Is Linux a threat to Microsoft?
I finally got fed up with Windows, the viruses, the fragmenting, the slow start-ups and shutdowns, so I used Windows one last time, which is to download and burn Xubuntu and installed it, and I loved it, fast start-ups and shutdowns, no viruses, little to no fragmenting, no bloatware, the only criticisms is using the Terminal, because it scares me, and playing flash games, playing flash games is slower then on Windows, besides that, after using it for almost eight months, I can say Linux is better than Windows, but I'm still scared of the Terminal. After I read the story on EU Linux users suing Microsoft for the UEFI Secure Boot, which makes it hard for novice users like myself, from installing Linux on a computer designed for Windows 8, it begs the question, does Microsoft consider Linux a threat? I hope Microsoft will fix this, because it is not fair, it violates the freedom of choose.
Why does Linux seem so much faster than Windows?
NTFS and the NT filesystem stack. Even when using another filesystem in NT it is still way slower than Linux file-systems. Even the Linux NTFS driver is faster than Windows NTFS.Optimized software. Microsoft and most Windows developers has no need to optimize their software. They are charging more for their software than what most of their users spend on hardware. So they can always refer their paying users to the “but more hardware” solutions. And the OEM users that complain that their low budget PC is slow? Well they bought Windows Home as well, and will probably not buy the full Office suite. Linux on the other hand has developers that care about optimization and they chose to spend time on it for various reasons. This doesn’t only apply to the Linux kernel but also most applications that run on Linux.Server vs Client markets. On a client the per client cost of adding more ram or going for more CPU power are generally not that great. On a server serving perhaps thousands of users you may already be on the top of what hardware you can buy. It doesn’t become a question of how much you can upgrade your computer but instead it becomes about how many server buildings you will need. So for developers and end users like Amazon, Rackspace, Google and even Microsoft themselves, the efficiency of Linux and it’s server software becomes important.Hardware vs Software profit margins. This is going to answer the question of why Mac OS is faster than Windows. Apple sells computers and every cent they spend on adding performance to their hardware comes out of their profit margin. In Q3 2018 Apple sold 5.3 million PC:s with OS X. Now if they can fit OS X into an Intel processors that cost $1 less then that is 5.3 million dollar in that quarter. And with DDR4 memory costs requiring 8GB instead of 16 GB of memory is going to be billions in extra profit margins. Microsoft on the other hand doesn’t profit from making Windows more efficient, unless more people buy their product. Because their product doesn’t include hardware. HP and DELL may profit from this but not really. Because unlike Apple they have competitors so they would just ening up selling the hardware at a lower price.Or let me put this another way. If Apple make OS X more efficient then they save money. If Microsoft make Windows more efficient then YOU, the consumer, save money. One of these are going to influence corporate decision making.
Why does it take so long to update Windows? It can take more than a dozen trips to Windows Update and another dozen or more restarts before my newly installed Windows is up to date. Why can't Microsoft find a better way to do this?
So that nothing breaks!Updates are scary for developers. You push that deploy button and you hope and pray nothing goes wrong. And it's even scarier for Microsoft. When you're the operating system powering close to 90% of all global enterprise, billions of dollars are lost when you screw up.Windows updates are performing tons of safety checks before installing, while installing, and after installing. If things fail, they try again or in a different way. If that fails too, now they have to seemlessly undo whatever they just tried to do. Windows updates are designed to be safe, and that safety comes at the cost of speed.On the other end are some Linux distributions, which can install updates in under 10 seconds. But things break all the time. Example: one day everything is fine and the next your desktop stops working because an update to the open source graphics driver you're using doesn't work with your hardware. And now you have to spend a day figuring out what went wrong and undoing the update manually. The reason Linux is isn't always breaking is because updates aren't forced, you choose when to take the gamble of updating.MacOS doesn't take as long because updates only run on the tiny number of devices Apple makes and still supports (i.e. one new MacBook a year). So the number of safety checks it has to run are a lot smaller than Windows does because there are literally thousands of PCs being made every year and supported for much longer.If you're wondering why updates are forced, it's for your security. It's the same reason Google separated Android security patches from regular system updates: so they can push them out faster and make them mandatory. Outdated software is vulnerable, and that vulnerability costs Google, Microsoft, Apple, the economy, society, etc. money. It's in everyone's best interest to stay updated.Is it fair that some company is forcing these decisions on you instead of letting you decide what to do with your own property? I won't say, but we're forced to wear seatbelts while driving too.
