Computer Science Canada Linux more stable than XP? |
| Author: | Geminias [ Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:15 am ] |
| Post subject: | Linux more stable than XP? |
I'm bored and I like to argue so I figure I will point out my conclusions. After using Linux exclusively for 1.5 years and Windows ever since 95 I've realized that I've spent more time poring over how to "get things working" in Linux than all my Windows fixing error time combined. This is in part because hardware manufacturers mostly focus on making their hardware work on Windows. But I would argue another reason... unstandardization. Getting my hardware configured properly on Linux took a lot of time, but that is all dwarfed by the amount of time I've spent trying to configure applications that were built for yes BUILT FOR linux. With each new kernel that seemingly offers no semblance of backwards compatibility here I am forced to "get things working" again. I'll never forget the two occasions I ran "yum update" and could barely get my computer to boot let alone salvage my many hours worth of customizations and configurations. But that was before I met Debian. I know I would have given up on Linux altogether if Fedora was the only option. To this day I think it's a bloated piece of crap. But that's another story... Yes, about unstandardization, I really think the free software and open source community has one major drawback, in that it's impossible to enforce standards. Most apps compile with a simple ./configure && make && make install but not all. And of those, how many compile sweetly and bite you on the ass when you attempt to use it? Or fail in the process of compiling. Package managers certainly are wonderful things - if not for them Linux would be too much of a waste of time to bother. At the end of the day - Windows is definitely the OS of choice for anyone not interested in spending loads of time on their computer. For someone like me however, who enjoys tinkering, and endless customizations, and open source... Linux is my only option. My relationship with Linux is kind of like me and the last female on Earth, if that scenario ever should arise I hope she's more beautiful than Linux currently is. So is Linux more stable? I don't know how anyone on earth can complain that they see a "Blue screen of death" the odd time under windows (especially XP where it is rare) when it is clear that despite the linux filesystem being superior and the design more dynamic, you do have to spend thousands of times more time "fiddling" to get the system you want, the applications you want working, and finally the whole process of keeping things working with the persistent kernel upgrades that call for revamping your whole system (depending what apps you are using). Some would say: "don't update if your system works good now" that's actually what I was told in Fedora Core Support about the whole yum update thing. Trouble is, in theory that sounds great, but what about when a new killer app comes along and you gotta get a kernel update to run it? It's also possible that I'm just unlucky/stupid and that most Linux users spend little time dealing with errors and configuration issues. So that's why I created this thread... thoughts? |
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| Author: | rdrake [ Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:54 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Linux more stable than XP? |
Two things:
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| Author: | Mazer [ Sat Aug 04, 2007 11:39 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
I'll admit Linux sucks. I do prefer it to Windows though. More of a "it works for me" deal than me caring about stability or anything. Both systems have been stable enough for my needs. You mention that "Windows is definitely the OS of choice for anyone not interested in spending loads of time on their computer". I'm not an OSX user, but is there any reason why you don't talk about it or is this just a Windows-Linux comparison? |
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| Author: | Dan [ Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:25 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
I think you are mixing up a system being stable with it being easy to set up and get working. Stable basicly means that it can run with out crashing or runing in to errors for a given periode of time and not how easy you can set it up. In terms of " Linux more stable than XP" i think there is litte debate that it is. Now what your problem seems to be is how easy linux is to set up, upgrade and use daly. In this area you are probly right that on average XP is easyer to use then your average linux distro. However this mostly becues XP lmits costiumziabliltiy and overly simplfys everything. I whould say it is realy up to the distro for how much time you will need to spend on seting things up. Things like suse are almost setup free and can even be easyer to install then windows. |
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| Author: | md [ Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:09 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Linux is more stable then Windows. It's not even a fair comparison. As for setup, yes setting things up on windows is sometimes easier (don't get me started with multiple hosted domains on IIS, or DNS with microsoft servers...) however there really isn't a whole lot of choice in what you can customize. Linux gives you choice even where most people don't know the difference. So yes, linux takes more time to setup; but setup is a onetime thing, stability is constant. In the end linux stability trumps setup easily. |
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| Author: | wtd [ Sat Aug 04, 2007 10:13 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
md @ Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:09 am wrote: So yes, linux takes more time to setup; but setup is a onetime thing, stability is constant. In the end linux stability trumps setup easily.
