Is Windows ready for the desktop?

Personal History

It wasn't until 1996 where I managed to find a company distributing Linux, Grey Matter they were called. The first distribution I bought was Slackware which came with a massive book called Dr. Linux and was spread across a few 3.5" floppy disks, those were the days. It took me a week to figure it out and get a usable installation. But I was a real geek back then and loved technical challenges, I still do. It had X Windows with fvwm window manager. It was fun to tinker with but not useful. However I kept coming back to it. At this point the World Wide Web had taken off so getting new updates was getting easier.

My first commercial experience of Linux was when I got into web development in 1998. I started using it as a web server using Apache. This was when I also realised the potential of PHP and hence LAMP. It wasn't called LAMP back then. Stupid name.

Introducing Fedora

So fast forward a few years where I decided to become a freelance web developer. As I explained in a previous post I had to make a decision to save costs. I hadn't touched Linux in the home for a while as it just wasn't easy and I liked my Windows games. However I soon discovered that Red Hat had dropped their distribution Red Hat Linux to concentrate on a community project to test features for their enterprise Linux. So I partitioned my Windows harddrive and started using Fedora Core 1. I had tried a few others like Ubuntu but I am a bit fussy and need to be on the technical edge. Not that I dislike what Ubuntu has done. I always reccommend it to non technical users. However I reserve Fedora for me.

Gaming VS business use

Now the only problems at the time were that I loved gaming. I had loads of games to play, Never
Winter Nights, Grand Theft Auto 3, Morrowind, Americas Army etc. But none worked, save Never Winter Nights and Americas Army who had released Linux native executables. The others barely worked through WINE. WINE is a reimplementation of DirectX for Linux. It is not an emulator. Other problems were graphics drivers from ATI and NVIDIA were slow to be released.

However as a business machine it worked well. It had OpenOffice, graphics programs, accounts management, programmers tools. In fact everything I needed to become freelance. In my opinion that means it is a usable desktop. However there were still a few little kinks to iron out but only niceties.

However, it is now end of 2008 and I am using Fedora 9. I have full support for my Nvidia 7900GT, Adobe are now regularly releasing the Flash player, I can watch movies, listen to music, I have setup a media server for the Playstation 3 (wrapped up at the moment as it's our family Yule present) which will also become my gaming machine. OpenOffice supports most needs and probably 100% of the average persons needs, ie you can type a letter and print it. In fact printing on my HP multifunction is easy due to HP supporting Linux. My gaming needs are fixed due to various companies like ID Software supporting Linux gamers so I can (and do) play Quake Wars. WINE is now excellent, a few little hiccups here and there. It's so good now that I have just restarted a subscription to Eve Online with premium content loaded. In fact I havn't been into Windows at home for 6 months. It's now too much hassle. My kids hardly use Windows and can do basic stuff by themselves and have their own personal desktops which they can switch in and out of.

So is Windows ready for the desktop?

So now I have my perfect operating system, back to the original question. Is Windows ready for the desktop. Why do I ask that? Because I find I am more annoyed at using Windows than using Linux now.

This is being written on my work machine with Windows XP SP 3. It is a HP Compaq dual CPU. It is in fact a little more powerful and 2 years newer than my HP Pavillion with AMD 64 3700 at home. Both have 1GB of RAM.

Every
morning when I switch it on it takes about 7 minutes for it to be usable. We are told Windows is faster to boot than Linux. This is very true even I admit that. From switch on to login screen is very short. But after you have logged in all hell breaks loose, the hard drive spins for ever, everything freezes as I get all 3 of my applications ready, I just go and make the tea. However on my Linux machine I switch it on and it takes time to load, I havn't timed it but it's not annoyingly long. It is longer than Windows though.

However once I have logged in, it takes a few seconds to load my selected desktop environment which is GNOME (yes we get to choose a preferred desktop environment). Then it's ready. The harddrive isn't spinning away madly it's just ready for me to use. This is just one annoyance of a few. Others are just general usability and a big one is missing functionality. Things I take for granted in Linux are missing in Windows. For instance a secure shell. This is just built into Linux. On Windows I have to find one to install. In fact I use PUTTY which is very good.

