Microsoft vs Linux.
Apr. 18th, 2004 02:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupYanknow, I'm no big fan of microsoft, but I do understand something about user interface design, and Microsoft products have it. Okay, they make incredibly lame blunders like the nigh-universally hated 'clippy', but I can understand what they thought they thought they were doing. Underneath the gilt and satin surface though, its all ugly pus-oozing nastiness. XP has some actual claims to be an OS, but thats kind of new to Microsofts way of doing things.
Linux on the other hand is exactly the opposite. There really is an operating system under there, and it actually operates, but they've piled all of the oozing-pusness into the user interfaces and so you donna wanna touch it.
So, Microsoft OSes are essentially crap held together by gold thread and satin while Linux is solid chunks of gold held together by crap and mucus. Its no wonder that I can't really claim to be a fan of either. If it ended there, I think I would declare it a tie. But with Linux I have the option (actually, I would find it absolutely necessary) to go in and fix the stuff that's more horribly wrong, because they give you the source if you ask for it. With Microsoft all you get is Bill, and you REALLY don't want him.
These thoughts have been brought to you by the fact that I've now completed the second day of setting up a Linux server and I know that if![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_sps_ hand't been here to provide support and 1337 5killz, I don't think I would have gotten past the first non-helpful help screen. Sigh. You know I REALLY want to be able to punt microsoft XP and go Linux, but right now, I don't think I'd survive it.
Linux on the other hand is exactly the opposite. There really is an operating system under there, and it actually operates, but they've piled all of the oozing-pusness into the user interfaces and so you donna wanna touch it.
So, Microsoft OSes are essentially crap held together by gold thread and satin while Linux is solid chunks of gold held together by crap and mucus. Its no wonder that I can't really claim to be a fan of either. If it ended there, I think I would declare it a tie. But with Linux I have the option (actually, I would find it absolutely necessary) to go in and fix the stuff that's more horribly wrong, because they give you the source if you ask for it. With Microsoft all you get is Bill, and you REALLY don't want him.
These thoughts have been brought to you by the fact that I've now completed the second day of setting up a Linux server and I know that if
_sps_ hand't been here to provide support and 1337 5killz, I don't think I would have gotten past the first non-helpful help screen. Sigh. You know I REALLY want to be able to punt microsoft XP and go Linux, but right now, I don't think I'd survive it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 10:57 am (UTC)(Without prejudice to Sti's previous plaints - though I strongly suspect that he'd have done nearly as well as I did if I hadn't been here and quick to jump in - provided he didn't get suddenly timid for some reason.
Odd, that: Sti seems willing to tinker with anything on a Windows box, but Linux makes him nervous - despite the fact that Linux is orders of magnitude more forgiving of misconfiguration than Windows - it survives practically anything that doesn't scrape the data off the disk.)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 10:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 06:16 pm (UTC)You can download and then burn a "Live CD". Leave the CD in the drive and reboot. When the computer comes back up, you'll be in Linux. Play around a bit, get used to it, and when you reboot you'll be back to XP, no harm done. It's what I did when I was getting ready to transition off of 98 but wasn't sure if everything I needed was available for Linux yet.