The main difference in the distros is the installer. I never had Ubuntu with a VORP of even 1 until Jaunty (version 9.04).
only on WNFF do Linux and VORP come together
Unlike other distros, Ubuntu offers virtually no configuration options during an install. It installs what is decides upon, and you get no say on which apps to include or exclude. That's a weakness in the linux community, but is the accepted norm in the Windows world. But, you can add (or remove) apps later, and do so in a means that I find much easier than what is available with Windows.
Ubuntu's not bad once you install it and start digging, and I will grant you that the app install system is very nice, but it still doesn't solve the problem of installing apps that have to be installed manually rather than through apt-get, and moreover I'm just not that interested in re-inventing the wheel only - spending so much time to get the OS "just so" to turn around and realize that now I have to find 'nix equivalents to all my favorite apps and learn how to use them, too.
Actually, linux has lead Windows with hardware compatibility, and was a couple years ahead of Windows in supporting 64-bit. The problem was again the distro including the drivers. All the drivers existed, but the distros didn't necessarily include them.
Yeah this I knew, but it's a technicality to blame it on the distros. It wasn't Microsoft's fault that none of the idiot OEMs wrote Vista drivers until the 11th hour, but they ended up shouldering all the blame for it anyway.
Linux is widely used on servers because of how well it does run on the high-end hardware. According to Netcraft, this site running on Fedora.
Yup, I mentioned this somewhere else in this thread or elsewhere in the forum... can't remember. It runs on CentOS, actually, which I think is a Fedora variant. I've already professed my love for 'nix as a server OS.
As for which drivers are included in the kernel, that is the distro, but I haven't had any driver not install in the past 3 years other than an atheros wireless card when installing Fedora 9(?). Even then, you just add another repository (I think it was madwifi), and it takes care of it (assuming you have a wired connection to get to the repository, or copied the driver from another machine). Now, most distros include a wide variety of hardware support, and it is rare that a driver needs to be downloaded during installation. Even then, so long as it isn't a network adapter that is needed, it will do so during the install.
Again I feel like we're comparing apples and oranges... servers, great. Desktops, not so much. I may be wrong as I've been running the same hardware at home for almost 2 years now, but when I used to stay on the cutting edge, 'nix support ALWAYS lagged behind Windows. This is especially true with consumer video cards. I know the blame there lies with Nvidia and ATI, but the result is what matters. I'd agree that things have improved a lot in the last 3 years, but video and wireless drivers are still trouble spots for most 'nix desktops I've given a whirl.
I haven't played with the live-CDs, so my experience isn't the same as yours. The live-CDs are generally crippled, especially prior to the 2.6 kernel when they started using ram for disk i/o.
LiveCDs are generally okay - I really only use them to do a spot-check for network connectivity. If a distro can't get me on the web out of the box, I won't even consider it. When I first got my current laptop, it was all bw43cutter this and that and a bunch of other stuff that was way too much hassle for me to ever bother. Distros have caught up since then and getting wifi to work on my laptop now is just a matter of activating the proprietary driver.
One thing I haven't found in Windows 7 yet is a "drawer,", with is a pinned item that can contain other pinned objects, including another drawer.
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Maybe you could illustrate with a screencap?
Here are some 2006 clips of Ubuntu:
Yeah, I've seen that stuff and implemented most of it myself before in the course of fooling around, but again I just don't see the point in fussing with it when Windows looks great and works great for me with minimal effort. I think the problem is that too many 'nix themes try to look like something they aren't, and end up doing so poorly. Linux just doesn't have what I would consider an "identity" on the desktop.
All the 3-D, pinning, etc. and virtually every other "new" feature in Windows 7 desktop has been around on linux for a few years
I've never understood this line of thought. Apple fans have been crying about MS ripping them off since forever, but who cares? I see this with web browsers now, too. Every major OS and browser has some really great unique features, and a lot of questionably useful ones. I really don't think anyone should fool themselves that 'nix, Mac, and Windows haven't all creatively borrowed from one other over the years (or that the browsers aren't doing the same now).
I was thinking that maybe you had an ump or two in your family tree, and then saw your later post about how you are using live-CDs, and that's probably the difference. Also, why would you look for a feature that Windows doesn't have? And let's face it, live CDs don't exactly come with a lot of documentation.
I don't use liveCDs if I actually think the distro is worth a shot. I install so I can fiddle around and find the features Windows doesn't have. The problem for 'nix is that most of them are easily duplicated by readily available free apps. Window edge snapping is a great feature that I wish was native in all versions of Windows, but I've found several great small apps that run in the background with a minimal footprint and do it just fine. Gnome Do was nice, and certainly made finding things easier, but objectively I didn't see that it did anything any better than the built-in search in Vista/7 or the taskbar in 7.
Also, I find that linux generally includes better accessories than Windows for viewing PDFs (even the 3rd party windows PDFs), PDF editing that beast even the 3rd party non-Adobe editors on windows
I don't edit PDFs so I can't speak to that, but I find
Sumatra PDF Viewer does the job just fine at 1.5 MB for viewing.
screen shots - prtscrn, alt-prtscrn, and the snipping tool in vista/7 aren't enough screencapping options for you?
docking - not exactly sure what you mean by docking but the new taskbar in 7 is great, imo.
CD/DVD burning -
http://www.imgburn.com/ (does regular file/folder burning as well) - the built in burning features in 7 are quite capable as well, but I don't use them that often because I don't burn discs that often.