Linux: Windows requires a restart after installing most software. Why doesn't Android?
Android IS Linux. Just a branch of it. Linux only requires a reboot if the Kernel is modified, and from what I understand that is about to change. The new kernel will be able to update without a reboot. Windows was way worse than it is today. Even as late as XP, to install almost ANY package you had to reboot. Today you still have to reboot if you install drivers, update any important DLL or driver. The reason is because the Windows kernel is static. It does not reload link libraries like Linux does. It's totally blind to changes in them actually. One reason if you go a bit without a reboot and have installed stuff in between boots you can get a really nasty surprise when you do reboot a Windows machine. All kernels until recently were static. The Linux kernel is the first I am aware of, at least the coming kernel, that can dynamically reload itself. It's really difficult to reload the kernel. It's like building a card house, then changing the table without knocking the cards down. The kernel is the foundation of everything that computer is. So when it changes everything else changes also. So much can go wrong that it's just easier to reboot and make sure everything restarted. I am really looking forward to the new kernel. Kernel updates used to be rather rare. Once or twice a year and I've gone an entire year without rebooting a Linux box before. None of the kernel updates that happened that year added anything I needed or were security fixes. So I just didn't install them. I'd love to go back to that. Lately it seems like I'm lucky to go 2 months between reboots and I only reboot when there's a kernel update.
Why does Windows require a system restart for almost every software install but not Linux?
The main reason as to why windows need rebooting for almost every software installation is that windows use dll files.Now DLL ( dynamic link library) means that many applications can use single fileor any application with almost the same need can look up to these files . And if the new software you want to install need to copy any of these files it may cause some errors if those files are already in use causing system crash.That is why you need to restart your system to make sure proper installing of the new application.Sometimes the software you installed makes integral changes in the system which obviously requires a restart.NOW,coming over to Linux . Linux does not require a restart because the OS is made up of small packages and unlike windows no sharing of similar codes.So a software installation makes changes to only a small package and not to the system as whole,which makes it easier to install and eliminates the need of restarting your system every time.
Why do people use Microsoft Windows...?
Microsoft is THE most popular software on the face of this planet. If you were a hacker, and wanted to cause problems for the greatest number of people with money, which would you choose? Software that maybe 500 million people use... or software that well over 4 billion people use? Hopefully most will have installed spyware detectors, anti-virus software and firewalls - but there will still be a number who won't. On Linux - you have to be "admin or sys-ops" before you can install software, most users of Ubuntu are "users"
Software compatibility with Ubuntu (Linux)?
First of all as every one has said before windows software will not run natively on Linux, there is a but, linux has a programme called wine which will run quite a few windows programmes, for info on this http://www.winehq.com/ there are linux equivelent programmes for nearly all windows programmes and most are installed when you install linux. k3b is an excelent cd/dvd burning suite open office is on par with ms office pro it includes equivelents to word, excel, access & powerpoint and can edit microsoft documents. The Gimp is an image editing programme on par with photoshop. Don't worry too much about security, there will be a good firewall included and you don't get viruses with linux although there is an antivirus progaramme (I don't use it myself) which will sort out windows viruses. One thing to remember with linux is that it is different from windows and you will need to learn how to use it, although it is easy. The best way would be to use a dual boot setup with windows while you get used to Linux, just put the CD in the drive & reboot, (make sure the bios are set to boot from CD before hard disk) linux will do the rest for you with a little input from you, it will work better than a live CD, you may even find, like me that linux is better than windows. mail me if you want any help.