Your post is server centric, so I'll take on the desktop: Linux is easier to setup, and quicker, assuming you have a decent package manager. There's no time lost hunting down installers. |
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| Author: | Geminias [ Sun Aug 05, 2007 6:22 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Yeah I agree with everything you guys said, except "in the end linux stability trumps setup easily." Although not explicitly stated, my argument was the fact that no one should choose linux because it is "more stable". The principle being, if you don't enjoy spending time fixing errors, than stick with Windows. Despite how many BSOD you get, Linux configuration errors will cost you ten-fold (probably more) whatever time you spend "fixing" Windows errors. I realize there is no doubt the Linux system is more stable than Windows, however the reason I don't agree Linux "stability trumps setup times" is because Linux so often destroys your setups with buggy upgrades that cause damage to existing setups (or sometimes upgrades that warn in that 10 page long documentation of what damage can occur, which is almost the same thing as not warning you - lol - who honestly reads that stuff all the time? ) Now, if you think about it, does it really matter if the system architecture is more stable if the wall paper keeps falling off causing you to spend time "fixing" things. Viewed purely in time, windows could be said to be more stable and dependable, because it costs you far less time to upkeep it. After all, time is money. Sorry to be so wordy I'm tired and not too clever right now... EDIT: (But I should add - using a linux kernel to run a server is probably better than windows in every way because you have to worry about far less things to break your system. I believe I had my server running for a year without having to do anything except initial setup. But for a desktop where I'm constantly testing out new programs it has been nuts how much debugging time I've gotten myself into.) Windows sucks, but at least if your not in the mood to fiddle around, you can always depend on downloading a .exe that works at the click of a mouse. The same just cannot be said for linux because not everything can be found in a package manager. |
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| Author: | Mazer [ Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:08 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
I think you're talking more about usability then. And I'll agree, not having a binary is a big pain in the ass. Package managers alleviate this problem though. Quite a bit, actually, since I can search the repositories and avoid going to a website altogether. As for upgrades breaking the system, I've had that happen to me maybe on-- has it happened to me? Let's say once or twice since I've started using Ubuntu on my desktop ~3 years ago, and I install updates whenever I'm made aware of them. |
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| Author: | rdrake [ Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:07 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Again, I've never had Ubuntu just break itself. Everything just worked and was easy as can be. After checking out the Ubuntu guide, one could have a complete Linux system working in under an hour that's stable and just works right. The only distribution I've had break on its own (and I've used dozens!) was Gentoo. Oh and for servers, everybody whose anybody runs FreeBSD on their server.  |
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| Author: | md [ Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:14 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Geminias @ 2007-08-05, 6:22 am wrote: Although not explicitly stated, my argument was the fact that no one should choose linux because it is "more stable". The principle being, if you don't enjoy spending time fixing errors, than stick with Windows. Despite how many BSOD you get, Linux configuration errors will cost you ten-fold (probably more) whatever time you spend "fixing" Windows errors. I have spent such a small amount of time setting up and maintaining my system vs. the amount of time I use it that it is not even worth thinking about. If your spending that much time setting things up then you are probably doing something wrong.
Geminias @ 2007-08-05, 6:22 am wrote: I realize there is no doubt the Linux system is more stable than Windows, however the reason I don't agree Linux "stability trumps setup times" is because Linux so often destroys your setups with buggy upgrades that cause damage to existing setups (or sometimes upgrades that warn in that 10 page long documentation of what damage can occur, which is almost the same thing as not warning you - lol - who honestly reads that stuff all the time? ) No software install I have ever run destroyed my previous system; with the exception of a major system base upgrade that broke my networking because I did not read the very explicit instructions of how to finish the upgrade. I know Gentoo isn't for everyone; but surely other distro's do something similar to emerge in that they won't overwrite config files you have changed? To do otherwise would be plain stupid! Likewise not reading the documentation and then blaming the problems on the system you are using is stupid. The docs usually list the possible problems and the solutions to those problems, if you don't read them then it's your fault things break.
