XP For Just A Few Bucks Is Better Than The Linux Alternative?
- 8
- Add a Comment
Being among those quick to realize that Linux is not for everyone due to a combination of legacy apps or for other reasons, asking users to rely on an OS from 2001 is just asking for security problems. Yet this is exactly what Microsoft has been doing. Despite the price being asked being reasonable, the problem is the fact that XP is security wasteland. Even Vista, be it not an OS I was impressed with, is more secure by leaps and bounds.
I feel that on the netbook front, for those wanting to be able to use webcams, digital cameras and maybe do some email checking/blogging, desktop Linux provides all one could possibly need. Best of all, it is not like the user is forced to scour the house for their now lost MS Office CDs w/ licenses to boot. This stuff comes out of the box with distros included on the netbooks of today.
This being said, what will be interesting is how Windows 7 will be received. Vastly better than XP and Vista, considering it does not require a new PC investment to operate, Windows 7 might put people off however as the version to be included on some netbooks will have application used at once limits of three at a time. Then again, with the netbook’s limited resources, this might not be a big deal? It’s not like I would be using more than three apps at once on a netbook when I use Ubuntu on a netbook, right? Realizing this, I think it will come down to what is recognized out of the box when each user is buying their selected netbook.
Speaking for myself, I own NOTHING that is not recognized out of the box with Ubuntu. And this includes wireless, one all-in-one printer that I connect to over the network hosted by Ubuntu, plus all of my webcams and digital cameras. Even my wireless Wii guitar is supported with no silly driver hunts.
Windows? Should be interesting to see how Windows 7 does here once it is released. Likely, there will be a lot of hardware support out of the box as I believe this to be focus based on my own early testing, but something tells me that there will also be a LOT of install CDs needed despite this. Call it a hunch based on past experience with XP and Vista…after service packs for each.
Disclaimer: I am stating the facts based on personal experiences. I am sharing what does and does not work. Simple as that. Even the opinion given on the security problems is based on the fact that XP is NOT a secure OS by any stretch of the imagination. Vista might be, but XP is simply not.
8 Comments
OS Agnostic
April 20th, 2009
at 4:19pm
No offense intended (but probably unavoidable), but your opening statement is ignorant. If you aren’t going to count the numerous updates to Windows XP, then you must do the same for linux and osx… 1991 and 2001 right? Yes, they’ve both been updated, but so has XP.
Even if you *do* want to full version updates, then when was linux kernel 2 released?? And I’m not sure how you would count that with OSX as you really have to count all the packages on top of the kernel here.
If you want to argue about new distribution versions, well MS does sell windows with service packs built in, so I still don’t think that’s a valid argument.
allan kelly
April 20th, 2009
at 4:20pm
The only real issue with Linux is anyone who has a Broadcom card in thier machine like my Acer Aspire 3620.
Other than that it seems a pretty nice no virus machine
severne
April 20th, 2009
at 4:44pm
I use both Linux and Windows XP and I must say that while I would recommend Linux over XP for security, I would not call XP unsecure. As someone in the network security field I have run tests on XP before and my machines have rated in the top 2% of all Windows machines for security(which includes Vista users). It’s in the hands of the user to make their machine secure. Someone running Windows is going to have a harder job at this just for the simple fact that most viruses, spyware, and malware specifically target Windows because of the market share it controls.
Rick
April 20th, 2009
at 6:08pm
I didn’t come to Linux until just a couple of years ago, but for the VAST majority of basic computer users it offers the best combination of security and ease of use. By VAST majority, I mean those who only use computers for solitaire, email, extremely light word processing, and a little digital photography.
Ruki
April 20th, 2009
at 7:16pm
Well, XP will always be inferior to Vista if we’re talking about security - that’s a fact, and it only gets even more true when Microsoft moved the operating system into extended support phase.
On the other hand, people are afraid of change. Give them something they don’t know and they’d rather go with something familiar. Why is this, I don’t know. I do know, however, that pretty much every program Microsoft has to offer, there’s a free, open-source counterpart to it, and this is what many, many people don’t realize…
leftystrat
April 20th, 2009
at 8:38pm
MS has allowed netbooks to use XP so long as their displays are under 12″. It will be odd to see people putting 7 on them. I haven’t seen 7 but when was the last time a new OS was smaller and less resource intensive than its predecessor?
Netbooks have precious little power as it is. Why load an OS that’s more bloated?
I have a bunch of EEE 1000’s running EEEbuntu at work. Not a single complaint or breakdown or security breach. No one has even asked `is this thing Windows?’
Chris
May 1st, 2009
at 11:17pm
OK, this is with XP but until September 2007, I was running XP on a machine - this was my main machine - with just 160MB RAM, 10GB hard drive, and an AMD K6-2 300Mhz CPU. This did serve me adequately for most tasks - the main limatation I found was that video playback was impossible (bar MPEG1), and increasingly CPU/memory hungry apps refused to run towards the end of its use. I used the machine for homework, and web development. I did manage to run Photoshop (v7), and I frequently ran more then 3 programs, including Firefox 1.0+ with atleast 5 tabs at a time and we know that Firefox loved memory. I’ll say the machine was slow, but for everyday use back before I began using a much faster machine (Pentium 4 1.5ghz between September 2007 and April 2008, later an AMD Athlon 64 x2) fulltime, I didn’t seem to notice the slowdown all that much. So I’d have to disagree that a netbook’s limited specs would make it undesirable to use more then 3 programs at once, considering in all cases, a netbook is a vastly superior system to the one I used up until 2007, and I did multitask much on that machine.
I get that wasn’t the point of the article though. I’d agree that Linux is adequate for the average user (includes everything most people use out of the box in most distributions) but as has been mentioned people fear change and are reluctent to adapt to new enviroments. If it has any benefit, it may just be familiarity and peice of mind that the applicaions they receive, are used to using and see others use will likely run without having to resort to WINE - which I can”t see the average user using anyway. I do want Linux to succeed though!
Adam Marchetti
November 17th, 2009
at 5:49am
allan : Agreed. Linux hates Broadcom. I don’t know if it has to do with proprietary drivers or simply poor kernel support, but learning NDISWrapper on a Dell laptop is a MUST.