FTP - FileZilla and FireFTP are both more than capable enough for me.
gimp is available for windows as well and is a much better imaging tool than any basic thing OOB with windows
You're comparing Gimp to mspaint?
Try Photoshop CS4 or even Paint.NET (free). Gimp is great and I'm not knocking it, but how does that make LINUX better than WINDOWS? I think people get way too caught up in what the applications do and forget that we're talking about operating systems. Windows doesn't NEED to bundle everything with the OS the way Mac and 'nix do just to provide basic productivity. In fact, the US DoJ and the EU pretty much forbid it!
Installing Windows 7 is dead simple, doesn't take long, and gets you up and running with minimal effort, and gives you a few basic apps to get you started. From there you're on your own, and there's a HUGE world of software options out there, MANY of which are free. I thought that's what the idea behind 'nix was too, but now it seems like you're trying to promote Linux as a desktop based on the strength of it's bundled apps.
even the calculator.
Admittedly I haven't spent a lot of time looking for Linux calculators, but the updated one in 7 is quite handy and good enough for most people who aren't doing calculus with it I'm sure
I love the repository system for linux, though it took some getting used to at first.
For me, repositories are the only reason that Linux is even marginally tolerable as a desktop OS at this juncture. Manually installing 'nix apps is (or at least was) beyond hellacious.
I also like open office more than MS Office. I find being able to open document from any version of MS Office a nice feature in an office suite.
Office suites are a matter of preference. I don't switch because I don't need to. Not sure what you mean about opening any version of Office docs. 2007 can do that, and 2003 with the (free) 2007 compatibility pack can as well. If I'd ever had to pay for a copy of Office, then I probably would have used OO, but I haven't, and now that I have a technet sub, I won't. At least not until whatever version comes after Office 2010
I'll also take the linux screen snippets over sidebar (real resource pig - at least in Vista)
I don't use widgets, gadgets, or any other similarly frivolous type of things, and in fact the gadget platform is always one of the first things I uninstall, but out of curiosity I re-installed it in 7 pro just now and threw a few gadgets onto the desktop and checked the sidebar process - 15 MB. I'm not sure what kind of machines you're running, but I'd hardly call that a gross resource drain these days. It is twice as much RAM as my entire first computer had, though
(I can only imagine how many more times than YOUR first computer
)
Also, every major distro includes Firefox OOB. I find the Evolution e-mail client superior to all others, but still use Thunderbird anyway just for consistency across across platforms.
Windows may start including other browsers soon as well - at least in Europe. Regardless, I don't see what bearing that has on comparing OSes. Firefox is usually one of the first things I install. IE8 really isn't that bad other than being slow and nagging you about your "first time." As for email - I'm an avid gmail user, so all email clients seem like very quaint and obsolete unnecessaries to me.
In fact, most of my main tools are all cross-platform.
Same here.
My concerns are running development apps on a stable platform that performs all tasks rapidly, and linux does that for me better than Windows, though 7 appears to have caught up in the performance other than disk i/o.
I don't know your specifics, but I can't say I've ever personally seen any Linux distro provide a faster desktop environment than Windows does. Usually noticeably slower on the same hardware. I don't doubt that it's faster for time-sensitive computational tasks - even XP beats it's newer brothers at that - but the difference is not worth measuring or worrying about for day-to-day tasks, especially if you're running reasonably modern/decent hardware.
If all I did was office apps, e-mail, and browse and never used any of the accessories, I'd call it a draw. Linux pinning still seems to be a generation ahead of 7, though 7 counters with the jump list.
Funny, I say the exact same thing about Linux. "Put it on grandma's computer so she can check email and doesn't get any viruses"
I am not saying that linux is leading by laps in a 500 mile race, just that the race is much closer than most people realize, and for my particular purposes linux (Fedora) wins by a few car lengths. For development, I find linux a better platform. And, as you said, why switch if what you have is doing everything? Of course, that applies to the XP crowd, too. I'm a bit surprised MSFT hasn't offered an easier upgrade path.
They are close in OS functionality, I'm not denying that. I wouldn't even bother arguing who is ahead of whom, though I do think 'nix still takes more finagling to get everything working properly. As I mentioned before, an OS is not an exciting thing, and comparing Linux apps to Windows apps to Mac apps misses the point of which OS is actually better vs which APPS are better.
There is a gnome theme to make it look like OS X (get a Mac, then) and several Vista themes for KDE and gnome. Ubuntu is the only one of the three distros (the others being Fedora and openSuSE) that doesn't offer both KDE and Gnome on the same "sub-distro." If you want KDE, you have to get Kbuntu.
Yeah, I've installed variations of both of those themes in the course of fooling around, and found most of them to be tricky to install and just incorrect enough to look like cheap knock-offs. Still better than most distros' default themes though.
As for Fedora, no, I do not use KDE with it. I prefer gnome. I find KDE too much like, well, windows and too bulky. It's not a big difference in time, but I find instant gratification takes too long, and gnome easier to tweak to most instantly serve my requests (and without any, "Hey Bill! I'm clicking my ass off here!" moments).
You can find pretty much anything in Vista or 7 by tapping the windows key and typing whatever you're looking for... same as the default installation of Gnome Do but with one less keystroke... maybe I'm missing something but I don't see the difference.
Most of my 'nix GUI experience is with Gnome. I may be wrong but I've always gotten the impression that KDE is sort of the red-headed stepchild of Linux GUIs. Gnome seems to be much more popular.