# What does Linux lack that Windows does better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 9, 2007, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223 "2007-03-09T05:11:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/21 "2007-03-09T15:34:24Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I think there’s another command-line text editing method too - one that was more of a line editor, but I can’t remember what it was. [/QUOTE] Holy crap, you’re right! Edlin is still around in WindowsXP! :eek: For what it’s worth, Microsoft refers to Wordpad as a [word processor](http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5550c8b1-e4e1-43f7-9d2a-b289487bf5c51033.mspx). (Although my vote is for “text editor, but word processor wannabe”.) ---
**Author:** ![Subway\_Prophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/22 "2007-03-09T19:38:32Z")
[QUOTE=si\_blakely] Windows wins for supported drivers - buy a device, it will come with Windows drivers. The downside is that there is now less documentation for the hardware, and more of the processing for the device is passed back to the CPU in a proprietary binary object (making it hard to write open source drivers for Linux). [/QUOTE] I came in here to say just this. Lack of support for my existing network hardware is the one thing holding me back from installing Linux at home. But this… > [@](#): > > Network Management - Windows has AD - a unified system for managing Users and Systems and Organizations across a network. You can delegate tasks, supply right and distribute data and applications across the world. And it works. > Linux has a bunch of ad-hoc tools that do not (yet) provide the large-scale management of big networks. > > Finally - security. Windows has a finegrained ACL based security system (covering files, devices, registry) capable of management via network wide policy. It is very flexible and capable, but feels clunky and does not (easily) support privilege escalation/de-escalation. > Linux has a simple file permissions scheme, and has only recently developed a policy-based rights restriction system (SELinux) that is complex, powerful, and gets turned off an awful lot because it makes things too hard, and no-one knows how to use it. Windows wins here. …very succinctly explains why Windows has a chokehold in corporate America, if you disregard Microsoft’s Office suite. Active Directory, for all its quirks, is a killer app for network management. Just getting a single logon, managed from a central location, to work consistently across a dozen Linux workstations, is a pain in the tush. With AD, it works right out of the box. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/23 "2007-03-09T22:11:08Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I think it would be too kind to call it a word processor; it’s really a text editor that just happens to know a little about formatting. Besides, try to open a big text file in notepad and Windows asks you if you want to try wordpad instead - so I think it qualifies as a text editor in intent. I think there’s another command-line text editing method too - one that was more of a line editor, but I can’t remember what it was. [/QUOTE] Windows 2000 and upward can handle large text files in Notepad without prompting the user to open Wordpad instead. [QUOTE=BlackKnight] Holy crap, you’re right! Edlin is still around in WindowsXP! [/QUOTE] There is also the EDIT text editor, a full-screen text editor that runs in the command line (formerly known as DOS) environment. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/24 "2007-03-09T22:59:36Z")
[QUOTE=si\_blakely] You need to find a better distribution: **yum** (for rpm based systems) and **apt** for Debian based systems are really easy. for source based stuff ./configure make make install usually works. [/QUOTE] Except when it doesn’t. What Linux lacks that Windows has is _consistency_ of the user experience. Yes, this is good in the sense that you can do lots of things with a Linux box. But there are lots of things that ought to just work, and don’t, because no one has ever tested them on the exact configuration that you’re using. A long example: I recently got a new Debian machine at work, and had to install some VHDL tools on it. The program comes with a Windows installer and a Linux installer (I had already installed them on my Windows box). Now, Debian isn’t the _most_ mainstream distro, but it’s fairly common. Insert cd, navigate to the directory: #\> ./setup I get a permissions error. Apparently I can’t execute from an automounted cd. Hey, who could have expected that someone might want to insert a cd and run a program off of it. Ok, switch to root, umount the cd, remount it with -exec. #\> ./setup I get an error about lib\_Xm.so.2 not found. Ok, .so means shared object, so let’s try to figure out what package contains that. #\> apt-cache search lib\_Xm Nothing #\> apt-cache search Xm. Nothing. Ok, to google. According to some linux mailing lists, it appears lib\_Xm is in the “bob” package (I don’t remember what the package name was). #\> apt-get install bob No package named bob. Play around for a little longer. Apparently, bob was removed, and replaced with “fred”. But even “fred” doesn’t install lib\_Xm.so.2, it installs the newer lib\_Xm.so.3. Awesome. Cross my fingers, make a soft link from .so.3 to .so.2, and run again. Success! Sort of. The installer won’t take my registration code. I’m still waiting on an email back from customer service to resolve it. Now, this may have been an absurdly poorly designed piece of software. I don’t know. But this is often what passes for Linux support. Not to mention the fact that, due to someone’s decision in debian’s package management system, you not only can’t install older libraries, or links that will give some compatibility, you can’t even find the name of the old package, or any obvious reference to what’s replaced it. It took me and a much more linux-inclined coworker (both of us developers) about half an hour to figure out how to get the damned installer to run, and we had to read through random message boards and out of date email list suggestions. 99.9+% of computer users would have given up before we did. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/25 "2007-03-10T00:10:37Z")
