Amen. Smart man.

+1 :)

I use Linux and this is an outrage! What? Linux has much greater hardware support than Windows does. It runs on everything from routers, GPS's, Tivos, smartphones, up to desktops, workstations, servers and super computers. It doesn't only support x86 based CPUs like Windows does.

Perhaps Linux hardware support isn't perfect on desktops for certain devices like wireless cards, but Linux truly has supported far more hardware than Windows ever has.

The only flaw with your argument is that Windows has supported 64 bit CPU's since XP, and possibly beforehand if you dig into their server branch of software. XP 64bit is the earliest OS I can remember that had direct support for 64 bit CPU's for home based systems, though. It was just a colossal pita and never worked right out of the few times I tried to mess with it.

Also, don't forget Vista and 7 x64, which were both designed for 64 bit systems.

I think you missunderstood the "hardware support" part. And, Windows supports ARM too, so your statement about that falls in the water too.

But anyway, I'm not going to argue, kind of tired of constant bashing for no good reason.

He's talking about x86 as an architecture, as opposed to ARM.

Yes, I was referring to hardware support in the desktop/server world.

I was talking about hardware support in the desktop/server world where it beats the ass off of Linux and Unix.

Even outside of that you need to remember that almost all of the GPS devices out there run Windows CE and not linux, all ATMs run either Windows CE or Windows XP embedded, most signaling and advertising signs run Windows XP embedded, you have overall more Windows Mobile devices on the market than Android.

Linux wins hands down on routers and TIVOs though.

How did I misunderstand hardware support?
Oh wow, Windows supports a whopping two architectures, and I don't think the Windows Phone kernel is the same NT kernel the desktop version uses.

Linux supports all of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_supported_architectures

Then bitch to the lovely people who work on GRUB for not doing their job right ;)
As I said, in that context hardware refers to devices based on x86 or devices which extend it.

Also, the Android kernel is as close to the Linux kernel as the WP7 kernel or Windows CE kernel is to the base NT kernel.

More things in my previous reply to you.

That must be why the majority of servers run Linux? I don't know of any GPS's that run Windows. My TomTom runs Linux though, as do all TomToms.
And Windows Mobile wasn't even good before the iPhone and Android. It's a really bad joke nowadays. Windows Phone 7 is like a bad copycat of iPhone 1.0. (No copy and paste? lol)

OH. In that case nevermind. I misunderstood.

Haters gonna hate. As always. ;)

Have you even tried the phone?

And yes, those servers run so much diverse hardware right? Come on, don't be dense.

Yes, they run Linux but this doesn't mean that when it comes to hardware support they handle it better than Windows.

It also has to do with history and the fact that until relatively recently Windows did suck on the server OS side; that has changed a lot though in recent years and the statistics show that Windows Server OS has a growth rate higher than Linux.

Almost all older TomToms run Windows CE; Mio's run Windows CE, most Garmins also run Windows CE, almost all no-name GPS units run Windows CE.

Seriously now, I'm a Linux fan and would like to see it make a larger impact in the PC world, but the truth is that it just doesn't.

Also, how is it bad that SP1 does a roll-back if it can't install and gives you an error message and a possible solution compared to Linux where if something goes wrong you end up with a locked system or if you're lucky a command line?

I can count on my hand the number of times I've had Windows lock or crash after an update, be it a driver or OS one, but don't even want to remember the horrors I had to endure while managing Linux boxes.
Riiight, it wasn't good; that's why it was the most used OS on the smartphones of its age and on most PDAs.

As for WP7, as KavazovAngel said, did you even try it? As for copy/paste, it's getting that in an OS update in the following month with multi-tasking and a sensible multitasking UI coming towards the end of the year.

You know, I'm happy that they went that way: release a solid product now that's missing some features and add them along the way rather than keep it in development for ages and watch as the others run past you (see the now defunct Palm or soon-to-be RIM).

Oh really? How do you figure that once the kernel is updated with the relevant driver stuff and it's matured, Windows hardware support is better?

Linux strongly encourages open source drivers, yes, and that puts some restrictions on how fast driver teams can get code to maturity. If that issue isn't played up, Linux is usually way ahead of Windows for hardware support. AVX support came in with kernel 2.6.30 and Windows 7 SP1. Kernel 2.6.30 was released June 2009 while Win 7 SP1 was released well now in early 2011, making Windows 2 years late, but just in time for the actual hardware to become available.

The massive backwards compatibility hardware support and the fact even Windows 7 still largely relies on proprietary drivers being plugged in instead of the Microsoft driver repository really doesn't help this statement be any closer to being factually correct.

Let's see Garmin, who had majority market share, was using a custom Linux OS until rather recently when they decided to shift to Smart Phones instead of proprietary devices. So I'm not really seeing any room for you to even try to make a case.

Not only is it an unqualified generalization, but it's also wrong.

Trying to rip on Linux with untrue statements doesn't give you any kind of moral highground over people ripping on Microsoft with issues that are usually blown all out of proportion. Linus' Law is perfectly legitimate, and need I remind you neither Linus Torvald or the GNU community started out with the intent to create something to beat UNIX and dominate the supercomputer and server market, but there it is.

Uh-huh. I take it you don't realize even client side Crysis will run faster on Linux then Windows with same hardware, with Cedega providing the necessary compatibility layer or much of anything else along those lines.

Source, or it's meaningless. Particularly given that's undoubtedly the sold with preinstalled OS statistics, which are quite meaningless. The fact Red Hat Enterprises is rapidly growing should be a clue, monsieur.

Palm OS, aka the standard PDA OS in the PDA era, is Windows CE now?

Please get back to me when I can get video hardware acceleration working without problems on both nVidia and ATI cards; every time I tried to I had to install drivers which caused Xorg to crash and burn and I had to revert to the console to repair the damage. Or when I can get all the printing functions working properly. You know, things like these that the regular user encounters day to day.

I think that the close ties the kernel has with drivers and waiting for upstream is one of Linux' biggest drawbacks.

See bold; I couldn't really give much of a fuck as long as I can't use that instruction set. Sure, if Windows had support for this two years from now this would be a valid complain. Besides this, how much code does use AVX?

Why should Microsoft work on the drivers for hardware it doesn't manufacture? So it can have the same problems as Linux has with video drivers for example?

No, it's the hardware manufacturers job to provide the drivers for a particular OS; the OS development team has to provide either an API or a guideline against the drivers are to be developed.

What good does a Microsoft driver repository do when, upon detecting a piece of hardware, it can pull those drivers from the internet and install them?

I'm sorry? Prove me wrong on this one, I'm really interested to see your facts.

Where am I trying to rip on Linux? I just brought counter arguments to the false things Kingoftherings said.

Or do you mean to say that the Linux is behind Windows when being able to handle a wide variety of consumer devices (graphics cards, printers, scanners, wifi cards, graphics tablets) and a wide variety of PC hardware configurations is something which is false and bashing towards Linux?

and [url=http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/behind-the-idc-data-windows-still-no-1-in-server-operating-systems/5408]here you go

As for the preinstalled OS statistics, I'm sorry but how many corporations and businesses buy a server with preinstalled software only to uninstall that and install something else on top of it, most of the time voiding the warranty of the acquisition?

Citation needed, especially as Cedega can only do partial DirectX 9.0 emulation.

what is this microsoft security essentials thing that shows up on my taskbar post-update?