best OS 15166

Kier

Indeed, quite the opposite. We see Microsoft slamming Linux at every opportunity, creating FUD through outright lies, stretched-beyond-recognition statistics, source-locked companies (who are probably locked in through service contracts till the 12th of Forever) giving their one sided appraisals of Micosoft sales and aftermarket service... what I'd like to see, somewhere, possibly - I may even do it myself, having to use Windows for work and weaning on Linux in my spare time - is an honest Joe Public appraisal of the advantages and disadvantages of both platforms with regard to:

i. ease of installation - can Joe Public just throw in a disc and be up and away in mere minutes? Or is a case of fighting with the thing for an entire day just to get the thing to beep?

ii. ease of configuration - see i. Is the platform customisable, with a nice, intuitive interface for addition or removal of components as needed? What about third party drivers? Is it a case of roll-your-own (given the skills) or a quick jump to the manufacturers-retailers website, or a supplied disc, or something in between?

iii. scalability in hardware terms - what happens when I plug in a usb flash drive? My expectation is thatit works-.

iv. local and wide area network security as far as the kerneland third-party applications (example: Apache) are concerned. We're wandering slightly away from the platform side of things here and into the realms of how well the third party application is built, but all the same it's still a critical question to ask when choosing an OS for a home, office or server room platform.

v. everyday tasking, such as writing and printing a document, or editing and publishing an image or brochure - for example, how easy is it to configure insert printer-scanner model here? What are the options with regard to office packages, image editing, CAD, wireframe-textured wrap rendering, animation, digital video, digital music, with particular emphasis on cost vs quality vs usability?

vi. portability - how difficult would it be for me to configure a laptop to run either or both platforms (personally, I know how easy it is, being as it's what I do, and I have my preferences in hardware)? How does aftermarket modifications to laptops affect the usability of any given component? (I can name a couple of examples right off the bat: cardbus and i400. This laptop (Dell C840) has no sound when booting into Knoppix 3.6, 3.7 or 3.8 - surprising considering that my C400, which has the same chipset, produces sound. It's very difficult to get powered cardbus devices (ie card readers) to run anything like stable in XP on the C840. In Knoppix, they just keep on truckin').

vii. games. The reason most of us have a computer at home. C'mon, admit it. Popular retail games or freeware breastles - we're asking the question of availability and the ability of each platform to run insert breastle here.

viii. stability. What happenswhen(notif-, every OS crashes) the desktop goes caca? How are minor errors and major errors, forced or unforced, handled by the platform? How useful are the error messages generated to a: the user, b: the application-platform developer or c: third party technical support?

whatever tool is best fit for the job.

see above point.

I'll bet half of those (if not most) use Macs to do the layouts, too.

-- Cheers,

Jim

-begin sig- Opinions expressed in this message may or may not be representative of the opinions of its author. You decide.

DVD-CDRW, XPSP2-Knoppix X 10.4 "Tiger" Dev. Build DVD+-RW, XPSP1-Debian FileServer: Athlon XP 2400+, 256MB, 2.72TB, Blind, MuLinux

More but I'm not tellin' ya, there's a pool forming at your feet. -end sig-