Summary: Windows XP, Vista 7, and OpenSUSE lose to Ubuntu

FOR A WINDOWS user, there is no decent place to turn. On the one hand there is Vista, which is detested even by some of the most avid fans of Windows; then there is Windows XP, which continues to have problems, the latest example being the following intriguing report:

"XP SP3 Doesn't Play Nice with Heavy I/O Operations on NTFS Volumes"

Windows XP fails to play nice with heavy I/O operations occurring on volumes formatted with the NTFS file system, Microsoft informed. According to the Redmond company, the issue is related to the “Compress drive to save disk space” option. The software giant did not offer an explanation of the problems, but indicated that both Service Pack 3 and SP2 for Windows XP were affected. Post-XP releases of the Windows client, including Windows Vista and Windows 7 are not impacted by the issue.

Why is Vista 7 even named? It does not exist as a product. In fact, according to today's report from SJVN, Microsoft's artificial scarcity stunts for Vista 7 have not died out. He explains why:

It's funny that some people actually think that anyone is "pirating" Windows 7 betas. It's clear that Microsoft is deliberately leaking them to build up buzz around the new operating system. Don't believe me? Then why does Microsoft give away free authentication keys that will let any copy of Windows 7 work? If the company didn't want those copies of Windows 7 out there, it wouldn't do that. This tactic is fairly subtle: By making people work -- but not too hard -- to get copies of Windows 7, Microsoft is leading them to believe that they're onto something special.

Where to turn then? When XP is old and deficient, Vista is considered a train wreck, and Vista 7 is still alpha-grade vapourware, one can upgrade to GNU/Linux. But as the following new review probably suggests, SUSE is no ideal escape route from Windows and Microsoft.

Ubuntu 9.04 Review - Desktop Emphasis on the Jaunty Jackalope

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This is the Distro. The Distro that has finally won me over from the SUSE camp. The swaying points were the theme, stability and speed.

To put it in better words, this distro takes over from openSUSE as my primary distro. At least, until SUSE 11.2.

This is an inspiring story which shows that Novell's SUSE fails to capture an audience. Obedience to Novell and Microsoft is still low and ISV support will accordingly degrade (for SLE*). ⬆