AnandTech reviews Linux

julian516 · Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2024 4:30 pm Post subject: AnandTech reviews Linux

Ryan Smith at AnandTech is doing a two-part series in which he reviews Linux by looking at Ubuntu 8.04 in Part I, with a follow-on Part II promised in which he will look at Ubuntu 9.04. AnandTech has a strong following in the Windows world.

The Part I review prints out to 21 pages and it concludes with the editor asking for comments. And those are needed despite the 17 pages worth which already have accumulated. Too much of what is there is adolescent stone-throwing.

If a person who knows both Windows and Linux well could address some of the conclusions reached in the review it would make for interesting reading.

The URL is

jester · Sr. Member Joined: 19 Apr 2024 Posts: 1166

@julian516: I've read that article; I'm a fairly regular reader of anandtech (mainly for the hardware reviews)

I don't see so much to get bent out of shape over to be honest. The article is nothing innovative, these pieces have been appearing at various places over the last 10 years and this is not one of the better ones.

1. It's a review of Ubuntu 8.04 - it took them almost a year to get this piece out the door (problems installing?) by which time the Ubuntu had superseded itself twice
yes I know they went with the LTS but how many home users opt for the LTS ...

julian516 · Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2024 4:29 pm Post subject:

Normally I would let it go but the fact that it was posted at AnandTech bothered me.

As you point out the decision to review Ubuntu 8.04 struck me as altogether strange. We shall have to see what he makes of 9.04.

You are right, "Linux is not Windows" summarizes a theme running through the piece. There is an essay by that name, though I doubt Mr. Smith has read it.

I was not able to assess his comments regarding difficulties with Samba shares because I do not use that technology. I did find documentation suggesting that there is a rather simple GUI for doing this in Ubuntu 9.04. I have not run 8.04 in so long I do not recall if it was there or not.

Are Samba shares something that a great many home users do? I just do not now, which doubtless says something about my limited experience.

If I were going to give a distribution for trial purposes to a Windows person who is CLI-phobic I might suggest Mint. Codecs are preinstalled and the menu structure is straight-forward. In fact I have done this several times and the people involved have enjoyed the experience.

If we are going to consider some larger institutional environment would Novell's Suse be the better choice? Again, I have no experience but since Novell supports the product I assume it is crafted to do this easily? Once upon a time anyway, Novell knew something about networks!

Games? I have two family members involved with digital games on a semi-professional basis and they know what is going on with both markets and the technology. Their advice? Buy a console, PC's no longer are optimum devices for games.

Beyond that I do not have a dog in the game fight, save that $400 for an Xbox strikes me as more cost-effective than a gizillion dollars for Alenware.

Speaking of cost-effectiveness it seems altogether odd to me that the question of cost-effectiveness is not more salient in the essay. In fact it would be most interesting to look at a typical PC notebook (Dell 500 series?) a typical Mac notebook (Macbook?) and a Linux notebook (System 76 Pangolin?) and ask the cost effectiveness question over a set of comparable applications.

That would not end the argument but it might lend a more systematic and interesting discussion of the various elements of each solution. In fact if you can point me to a three way comparison I'd like to read it.

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g33kb0ard3r · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2024 12:46 am Post subject:

I read through that essay and at first he seemed rather sensible in his approach, but by the end it just seemed like he didn't want it to work anyway. One of the things that I think he missed was the customization aspect of Ubuntu. Many times he mentions Ubuntu's desktop. Well, it's GNOME. GNOME=/=Ubuntu. He probably would've been better off with KDE.

(IMO)

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crouse · Site Admin Joined: 17 Apr 2024 Posts: 11833 Location: Iowa

I just HATE reviews for Linux done by people that don't know Linux.

When you don't know how an OS works, and then install and review it, of course your going to run into problems/issues/etc and not know how to fix them yourself. duh.....

Of course we have them go into the "what could mom" do with linux vs what she can do with windows mode........ omg..... are you freakin kidding me, she's probably been running windows for 10 years now, so by this time she has some glimmers of how windows works. But....... oh noes.......shes all lost and confused now that she has Linux thrown at her. It's just not as good, well, because it's not windows.

