7 ms·

Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu

29 points by nreece 17y ago

Elepsis 17y ago
Then he will grow up and start having to do real work. Unless he's a programmer, that (still) pretty much means Windows or Mac OS.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  Really? Why?
tybris 17y ago
If it can be upgraded without reinstall it's a signficant improvement over Ubuntu.
- mattyb 17y ago
  Who says you can't upgrade without reinstalling on Ubuntu? sudo apt-get install update-manager-core sudo do-release-upgrade
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - tybris 17y ago
    It's not impossible, just a horrible experience. Most likely your network drivers will break, their new version of X doesn't support your graphics card/drivers, etc. I have never been able to upgrade Ubuntu without using Ctrl+Alt+F1 a lot. I'm not going to give that to my family.
Tichy 17y ago
Maybe the XBox will kill Windows - after all, games have been the only reason for it's existence for a while now. Edit: I meant to say "justification", not "reason".
- trezor 17y ago
  If you honestly believe that, you have either a) never worked in any company with more than 10 employees or b) have serious issues with reality. In either case, not the kind of person I would take advice from.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    Why, because companies force Windows on their users, or because of the nifty group management features of Windows products? While I have worked at companies where some boss could edit my Outlook schedule, I can't say I have really missed that feature in later jobs. Possibly some megacorps have essential stuff to do with Windows. But what about private use (which is what I was thinking about)? Anyway, not sure what your problem is. I wasn't even giving advice in my comment. Edit: maybe you can enlighten me about the wonderful world of the Windows Exchange Server (which I presume you are referring to). Perhaps it could actually improve my life - any pointers? Edit2: reading my original comment again, I realise that I phrased it badly. What I meant was "justification", not "reason". Of course there are all sorts of business tricks that also made it persist.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
      - Tichy 17y ago
        Well that is not what I said. What I said (or meant to say) is that since game consoles have become so much more commonplace, people don't need Windows machines to play games anymore. The fact that the 17 year old guy from the article didn't see a difference between Windows and Linux says it all. Obviously he did not try to play games on the PC.
    - trezor 17y ago
      Why, because companies force Windows on their users Using the word "force" seems odd to me and seems to indicate you have a bias against Windows which is based more on personal preference rather than rationality. It is a companies right to choose what platform they want to build their infrastructure on, and if you as a potential employee have an issue with that, nobody is forcing you to take the job. or because of the nifty group management features of Windows products? They are not merely nifty. For any organization of any noticeable size, it is essential. It streamlines IT management to the point that a smaller IT staff can concentrate on improving and expanding the business's infrastructure instead of merely maintaining it. You can not seriously argue that this is merely "nifty" and has little real world value? Anyway, not sure what your problem is. My problem with your comment is that it is simplistic, unreasoned, obviously false and and of no value what so ever. You might as well have replied "LOL NOT Linux!" and it would have made no difference. If I wanted that level of commentary I would go to digg.
ianbishop 17y ago
See, even living inside a web browser, there are terribly large difference between Ubuntu and Windows 7. For example, not too long ago I had a bug which caused firefox to crash due to a flash problem. The fix involved having to download the source, editing the launch file and build it. While this very thing is what draws many of us to Linux, it is the same thing that would push the majority of consumers away.
- Tichy 17y ago
  While I never had to resort to such a bugfix for Firefox, I'd like to point out that with windows/IE you would not even have the option for such a bugfix.
  - briansmith 17y ago
    Windows/IE runs Flash well (much better than Linux/Firefox), so you'd never need that option.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      Incidentally that is one of the reasons for disliking closed source software. It is impossible to fix Flash on Linux because it is not open. Once you open that Pandora's Box (using closed source software), all sorts of nasty side effects ensue. (That said, I think the closed source Flash player has improved on Linux, too, and some people even get by with open source clones).
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      It's quite possible that instead of crashing, you will end up with a spam zombie.
raintrees 17y ago
In all honesty, I have been able to use Ubuntu for most everything, but had to keep a Windows XP system going for remote control to access Microsoft-only stuff. I installed Exchange 2007 with Small Business Server 2008, so accessing Public Folders pretty much requires Outlook or IE. (Evolution only seems to work with Exchange 2003...) Which brings me to ActiveX. So much of what I do requires ActiveX that I also must have a copy of Windows around to be fully functional, as I haven't gotten WINE or IEs4Linux to support MS's RDP correctly. Otherwise, I would be running Ubuntu only, as I don't really game much beyond all the games that have been written/ported to Linux.