While your distro of choice does make a difference, there is no reason at all to be spending that much time setting things up. Either you are doing a whole lot of weird things or aren't reading the documentation, both of which place the blame for long config times on you. Hell, I can do a complete Gentoo install in 20 hours, most of that I don't even need to be at the computer as all it's doing is compiling things. It takes *maybe* an hour or an hour and a half to get a computer setup exactly as I like it. For reference it took me forever to get windows updated last time I installed it, and another long time to get all the software I wanted. For me windows took WAY too long and cost WAY too much; my time is worth significant amounts of money. |
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| Author: | apomb [ Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:47 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Linux more stable than XP? |
Quote: After using Linux exclusively for 1.5 years and Windows ever since 95 I've realized that I've spent more time poring over how to "get things working" in Linux than all my Windows fixing error time combined.
I also had this very similar experience, however, when i was using windows back in 95, i was not the one to do the "fiddling" and when i eventually started using my own computers and was the one doing the fiddling, i found it MUCH easier to fix things (documentation and forums) in linux than if i ever had any problems in windows. I think what you are talking about there is also a learning curve that is surely steep with linux, and since Windows was your (and many of our) first OS experience you do not recall the learning curve of it. So based on 1.5 years of solid Linux experience, you simply might not have conquered the learning curve for Linux yet. |
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| Author: | Geminias [ Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:09 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Just changed my Login Theme via the Login Manager and now I can't login to Ubuntu graphically. Now it's gonna take me at least an hour to figure out where the configuration files are for login manager and undo them, because I think if I uninstall gdm and reinstall I'll lose my hotkeys which I just spent loads of time setting up. Hmm.. can you skip the login manager and get gnome back if you login first then startx via command line? (I'd test this myself if I didn't have to figure out how to stop the login manager trying to load on init 7 (or whatever ctrl-alt-f7 is called) preventing me from starting x on another runlevel) EDIT: Hahaha, I killed gdm then started x and tried to fix the login window settings via the gui, but it said GDM was still not started. So I suppose GDM is not part of the X server? Anyways, then I start GDM and it demands a new x server so I allow it. Then I get it switching from my broken login to my desktop back and forth back and forth... In the time it allotted me between switching x servers I managed to use the GUI app to revert the login window settings. So I exaggerated when I said an hour to fix... I think it was ten minutes. But still pretty scary experience for just wanting a new login window. If this isn't bad programming or the result of unstandardization amoug open source developers... what can be to blame? I used the standard installation method of a new login theme and it broke my system. I decided to put this post here to take you on one of my adventures with linux. The point is that this is not an adventure any of us should have went on. I can see if I was trying to do things that were considered unnatural and experimental - but I wanted a login window and in the process it FORCED me to learn more about how linux works so I could fix it. Again, I'm not totally complaining here, I do like how things are fixable in Linux if you got the knowledge. My point is there are times I want to learn and times I don't. If i wanted to learn what the GDM was etc. I would try to install some experimental theme and get it working... I wouldn't use the standard user friendly method of installing it. Wait... is there such a thing as a standard user friendly way of doing things in Linux if you can't depend on it to work 100% of the time? |
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| Author: | wtd [ Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:26 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
If you stay within the bounds of a well-established routine, then things are a cinch. Once you step outside of that, things start to get complicated. That applies to both Windows and Linux. Chances are you'll find more help in the Linux world, and it won't be of the "let me help you reinstall Windows and get back to the routine." It'll be the kind of help that helps you achieve your original goal. |
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| Author: | Geminias [ Tue Aug 07, 2007 8:18 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
I agree but there should be limits. Installing themes should be one of those dependable aspects of Linux. Something you should never have to worry will break your system. I have nothing more to say on the subject, I think Linux is less stable than Windows because no matter what you try to do there's a possibility you'll have to spend time reversing it to get your system back. You cannot depend on anything to work in Linux. This is exacerbated by the fact that hardware manufacturers are not supportive of the free-software community. I'll never use windows again, but that's because of the linux community and everything else except the fact that Linux is more stable, cause it's not. It breaks all too often. |
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| Author: | Mazer [ Tue Aug 07, 2007 8:36 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
I still don't get how a change of the GDM theme could screw things up so badly. Can we get details? |
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| Author: | md [ Tue Aug 07, 2007 11:31 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Geminias @ 2007-08-07, 8:18 am wrote: I'll never use windows again, but that's because of the linux community and everything else except the fact that Linux is more stable, cause it's not. It breaks all too often. Linux is stable. It's stable when you use software that is known to have few bugs and then don't change anything once you set it up. Ubuntu is not setup like that (really only servers are), and thus cannot be expected to have the same level of stability. It's certainly more stable then windows, but that doesn't mean it won't break every now and then.
