Linspire vs. Windows

How do they compare?

Published on March 23, 2005 By Frogboy In WinCustomize News

While Novell is arguing that it's next desktop Linux will be better than Windows, Linspire, the user friendly version of Linux, is available and early reviews look promising.

That said, one has to wonder if Linux advocates were asleep during the 90s when IBM's OS/2 Warp wasn't just slightly better than Microsoft Windows 3.0, 3.1, and 95 (i.e. undisputeably) but massively better but still lost. OS/2 lost because IBM couldn't get major PC vendors to pre-load OS/2 instead of Windows. And it's unlikely that Linux will ever have the superiority over Windows that OS/2 of 1994 had over Windows at the time. But good luck..

Comments (Page 2)

dagwud

on Mar 27, 2005

disimulo.orator - in trying to defend your opinions, you've missed the points I was trying to make.

1. Consistency is not simplicity. Those who don't have a basic understanding of how Windows "lays out" the interface will still be unable to do anything with it. You, yourself, cited people who don't know their OS - even if they're Windows users.

2. Simplicity is not the result of laziness, nor is it Windows dependent. The worst data organizers I've ever met are Macintosh users. The messiest desktops I've ever seen were on Powerbooks.

3. The computer/car analogy isn't a misnomer - you missed the point. Yes. A computer is a business appliance. That somehow means that the user will be happy having to putz around with it just to get it to work? Heck, no. Just like a car, most people don't want to know how the computer works - they just want it to work. The analogy stands. Besides, there's more technology in a car than what was used to get men on the moon - what with computerization and all.

And I still think you're reading a messge into Brad's comments about distribution that isn't there. But that may just be me.

Arthur Voigt

on Mar 28, 2005

The problem I have is with the arrogance @ Novell. I sent them an email asking if this distro had a problem recognizing SATA raid 0 drives, like I have had with other distros, and rather than just simply answering, they acted like I was an idiot for not KNOWING the answer and having researched it elsewhere. As long as Novell, and other Linux developers, are like this, they can NOT expect to become mainstream.

I am constrained by my hardware, so don't treat me like an idiot just because I ask. I am NOT going to wast 2-3 days trying to install Linux again, no matter what distro, only to find that my hardware is not supported.

The only distro company I have ever gotten a simple strait reply from was Mandrake, and it's even available in their FAQs and they even have a web page of tested and certified hardware. Not glorious(sic) Novell.

By the way, I have installed 4 different distros of Linux in the past on pc's not using SATA, so no Linux "ivory tower" comments please about folks inexperience. If this thing is a windows replacement or just as good as.. then windows experts should not have all these problems or they should at least be simply documented rather than having to search dozens of web sites.

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