David Plummer, a former Microsoft engineer compared Linux to Windows

For many years there was a confrontation between Windows and Linux which to this day still extends to the developer community.

And it is that beyond the heated debates that each time provokes this confrontation, David Plummer, a retired engineer who worked in development Windows, gave his opinion, an opinion that I try to be the most effectively impartial.

David Plummer has worked on Windows since the days of MS-DOS and Windows 95. He is the author of several achievements such as Windows Task Manager, Zip File Support for Windows, among others, with six patents in the field of software engineering.

However, the fact That he worked for Microsoft didn't stop him from supporting Linux development, as he explains for example, that in the early 90's, he fixed some problems in the Linux source code before sending them to Linus Torvalds.

The retired engineer trató to make a comparison between Windows and Linux analyzing the two operating systems from different aspects: usability, updates and security.

It's a strong statement David Plummer, argues that Linux Properly said "Lacks a proper user interface beyond the command line '.

This command line can be extremely powerful, especially if you're a fan of Bash or Zsh, among others, but you can't really describe it as particularly easy to use, ”he says.

It doesn't rule out the fact that most Linux distributions today come with a desktop user interface for those who prefer it.

"But as a shell designer, if I can be that bold, they are usually pretty terrible," he adds. Before specifying that the Mint distribution is an exception with a rather nice interface.

“Windows, on the other hand, includes a default desktop shell interface that, if you leave out the totally subjective design aesthetics, is professionally designed, tested to usability standards, and takes different levels of design into account. Accessibility required by people with different limitations. In terms of usability, especially if accessibility is included in that metric, Windows stands out, ”he said.

On updates, David Plummer praises the fact that users of Windows are well taken care of by a dedicated Windows Update team at Microsoft.

However, regrets that the process is sometimes complicated, unlike Linux:

"It is very easy to update a Linux system, and even if there is no professional team to respond to zero-day exploits, the updates come out reasonably quickly and in some cases, you can even update the kernel without rebooting," he says.

Of course, some parts of the Linux kernel will require a reboot during an update, as will some parts of the Windows system. However, the former engineer of Microsoft believes that Windows requires the system to restart too often.

Moving on to the topic of updates, he recalled that they are generally free in the open source world, unless you are using a predefined distribution from a vendor.

Plummer believes open source software is more open to vulnerabilities security, simply because, other things being equal, it's easy to find loopholes in open source software to exploit.

"I think it is a small mistake to trust [Linus's law]," he concludes. However, he thinks Linux is more secure. He believes that Windows is so popular that it is a much more attractive target for malicious actors. Also, most Windows users retain all administrator privileges.

David plummer also compared Windows and Linux on other criteria like customization, documentation and community. When it comes to customization, as you can guess, thinks Linux is more customizable, since the operating system is open source.

It's easier to add new features Besides, it is enough to propose a few. If Linus Torvalds and the project leaders feel that the proposed functionality is needed, it will be integrated. Otherwise, it is still possible to branch and insert the function if it is rejected.

This is also what happens in the community, for example Debian has forked due to sytemd thus allowing Devuan to emerge, whereas with Windows, adding or removing functions is more difficult.

Regarding the documentation, the former engineer of Microsoft believe that there is often no better documentation than source code and that Linux is available to the public. Which is a bonus. However, with MSDN, Microsoft provides very good quality documentation.

Finally, the community once again David Plummer believes that Microsoft is making a difference, based on analysis of popular IT forums, as the Microsoft community is larger and more responsive - more views, more responses, and more responses on Windows-related questions than Linux-related questions.

Source: https://tech.slashdot.org


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