Linux installation managers like Synaptic/aptitude/apt-get and YaST/YUM are great for installing applications that they know about, and yes, ./configure, make, make install works for some other things, but many bits of software are still tricky to install - particularly if they need a database - the user runs into a long complicated list of instructions (if he’s lucky and the developer has documented the installation process well, that is) - requiring config files to be manually edited, file and folder permissions to be set, databases to be created, database administration accounts to be set up. Windows apps would usually have an installer that sets it all up for you. Now I understand that the way things have to work in Linux is different for a variety of factors, but it simply wouldn’t be correct to claim that software installation is as simple or user-friendly as it is in Windows. Sometimes it’s better than Windows (for example when Synaptic just does it for you), but whenever it’s worse than Windows, it’s always _a hell of a lot_ worse. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/26 "2007-03-10T00:44:31Z")
I’ve had very good luck with both [Fink](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fink) (OS X installer based on apt-get) and the FreeBSD [ports](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_Ports). Apple’s own Installer.app is pretty robust, but doesn’t provide much in the way of options and of course only works on OS X. Redhat Package Manager sucks, and the naked .configure/make/make install is…irritating when you have to debug it 'cause you don’t have the right modules or libraries. Linux has come pretty far from the Slackware-level of roll your own, but for the most part you can run a distro like Ubuntu seemlessly with GUI tools, but it still isn’t as well integrated as Windows. As much as I dislike mediocre Microsoft products, they have made good on their goal of making an operating system that installs and configures pretty seemlessly on a vast range of hardware…provided, of course, that your hardware meets their increasingly demanding minimum specifications. Linux, on the other hand, can readily run on older machiens (provided you can find device drivers for whatever you’re using) and OS X installs and runs pretty cleanly even on G3 “blue and white” boxes and with limitations even on some Motorola 68k processors, which gives a longer functional lifespan for machines running OS X. So what works best for you depends on what you want; if you want an OS that is pretty easy to administrate (and familiar to the vast majority of users) and runs on a wide variety of hardware (of sufficient specification) then Microsoft is your daddy. If you want something that is a snap to administrate, and runs effectively on a very limited (but enduring) set of hardware, Apple’s got your number. If you’re willing to fudge around with text files and iptables and suffer the occasional problem compiling a new package, then maybe Linux or FreeBSD will do your thing. This doesn’t get into the security and reliability issues, of course, at which Microsoft as an abysmal record (and hence, why they have such a tiny share of the server market) but for most customers easy of use and compatibility with commodity hardware, along with compatibility with previous operating systems and software applications in common use dictate remaining with Microsoft, even if it is the most mediocre of all options. But for what most of what people do occupationally (i.e. e-mail, web surfing, and basic office processing) any of these systems will provide the requiste functionality. That you can only effectively play games on Microsoft is a result of clever marketing of DirectX. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/27 "2007-03-10T04:30:38Z")
[QUOTE=dwc1970] There is also the EDIT text editor, a full-screen text editor that runs in the command line (formerly known as DOS) environment. [/QUOTE] There’s also SYSEDIT.EXE, though it can only be used to edit a few specific text files. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/28 "2007-03-10T06:42:31Z")
**Dominic Mulligan** : You still haven’t given us any reasons. A lot of vitriol, but no reasons. **si\_blakely** : Windows won’t win for security until it’s possible to run every single user-visible (as opposed to command-line and hidden-behind-special-dialogues) application as a normal user, and only use the Administrator account for once-in-a-blue-moon administrative tasks like adding or deleting a user on a shared system or messing with hardware drivers. Then we can talk about fixing Outlook and MSIE such that they no longer run ActiveX and random scripting languages by default. **Mangetout** : When everything works in Windows, it’s a dream. When anything goes wrong, you’re left digging through undocumented and actively user-hostile registry entries and copying down hex digits from Blue Screens of Death. (Entirely a Microsoft invention. No OS made since CRTs were standard equipment has ever given hex digits as part of an error message, even if the OS was crashing at that very moment.) Like as not, it’s something you can’t fix because the only people who understand it have signed so many NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) they can’t talk to their priest without a lawyer present. Linux at least gives you a fighting chance. ---
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/29 "2007-03-10T07:26:50Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Well, various versions of Doom have been ported to Linux (there’s even a Linux variant that can allow you to play Doom on your iPod), and given that oodles of games out there use the Doom engine, I don’t see what the problem would be. [/QUOTE] Here’s a (non-comprehensive) list of games available as native Linux builds: Doom III Quake Series, including IV Return to Castle Wolfenstein Neverwinter Nights Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 Serious Sam series Darwinia Uplink Descent3 Heretic II Heroes of Might and Magic III Myth II Railroad Tycoon II Rune Alpha Centuri Sim City 3000 Tribes II Unreal Tournament Cold War Postal 2 X2: The Threat Alien vs. Predator Duke Nukem 3D Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Rise of the Triad ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/30 "2007-03-10T08:08:17Z")
