To the Editor:

Barrett Williams showed a remarkable lack of knowledge in his discussion of operating systems (OS) in “Apple wins operating system battle” (11/7).

The primary characteristics of an OS are speed, stability and security, not the cosmetic appearance of the desktop: For example, the Aero interface in Vista is entirely optional, and many versions of Vista don’t even support it. All the graphical enhancements are fine and good, but I do wish that startup wouldn’t take so long, system processes wouldn’t take so much RAM, deleting/moving/copying files wouldn’t take half a minute and the security paradigm didn’t rely on users repeatedly clicking “I agree” boxes.

The article also focused on specific software available for each OS: Software is, once again, not part of the operating system. For virtually any piece of proprietary software on a specific OS, there exists an open source substitute which can be run under every OS, so it really doesn’t matter. Barrett Williams mentioned two examples: browsers and IM clients. I would recommend Firefox and Pidgin respectively: Firefox blows IE7 out of the water, and Pidgin is well polished and allows you to connect to multiple IM networks simultaneously.

Finally, dismissing Linux as underdeveloped and hardware-incompatible is just wrong. Modern Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, are very easy to install and operate, and I suspect that Barrett Williams has never actually tried any form of Linux. I hope he tries Linux one day, he might like the sparkly desktop effects.

If you also need help on how to delete files and directories on Linux, check out this site https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/delete-file-linux-command-line/.

Ying Xiao

Nov. 8

Xiao is a senior in Berkeley College.