The Lagoon TechMy little blog in Cyberspace.

This is a response (Part 8) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.

I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.

Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black.  Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.

Click here for Part 9!

Click here for Part 7!

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75) Cool integration between Calendar application and Desktop calendar. For example if you add an appointment into Evolution, it will show up in your Desktop Calendar in Gnome as well when you click on time.

Not a big deal, and not a good reason to switch to Linux.

76) You can have multiple work-spaces, its like having multiple desktops. Instead of having all your applications on one desktop, you can have them sorted on multiple desktop workspaces and easily switch between them. For example you can make one workspace for work, one for music, one for emails, one for browsing and so on. This can be in a grid or linearly organised.

Windows 10 can do multi-desktops.

77) You don’t need to create a Microsoft Live account and remember another stinking password just because you wanted to play Solitare.

Not a big deal, and not a good reason to switch to Linux.

78) Encoding compressed video files is a dream once you get ffmpeg compiled. In windows normally it costs money to get a program to encode video and often the encoded files don’t play on the device.

You can use the free program called Handbrake. This will do what you want.

79) games made natively for Linux run faster than the same game on Windows.

Why would a game compiled for Linux run faster than the same game compiled for Windows?

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Well this is the end of Part 8!  Click here for Part 9!

Click here for Part 7!

This is a response (Part 7) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.

I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.

Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black.  Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.

Click here for Part 8!

Click here for Part 6!

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64) Twitter/Facebook broadcast from the desktop. With Gwibber client, you can view your social network status right from your desktop or update your status to all your accounts without logging onto each of them separately.

Why would this make Linux “better” than Windows?

65) Cut and paste is simpler, just select and middle click on the target window and your data gets pasted. Its far quicker and easier than the way Windows does Cut and Paste. Of-course the Windows CTRL-C/CTRL-V still works on Linux for people who are new to Linux.

Copy and pasting in Linux is not “better” than Windows. It is a matter of user preference.

66) Multiple cut and pastes: Klipper application (default under KDE) maintains a history of your clipboard and you can use it to paste text/etc which you had cut/copied earlier. Gnome users can use Glipper.

Why would this make Linux “better” than Windows?

This could be seen as a security risk, since if a user copied and pasted his password from his digital Rolodex, someone with access to the computer could potentially gain access to the password by looking at the clipboard history.

67) Easy to setup a Media Center like PC. You don’t need to purchase additional software or re-install a different operating system. Read this on how to convert your existing Linux into a Media Center like PC.

A “media center” PC could mean several things. You do not necessarily have to get other software to accomplish your media tasks. It depends upon what you are doing. If you just are wanting to play audio and video, then download the VLC Player.

68) Linux already has a usable 3D Desktop – Compiz. This makes it easy to switch and view multiple desktops simultaneously. It also add a nice eye candy to Linux. If you still believe Linux is only for geeks, this feature will definitely change your mind. This doesn’t require you to purchase expensive graphic cards, it very comfortably works with on board graphic card.

Windows 10 has support for multi-desktops.

69) Graphic view of how much space your data is using. In Konqueror File Manager tool bar, there is an option to get file size view which gives you a graphical view of how much space your directories and the files within are consuming. Or in gnome you can use Disk Usage Analyzer Baobab. This is an excellent way to know where all your disk space has disappeared and makes cleanup easy.

Windows has a built-in graphic view of how much disk space has been used on a device. Just right-click on a drive in Windows Explorer and click on Properties. Also, there is a program for Windows called WinDirStat that will show you disk usage statistics.

70) No annoying messages like Vista keeps telling you that xyz application is trying to access your system. Vista confuses the user, Either the user will always click allow or don’t know what to do.

I think you are talking about the built-in UAC that Microsoft added to Windows Vista (and beyond).

To be fair, UAC can potentially “get in the way” so to speak, but what I suspect many computer users do not know (or at least understand) is that UAC makes it easy to be a system administrator and a limited system user at the same time.

In short, UAC assists a system administrator with his or her job by allowing the administrator to perform administrative tasks while still being secure running under his or her own limited user account by default.

Also, if you click “no” to a UAC prompt, and the program it prevents from running due to you clicking “no” contains malware, then UAC did technically stop the malware from running with administrator privileges in the first place. So anyone who says that UAC is not a security feature is technically incorrect.

