Differences between Windows and Linux operating systems

2.1 Desktop Environment

Item Windows Linux
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One available WM per release,
parts of which may be modified;
system file patching
(uxtheme.dll) or third party
software such as WindowBlinds
is required for some
modification. WM is critically
required to operate the system
(graphics system failure will
render the system unusable);
remote control not part of original
architecture
GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment,
Xfce, Openbox,Fluxbox, etc. Can
be enhanced with Beryl or
Compiz or the newer Compiz
Fusion (merge of Compiz/Beryl
forks). WM not critical for system
operation (reverts to command
line operation in case of failure);
remote control implicit in design
and protocol
Notes : Different Window managers provide users with a uniquely
different method of interacting with the computer, though sometimes
at the cost of compatibility.
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Windows Millennium Edition







Gnome-2.20




Item Windows Linux
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Windows Server 2003




Windows Vista




Kde35





Xfce-4.4





2.2 Accessibility and Usability

Item Windows Linux
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Both Windows and Linux offer accessibility options such as high
contrast displays and larger text / icon size, text to speech and
magnifiers.

C
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Source code may be purchased
for modification in some
circumstances (restrictive), or
third party tools may create
modifications.
All of the kernel source code is
freely available for modification.
Most other software is free
software too.
Item
Windows Linux
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Mostly consistent.
Inconsistencies appear primarily
through backports - software
ported from newer operating
systems to older ones. For
example, software ported from
Vista to XP, or from XP to
Windows 2000/98, must follow
the guidelines of the newer
system (IE7 and Windows Media
Player 11 are examples of this).
However, Microsoft continually
pushes for consistency between
releases with guidelines for
interface design. The latest are
Windows Vista User Experience
guidelines. Their focus is on
consistency and usability, but
with increased concern for safety
in new versions. 3rd party
applications may or may not
follow these guidelines, may
have their own guidelines, or
may not follow any rules for
interface design.

The quality of graphical design
varies between desktop
environments and distributions.
The two biggest desktop
environments (GNOME and
KDE) have clearly defined
interface guidelines, which tend
to be followed consistently and
clearly.
[33][34]
These provide
consistency and a high grade of
customizability in order to adapt
to the needs of the user.
Distributions such as Ubuntu,
SuSE, Fedora or Mandriva take
this one step further, combining
well-functioning usability and
safety. However, inconsistencies
may appear, since GNOME-
based programs, following
different guidelines, look
somewhat different from KDE
programs. However, these
differences are now considered
minor and may not even be
noticed.





Item
Windows Linux
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User interaction with software is
usually consistent between
versions, releases, and editions.
Consistency can be poor
between distributions, versions,
window managers/desktop
environments, and programs.
Software is highly user-
customizable, however, and the
user may keep the
customizations between
versions.
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All Microsoft software follow the
same guidelines for GUI,
although not all software
developed for Windows by third
parties follow these GUI
guidelines. As stated above,
backports tend to follow the
guidelines from the newer
operating system.
Highly consistent within KDE anf
GNOME. However the vast
amount of additional software
that comes with a distribution is
sourced from elsewhere; it may
not follow the same GUI
guidelines or it may cause
inconsistencies.


Notes : Though Windows GDI and most widget toolkits in Linux
allow for applications to be created with a custom look and feel,
most applications on both platforms simply use the default look and
feel. However there are exceptions like FL Studio for Windows and
LMMS for Linux.








2.3 Stability

Item Windows Linux
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Windows variants based on the
NT kernel (Windows NT, 2000,
XP, 2003, Vista) are technically
much more stable than earlier
versions (95, 98, 98 SE, ME).
Installing unsigned or beta
drivers can lead to decreased
system stability. Mechanisms to
terminate badly behaving
applications exist at multiple
levels.
The kernel inherits the stability of
UNIX due to its modular
architecture (acknowledged to
be stable). Linux terminal
emulators and frontend Window
Managers stabilities vary widely,
but are generally stable.
Mechanisms to terminate badly
behaving applications exist at
multiple levels.
Notes : Instability can be caused by poorly written programs, aside
from intrinsic OS stability. Software crashes, however can usually be
recovered without restarting the entire operating system and losing
data from other application.
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Device drivers are provided by
Microsoft or written by the
hardware manufacturer.
Microsoft also runs a
Certification program
Device drivers are sometimes
reverse engineered to work for
Linux. Some vendors contribute
to free drivers (Intel, HP etc.) or
provide proprietary drivers
(Nvidia, ATI etc.). Specifically
designed server lines exist.
Some Windows drivers can also
be used (mostly wireless drivers
using the ndiswrapper
framework).
Notes : Crashes can be caused by hardware or poorly written
device drivers.
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In modern, NT-based versions of
Windows, programs that crash
may be forcibly ended through
the task manager by pressing
CTRL+SHIFT+ESC or
CTRL+ALT+DEL or through the
command line in professional
SKUs. Reboots were often
required in pre-NT versions
(Windows 9x).
All processes except for init and
processes in D or Z state may be
terminated from the command
line. In KDE applications can be
closed using CTRL+ALT+ESC or
by K System Guard by pressing
CTRL+ESC. SysRQ allows low-
level system manipulation and
crash recovery if configured.
Reboots are seldom required.
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Reboots are usually required
after system and driver updates,
and are occasionally needed for
software installations if the
installer wishes to overwrite a file
that is being used by critical
running program. Microsoft has
its hot patching

technology,
designed to reduce downtimes.
Linux itself only needs to restart
for kernel updates.

