Thread: Windows-Linux Comparison

Originally Posted by Yarin

I'm surprised to hear some people say what they do about the drivers. Linux out-of-the-box has (much) better driver support than Windows does. But, manufacturers almost never support Linux, where they always do Windows

I agree Linux has more hardware support out-of-the-box. But this is exactly because of the reason you say. The two operating systems end up having different hardware support models. Whereas Windows relies on manufacturers to ship the drivers with their products, Linux relies on distro developers to include any available drivers. Neither Windows or Linux become less or more than the other because of this. Just two different models of hardware support.

On the issue of hardware features support, unfortunately Windows come ahead however, exactly because for most of the hardware it is the manufacturers who release the drivers and provide full support, while Linux takes a little more time to provide full-feature support on new hardware. Sometimes days, sometimes months, sometimes years, sometimes never, and if relying on manufacturer drivers, often delegates those drivers to repositories with with no support.

Incidentally, Windows equivalent to Linux distros' repositories is Windows Update where there is a lot more hardware support, which can be considered out-of-the-box, if one considers distro's repositories as out-of-the-box.

[QUOTE=Mario F.;923412\
Incidentally, Windows equivalent to Linux distros' repositories is Windows Update where there is a lot more hardware support, which can be considered out-of-the-box, if one considers distro's repositories as out-of-the-box.[/QUOTE]

Sorry Mario I could not let this bit of misinformation lie. There is no Windows equivalent in Linux repositories b/c Linux repos will upgrade/update every single app on your system, from the work processor to whatever drivers to the web server. Windows doesn't do that. Now who is talking w/o knowing what they are talking about, eh? If all Linux repos had were basic OS tools and drivers you might have a point but the repos (at least for Debian-based systems) have everything from games to office tools to research tools to development tools.

As for Happyclown or whatever I would be amazed if the video driver had full 3d acceleration with just a stock Windows CD. The modem might work b/c of many modems being Winmodems and most of the driver is in the hardware but the graphics card? No way w/o a download/installation. To be fair *technically* Linux is like that too except that finding the right driver and downloading it is automatic.

I have said it before and I will say it again: I would not recommend Linux for everyone. It takes a certain kind of person to get the most out of it. For our house-hold, it is the right answer, gives us everything we need and is reliable as anything. YMMV.

Originally Posted by jeffcobb

Sorry Mario I could not let this bit of misinformation lie. There is no Windows equivalent in Linux repositories b/c Linux repos will upgrade/update every single app on your system, from the work processor to whatever drivers to the web server. Windows doesn't do that. Now who is talking w/o knowing what they are talking about, eh?

Again, you are. But that is not suprising anymore.
I didn't mention anything about applications. Was talking about hardware support, exclusively. Care to read again the quote you inserted in your own post?

Originally Posted by jeffcobb

To be fair *technically* Linux is like that too except that finding the right driver and downloading it is automatic.

As is for Windows through Windows Update for a large number of hardware, go figure. Including NVidia drivers.

edit: More and more I'm convinced all that talk of yours about "10 years doing hardcore development for windows" is fishy. Either that or you forget things to quickly. There's no way someone with such a vast experience of windows cannot know these things. My 11 year old daughter knows them.

Now, now -- no need for nastiness you two

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Care to read again the quote you inserted in your own post?

It's a little ambiguous. On the other hand, I think most people who understand the nature of both systems sufficiently would recognize it is impossible for MS to institute the kind of package auto-updating that exists on linux, because MS does not package software that was not developed in house by MS. So you could only have been referring to their native hardware drivers.

I actually prefer to disable to auto-updating, but the whole online yum/apt style online repository system (which developed I believe mostly in the past 5-6 years) is totally freaking one of the awesomest ideas in computing history, fer sure. I work remotely on three different linux servers daily (one of them is just my own lil pet) and being able to issue one or two simple commands to install the appropriate distro package of some 3rd party software (eg, most recently, mediawiki), such that it is already preconfigured to work perfect with all the other 3rd party software (apache, mySQL, PHP) is just the tish.

I think there are some things for windows, like XAMPP, to do this with open source software on a narrow scale.

Originally Posted by MK27

It's a little ambiguous. On the other hand, I think most people who understand the nature of both systems sufficiently would recognize it is impossible for MS to institute the kind of package auto-updating that exists on linux, because MS does not package software that was not developed in house by MS.

It can and it does. This is a snapshot of Windows Update Catalog taken just now. Page 1 of 40 after a search for Nvidia.

I don't know what else more I can say.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

It can and it does.

Well, that's good then.