1) In Linux, you can delete and move files freely.

This is a horrible thing about linux. While I do agree that is sucks not know which program is using a file, to simply crash it by yanking the file out from under it is not acceptable.

This goes to the general problem with all variants of unix, no decent file locking. File locking in linux is like leaving the front door open with a sign that says "Locked". Windows, on the other hand, actually locks the file at an OS level like god intended.

3) MSN Messenger does not run on Linux.

This is just plain stupid. It isn't hard to uncheck the box for Messenger, and I have never had it reappear. You don't need a registry hack or anything like that.

4) "Safely remove your external storage device"

That is a hold over from older versions of Windows. You normally don't need to use that with the current version of Windows XP for flash drives. Mass storage drives, on the other hand, should use it because of the amount of disk caching going on. Unless of course you like to trash your files.

This is a horrible thing about linux....To simply crash it by yanking the file out from under it is not acceptable.

That's the wonderful thing about linux. If I instruct the machine to delete a file, it should delete it (assuming I have rights). Not make excuses.

You normally don't need to use that with the current version of Windows XP for flash drives. Mass storage drives, on the other hand, should use it because of the amount of disk caching going on.

Makes sense. Perhaps those mass storage drives should be responsible for warning the user that the cache hasn't been flushed. Like with a light on the front :)

4) (Safely remove your external storage device) is a good idea, it flushes the buffers to disk. On linux its equivalent is unmount drive before removing, which is a good idea to do if you value your data.

If I instruct the machine to delete a file, it should delete it.

A great thing for the user, but a terrible thing for the application developer. Instead of locks, any application that does file IO has to constantly be on guard. And if it doesn't handle it, it better not crash or else it'll bring all the unsaved user data down with it. The Windows "cannot delete file" feature isn't just there to bug the user.

About (4): actually, in XP (SP2) one can mark hard drive for easy removal. It is a little slower (write caching turned off), but one can take flash drive off without any rodent manipulation.

Downside: with card readers, if one marks it "safe for removal", the only visible way to get them connected is to disconnect physically, wait three seconds (this is apparently in USB spec) and connect again. Nothing happened, "safe removal" is pure software thing, but still I have to manipulate the device. The same of course goes for big HD. I still wait for an explanation, why I cannot just reconnect the device taken offline.

Removing usb devices on Linux systems is also possible. The device can be mounted with the --sync option. Then all files will be written immediately. Off course with a loss of performance. When running a decent desktop environment, there ought to be provided tools for easy mounting and unmounting. Gnome, KDE and Xfce amomgst many others do have such tools.

How is "unmount" more cumbersome than the system tray icon? On my Ubuntu desktop, I simply right-click on the USB device's icon and select "unmount" from the context menu. This is a lot simpler than double-clicking on the system tray icon, then attempting to figure out which piece of hardware it is that I'm trying to safely remove.

Practically, you don't have to worry about people deleting the file and not being able to access it. When you delete a file the pointer is deleted, not the actual file. The app can still use the file since it has its own copy of the pointer - deleting a file being used by an application will not crash that application.

More to the point, Window's behavior makes it a lot harder to delete malicious files.

If the drive is mounted with the sync option (as it is on many distros) then you can safely yank the drive out after the copy operation is complete and the drive light goes off.

Hey there,

The first item on your list can be accomplished by specifying the FILESHAREDELETE flag to CreateFile. I don't know why Winamp is not doing this.

I think this (http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/01/922449.aspx) is an explanation for #2. It's better in Vista than XP, especially when you first install the OS.

As for #3, it's always gone away when I told it not to start automatically in the Messenger interface.

Yours, Philip

About number 4) You were right :) If you have the correct setting in your /etc/fstab file then all writes to a USB disk will be synchronous and so unmount is not so necessary (recommended, but not necessary).

I completely agree about Windows messenger, not msn messenger which can be removed. Windows messenger connects everytime I lose connection without even showing on my screen anywhere, it's impossible to remove. Windows Live Messenger or Msn Messenger I have installed and can be removed at any time.

2) There are no lower-right corner popups!

