What is the difference between Linux and windows?

Question

What is the difference between Linux and windows?

Answer 1

Linux is an open-source OS, where as Windows is a closed-source OS.



Open source software permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software. Where as closed source software is released or distributed without the corresponding source code.



So basically, Windows is copyrighted and we can't get access to all of the source code because it's encrypted, that's why we have to pay for a Windows license. With Linux, it's not copyrighted and anyone can see all of the source code and freely change it.



For example, if Windows has security threats, we have to wait for the Windows developers to address the issue, find out how to fix the issue, then release the patches in Windows updates.



Whereas with a Linux OS, if a threat is known, the Linux community can all work together to identify the exploit, figure out how to fix it, and tell people how to fix it or put out a patch to fix it.



Windows is definitely more user friendly and less advanced. Where Linux is less user friendly, for more advanced users, but is extremely versatile and free if you have good knowledge of Unix OS's.

Answer 2

Lots of answers, but most of them don't tell you much. The real story is kinda long. Get a cuppa and have a read.



First - What is the same between Windows and Linux?

Both are operating systems. An operating system provides a connection between the hardware on your computer and the software you run.

Since different computer manufacturers build their machines differently, with different hardware, if there was not a common point of reference, a software application would have to be custom tuned for each brand and model of computer, which would never work.

The OS provides an interface that can be easily adapted to different hardware while presenting the same "look" to the software, no matter who built the box.



Now what is different between the two

Windows - Windows is a commercial product developed by Microsoft. It has gone through several generations since it was introduced, and no longer resembles the product it once was.

Originally, Windows was an interface that rode on to of MS DOS, the original OS that Microsoft leased to IBM. It was not original work, but a port of CPM, Digital Researches old OS for 8 bit processors. As such, DOS was text based, cryptic in the extreme, and buggy as all get out.

Windows was Microsoft first attempt to put a graphical user interface (GUI) on top of MS DOS. It was slow clunky and prone to crashes, but it gained a foothold anyway.

In the 90's MS started a development process that resulted in Windows 95 (a better Windows) and Windows 98 (the best of breed for this line). But processors were getting faster and memory getting cheaper, and this 16 Bit OS family could not handle the larger RAM and 32 bit processors that were now common

So MS put a pretty face on Windows NT and called it XP. It took two service packs to get it right, and people complained bitterly that a lot of their old MS DOS programs did not work, and they had to spend a fortune on new software, but it became the gold standard of the PC world. 50% of the world PC still use XP

Then the processors changes again, and we moved to the 64 bit world. Windows mmorhed one more time and Vista was presented to the world. To say it was less than a hit is somewhat of an understatement, but Win 7 came out of it and is the standard today. Windows 8 is yet another change, but no one knows where it will rank just yet.



Linux had a totally different path

Unix was developed at Bell Labs, and was one of many operating systems at a time wghen every computer manufacturer was a one stop shop. You bought the hardware, OS, software programming support and hardware support all at the same place. If you were an IBM client, then if you wanted to change to DEC, you threw everything out the door and started over. All you data was transferred MANUALLY, because the machines did not communicate across families. It was Vendor Lock in with a vengeance. As Unix grew, if became one of the best "run everywhere operating systems" When the Department of Defense, sick of vendor lock in demanded that all Defense Dpt. computers run Unix, it became the standard. A lot of people worked on Unix, and it grew into the dominant OS for Big Iron - the mainframes

Linus Torvalds, a Finnish computer science student, created a port of Unix that ran on PC's. It was rough, and very bare bones, But he put it on the Internet, and soon many others were helping make it better.

Today Linux runs on everything from cell phones to supercomputers. But it never lost it's roots. It's still a Unix style OS, with all the good and bad that goes with it.

Good - Stable as a rock, efficient, versatile, open source and free to all

Bad - It is not Windows, so if you want Windows for free, you will be disappointed.



There's lots more, but I hope that helps

Answer 3

Lots of good stuff in other answers. A few corrections:

> in windows the user saves his files anywhere in the drive

- not anymore since Vista. Windows user files go in C:\Users, Linux ones go in /home



> Linux was built to use MS-DOS file formats

- not true. it was built to use Unix ones (255 character limit, and no special suffixes), though people often kept to 8.3 so they could easily transfer files to old Windows/DOS systems or old DEC etc. Linux can use several advanced journalling filesystems such as XFS, EXT4, JFS as well as Windows-compatible NTFS and VFAT for memory sticks/SD cards.