- windsurfer 17y ago
  ActiveX? What needs ActiveX nowadays, may I ask?
  - raintrees 17y ago
    I have previously sold Small Business Server to several dozen of my clients. In order to remotely manage their systems, I am forced to use either IE's RDP plug-in or Remote Web Workplace (a Microsoft-created web site on these servers that uses RDP) if I cannot get in via VPN. And, as I mentioned, my whole email storage system currently lives in Exchange 2007 as a quite intricate set of private and public folders, not addressable by IMAP.
    - godDLL 17y ago
      "vendor lock-in"?
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        So, answering the grand-grand-parent, "Microsoft does".
- dandrews 17y ago
  'scuse (I'm not very MS-Windows literate). Why doesn't rdesktop fit your RDP needs?
sant0sk1 17y ago
I've been running Windows 7 via VirtualBox for a few months now. It's okay. Better than XP? Marginally. Worth money to upgrade? Not really. Windows 7 will probably get its "foothold" on the consumer market the same way Vista did: when people buy new computers they get Windows 7. I speculate that the vast majority of Windows users are simply running the same O/S that their computer shipped with, whether that is XP, Vista, or even ME (I've been shocked by how many people I know are still running ME (in a vague sense of the word "running")). Of course that doesn't apply to techies like us, but when you hold mass market share you have mass market demographics. As far as businesses upgrading their workstations to Windows 7... no way. Windows XP is pretty stable (they've been improving it for like 8 years, it oughta be) and there are few compelling reason for a business to invest in Windows 7. The only way MS will get Windows 7 into the business market will be to force it (via OEMs or by stopping support for XP/Vista). I think Microsoft's outlook (pun not intended) is pretty gray in the O/S market. EDIT: changed "no" reasons to "few" as trezor pointed out at least one reason I was unaware of.
- GeneralMaximus 17y ago
  Usually, I'd be the last one to defend Microsoft, but sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. I installed and played with Win7 on my home PC, and it is leaps and bounds better than WinXP and WinVista. Win7 was more responsive than XP on my oldish PC, though it did use more RAM to accomplish this feat. It's much more usable than Vista, and some of the new desktop features are quite nice. This does not mean I'll give up my MacBook anytime soon for a Windows machine, and neither will Win7 replace Ubuntu as my OS of choice on the PC, but you have to acknowledge the fact that Microsoft is finally getting the hang of this OS business.
- trezor 17y ago
  Windows 7 has lots of new features which appeals to the corporate market compared to Windows XP. You have more options for locking down workstations with GPOs, you have UAC which improves security. Searching for stuff is miles ahead of Widows XP, which means increased productivty. Granted, most of those features were added in Vista, but Windows 7 actually runs quite decent on older hardware, something Vista wasn't exactly acclaimed for doing. Windows 7 also includes lots of features which are handy for portable machines like laptops. Bitlocker anyone? You also have transparent, automatic VPN back into your company's domain, either trough native IPv6 or tunneled connections. In either case IPSec is used to secure communication. In effect, the windows domain model just got network transparent. That's a pretty neat thing in itself. Again, some things came with Vista, but Windows 7 delivers it all in a much more appealing package. I'll shut up before I sound like a Microsoft market-droid, but to say Windows 7 adds no features which would make an upgrade worthwhile in the corporate environment is either disingenuous or misinformed.
cturner 17y ago
I worry the trend is going in the other direction. I've been trying to set up a particular wireless networking device in ubuntu and the only instructions I found that I could get working involved gnome desktop apps. To reiterate - I need to have a user logged into the desktop environment in order to get wireless networking going. At that moment I lost all enthusiasm for the prospect of desktop linux becoming mainstream. Of course there isn’t. He lives in a web browser. The underlying OS is irrelevant. What about games? Nethack runs better under unix.
- whughes 17y ago
  Games run perfectly on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
  - bep 17y ago
    And some run perfectly in Windows. I prefer my PC Games.
- eru 17y ago
  Yes. But NetHack runs pretty well under DOS, too.
- ajross 17y ago
  Details on the wireless thing? I assure you, do you not "need" an X client running on the box to make any piece of hardware work. The fact that someone wrote a GUI helper for the task (what task, btw?) hardly sounds like a disadvantage to me. People here can help you, if you let them. Posting incomplete problem reports like this as evidence for a platform troll is kinda bad form.
  - cturner 17y ago
    You're absolutely right, and thanks to help from this thread I got it working.
- mattyb 17y ago
  I have no idea what 'particular wireless networking device' you're trying to configure, but if you're just trying to get your Wifi card hooked up to a secured router using just a shell, the following thread is gold (substitute vim/nano/whatever for gedit in Step 2): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834
jacoblyles 17y ago
His son is not a gamer.
ColemanF 17y ago
It's like the boy who cried wolf. I've seen so many of these articles, it hardly means anything to me anymore.