I am curious as to exactly what you did though, because breaking GDM should be impossible simply by installing a new theme. Perhaps you changed some other setting too? Or installed a new driver? ****** by linux in this post I mean GNU/Linux which is a combination of systems software licensed primarily under the GPL or variants thereof and the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel itself is actually very robust, I have only managed to cause it to crash twice, and one of those times was a hardware issue. |
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| Author: | Geminias [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:34 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Linux more stable than XP? |
I just changed the login theme by drag and dropping the new theme I got from gnome-art into the login manager and selecting it. I cruised the Ubuntu forums and found that this happens frequently and the recommended fix is to uninstall gdm and reinstall it to get your GUI back... And I have also been referring to GNU/Linux. I understand the kernel is robust, but my opinion is this is offset by the amount of technical knowledge one must have to keep the GNU software from breaking your system. Admittedly most of my problems have been related to GNOME and the X window server in one way or another. |
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| Author: | PaulButler [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:45 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
People don't give XP much credit, but I have found it to be very stable. I can't remember it crashing on me since I got my laptop. That said, I will soon be installing the latest Ubuntu over my XP install. Ubuntu's hardware support and detection has gotten pretty darn good. |
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| Author: | md [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:20 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Sounds to me like GDM on ubuntu is broken, probably by some patches someone applied. Get Gentoo! |
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| Author: | rizzix [ Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:39 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Linux is a pain when it comes to drivers. Some devices have such terrible support, it's a nightmare trying to get those devices to work. Also, some devices have `experimental` drivers, and as such if they crash (assuming you use them), they are bound to crash the kernel. In such `experimental` cases Linux is unstable. Windows on the other hand is quite the plug-n-play. |
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| Author: | md [ Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:44 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
ATIs windows vista driverss have a huge gaping security hole in them; far from ideal
Drivers are always an issue because a) they require knowledge of hardware and b) hardware never works like it's supposed to. |
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| Author: | Prince Pwn [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:13 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
All of my experiences with an installation with Linux went bad. But the Live CD's usually work great. I love Sabayon and Beryl, but when I tried to install it to the HDD my drivers didn't work right, they work fine off the DVD though, so something went wrong during installation. |
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| Author: | bugzpodder [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:41 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Linux more stable than XP? |
my 2 cents. for users like me who just want to surf the web, play some games and chat on MSN, occassionally do some dev or word processing, windows is fantastic at that. but the point is, probably 99%? of users are like me. MS makes pretty good pieces of software. Its the other stuff they spent doing I don't like so much. I'd really like to see the day WoW runs on linux, not that I play myself |
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| Author: | rizzix [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:42 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Yeah, Linux has a long way to go to become an ideal desktop OS. Also this might have been mentioned before but linux's style of package management is quite bogus. It requires someone to package a piece of software into a certain repository so that others may install it. In addition to that these repositories are distro specific. So each distro has it's own. This simply makes distributing applications extremely difficult. Before you argue: command line configure / make is out of the question. Since most distro have their own file system hierarchy, thus nothing is consistent. This does not make installing software any easier. Also the configure / make solutions usually don't have an uninstall option. They also make dependency management extremely difficult. |
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| Author: | Dan [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 1:07 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Linux more stable than XP? |
bugzpodder @ 12th August 2007, 9:41 am wrote: I'd really like to see the day WoW runs on linux, not that I play myself That day was over a years ago, many peoleop have been playing WoW threw wine on linux for some time. There was even some debate over bilzard banning them becues there anti-hacking software thought they where using a cheat program of some kind. You can find instructions on how to set up WoW and wine on linux online if you look, for example the gentoo wiki has a guide: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_and_update_World_Of_Warcraft_with_wine Bilzard also makes a mac version of WoW for the mac users out there. |