You can disable that if you are running Windows XP and get a program called "Tweak XP".

3) MSN Messenger does not run on Linux.

Run -> msconfig -> startup -> uncheck its box, and it doesnt start up.

@Jonathan: when you check the box with MSN Messenger, you have to do it for EVERY PERSON THAT LOGS INTO THAT MACHINE. And then, it generally runs in the background anyway. Updates will uncheck the box, and you have to do it all again. The registry hack works with Win2K, but causes your event log to have errors.

@daltonlp: umount (command line) or a two-click unmount is not that difficult. In WinXP and Win2K, it can be a five-click process to shut down a flash drive, and sometimes, something in the background is using it and won't let you shut it down. Some other best things: ps to see what processes are running, top to see which processes are using the most resources, nice to keep processes from using too many resources, kill to stop them if they are using too many resources -- all of them work faster and more reliably than the Windows Task Manager.

One thing that Windows does WAY better is that all installers work the same way. You double-click and follow the prompts. In Linux, there are several different possible ways to install an application, depending on which distributions it is built for.

While i mostly agree with all your points, I've seen on the comments that not only you, but most people think you have to right click on the system tray icon to safely disconnect a USB device. Just left click the icon and then again on the device on the menu that appears then, voila. Of course, if the device is still in use, Windows will refuse to unmount it, but usually it's just a matter of closing the explorer window where you are watching the device contents ;) .

"Don't you wish it would tell you WHICH application?"

Well for your information, there are many programs out there that tell you which application has it locked for example I use the program "unlocker" as if the file is used be a process and you try to delete it, rename it or whatever and it is locked the program automatically pops up and gives you the option to unlock the file from the associated program without closing it. Sorry seriously all these comments are pretty pointless and are just linux lovers crying out to say that their OS is not crap.

Oh that brings me to another point, with the whole thing about linux being secure and free of viruses and spyware, well how secure can an operating system be if the ENTIRE source code is available and free to peruse. Basically if i wanted to hack into a linux box I have all the source code available to find all the holes instead of windows hackers having to find holes in the security blindly which microsoft usually fixes up. Anyway that's just my rant have fun with your OS ill stick with mine.

"Windows, on the other hand, actually locks the file at an OS level like god intended."

How many times have you been stuck unable to easily delete a file that windows has latched onto - even after rebooting? Just once is one too many - and its happened to me many a time. Sometimes the user knows better than the OS, and needs to be able to preempt it. By doing so you may willingly be destroying your system, but if thats what you need to do - you should be able to.

"One thing that Windows does WAY better is that all installers work the same way. You double-click and follow the prompts. In Linux, there are several different possible ways to install an application, depending on which distributions it is built for."

Doesn't your distribution have a package manager that does all this stuff for you anyways - turning many different installation methods into a single (hopefully straightforward) method?

"Oh that brings me to another point, with the whole thing about linux being secure and free of viruses and spyware, well how secure can an operating system be if the ENTIRE source code is available and free to peruse.Basically if i wanted to hack into a linux box I have all the source code available to find all the holes instead of windows hackers having to find holes in the security blindly which microsoft usually fixes up. "

Try it and see.

Actually, I found a way around MSN messenger coming up. Simply change the filename in the registry by adding a 1 to the end. Windows won't even know. If you try deleting it manually, it will just come back, but it's too stupid to realize you changed it.

I guess you are talking about "windows messenger" (which is installed by default) and not "msn messenger" (which you have to install additionally and is now called live messenger). Its pretty straightforward to remove it. Just go to Add/remove programs -> Add remove windows components -> Uncheck windows messenger (AND/OR MSN Explorer AND/OR Outlook Express). And you are done!

I use XP for work but I love Linux. I used to be a Fedora (actually Redhat) person but now my love for Unbuntu is growing by leaps and bounds. Can't wait for Gutsy...

4) "Safely remove your external storage device"

Linux actually does this right in regards to flash media. Per the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_media#Limitations

"flash memory has a finite number of erase-write cycles (most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 100,000 write-erase-cycles for block 0, and no guarantees for other blocks[citation needed])"

Linux doesn't actually write the data to the flash media until you unmount it. So the whole time you're working with your flash drive, it's not being written to. This saves the amount of write cycles.

