Going Windows!

[West]

I see what you mean Dugi (and I hope everyone realizes that I wasn't being completely serious with my previous post) but let me tell you, I have been a Windows user for... 16 years now I think? And I have yet to encounter a software issue that couldn't be solved one way or another. At least not since Win 2000 -- with 95/98/ME there was a large number of problems that you simply had to live with. With XP and Win 7, no major stuff at all. The worst things I've encountered are 1) faulty hardware (hard drives, gfx cards and bad RAM mostly), something Linux isn't immune to either, and 2) buggy or incompatible drivers. Just like with Linux you need to pay attention to what stuff you put into your machine. Do your homework.

OTOH, with all the Linux distros I've tried over the years (lost my *nix virginity to Red Hat back in 98 or 99) I've had so many problems that I don't even know where to begin. Not any major showstopping issues perhaps, but a lot of bugs and quirks and unpredictable behavior. Ubuntu's and Mint's main party trick was losing my network card. Randomly. One boot it would work fine, on the next the NIC was not detected. This happened on two different hardware setups BTW, so it was not a problem with the NIC. I seem to remember settings being lost from one boot to the next as well. Resolution, placement and behavior of interface parts.

And my main beef with Linux aside from the terminal... upgrades. Linux tells me there's a new OS update ready to be installed. Cool, let's do it! Half an hour later I find that major parts of my setup has been lost, either because the developers decided that I needed a new interface (hi, Unity!) or because my third party software has been either reset to defaults or even uninstalled because it's not officially compatible with the new update! So what am I supposed to do, never update and let my OS become obsolete if I want to keep things the way I want them?

I'm sure many of you will disagree but my point is that Linux, no matter what distro, will not be the desktop OS of the masses anytime soon. It's just not "there yet". In fact in some aspects it's not even in the same part of the world as "there".

Well... there's Android of course. Would you be surprised if I told you that I'm on my third Android smartphone now and all have been very buggy? Maybe I'm cursed.

[fabi]

Only do trivial things? Exactly what do you consider non-trivial? Programming and running servers? From the top of my head that's the only two things Linux might be better at than Win/Mac.

I guess pyrophorus (and myself) talked from a network administrator's point of view.

Doing internet stuff (Just browsing, mail, chatting, etc) is a field where you have to be much less careful on Linux.
For example, I do not need to hesitate clicking on any mail attachment.

But sure, as I wrote in the other thread:
The best operating system is always the one that let's you get the work done and that you like.

Linux is not user unfriendly, it is just different.

For example, I can setup a new system and install all the software I need in a short amount of time, out of the distributions package system.
(You can keep a list of software you want and tell the package manager to get all of it at once for example.)

After a new Windows installation, I need to search the needed software and also be careful not to get a spoiled version from an untrustworthy source.
A fresh Linux installation is just more complete.

About the firewall matter, there is a difference between a personal firewall and a professional network firewall.

Anyway, flamewars about which operating system owns the planet is just childish.
Let's be happy that we have the choice between several different solutions nowadays.

Microsoft was forced to make Windows much more stable, reliable and secure because of alternatives (not only Linux) that did better on such fields for example.

That is not only true for software. I still remember the times where every IBM compatible machine had an intel processor.
In these days the processor made half of the whole systems fund.

[Max]

I don't think that justifies such drastically poorer performance - with GDB I could run the game with a stable 50 FPS, the VS debug build can go down to as low as 3-4 FPS while playing animations. I guess the answer is instead that the MS debugger collects more data than GDB, as you mentioned.

The reason the debug build is so slow is due to iterator debugging (see http://benc45.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/ ... al-studio/, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003 ... s-iterator).

iirc it was Anonymissimus who created a fast debug configuration that had iterator debugging disabled. someone removed this option from the solution in the meantime.

[Gambit]

Developers spewing OS-war flamebait? What is the world coming to.



No, but seriously.

[Anonymissimus]

iirc it was Anonymissimus who created a fast debug configuration that had iterator debugging disabled. someone removed this option from the solution in the meantime.

I don't recall that.
Contrarily, I remember gabba setting such a define. It was me who removed it, as I didn't feel much speed improvement on one hand, while an important functionality loss on the other hand. Iterator debugging checks that iterators doen't go out-of-bounds for instance; a frequent problem happening in C++ and not quite checkable by Linux/gdb, there's no reliable crashing.

