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.. -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
============================================
Objective reasons to prefer Linux to Windows
============================================
:Author: Nathaniel Beaver
:Date: September 20, 2014
:Copyright: This document is released under a `Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License`_.
.. _Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
.. |--| unicode:: U+2013 .. en dash
.. |---| unicode:: U+2014 .. em dash, trimming surrounding whitespace
:trim:
.. contents::
++++++++++++
Introduction
++++++++++++
"Linux is more stable and reliable."
"Linux is more secure and private."
"Linux is faster and less bloated."
"Linux is more flexible and customizable."
"Linux gives you more control over your computer."
Stop it.
Clichés like these are vague and wishy-washy,
and they are founded on anecdotes and hearsay.
They cause `endless, unnecessary debates`_ and make a muddle of the facts.
.. _endless, unnecessary debates: https://linux.slashdot.org/
It's easy to opine about one's preferred operating system,
but harder to give objective, concrete examples.
With the caveat that both Windows and Linux are moving targets,
this document describes some specific technical reasons
to prefer using Linux as a desktop operating system.
These reasons are not exhaustive
|---| and not meant to be |---|
but aim to be representative.
This document will not cover servers, phones, or embedded devices.
This document will not cover closed vs. open source development,
but will instead focus on functionality.
There is plenty of discussion
of the advantages and disadvantages of open source elsewhere.
(Besides, what is there to discuss
when we now know that `even Microsoft loves open source`_?)
.. _even Microsoft loves open source: https://www.networkworld.com/article/2216878/microsoft---we-love-open-source-.html
This discussion will only mention Microsoft and other companies
in so far as their actions are directly relevant
to the technically capabilities of Windows and Linux.
(As an aside, Microsoft gets a lot of guff in the open-source world,
but its behavior is typical for a corporation
whose a bottom line relies on sales of proprietary software and devices.
It's economics, not malice.)
The discussion is intended to be as accurate as possible,
at the cost of possible dryness due to technical detail.
I am most familiar with the Debian-based family of Linux distributions,
so my remarks will necessarily touch on these more,
but I have tried to include other distributions when possible.
In this document, the term "Linux" is shorthand for the entire distribution,
including bootloader, kernel, shell, window manager, package manager, etc.
Similarly, the term "Windows"
refers to all default components of modern versions of Microsoft Windows NT,
including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.
Many of the same arguments in favor of Linux
also apply to the BSD family of operating systems
(and POSIX-compliant operating systems in general),
but unfortunately I am not familiar enough with any of them
to comment specifically.
+++++++++++++++
Why write this?
+++++++++++++++
Most people use Windows on the desktop because it's the default.
Few are aware of the benefits of switching to another operating system,
and even fewer are willing to put in the effort to do so.
A Windows user interested in trying Linux
will probably have difficulty finding a coherent reason to do so,
since comparisons of operating systems
tend to be vague, uninformed, or opinion-based.
Even people who know and use Linux by choice
may not do a good job of explaining its benefits to their colleagues
especially without putting down Windows users
or Windows applications in general.
Also, there are many open source alternatives to Linux on the desktop,
including a binary-compatible clone of Windows called `ReactOS`_.
If it were just a matter of being open source,
why bother with the additional effort to learn Linux?
.. _ReactOS: https://reactos.org/
Even if you don't use Linux or Windows,
it's useful to know where Linux has an edge,
since these issues are relevant to all operating systems.
If you are a new Linux user,
this document is intended to inform you
about some of the benefits of Linux you may not be aware of,
and to dig deeper if you are interested.
If you are an experienced Linux user,
this document is a test of the theory that the fastest way to get feedback
is to be publicly wrong about something people care about.
Corrections and additions are welcome.
If you are a Windows user:
- This document is not intended to convert you to Linux.
(That would be silly.)
- This document does not claim that Windows is inferior in every way,
or even that it is inferior overall.
- Instead, this is meant to provide insight
into why some people choose to use Linux as a desktop operating system,
despite its shortcomings,
and possibly to challenge some misconceptions
that people have about Linux and Windows.
- Corrections and additions are, of course, welcome.
Windows developers are ones who know the most about its flaws and strengths.
- Finally, definitions of better and worse are necessarily subjective,
despite the title's claim of objectivity.
You may heartily disagree with substantial parts of what follows,
but perhaps it may be useful to you, even so.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Intrinsic technical deficiencies of the Windows NT operating system
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a list of examples of specific limitations
that are the result of the Windows kernel or API.
-------------------------
Live booting limitations.
-------------------------
Windows LiveCDs, `though they do exist`_,
are hampered by licensing restrictions and technical limitations.
.. _though they do exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Preinstallation_Environment
For example, `until Windows 8`_, desktop versions of Windows
could not boot from a USB.
(And while running a live USB of Windows 8,
it is still not possible to mount internal hard disks.)
.. _until Windows 8: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831833.aspx
The `BartPE LiveCD building program`_
is 3rd party software that will run on any version of Windows,
but it is `only able to make`_ a LiveCD
for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.
.. _BartPE LiveCD building program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BartPE
.. _only able to make: https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22258
There is also the `WinBuilder`_ project,
which is the closest to a fully-functional LiveCD of modern Windows versions,
but installing software and drivers is still sometimes a challenge.
.. _WinBuilder: https://documentation.help/Win-Builder/wboverview.html
If the Virtual Machine fails don’t worry too much. Just because the Virtual
Machine fails to boot right does not mean your boot media won’t work, I’ve
seen odd results depending on the amount of memory the VM has and what
drivers I load.
https://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/winbuilder-win7pe-se-tutorial
The absence of fully functional live versions of Windows
makes it difficult to use for, e.g,
determining if a bug is due to hardware or software problems,
recovering data from a machine with filesystem corruption or bad disk sectors,
and testing out different versions of an OS
without making a new hard drive partition.
`Live versions`_ of Linux are full operating systems,
able to mount and repartition disks,
connect to the internet and run a web browser,
and even retain settings and data on the next boot-up
(for `persistent live USB flash drives`_).
This makes live versions of Linux useful for
recovering files from damaged hard drives,
making bootable backups of an entire drive,
scanning a disk for malware
without loading a potentially compromised operating system,
distinguishing hardware problems from software problems,
and other tasks requiring a temporary operating system.
.. _Live versions: https://www.linux.com/news/livecd-boot-benchmarks-round-1-popular-livecds/
.. _persistent live USB flash drives: https://askubuntu.com/questions/295701/what-would-be-the-differences-between-a-persistent-usb-live-session-and-a-instal
Some live Linux distributions, such as `Puppy Linux`_,
are lightweight enough that they default to `running from a RAM disk`_,
and consequently have much faster disk I/O
than an OS that must access a spinning hard drive.
(This comes at the cost of disk space being limited by RAM.
There's no reason you can't mount an internal or external drive
to store files, though.)
.. _Puppy Linux: https://wikka.puppylinux.com/HomePage
.. _running from a RAM disk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions_that_run_from_RAM
Very little hardware comes with a `desktop version of Linux pre-installed`_,
so live versions of Linux tend to work very well,
since that is almost always the way it is installed.
.. _desktop version of Linux pre-installed: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuPre-installed
--------------------------------------
Virtualization and driver limitations.
--------------------------------------
Similar to live booting,
Linux is often run as a virtual machine,
and consequently it is well-adapted to changes in hardware.
An existing Linux partition on a physical hard drive
can, with some care, be virtualized and ran on another machine,
a virtue which Windows does not share.
Windows installations, unlike Linux, cannot easily be moved from one
hardware to another. This is not just due to Microsoft's activation
mechanism but the fact that the installed kernel and drivers depend on the
actual hardware.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows
The problem lies with Windows, in that its driver settings, particularly
for storage devices, are not portable. Unless you modify the Windows
registry to force start storage drivers for both the physical and virtual
machines, you will mostly likely end up with a ``0x0000007B`` STOP blue
screen error each time which will require a restore or modifying the
registry to fix.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/174581/is-there-any-way-to-boot-windows-7-partition-in-virtual-machine
It's even possible to transfer a Linux install to a USB enclosure
and boot it directly on another machine of the same architecture,
although the kernel will lack proprietary drivers (e.g. some wifi cards).
---------------------
Maximum path lengths.
---------------------
Windows path lengths `are limited to 260 characters`_, including filename.
(In practice, it is often more like `199 characters`_.)
This is `not a flaw in NTFS`_ or Windows per se,
but in the `non-Unicode version of the Windows API`_.
.. _are limited to 260 characters: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247%28VS.85%29.aspx#maxpath
.. _not a flaw in NTFS: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681827%28VS.85%29.aspx#limits
.. _non-Unicode version of the Windows API: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx#maxpath
.. _199 characters: https://stackoverflow.com/a/265817
.. _have not done so: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/bclteam/archive/2007/02/13/long-paths-in-net-part-1-of-3-kim-hamilton.aspx
This problem can be avoided by using Unicode versions of the API calls,
but many applications
(e.g. `Windows Explorer`_, `.NET`_ and `consequently Powershell`_)
have not done so.
.. _Windows Explorer: https://www.gibixonline.com/post/2009/08/23/Explorer-still-limited-by-MAX_PATH
.. _.NET: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/bclteam/archive/2007/02/13/long-paths-in-net-part-1-of-3-kim-hamilton.aspx
.. _consequently Powershell: https://connect.microsoft.com/PowerShell/feedback/details/276235/path-length-limitations
Of course, most OS restrictions are `not an issue in well-written software`_.
Maybe Windows paths `are long enough`_.
Is ``MAX_PATH`` an actual problem in real software?
.. _not an issue in well-written software: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/03/01/1775759.aspx
.. _are long enough: https://blog.codinghorror.com/filesystem-paths-how-long-is-too-long/
Judging by the number of bug reports and complaints,
the answer appears to be yes.
#. https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/6960
#. https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=61922
#. https://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=20440
#. https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=164186
#. https://bugs.python.org/issue19636
#. https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=14228
#. https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/vstudio/en-US/e4a8ee8d-b25d-4b47-8c0c-88329bbece7d/please-increase-maxpath-to-32767
#. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1880321/why-does-the-260-character-path-length-limit-exist-in-windows
#. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1065993/has-windows-7-fixed-the-255-character-file-path-limit
#. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/833291/is-there-an-equivalent-to-winapis-max-path-under-linux-unix
#. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1858907/svn-command-line-utility-will-not-work-if-full-file-name-is-longer-then-256-char
#. https://www.itefix.net/content/rsync-file-name-too-long-91
#. https://web.archive.org/web/20161112033727/http://sqlite.1065341.n5.nabble.com/Path-Length-Limit-on-Windows-td70642.html
#. https://sumedha.blogspot.com/2011/01/svn-checkout-fails-windows-max-path.html
#. http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=263489
But the bigger issue
is that many Windows developers are `so used to`_ `working around`_ the problem
that it has become deeply entrenched and may `never be fixed`_.
.. _so used to: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/tomholl/archive/2007/02/04/enterprise-library-and-the-curse-of-max-path.aspx
.. _working around: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11212007
.. _never be fixed: https://archive.md/y6to3
The Linux kernel does have an adjustable pathname length limit;
it's `4096 chars in typical kernels and filesystems`_.
You can check it by running::
$ getconf PATH_MAX /
However, `this limit is not enforced`_
by any filesystems that Linux runs on,
and consequently some ``libc`` implementations
were for a while `susceptible to buffer overflow`_
when trying to resolve canonical file paths.
.. _4096 chars in typical kernels and filesystems: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/28997/on-deep-created-directories
.. _this limit is not enforced: https://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2007/11/pathmax-simply-isnt.html
.. _susceptible to buffer overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1171833/how-to-get-the-absolute-path-of-a-file-programmatically-with-out-realpath-unde
The 2008 POSIX revision has `addressed the issue`_, but prior to this
the Linux kernel had to make non-standard modifications to avoid overflow,
and `warned about the problem`_ in the ``realpath (3)`` man page
of the Linux Programmer's Manual.
