Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 9.10 – Some Things Linux Just Can’t Do

(Note: this is Part 7 of an on-going series.)

There are a few tasks and applications I commonly use in Windows that I’ve found I just can’t live without. This gives Windows 7 a big advantage over Ubuntu by default, simply because there aren’t always viable Linux alternatives. A few examples:

• iTunes – Yes, there are plenty of music playback/library applications for Linux, but none of them can provide full integration for my iPod Touch and the Apple App store. There just isn’t a seamless way to use an iPod without Apple’s software, and Steve Jobs doesn’t seem interested in supporting Linux.

• FL Studio – In this case there probably are some plausible alternatives (LMMS certainly bills itself as such), but when you pay for commercial software and take the time to learn it well, there’s a huge switching cost involved in moving to free/open source software. Unless the alternatives are much better (which doesn’t seem to be the case, based on the reviews of Linux audio software that I’ve read), I’m better off sticking with what I know. Anyway, I’ve never had good luck getting things like MIDI keyboards to work with the various Linux audio subsystems; which, I might add, seem to be constantly changing and introducing needless complexity. There comes a point when you want to quit fiddling with operating system stuff and just make music.

• NetFlix Instant View – Requires Microsoft Silverlight. Netflix also has a very cool plug-in for Windows Media Center, which makes the instant movie viewing experience even more convenient and pleasurable. While there is a port of Silverlight for Linux called Moonlight, it currently lags far behind its Windows counterpart.

• Google Video and Voice Chat – Gmail has a handy feature that allows you to chat with your contacts via voice or video. Obviously, this could be done in Linux using other software, but most people I chat with are using Google and it “just works” without having to ask people to install extra software or sign up for another account somewhere.

• DScaler – This great little utility allows a TV tuner to display video to the computer monitor without delay. Since I don’t have a TV, this is the only way I can play my Playstation 2. Every other TV tuner software I’ve tried introduces a 1-2 second lag between the video signal output and the actual display, which is obviously a fatal problem for video games.

• My company’s VPN software – This is another case where Linux fails not because of what it is, but simply because it’s not Windows. Most enterprises are highly Microsoft oriented, and even when they do take the time to support another platform, it’s usually Mac, not Linux.

Linux has always suffered from this chicken-and-the-egg problem with software. Most software developers naturally want their software to be adopted widely, so they cater to the platform with the largest audience. This leads people to avoid Linux because it doesn’t have all the software they want. But as long as users don’t adopt Linux, developers remain justified in developing only for Windows. (You get the idea.)

Even with the rise of Ubuntu and other user-friendly distributions, Linux has never attained more than 1-2% of the desktop PC market share. I really thought it had a chance to break 5% or even 10% when Windows Vista was being hailed as a dud, but the growth spurt never happened. I can understand at least one reason why that’s the case when even a dedicated computer geek who wants to see Linux succeed has a tough time using it exclusively; it simply doesn’t equal or exceed the functionality and quality I get with certain key Windows applications. Some people won’t care at all about the applications I listed above, but there’s a good chance they have one or two Windows applications they wouldn’t want to part with. Others may find ways of doing everything they want to do on their computers using Linux alone, but as much as I might try, that’s never been the case for me.