More Linux Stuff.

[swestrup]

I installed a bunch of Linux utilities (such as a .swf viewer) the other day that I was completely unable to get working. Later on, due to my system getting itself into an unworkable state, I was forced to reboot. (If I had been able to figure out from the command line what program had gone crazy, I'm sure I could have avoided the reboot. In the long run though, it was the easier solution).

Anyway, I noticed just now that all of those utilities are now just working. Clearly one of the dependencies required a reboot of the system, for some obscure reason. I have now noticed a couple of occasions when it has seemed that a reboot was in order for newly installed things to work right. I think some sloppy Windows coding practices are slipping into the distros.

On a much brighter note, now that I'm getting used to this distro, there are a bunch of things that I do like. Both Firefox and Thunderbird are far faster applications under Linux that under Windows XP and the Linux version of Thunderbird doesn't seem to suffer from some of the file-locking bugs that have annoyed me in Windows (then again, I've yet to install all the addons that I usually have in both of these).

Also, as much as it is true that there are a bunch of things that are easy in Windows that are Hard to Impossible in Linux, there's an equal (or perhaps greater) number of things that are Hard to Impossible in Windows that are easy in Linux. So, some of the setup chores that I was not looking forward to turned out to be rather simple. Basically, if the right solution to a problem involves a careful separation of client and server responsibilities, then Linux will get it right, and Windows will suck at it.

Comments

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

I have to say, if Firefox seems slower on Windows, then it almost certainly must be due to extensions; by default, it's not particularly zippier on Linux. Such is what I've noticed, anyway, though granted it's been a while since I've run it on the same hardware in the two OSes for comparison.

The file locking thing in Thunderbird may well be a serious Linux advantage though, since the filesystems have generally saner rules.

[sps.livejournal.com]

Aha! That's it! See, when I say "the operating system," I generally mean the kernel, and occasionally, by extension, the server components; certainly not the clients. If, by "the operating system," you generally mean the user interface, and by extension the clients, then that would explain why this is a conversation often fraught with difficulty. If I translate "Sti: Windows is a better O/S than Linux" to "sps: Windows has better user interface engineering than Linux," and "sps: Linux is a better O/S than Windows" to "Sti: Linux provides better resource management and client isolation than Windows," maybe it all makes more sense.

Of course, the reason Windows UI is superior is probably because the serverisation is weaker: the DirectX model seems to provide for lower overhead (at the cost of lower safety) compared to OpenGL; and the weaker componentisation in the Windows GUI seems to have resulted in less variety of opinion as to how things ought to work, and in consequence more coherence in the user view and a more pointed development path.

Linux is too democratic at the UI level for consistency to arise (you notice that it is far, far less democratic in the kernel, and it still suffers from a very damaging proliferation of interfacing styles).

[swestrup]

Well, yes. There is also the problem of each link in an entire processing chain being owned by a different project. A number of the bugs I've googled for have turned up discussions where everyone in the chain agrees it needs to be solved, but no group agrees that it should be solved at their link.

Its even worse when its required for some abstract property of the tool chain as a whole to be maintained.

[sps.livejournal.com]

But I'm not sure that the MS approach of perpetual secret bug compatibility is better. One could wish that we had a third option: an architecture review board of some kind....

[swestrup]

Oh, and BTW, I've NEVER said that Windows is a better OS than Linux. I've just said that Linux is not ready for the average user and YES that's all about the interfaces.

[sps.livejournal.com]

Mm, yeah, I think what I'm trying to say is that I believe that Linux is more nearly ready for the average user than Windows, because at least I think the parts exist. It's sort of "which is the better house, [and pardon the evident recent Americanisation of my outlook], Wal-Mart or Home Depot?" Neither of them is a house, but I'd prefer to have power tools and lumber than bed linens and toothbrush holders as my starting point....