Andrea Wilkinson
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February 2025Windows Competitors: Pros and Cons
Most people are sure that Windows must be installed on their computer to work. Not all ordinary users know about alternative operating systems (OS), and even fewer have tried these OSs in action. The comparative advantages and disadvantages of these alternative operating systems will be discussed in this article.
How says kmspico the total share of alternative Windows operating systems (OS) among desktop computers and laptops is unlikely to exceed 12–14%. In percentage terms, this seems to be quite a bit, but in absolute numbers it is tens of millions of users. The most popular alternative operating systems are Mac OS X and Linux. Strictly speaking, Linux is not one OS, but many different “distributions”, but we will use their general name.
Of course, when considering Mac OS X and Linux, it will be impossible to do without mentioning the OS of the Windows family, since they are the de facto standard among personal computers and all alternative OS will always be assessed by the user from the standpoint of:
- better or worse than Windows?
- is it similar to the one in Windows or not?
Mac OS X
Although Mac OS X and Linux share UNIX roots, there are two fundamental differences between them.
The first is that Mac OS X can be installed (without the help of hackers) only on Macintosh computers made by Apple. The second difference is that Mac OS X is proprietary software (distributed with conditions prohibiting its free further distribution, use by the user in its own software, changes to it, etc. - i.e. with restrictions on the user's freedom), and Linux refers to “free” software, accordingly, they differ in the way they are distributed.
The first Mac OS appeared in 1984, much earlier than Windows. It was designed specifically for Macintosh (Mac) computers. These computers, unlike the PCs we are used to, have a closed architecture, that is, the computers themselves are assembled only by Apple. On the one hand, this is good, since 100% integration of computer hardware and software is ensured, plus good quality components and assembly. But there is also a flip side to the coin. Since there is only one manufacturer of Macs, there is basically no competition here. Which is not very good from a consumer point of view.
Mac OS X itself is a heavily redesigned BSD-UNIX system with its own kernel (XNU).
The strength of Mac OS X is the virtual absence of viruses for Macintoshes. And the point is not only that Mac OS X is not very widespread compared to Windows, but also that traditional viruses simply do not work in a UNIX environment. Theoretically, of course, there are samples of viruses that can work with some applications for Mac OS, but their number is simply insignificant compared to malware written for Windows. Even remotely hacking a computer running Mac OS X is much more difficult than hacking a machine running Windows, and anti-virus programs may be needed only to prevent an infected file from being sent to a machine running Windows, since it won’t do any harm to you will bring.
Reference
The directory structure in Mac OS X is very different from Windows. Mac OS X uses a hierarchical file system, with the root partition at the bottom. User files and folders are located in a personal directory, and hierarchical division allows you to differentiate user rights. For example, an application running by a user cannot change system files and crash the system, unless the application is running with administrator rights (assuming that the person running the application with administrator rights knows what they are doing). In general, we can say that Mac OS X uses the access control policy adopted in all UNIX systems.
The system interface also has significant differences from Windows. For example, if in Windows each program usually corresponds to one window with tabs and toolbars opening in it, then in Mac OS X “floating” windows and panels are used, not tied to a common window, but located on the desktop.
Another distinctive feature of the Mac interface is the dock panel. This is a panel at the bottom of the desktop where you can find icons for files and applications that you need quick access to, as well as running applications. The panel can be edited, resized, removed and added application icons. You can also note interface elements such as Dashboard and Expose.
Dashboard is a panel for working with “widgets”, the simplest graphical applications that, as a rule, perform information functions.
Expose is a function for displaying on the screen in the form of thumbnails all open windows or only windows of the active program.
The search uses an indexed search engine called Spotlight. Search results are displayed instantly.
Let us now move from the interface to the software that is installed on the Macintosh.
The list of programs for Mac OS X is not as impressive as for Windows, but, nevertheless, it is not small, in any case, all the basic necessary applications for work and entertainment are there, moreover, the very concept of creating software from Apple implies that to solve one problem, just one program is enough, the main thing is that it works well. That is, to listen to music you don’t need 10 media players, but one iTunes, and to surf the web you need only one browser, and let it be Safari. The developers of the Mac OS X interface believe that this will be more convenient for users who will not be confused by countless options, and the computer itself will not turn into a dump of dubious programs that threaten the performance of the entire system. And although now the company does not follow this rule so strictly, the very principle of this approach to software has been preserved. Therefore, most programs used on Macs are quite reliable and have a user-friendly interface.