.. _addressed the issue: https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode/FIO02-C.+Canonicalize+path+names+originating+from+tainted+sources
.. _warned about the problem: https://linux.die.net/man/3/realpath
This illustrates that while the Linux kernel developers
scrupulously avoid breaking external compatibility,
they also intentionally expose false assumptions,
since false assumptions tend to cause hard-to-fix bugs.
This is why Linus Torvalds
`chose an unusually high`_ timer interrupt frequency for Linux:
I chose 1000 originally partly as a way to make sure that people that
assumed HZ was 100 would get a swift kick in the pants. That meant making
a _big_ change, not a small subtle one. For example, people tend to react
if "uptime" suddenly says the machine has been up for a hundred days (even
if it's really only been up for ten), but if it is off by just a factor of
two, it might be overlooked.
--- Linus Torvalds, *Selectable Frequency of the Timer Interrupt* (2005)
.. _chose an unusually high: https://lkml.org/lkml/2005/7/8/263
----------------------------
Filename case-insensitivity.
----------------------------
Linux uses case-sensitive filenames
because Unix used case-sensitive filenames.
Unix was case-sensitive because Multics was case-sensitive.
Multics was case-sensitive because the ASCII standard
included both an uppercase and a lowercase alphabet. [#Multics_case_sensitive]_
Why did ASCII do this?
It was a close call, and almost didn't happen.
Telegraphy codes used uppercase only,
or at least did not distinguish upper and lowercase.
Even ITA2, an international standard from 1930,
used a 5-bit code with a shift to switch between letters and figures,
but not upper and lowercase. [#ITA2]_
Similarly, punched cards used uppercase letters only.
Encodings with different bit patterns for uppercase and lowercase
had been proposed as early as 1959, [#Bemer_1959]_
though they were not widely implemented.
For example, the IBM 7030 "Stretch" supercomputer,
first installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1961,
had an 8-bit encoding that interleaved uppercase and lowercase alphabets.
[#Stretch_supercomputer]_
However, the 7030's character encoding did not catch on.
Early on, ASCII committee concluded that 6-bit encodings (64 bit patterns)
were insufficient to include both control characters and special characters
in addition to the required 26 alphabetics and 10 numerics,
so they decided to use a 7-bit code.
However, ASCII was designed to include a useful 6-bit subset,
which could only fit a single alphabet.
The consideration of a 6-bit, 64-character graphic subset was important to
the standards committee. If the ultimate decision was that columns 6 and 7
would be for graphics, then columns 2 through 7 would contain Space, 94
graphics, and Delete. But, even with the code providing 94 graphics, a
major assumption of the standards committee was that data processing
applications would, for the foreseeable future, be satisfied with a
monocase alphabet (that is, a 64- or less graphic subset) as they had in
the past---that 64-character printers would predominate. So it was
important to be able to derive a 64-character, monocase alphabet, graphic
subset from the code by simple, not complex, logic.
--- Charles E. Mackenzie, "Coded character sets: history and development"
(1980), p.228
In fact, some of the committee members
wanted to reserve the remaining space for control characters.
The conclusion of the preceding paragraph is based on the assumption
that two alphabets, small letters and capital letters, would be included
in the 7-bit code and that decision had not yet been made. If the
decision was ultimately made that columns 6 and 7 would would contain
controls, then small letters would not be included in the 7-bit code. ``*``
``*`` If the committee did decide for controls in columns 6 and 7, it is
still likely that they would have wanted an alphabet of small letters to be
provided. Presumably, the small letter alphabet would then have been
provided by a caseshift approach.
--- Ibid, p.232
Though the committee first formed in 1961,
it wasn't until late 1963
that they finally agreed to include a lowercase alphabet,
largely because of the influence of the
International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT).
At the first meeting of ISO/TC97/SC2 in 1963 October 29-31, a resolution
was passed that the lower-case alphabet should be assigned to
columns 6 and 7.
--- Ibid, p. 246
The ISO proposal, though, did not include the lower case alphabet and the
five accent marks that the CCITT considered essential.
--- Eric Fisher, "The Evolution of Character Codes, 1874-1968", p.22
Why is it useful for filenames to include upper and lowercase?
It can make filenames more intelligible,
such as distinguishing between
the abbreviation for United State ("US")
and the first-person plural objective pronoun ("us")
in paths such as ``/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/``.
It also allows more possibilities for filenames,
and makes filename comparisons simpler and faster
because they don't have to occasionally convert
to uppercase or lowercase.
Bear in mind that it's MUCH more work for a filesystem to be
case-insensitive than -sensitive. A filesystem is case-sensitive by
default, in the simplest case; it can only be made case-INsensitive through
a lot of extra engineering. In UNIX, all the system has to do is sort on
the ASCII values of the first letters of the filenames. In the Mac OS and
Windows, the filesystem has to be smart enough to create synonyms of
various letters — A for a, and so on — and sort accordingly. That takes a
LOT of code. It's a testament to the completeness of the original Mac OS
that in 1984 this was all handled properly, before Windows even brought
lower-case letters to the PC side.
http://xahlee.info/UnixResource_dir/_/fileCaseSens.html
https://archive.md/6AhY9
However, there is also no shortage of opinions
that enforcing filename case-sensitivity
-- and even case-sensitivity in general --
was a bad decision. [#against_case_sensitivity]_
There are also passionate views
to the opposite effect. [#against_case_insensitivity]_
Laying aside that argument for the moment,
why did Windows filenames end up case-insensitive?
Strictly speaking, modern Windows filenames could be case-sensitive,
but they aren't
because the `Windows API for opening files`_ `is not case-sensitive`_,
i.e. the `default call`_ to ``CreateFile``
does not enable the ``FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS`` option.
.. _Windows API for opening files: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363858(v=vs.85).aspx
.. _is not case-sensitive: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/100625
.. _default call: https://archive.md/lKUeP
.. https://stackoverflow.com/a/7200533/1608986
However, Windows' own NTFS filesystem is `case-preserving`_.
This means that it is possible to mount an NTFS partition with Linux
and make a file called "Myfile.txt" in the same directory as "MYFILE.TXT",
but it will `not be possible to read or modify both of those files`_,
at least not with standard Windows software.
.. _case-preserving: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_preservation
.. _not be possible to read or modify both of those files: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976809.aspx
This API behavior exists to maintain compatibility with MS-DOS filesystems. [#MSDOS_case_insensitive]_
MS-DOS was built on Tim Paterson's 86-DOS (released in 1980)
and Marc McDonald's FAT filesystem,
which were designed for compatibility with CP/M. [#DOS_CPM]_ [#FAT_CPM]_
CP/M was created in 1973 by Gary Kildall,
and also used case-insensitive filenames. [#CPM_case_insensitive]_
Lower case ASCII alphabetics are internally translated to upper
case to be consistent with CP/M file and device name conventions.
http://www.gaby.de/cpm/manuals/archive/cpm22htm/ch1.htm
The CP/M manual does not state explicitly why it uses these conventions,
but Gary Kildall wrote CP/M on a `DEC`_ `PDP-10 mainframe`_
running the `TOPS-10`_ operating system
when he was working at Intel. [#kildall_tops10]_
Consequently, there are many similarities between CP/M and TOPS-10,
including filename case-insensitivity.
.. _DEC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation
.. _PDP-10 mainframe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-10
.. _TOPS-10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-10
(It should be noted that CP/M has also been compared to RT-11,
a DEC operating system for the PDP-11 minicomputer
that is closely related to TOPS-10, [#kildall_RT11]_
although the influence may not have been as direct.)
Why did TOPS-10 use case-insensitive names?
Because the DEC SIXBIT encoding used for filenames
was optimized for its architecture.
RAD50 was used in FILES-11 and RT-11 disks. It was used to store 3
characters in a 16 bit word. SIXBIT was used on TOPS-10 36bit systems to
store 6 characters in a word. It also allowed for a fast file name search
since the names were all on word boundaries (full filename compair took 2
compair, and 1 mask operation 6+3 file names).
https://lkml.org/lkml/2002/7/30/257
(CP/M was written for an eight-bit architecture,
which is presumably why it used an 8.3 filename
instead of a 6.3 filename.) [#8.3_filename]_
Similarly, the RT-11 didn't use ASCII for filenames,
but rather an encoding called RADIX-50,
which helped to save memory. [#RADIX50]_
Neither of these encodings are used much anymore,
but their case-insensitivity,
a useful optimization on 1970s hardware,
endures to this day.
The lack of agreement on filename case-sensitivity may seem insignificant,
but it has caused persistent difficulties
in cross-platform development. [#tortoise_svn_case_sensitivity]_ [#openfoam_no_windows_port]_ [#common_lisp_filenames]_
Developers of cross-platform software try to `avoid making assumptions about filename case-sensitivity`_,
but problems of this ilk crop up
when porting from Windows to Linux or vice-versa. [#valve_porting_source_to_linux]_
.. _avoid making assumptions about filename case-sensitivity: https://www.mono-project.com/docs/getting-started/application-portability/#case-sensitivity
For example, the Linux port of the `Unity engine`_ has `issues with case-sensitive filesystems`_.
Unity does not properly run on a case-sensitive file system (which is
something that Unity users have discovered if they’ve tried to install and
run Unity on a case-sensitive HFS+ file system). This is primarily due to
Unity’s asset database, and how it stores paths to map them to GUID values.
Of course we tried to be smart in the early days, but if you don’t set up a
way to actually verify that what you’re doing works on a case-sensitive
file system, then it will never fail that some well-intentioned programmer
throws a toLower() in somewhere and ruins the party.
.. _Unity engine: https://unity.com/
.. _issues with case-sensitive filesystems: https://archive.md/fJIRp
.. [#Multics_case_sensitive]
Everything in Multics is case sensitive; Multics permits use of the full
upper and lower case ASCII character set.
Multics command names and programming languages use lowercase by
convention, but users are free to use uppercase letters in path names,
identifiers, user names, etc.
https://www.multicians.org/mgc.html#commandlanguage
Multics was one of the first systems to use upper and lower case letters
freely.
https://www.multicians.org/mga.html#ASCII
Obviously, BCD had no lower-case characters, and Multics did not use BCD
at all, except to output log and crash and tape mount messages from ring
0 to the primitive Selectric operator's console.
https://www.multicians.org/mgb.html#BCD
Since the Multics file system distinguished between upper and lower case,
external names had to be case sensitive, and without much discussion we
chose to have all variable names be case sensitive.
https://www.multicians.org/pl1.html
.. [#ITA2]
See p. 9 of "The Evolution of Character Codes, 1874-1968", Eric Fisher.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170318185346/http://trafficways.org/ascii/ascii.pdf
https://github.com/ericfischer/ascii
.. [#Bemer_1959]
Simple pattern of correspondence should exist between codes assigned to
upper and lower case alphabetic characters.
--- R. W. Bemer
From page 20 of "A proposal for a generalized card code for 256 characters",
Communications of the ACM, Volume 2 Issue 9, Sept. 1959.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/368424.368435
.. [#Stretch_supercomputer]
From "Coded character sets: history and development" by Charles E. Mackenzie, 1980.
.. [#against_case_sensitivity]
Mac ＆ Windows users have to have filenames read to them over the phone
by support techs. They have to be able to write little sticky notes to
their mothers about how to open up the mail program, without worrying
about how the filenames are capitalized. Haven't you ever fumed over a
URL with initial-caps in the folder names in the path, having to fiddle
with capitalization until you get a response that's anything but a 404?
Haven't you ever been secretly pleased that e-mail addresses aren't
case-sensitive?
--- Brian Tiemann, *On Unix File System's Case Sensitivity* (2001)
http://xahlee.info/UnixResource_dir/_/fileCaseSens.html
Anecdotally, case sensitivity in programs is known to be error-prone for
both beginners and experienced users. Bob Frankston, a Multics alumnus
and the co-inventor of VisiCalc, once said it was the biggest mistake
that Multics had inflicted on the world.
--- Stavros Macrakis (2003)
Source is down
.. https://www.ma.utexas.edu/pipermail/maxima/2003/004483.html
One of the most pernicious problems with C-based languages is that
they're case-sensitive. While this decision may have made sense in 1972
when the language was created, one wonders why the sins of Kernighan and
Ritchie have been blindly perpetuated for the last thirty-three years.