71) Easy to dual boot: Linux makes it easy for it to exist with any other operating system. If you install Linux on a system which already has Windows, Linux will not mess your Windows. Windows on the other hand messes up your Linux partition, if it finds one.

This is because Microsoft assumed that only Windows would be put on the computer. You would probably agree that pretty much almost every non-techy computer user out there just has one operating system installed on his or her computer anyway.

If you do need to have both Windows and Linux on the same hard drive, install Windows first, then install Linux. There are guides on the Internet explaining how to do this in detail.

72) Linux Works fine if you multiple partitions, operating systems and devices. Windows gets confused with ‘extraneous’ partitions used by other operating systems and allocate drive letters to them which cannot be freed. If you have, say, 8 partitions in your hard drive, Windows will associate 8 drive letters to these partitions, reducing the number of drive letter you can use. This also limits the number of drive letters you can have to 26. In Linux you don’t have a concept of drive letters, each drive is mounted as /home, /windows.. etc.. thereby not having any limitations.

Windows needs drivers to read other file-systems, such as EXT3/EXT4.

Windows is not limited to just the 26 drive letters. On Windows, you can mount partitions as a folder, or you can access the partitions directly without assigning them a drive letter or folder.

Instructions for mounting a partition as a folder:  https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11253-mount-drives-partitions-folder.html

Instructions for accessing a partition directly (without assigning a drive letter or folder to a partition):  https://superuser.com/questions/465730/access-to-a-disk-drive-using-volume-id-instead-of-a-drive-letter-in-windows

73) Customise your shortcut: On Linux you can associate applications to whatever shortcut you choose. On Windows, you cannot associate your beloved Firefox to key combination Win+F, for instance, because it is already associated to ‘Find’ functionality provided by Windows Explorer which you can’t change.

This is not a real problem. Just use a keyboard shortcut like:  Ctrl-Shift-F or something like that. Most Windows users will not even care.

74) Linux is more accessible: Most distributions such as Ubuntu include Orca, which is a screen reader. This can be enabled before installation. With this a visually challenged person can install Linux and also use Linux on his own. In Windows, the accessibility support is limited and not available during installation. It has to be purchased and installed separately costing over US$1000 and the visually challenged person requires an assistant to install Windows and the software before he/she can use.

More than likely, the user that needs accessibility features will already have a computer that has Windows pre-installed for them. Also, Windows does have accessibility features for them to use!

https://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windows7/

https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/personalization-accessibility-help#personalization-accessibility-help=windows-8&v1h=win8tab3&v2h=win7tab1&v3h=winvistatab1&v4h=winxptab1

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Well this is the end of Part 7!  Click here for Part 8!

Click here for Part 6!

This is a response (Part 6) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.

I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.

Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black.  Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.

Click here for Part 7!

Click here for Part 5!

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53) You are in total control. You don’t have applications that suddenly and start updating without your permission!

Applications that start updating on their own is not the fault of the operating system. For any well-thought out software program, there will be a auto-updating setting that you can turn on and off.

54) While both Linux and Windows have a GUI, Windows has only one default GUI. Linux is all about choice and has a option to use different type of GUIs or Window Managers as they are know as in Linux. Users can choose from something that looks like their favorite Operating System or they can choose something that’s simple and fast. Popular ones are Gnome and KDE.

This is fine for people who like to tinker with their operating system, but really now…most people are not going to want to choose a GUI to use. They just want something that works. Since Windows’ GUI (and even MacOS X’s GUI) works for many people, they are not going to switch any time soon.

I have used GNOME, Unity, KDE, and Xfce. They are alright, but I really do prefer the Windows GUI over them.

55) Most Linux distributions come bundled with whole lot of applications such as Office Suite, Photo Editing, etc. You not only get the OS for free but you also don’t have to pay for the applications. Yes many of these open source applications such as OpenOffice.org also run on Windows but you need to find, download and install them where as there are available in most Linux distros by default.

With all due respect, this is a ridiculous reason for choosing Linux. Just Google several open source software programs (that work on Windows) such as:

• VLC Player
• Gimp (a Photoshop-like image editor)
• Blender (a 3D modeling and animation software)
• Open Office
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Mozilla Firefox
• Inkscape
• MPlayer
• LibreOffice
• Audacity (a free audio editor)
• GnuCash (financial-accounting software)
• Notepad++ (a very powerful text editor)
• 7-Zip (a very good file compressor)
• VirtualBox (a virtual machine hypervisor)

Also, most of the open source software used by Linux desktop users are not installed by default. They have to be installed by the user.