> can't get access to (Windows) source code because it's encrypted

- no, it's just not released, except to industry partners or governments who insist



> Linux has high security

- not true; it's comparable to Vista (if you actually use user accounts like you're supposed to, instead of running everything as administrator because you prefer spending hours rebuilding your system to a few seconds entering a password to install software). It has more security than Win95/DOS, which had none whatsoever, and there sure are threats and vulnerabilities, just not ones that let Windows viruses run.



> Unix is very powerful but horrifically user hostile

- so you think "chmod a+w /etc/putty.rnd" (Unix) is more hostile than "cacls \windows\putty.rnd /e /g users:w" (XP). OK :-)

As others said, Linux has had GUIs (plural, which is part of the problem) for years on desktops. But you don't need one, so you can put Linux on a controller the size of a matchbox with no graphics card and hide it inside something like a home router (which in fact manufacturers do)

Answer 4

Linux is open source and free. It can be booted via USB stick or as an application through Windows. Windows is better for gaming and some other 3rd party apps, but generally they're both great operating systems. I don't really know much about Linux, but you can read up yourself on their page.

Answer 5

Linux is basically a PC Intel architecture port of the mainframe Unix operating system. Unix is very powerful but horrifically user hostile, dating back to it's creation by mainframe users for mainframe users. Modern builds of Linux put a GUI wrapper around the OS so it's a lot easier to work with. Windows originated as a GUI wrapper around MS-DOS to make it a little more user friendly. It used to be you ran Windows essentially as an MS-DOS app, back in the Win3.1 and earlier days. The MS-DOS command line was king and Windows was just a program you ran. It eventually evolved to where the GUI and the OS are essentially one and the same and the DOS command shell is essentially run like an app under Windows.



Linux is an open source system. Created by Linus Torvalds as a port of Unix but now the sum of thousands of programmers all contributing to add features and increasing stability by working out bugs. Windows is a proprietary system created by Microsoft as an outgrowth of MS-DOS. One thing to note is probably because of the prevalence of the MS-DOS file architecture in the PC world Linux was built to use MS-DOS file formats. It still uses Unix style drive mounting but the data is stored similar to MS-DOS.



For more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

Answer 6

Linux is an open-source Operating System. People can change codes and add programs to Linux OS which will help use your computer better. Linux evolved as a reaction to the monopoly position of windows. you can't change any code for windows OS. You can't even see which processes do what and build your onw extension. Linux wants the programmers to extend and redesign it's OS. Linux user's can edit its OS and design new OS.



All flavors of Windows come from Microsoft. Linux come from different companies like LIndows , Lycoris, Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, Knopping, Slackware.



Linux is customizable but Windows is not. For example,NASlite is a version of Linux that runs off a single floppy disk and converts an old computer into a file server. This ultra small edition of Linux is capable of networking, file sharing and being a web server.



Linux is freely available for desktop or home use but Windows is expensive. For server use, Linux is cheap compared to Windows. Microsoft allows a single copy of Windows to be used on one computer. You can run Linux on any number of computers.



Linux has hign security. You have to log on to Linux with a userid and password. You can login as root or as normal user. The root has full previlage.



Linux has a reputation for fewer bugs than Windows.



Windows must boot from a primary partition. Linux can boot from either a primary partition or a logical partition inside an extended partition. Windows must boot from the first hard disk. Linux can boot from any hard disk in the computer.



Windows uses a hidden file for its swap file. Typically this file resides in the same partition as the OS (advanced users can opt to put the file in another partition). Linux uses a dedicated partition for its swap file.



Windows separates directories with a back slash while Linux uses a normal forward slash.



Windows file names are not case sensitive. Linux file names are. For example "abc" and "aBC" are different files in Linux, whereas in Windows it would refer to the same file.



Windows and Linux have different concepts for their file hierarchy. Windows uses a volume-based file hierarchy while Linux uses a unified scheme. Windows uses letters of the alphabet to represent different devices and different hard disk partitions. eg: c: , d: , e: etc.. while in linux " / " is the main directory.



Linux and windows support the concept of hidden files. In linux hidden files begin with " . ", eg: .filename



In Linux each user will have a home directory and all his files will be save under it while in windows the user saves his files anywhere in the drive. This makes difficult to have backup for his contents. In Linux its easy to have backup's

Answer 7

Linux is FREE, windows is not!



http://distrowatch.com/

Answer 8

Ones free, the other isn't