Another little feature I like is there is no such thing as a C: drive, D: drive etc. It's just a mounted device. When I pop a CD/DVD, an SD card, plug in my phone, mp3 player or camera it both appears on the desktop as a nice icon which I can click to open and also appears in my Places list. Just click places on the task bar and select the relevant device. Nice and easy. No messing around in My Computer and figuring out which one of E: F: G: H:, etc, I put it in. This is also how it works on OS X I believe, which is also Unix based.

I used to argue that an operating system is just that. But now I realise a bundled operating system with everything out of the box is better.

GNOME or KDE?

I would argue about Linux usability. I think it is spot on. I have always used the KDE desktop environment as it was more Windows like. I was introduced to it quite early, prior to release 1. It was Windows and more. You could completely customise everything to how you worked. However since KDE 4 was released I think they really have made a bad move. The recent 4.1 just crashes on me now. So I switched over to GNOME. I was always wary of GNOME and it looked simple and always seemed to lag behind KDE. But now I love it. It is simple but it is also slick, fast and very usable.

Now some might criticise this option to choose a desktop environment but this is what creates healthy competition. There might be a day that I go back to KDE. I think it empowers the user to choose a way that they work. Most distributions default to GNOME anyway.

Now I have to admit to not using Windows Vista properly. I have glanced at it in shops and fiddled once to try and activate a webcam on a laptop my kids were plauing on. I will probably never see Windows 7 for a long time, which looks just like KDE 4 to me. In fact the wall paper is similar to my default one on Fedora 9. Why would I want to buy it? I can get a good operating system with plenty of different options to choose at just a mouse click away. Oh and before you say 'ah yes but you need to install it' well yes you do. You also have to install Windows. It's just you have never done it because it came on your shop bought computer. However try upgrading your computer's motherboard and then boot you computer again. What happens? You are locked out as Microsoft thinks you are trying to pirate their precious operating system. So off you go full of ignorance to the shop and buy a new copy. Or the place you bought it off charges you for a new license.

This doesn't happen with any of my Linux distributions. It boots up. It doesn't even mention it detected new hardware. There is no gleeful little popup that is happy to tell me that it needs to install the driver for it. It just does it. In fact it did does it before you even logged in. Ever read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? This will sound familiar.

Now from experience of ordinary users from doing technical support it doesn't matter if you gave them Windows, Linux or OS X. They will still whine about something. I know people who panick when you tell them to just open a file and export to whatever it is they want to do, regardless of operating system. Give people instructions and they will follow them regardless of operating system.

Conclusion

So to conclude; This is quite hard to conclude as I am biased but I also believe in using the right tool for the right job. Now regardless of usability Windows is the tool to use. I can't say it's the right tool though. However it's functional and everybody uses and knows it.

Given that I use both operating systems and have used Windows since Version 2 in school in the early 90's. I remember eagerly awaiting Windows 95 and it took a long time for me to switch to using Windows XP although it is a good stable operating system.

But compare in the space of 5 years from using Fedora Core 1 to Fedora 9 the advancements made on a Linux desktop, which is more ready? Now I have to admit in the past there are things I have missed from using Windows. Fonts seemed nicer and gaming as I mentioned.

And despite what you may read you don't need arcane knowledge of command lines. No more so than Windows. If Windows breaks for whatever reason command line could be the only way to fix it. Same as Linux. Most things are now through dialogs.

So if your needs are met by having a small office which requires writing documents, creating spread sheets, internet use, email ,etc then your needs can be met by Linux. Initial training is what scares a lot of people into using Linux. But it's no different to windows. You have windows which have menus. For bigger companies who probably rely on Microsoft products then it's harder work.

If you are a home user who plays the occasional solitaire and wants to surf the internet, facebook, emails etc then Linux also suits your needs. Ubuntu might be your best bet.

If you are a gamer, well, that depends on what you play. Checkout the WINE application database to see what may work. However I have Spore running in WINE. Play Warcraft? No problem. Eve Online? Bring it on! If you like Doom, Quake/Quake Wars then you are saved as there are versions for Linux without emulation.

I am not a technical hippy, despite my long hair and I don't love you. I am a capitalist at heart and would love to make loads of money. But this is not about money or sharing the love. This is about technical ability and advancement of technology. I know where this is at the moment as the focus is on technology and not money. Once you have the technology sorted out then you can look at the money.