Linux doesn’t leave me with as many options due to lack of support. For example, I hear of an awesome new computer game. Cool, I go to the store and buy it. I get home, I put it on my windows machine, it works. I don’t need to worry about it working. Now what if I had Linux instead? As the list above shows, I’d be playing the same couple games all the time or messing with emulators. Why would I purposefully switch to a system that has LESS functionality than my current one? Why should I have to emulate something I can already do? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/31 "2007-03-10T11:04:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Dominic Mulligan: You still haven’t given us any reasons. A lot of vitriol, but no reasons. What on _Earth_ are you talking about? You try to pass off purchasing books as an alternative to MS’s _free_ MSDN (which is pretty damned comprehensive by anyone’s standards), ignoring the fact that there’s reams (probably far more) of books also written for Windows and its API’s, not only published by MS themselves but also by publishers like [O’Reilly](http://www.oreilly.com/store/publisher/oreillycomplete.html)! I gave you several reasons why [OO.org](http://OO.org) isn’t particularly good, including its seeming inability to save _its own files_ reliably, the fact that the documents it produces look like crap (why would you trust a word processor that can’t even display lines on the screen equidistantly?), its dictionary being lacklustre (and that’s being kind) and its affinity for random crashes. [OO.org](http://OO.org) **isn’t** a replacement for MS Office. Office has its faults, but [OO.org](http://OO.org) shares them and adds more. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/32 "2007-03-10T11:12:49Z")
> [@](#): > > When anything goes wrong, you’re left digging through undocumented and actively user-hostile registry entries and copying down hex digits from Blue Screens of Death. Actively user hostile? Pot, kettle, black. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/33 "2007-03-10T11:50:37Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] Actively user hostile? Pot, kettle, black. [/QUOTE] No. Anything that is undocumented and can screw up your system if you get it wrong is actively user-hostile. You are completely evading my requests for a reasonable discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/34 "2007-03-10T14:10:56Z")
… Come back when you adequately explain how O’Reilly books and Sourceforge are equivalent to MSDN. Until then, it’s _you_ that’s evading the discussion, not me. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/35 "2007-03-10T16:07:27Z")
[QUOTE=Captain\_C] Linux doesn’t leave me with as many options due to lack of support. For example, I hear of an awesome new computer game. Cool, I go to the store and buy it. I get home, I put it on my windows machine, it works. I don’t need to worry about it working. Now what if I had Linux instead? As the list above shows, I’d be playing the same couple games all the time or messing with emulators. Why would I purposefully switch to a system that has LESS functionality than my current one? Why should I have to emulate something I can already do? [/QUOTE] That has nothing to do with Linux, though. It has everything to do with the game: the game is programmed and compiled to run under Windows. Assuing OpenGL offers performance and features on par with OpenGL, there’s no technical issues stopping a game developer from making a game that runs natively on Linux and must be emulated under Windows. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/36 "2007-03-10T21:16:57Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] **Mangetout** : When everything works in Windows, it’s a dream. When anything goes wrong, you’re left digging through undocumented and actively user-hostile registry entries and copying down hex digits from Blue Screens of Death. (Entirely a Microsoft invention. No OS made since CRTs were standard equipment has ever given hex digits as part of an error message, even if the OS was crashing at that very moment.) Like as not, it’s something you can’t fix because the only people who understand it have signed so many NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) they can’t talk to their priest without a lawyer present. Linux at least gives you a fighting chance. [/QUOTE] For the average not-very-technical user, when a bit of software firmly refuses to install properly in Windows, you can pretty much assume that it’s never going to work, and you’ll never quite know why. When you encounter a serious problem installing a bit of software in Linux, you know _it could be made to work_, but you know you’ll never understand _how_. I’m not sure which is worse. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/37 "2007-03-11T04:57:07Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto] That has nothing to do with Linux, though. It has everything to do with the game: the game is programmed and compiled to run under Windows. Assuing OpenGL offers performance and features on par with OpenGL, there’s no technical issues stopping a game developer from making a game that runs natively on Linux and must be emulated under Windows. [/QUOTE] Ok then, Linux lacks popular acceptance. So games aren’t designed for it. So I won’t use it. So it lacks popular acceptance. So… and my head just exploded. True story. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/38 "2007-03-11T20:44:19Z")
**Mangetout** : Well, I was speaking for myself and people like me and I’m far from the average user. So, yes, the Windows way is worse. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223/39 "2007-03-11T20:57:48Z")
I just want three things. On every Windows OS I have seen, I like the :: Freecell Hearts Solitaire Are the exact same ones available for Linux? I see lots of variations for Linux but none of them work or look the same as the Windows ones. \*::: from one who has a Win Box just for those 3 games. ;;;; sigh ;; \* [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-linux-lack-that-windows-does-better/395223.md?page=1)