29 points by nreece 17y ago

Then he will grow up and start having to do real work. Unless he's a programmer, that (still) pretty much means Windows or Mac OS.

rbanffy 17y ago
Really? Why?

tybris 17y ago

If it can be upgraded without reinstall it's a signficant improvement over Ubuntu.

mattyb 17y ago
Who says you can't upgrade without reinstalling on Ubuntu? sudo apt-get install update-manager-core sudo do-release-upgrade
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- tybris 17y ago
  It's not impossible, just a horrible experience. Most likely your network drivers will break, their new version of X doesn't support your graphics card/drivers, etc. I have never been able to upgrade Ubuntu without using Ctrl+Alt+F1 a lot. I'm not going to give that to my family.

Tichy 17y ago

Maybe the XBox will kill Windows - after all, games have been the only reason for it's existence for a while now. Edit: I meant to say "justification", not "reason".

trezor 17y ago
If you honestly believe that, you have either a) never worked in any company with more than 10 employees or b) have serious issues with reality. In either case, not the kind of person I would take advice from.
- Tichy 17y ago
  Why, because companies force Windows on their users, or because of the nifty group management features of Windows products? While I have worked at companies where some boss could edit my Outlook schedule, I can't say I have really missed that feature in later jobs. Possibly some megacorps have essential stuff to do with Windows. But what about private use (which is what I was thinking about)? Anyway, not sure what your problem is. I wasn't even giving advice in my comment. Edit: maybe you can enlighten me about the wonderful world of the Windows Exchange Server (which I presume you are referring to). Perhaps it could actually improve my life - any pointers? Edit2: reading my original comment again, I realise that I phrased it badly. What I meant was "justification", not "reason". Of course there are all sorts of business tricks that also made it persist.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    - Tichy 17y ago
      Well that is not what I said. What I said (or meant to say) is that since game consoles have become so much more commonplace, people don't need Windows machines to play games anymore. The fact that the 17 year old guy from the article didn't see a difference between Windows and Linux says it all. Obviously he did not try to play games on the PC.
  - trezor 17y ago
    Why, because companies force Windows on their users Using the word "force" seems odd to me and seems to indicate you have a bias against Windows which is based more on personal preference rather than rationality. It is a companies right to choose what platform they want to build their infrastructure on, and if you as a potential employee have an issue with that, nobody is forcing you to take the job. or because of the nifty group management features of Windows products? They are not merely nifty. For any organization of any noticeable size, it is essential. It streamlines IT management to the point that a smaller IT staff can concentrate on improving and expanding the business's infrastructure instead of merely maintaining it. You can not seriously argue that this is merely "nifty" and has little real world value? Anyway, not sure what your problem is. My problem with your comment is that it is simplistic, unreasoned, obviously false and and of no value what so ever. You might as well have replied "LOL NOT Linux!" and it would have made no difference. If I wanted that level of commentary I would go to digg.

ianbishop 17y ago

See, even living inside a web browser, there are terribly large difference between Ubuntu and Windows 7. For example, not too long ago I had a bug which caused firefox to crash due to a flash problem. The fix involved having to download the source, editing the launch file and build it. While this very thing is what draws many of us to Linux, it is the same thing that would push the majority of consumers away.

Tichy 17y ago
While I never had to resort to such a bugfix for Firefox, I'd like to point out that with windows/IE you would not even have the option for such a bugfix.
- briansmith 17y ago
  Windows/IE runs Flash well (much better than Linux/Firefox), so you'd never need that option.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    Incidentally that is one of the reasons for disliking closed source software. It is impossible to fix Flash on Linux because it is not open. Once you open that Pandora's Box (using closed source software), all sorts of nasty side effects ensue. (That said, I think the closed source Flash player has improved on Linux, too, and some people even get by with open source clones).
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    It's quite possible that instead of crashing, you will end up with a spam zombie.

raintrees 17y ago

In all honesty, I have been able to use Ubuntu for most everything, but had to keep a Windows XP system going for remote control to access Microsoft-only stuff. I installed Exchange 2007 with Small Business Server 2008, so accessing Public Folders pretty much requires Outlook or IE. (Evolution only seems to work with Exchange 2003...) Which brings me to ActiveX. So much of what I do requires ActiveX that I also must have a copy of Windows around to be fully functional, as I haven't gotten WINE or IEs4Linux to support MS's RDP correctly. Otherwise, I would be running Ubuntu only, as I don't really game much beyond all the games that have been written/ported to Linux.