[ . . . ]
Unless you have extremely compelling reasons to make something
case-sensitive, case insensitivity is a much more human being friendly
design choice. Designing software that's easier for machines is
questionable at best.
--- Jeff Atwood, *The Case For Case Insensitivity* (2005)
https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-case-for-case-insensitivity/
There is no longer any excuse for making humans learn and handle the
quirks of the way computers store upper- and lower-case characters.
Instead, software should handle the quirks of human language.
--- Brian Hauer, *Case-sensitivity is the past trolling us* (2014)
https://tiamat.tsotech.com/case-sensitivity-sucks
Since it appears to have manifested out of opinion rather than
necessity, it could be said case-sensitivity is the worst way that
modern technology sucks.
--- Greg Raiz (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160407013757/http://www.raizlabs.com/graiz/2007/02/11/linuxunix-case-sensitivity/
This is really stupid, it causes a ton of problems and there is no
longer any good reason to have case sensitivity in an OS.
--- Julian, OddThinking (2005)
https://www.somethinkodd.com/oddthinking/2005/10/27/the-case-for-case-preserving-case-insensitivity/
.. [#against_case_insensitivity]
Many of us consider those filesystems which cannot preserve case, but
which accept "input" in random case, to be so utterly broken as to be
undeserving of any attention whatsoever. They create a situation where
the computer effectively considers the users to be too stupid or blind
or whatever to be able to say what we mean accurately.
--- Greg A. Woods (2003)
https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/info-cvs/2003-11/msg00127.html
Why oh why on Earth engineers at Microsoft decided to make Windows case
insensitve [sic] and then use camel case anyway, wherever possible?
It makes case-sensitive systems and their sysadmins cry :-(
--- u/bwosc (2015)
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2w6c8g/case_insensitive_windows_rant/
Why are computer file names and conventions and protocols so messed up?
It's bizarre -- and Microsoft has been one of the worst offenders with
one of the most powerful positions and opportunities to make it a better
filename-naming world.
[ . . . ]
And, Microsoft dares to allow mixed case naming, but does case
insensitive handling of file names... don't even get me started about
some of the bizarre results and buggy behavior I've traced to that. I
only wish I'd had a chargeback code for all of the time I've spent
fixing and debugging systems that all come back to the file naming.
Sigh, again.
--- yagu (2006)
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190747&cid=15690704
The old DOS/Mac people thought case insensitivity was a "helpful"
idea, and that was understandable - but wrong - even back in the 80's.
They are still living with the end result of that horrendously bad
decision decades later. They've _tried_ to fix their bad decisions,
and have never been able to (except, apparently, in iOS where somebody
finally had a glimmer of a clue).
--- Linux Torvalds (2018)
https://patchwork.kernel.org/cover/10717177/
.. https://lists.openwall.net/linux-ext4/2018/12/08/16
.. https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-fsdevel/msg136876.html
.. [#MSDOS_case_insensitive]
Do not assume case sensitivity. For example, consider the names OSCAR,
Oscar, and oscar to be the same, even though some file systems (such as
a POSIX-compliant file system) may consider them as different. Note that
NTFS supports POSIX semantics for case sensitivity but this is not the
default behavior.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx
.. [#DOS_CPM]
Every operating system has basic functions like reading and writing disk
files. The API defines the exact details of how to make it happen and
what the results are. For example, to “open” a file in preparation for
reading or writing, the application would pass the location of an
11-character file name and the function code 15 to CP/M through the
“Call 5” mechanism. The very same sequence would also open a file in
DOS, while, say, UNIX, did not use function code 15, 11-character file
names, or “Call 5” to open a file.
--- Tim Paterson (2007)
https://dosmandrivel.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-dos-rip-off-of-cpm.html
As I noted when I discussed the old MS-DOS wildcard matching rules,
MS-DOS worked hard at being compatible with CP/M. And CP/M used 8.3
filenames.
--- Raymond Chen (2009)
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090610-00/?p=17953/
.. [#FAT_CPM]
The FAT file system 's restrictions on naming files and directories are
inherited from CP/M. When Paterson was writing 86-DOS one of his primary
objectives was to make programs easy to port from CP/M to his new
operating system. He therefore adopted CP/M's limits on filenames and
extensions so the critical fields of 86-DOS File Control Blocks (FCBs)
would look almost exactly like those of CP/M. The sizes of the FCB
filename and extension fields were also propagated into the structure of
disk directory entries
https://spider.seds.org/spider/OS2/HPFS/fat.html
.. [#kildall_tops10]
Gary Kildall developed CP/M on a DEC PDP-10 minicomputer running the
TOPS-10 operating system. Not surprisingly, most CP/M commands and file
naming conventions look and operate like their TOPS-10-counterparts. It
wasn’t pretty, but it did the job.
--- Robert X. Cringely, *Accidental Empires, Chapter 4 — Amateur Hour*
https://www.cringely.com/2013/02/18/accidental-empires-chapter-4-amateur-hour/
CP/M and ISIS in operation have some general similarities to interactive
operating systems on minicomputers and mainframes such as the DEC PDP-10
"TOPS-10" OS. Kildall used such systems to develop and run his
cross-assemblers and compilers, which became Intel products; and later
to develop his own products which ran "native" on CP/M systems.
--- Herbert R. Johnson, *CP/M and Digital Research Inc. (DRI) History*
https://www.retrotechnology.com/dri/d_dri_history.html
Kildall said that PL/M was ‘‘the base for CP/M,’’ even though the
commands were clearly derived from Digital’s, not IBM’s software. For
example, specifying the drive in use by a letter; giving file names a
period and three-character extension; and using the DIR (Directory)
command, PIP, and DDT were DEC features carried over without change. [100]
[ . . . ]
99. Gary Kildall, ‘‘CP/M: A Family of 8- and 16-Bit Operating Systems,’’
Byte, (June 1981): 216–229. Because of the differences between DEC
minicomputers and the 8080 microprocessor, the actual code of CP/M was
different and wholly original, even if the syntax and vocabulary were
similar.
100. The above argument is based on PDP-10 and CP/M manuals in the
author’s possession, as well as conversations with Kip Crosby, to whom I
am grateful for posting this question over an Internet discussion forum.
--- Paul E. Ceruzzi, page 238 of "A History of Modern Computing", 2nd. edition published 2003 by MIT Press.
.. [#kildall_RT11]
From a post on the comp.sys.tandy Usenet group:
Of course, CP/M itself is an almost exact knock off of DECs PDP-11 OS,
RT-11, an operating system that dates back to the early seventies, and
RT-11 shows its roots in TOPS-10, which goes back another year or two.
For some reason, all the historians tracing the source of MS-DOS
mysteriously stop at CP/M, even when command sets and utility syntaxes
are compared side-by-side. Who had a PIP utility first? Why, DEC, not
Digital Research.
The joke in the seventies that "Digital Research" was a typographical
error and the companies real name was "Digital [Equipment Corporation]
Rehashed", for RT-11, TOPS-10 and RSTS/E all predated CP/M by a lot and
yet have the same command syntax.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.sys.tandy/EcfhcRv9gEU/fNu_h9fCe3AJ
From a post on the alt.folklore.computers Usenet group:
Maybe we do need Kildall for the next step, but when I saw CP/M
version 1 it appeared closest to a dialect of RT-11, so I've always
figured that RT-11 was the closest ancestor. After that, it began
to drift. If I recall correctly, V1's prompt was the DECcish ".",
but in V2 it became "> ". Therefore, it would appear that MS-DOS
got its start from CP/M V2. It's a pity MS-DOS didn't start from
RT-11, which had multitasking, interrupt driven I/O, and all the
other good stuff that is easy to fit in a well designed 8KB kernel.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.folklore.computers/BxRlG1tYv8o
Gary Kildall's CP/M started out as his own reimplementation of RT-11 for
the Intel 8080.
http://blu.org/mhonarc/discuss/2011/10/msg00112.php
.. [#CPM_case_insensitive] CP/M did this conversion internally.
It should also be noted that all alphabetic lower case letters in file
and drive names are always translated to upper case when they are
processed by the CCP [Console Command Processor].
[ . . . ]
Further, recall that the CCP always translates lower case characters to
upper case characters internally. Thus, lower case alphabetics are
treated as if they are upper case in command names and file references
https://archive.org/stream/Intro_to_CPM_Feat_and_Facilities/Intro_to_CPM_Feat_and_Facilities_djvu.txt
.. [#8.3_filename]
As for the 8.3, look at the format of a CP/M directory entry. 16
bytes so they fill a disk block, not RAD50, 8 bytes for name, 3 for
extension, and I forget the rest, but it includes pointers to the
data.
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.folklore.computers/fqXomGO4I1I/ub_hJ2WxXHwJ
.. [#RADIX50]
... files were located via the directory, which resided in a fixed
location at the beginning of the hard drive. The directory consisted of
a single array of entries, each with a 6.3 character file name formatted
in DEC’s Radix-50 format. A file’s directory entry indicated the address
of the first block of the file.
https://cryptosmith.com/2013/10/19/digitals-rt-11-file-system/
RADIX50 is a character coding system used in earlier Digital Equipment
Corporation computers, such as the PDP-10, DECsystem-10 and
DECsystem-20. It was implemented as a way to pack as many characters
into as few bits as possible.
RADIX50 actually contains 40 codes, or 50 in octal. Because this is not
a power of two, the PDP-10 processor had instructions to pack several
RADIX-50 words into a single 36-bit word or extract RADIX-50 words from
a 36-bit word.
https://archive.md/q2ee
.. [#tortoise_svn_case_sensitivity] https://code.google.com/p/tortoisesvn/issues/detail?id=32
.. [#openfoam_no_windows_port]
One problem is that the file-system NTFS, that is used by most modern
Windows Versions, is (by default) only case-preserving (``hello.c`` and
``Hello.C`` are the same file, when in the same folder). The
OpenFOAM-sources need a fully case-sensitive file-system and can't even
be unpacked properly on a Windows system (see [2]).
https://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Main_FAQ#Why_isn.27t_there_a_Windows_port_of_OpenFOAM_.3F
.. [#common_lisp_filenames]
Issues of alphabetic case in pathnames are a major source of problems.
In some file systems, the customary case is lowercase, in some
uppercase, in some mixed. Some file systems are case-sensitive (that is,
they treat FOO and foo as different file names) and others are not.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node205.html
The main difficulty in dealing with names of files is that different
file systems have different naming formats for files.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node203.html
.. [#valve_porting_source_to_linux] https://web.archive.org/web/20181113043451/https://adrienb.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PortingSourceToLinux.pdf
- Linux filesystems are case-sensitive
- Windows is not
- Not a big issue for deployment (because everyone ships packs of some
sort)
- But an issue during development, with loose files
- Solution 1: Slam all assets to lower case, including directories, then
tolower all file lookups (only adjust below root)
- Solution 2: Build file cache, look for similarly named files
----------------------
Filename restrictions.
----------------------
In Linux and other Unix-derived operating systems,
the only characters that may not appear
in the name of a file or directory [#forbidden_characters]_
are the slash ``/``
(which is used to delimit paths)
and the ASCII null ``\0``
(which is used to terminate strings in C). [#C_strings]_
Windows has the same restrictions,
as well as many other `restrictions which are considerably more complex`_
and are partly the result
of `backwards compatibility with CP/M pseudofiles`_.
.. _backwards compatibility with CP/M pseudofiles: https://bitquabit.com/post/zombie-operating-systems-and-aspnet-mvc/
.. _restrictions which are considerably more complex: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247%28v=vs.85%29.aspx#naming_conventions
This has had long-term consequences,
such as imposing some `surprising restrictions on URLs`_
in Microsoft's web application framework, ASP.net
(these were `relaxed in a later version`_).
.. _surprising restrictions on URLs: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/987105/asp-net-mvc-routing-vs-reserved-filenames-in-windows
.. _relaxed in a later version: https://haacked.com/archive/2010/04/29/allowing-reserved-filenames-in-URLs.aspx/
Windows also does not permit filenames to contain colons,
due to their use in delimiting drive names like ``C:\``.