Now image you have a Word/Excel file open on your flash mean, as i would suspect a lot of people do. Every 5 minutes Word or Excel is going to autosave. Imagine if you left said Word/Excel files on your computer overnight a couple times. The write cycles would add up.

By not writing to the flash media until you are done with it, you are saving the amount of write cycles.

Don't know if that was the intended design, but it makes sense.

unmount:Windows sometimes refuses to safely remove the Device. How can it refuse? i want it! But the general idea is ok.

MSN: Its not that easy as one here wrote. actually you can not remove MSN from win,as its in the oslayer. You can choose not to run it, with some effort <even so it may still run).

I agree on the delete stuff. its Not big, but for <ME> annoying.

Hey, but all no reason to fight about it. there is nothing perfect incl linux.

"A great thing for the user, but a terrible thing for the application developer. Instead of locks, any application that does file IO has to constantly be on guard."

thus chroot yourself into a development directory... quite easy seeing as it takes one line and gives you all the freedom in the world.

Also, great thing about linux, with respect to point 4, is you can easily make an unmount script for your filemanager to make unmount's easy. and if you already have terminal open, well, i've always found writing umount /dev/sda a lot easier than trying to navigate through any windows gui.

Oh, and elfin24... what do you think many many geeks with way too little time on their hands do? that's right, crack back a cold one on friday night and weed through the source code, yet again, looking for exploits. oh, long live the patching system and a response time of a few days. if i were to release an exploit today for windows xp, how long do you think it would take for a patch to be widely circulated?

You can also remove windows messenger like follows from the run menu.

rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %systemRoot%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

and then

rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection BLC.Remove 128 %systemRoot%\INF\msmsgs.inf

and then you can make it show up in normal add and remove programs by going to run and opening the correct file in notepad as follows:

notepad.exe %systemRoot%\INF\sysoc.inf

Find the line that starts with msmsgs= and remove the word "hide" from that line. That should keep things rolling without messenger bothering you again.

My distro of choice is ubuntu/kubuntu at the moment. Both systems do have popups on the "system tray."

Also, MSN messenger is very easy to disable. In fact, I set up a virtualbox with xp a few days ago, and I don't recall having to disable it, it wasn't on by default. It's an xp sp2 disk.

File-locking is a good thing, but windows has some issues with it. I've occasionally had files lock, and then become perma-locked... there are fixes for this (I think I found one at pchell.com) but it still happens from time to time.

A lot of these linux benefits from this list and the top 10 also depend heavily on distro... window manager, file manager, etc....

If you use pclinuxos you are going to have a different experience than ubuntu. Making blanket statements like "linux does X right" is silly because the specific thing you are referring to could a result any one of many components in your linux OS. What is better? I have different issues on every OS I use, none of them is perfect, even linux, dispite the fanboyism.

RE: In Linux, you can delete, rename and move files freely.

Actually this is a bit of a double-edged sword. If you delete a file in ...IX it won't actually go away until the application using it releases the file. However, if you try to look for the file once deleted it shows it is gone.

Once before I learned this behavior it caused me some major head scratching when I had a 120GB file system that appeared empty but the 'df -g' showed only 60GB free. It ended up being some database files I had deleted that were still in use by a process.

I agree though that windows should automatically show you what process is using the file it won't let you delete. It should also give you the option of marking the file for deletion on the next reboot.

Really it comes down to a culture thing. Some people like to tinker so they like the granularity and openness of Linux. Some people just want to get done what they want done without having to learn how to do something new. Others only use computers for work and feel comforted by the familiarity and Realness** of windows.

**Realness being defined as it's sold and marketed in a traditional business manner. i.e. Expensive = Quality, "Free" = Crap or Has strings attached. Just look at the way traditional business markets their "free" software. It's either trialware, malware or my personal favorite: functionally hobbled. I just so love it when I read about an app and it has a free version with most of the useful features unavailable. Or better yet it will perform the function you want but won't let you save the results.