56) Expanding on the previous point, many Linux distributions bundle thousands of applications (Upto 22,000 depending on which one you choose) where as Windows doesn’t bundle basic applications such a decent text editor, oh yeah there is Notepad if you consider that decent 🙂 . Point is on Windows spend the time in finding them, downloading them, installing them and then trying them out or just get them along with your Linux CD/DVD.

I just install Notepad++. This really is not a problem.

A lot of open source software are easy to find on the Internet for Windows. Also, just because a Linux distribution bundles software, does not mean that all the software bundles will necessarily have regular updates in the repository. In some cases, you might have to manually download and install the software anyway, if the repository does not contain the updated version of the software that you need.

57) Appstore included: Ubuntu today has a built in App store where you can download 1000′s of applications with a single click.

This really is not a good reason for choosing Linux over Windows. Also, this would mainly apply to Linux desktop users. Linux server users would probably make little if any use of this.

58) Linux bundles OpenOffice.org as the office suite which has built in capabilities to write documents as PDFs and Presentations as Flash. Windows requires purchasing/downloading additional software.

OpenOffice is available for Windows as well.

59) Mozilla Firefox browser bundled with Linux has excellent features such as blocking of unwanted ads/pop up and supports tab browsing which makes it easy to open another browser windows. Read the 101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot.

Pop-up blocking and tab browsing can be done with Mozilla Firefox on Windows. I have used Firefox for years with almost no issues. You do not have to use Internet Explorer as your default browser on Windows if you do not want to.

60) Faster Browsing: Browsing is not only better but faster too! The networking on Linux is faster and the browser has an option to block all the unwanted ads/pop up, there by saving on bandwidth considerably. Read this to block all the ads.

Faster browsing on Linux? Faster networking on Linux?

Where are your technical arguments for those claims?  Source?

61) No automatic updates: Windows Vista it setup to automatically update your system by default. In Linux it will alert you for an update but you have to choice to click and apply the update. You can setup to automatic update if you like. So you can update when you like and not when your operating system decides to update.

False! Windows Vista does not choose auto-updating by default. The user can modify the auto-updating setting when first installing Windows Vista (you can modify this setting later on in the operating system, after the install is complete).

If you really have installed Windows Vista before, I am not sure how you would have missed this dialog box.

62) Linux has games too! there are some really nice games which many of the Linux distributions bundle. You may not have all the games in the world but you definitely have a huge collection of free games. Here is a list of top 100 games.

Really, any serious gamer would either use Windows or a game console (I have friends who use both Windows and game consoles to play games). Linux just is not a good OS to build games for (many distributions doing their own thing, not great video support, most of the world using other operating systems, etc.)

I am not trying to knock Linux for use with games, but honestly I would just use Windows (or a gaming console) to game. Using Linux for all your gaming will probably not produce satisfactory results. However that is your choice.

63) Empathy/Kopete popular IM clients on Linux are single clients that can connect to all the protocols – Facbook Chat, Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, ICQ, AOL and more.

This really is not a good reason to switch to Linux. You can use instant messenger on your smartphone anyway, so it really does not matter.

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Well this is the end of Part 6!  Click here for Part 7!

Click here for Part 5!

This is a response (Part 5) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.

I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.

Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black.  Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.

Click here for Part 6!

Click here for Part 4!

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41) Linux gives you the Freedom: Linux follows the Free Software philosophy and hence gives its users the Freedom to modify, copy and share Linux.

This only is good news for people who can/need/want to “modify, copy, and share” the Linux kernel.

Average computer users for the most part will not care, and they probably would not even know how even if they did care.

42) One cick upgrade: Most distributions can easily be upgraded from one version to another in just a few clicks. And most importantly you don’t need to spend a fortune to buy the upgrade.

While upgrading to another Linux OS version (without doing a fresh re-install) seems like a nice feature, it has some risks such as:

1. Software may break after the upgrade due to OS level changes (e.g., incompatibility with the upgraded Linux OS).
2. Upgrade may not finish correctly and you are left with a broken OS.
3. Certain hardware may malfunction, due to changes from the upgrade.

Nothing may ever happen, but I recommend to always re-install an OS when upgrading, not just “upgrade directly to the new version available”. Remember to make a backup of your files first before upgrading!

