Why would anyone choose Windows over Linux?, Aug 18, 2008

I am going out on a limb here…really opening myself up for a flame-war. But you know - there are some defining moments that beg for such an action. That action? To question why anyone (when they KNOW the difference) would seriously choose a Windows operating system over Linux.

On those infrequent occasions when you need to reboot Linux, you may find that the process takes longer than you’d like. Jack Wallen shares a number of tricks you can use to reduce boot times.

I am on a roll here with reviewing distros, so I thought I would take the advice of my readers and add SuSE to the roll call. I went into this with little expectation simply because I have had less-than-stellar experiences with SuSE in the past. This time, however, my experience was much, much different. And if I ever doubted the power and useability of SuSE, I was very wrong.

Your systems are all way overdue for an operating system upgrade, but your IT department is going over budget. You know you can’t afford the latest version of Microsoft Windows or Office. The easiest path to reining in your costs would be to migrate over to the Linux operating system. Unfortunately, corporate headquarters isn’t convinced that Linux is the way to go. How do you convince them otherwise?

I had a plan. I would install Fedora 7 on the machine and see what they thought. We were using Fedora 7 at work and the boss could use it.

Over the weekend, my wife and I found ourselves needing to catch up on a couple of missed Ugly Betty episodes. So after a bit of searching, we found that the ABC.com Web site offered the previously aired shows. So we go to the page only to find that its “player” is only supported in Windows and OS X browsers (which included Firefox). I couldn’t believe it. Even using the Firefox plugin User Agent Switcher, I was unable to play the videos.

Microsoft wants to bring its Windows operating system to the low-cost XO laptop for underprivileged children. It is currently working to adapt a basic version of Windows XP to be compatible.

With the release of Fedora 7 comes a new application called Smolt. This application collects information after installation and, with the users consent (that’s a key factor with the open source community) sends that information off to the Fedora Development team.

This edition of The Locksmith provides a breakdown of the latest update to the SANS-FBI list of the top ten most exploited security threats in Linux/UNIX systems.

But Novell has seen the future—and it’s Linux. In the last year, Novell has transformed itself from a Linux also-ran to a company that’s poised to become a dominant provider in the one space where Linux has no real champion—the rich desktop. Novell’s recent purchase of a little-known Linux company, Ximian, demonstrates its interest in moving the Linux desktop forward. Let's look at the effect of Novell’s Ximian acquisition and how it may allow Novell to become the Linux rich-client champion.