This causes issues in sharing files across platforms.
For example, a UNIX file name can use a colon (:), but a Windows file name
cannot use a colon (:). If a UNIX user attempts to create a file with a
Windows illegal character on a Windows Services for UNIX network file
system (NFS) share, the attempt is unsuccessful and the UNIX client
computer receives an input or output error.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/289627
This also makes filenames containing timestamps somewhat inconvenient.
Since filenames cannot contain colons,
an ISO 8601 timestamp such as ``1970-01-01T00:00:00Z``
cannot be part of a valid filename.
Windows software uses various workarounds,
such as removing the colon entirely
or replacing it with a similar-looking Unicode character. [#windows_datestamps]_
(It should be acknowledged that on Linux
the names of directories in ``$PATH`` cannot contain colons either, [#colons_in_PATH]_
but such restrictions do not apply to filenames.)
.. [#windows_datestamps]
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7874111/convert-datetime-now-to-a-valid-windows-filename
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11037831/filename-timestamp-in-windows-cmd-batch-script
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1642677/generate-unique-file-name-with-timestamp-in-batch-script
https://serverfault.com/questions/16706/current-date-in-the-file-name
https://serverfault.com/questions/292014/preferred-format-of-file-names-which-include-a-timestamp
https://serverfault.com/questions/16706/current-date-in-the-file-name
https://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/61683/standard-format-for-using-a-timestamp-as-part-of-a-filename
.. [#colons_in_PATH] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14661373/how-to-escape-colon-in-path-on-unix
.. [#forbidden_characters]
As discussed in this StackOverflow question:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1976007/what-characters-are-forbidden-in-windows-and-linux-directory-names
When Steve Bourne was writing his Unix shell (which came to be known as
the Bourne shell), he made a directory of 254 files with one-character
names, one for each byte value except ``'\0'`` and slash, the two
characters that cannot appear in Unix file names. He used that directory
for all manner of tests of pattern-matching and tok- enization. (The
test directory was of course created by a program.) For years
afterwards, that directory was the bane of file-tree-walking programs;
it tested them to destruction.
--- Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike, "The Practice of Programming",
Chapter 6: Testing, p. 158
https://books.google.com/books?id=j9T6AgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=the%20practice%20of%20programming&pg=PA158#v=onepage&q=When%20Steve%20Bourne
This is also explicitly stated in the POSIX standard.
The characters composing the name may be selected from the set of all
character values excluding the slash character and the null byte.
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap03.html
The bytes composing the name shall not contain the <NUL> or <slash>
characters.
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap03.html#tag_03_170
.. [#C_strings] The wisdom of this decision is a matter of some debate.
Dennis Ritchie has explained the `rationale for using a null-terminator`_:
In BCPL, the first packed byte contains the number of characters in the
string; in B, there is no count and strings are terminated by a special
character, which B spelled ```*e'``. This change was made partially to
avoid the limitation on the length of a string caused by holding the
count in an 8- or 9-bit slot, and partly because maintaining the count
seemed, in our experience, less convenient than using a terminator.
`Null-terminated strings do have some drawbacks`_,
such as making certain optimizations more difficult,
and exposing unwary programs to buffer overflow bugs.
On the other hand, length-prefixed strings such as those in Pascal
tend to have their own difficulties,
`such as storing strings of arbitrary length`_.
There is extensive discussion here:
https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/CNullStringsDefense
In any case, both Linux and `Windows use null-terminated strings`_,
as do other modern operating systems.
.. ``` TODO: remove this hack to fix vim's syntax highlighting bug
.. _rationale for using a null-terminator: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4418708/whats-the-rationale-for-null-terminated-strings
.. _Null-terminated strings do have some drawbacks: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2010365
.. _such as storing strings of arbitrary length: https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on-pascal.html
.. _Windows use null-terminated strings: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/10/08/9904646.aspx
---------------------------
Limited filesystem support.
---------------------------
Windows has built-in support for its own NTFS filesystem,
UDF (used for some CDs and DVDs),
and the legacy FAT16/FAT32/exFAT family.
All other filesystems require installation of `third-party software`_.
Linux has drivers for `almost all file systems`_
that can be legally mounted without paying royalties,
including ones that don't see much use nowadays, like `Amiga file systems`_.
It can also mount FAT and NTFS filesystems,
despite Microsoft's lucrative patent licensing deals
and `ongoing`_ `litigation`_ against Android manufacturers
and `other companies`_ that use the Linux kernel's FAT drivers.
.. _third-party software: https://github.com/matt-wu/Ext3Fsd
.. _almost all file systems: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/file_systems
.. _Amiga file systems: https://www.tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/partitions.html#can-linux-access-amiga-file-systems
.. _ongoing: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/06/german-patent-ruling-threatens-microsofts-windows-phone-earnings-from-android/
.. _litigation: https://gizmodo.com/the-secret-android-patents-that-microsoft-forces-oems-t-1591338496
.. _other companies: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/02/microsoft-sues-tomtom-over-fat-patents-in-linux-based-device/
For the system partition,
Linux users can choose among the usual ext3 journaling filesystem
or up-and-coming filesystems like `Btrfs`_.
Unlike FAT and NTFS filesystems,
ext3 and Btrfs `do not require defragmentation`_ to maintain good performance.
(Realistically, though,
`defragmentation isn't that important for NTFS`_, either.)
.. _Btrfs: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
.. _NTFS and FAT: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.11.desktopfiles.aspx
.. _do not require defragmentation: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/filesystems.html#FRAGMENTATION
.. _defragmentation isn't that important for NTFS: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/01/25/disk-defragmentation-background-and-engineering-the-windows-7-improvements.aspx
Finally, Linux permits unprivileged users
to run their own filesystems via FUSE.
This has many practical benefits,
such as accessing cloud storage as if it were an ordinary directory.
.. TODO: source
There is a project to bring FUSE to Windows,
but it is no longer maintained
and its various forks are not as mature as the Linux implementation.
.. TODO: source
------------------
UTF-16, not UTF-8.
------------------
`UTF-8 has many practical advantages`_ over UTF-16.
- It is a superset of ASCII,
so it is backwards-compatible with existing text files.
- `Zero bytes do not appear`_ at any point in a valid UTF-8 representation,
so ``strcpy()`` still works.
- It is `self-synchronizing`_, i.e. it is possible to resynchronize
after a lost or corrupted code point without re-reading the entire string.
- It is more portable because it does not require a `byte-order mark`_
and is less likely to be mistaken for other encodings.
- Internet Explorer has been known to have security issues with UTF-16.
.. _UTF-8 has many practical advantages: https://annevankesteren.nl/2009/09/utf-8-reasons
.. _Zero bytes do not appear: https://docs.python.org/2/howto/unicode.html#encodings
.. _self-synchronizing: https://research.swtch.com/utf8
.. _byte-order mark: https://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html
.. _security issues with UTF-16: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.charsets/372 (dead link)
If the Windows API were designed today,
it would probably use `UTF-8`_.
The Unicode Consortium primarily `recommends UTF-16`_
for compatibility with Java and the Windows API.
.. _UTF-8: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/utf-8-history.txt
.. _recommends UTF-16: https://www.unicode.org/faq/programming.html#2
In principle, UTF-16 would have the advantage
of constant time addressing of single characters,
but in practice most programming languages do not provide data types for this,
with the `exception of Go and rust`_.
.. _exception of Go and rust: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2014/1/9/ucs-vs-utf8/
----------------------------------------------------
File extensions are the sole determiner of filetype.
----------------------------------------------------
On Windows, the file extension is the sole determiner
of what program runs when opening a given filetype.
This makes it easier to dupe a Windows user
into `unintentionally running malware`_.
.. _unintentionally running malware: https://web.archive.org/web/20150318032415/http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/recognizing-dangerous-file-types
Also, if the file extensions for different filetypes happen to collide,
as they inevitably do,
one program must take default precedence over the other for that file extension.
For example, there `a lot of different file formats`_ with a ``.dat`` file extension,
but only one application gets to open them by default.
.. _a lot of different file formats: https://filext.com/file-extension/dat
On Linux, `filetypes are determined`_ by a combination of
filesystem metadata (e.g. execute permissions),
heuristics based on `file signatures`_ (a.k.a "magic numbers"),
and ``.desktop`` configuration files with mimetype information
(which includes file extensions).
.. _file signatures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_signatures
.. TODO: cite
.. _filetypes are determined: https://www.howtogeek.com/192628/mime-types-explained-why-linux-and-mac-os-x-dont-need-file-extensions/
A file's executable status is `separate from its file extension`_,
and an executable text file written in a scripting language
can control how it is run via the `first-line shebang convention`_,
e.g. ``#!/usr/bin/env python3 -i``.
Windows does not support shebang lines,
but languages that emphasize cross-platform compatibility,
such as Python,
have `implemented work-arounds`_.
.. _separate from its file extension: https://superuser.com/questions/405972/why-do-i-need-an-execute-bit-in-file-mode-on-unix-file-systems
.. _first-line shebang convention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_(Unix)
.. _implemented work-arounds: https://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0397/
.. _cannot indicate it is version 2 or 3: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7574453/shebang-notation-python-scripts-on-windows-and-linux
--------------------------------------------
Ineffectual read-only permissions semantics.
--------------------------------------------
Permissions are a big topic in multi-user computing,
and both Linux and Windows have adapted over time,
each with various advantages and disadvantages. [#unix_groups]_ [#ntfs_permissions_flaw]_
However, here is a specific example
of a relatively simple, single-user permissions feature:
it is sometimes desirable to set old files as read-only,
so that they are still easily accessible
(i.e. not compressed in a ``.zip`` file),
but are less likely to be accidentally deleted, moved, or modified.
On Windows, the content of a read-only file cannot be altered,
but the file itself `can be moved, renamed, or deleted`_,
because the `folder it is in cannot have a read-only status`_.
.. _can be moved, renamed, or deleted: https://web.archive.org/web/20150401071829/http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/prevent-changes-to-a-file-by-setting-it-to-read-only
.. _folder it is in cannot have a read-only status: https://web.archive.org/web/20150406071856/http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/prevent-changes-to-a-file-or-folder-read-only
In Linux, by contrast, a read-only directory cannot have files added to it,
and files in such a directory cannot be moved, renamed, or deleted
without first removing the read-only status from the directory they are in.
Modifications of the contents of the files
depend on the individual file permissions.
.. [#unix_groups] Unix permissions, for example, are not a panacea: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/164303/single-user-for-sharing-vs-multiple-users
.. [#ntfs_permissions_flaw] NTFS permissions have their own issues, e.g. https://serverfault.com/questions/31709/how-to-workaround-the-ntfs-move-copy-design-flaw
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Architectural deficiencies of the Windows platform
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
These are limitations of the Windows platform
which are not intrinsic to the operating system,
but are the result of default behavior
or restrictions on the Windows ecosystem.
------------------------------------------
Limitations on access to external volumes.
------------------------------------------
When accessing external volumes such as flash drives,
Windows assigns different capital letters to each volume,
each letter corresponding to a different absolute path root.
This is necessary for backwards compatibility with MS-DOS,
but it is not without drawbacks.
Perhaps the most obvious problem
is that there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet.
But what does this mean in practice?
One consequence is that the assigned drive letter
may be different when a drive is reconnected.
This means that, for example,
applications that track recently used files
will look for files under the old drive letter,
and be unable to find the files.
I have a problem with Word when working with documents on my flash drive.
If I insert the drive days later and try to use the recently used file
list, Word sometimes says it can’t find the document.
I’ve worked out that when I insert the flash drive it’s not always using
the same drive letter – it’s F or G drive but occasionally even later in
the alphabet.
How can I change the flash drive letter or, even better, make it appear as
the same drive letter each time?
https://office-watch.com/2008/make-a-consistent-drive-letter-or-path-to-a-removable-drive/
Fortunately, there is a solution: NTFS mount points.