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| Author: | Nick [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Linux more stable than XP? |
2 words mellnium edition... im willing to give this peice of shit up for anything... also i hear linux is good for making servers... although ive been born and raised on windows and its amazing they failed misrably on the ME so please PLEASE take away my sufferering and get me XP  |
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| Author: | Mazer [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 4:14 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Suffering on a computer? Go ride a bike. |
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| Author: | Nick [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:12 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Mazer @ Sun Aug 12, 2007 4:14 pm wrote: Suffering on a computer? Go ride a bike.
i cant the chain is broken i have to walk everywhere... its an hour walk just to get to school... |
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| Author: | Mazer [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:52 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Sell your computer and buy a chain? |
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| Author: | rizzix [ Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:10 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Why would any sane person do that? |
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| Author: | Nick [ Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:57 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
i really dont know... |
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| Author: | Geminias [ Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:49 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Mazer is a coherent poster... About the point rizzix was making, I forgot to mention that. Even though package managers are great in theory, there is no set standard to encompass all of the open source community so as to provide more availability. There is no good reason why all Unix based systems shouldn't have the same software availability - complete with automated uninstalls... |
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| Author: | haskell [ Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:17 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
Its easy for Microsoft: One target OS, one way. For Linux, standardization is very difficult. Outside the kernel and the accepted standards of a Linux distribution, anything under the sun is fair game. |
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| Author: | rizzix [ Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:46 am ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
That kind of foolish mentality is hurting the linux community. Which is probably why the wiser linux gurus have recently had some talk on the issue. They're pushing for standardizations! |
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| Author: | md [ Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:32 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
I like the Mac OS X way of installing apps, very easy. The only problem is that it usually only works for user-level apps; system software always seems to have an installer... and I do not know where they store their configs (probably the same place they would on any other BSD system) |
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| Author: | rizzix [ Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | RE:Linux more stable than XP? |
The macosx way is not perfect either
There's no such thing as dependency checks (at least not in the drag-n-drop method of application installation). But, the macosx way bundles all extra required libraries within the .app thus making dependency checks redundant. Thats not to say there's no mechanism to install frameworks system-wide/globally. In fact apple's osx frameworks are all globally installed. The problem is that there is no way to check for an existing framework while doing the drag-n-drop approach to application installation. (Which is probably why Apple has introduced an alternative for such cases: osx packages) This actually is also the approach pc-bsd has taken, though pc-bsd requires an installer always, unlike osx. Application specific data is always saved in certain standard locations. Depending on the how visible you want this info to be, it maybe saved user-local, system-wide or network-wide. This is done by saving it in ~/Libraries/Application Support/, /Libraries/Application Support/ and /Network/Libraries/Application Support respectively. Application preferences (not any other data) is saved in another standardized location: ~/Libraries/Preferences/, /Libraries/Preferences/ or /Network/Libraries/Preferences/. All preferences are saved as xml-ized plist's (property lists). Deleting an app does not delete the preferences or app data, but this is a minor issue, since osx preferences/app-data unlike the windows registry are just ordinary files. Their presence does not affect the system's performance. It would affect the system's "free space" though. If you wish, you can delete it manually. OSX packages on the other hand do have a means of automated uninstall. |
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