Windows-Linux

[REDDFOX321]

Ive listened to the Linux vs. MS Windows debates and seen efforts to make Linux look and feel more like Windows. I was just wondering if there are any attempts out there to make Windows more like Linux, like giving the user more control? Yes, I know about WINE and Lindows. Im talking about 100% MS compatible but more control for killing useless processes more stability etc. If not then why not?

[evilempire]

If I understand you right its because windows isnt open source

[roswell1329]

I know of no efforts by Microsoft to make their platform appear and act more like Linux. I will say that the NT family of the Windows OS does have greater process control than the 95/98 line. That's not saying much though...

[problemchild]

Windows 2000 and XP are actually quite good, IMO.

If a genie came out of a bottle and granted me one thing in Windows to fix, it would be its multiuser capabilities - or lack thereof - in comparison with *nix. It's very difficult to secure a Windows box in a multiuser desktop environment because so many apps insist on having large areas of \windows\system32 and \program files world writable in order to function. The multiuser support in Windows has a very "tacked-on" feel to it, and I suppose it is a bit of an afterthought. Windows has a long and rich single-user heritage. I think a share of the blame goes to app writers who have their programs writing config files all over the hard drive, but Microsoft certainly hasn't done anything to discourage that practice. I imagine that to redesign Windows to be truly multiuser would break a lot of apps, but hey.... you gotta move forward sometime.

*nix, on the other hand, is very tidy: users write to their home directory, and everything else is read-only. Bang! Nice and neat.

[doktorf00bar]

OK, so maybe it won't help much with security (better to throw out a bucket with 1000 holes then try to patch it) but certainly a help w/ functionality, http://www.cygwin.com -A DLL to implement some of the *NIX API and a bunch of tools for developement, and there are tools to allow you to build makefiled sourcecode(I think). Lotsa stuff has been ported over to win32, not too shabby for a beginner looking to get used to emacs and whatnot, or someone forced to use windows at work.

-Greg