Amateur Hour

Sorry PostalCow, but this week's column, "Is Linux Ready?" makes you look major league uninformed. First off, a little research, rather than just a rambling of your own thoughts, would have been nice. The X Windowing System, which you mentioned, is emulated by the free software XFree86. In all likelihood, you've never even used the X Windowing System, but rather, only XFree86. XFree has undergone some major improvements of late. The speed of X is barely an issue - it's the speed of the window manager that bogs it down. The common desktop environments, KDE and Gnome, cause the graphical system to seem as though it lags. X is not slow. However, due to the fact that XFree is not a multithreaded application, there are complaints about the response time of the GUI. The developers have discussed changing that for the next major release (more on X).

Windows is much more responsive than Linux, and will be for some time. With Linux, you assemble an OS from a kernel and utilities, usually the GNU utils. With Windows, you're getting a prepackaged, all-or-nothing product. Windows gets away with a lot by putting processes in the kernel that, arguably, don't belong there (rumor has it that IE7 will be in the kernel in the next version of Windows. Yes, a web broswer...in the kernel!). As a result, many times you "feel" that an application is faster or more responsive than it actually is. Windows graphic system is inherently attached to the kernel, like that of BeOS or Syllable/Atheos. If you were to put certain parts of your windowing system into your kernel on your Linux box, you'd see performance increase too.

The apps you mention, like QuickBooks, will likely never be "ported to Linux," because as we've seen, apps are REPLACED by GPL'ed applications, not by ports of popular Windows apps. Mr Project, GNUCash, and GIMP are a few free applications that have been deemed "killer apps," which far exceed the needs of a user, who would likely not want to shell out cash for similar apps once they have the free versions.

What you've completely not addressed, what makes this article incomplete, is the concept of free software. You've assumed that "free" is free as in "costing nothing." Free software is about the freedom to know what's going on in an app, in your OS, and with your computer. It's about modifying your software if you don't like what it does. It's about running only what you need. Linux excels because it has developers from all over the world working on it and catching each other's mistakes. That's why bugs are patched so quickly. That's why development is so rapid. While a savvy CFO might be interested in the "free as in beer" angle, true sysadmins are aware that the benefit of Linux is getting only what you want and having the freedom to completely customize it. You can rebuild your kernel whenever you want to match your machine's hardware, and drag no legacy crap in with it.

You mention hardware detection in your article, but have you used Knoppix? How about the latest Red Hat beta? The hardware detection in Linux is evolving at an astonishing speed. It will not be long before it surpasses that of Windows, whose HCL is quickly outdated in their long release cycles. As USB and Firewire filesystems and devices become more pervasive, and with the impending introduction of Linux kernel 2.6, you'll see this process beginning.

Frankly, your column frequently reads like you were just jotting down your thoughts. While I respect you very much as a PHP coder, writing a column doesn't suit you. I apologize for being so direct, but the topics you lightly touch on have been discussed by people much more knowledgable than you and should be rightly linked for those who might actually get their facts from this page. Stick to PHP please.

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PS. I apologize in advance if this comes off harshly, it's not intended to be. This is a feedback forum, and that's truly my intent.

I was limited for time on this weeks article. It was a throw together. Apologize? for what? I speek my peace, you are entitled to speak yours. That is the great thing w/freedom. Now the "anonymous" posts is a different thing. I already started on next weeks article, hopefully I get you back a loyal fan

~Cow

rumor has it that IE7 will be in the kernel in the next version of Windows. Yes, a web broswer...in the kernel!

IE is not just a web browser. It's part of windows. When you open up "My Computer", it's IE's work there. I heard by "IE7" you won't be looking at websites through IE, but through Windows itself. eg. "Windows explorer"

If you see it in an article email it to me. I will have a field day with this one.

Integrating IE into Windows was one of MS's worst mistakes. It makes the whole system more vulnerable, especially if you browse your local files with a web browser. If the ruomour about IE 7 is true, I will never install any newer versions of IE than 5.5.

No. "Explorer" is the file manager you're referring to. Internet Explorer is the browser. They are different apps. Don't believe me? Search a windows box for *explore*.exe and you'll find both explorer.exe and iexplore.exe.

What is true is that Microsoft has been integrating them more and more. And that's NOT a bad thing. KDE has mde Konq into the file manager and the default KDE web browser. I happen to think the file manager and web browser should share some code and pass each other information.

Don't believe anyone who tells you IE is a necessary part of Windows. It's not. They may be making it that way, but it's not as is.

Use Firebird. It's better anyway.