In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:43:40 +0000
<1660553.TkGjXekLgv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> 101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Many a times Windows users talk about what Windows can do but Linux
> | can't. To be fair, they need to know what Linux can do but Windows
> | can't.
> `----
>
> http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows
Wow.
(Oh, wait, that was for a different OS. Damn them.)
#3: separation of powers. This is a little off, as
Windows internally has a similar if less findable set of
divisions (unless they've put menu-drawing code in the
kernel again!) but there are a fair number of issues
I'm simply not familiar with in Windows, and Linux has
the advantage that, if the application is suitably built,
one might be able to identify where the crash is occurring,
and the crash itself is most likely an application-level
issue (though X can go down as well).
One might even be able to fix it.
It is possible to lock up Linux but it takes a little
more work. I'm struggling a bit with this work Dell;
it hangs hard when I try to use mplayer. I suspect a
minor driver problem. Oddly, I can view Youtube videos,
no problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9QwK5EHSmg
in particular might be instructive (or at least humorous)
for those who have pets of a feline persuasion, off
topic though it might be for this particular newsgroup.
(Does every cat owner own a wetsuit and welder's helmet?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkDWyDcQaco
might be more relevant; it is a 4-minute short that
purports to demystify Linux -- and claims it is in "the
public domain", which is most clearly is not (modified
GPL; it's widely available and freely modifiable --
see /usr/src/linux/Documentation). Bad start, so take
it with a grain of salt, though it's not flat out wrong,
just slightly off in spots. (But then, what does one
expect for a 4:11 video? A detailed explanation of how
Intel callgates work? :-) )
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4438732545348204352&hl=en
also works (its a piece on hydrogen cars), as does
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4472251329092638042&hl=en
(a piece on hot air balloons).
#4: reinstalls. Gentoo is a little funny at times, and
does like to rebuild itself, partially crippling the system.
Part of this might simply be the fact that I like to use
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86, which basically means it's not quite
proven itself yet. I don't know regarding other distros, and
these sorts of problems aren't quite as bad as some Windows
issues, especially with viruses (#1).
#6: An interesting claim but I for one am wondering where
one gets 100 file systems. Then again, there's been an
awful lot of computer systems.
#8: AIUI, Windows can now be installed on any drive,
though I don't know whether it is restricted to a primary
partition or not. There are also issues on whether all
programs are properly using %SYSTEMROOT%, and a quick perusal in my
WinE's system.reg file suggests far too many entries are still using
those drive letters.
#13: There are some issues here, mostly because it depends
on the apps. Many apps on Linux are free, but the bigger
ones (e.g., OpenOffice) will run on Windows as well.
#14: This needs to be clarified. In Windows, one can
attach a Console to a CMD.EXE task (they call it a Console;
it's more like a black window which can understand print
commands). In Linux, one creates a terminal emulator
which forks, and then allocates a pseudo-tty; the slave
side is connected to child's stdin/stdout/stderr and the
child then executes a program, usually bash but could be
anything if one specifies -e, and the master takes the
reins and handles such things as keypresses, printout, and
mouse events. It is correct in that Bourne shell scripting
is more powerful than .BAT, though Windows offers .JS and
.VBS scripts as well, and the PowerShell looks like it
will bring some interesting stuff to the table -- when
they get it working under Vista. Oops!
#18: Slightly redundant, as #13 makes a similar subpoint.
However, #18 does mention that the distros provide the free
apps, whereas #13 merely mentions there are free apps.
#19: This is simply wrong, as Linux does no building as such;
most distros (e.g., Gentoo, RedHat, SuSE, Debian) handle this
part of the problem. Granted, it's close to what he actually
wanted to say. :-)
#24: Cut and paste is actually slightly variable. KDE and Gnome
both support the now more-or-less-traditional C/X-C/C-C/V bindings,
as well as the select button (#1) and paste button (#2) bindings.
However, there exist programs on Linux that don't quite get it right,
especially if one is trying to cut and paste one command line to
another.
#28: I'm wondering where file size view went in my
Konqueror. Is it a build option? I've seen it, and it is
nice, if slightly expensive (as the system has to go do a
recursive search to determine the total size occupied by
a directory).
#29: Depends on what customer is doing, whether he needs to purchase
expensive databases or not. Oracle in particular runs nicely on Linux,
though.
#31: "dmidecode" is offered but I frankly can't say I've seen it before.
The command line is a bit geeky, if straightforward, but could be
replaced by:
dmidecode | sed -n 's,Serial Number: ,,p' | head -n1
which combines grep and sed into one step. One can also
use awk or even inline perl:
dmidecode | perl -e 'flag=0; while(<STDIN>) {
if(/Serial Number:/) {
$flag++; s/Serial Number: //;
print $_ if($flag == 1);
}
}'
Granted, the last is extremely awkward compared to the given example.
There is no #32. Unless there's a paging button I'm missing, this is
indeed a work in progress.
There are a number of typos in the article --
"operaitng[sic]" is probably the most egregrious one,
plus some confusion on clause tenses and the usual
"its"/"it's" issues. Looks reasonably good otherwise,
pending clarification of the above -- and 70 additional
reasons. :-)
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Useless C++ Programming Idea #23291:
void f(item *p) { if(p != 0) delete p; }
--
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