OSNews

Throughout this article i have been more than fair to Windows than I probably should have been, but sorry Bill, you aren't going to snake out of this one. It's no myth, Windows is bad news on the server. Don't believe me? Check out Netcraft's uptimes, the highest belong to FreeBSD and Linux. There are a couple of Windows servers up there, but they are few and far between. "Yes this is true but uptime is not all that counts, if you are up for thirty days and then do a 2 minute reboot at 3 am I doubt the world will end." This is true, and this is the exact argument that Microsoft is pushing with there new server OS, they claim that since IIS (Internet Information Server, Microsoft's very own web server) runs closer to the operating system, it has faster response times and can serve up pages more effectively, than on a Linux system where the web server is running "far removed from the OS." I am no security expert but if you tried to sell your web server to the Linux community on the basis that it "works in kernel space instead of user space!" you would be laughed out of the room, and possibly the state. Yes you get a slight performance increase but you are still limited by the system hardware, and if you have an memory leak you definitely don't want the memory to leak all of your kernel's memory, that could bring down your system in a matter of seconds. While Linux does have security problems like any piece of software, if you make any sort of effort to patch it up you are tons better off than running a really secured version of windows, in either case crackers are glorified and if it was really that "easy," to break into a website yahoo would never be up, and neither would Microsoft.com. Update: Apparently the new Windows 2003 Server is not a bad competitor to Linux and FreeBSD according to a lot of people, but sadly I never tried it.

Myth #6: Mac is the best since it is as easy to use as windows, and has the stability of UNIX

Macs are stable, yes. Macs are easy to use, again true. However Apple suffers from some very serious "one size fits all" issues. I would like to forewarn readers that i have had exceptionally little experience with macs, think 4 or 5 hours total. This is just a little bit of what I have gathered if I am wrong please, please, politely point it out under the assumption that I am telling you I have no idea what I am talking about. On with the goodies! Every single time I am at the mall I drag everyone into the Mac store making my way all around it with my jaw dragging the floor. No doubt the hardware is sleek and sexy, the desktops are always up and running, and the graphics subsystem is a work of art to be mimicked for years to come. Too me Macs are like a really fancy furniture store, everything looks incredible, is comfortable, and of the utmost quality. The only problem is that of a monetary nature. From my voice to your ears: "I can't afford a Mac!" Believe me if I was a millionaire this would be a PowerMac g5 instead of a cruddy old p3 450mhz machine I brought back from the grave. That is another story, now onto the issue at hand. My one and only qualm with Mac is the fact that everything has to be for and about Mac, Apple is in the business of selling an "experience." This is fine and dandy if you don't mind buying Mac hardware, and Mac software updates, as well as using mostly Mac applications. I would like to reiterate the point that those may not be negatives for some of you, still, I am a tinkerer and a fan of the cheap, and diverse world of standard PC hardware. Just remember that while Macs are great computers they do have some shortcomings. Thinking objectively you must realize Macs have the least hardware support, as well as the least diverse selection of software. I am completely aware of "the mhz myth" and would like to point out that even though the megahertz gap between a mac processor and a p4 is not really the performance gap, but the latest from Intel has usually been better than the latest from Apple, and with the x86 architecture you get more bang for your buck. Please no fan boy flames about Mac hardware, bottom line: it's good stuff but you can get a better system, hardware speaking, for cheaper if you go with x86. Additionally Apple goes to nVidia and ATI to provide them with their graphics cards, which is a good move. ATI and nVidia are the world leaders in graphics, just as Intel is the leader in processors, so you would be much better off building a computer using the best, of the best, throughout the hardware industry instead of being in vendor lock-in with Apple. That last part is just my opinion, some people love being 100% pure Apple users, and to those a say, more power too ya'!

Myth #7: Linux is ready for the desktop

I know, I know, I am just asking to be flamed, all the same I am going to speak my peace and be done with it. I find it amusing when i come across Linux support forum posts, where a newbie desktop user says something to the effect of: "in Windows I was able to point to this, and click on this, to get this done, how do I do that in Linux?" and they get a snotty response in the format of, "That's insecure and dumb, now open up a terminal su over and issue this command, then use the output to determine what format your distro uses for this, then you will be able to do this, as long as this isn't happening." You see, no one is accusing Windows of being intuitive, or especially easy to use. The fact of the matter is Joe average can manage to point and click his way to installing a piece of software. Linux suffers from too much diversity, and too much flexibility. I just know someone is going to bring up "apt-get," stop! Don't bring this up! For Linux to be ready for the average home desktop you have to get it to the point where a user will never have to see a terminal no matter what they want to do on their computer. Personally I don't think Linux ever will be ready for the user next door, nor do I think it ever should. There can be some other open source project to make a desktop OS. I myself like the idea of the OS becoming "transparent, like the OS on my microwave or car." (I read that on Osnews.com somewhere, all credit to that author) The two most common mis-perceptions that i have heard assume one of two things. A) The average user is overestimated. We simply assume they know, or can figure out more things than they actually can, or would care to. B) The user wants to do more with their desktop than we think. You would be surprised at how far people are pushing their desktop machines. People are downloading the latest and greatest file sharing tools and games. They are downloading mini-web servers to show off pictures, and are doing heavy duty desktop tweaking. These things are made more complicated on Linux because of permissions and environment confusion. If you develop software for Windows you know what libraries and API's are available to you, and if you want to use one that is not available to a default Windows install you include it in your installer. I wish it was that simple with Linux applications. You never know what libraries the user has installed, aside from the core ones. Basically if you want to create a program outside of "hello world," you better hope your user knows how to get those libraries compiled and installed, and that they want to take the time, and effort to do so. Maybe some of these problems can be solved, but again in my experience every effort to make a distro more user friendly has screwed up something else, something that I can't live without.

Conclusion

Hopefully you came away with the conclusion that not all operating systems are created equally, but all have their flaws. Using the information above should aid you in your decision to choose a platform that suites you best, at the very least I brought up some very profound points from all sides of the argument as to persuade some people out there who seem to think their OS is the absolute best. Remember to keep an open mind and have fun with it.

About the Author
Nick Comtois is an up and coming web developer (at least he hopes) who has been using the Slackware distro of linux for the past 2 years and has never looked back, except for when someone hypes up another distro and I run off to try and come crawling back to Slack. I have done everything from application programming with C/C++ to web scripting with perl and php.