Linux
On September 7, 1991, Finnish student Linus Torvalds posted online the source code for what would later develop into the Linux operating system (“Linux”). The most fundamental difference between Linux and Mac OS X and Windows is that Linux is free software that is distributed under the GPL license. For the average user, this means that most Linux distributions (varieties) are free, and for programmers - that they can freely and freely use the program code of both Linux itself and the programs included in it and create their own products based on them. The result of this policy is that there are now more than a thousand different Linux distributions. Of course, they are not equivalent and not all are worthy of attention, but the very idea of creating different distributions for different tasks is quite interesting.
For example, there is Puppy Linux, which is only 97.6 megabytes in size and even runs on a Pentium 166 MMX with 128 megabytes of RAM. Note that this is a completely modern OS with support for wireless interfaces and other fancy things. On the other hand, there is the Debian distribution, the full version of which, together with updates, consists of 4 DVDs and contains a huge number of different programs. There are special Linux operating systems for working with multimedia (Ubuntu Studio, JackLab Audio Distribution, 64 Studio...), corporate OS (they, as a rule, do not support the latest innovations, but are very reliable, well protected, and carry a full set of office tools). software). There are distributions intended for educational institutions (Edubuntu, Skolelinux,..).
Special mention can be made of commercial distributions. They are not free. These are mainly enterprise or dedicated Linux variants, although there are also versions for home users. Money in such distributions is mainly taken for technical support.
Another important difference between Linux and Windows is that Linux distributions come with a large set of application software. That is, after installation on your computer, you have a completely ready-to-use system.
Most Linux operating systems by default use one of two graphical interfaces - GNOME or KDE, so even when changing from one Linux distribution to another, no problems arise for the user; he finds himself in a familiar graphical environment. Both interfaces have approximately the same distribution. To describe them very briefly, outwardly KDE resembles the Windows desktop, and GNOME resembles the Mac OS X desktop. The similarity is, of course, only external. KDE has a huge number of customization tools, so that the appearance and behavior of the system can be adjusted to suit the most whimsical tastes. The strength of GNOME is its simplicity and intuitive interface. Unfortunately, the format of the article does not allow us to consider both graphical environments in more detail.
The advantage of Linux is that it is a flexible OS. That is, the user can choose the Linux distribution that is more suitable for solving his problems, and then also optimize the system “for himself.” For most settings, there is now no need to go into the console or edit configuration files, everything is done through the graphical interface. Of course, this flexibility also has a downside: it can be difficult for a “non-advanced” user to make a choice, since he usually cannot spend much time studying the advantages or disadvantages of different distributions, interfaces or programs.
Linux Software
Due to the fact that programs for Linux are mostly free software, one can say that a whole army of enthusiasts and a number of paid employees write code, test programs and localize them.
Over the years of work, of course, a huge amount of software has been accumulated. The easiest way to install software for Linux is to install programs from binary files (packages) that are stored in repositories (data stores) of a particular distribution. That is, you do not need to search all over the Internet for the desired program. Simply use the “OS package manager” to select the program you need, and it will automatically download and install on your computer. The size of the repositories depends on the specific Linux distribution. For example, the Ubuntu repositories contain more than 23 thousand packages.
Despite the very large amount of software written for Linux, users migrating from Windows will find that some of the software will be unfamiliar to them. This is due to the fact that not all programs are cross-platform and have versions for both Windows and UNIX systems. Among the most famous cross-platform programs, it is worth mentioning the Firefox and Opera browsers, the Thunderbird email client, the OpenOffice office suite, the Gimp graphics editor, the Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer, the FileZilla FTP client, the Azureus torrent client, and the Apache WEB server.
The greatest problems arise with specialized professional software, much of which is written only for Windows systems. There is no equivalent replacement for some applications in Linux. This, for example, is the well-known Photoshop, AutoCAD, video editing programs, as well as locally oriented software created taking into account Russian legislation (accounting software, legal reference databases).
For the youth audience, a serious disadvantage is the inability to run some modern games in a Linux environment, and here Windows has a huge advantage over both Linux and Mac OS X, since the PC gaming industry is focused primarily on Windows.
To solve these problems, the Wine project was created. This software is used to work with Windows applications and to run Windows games on Linux.
Wine is an alternative implementation of the Windows API for UNIX-like systems. This is a very active and popular project, but it is too early to talk about 100% compatibility of Wine with all Windows software.
by Andrea Wilkinson on 2024-05-08 04:07:07