Nice discussion there.. many people do say good points there although most of the posts are just some fillers..
On Page 5, the last post truly has a very good point:
Why Windows is better than Linux
January 14, 2007 - 6:55pm
HarryRobins (not verified)
Okay, serious post here. The reasons why I think Windows are better than Linux on the desktop.
* Universal GUI. This might sound pathetic, but every application in Windows has a look and feel that easy to pick up. Linux doesn't have this.
* Decent user interface. Gnome is crap in too many ways. KDE is passable while still crossing Fisher-Price with programming geek in a way that just makes it look freaky. Windows is good. Mac OS X is great. Come back to me when someone has tackled half the usability issues in either of the Linux "desktop environments".
* General ease-of-use without needing the command line. Sure, if you're good with Linux, you can do anything you can with Windows - but I bet you have to use some command-line commands to do it. Everything is point and click in Windows. It'd be nice to have a choice though, but having point-and-click access to most things on a system is essential - another thing where Mac OS X shines.
* Ease of application install. Yes, you could argue that apt-get and compiling from source is good, but then I'd call you an idiot. Asking people to go to the command line is missing the point. Application installers and uninstallers are, quite simply, a /good thing/. Download and go - what RPM was /supposed/ to do, but thanks to the million and one distros it became an even more retarded mess (and I hear RPM is a retarded mess anyway). I don't like package repositories - I like going to a site, reading about something, clicking download and running it. It makes perfect sense. Going to a site, reading about something, loading a ****** package manager, searching for it, hope it's been packaged, oh please **** off. It's horrible and people are too shortsighted to understand it.
* Every Linux "killer app" has been ported, not every Windows "killer app". There is no advantage to running Linux application-wise, yet every advantage to running Windows application-wise. With WINE getting increasingly good, this is becoming less of an issue by the day, but some clever sod should do what Lindows aimed to do and run Windows application out of the box with no playing/installing of WINE. Having Adobe Photoshop (GIMP is /still/ crap), Microsoft Word (yes, it's crap. Yes, it's the standard), Nero and dozens of other applications are a good thing.
* Many Linux apps are shite. Many Windows apps are better, and there's more choice. Key examples are publishing and vector graphics software.
* Games support. See above, should become less of an issue as time goes on. Yeah, TransGaming Ceda-whatsit does some of it, but if you're gonna be buying it, you might as well use Windows for just over twice and price and be done with it and any compatibility issues. Don't claim to me that a Doom3 port means Linux has games, it doesn't.
* Driver support and device compatibility. This one is a no-brainer. I wanted to install Linux on my laptop. I looked at the instructions and decided I had better things to do with my time, like... well, anything. And this was /Ubuntu/, supposed the easiest. The fact there aren't open source drivers for Nvidia cards is a joke. You buy something, it runs on Windows. No ifs, no buts.
* Linux isn't an operating system, it's a kernel. There's not one universal thing that Linux is. KDE and GNOME are still "Linux". Bash and csh are both Linux. One Linux system can be completely different to another, yet a Windows system is always a Windows system.
* Linux has too much choice by default, there are very few standard applications. In Windows, if you want a text editor, Word is pretty much the standard. In Linux, you have Abiword, OpenOffice.org, TeX and whatever K-thing all competing. Confusing for the new user. Give a barebones interface, and let the market decide what people wanna install and use. I know this is often cited as an advantage for Linux, but it really isn't. I mean, Linux is confusing because there IS too much choice. Again, KDE or GNOME. Windows comes with Notepad, Linux has Emacs, Kate, Nedit and god-knows how many others. I know it's odd to criticise too much choice, but imagine a new user trying to find something to use.
* Linux and its applications has too many options. One of it's greatest strengths and weaknesses. Ability to customise = good. Having to wade through great big **** off conf files and menus to get one option = bad. FireFox gets this right - major options in simple menus, geekery in about:config. Very few times do you need to play with altering random text files (although sometimes it has to be done).
* Confusing directory layout, remnants from 70s Unix and POSIX compliance. I like drives, I like a non-fixed directory structure. It makes sense that I can dump files anywhere in my head. As such, anything POSIX-like fucks with my head. And that's not even touching the frankly horrible external drive support, meaning things have to be mounted, although I'm not sure if this is still an issue.
* Windows has the advantage in that it's installed on most of the PCs worldwide.
* Open source development is often a black hole of retardation where things get avoided and aren't developed because they aren't fun, which is a major problem with open source development. Sure, you get kernel virtualisation, but you won't get someone fixing the ****** Mozilla bug tooltip bug which has been there for half a decade. Usability /should be king/.
* "root" and users in Linux et al. Avoid getting the user involved in accounts. It's confusing for most people. Yes, security is an issue. But usability /should be king/.
Of course, these don't apply to the server. And that's where Linux excels. Yeah, some of these really overlap (USA-******-BILITY), but that's because they are the most important things. You shouldn't need a book to learn how to do something, which Linux still needs.
I like Linux, I really do, I like what they're trying to do, but in the end it's impossible to avoid the fact that it's development structure really isn't cut out for the desktop and few people out there care enough, or even notice it, to do anything about it. A major barrier is Linux people admitting there is a problem, but most seem to ignore it and dismiss it as "STUPID WINDOWS PEOPLE" which is more than a little disheartening.
For my part, I'm happy as long as my neighbor is happy to boot into whichever OS. People are going to understand the stake in software freedom more and more, though. Governments, businesses and schmucks and hobos of all kinds are moving towards FOSS. We'll see what comes. In the meantime, I'd really appreciate it if people had the politeness at least to not publish their "free" stuff in proprietary formats.