Besides the consumers who truly decide whether a product will survive are corporate execs who only ever use spreadsheets, word processors and email. They like having a company they can call when there are problems. (They don't believe in companies that provide support for open products. They're just shifty.)

A huge productivity plus for Linux on the desktop is that an ordinary power user can learn the non procedural shell to add analysis and reporting functionality and use scripts with the cron table for hands off automation.

I have personally found that it is easier to teach, (in about 24 hours over 4-6 weeks), non Windows users these skills no matter how young or old.

Recalcitrant Windows users just can't or won't get into the Linux mind set. The idea of making a computer do what they or their boss wants rather than how programs want them to do things, they can't seem to handle easily.

The idea of automating tasks they see as usurping their role, which when questioned they reply that it will take away jobs from other Windows users. Absolutely no concern about being more productive for their employer.

Microsoft, who make their money from maximising the number of seats in any buyer organization have marketed this attitude for so long it has become part of the Windows user psyche. No wonder MS are so anti Linux in their PR releases as in my experience one Linux desktop can do the work of at least two Windows machines in a general office, not to mention clever Linux users reducing staff levels.

All the other issues pale in comparison as any UNIX/BSD/Linux savvy user can modify everything to suit the conditions and work being done.

I think the main analysis of the comments is that with a Linux distro one gets a "can do anything" default system as all the add ons are free in any case, which the user then modifies to suit, whereas with Windows one gets a functionality limited system so you will hopefully pay for all the extras. Some of the Windows like distros may give a "better" limited functionality to those who are happier with this state of affairs.

You can disable the tooltip popups in Windows XP also without TweakUI or TweakXP. You simple set HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\EnableBalloonTips DWORD 0 its not there by default, you have to add it, but it stops them dead.

Actually this is a bit of a double-edged sword. If you delete a file in ...IX it won't actually go away until the application using it releases the file. However, if you try to look for the file once deleted it shows it is gone.

Only its name is gone, until the process using the file exits. You can go into /proc/<processno>/fd, find the file descriptor, and carefully relink it into the filesystem on linux, if you want. That's not made "easy", but it probably shouldn't be particularly easy - ordinary users should probably be moving stuff to Trash, not deleting stuff, unless they're actually computer literate.

It's a dirty hack but the easiest and probably most effective way to stop messenger from coming back is to quit the app, then go and rename the folder that its installed in. Just add a 2 to the end of the name or something. Its worked every time for me.

Safely remove exists in Linux for the same reason that it exists in Windows... caching has to be flushed. You already learned that so you deleted #4. The real issue, IMO, is that these #%**)(&^ device manufacturers decide that the LED needs to entertain us when the device is idle: Sandisk Cruzers like to gradually dim and brighten the LED, generic devices like to flash on and off when idle. Floppy drive LEDs never entertained us when they were idle (not without some hack running those LEDs). There should be rules that state those LEDs are only to be lit when data is being transferred, period. No help for unwritten caches, no matter what you want the LED to show.

For the comments on 1: If you delete a file in linux the file wont really be deleted until all applications has stopped using it. Ie, scheduled for deletion and marked as deleted in the filesystem. As soon as the lock has been released the space the file is using will be freed. If you move a file all applications that has that file open will still have that file open. The only thing that changes is what folder that owns the file and the inode, ie filesystem identifier, will still be the same (when moved within the same filesystem, if moved outside it will do a copy + delete).

2) There are no lower-right corner popups!: No, now in ubuntu we have the ever so appealing top-right popups for update-notifications :).. Luckily most of those apps provide a "Popup notification" checkbox straight from the rightclick..

For the comments on 3: MSN is evil, and it's not easy to remove.. I have seen this on many installations where it gets reactivated ever so often..

For the comments on 4: Just rightclick on the usb-device on the desktop and select eject and it will sync cached data to the device and then unmount it. Just wait for it to disapear.. (can be different styles of this depending if your running ubuntu, fedora, mandrake etc)

In some Linux desktop environments (like GNOME) the safe removal is easier. You right click the drive you want to remove and select "Unmount" from the menu. Doesn't seem cumbersome to me.