[pyrophorus]

Only do trivial things? Exactly what do you consider non-trivial? Programming and running servers? From the top of my head that's the only two things Linux might be better at than Win/Mac.

I guess pyrophorus (and myself) talked from a network administrator's point of view.
... <snip>
About the firewall matter, there is a difference between a personal firewall and a professional network firewall.

That's right, and I can perfectly understand someone avoiding Linux because sound and graphic programs are much better on Win/OSX. That said, many users don't even need that. They mainly browse the Internet, write mails and badly laid out texts, store a whole bunch of pictures. All OSs are equally good to do that IMO.

Friendly,

[Anonymissimus]

They mainly browse the Internet, write mails

Uh, no, Linux is better with that (once that you manage to get your internet connection working of course, if you don't, windows is better for obvious reasons). Almost all viruses and other infiltration attempts expect a windows OS below one's browser. The need for a firewall and virus scanner is also basically just due to windows being inherently less secure. Linux is almost immune to viruses.
Apropos infiltration attempts, in the news they say Android (Linux based) can even be infiltrated by NSA as well. Now, that's disappointing. Android is the smartphone market's windows, so to say.

[Dugi]

once that you manage to get your internet connection working of course, if you don't, windows is better for obvious reasons

Funnily, I usually had bigger problems with internet connection on Windows than on Linux. But it might be just a coincidence.

Apropos infiltration attempts, in the news they say Android (Linux based) can even be infiltrated by NSA as well. Now, that's disappointing. Android is the smartphone market's windows, so to say.

I have read that NSA infiltrated Windows by telling Microsoft to make a backdoor for them, and that companies like Google, Apple and Facebook made backdoors for NSA as well. So I'd rather believe that NSA got there just because they asked Google to let them, entering through a door and not through a hole in a wall.
I think that most Linux distros do not have a backdoor like this, because its source code is public and any backdoor-adding change would be revealed very quickly.
Android might be vulnerable to viruses simply because although it is running on Linux, it does not contain the additional protection codes most Linux distros use by default (like AppArmor).

[lipk]

I think that most Linux distros do not have a backdoor like this, because its source code is public and any backdoor-adding change would be revealed very quickly.

OpenBSD had an NSA-style backdoor for, uhm, 2 years or so? I don't think that the myth of the security of open source was actually ever confirmed by scientific research. The theory is nice, sure, but in practice how many people do you think are out there capable of spotting an expertly hidden backdoor in the code? (Provided that they look for it at all?)

On a more on-topic node, VS 2012 is ugly as hell. Not sure about the features yet.

[Dugi]

OpenBSD had an NSA-style backdoor for, uhm, 2 years or so?

In theory, a backdoor isn't easy to find in a million lines of code, but the difference between versions isn't so hard to check usually. Usually.

On a more on-topic node, VS 2012 is ugly as hell.

I am using QtCreator for programming, it is not bound to any OS, so it can be used on Windows and Linux without too many differences. But my opinions in this field are inferior because I am an amateur in IT (but going to start studying it on Monday).

[GunChleoc]

I am using Netbeans which runs both on Windows and Linux. I haven't tried the compiling or debugging functions though.

[pyrophorus]

In theory, a backdoor isn't easy to find in a million lines of code, but the difference between versions isn't so hard to check usually. Usually.

Another way to check this is spying your Internet connection with a good sniffer. Instructive ...

Friendly,

[lipk]

In theory, a backdoor isn't easy to find in a million lines of code, but the difference between versions isn't so hard to check usually. Usually.

Revising a patch is as hard as big the affected codebase is (that's why modularity is every programmer's favorite food). No matter how few lines are changed, if it affects another 10,000 lines of code in any way, you'll have to know those 10,000 lines as well to predict the results. Sometimes, it's also rather difficult to tell that exactly what parts of the program are affected.

I am using QtCreator for programming, it is not bound to any OS, so it can be used on Windows and Linux without too many differences. But my opinions in this field are inferior because I am an amateur in IT (but going to start studying it on Monday).

I do use Creator, but the whole experiment is about familiarizing with Microsoft software

I am using Netbeans which runs both on Windows and Linux. I haven't tried the compiling or debugging functions though.

I used to use NetBeans back in my Java days, but it didn't work well with C++... Additionally, it's the only IDE slower than Eclipse.