Give me a break.

So you have to sacrifice/work around a few things using Linux that you don't have to with windows.
As I said on the Arch Linux forums, "It's free, don't bitch." You can either keep spending good money after bad feeding the M$ machine, or you can spend more than 5 days with the os and learn how it really works and the power it actually has.

I have helped countless people switch to Linux from windows, and I really don't think it was much harder for them to do that, than it was to learn how to use windows to start with. People get complacent and lazy, and don't want to learn.......it's too hard...... pppppfffffffftttttttttt. Then keep shelling out the $$$, your loss I say. ............. oh, and by the way, I can give you my hourly rate for fixing your M$crap machine if you'd like Wink

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melloe · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2024 7:02 am Post subject:

In all honesty, if I were to rate Ubuntu 8.04, I would not give it high marks either <G><
Takes tongue out of cheek. I run a copy of Ubuntustudio 9.04, and although I have found a better solution, it is not that bad.

The only real test, is what I did with my Grandchildren. Started them on Linux. They took right to it. Of course in a very superficial way at first. And did not need a lot of coaching either. No more than if it had been XP, let us say.

The point made above is the key. Using one OS for years and changing is stressful for many.

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tlmiller · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2024 11:54 am Post subject:

masinick · Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2024 2:30 am Post subject:

As far as "geting people to use Linux", I find that the younger they are, the easier to teach. Before my wife left me, she would actually come to my computer every now and then and ask to look for something. This was a number of years ago when the children were young, so we'd look at sites like Children's Place, Gymboree, Carter's, stuff like that. I had her browsing sites in the Mozilla browser, Konqueror, and Firefox at various times. I'd try to get her to use Linux - and she could - she was just stubborn and would not let me put it on her system, even though it outperformed hers.

My two children, though, had no problems using Linux. I had both of them using PCLinuxOS and SimplyMEPIS without any problem at all. My girl, then nine, now eleven, was less apt to use it, but I even taught her how to boot the system and login. My son, who was seven then and nearly nine now, can not only boot the system, he can modify backgrounds and do all kinds of stuff. The Merrimack Valley School District where he goes to school has a strong policy (unlike the Concord School District, CSD) to promote and use as much free software as possible and they invest in the Linux Terminal Server project and use Linux both for the kids and for the staff. My son noticed that and pointed it out to me, so I checked their IT site, and sure enough, it is part of their school budget and part of a strategic plan to save money. Nearly a decade ago I recommended Linux to the CSD to save money, but they ignored me. I'd try again, but talking to some people is like speaking to the deaf and dumb.

Not all people who are older have trouble with Linux. It all depends on whether they have grown up using technology or not. My mother did not; she may have used computers a little bit in her ten years working for the schools in Michigan, but she would do things mostly on a step by step basis and had little understanding of what was actually going on. I gave her a laptop a number of years ago and she never used it. My nephew gave her another laptop recently and both my oldest sister (their mom) and both of my nephews, plus the very nice and patient tech support staff tried to help my mom, but various issues would come up, different each time, and my mom just did not have the background to reason through them and get around them. She's not stupid, but neither is she technically astute. She is a very healthy 82 years old, and I am proud of her in many ways, but her computer prowess isn't one of them, though I am proud of her at least wanting to try. If I were there, I'd work with her a little each week, personally training her. Most people just don't have the time it would take.

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jester · Sr. Member Joined: 19 Apr 2024 Posts: 1166

FWIW, Tom's is also running a series of Linux pieces from the 'how do I do Windows on linux' perspective, but they're very upfront about that premise and personally I get less 'whinge' from the author(s?)

Links below if you're interested:

Part 1 Installation (the brown one again)
Part 2 Internet Applications
Part 3 Communications Apps

It's a shame they missed irssi for irc clients, but they enlightened me on the number of IM clients there are (maybe I don't need those so much)

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