43) No Hidden APIs. Windows many hidden or undocumented APIs which is used for unfair advantage to Microsoft. In Linux all APIs are completely open and documented. For example Microsoft specifies that everyone writing Internet application should use the Winsock API while Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn’t use the Winsock API, it uses an undocumented API allowing Internet Explorer to run faster than other browsers.

How does this make Linux “better” than Windows?  I doubt that all Linux APIs are completely documented (even if this were true, how do you know that the documents are up to date?).

Microsoft has Windows API documentation as well.

44) Faster patches: Linux is more secure because its patches in hours not days. Microsoft took 200 days to provide a critical patch.

First off, patches themselves are not a guarantee that a security hole has been successfully plugged up.

Secondly, patches *can* have the potential to open up *new* security holes.

Lastly, Microsoft has a Patch Tuesday, where they regularly role-out Windows patches every month. So if you are concerned about Microsoft not regularly rolling-out patches, your concern is no longer valid.

45) No Execute by default: By default if you download any file, it doesn’t have the execute permission, making your system more secure. The app cannot execute unless you go and change the permissions.

Using Windows’ ACL permissions, you can disallow yourself (and other users) from being allowed to execute files on certain parts of the system (e.g., your downloads folder).

Also as an alternative, there is AppLocker which when setup correctly, can prevent any file that is not “whitelisted” from being able to execute on Windows.

46) No write access to applications: By default users cannot install applications unless they change their permission or login as a supervisor. This ensures that any virus or malicious code cannot go and write to your application folder.

When creating a user in Windows, you can make the user a limited account (no Administrator privileges). This is the equivalent of a normal Linux user without root privileges.

“This ensures that any virus or malicious code cannot go and write to your application folder.”

This is a myth. While having a limited user helps in preventing malware from writing to unauthorized areas of the computer, this is no guarantee that malware can never break out of your user’s “area” and infect other parts of the system.

47) No open ports: By default most Linux distributions have all their incoming ports blocked, thereby making their Operating more secure from network attacks.

Since Windows Vista, Windows has had a firewall (running by default on a fresh install) for incoming as well as outgoing connections.

Windows (Vista / 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10) with its own firewall out-of-the-box is the same as the Linux distributions that have a firewall enabled out-of-the-box by default. 

48) Centralised repository of applications ensures that you are downloading your applications/patches only from a known source only. The repository is digitally signed which ensures that only the right application and code can be downloaded and installed on your computer.

Windows uses an SSL certificate to verify that it is in fact connecting to Microsoft for updates. Of course, there is always room for a man-in-the-middle attack, but that is not Windows’ fault.

Also, how do you know that these “trusted” update servers for Linux are not compromised? Just because there is no one intercepting the connection to the update server, does not mean that the update server itself is not compromised.

49) Centralised patching of all applications: Since your applications are installed from a centralised source, they are also patched from a single application, so each application doesn’t patch on its own. This ensures that your system is always up to date.

You are assuming that the Linux user has not manually installed any software. If so, he will have to manually update those manually installed software programs, unless the software happens to have an automatic updater. Remember not everything will necessarily be installed from a package manager.

50) Faster release cycle: Many Linux distributions have a fixed release cycle of 6 months which makes it easy for them to incorporate all the latest applications, bug fixes, improvement and support for newer hardware. Windows release cycle is not predictable. takes a few years and is often delayed.

A faster release cycle just will create headaches for most people. A lot of users will not wish to update their computer every 6 months via a fresh re-install. I know that in different Linux distributions you can auto-update to the next latest OS update, but I recommend against that.

51) Finding the difference between 2 text files is easy! using commands such as diff

That is not a reason to choose Linux over Windows. There is software for Windows that will do the same thing.

52) Your hard disk drive will have a longer life by not having the heads travel all over the disk doing virtual memory swaps because Linux uses far less RAM than Windows.

This is a very bad example! Both Windows and Linux will use your hard drive(s) as virtual memory (a.k.a. SWAP) if there is not enough memory on the host machine. However for me, on Linux, it has used the virtual memory (using the hard drive) when there was plenty of RAM still available.

I don’t know if this happened to anyone else, but I had noticed Linux (CentOS 7) was using the virtual memory partition (swap partition) when I still had plenty of RAM available in the virtual machine.

You can adjust the virtual memory on both Windows and Linux.

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Well this is the end of Part 5!  Click here for Part 6!

Click here for Part 4!