Volume mount points are robust against system changes that occur when
devices are added or removed from a computer.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Cc938934.aspx
If you're running out of drive letters, one trick is to use a mount point
for each logical drive that you are going to bring into Windows; this way,
performance can be contained to a logical drive and still conform to your
drive letter standards.
[ . . . ]
There are many scenarios in which you would want a large number of drives,
such as multiple databases for Microsoft SQL Server or Exchange Server
installations. Exchange databases are notorious for needing their own
drives per mailbox store and, if you provision out well, you will quickly
run out of drive letters.
--- Rick Vanover
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/the-enterprise-cloud/use-mount-points-if-you-run-out-of-windows-drive-letters/
Unfortunately, Windows doesn't use mount points by default
for external hard drives or flash drives,
possibly because mount points behave slightly differently than drive letters.
The problem is the recycle bin. This "undo" option is maintained with a
hidden system file that is on the partition that holds the files being
deleted. Unfortuantely, when the command to delete a folder is given, the
system attempts to delete the folder using the mount point folder's Master
File Table, and not the subfolder's Master File Table. The mount point
folder's MFT doesn't host the record, and an access denied message is
kicked back to you for having the temerity to try and recycle a directory
which apparently doesn't even exist! The only solution for this is to not
recycle subfolders and directories, but to outright delete them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170327135652/https://getyouriton.blogspot.com/2009/08/serious-gotchas-with-mounted-drives-or.html
While NTFS filesystems have a root directory,
Windows has no unique root directory;
instead, each drive has its own root.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/151860/root-folder-equivalent-in-windows
*My Computer* roughly corresponds to a root directory in concept,
and looks like a folder when viewed in Windows Explorer,
but there is no *My Computer* folder anywhere on the filesystem.
Instead, *My Computer* is a virtual folder.
Unlike file system folders, users cannot create new virtual folders
themselves. They can only install ones created by non-Microsoft
developers. The number of virtual folders is thus normally much fewer than
the number of file system folders.
[ . . . ]
The file systems of the various disk drives can be seen to be subsets of
the larger namespace hierarchy. The roots of these file systems are
subfolders of the My Computer folder. My Computer also includes the roots
of any mapped network drives.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144090%28VS.85%29.aspx
Unix-based operating systems, on the other hand,
have a unique root directory called ``/`` [#disk_location]_
and can mount drives (including removable media)
as directories anywhere on the hierarchy.
This provides uniform access and permission controls to storage volumes
without requiring new syntax [#the_hideous_name]_
or knowledge of the underlying hardware.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/93960/why-is-linuxs-filesystem-designed-as-a-single-directory-tree
On Linux, flash drives are mounted under ``/media/`` [#removable_media_mountpoint]_
and are assigned a directory based on their label.
If the drive is removed and re-mounted again,
the path to the drive will be the same as before
unless the partition label has been changed
or the drive is manually mounted elsewhere.
File managers on Linux also handle deleting files on flash drives.
When a file on an external drive is put into the trash,
it goes into a `user-specific hidden folder`_ on the drive itself,
not the trash in the user's home directory.
.. _user-specific hidden folder: https://superuser.com/questions/169980/what-is-trash-and-trash-1000
.. [#disk_location]
Multics, the predecessor to Unix,
appears to be the first operating system with a root directory
(called ``>`` instead of ``/``)
and a hierarchical filesystem underneath it.
https://www.multicians.org/mgr.html#root
The Unix system owes much to the Multics file system, most notably the
directory tree idea.
--- Douglas McIlroy
https://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/mcilroy.htm
However, the motivations for such a scheme go back further.
One of the most influential time-sharing systems,
CTSS, recognized the need for accessing files
independently of their disk location.
All files kept on the disk (and drum) are known to the
user only by name: the supervisor disk control module keeps
for each user a directory of names and corresponding track
locations on the disk.
https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_mitctssMAC5_3662592/MAC-TR-16_CTSStecNote_Mar65_djvu.txt
It is desirable, from the point of view both of programming and
of disk administration, that the user have no notion of the absolute
location where his files of information are stored in the disk. Rather,
the user will refer to his files only by symbolic names and logical mode
number.
https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_mitctssCTS_3840198/CTSS_ProgrammersGuide_djvu.txt
Unix was developed on relatively small disk drives,
so it was useful to be able mount drives anywhere on the filesystem.
You know how Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix on a PDP-7 in
1969? Well around 1971 they upgraded to a PDP-11 with a pair of RK05
disk packs (1.5 megabytes each) for storage.
When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk
pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one, which
is where all the user home directories lived (which is why the mount was
called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories under there (/bin,
/sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those new directories because
their original disk was out of space. When they got a third disk, they
mounted it on /home and relocated all the user directories to there so
the OS could consume all the space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE
MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
.. [#removable_media_mountpoint]
The ``/media/`` directory is part of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard,
which is used for almost all Linux distributions,
but is not part of the POSIX standard.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/98751/is-the-filesystem-hierarchy-standard-a-unix-standard-or-a-gnu-linux-standard
The ``/media/`` directory is relatively recent invention,
and is intended to avoid conflict with other conventions.
Historically there have been a number of other different places used to
mount removable media such as ``/cdrom``, ``/mnt`` or ``/mnt/cdrom``.
Placing the mount points for all removable media directly in the root
directory would potentially result in a large number of extra
directories in ``/``. Although the use of subdirectories in ``/mnt`` as
a mount point has recently been common, it conflicts with a much older
tradition of using ``/mnt`` directly as a temporary mount point.
https://www.linuxbase.org/betaspecs/fhs/fhs/ch03s11.html
Currently, ``udisks2`` mounts flash drives under ``/media/$USER/``.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/214646/how-to-configure-the-default-automount-location
.. [#the_hideous_name]
Rob Pike and P. J. Weinberger discuss the history of naming practices
and the drawback of introducing new syntax in "The Hideous Name".
http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/the_hideous_name/
--------------------------------
Limited default debugging tools.
--------------------------------
.. TODO: Using the informal you here seems to be the only option.
Everything else I can think of is too awkwardly phrased.
Windows has limited facilities for debugging a running process.
You can `analyze the wait chain`_, or, failing that, `create a dump file`_.
.. _analyze the wait chain: https://superuser.com/questions/497621/what-is-the-analyze-wait-chain-in-task-manager
.. _create a dump file: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/931673
On Linux, you can attach the ``gdb`` debugger `to a running process`_,
start a logfile that catches all the output,
and run a backtrace when the program fails
(it's better with debugging symbols, though).
.. _to a running process: https://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/Manuals/gdb-5.1.1/html_node/gdb_22.html
Alternately, if the process is already unresponsive,
you can attach ``strace`` and see what system calls it makes,
and observe how it responds to various kill signals.
There are plenty of Windows programs similar to ``gdb`` and ``strace``, [#gdb_for_Windows]_ [#strace_for_Windows]_
but they don't come installed by default,
whereas both ``strace`` and ``gdb`` come with almost all Linux distributions,
so system administrators can rely on being able to use them
with nearly any Linux box.
.. [#gdb_for_Windows]
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff551063
.. [#strace_for_Windows]
https://archive.md/aWJ8b
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896647.aspx
---------------------------------
Restrictive default file locking.
---------------------------------
.. TODO: Add more sources to this.
Windows applications `lock files they use by default`_,
so `file access is a nuisance`_ by default.
If an application is misbehaving
and you want to examine a file it is using,
this is generally blocked
until the application is killed.
.. _lock files they use by default: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_locking#In_Microsoft_Windows
.. _file access is a nuisance: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/546504/how-do-i-make-windows-file-locking-more-like-unix-file-locking
This becomes particularly interesting when the files are hidden thumbnails.
This is a known problem with Windows 7 related thumbnail caching which
locks hidden files, thus preventing deletion or moving them.
https://superuser.com/questions/537041/action-cant-be-completed-open-in-another-program
The folder rename operation fails because thumbcache.dll still has an open
handle to the local thumbs.db file and does not currently implement a
mechanism to release the handle to the file in a more dynamic and timely
fashion.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2025703
The other common mistake was for linux developers to assume you can
delete/move a file while it’s open. This doesn’t work on Windows, because
Windows locks the file when it’s open.
https://npf.io/2017/03/3.5yrs-500k-lines-of-go/
By contrast,
on Linux it is not unusual for two different applications
to share read access to the same file,
or for one process to read a file
while another process is writing to it,
since applications do not lock files by default.
.. TODO: CR LF \r\n newlines?
-----------------------------------------
Lack of granular execution access control
-----------------------------------------
Windows does not have a similar concept to `sudo`_/`doas`_/`please`_
(`sudo`, but with regex). Users cannot run arbitrary commands as a given
user without knowledge of the alternate user's password (see
`runas`).
This creates difficulty for large multi-user systems when assigning
roles without administrator access. Performing tasks that need to step
outside of low privilege is not a simple matter without divulging the
alternative user's credentials.
Unix systems support the SUID execute bit (normally mode 4755) on a
binary which, when executed switches process ownership to the file
owner, not the user that executed it. This is sorely lacking in
Windows and would change the access landscape if it were implemented,
many organisations could then solve many issues where users execute
programs as a privileged user when they wouldn't otherwise need to.
.. _sudo: https://www.sudo.ws/
.. _doas: https://man.openbsd.org/doas
.. _please: https://gitlab.com/edneville/please
-----------------------------------------
Lack of control over desktop environment.
-----------------------------------------
Windows has many ways to customize its appearance;
there are many `alternative shells`_ and `visual themes`_,
and it's possible to `change the login shell`_
or `run without explorer.exe at all`_. [#KDE_on_Windows]_
.. _alternative shells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_shells_for_Windows
.. _visual themes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_%28computing%29#Operating_systems
.. _run without explorer.exe at all: https://web.archive.org/web/20161023151404/http://lightquick.co.uk/running-windows-without-explorer.exe.html
.. _change the login shell: https://superuser.com/questions/108265/how-do-you-replace-the-logon-shell-with-iexplore
There is Windows software for
tiling window managers, [#tiling_window_managers]_
virtual desktops, [#virtual_desktops]_
focus follows mouse, [#focus_follows_mouse]_
and special effects to rival `Compiz`_. [#cube_desktop]_
.. _Compiz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QokOwvPxrE
Given all these choices and customization options,
what functionality could Windows possibly lack?
Here is the problem:
the Windows API determines the behavior of libraries like
``user32.dll``, ``gdi32.dll``, and ``comctl32.dll``.
Everything in hardware goes through the Windows API,
including keystrokes, mouse clicks, and graphics.
Thus, the API can be used to restrict what programs can do. [#wine_dlls]_
This is not a theoretical problem.
Because of Intel's High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection,
Windows applications cannot use the graphics card
to manipulate windows the way `Flip3D`_ does.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3848558/what-is-the-api-to-create-applications-like-flip3d
.. _Flip3D: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows7_flip.png
Sometimes it isn't the API, either;
on Windows 8 it is impossible to disable the dwm window compositor.
In Windows Vista and Windows 7, desktop composition is disabled in a number
of scenarios. In Windows 8, DWM desktop composition is a core operating
system component and cannot be disabled. With a few exceptions, desktop
composition is always on; it’s started before the user logon and remains
active for the duration of a session.
--- Windows Dev Center documentation
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848042%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
This was not without controversy.
I understand the choice and it improves the overall experience, but it is
going to force us to retire some of our older software, and it tool [sic]
many years to overcome the problems caused.
--- Dan Ritchie
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848042%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
Linux also has an API,
but it is based on the POSIX standard,
is not tied to the desktop environment,
and is not controlled by a single corporation
in the same way that the Windows API is.
.. [#tiling_window_managers] https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n
.. [#virtual_desktops] https://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/
.. [#focus_follows_mouse]
https://milosophical.me/blog/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-follows-mouse-registry-hacks.html
https://superuser.com/questions/368688/on-windows-7-is-there-any-way-to-make-the-scrollwheels-focus-follow-the-mouse
.. [#cube_desktop] http://www.thinkinbytes.com/en/products/cubedesktop
.. [#KDE_on_Windows]
It's even possible to run the KDE desktop environment on Windows,
since KDE uses the cross-platform Qt framework.
