use Perl

• Windows is so primitive... (Score:2)

  by ajt (2546) on 2003.12.16 6:44 (#26577) Homepage Journal

  I've now been exclusively on Debian at home for several weeks now. I've not booted into Windows, and I'm really happy with my Debian/KDE system.

  At work I'm forced to use Win2K, and comparing the two is quite interesting.

  Windows has all it's eye-candy turned on, and it's underlying defaults wide open! You then need to configure about a zillion settings to make it safe and secure (well as far as you can...), then you have to install a whole slew of software to make it useful. For example to make it half usable you have to install Cygwin, which while great, is still only a skin over a very broken OS.

  While there are some cosmetic defaults in Linux systems that are a bit bland, e.g. fonts support is usually naff, at least the system defaults are now quite sensible. You can and should adjust the default settings, but things are now by default quite good in most modern Linux/BSD systems. I found it was simply a case of turning on the things I actually wanted with Debian. If I need an app, then apt-get gets it for me.

  After a little font deuglification of my own, I now think my home system has much nicer font rendering on the screen and in print than my work system. This is very noticeable on brightly coloured web pages, and in a console window.

  My mother could have no more set-up a Windows box, than she could have set up Debian. However, I'm quite confident that if properly configured she could have used either, and would not have really cared which. I naturally prefer Linux as it's easier to administer and look after, but most end users don't care.

  --
  -- "It's not magic, it's work..."

  Reply to This

  • Re:Windows is so primitive... (Score:1)

    by Lunchy (2672)

    Yea, I've switched to Gentoo linux several months ago and never looked back to windows. I feel like I've woken up from the matrix. :)
    • Re:Windows is so primitive... (Score:2)

      by ajt (2546)

      I've never thought of it like that, but having used NT4 for it's entire ~7 years life, and more recently 2K, switching Linux on permanently as my desktop system is like waking up from a long sleep.

      It's not like I've not used Unix or Linux systems before, I used Solaris and Irix at University, and I've dabbled with Linux for about as long as I've had NT, but to actually switch is, and I have no plans to go back is quite a change.

      At work I no longer view the Windows system as a nice desktop and the Linux

      --
      -- "It's not magic, it's work..."
  • Re:Windows is so primitive... (Score:1)

    by shockme (2685)

    I don't know that I'd consider Windows primitive. However, MSIE is absolutely primitive. There's been no innovation on it since Micros~1 "won" the browser war. (Actually, that should probably be "browser battle part 1" ... Firebird is going to breathe new life into the overall war). You can't block pop-ups, it doesn't have tabbed browsing, etc., etc., etc.

    I've happily been using Debian since January 2001, All of my servers at the house run it, and it's been running quite happily on my desktop at work

    --
    

    If things get any worse, I'll have to ask you to stop helping me.
    • Re:Windows is so primitive... (Score:2)

      by ajt (2546)

      I don't think from my perspective that Windows is that sophisticated. Perhapse from a home or game using person XP is quite cool and feature complete, but for me it doesn't come with a reliable version of:

      • SSH and SSHD
      • Perl ;-)
      • Web Server, e.g. Apache
      • Any developemnt tools

      Now, I know that you can get Perl, SSH, Apache, and the Cygwin tool-kit, but they are only patches, and odd things still happen. Perl, SSH, Apache and the GNU tool-kit are much happier on a Unix/Unix like OS.

      I couldn't agree more th

      --
      -- "It's not magic, it's work..."