Advantages/disadvantages of UNIX/Linux vs. Windows OS?

Question

Advantages/disadvantages of UNIX/Linux vs. Windows OS?

Answer 1

Advantage: it's free. Anything you need to do with your computer ever is free. If your computer doesn't do it, and someone else hasn't thought of it, it's easy to do yourself in an afternoon, and it'll work forever after that. Anything.

Disadvantage: Anything except games and proprietary software. You'll be relying on firefox and google documents if people send you .doc attachments (you can use openoffice and antiword too).

Advantage: No registry, lots of binary packages that work out of the box without installers for just about everything probably exist for whatever distro you end up using, and if you accidentally delete every single thing on your computer, it's no big deal and you can get it right back, especially if you were using a livecd. You can also install things from source and mess around with any setting or part of the program you want. You can completely customize anything on your computer.

Disadvantage: Libraries and dependencies. Half the time things work out of the box. Half the time, you have to download a couple other things to get things to work. You get used to it pretty fast. Microsoft computers have the same problem, they just solve it by redundantly copying whatever libraries a program is going to need no matter how many times they exist elsewhere on your computer, or attempting to use existing ones that may or may not exist and just breaking if they ever get deleted (after a friendly warning when you uninstall that something may or may not be shared).

Advantage: It's easier to write hardware drivers

Disadvantage: Who knows how to write hardware drivers? Today device driver support in newer kernels is great, but many distros use older kernels. Even then, though, there's usually support for windows drivers through things like ndiswrapper (a program that uses windows drivers for wireless cards).

Advantage: Your browser isn't part of your os, and neither is your window manager. You can slap whatever you want up there, including window managers that mimic windows XP

Disadvantage: Fonts. X doesn't come with most of the ones most websites display. Everything's plain old boring text until you get truetype, and it's somewhat of a pain to install.

Advantage: LiveCDs rock; you can use your computer on anyone's computer, anywhere in the world, without having to worry about how some dumb sysadmin has things set up. You can remaster and customize things however you wish, and some distros (dsl) can save the cd image to your computer and boot from that, so you don't even need the cd anymore AND can dump your whole OS to disk whenever you want.

Disadvantage: You end up getting used to the way you have things set up, and the freedom you have with the LiveCD, and then go to work and feel crippled and just don't even bother with the computers there.

Advantage: Version control and several scripting interpreters and compilers are part of the OS, the same way exploder is a part of the windows OS; you're never without development tools

Disadvantage: Due to this fact, all the best software on Unix/Linux is written for developers, the same way all the best Windows software is based around the web browser and file manager (and, of course, games). A lot of unix developers don't write for ease of use.

Answer 2

It depends on what you do or want to do.

I am usually using Linux much more than either Vista or XP (all of my machines are dual-boot).

Windoze can sometimes be easier to log onto a wireless connection (but today I was able to log onto a friend's wireless using both Ubuntu and Vista, but could not get his XP machine to even see let alone log onto the network).

If I want to send an SMS with Skype, I have to switch to windoze, the linux version does not send SMS - otherwise I stay with Linux.

If I want to play the one M$ game that I have installed, I run windoze.

Other than that, I can't think of anything at the moment that requries windoze.

And Linux usually boots up and shuts down noticeably faster than either vista or XP.  

Answer 3

Taken from http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000...

LINUX

Price

The majority of Linux variants are available for free or at a much lower price than Microsoft Windows.

Ease of Use

Although the majority Linux variants have improved dramatically in ease of use, Windows is still much easier to use for new computer users.

Reliability

The majority of Linux variants and versions are notoriously reliable and can often run for months and years without needing to be rebooted.

Software

Linux has a large variety of available software programs and utilities.However, Windows has a much larger selection of available software.

Software cost

Many of the available software programs and utilities available on Linux are freeware and/or open source. Even such complex programs such as Gimp, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and wine are available for free or at a low cost.

Hardware

Linux companies and hardware manufacturers have made great advancements in hardware support for Linux and today Linux will support most hardware devices. However, many companies still do not offer drivers or support for their hardware in Linux.

Security

Linux is and has always been a very secure operating system. Although it still can be attacked when compared to Windows, it much more secure.

Open source

Many of the Linux variants and many Linux programs are open source and enable users to customize or modify the code however they wish to.

Support

Although it may be more difficult to find users familiar with all Linux variants, there are vast amounts of available online documentation and help, available books, and support available for Linux.

WINDOWS

Price

Microsoft Windows can cost a considerable amount per each licensed copy.

Ease of Use

Microsoft has made several advancements and changes that have made it a much easier to use operating system, and although arguably it may not be the easiest operating system, it is still Easier than Linux.

Reliability

Although Microsoft Windows has made great improvements in reliability over the last few versions of Windows, it still cannot match the reliability of Linux.

Software

Because of the large amount of Microsoft Windows users, there is a much larger selection of available software programs, utilities, and games for Windows.

Software cost

Although Windows does have software programs, utilities, and games for free, the majority of the software the costs can be considerable

Hardware

Because of the amount of Microsoft Windows users and the broader driver support, Windows has a much larger support for hardware devices and a good majority of hardware manufacturers will support their products in Microsoft Windows.

Security

Although Microsoft has made great improvements over the years with security on their operating system, their operating system continues to be the most vulnerable to viruses and other attacks.

Open source

Microsoft Windows is not open source and the majority of Windows programs are not open source.

Support

Microsoft Windows includes its own help section, has vast amount of available online documentation and help, as well as books on each of the versions of Windows.

My opinion Linux, my reasons being many. They are probably best described here http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

LUg.