Comparing the Big 4 Operating Systems

I recently went to Thailand on vacation (which is where I registered the new domain -- Google checkout didn't like Korea) and I strolled through the magazine section reading the computer stuff. I used to be pretty involved in the OSS movement in Thailand before it collapsed, so I still like to keep up on what's going on there when I visit. By the way, LinuxTLE 9 is out and based on Ubuntu 7.10.

There weren't nearly as many computer magazines as there were a few years ago. I don't know if this correlates to fewer people interested in computers or to a higher penetration of high-speed internet making them obsolete. Anyway, the one magazine that I did find had a cover story comparing the BIG 4 -- XP, Ubuntu, OSX, and Vista. I scooped that one up to take a gander. The article was in Thai, and my Thai is a bit rusty, but I made it through and will tell you what I saw based on memory.

The comparison looked at four factors and gave an overall score, each of these being represnted by one to five bars on an EQ-like layout. The factors were:

• Network security
• Local security
• Driver availability
• Ease of use

Let's look at them individually.

XP

• Network security: 2
  
• Local security: 2
  
• Driver availability: 5
  
• Ease of use: 3
• Overall score: 3
  

Ubuntu

• Network security: 5
• Local security: 2
  
• Driver availability: 2
  
• Ease of use: 3
• Overall score: 3

OSX

• Network security: 5
  
• Local security: 4
  
• Driver availability: 3
  
• Ease of use: 4
• Overall score: 4
  

Vista

• Network security: 5
  
• Local security: 5
  
• Driver availability: 3
  
• Ease of use: 4
• Overall score: 4
  

I don't have any problems with the assessment of XP. I think that's probably pretty accurate. Fairly poor security and sometime confusing to use but supporting virtually everything produced in the last 7-10 years. I'm confused, though, by the rest of the entries.

Ubuntu got understandably poor scores on driver availability and ease of use. While I don't agree with the ease of use score, Windows users find going to a new model difficult. Ubuntu is nice and consistent if you use the default applications (and is even more consistent if you change some non-Gnome apps to Gnome apps). The problem that I have is the extremely low score for local security. Is this due to users having default read access to other user's files? Ubuntu and OSX have virtually the same security model, yet OSX got four bars while Ubuntu got 2. Hmmm.

OSX got a high score for usability, which is supposed to be its strong point, I guess. Based on my
reasoning for the low Ubuntu score above, though, the high score for OSX doesn't make sense. The article didn't seem to give any explanation for either score, but I have noticed a lot of pirated OSx86 disks and OSX application sections in the software malls, so OSX might be hot in the Thai nerd world right now.

Vista got good security scores. I'm not going to argue about this: I think the security model for Vista looks good on paper, but I haven't really seen any studies on it. Its low market penetration when compared to XP combined with being a much tougher target makes it less attractive for exploit than XP right now. Wait another couple of years and this situation will work itself out. We'll see what chinks lay in the armor then. The score that I found odd was the ease of use score of four. I thought that was the big complaint about Vista -- the daily use. Could someone enlighten me on this. Again, the magazine article was strangely light on the rationale.

Overall, of course, they recommended OSX and Vista. It being Thailand, I didn't notice them mentioning buying Apple equipment for OSX.