The KDE on Windows Initiative is an ongoing project to port the KDE
applications to MS Windows. Currently supported versions of Windows are
XP, Vista and 7.
https://community.kde.org/Windows
This is not without difficulties, however.
The current implementation of KDE is designed in a unix specific way,
which is partially different from the Windows way. Examples for this
are:
* Process creating - Using the Unix way of fork and exec.
* It isn't available on Windows, this difference requires a redesign of
the related parts.
* Its missing Windows api counterparts.
* KDE uses Unix domain socket for high speed data transfer betwen
kioslave slaves and its parent process and for the communication
to/from the dbus deamon. On Windows there are no Unix domain sockets.
They could be emulated by tcp sockets with the costs of slower
bandwidth and additional patches to deal with Unix domain socket files
exchanged between processes.
--- Ralf Habacker, KDE developer
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/79007/
.. [#wine_dlls]
In principle, running `Wine`_ on Windows
could work around restrictions on the Windows API
since Wine provides an open-source implementation
of libraries such as ``user32.dll``.
To fully accomplish this would require replacing Windows entirely, however.
.. _Wine: https://www.winehq.org/about/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Non-resizable dialog boxes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The single Windows UI library
means that accessibility improvements
and user interface customization can be difficult to implement.
For example, on Linux, graphical dialog boxes
(e.g. those generated by ``xmessage`` or ``zenity``)
are resizable by default,
but on Windows they are non-resizable by default,
i.e. ``WS_THICKFRAME`` is not enabled by default.
.. TOOD: source
.. TODO: is it even possible to prevent resizing?
In some cases, you want to display something in a response window but you
also want this window to be resizable in order to let the user resize this
window to display the info the way he or she wants. Normally, response
windows are not resizable and this is also the Microsoft standard
behaviour.
--- Eric Aling, April 13, 2000
http://eric.aling.tripod.com/PB/tips/pbtip39.htm
Unlike regular windows, most dialog boxes can't be maximized, minimized, or
resized. They can, however, be moved.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150429182602/http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/working-with-windows#1TC=windows-7
This can pose user-interface problems,
especially on high-resolution monitors.
It feels so silly to have three acres of screen real estate but be fighting
to see three characters hidden by dot-dot-dot in a window not much bigger
than a postit note.
--- stewardware, January 7, 2011
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/cannot-resize-small-windows/160862cf-6e52-4a99-9365-d380491a067d
One workaround for this problem
is to run a third-party background process
that watches for window creation and mouse click events.
[#resize_non_resizable_windows]_
[#turn_non_resizable_windows]_
[#ResizeEnable]_
The README is not directly linkable via URL,
so here are some of the salient parts:
- What is ResizeEnable?
It's a very ugly system hack that sits in your system tray and attempts to
make windows that can't usually be resized, resizeable.
- Why was it written?
It was written following a request from a friend. He runs his PC at a
screen resolution above 1280x1024, and was fed up with having to pick items
from a list that could only display three items because the window didn't
take into account the screen resolution, hence only occupying about 20% of
the desktop 'real-estate'.
- How does it work?
ResizeEnable sits in the background and attaches itself into Windows via
three 'Hooks'. The first hook is so that it can see which windows are
created/destroyed, in which it attempts to alter the window's style so that
it can be resized. The second hook intercepts all messages for every
single window to see if it is a message associated with resizing a window
that it has previously altered the style of. If the message is associated
with sizing, it then resizes all the child windows (Buttons, Edit boxes and
so on) simply by scaling them to fit the new windows size. Its ugly, but
most of the time it works ok. The third hook spots whether the mouse has
been pressed in the 'sizing area' of a window and takes care of doing all
the work of resizing the window. This hook didn't exist in v1.0 but has
been added to make even more windows resize properly.
There are some drawbacks to this approach:
- Known problems
#. Most applications will respond to having their windows resized ok. Well,
applications that have followed the guidelines will. <grin>
#. Some applications have, shall we say, problems, when their window has
been resized and all sort of visual chaos will be revealed.
#. Some applications won't respond at all, which is rather strange!
#. Certain windows will 'jiggle' as you attempt to resize them, seemingly
resizing and then snapping back to their original size. This is
annoying, but we're not sure what is causing it.
#. Some versions of Internet Explorer, coupled with certain version of
Windows98/NT seemed to crash with v1.0 of ResizeEnable. We don't have
that setup on any of our test machines so we can't test it. But, we
have done a little bit more work so ResizeEnable is a bit more choosy as
to which windows it can work with. So it -might- not crash anymore. If
it still crashes, then all we can suggest at the moment is that you
upgrade to Internet Explorer 6. We're not Microsoft pushers, but
Internet Explorer 6 has better error reporting and shouldn't just
explode without warning.
#. Some Microsoft applications have dialogs that can be resized, but none
of their contents move. This is down to the fact that the contents of
the dialog ARE NOT STANDARD MICROSOFT CONTROLS! They are some
bastardisation written specially for the application. They may look
like normal buttons/drop downs, but they sure as heck aren't! Hence,
ResizeEnable can't tell them to move or resize. Yet again, Microsoft
ignore their own codebase and reinvent the wheel. And people wonder why
their applications are so big..
.. [#resize_non_resizable_windows] https://www.thewindowsclub.com/resize-non-resizable-windows
.. [#turn_non_resizable_windows] https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11799/turn-non-resizeable-windows-into-rezieable-windows/
.. [#ResizeEnable] https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/ResizeEnable.shtml
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update inertia.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another consequence of tying the desktop environment to the operating system version
and providing a single desktop environment for a given version of Windows
is that improvements that require changes to the user interface are often delayed.
***
UAC
***
For example, `users run as administrator by default in Windows XP`_ and earlier.
Microsoft fixed this problem via `User Account Control`_ when Windows Vista was released,
but the required changes to the user interface were controversial, [#UAC_controversy]_
and many users learned to ignore it or turned it off entirely.
.. _User Account Control: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.06.uac.aspx
.. _users run as administrator by default in Windows XP: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530410.aspx#vistauac_topic1
Despite Microsoft ending support for Windows XP in April 2014,
a `large number of users are still running Windows XP in 2015`_,
many of them as administrators.
.. _large number of users are still running Windows XP in 2015: https://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/04/08/windows-xp-usage.aspx
.. [#UAC_controversy]
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2477832/desktop-apps/microsoft-exec--we-know-users-hate-uac.html
https://arstechnica.com/security/2008/04/vistas-uac-security-prompt-was-designed-to-annoy-you/
https://web.archive.org/web/20160730185317/http://windowssecrets.com/woodys-windows/microsoft-claims-windows-7-uac-flaw-is-by-design/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170612174556/http://windowsitpro.com/blog/microsoft-quotmalware-authors-really-hate-uacquot
*********
Windows 8
*********
The transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8 was controversial,
in part because the Metro user interface departed substantially
from the previous versions of Windows.
[#windows_8_hate_1]_
[#windows_8_defense]_
[#windows_9]_
[#windows_8_polarizing]_
[#windows_8_hate_2]_
[#windows_8_hate_3]_
Enterprise customers, in particular,
refused to upgrade from Windows 7,
citing usability problems.
[#windows_8_enterprise]_
[#windows_8_disappointing]_
These examples are relevant
not because they show that Microsoft makes occasional mistakes,
but to highlight the risks of monoculture and vendor lock-in
and to provide contrast to the way
that the Linux ecosystem maintains checks and balances.
Linux users can run the latest kernel and applications
on a window manager that hasn't changed much since 1987, [#twm_debian]_ [#twm_1987]_
and some of them actually do so by choice. [#twm_user_by_choice]_ [#twm_popcon]_
.. [#twm_debian] https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/twm
.. [#twm_1987] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twm
.. [#twm_user_by_choice] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/131106/is-twm-still-a-viable-window-manager#comment209905_131120
.. [#twm_popcon] https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=twm
This reflects a general distrust of mandatory backward-incompatible updates.
When the GNOME developers made controversial changes in GNOME 3, [#gnome_3_fork]_ [#gnome_3_hate]_ [#gnome_3_grumpy]_
a team forked GNOME 2 to become `MATE`_,
which retained the "traditional desktop metaphor".
A fork would be impossible if GNOME 2's source code were proprietary.
.. _MATE: https://mate-desktop.org/
A fork like MATE will either `eventually fade away`_,
continue to `coexist with its parent project`_,
or even `overtake its parent`_,
depending on the needs of its users.
.. _eventually fade away: https://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=38916
.. _coexist with its parent project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD
.. _overtake its parent: http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/history_of_gcc_development.shtml
.. [#windows_8_hate_1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/14/8-things-i-hate-about-windows-8-1/
.. [#windows_8_defense] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2014/03/19/im-sorry-the-windows-8-hate-just-doesnt-make-sense/
.. [#windows_9] https://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/hate-windows-8-microsoft-replacing-it-with-windows-9-20140122-317fo.html
.. [#windows_8_polarizing] https://bgr.com/general/windows-8-hatred-explained/
.. [#windows_8_hate_2] https://archive.md/MPBEF
.. [#windows_8_hate_3] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_install/i-hate-windows-8/cd2d9fec-9d95-42ba-9e41-727419459465
.. [#windows_8_enterprise] https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2013/05/19/why-enterprise-is-avoiding-windows-8/
.. [#windows_8_disappointing] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/
.. [#gnome_3_fork] https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-would-like-to-see-a-gnome-fork/
.. [#gnome_3_hate] https://felipec.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/after-two-weeks-of-using-gnome-3-i-officially-hate-it/
.. [#gnome_3_grumpy] https://lwn.net/Articles/433409/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crippled multi-user remote access.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
`Windows remote desktop licensing`_ makes multi-user remote access
and sharing of machine resources expensive.
By design, multiple concurrent sessions are disabled
on all but the server version of Windows,
and `third-party remote desktop software is not permitted`_
to legally `circumvent this limitation`_. [#windows_xp_not_multiuser]_ [#tightvnc_multiple_unique_sessions]_ [#multiple_sessions_illegal]_
.. _Windows remote desktop licensing: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725933.aspx
.. _third-party remote desktop software is not permitted: https://superuser.com/questions/784523/tightvnc-while-an-rdp-session-is-running
.. _circumvent this limitation: https://lifehacker.com/5873717/enable-concurrent-remote-desktop-sessions-in-windows-with-this-patch
Note that this is a licensing issue,
not a technical limitation of Windows itself,
but it compromises the utility of the operating system.
Because Linux is multi-user by design,
`multiple local instances of the X server`_ are not unusual,
even with different desktop environments
(e.g. GNOME and KDE can coexist on the same Linux box).
X sessions can be accessed remotely using e.g. `VNC`_ or `X over SSH`_.
Often, two different users will work remotely
at the same time on the same machine
using different desktop environments.
.. _multiple local instances of the X server: https://journalxtra.com/linux/desktop/multiple-desktops-on-one-linux-pc-now-thats-greedy/
.. _VNC: https://wiki.debian.org/VNCviewer
.. _X over SSH: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch07.en.html#_connecting_a_remote_x_client_via_ssh
A `multiseat`_ configuration is also possible if the hardware is available.
Even on single-user machines this capability of the X server is useful
to e.g. run two different desktop environments at the same time.
.. _multiseat: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xorg_multiseat
Also, sometimes Linux users will forego the X server entirely
and log in from a text-only `virtual terminal`_ (a.k.a ``tty``).
This is important to be able to do
if the X server crashes or cannot start.
.. _virtual terminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_console
Because the Linux kernel does not rely on the X server to function,
the `X server can be restarted without rebooting`_.
.. _X server can be restarted without rebooting: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1220/how-can-i-restart-x-server-from-the-command-line
If a crash is unrecoverable and it becomes necessary to reboot the kernel,
one can do so cleanly even if the X server is unresponsive
by using the "`Magic Alt-SysRq keys`_",
key combinations which send instructions to the kernel.
.. _Magic Alt-SysRq keys: https://archive.md/TVTEh
(Windows has Ctrl-Alt-Delete,
but requires a responding display manager
to allow the user to cleanly reboot.)
