Vista vs. Linux Rebuttal

I've just finished reading a Vista vs. Linux post from ITVoir.com. Click Here to read it.

The author of this article had a few facts to get straight. The web site requires administrative approval for any comments, so mine may not make it to the site. But here is my response, in it's entirety:
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I respect your post, but your research couldn't have taken you any further from the truth.

Firstly, Linux has more software than Windows. Hands down. And it's mostly free software. Just because you can't name any software that runs on Linux doesn't mean there's less. And now, with virtualization i.e. VMWare and VirtualBox, not to mention Cedega and Wine, you can run most Windows software on top of Linux one way or another. You can even run Windows on top of Linux, and in fact, it runs faster this way than it runs natively.

Secondly, you stated that because Linux has the widest software support of any operating system that it is more 'vulnerable.' When Windows breaks, Microsoft waits until someone complains about it first. Then, they put a 'team' together to put together a patch. Next, the patch is distributed via Windows Updates. Linux, in contrast, is built on top of a more secure foundation, so there are fewer security flaws to begin with, and much less serious when they occur. And due to it's larger group of support programmers, it is usually fixed faster - MUCH faster - than Microsoft products. Let me put this idea into context for you - MasterLock makes conbination locks for lockers and toolboxes and etc. But without the combination for said lock, you can't open it - even if you know how every little part inside moves and interacts with the other moving parts.

Thirdly, Linux has support for WiFi. In fact, Linux has had support for the newer WPA security standards like TTLS before most Windows users had it - they had to wait for XP SP2.

In addition, the hardware you speak about with support for Vista is usually on the Expensive side of things, and Vista needs 2gigs of RAM to do anything worthwhile in a descent amount of time, whereas Linux runs everything from Graphing Calculators to Cell Phones to the Hardon Collider. It's a much more versatile computing solution.

Windows Automatic Updates are some of the biggest money makers for people in the Computer Service Industry. Microsoft consistently puts patches through that are under tested and unreliable, and they often render user's machines unusable. Microsoft can't even seem to make up their minds about what they think people should have, might want to have, and must have. Remember Internet Explorer 7? First it was an optional update, then it was Recommended (i.e. automatically installed), and then for a while it wasn't even obtainable from the Windows Update site. And lets not forget that Microsoft is known to place Spyware on your computer, and if you've run Windows Update in the last 18 months, then YOU HAVE IT.

Again, on this next one, your facts are clouded. You CAN INDEED set Linux up for automatic back up. That is a Fact. You have much more control over it as well.

Overall, it would seem that from reading your article, you've probably never used an Operating System besides Windows Vista. Windows Vista is so horrible, in fact, that the Mac market is booming with sales increases of over 50% a year. Fortune 500 companies have all but halted any and all upgrade plans for the time being - they've decided that it would be more practical to keep their machines with Windows 2000 than to change over to Windows Vista - mainly, because of Networking and Usability issues. And, the major PC dealers had to stop selling machines with Vista Home Basic because they said it was 'Almost Unusable.' Microsoft has since decided to bump-up their next Operating System release by almost 2 years in a desperate effort to reclaim the market.

Microsoft has done wonderful things for the PC industry, and without them, fewer people throughout the world would have PCs or know how to use them. As a PC Service Technician with plentiful experience in Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista, and as a die-hard Linux user and Mac admirer, I can honestly say that Windows Vista is the absolute Worst Operating System ever compiled.

Thanks for the post,
~Joe