Vista versus Linux Face-Off

This is an excellent technical analysis of Vista versus Linux performed by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. In case you’re wondering about his creds, Vaughan-Nichols is an operating system expert who has been working with and administering Windows, OS X, and Linux/Unix for a great many years. There are few such experts whom I respect more. I’ve enjoyed reading his articles for as long as I’ve been reading eWeek...


I've been working with Vista since its beta days, and I started using Linux in the mid-90s. There may be other people who have worked with both more than I have, but there can't be many of them. Along the way, I've formed a strong opinion: Linux is the better of the two.

But, now that Vista is on the brink of becoming widely available, I thought it was time to take a comprehensive look at how the two really compare. To do this, I decided to take one machine, install both of them on it, and then see what life was like with both operating systems on a completely even playing field.

Here is Part 1:
http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT9727687530.html


Here is Part 2:
http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2094892904.html

One final thought on BitLocker before I go. Microsoft has only made it available on its Enterprise and Ultimate editions. Enterprise is only available to volume buyers, and Ultimate's the most expensive Vista of them all. I find it more than a little annoying that small business users will have to upgrade to Ultimate to get what I think of as one of Vista's best points for business users.


Here is Part 3 (how well do they work with hardware):
http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT9325931427.html

Apparently, Vista is weaker than Linux in the 64-bit environment.

Graphics is disappointing, too...

Now, the GeForce 6200SE is no speed demon. Instead of having its own video RAM, it cannibalizes 256MB of the system's main RAM. No one expects to get any kind of WOW experience from this card.

What I did expect, though, was, given the rest of the system, to be able to at least run Vista's fancy-pants new GUI, Aero, decently. Wrong.

While I was installing Vista, it told me that my "Windows Experience Index" was going to be 2.4. Let me translate that for you: my graphics quality was going to be mediocre. A 3.0 is considered adequate for Aero.


But Vista is particularly problematic with audio...

When I switched back to Vista, I tried to play Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot CD. Whoops! Not a single sound emerged from my speakers. After a little investigation, I found that Vista disables media outputs that don't incorporate DRM, when you try to play DRM protected media through them.

That was a kick in the head. I have a fully legal CD in my hand. Any other version of Windows will play it, Linux will play it, Mac OS will play it, and my CD player will play it, but if you're using S/PDIF for your computer-driven audio and Vista, you're out of luck. If you have a card with a Toslink optical digital audio port, you will be able to play it.

One of the ironies of the situation was that this very album had been first released on the Web without any DRM, in part as a protest against DRM. Ah well, that was yesterday.


If you're planning on viewing or listening to DRM-protected media of any sort, Linux is clearly going to give you better hardware support. By incorporating DRM into the operating system, Microsoft is going to make it very difficult for everyone from PC DVR (digital video recorder) users to just a guy who wants to play a DRM-crippled CD to be certain that everything will work properly.

Adding insult to injury, since DRM protection schemes must evolve constantly, to stay ahead of hackers tearing them down, I have little doubt that one day you'll come home to find that a Vista update to DRM-protection has just locked you out of your media collection. You know, the same collection, which had worked just fine the day before. Repeat after me: DRM does not belong in operating systems.