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Is Windows the ultimate evil or perhaps just another necessary evil?
I recently was asked why I hated Microsoft so much. For the record -- I don't hate Microsoft. I'm a pragmatist, learning everything I can and putting it away until it's needed. Currently Microsoft is king ... and most people don't like the king. Unless of course they love the king. Saying anything positive or negative about the king's new clothes will draw the ire of one side or the other. The Amazing Microsoft WindowsWe complain because of conflicts in the operating system (pick your flavor) especially when we get the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD). We mumble about a time, back before Windows, when an operating system would run for years without having to be rebooted. But we forget that that machine cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. The operating system was built specifically for that machine. The device drivers were built to work with that operating system and that particular piece of hardware alone. Now-a-days I can buy most any device off the shelf and add it to my motherboard, turn my computer on and voila ... it works, at least 99.5% of the time. I, for one, think that's incredible. Strengths and WeaknessesEvery situation has its good and bad, and Microsoft is no different. Its strength is its weakness. With one person making the decisions about whats going to happen, everything runs much more smoothly. Everybody is on the same page. Of course that means that when I want to tweak something so it works better for me and my small group it doesnt happen at all, or if it does, it takes so long for the solution to be implemented that the issue has already resolved itself or become a non-problem. Linux to the Rescue?Linux has the same problem, only in reverse. There are so many mainline distributions already, then add in the fact that I can rewrite the code myself. With no one at the helm, so to speak, everybody is doing something different. At the same time there are so many different varieties I can usually find exactly what I want, from a full version operating system like Redhat, or a mini operating system to turn my old 486 into a layer 3 switch like FreeSco, or anything in between. So no, I dont hate Microsoft. In fact I've made a good living off my knowledge of their products. I'm just practical when it comes to operating systems. Let me know you thoughts. What flavor of kool-aid do you drink? Click on "Start a Discussion" below.
The copyright of the article Windows versus Linux in PC Software/OS is owned by Michael Simpson. Permission to republish Windows versus Linux in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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