{"id":346,"date":"2008-01-30T02:55:03","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T02:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubuntucat.wordpress.com\/?p=196"},"modified":"2010-02-03T17:57:25","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T21:57:25","slug":"linux-can-be-windows-sometimes-cant-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/linux-can-be-windows-sometimes-cant-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Linux can be Windows sometimes, can&#8217;t it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quite frequently on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ubuntuforums.org\">the Ubuntu Forums<\/a>, someone will make a suggestion that Ubuntu (and\/or Linux distros in general) adopt a feature or approach that Windows has to handling a task. Inevitably, someone else will counter that Linux is not Windows and then link to the appropriately titled article &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/linux.oneandoneis2.org\/LNW.htm\">Linux is not Windows<\/a>.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> The problem is that logically (and I believe the author of the article in question would agree) it doesn&#8217;t make sense to say that just because Linux is not Windows that Linux should <i>never<\/i> under any circumstance adopt features or approaches that Windows has to user interfaces. After all, desktop Linux already <i>does<\/i> share some features in common with Windows: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Alt-Tabbing to switch between windows, bringing minimized windows to the front.\n<li>Allowing maximizing of windows.\n<li>Generally closing applications once the last window of the application is closed.\n<li>Having Alt-F4 be the shortcut to closing a window.\n<li>Having a menu like the Start menu that allows you to access programs and documents.<\/ul>\n<p> The list could go on and on, but these are all features and approaches to user interfaces that Windows and Linux distros have in common that Mac OS X does not. It&#8217;s not a question of originality. I don&#8217;t really care if Windows copied *nix systems or vice versa. The point is that the two sets of operating systems can and <i>do<\/i> have some things in common. <\/p>\n<p> To be sensible human beings (and not fanatics), we have to avoid two extremes. <a href=\"http:\/\/ubuntuforums.org\/showthread.php?t=439163\">I&#8217;ll be the first to tell people that Ubuntu (and\/or Linux at large) should not be a Windows clone.<\/a> But we should not make Linux in <i>every respect<\/i> the antithesis of Windows either, nor <i>can<\/i> we. The best approach to creating a usable operating system is the adoption of the best of several approaches. If Windows does something right, then Ubuntu should have no problem adopting that approach. If Windows does something wrong, then Ubuntu should avoid adopting that approach. Ubuntu fanatics, please understand, though, that I love Ubuntu a lot, too. Yet, somehow, I&#8217;m able to recognize that Windows does some things that Ubuntu should also do. Package management in Ubuntu is a great way to install software&mdash;perhaps something Windows could learn from Ubuntu. Previewing photos before you upload them in a web browser is a basic expectation that many desktop users have&dash;perhaps something Ubuntu could learn from Windows. <\/p>\n<p> Linux is not Windows. We get it. We get it already. But Linux can learn from Windows occasionally, and that would not be a &#8220;free software sin.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quite frequently on the Ubuntu Forums, someone will make a suggestion that Ubuntu (and\/or Linux distros in general) adopt a feature or approach that Windows has to handling a task. Inevitably, someone else will counter that Linux is not Windows and then link to the appropriately titled article &#8220;Linux is not Windows.&#8221; The problem is&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/linux-can-be-windows-sometimes-cant-it\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Linux can be Windows sometimes, can&#8217;t it?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21,24],"tags":[911,190,921],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","category-ubuntu","category-windows","tag-linux","tag-linux-is-not-windows","tag-windows","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1870,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}