot; with xp, to be sure to not break the system, I must have to stop the work for more than a hour in past).
Some updates will reset to default the configuration of the user interface or restart services disabled on xp or on vista, more time wasted to fix all.
The automated download and upgrade can start without preventive notice and break critical operations due to timeout in http send of the data, overload in meantime of a database rebuit and similar
gentoo 2/5 (must be improved the support for binary packages and distributed build IMHO) M$ 0/5
Interface and look: All I need is a simple interface (I have used only afterstep before kde 3.0) to start openoffice and the accountings programs, beryl and the new vista are unusable in fact and especially on vista and xp activate the mode for focus under mouse without autoraise (very useful if you need to read data from a program or from internet and retype or write on it on another) is not immediate and will be reset at every update.
For security or to prevent problems some programs must be never installed as chat systems and games (or my secretary will spend it time without work) or email client. With M$ outlook cant be uninstalled, at the first update the damned msn will be installed etc.
And, in a real working environment, using the mouse for everything as a stupid monkey is not so useful and friendly.
Can be understimated but the appareance is very important, having the own logo on everything is important and with M$ I have the M$ logo and substitute or disable it is not so easy.
I am short-sighted and if the default look of vista (as I have say is easy to have it back against your will) seems eye-catching for a short use after 8 hours your face is tanned and your eyes are ko.
gentoo 5/5 (the only real advantage is than gentoo remain one of the most customizable distribution) M$ 2/5
Security: The security is not only prevent intrusion or be reasonabily sure than the system cant be cracked.
Security is also to be sure than is a fan stop or an HD warm up the system shutdown immediately, than if power down the system will prevent to continue the work if the ups has not the necessary power (or prevent to work until the ups is fully charged at startup), be sure than the backups are done (by example my sytem will automatically request a cd for every single weekly backup, if not supplied halt immediately and only I can resume).
All of this on gentoo require manual settings now but can be done with vista ... no in fact.
gentoo 4/5 M$ 1/5
hardware support: There are too much products marked as M$ compatible than works better under linux (the first example is my techmade webcam, is reported as not supported but in fact under linux works fine, with windows xp the driver crash too easy) and some products reported as supported but never usable under linux (I have a xerox printer, before the release of splix i was not able to use it because the crappy driver supplied will only break cups in order to use a single printer).
The only way to verify if a pc is compatible is to use it in fact but I think this can be solved with gentoo.
gentoo 1/5 M$ 1/5
cost: In fact, with my know-how, for me linux is gratis, thats all. But...
Is wrong try to compare the cost of a posix system and of a M$ sytems also, dumb to compare the cost of linux vs vista.
Without the necessary ability linux is not gratis, it has a heavvy cost but the minimal cost of a linux sytem (and especially a gentoo system customized on a per-machine basis) is even more than the cost of a full vista installation, the base cost of M$ is concentrated at the acquire time and the gentoo/linux cost can be distributed in years, the sofware supplied and the ability by the systems are not direcly comparable.
In fact all posix system are thinked for a long time (more than 5 years) investement on an evutive basis, th M$ system are thinked to buy and use immediately for a low/mediom time (fro 2 to 5 years) without reuse, this is call "buy and waste" or "disposable product".
I some cases is better a long time fractionated invest in others immediately buy and use for waste after the needed lifetime has ended is better also, but the solutions offered for so far needs never can be compared.
Try to compare is only a way to make right the false assertions by the M$ marketing than we all need only short run-time for our computers (and for this only M$ has too much advantage and have very excellent products, but only for this).
scita et risus abundant in ore stultorum sed etiam semper severi insani sunt
mala tempora currunt...mater stultorum semper pregna est
Murpy'sLaw:If anything can go wrong, it will - O'Toole's Corollary:Murphy was an optimist
mala tempora currunt...mater stultorum semper pregna est
Murpy'sLaw:If anything can go wrong, it will - O'Toole's Corollary:Murphy was an optimist
The main difference between Gentoo and Vista is that the latter is like a teenager - recalcitrant, unreliable, patronising, and of course knows far better than you.
Here's a few examples:
Me: Eject external USB drive - Vista: No, you can't because there's something using the drive.
vs.
Me: Unmount external USB drive - Gentoo: OK, no probs.
Me: Boot Vista - Vista: Can't, registry file corrupt.
Me: Repair DVD routine - Vista: Tough, not going to play.
Me: You suck! - Vista: Tough, you'll have to re-install.
vs.
Me: Boot Gentoo - Gentoo: OK, no probs.
Me: Boot Gentoo - Gentoo: Slight problem.
Me: Boot Install CD, chroot, fix problem OR:
Me: Boot Gentoo, set different options in Grub menu, fix problem.
Me: Work, work, play, work - Vista: BSOD.
vs.
Me: Work, work, work, play, work, work, work, work, play, work, shutdown. (Repeat ad nauseam).
I've got both Gentoo and Vista on my Dell XPS-M1730, and I'm astonished how far Gentoo has come on. Media buttons work out of the box, as does plug and play anything. Much prefer Gentoo to Vista; only use the latter because, you guessed it, my employer uses Windows.
So I'd score like this:
Reliability:
Gentoo - 5/5
Vista - 2/5
Usability:
Gentoo - 4/5
Vista - 4/5
Configurability:
Gentoo - 5/5
Vista - 2/5
Irritation Factor:
Gentoo - 1/5
Vista - 5/5
Know-it-all-ness:
Gentoo - 1/5
Vista - 7/5
Patronisation:
Gentoo - 0/5
Vista - 96/5
Here's a few examples:
Me: Eject external USB drive - Vista: No, you can't because there's something using the drive.
vs.
Me: Unmount external USB drive - Gentoo: OK, no probs.
Me: Boot Vista - Vista: Can't, registry file corrupt.
Me: Repair DVD routine - Vista: Tough, not going to play.
Me: You suck! - Vista: Tough, you'll have to re-install.
vs.
Me: Boot Gentoo - Gentoo: OK, no probs.
Me: Boot Gentoo - Gentoo: Slight problem.
Me: Boot Install CD, chroot, fix problem OR:
Me: Boot Gentoo, set different options in Grub menu, fix problem.
Me: Work, work, play, work - Vista: BSOD.
vs.
Me: Work, work, work, play, work, work, work, work, play, work, shutdown. (Repeat ad nauseam).
I've got both Gentoo and Vista on my Dell XPS-M1730, and I'm astonished how far Gentoo has come on. Media buttons work out of the box, as does plug and play anything. Much prefer Gentoo to Vista; only use the latter because, you guessed it, my employer uses Windows.
So I'd score like this:
Reliability:
Gentoo - 5/5
Vista - 2/5
Usability:
Gentoo - 4/5
Vista - 4/5
Configurability:
Gentoo - 5/5
Vista - 2/5
Irritation Factor:
Gentoo - 1/5
Vista - 5/5
Know-it-all-ness:
Gentoo - 1/5
Vista - 7/5
Patronisation:
Gentoo - 0/5
Vista - 96/5