There is a plethora of window managers [#window_managers]_
and desktop environments [#desktop_environments]_
to choose from on Linux,
even on the same distribution,
making it highly customizable to the system's resources and the user's wishes.
However, they all use the same X Window System (a.k.a X11)
provided by the X server, typically X.org.
The X11 system is by no means perfect;
in fact, many former X11 developers
are hard at work on its replacement, `Wayland`_,
and Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu)
is working on a separate but similar endeavor called `Mir`_.
.. _Wayland: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/architecture.html
.. _Mir: https://mir-server.io/
However, X11 has become so pervasive
that versions of it power not only Linux desktops
but also the BSD family of operating systems and OS X (`XQuartz`_),
and it's also been `ported to Windows`_ `and Android`_,
even though they don't use it as a display manager.
.. _XQuartz: https://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/
.. _ported to Windows: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/
.. _and Android: https://web.archive.org/web/20170110145517/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.x11basic
.. [#window_managers]
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Window_manager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_window_managers
.. [#desktop_environments]
https://wiki.debian.org/DesktopEnvironment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_Window_System_desktop_environments
.. [#windows_xp_not_multiuser]
You would think that because Windows XP is multiuser, you could have
multiple users running VNC servers. Indeed you can, but you can only use
the one that has the currently active user - switch away, and that
server goes black, and in my testing, can't even be used again. Windows
XP is not really multiuser.
https://archive.md/j5zHH
.. [#tightvnc_multiple_unique_sessions]
Windows, unless you're using Terminal Server (and have the licenses to
go with it) doesn't have this capability, and I don't believe that even
with Terminal Server, VNC will be able to take advantage of this.
`Source is down`_
.. _Source is down: http://ehc.ac/p/vnc-tight/mailman/message/25780367/
.. [#multiple_sessions_illegal]
If you heard about/saw many active desktop sessions in non-server
Windows - that was modified OS with swapped termsrv.dll. Licensing does
not allow you to modify/swap system files and use non-server system that
way and this is ILLEGAL.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9410091/multi-user-login-remote-desktop-on-windows-linux
--------------------------
Some notes on performance.
--------------------------
So far, we have avoided the topic of performance almost entirely.
This is because evaluating and comparing performance
is a complex and nuanced topic,
incorporating at the very least hardware-specific considerations
and deep knowledge of every level of software.
It also incorporates psychology,
since people don't care if software has good performance
if they `don't perceive it to have good performance`_.
.. _don't perceive it to have good performance: https://web.archive.org/web/20170228194654/https://developers.google.com/speed/articles/usability-latency
As a result,
unqualified generalizations about the performance
of complex software such as an operating system
are nearly always wrong.
There are some things, however, that we do know
about relative performance of the Windows and Linux kernels.
First, an anonymous Windows kernel developer stated in 2013
that he believes that Windows has fallen behind in performance
because of how Microsoft functions as a corporation.
(This developer gave a SHA1 hash of part of the NT kernel as proof,
which while not incontrovertible is certainly strong evidence
that he is who he claims to be.)
Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios,
and the gap is worsening. The cause of the problem is social. There's
almost none of the improvement for its own sake, for the sake of glory,
that you see in the Linux world.
Granted, occasionally one sees naive people try to make things better.
These people almost always fail. We can and do improve performance for
specific scenarios that people with the ability to allocate resources
believe impact business goals, but this work is Sisyphean. There's no
formal or informal program of systemic performance improvement. We started
caring about security because pre-SP3 Windows XP was an existential threat
to the business. Our low performance is not an existential threat to the
business.
--- Anonymous Windows NT kernel developer
https://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-we-are-slower-than-other-oper/
Contrast with Microsoft's `"Linux Myths" article`_ from 1999.
Myth: Linux performs better than Windows NT
Reality: Windows NT 4.0 Outperforms Linux On Common Customer Workloads
The Linux community claims to have improved performance and scalability in
the latest versions of the Linux Kernel (2.2), however it's clear that
Linux remains inferior to the Windows NT® 4.0 operating system.
.. _"Linux Myths" article: https://web.archive.org/web/20000303020855/http://www.microsoft.com/NTServer/nts/news/msnw/LinuxMyths.asp
A decade later, `Microsoft contributed device driver code`_ to the Linux kernel.
.. _Microsoft contributed device driver code: https://archive.md/gyEdx
Secondly, testing and optimizing on multiple platforms
can yield unexpected performance benefits for both operating systems.
When Valve `ported Left 4 Dead 2 to Linux`_ in 2012,
they discovered that OpenGL on Windows and Linux
achieved a higher framerate than Direct3D on Windows.
After this work, Left 4 Dead 2 is running at 315 FPS on Linux. That the
Linux version runs faster than the Windows version (270.6) seems a little
counter-intuitive, given the greater amount of time we have spent on the
Windows version. However, it does speak to the underlying efficiency of the
kernel and OpenGL. Interestingly, in the process of working with hardware
vendors we also sped up the OpenGL implementation on Windows. Left 4 Dead 2
is now running at 303.4 FPS with that configuration.
--- Valve Linux Team
.. _ported Left 4 Dead 2 to Linux: https://archive.md/tW6zD
.. TODO: should I talk more about this?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Configuration and software packaging.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
While these topics could be included under architectural limitations,
they are large enough to deserve their own section.
-----------------
Default software.
-----------------
Linux distributions have development tools installed by default,
such as a C compiler (usually ``gcc``),
build automation (e.g. ``make``),
text utilities (``diff``, ``patch``, ``grep``, ``find``, etc.),
and more than one shell (e.g. ``bash``, ``dash``, and ``csh``).
In fact, the `POSIX standard`_ requires that these be available.
Standards like POSIX make writing and using portable software easier,
and standard POSIX tools are unlikely to become obsolete.
.. _POSIX standard: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009696699/utilities/contents.html
On Windows, by contrast,
there is no default set of tools that match the POSIX utilities
(though certainly not for lack of trying). [#POSIX_for_Windows]_
The `Windows C compiler and build system`_
is not installed by default,
even though a zero-price Community version is available.
There is a scriptable shell on all version of Windows (``CMD.EXE``)
but the currently favored Windows shell (`PowerShell`_)
was not available by default until Windows 8.
.. _Windows C compiler and build system: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/
.. _PowerShell: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell
.. [#POSIX_for_Windows]
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754351.aspx
https://superuser.com/questions/495360/does-windows-8-still-implement-posix
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4746043/where-does-microsoft-windows-7-posix-implementation-currently-stand
https://brianreiter.org/2010/08/24/the-sad-history-of-the-microsoft-posix-subsystem/
https://superuser.com/questions/293023/unix-command-line-utilities-for-windows-x64
--------------------------------------------------
Software configuration: registries and text files.
--------------------------------------------------
On Windows, configuration files are not centralized in the user's home directory.
The data that retain configuration when upgrading or recovering from data loss
are scattered around as ``.INI`` text files in unpredictable directories
or in the `Windows Registry`_.
In principle, applications should put config files in ``%APPDATA%``,
but in practice many of them put it in the install directory.
Furthermore, ``%APPDATA`` makes no distinction
amongst an application's
configuration and plugins,
history and log files,
and cached data.
This makes configuration less robust
and harder to adapt to the needs of specific users.
Windows developers have noted the `many other drawbacks`_ `of the registry`_ in particular.
.. _Windows Registry: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms970651.aspx
.. _many other drawbacks: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/why-the-windows-registry-sucks-technically/
.. _of the registry: https://blog.codinghorror.com/was-the-windows-registry-a-good-idea/
On Linux, most configuration can be done graphically
within applications or configuration managers provided by the desktop environment.
A lot of it is handled by the `package manager`_.
However, there are a variety of possibilities
depending on the needs of the people using it.
.. _package manager: `Package manager with signed binaries.`_
System administrators, for example,
care about system-level configuration files,
generally text files in ``/etc/``.
Text files are simple to edit
for ad-hoc debugging and automation,
easy to diff,
easy to backup or version control,
and robust against corruption.
User level configuration is stored in dotfiles
(hidden folders or files)
in the user's home directory,
often under the ``~/.config/`` folder.
Plugins and logfiles generally go under ``~/.local/share/``,
and cached data under ``~/.cache/``.
There are good arguments to the effect that
making dotfiles responsible for configuration `is problematic`_.
Configuration files would make much more sense
if stored in a dedicated configuration folder in the user's home directory,
and many applications follow the `XDG base directory standard`_,
which is intended to address this problem.
.. _is problematic: https://archive.md/turkN
.. _XDG base directory standard: https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
Centralized databases like the Windows Registry
are usually unnecessary for configuration.
Applications for which text files are a bad choice,
e.g. ones which need random access to large amounts of structured data
or which require atomic updates,
can use, for example, `an SQLite database`_ in the user's home directory.
In a similar vein, the GNOME desktop provides `dconf`_,
which is probably the closest thing to a Windows Registry
that Linux has.
.. _dconf: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/dconf
.. _an SQLite database: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Places.sqlite
Moreover, using ordinary files instead of a database
for application configuration has many benefits.
Since many configuration files on Linux are `textual`_,
they are easy to modify,
back up,
and ``diff`` or merge,
which means users can share and benefit from others' customized configurations
and more easily accommodate upstream changes.
.. _textual: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/textualitychapter.html
It also means that migrating to a different Linux distribution
is not as painful as starting from scratch,
since many applications keep the configuration formats relatively stable
and merging in the customizations is usually straightforward.
During major Debian upgrades, for example,
administrators can choose to
adopt new configuration files,
keep the old ones,
or ``diff`` and merge the files into a hybrid.
For example, the RSS reader ``liferea``
puts the list of RSS feeds in
``$HOME/.config/liferea/feedlist.opml``,
favicons (which can be re-downloaded if necessary) in
``$HOME/.cache/liferea/favicons/``,
and the SQLite database containing the actual RSS feeds in
``$HOME/.local/share/liferea/liferea.db``.
This means that backing up the configuration for ``liferea``
is as simple as backing up the contents of ``$HOME/.config/liferea/``,
and no cache files or big databases are included.
In short, configuration on Linux
is better adapted to the needs of its users than on Windows.
Ordinary users have the package manager
or applications themselves for managing configuration,
developers who like to keep their configuration under version control
can use tools like `GNU Stow`_,
and system administrators can use
dedicated configuration management tools like
`Puppet`_, `Chef`_, `Ansible`_, `SaltStack`_, etc.
.. _GNU Stow: https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/
.. _Puppet: https://puppet.com/
.. _Chef: https://www.chef.io/
.. _Ansible: https://www.ansible.com/
.. _SaltStack: https://www.vmware.com/support/acquisitions/saltstack.html
-------------------------------------
Package manager with signed binaries.
-------------------------------------
Windows Installer is a software package manager
in the sense of installing and uninstalling software,
but it does not provide the salient features
of modern Linux packaging systems,
such as:
- securely retrieving the package from a trusted remote or local repository,
- adding and removing third-party repositories,
- changelogs,
- `optional fully automatic non-interactive installation`_,
- `mandatory cryptographic signing of packages`_, [#windows_package_signing]_
- backporting security fixes to stable versions,
- licensing metadata,
- and `sophisticated dependency management`_.
.. _mandatory cryptographic signing of packages: https://purplefloyd.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/signing-deb-packages/
.. _sophisticated dependency management: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html
.. _optional fully automatic non-interactive installation: https://debian-handbook.info/browse/wheezy/sect.automatic-upgrades.html
To be sure, there is an open-source package manager for Windows, `Chocolatey`_,
that is under active development.
However, thus far the Chocolatey repository
is not as comprehensive as Linux repositories.
Here are some examples of packages
which are not in the Chocolatey repository (as of July 2015).
