[plug] Fedora 7 vs Windows Longhorn Server 2008 Beta 3

[Arie Hol]

I decided to get adventurous :

First, I found an 80Gb hdd and put it in my workstation and disconnected
my 320Gb HDD.

First I installed an evaluation copy of Windows Longhorn Server 2008
Beta 3, then I installed a copy of Fedora 7.

Windows took 22 minutes to install and get me to my first login screen.

Fedora 7 took 24 minutes to install and get me to my first login screen.

The Windows installation was uneventful, but hardware detection and
configuration was "pathetic".

Windows Server 2008 did not detect :

LCD monitor (Samsung 19" widescreen 940BW)
Graphics adapter (ATI Radeon 9250SE)
Printer (Epson Stylus color 640)
Onboard audio chipset (Soundmax)
Plugin audio card (Creative Vibra 128)
Flatbed scanner (HP 4300c)

Detected network card but installed wrong driver.

Windows would not manually install any of the drivers for the above
hardware.

Screen resolution was limited to the range where only 4:3 aspect ratios
were usable (looks very sick on 16:9 aspect ratio screen).

None of Windows "eye candy" worked.

The User interface was clunky and confusing, and it seems to have stolen
a few ideas from the Linux user interface, but Linux does it better.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Fedora 7 installer was buggy and unreliable, it kept failing with
strange error messages and required rebooting :

It was easily confused between the two DVD drives in my system, it would
boot from one drive and try to install from the other (even though it
was disabled in the BIOS).

The media checking utility is defective - if I chose to "Skip" the media
check, the install would fail with any of about six different errors -
if I chose to check the media, the media check would fail at about 50%
and report faults with files or the media itself - and then go on to
complete a default install - with 1025 software packages installed.

The auto-updater was flakey and slow - but it finally updated everything
on the system including the kernel

updated from  	2.6.21-1.3194.fc7
to		2.6.22.5-76.fc7 

All hardware without exception, was detected and configured correctly
including the LCD monitor which came up in its default resolution of
1440 x 900.

It only took two clicks to enable the Linux desktop effects, it worked
flawlessly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I spent about 90 minutes with each OS install, configuration and/or
update :

The main difference being that with Fedora 7 - there 1025 packages
installed and fully updated - and all of my hardware was working as
intended.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion :

Microsoft has shot themselves in the foot again, Windows Longhorn Server
2008 is a load of crap.

Fedora 7 (like all other Linux distros) just keeps on getting better.

Recommendation :

1 : Find & Run a program called fdisk 
2 : Delete the Windows partition
3 : Use all those extra gigabytes of space for a Linux filesystem
4 : Stick with Linux
5 : Give Microsoft a silent "one digit salute"

A copy of this email will also be sent to Microsoft, but I don't expect
that I will get a reply.


Regards Arie 
==================================