windsurfer 17y ago
ActiveX? What needs ActiveX nowadays, may I ask?
- raintrees 17y ago
  I have previously sold Small Business Server to several dozen of my clients. In order to remotely manage their systems, I am forced to use either IE's RDP plug-in or Remote Web Workplace (a Microsoft-created web site on these servers that uses RDP) if I cannot get in via VPN. And, as I mentioned, my whole email storage system currently lives in Exchange 2007 as a quite intricate set of private and public folders, not addressable by IMAP.
  - godDLL 17y ago
    "vendor lock-in"?
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      So, answering the grand-grand-parent, "Microsoft does".
dandrews 17y ago
'scuse (I'm not very MS-Windows literate). Why doesn't rdesktop fit your RDP needs?

sant0sk1 17y ago

I've been running Windows 7 via VirtualBox for a few months now. It's okay. Better than XP? Marginally. Worth money to upgrade? Not really. Windows 7 will probably get its "foothold" on the consumer market the same way Vista did: when people buy new computers they get Windows 7. I speculate that the vast majority of Windows users are simply running the same O/S that their computer shipped with, whether that is XP, Vista, or even ME (I've been shocked by how many people I know are still running ME (in a vague sense of the word "running")). Of course that doesn't apply to techies like us, but when you hold mass market share you have mass market demographics. As far as businesses upgrading their workstations to Windows 7... no way. Windows XP is pretty stable (they've been improving it for like 8 years, it oughta be) and there are few compelling reason for a business to invest in Windows 7. The only way MS will get Windows 7 into the business market will be to force it (via OEMs or by stopping support for XP/Vista). I think Microsoft's outlook (pun not intended) is pretty gray in the O/S market. EDIT: changed "no" reasons to "few" as trezor pointed out at least one reason I was unaware of.

GeneralMaximus 17y ago
Usually, I'd be the last one to defend Microsoft, but sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. I installed and played with Win7 on my home PC, and it is leaps and bounds better than WinXP and WinVista. Win7 was more responsive than XP on my oldish PC, though it did use more RAM to accomplish this feat. It's much more usable than Vista, and some of the new desktop features are quite nice. This does not mean I'll give up my MacBook anytime soon for a Windows machine, and neither will Win7 replace Ubuntu as my OS of choice on the PC, but you have to acknowledge the fact that Microsoft is finally getting the hang of this OS business.
trezor 17y ago
Windows 7 has lots of new features which appeals to the corporate market compared to Windows XP. You have more options for locking down workstations with GPOs, you have UAC which improves security. Searching for stuff is miles ahead of Widows XP, which means increased productivty. Granted, most of those features were added in Vista, but Windows 7 actually runs quite decent on older hardware, something Vista wasn't exactly acclaimed for doing. Windows 7 also includes lots of features which are handy for portable machines like laptops. Bitlocker anyone? You also have transparent, automatic VPN back into your company's domain, either trough native IPv6 or tunneled connections. In either case IPSec is used to secure communication. In effect, the windows domain model just got network transparent. That's a pretty neat thing in itself. Again, some things came with Vista, but Windows 7 delivers it all in a much more appealing package. I'll shut up before I sound like a Microsoft market-droid, but to say Windows 7 adds no features which would make an upgrade worthwhile in the corporate environment is either disingenuous or misinformed.

cturner 17y ago

I worry the trend is going in the other direction. I've been trying to set up a particular wireless networking device in ubuntu and the only instructions I found that I could get working involved gnome desktop apps. To reiterate - I need to have a user logged into the desktop environment in order to get wireless networking going. At that moment I lost all enthusiasm for the prospect of desktop linux becoming mainstream. Of course there isn’t. He lives in a web browser. The underlying OS is irrelevant. What about games? Nethack runs better under unix.

whughes 17y ago
Games run perfectly on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
- bep 17y ago
  And some run perfectly in Windows. I prefer my PC Games.
eru 17y ago
Yes. But NetHack runs pretty well under DOS, too.
ajross 17y ago
Details on the wireless thing? I assure you, do you not "need" an X client running on the box to make any piece of hardware work. The fact that someone wrote a GUI helper for the task (what task, btw?) hardly sounds like a disadvantage to me. People here can help you, if you let them. Posting incomplete problem reports like this as evidence for a platform troll is kinda bad form.
- cturner 17y ago
  You're absolutely right, and thanks to help from this thread I got it working.
mattyb 17y ago
I have no idea what 'particular wireless networking device' you're trying to configure, but if you're just trying to get your Wifi card hooked up to a secured router using just a shell, the following thread is gold (substitute vim/nano/whatever for gedit in Step 2): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834

jacoblyles 17y ago

His son is not a gamer.

ColemanF 17y ago

It's like the boy who cried wolf. I've seen so many of these articles, it hardly means anything to me anymore.