Windows 7 — how does it stack up?
Bang for buck, which is the best operating system for you?
Over recent months, apart from trying to paint the house, battle my backyard wilderness, sort out my junk overload and save the planet, I’ve been trying to become moderately expert in Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard and Ubuntu Linux 9.04. I’ve not been impressed with Windows lately so I decided to evaluate the opposition with a view to deciding which OS to throw my lot in with for the foreseeable future.
I’ve written more in-depth about my findings here on mistywindow.com
What’s the conclusion?
A plague on the houses of both Apple and Microsoft. Ubuntu Linux wins by a narrow margin.
Apple have an excellent operating system and easily the best hardware, but that beautiful hardware is just too outrageously expensive for me. Yeah, I know you pay for quality, but the extortionate Apple hardware tax will cost you far more than Microsoft’s operating system tax.
With Windows 7, Microsoft have improved their act by a degree of magnitude. It’s too early to be sure but my feeling is that, security aside, Windows 7 is as good as Snow Leopard. They’d become divorced from reality and from the people paying their bills – maybe they’re seeing the light at last.
Windows 7 is far better than Vista, smoother, less bloated. and with a lot of incremental usability improvements. They’ve kicked we long-suffering Vista users in the teeth with their Windows 7 upgrade pricing but at least they’re on the right track. If you’re thinking of upgrading and budget concious, consider buying an OEM copy – it’s the cheapest option.
I’m sticking with Windows for the time being: I’m ready to give up Photoshop and Dreamweaver which I can’t easily run in Linux, but I won’t give up Evernote. Nevertheless, if present trends continue, within a few years I’ll be going full open-source, probably with Ubuntu Linux.
Any discussion over the relative merits of Windows, Mac and Linux usually invokes fanaticism worthy of the Third Reich and degenerates into personal abuse on a scale usually reserved for South American football referees.
If you’ve read my full investgation I’d like to hear your views. I’ve given my biased opinions based upon my own trials, my own software requirements, my own limited budget and my own past experience. Your requirements may be very different so your conclusions may be just as different.
If your mileage varies that’s fine with me, just leave the flamethrower at home.
Zebra Rainboots:
Is this a wordpress or a typepad blog? The theme is real nice.
30 October 2009, 9:49 amhotspot shield:
lengthy and in depth article but full of useful information
6 November 2009, 9:08 pmHone Phillips:
Thank you for taking the time to both test and share your views Alan. It is always a help to have another person’s evaluation when it comes to thinking about an Operating System. That’s especially true when you share many of the same ideas about what makes a good or bad system.
13 November 2009, 7:43 amI am curious though, does Ubuntu have a windows-like interface?
Alan:
There’s a series of Ubuntu 9.10 screenshotes here: http://tinyurl.com/yfc5lr3
13 November 2009, 8:22 amIt does have a Windows like GUI. Did you check the main shootout on my website Hone? It starts here. The Linux page is here.
news:
Microsoft and the NSA are working together to improve the security measures of the latest windows 7. I have’nt tried windows 7 yet but i guess its good news. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/11/nsa_microsoft_windows_7.html
19 November 2009, 3:26 pmJohn MacGibbon:
Alan – I thought you’d ditched Linux entirely, mainly due to networking problems. And that you’d moved lock stock and barrel to Macs? Now I see you’re still running Windows.
I’m still using Ubuntu (9.03) on my Eee netbook via Eeebuntu. When it’s going great, it’s great, but it sure has problems, partly due to the Eee kludge not always keeping up with Ubuntu updates. That’s not going to improve either, because the Eeebuntu people intend to move away from Ubuntu. I don’t want to move with them, but fear my machine will eventually be killed by an Ubuntu upgrade. But as it is, I’ve done at least four complete OS reinstalls on that netbook in 18 months – once from the horrible Xandros it was shipped with, and then three reinstalls of Eeebuntu. That’s over 18 months. I’d feel pretty hard done by if I’d had to reinstall Windows on my other machines as often.
In fact I haven’t needed to do any Windows reinstalls at all. However Windows 7 is going to replace XP on my big laptop this holiday season.
I set up Ubuntu 9.10 as a dual boot with Windows 7 on my office machine, but only out of curiousity. It’s not practical in my real world because it doesn’t run the programs I use professionally. Aside from that, Ubuntu 9.10 does look good – though not as good as Windows 7, IMHO.
20 December 2009, 1:27 pmAlan:
It’s a moveable feast John.
At present I’m using Windows 7 on my desk machine and I’ve also installed it on my 13″ MacBook for use as a netbook.
20 December 2009, 1:52 pmI won’t be going back to the Mac OS unless they get real about their hardware.
Long term I’d like to switch to Linux but I’ll probably stick with Windows until my current versions of Photoshop and Dreamweaver pass their use-by date.
I may modify that plan if Evernote produce a Linux local client.