- `Apophysis`_ fractal flame editor `* <https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=apophysis>`__
- `xyscan`_ data extractor `* <https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=xyscan>`__
- `HEPHAESTUS`_ periodic table for X-ray spectroscopy `* <https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=HEPHAESTUS>`__
- `EXPGUI`_ XRD analysis `* <https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=EXPGUI>`__
- `DiffPDF`_ PDF comparison `* <https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=DiffPDF>`__
- `xchat`_ IRC client `* <https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=xchat>`__
.. _Chocolatey: https://chocolatey.org/
.. _Apophysis: https://sourceforge.net/projects/apophysis/
.. _xyscan: https://rhig.physics.yale.edu/~ullrich/software/xyscan/
.. _HEPHAESTUS: https://bruceravel.github.io/demeter/aug/hephaestus.html
.. _EXPGUI: https://subversion.xray.aps.anl.gov/trac/EXPGUI
.. _DiffPDF: https://www.qtrac.eu/diffpdf.html
.. _Unison: https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
.. _xchat: http://xchat.org/download/
(This list isn't particularly significant,
it's just example open-source software that I happen to use
which has a Windows version.)
Also, the Chocolatey development team acknowledges
that it `does not currently have package moderation or package signing`_ in place yet,
which is significant for overcoming Window's issue
with `installing software from untrusted sources`_.
.. _does not currently have package moderation or package signing: https://chocolatey.org/about
.. _installing software from untrusted sources: `Malware.`_
On the bright side, most of the language-specific package managers such as
Haskell's ``cabal``,
Perl's ``CPAN``,
.NET's NuGet,
Node.js's ``npm``,
Python's ``pip``,
and
Ruby's RubyGems
are available on Windows.
Linux has several mature, general-purpose packaging systems,
including Fedora's ``rpm``-based ``yum`` package manager,
Debian's ``deb``-based ``apt`` and ``dpkg``,
Arch Linux's ``pacman``,
and so on.
This is one reason Linux users are less susceptible to malware:
they generally install packages
that are cryptographically signed by the maintainers,
not opaque executables from a website
which may or may not use secure HTTP.
Even inexperienced users can safely install and uninstall software
if it is all from a trusted repository.
Package managers have other benefits,
such as avoiding dependency hell
while saving the disk space of duplicated libraries.
Package managers have decent (though not perfect) security,
and provide the ability to upgrade all software at once with a single command
(or button if you use one of the many available GUIs).
Instead of requiring all application developers to re-implement automatic updates,
packaging makes secure, regular updates
much more accessible and convenient for users and developers.
Package mangers can make backups easier
by decoupling installed applications from stored personal files.
Want to remember which programs you have installed
without backing up every single binary?
Just save the output of ``dpkg -L`` or its equivalent
as a text file of installed packages,
and voilà, you can restore them later.
If your backup fails
or you just want to switch
to a different Linux distribution
with the same package manager,
you can easily get back your installed software
by feeding your package manager the package list.
All you need is a fresh Linux install
and a good internet connection.
Meanwhile, you can keep your home directory backed up
using cloud storage or physical drives (ideally both),
and the backup software doesn't need to run as root
since it's only accessing your home directory.
Packaging also makes distributing scripts with library dependencies easier.
For example, installing ``python`` and ``matplotlib`` is simple on Linux,
but a `pain in the neck`_ on Windows.
.. _pain in the neck: https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/installing.html
.. [#windows_package_signing] Windows provides the means to cryptographically sign
``.exe`` and ``.msi`` installers,
but it is not required for installation.
The Windows installer verifies signatures on .msi packages. If a package
has an invalid signature, the installer warns users before it installs
the package.
https://download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/7/af7777e5-7dcd-4800-8a0a-b18336565f5b/best_practices.doc
------------------------------------------------------------
Fixing configuration problems with commands instead of GUIs.
------------------------------------------------------------
Graphical user interfaces are excellent for some kinds of software,
but they are clumsy and error-prone
for rapidly fixing configuration problems.
Many Linux config problems can be fixed
by editing a line in a text file
or running a few commands in a terminal.
Windows configuration generally requires navigating deeply nested GUIs
and ticking various checkboxes.
This has similar security problems
to blindly running commands in a terminal,
but in a way that is much less efficient
for doing routine configuration tasks.
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are helpful for many tasks, but they are
not good for all tasks. I have long felt that most computers today do not
use electricity. They instead seem to be powered by the "pumping" motion of
the mouse! Computers were supposed to free us from manual labor, but how
many times have you performed some task you felt sure the computer should
be able to do? You ended up doing the work by tediously working the mouse.
Pointing and clicking, pointing and clicking.
-- William E. Shotts, Jr. "`Learning the shell`_"
.. _Learning the shell: https://linuxcommand.org/lc3_learning_the_shell.php
In addition, using GUIs for configuration
makes user support and documentation significantly more time-consuming.
Text is easier to automate, store, transmit, index, and search
than screenshots or ad-hoc notations
like ``Tools -> Options -> General Options -> ...``
.. TODO: discuss specific comparisons of fixing comparable configuration issue on Linux and Windows.
The emphasis on textuality also makes diagnosing problems easier.
For example:
- Want to see what disks and partitions are mounts? Run ``lsblk``.
- Want to see which displays you're connected to? Run ``xrandr``.
- Want to see what USB devices are connected? Run ``lsusb``.
- Want to restart your networking daemon? Run ``sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart``.
Another benefit of textuality
is using search engines to find similar problems.
Many a Linux user has thought they had found a new bug,
only to run a quick web search
that turned up dozens of users with the same issue.
(The `Arch Linux BBS forum`_ and bug tracker, for example,
tends to be `ahead of the curve`_ on bug reports.)
.. TODO: Find a better example of Arch Linux being ahead of the curve.
.. _Arch Linux BBS forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/
.. _ahead of the curve: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/40444
Finally, software configuration can be kept or removed easily.
When uninstalling a software package on Debian Linux,
the user may either also wipe the system configuration (via ``apt-get purge``)
or leave the configuration in place when the application is installed again (via ``apt-get remove``).
----------------------
Remote administration.
----------------------
Accessing a Windows machine remotely
generally requires remote desktop software.
While it is possible to install an SSH server,
this must installed and configured on each machine;
there is no built-in secure shell access
on a vanilla Windows box.
In addition, Windows machines `do not respond to`_ ``ping`` (ICMP) by default.
Arguably, this is the wrong choice. [#firewall_icmp]_ [#block_icmp]_
.. _do not respond to: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912869(v=winembedded.5).aspx
By contrast, nearly all Linux machines respond to ``ping``
and most allow ``ssh`` for remote access.
Combined with the use of text files for configuration
and the simplicity of package management,
many tech support and remote administration tasks
are easier and faster to resolve
when accessing a remote machine running Linux.
.. [#firewall_icmp] https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/22711/is-it-a-bad-idea-for-a-firewall-to-block-icmp
.. [#block_icmp] https://serverfault.com/questions/84963/why-not-block-icmp
++++++++++++++++++
Cultural problems.
++++++++++++++++++
It might appear at this point
that we are throwing objectivity to the wind,
but these are practical issues caused by cultural differences,
not subjective criticism of Linux/Unix culture vs. Microsoft Windows culture.
--------------------
Public bug trackers.
--------------------
Windows and proprietary software in general
do not usually maintain a public bug tracker,
although there are exceptions [#microsoft_connect]_ [#adobe_bugs]_ [#foldit_bugs]_.
Software companies have strong incentives
to keep their issue tracking systems internal
due to things like
customer confidentiality,
security,
and public relations.
Because bug trackers for proprietary software are not public,
it can be hard to for a user to discern
if their problem is shared by others,
what they can do to fix it,
and whether or not a bug has been fixed in the latest version.
For this reason, many companies maintain a large user support staff.
The inefficiencies and pitfalls of this are evident
to anyone who's had to set up their home internet connection before.
Some companies complement user support with user forums,
which have the same `issues with signal-to-noise ratio`_ that most forums have.
.. _issues with signal-to-noise ratio: https://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-construction-kit/
By contrast, projects like the Linux kernel and the Debian project
maintain accountability and clarity
by publicly tracking and acknowledging bugs,
even when it is embarrassing to do so
[#brown_paper_bag_release]_ [#runs_rm_r_as_root]_.
.. [#microsoft_connect] https://connect.microsoft.com/
.. [#adobe_bugs] https://tracker.adobe.com/
.. [#foldit_bugs] https://fold.it/portal/node/986241
.. [#brown_paper_bag_release] https://lwn.net/1999/0204/kernel.php3
.. [#runs_rm_r_as_root] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=155873
.. TODO: https://serverfault.com/questions/403732/anyone-else-experiencing-high-rates-of-linux-server-crashes-during-a-leap-second/
.. https://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/leap-second-2012.html
-----------------
Debugging habits.
-----------------
By `requiring`_ or encouraging `reboots`_
for installing software or changing configuration,
Windows encourages bad habits
such as restarting software to make a bug go away,
or avoiding using parts of an application as a work-around,
rather than reproducing and reporting bugs.
.. _requiring: https://www.howtogeek.com/182817/htg-explains-why-does-windows-want-to-reboot-so-often/
.. _reboots: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/31204/why-do-application-installs-make-you-reboot-and-close-other-apps/
In 2000, when Hotmail switched from FreeBSD to Windows server,
a white paper noted this problem:
Windows operations still involves too many reboots. Sometimes they are
unnecessary, but operators reboot a system rather than take the time to
debug it. For example, a service may be hung, and rather than take the time
to find and fix the problem, it is often more convenient to reboot. By
contrast, UNIX administrators are conditioned to quickly identify the
failing service and simply restart it; they are helped in this by the
greater transparency of UNIX and the small number of interdependencies.
Some reboots are demanded by an application installation, and are not
strictly necessary.
--- David Brooks, Microsoft Hotmail Migration Technical Case Study
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/21/ms_paper_touts_unix/
https://web.archive.org/web/20030206115538/http://remus.softimage.net/hotmail.html
In the long run,
this hurts both proprietary and open-source software
on the Windows platform.
--------
Malware.
--------
In principle, Linux and Windows users
are equally `susceptible to malware`_.
Android, for example, runs on the Linux kernel,
and there is plenty of malware that targets it.
.. TODO: link to these articles.
.. https://www.linux.org/threads/android-malware.7836/
.. https://www.firstpost.com/business/gunpoder-new-android-malware-targets-users-not-residing-china-2339516.html
.. https://www.hackinglinuxexposed.com/articles/20020924.html
.. https://www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/6229
In practice, though, Windows users are `more likely`_
to inadvertently install malware,
primarily because of the way they install non-malicious software
(see `notes on package management`_).
Finding trustworthy sources for software is non-trivial,
and requiring ordinary users to do it is harmful in a variety of ways;
it tends to encourage a cargo-cult mentality toward security
instead of systematic root-cause analysis.
.. _susceptible to malware: https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/myth-busting-linux-immune-viruses/
.. _more likely: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/2751/the-myths-about-malware-in-unix-linux
.. _notes on package management: `Package manager with signed binaries.`_
As a result,
- Windows users must spend `considerable time and effort`_ detecting and removing malware.
- Windows users may `falsely attribute`_ `software misbehavior to malware`_.
- Some Windows users may even confuse failing hardware with malware. [#not_a_virus]_
.. _considerable time and effort: https://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/mmpc/shared/ransomware.aspx
.. _falsely attribute: https://web.archive.org/web/20200813192119/https://www.combofix.org/suspect-a-malware-infection-heres-the-right-way-to-remove-it.php
.. _software misbehavior to malware: http://lifehacker.com/5958001/the-5-biggest-myths-about-slow-pcs-and-how-you-can-actually-fix-them
This also has consequences for developers.
Because few Linux users experience problems due to malware,
they will report bugs caused by the actual applications,
not ones caused by malware.
Most Linux distributions use cryptographically secure package managers
which is a significantly better security model
than downloading unsigned executables over a network
and then granting them administrative privileges.
Finally, because Linux is a ubiquitous server operating system,
its security is under constant attack,
and Linux desktop users benefit from fixes to the vulnerabilities.
.. [#not_a_virus]
https://dniinoi.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/the-myth-behind-virus-attack-and-hardware/
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/65153/is-there-any-virus-that-can-cause-physical-damage
http://askbobrankin.com/can_a_virus_really_destroy_your_hard_drive.html
.. TODO: addendum of commonly cited, but incorrect, advantages?