However, a
special utility can be used to load
the new kernel and execute it
without a hardware reset (kexec)
and hence can stay up for years
without rebooting.
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Windows variants based on the
NT kernel (Windows NT, 2000,
XP, 2003, Vista) are technically
much more stable than earlier
versions (95, 98, 98 SE, ME).
Installing unsigned or beta
drivers can lead to decreased
system stability. Mechanisms to
terminate badly behaving
applications exist at multiple
levels.
The kernel inherits the stability of
UNIX due to its modular
architecture (acknowledged to
be stable). Linux terminal
emulators and frontend Window
Managers stabilities vary widely,
but are generally stable.
Mechanisms to terminate badly
behaving applications exist at
multiple levels.



2.4 Performance

Item Windows Linux
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NT-based versions of Windows
use a CPU scheduler based on a
multilevel feedback queue, with
32 priority levels defined. The
kernel may change the priority
level of a thread depending on
its I/O and CPU usage and
whether it is interactive (i.e.
accepts and responds to input
from humans), raising the priority
of interactive and I/O bounded
processes and lowering that of
CPU bound processes, to
increase the responsiveness of
interactive applications.
The scheduler was modified in
Windows Vista to use the cycle
counter register of modern
processors to keep track of
exactly how many CPU cycles a
thread has executed, rather than
just using an interval-timer
interrupt routine.
Linux kernel 2.6 once used a
scheduling algorithm favoring
interactive processes. Here
"interactive" is defined as a
process has short bursts of CPU
usage rather than long ones. It is
said that a process without root
privilege can take advantage of
this to monopolize the CPU,
when the CPU time accounting
precision is low. However, the
new CFS, the completely fair
scheduler, addresses this
problem.
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Windows NT and its variants
employ a dynamically allocated
pagefile for memory management.
A pagefile is allocated on disk, for
less frequently accessed objects in
memory, leaving more RAM
available to actively used objects.
This scheme suffers from slow-
downs due to disk fragmentation,
which hampers the speed at which
the objects can be brought back
into memory when they are needed.
Windows can be configured to
place the page file on a separate
partition; doing this negates the
disk-fragmentation issues, but
introduces an I/O slowdown due to
the seek time involved in switching
back and forth between the two
partitions.

However, the main
reason this is not done by default is
that, if the page file is on a separate
partition, then Windows cannot
create a memory dump in the event
of a Stop Error. The ideal solution
performance-wise is to have the
page file on a separate hard drive to
the primary one, which eliminates
both defragmentation and I/O
issues.
Most hard drive installations of
Linux utilize a "swap partition",
where the disk space allocated
for paging is separate from
general data, and is used strictly
for paging operations. This
reduces slowdown due to disk
fragmentation from general use.
As with Windows, for best
performance the swap partition
should be placed on a separate
hard drive to the primary one.






2.5 Security

Item Windows Linux
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According to Kaspersky Lab,
more than 11,000 malware
programs for Windows were
discovered in the second half of
2005. Botnets - networks of
infected computers controlled by
malicious persons - with more
than one million computers have
been witnessed.
Users are advised to install and
run anti-malware programs.
More than 800 pieces of Linux
malware have been discovered.
Some malware has propagated
through the Internet.
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Claims its platform is more
secure because of a
comprehensive approach to
security using the Security
Development Lifecycle.
However, due to the nature of
closed source, only company
programmers can fix bugs.
Claims its platform is more
secure because all of its code is
reviewed by so many people that
bugs are detected (referred to as
Linus's law).
Notes : Microsoft claims that Windows Vista is more secure than
other operating systems. However, security vulnerabilities have
been found in Windows Vista.
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Claims closed source offers a
faster and more effective
response to security issues,
though critical bug fixes are only
released once a month after
extensive programming and
testing and certain bugs have
been known to go unpatched for
months.
Bugs can be fixed and rolled out
within a day of being reported,
though usually it takes a few
weeks before the patch is
available on all distributions.
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In Windows Vista, all logged in
sessions (even for those of
"administrator" users) run with
standard user permissions,
preventing malicious programs
from gaining total control of the
system.
Prior versions of Windows would
assign administrator status to the
first user account created during
the setup process. The majority
of users did not change to an
account type with fewer rights
,
meaning that malicious
programs would have full control
over the system.

Users typically run as limited
accounts, having created both
administrator and user accounts
during install, preventing
malicious programs from gaining
total control of the system.
Notes : A malicious program executed under a limited account in
both Linux and Windows is limited to the users data.