Windows 7: Microsoft's Linux killer?

Or not

Yes windows 7 can when first installed will run on nicely on light hardware, but once you install everything that you need to do everything that you want to do windows has a tendency to take up a lot of RAM

where as on ubuntu im usually running at half a gig 700 Mb while on fire fox with 25 tabs, flash get running, music playing and a load windows open, can W7 say the same and windows tendency to attract spy ware and add ware which even anti virus cant totally eradicate and windows updates mean more RAM in year my ubuntu will probably be running while under load at 800Mb while windows 7 will be taking over 1GB

Take XP for example when you install it take up like 250Mb but now im upto 500BM as standard and 1.2GB while on the Internet playing music etc etc etc so sorry to rain on your parade but no windows will never be light weight for long any way.

Thanks for providing nice

Thanks for providing nice information. If Microsoft window 7 is light weight then it attracts the linux users

Poor Article but Valid Threat

I currently dual boot between the Windows 7 RC and Ubuntu 9.04 but come March next year when the RC deactivates, I will be facing the dilemma of whether to fork out for Windows 7 or not. This decision (involving a few hundred dollars, Australian) will likely influence whether I spend more time in windows, or in linux. After all, if I am going to spend so much money on something, I am going to want to use it.

For me, both Ubuntu and Windows 7 have their own pros and cons.

Ubuntu Advantages compared to Windows 7
- Free
- Compiz cube and grid plugin!
- Increased peace of mind regarding security

Ubuntu Disadvantages
- Lack of good video editing software (Cinelerra sucks, Blender is too hard, kdenlive crashes every 2 sec under gnome and openshotvideo isn't ready yet)
- Lack of good financial software
Gnucash is a joke - why do I have to create folders to categorise expenditure?
- Poor alt-tab support in fullscreen games. The ubuntu devs blame the game devs for this, but really, as an end user, I don't want to know - just work damnit!!!

Windows 7 advantages
- Easy to setup
On ubuntu, I always have to download extra codecs, libdvdcss2, special linux drivers etc which takes about a day for every six month release.
- Nice new taskbar and glass effects
- Lots of software, including open source gtk apps and Nexuiz, privateergold etc
- Aerosnap! Not as good as grid, but handy with the mouse guides

Windows 7 disadvantages
- Lack of virtual desktops
- Aero not configurable like compiz

Your article is baseless.

Ubuntu (FYI a highly popular Linux distro) takes almost the same amount of RAM to run with most Compiz effects turned on and works perfectly (NO VIDEO PLAYBACK ISSUES and a COMPLETE 3D desktop) even on the very first ASUS EEEPC that came out.

It took 2 years for MS to optimize Vista and call it Windows 7? HAHAHAHA! The name itself is so lame. People will actually pay them money for just an OS? Ubuntu comes with so many useful applications like Open Office, Pidgin, Gimp and is free.

Your article is baseless. It appears you have been bribed by MS to spread their propaganda which is so old style pre-1999. Wake up! The world has changed. It's the Internet Age. Not the age of the PC where you lock ur computer inside a cold storage and use it. There are much better choices today. Explore them and learn how to use them like how you learned how to use Windows and THEN COMPARE and ARRIVE AT A CONCLUSION.

To me it appears that your understanding of Linux is almost 0. Linux cannot be "KILLED". It's Open Source Software and it's made by a community of people like myself. We don't wait for a dinosaur like MS to fix problems two weeks after they occur. We find problems and we fix them for everyone's benefit much faster.

The design of Linux is such that it's built for networking and security ground up. You don't need to install LAN card drivers on Linux or choose to install a TCP/IP stack, networking is a feature of the OS. Similarly, security is a feature of the OS and not an additional package (Anti-virus/Firewall) which you need to subscribe to.

Windows is flawed architecturally. It isn't a multiuser system and neither was it designed for being networked or secure. It was meant for usage as a PC OS locked up in your cupboard. I am a Personal Computer;how lame! I can be used by only a single user at a time; what a waste of compute resources!) Hackers don't target Windows because it is 'popular', they target Windows because it's EASIER to attack. Hackers have fun attacking the childish piece of software called Windows.

Who puts all the system configuration into a single point called the system registry and gives API level access to it? And who runs an Anti-Virus software to protect their computer? You really think Anti-Virus software protects you from viruses? It's a cat and mouse game.

Anti Virus software just compares program signatures. If it finds a program signature which matches with it's database, it marks it as a virus. So if it's a new virus, the system gets affected! How lame! Organizations are wasting millions of dollars on Anti Virus software and reducing their productivity. The only resort is either to restart Windows or reinstall it by formatting the entire hard disk. There is no data security on Windows at all!!

The list goes on and on... I don't have time. I'm not salivating like the bribed MS yuppies and evangelists. I'm pretty confident about the software I use. To remind you, I use Linux in case you didn't understand any of what I have been saying. I hope my words of wisdom have got to you. If not, meditate and become intelligent. :)

Talk of "Killing Linux" is bad journalism

I know journalists feel a need to always build tension by having one group in conflict with another group.

There is no way to "kill" Linux. There is no company that MS can cut off the air supply of. There is no central key personal that MS can hire. Linux is just a collection of guys working on stuff that interests them.

The fact that Linux is the backbone of most of the large data centers in the world, Google, Amazon, et al, is almost beside the point. Linux is a community, not a company.

All that said, I am looking forward to seeing what Windows 7 can do. Especially the 64bit version.

Why bother killing something that doesn't put up a fight?

Before saying anything, let's get one thing straight: I have 20+ years of computing experience, with 12 of those years having been professional in nature. Over the past 10 years I have been managing server environments. Presently, I manage a data center that is predominately Linux (RHEL4-5) and Solaris-based machines. Previously, I was part of a 10 man team that managed 4500+ Wintel (Windows 2k, 2k3 on Intel CPU) machines. Speaking from experience, Linux is NOT a more stable or reliable operating system compared with Windows. We constantly have engineers working to correct problems with, or rebooting the Linux-based machines, while the few Windows-based machines have remained completely untouched for the past 6 months. We have uptimes on a couple of our Windows boxes of nearly 4 years -- a number the Linux machines haven't even come close to (The Solaris machines, while a real PITA to set up are, however, definitely rock solid!). Basically the only real advantage of the Linux operating system is that it is much cheaper to purchase than Microsoft Windows. HOWEVER, the total cost of ownership has proven to be anything but free, with the downtime and configuration time required to get things up and running with it. Attribute this to the requirement of modifying obscurely-named text files scattered through the file system in random places, the odd method of having to use a package manager to locate an application in a list of thousands, the difficult way to make system-wide changes without having to go to several places, or even the most basic lack of an easy-to-read DIR command (LS is powerful but hopelessly difficult to interpret the output - especially over a monochrome console) Also, Microsoft released the EDIT command long ago with MSDOS 6 (or was it 5?), which quite frankly makes the Linux VI editor appear to be (and it is!) clunky, confusing, and an overall PITA to edit text files... something an operating system entirely based on text file configuration should have gotten right a long time ago. OH, and let's just mention something here -- how wonderful is it to have to make all your changes in text files anyway? It would be like having to modify all your program settings for Windows by navigating the registry. Let me tell you something very simple. Out of EXPERIENCE, and not just opinion, I can say quite confidently that Linux (at least in this lifetime) will NOT grab very much market share from Windows, ESPECIALLY as a desktop environment. I run Ubuntu and Red Hat on my personal computer - two of the more easy-to-use flavors... and even with several years of experience I can tell you that practically ANYTHING you do requires time, reading, and OS tinkering to make it work. Linux has yet to break the 1% market share (some studies have it as high as 1.5% on SOLD systems -- but many people buy them with Linux preinstalled on the cheap.. only to delete Linux and install Windows). FINALLY -- to those that think Windows can't run on low powered machines you are mistaken. Using utilities such as XPLite, you can shrink your installation to a miniscule less than 200MB that runs very fast even on the weakest machines. Windows and Linux, quite frankly, both run on similar hardware -- it's just that Microsoft decided to leave out a comparable "package selection" ability which would allow you to customize your install. Linux is nice in this regard but if you think that full install of Linux is not just as overhead-intensive as Windows... you're speaking out of your buttocks and not from experience. I'm sorry but no... Linux is NOT a true contender in the OS market. Realistically there are only 2 - Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. On the cheap, you got Linux -- which requires more work to install, maintain, and upgrade. In the middle you have Windows - easy to use that comes bundled with [for the most part] ugly PC systems that haven't changed their basic design for ages. At the higher end of expense you have the Apple/Macs, that include an equally easy to use operating system installed on simply beautiful hardware. If you're broke and have no life other than wasting your weekends trying to get that new video card working in your Linux-based machine -- go for it. If you have a little more money and prefer to spend that time actually playing games or doing digital editing on the same video card you just installed by popping it in and running SETUP.EXE, go with Windows or Mac OS. Frankly put, you GET what you PAY FOR. I wish my company's clients would pay for more Windows-based machines.