Yet Another Linux vs Windows comparison: USB Bluetooth Adapter

OK, so you probably know the drill by now. We're going to plug a random device into our PC (dual booting between Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04) and let's see what happens...

Excited? Thought not!

Still, onwards and upwards. This time is the turn of a cheap and cheerful USB Bluetooth adapter - sourced from our local PoundWorld store for the princely sum of £1. Yes, one single solitary pound! Bargain or what?



A LiveWire Bluetooth USB Dongle, Yesterday

Starting with Ubuntu, let's plug in and see how we go. Installation was straight forward - a few seconds after plugging the adapter in, a Bluetooth icon appeared on the status bar. Clicking on the icon gives us the option to "Set up device". One short scan later I'd added my phone, had clicked "Browse files on device" (also from the Bluetooth menu) and was copying my photos onto my PC. Nice.

Now for XP. After plugging the device in drivers were automatically installed, including a modem driver to allow me to access the internet using the mobile (in the event that my broadband had died). Of course, being Windows XP a reboot was required before the adapter was ready for action.

Once it was installed a Bluetooth icon appeared on the menu, and much like on Linux it only took a couple of clicks to link to my phone. Now, this is where the Windows XP Bluetooth misses out a bit - there was an option to Send a file, another to Receive a file (and options to connect to a Bluetooth network) but nothing to browse the files on the mobile. Hopefully this is something that will have been improved on for Vista / Windows 7. Luckily, having a Nokia phone meant that I could download the rather nifty Nokia PC Suite - which is an rather nice tool for connecting and synchronising with your mobile phone.

When all is said and done there really isn't much to choose between the two, although Ubuntu does win out by doing a little more "out of the box".

Not bad for a little £1 adapter.

A common XP fault

Windows XP. Love it or hate it, you can't avoid it. Even though it is on the way out, it'll still be with us for a couple of years yet.

A common problem is Windows XP refusing to boot - either blue-screening or just freezing at the boot screen. Safe-mode often does the same.

One thing worth trying is to get hold of a Windows XP installation CD (you DID remember to request one when you bought your PC didn't you?) and boot from it. You'll get the option to run the recovery console by pressing "C" (it will take a few minutes before you get this option - be patient).

You may need to select your windows installation (usually this will be something like 1: C:\WINDOWS).

You may also get asked for the administrator password. If you haven't set a password, just press ENTER.

When you get to the command prompt run the following command:

CHKDSK /P

Let it finish, then type EXIT

I've lost count the number of times this has revived a seemingly dead windows install, and is definitely worth a try before re-installing from scratch.

Ubuntu vs XP - Old Hardware Shootout

Now that I've upgraded the hard drive in my testbed laptop it is time to do a re-install to get things back to the way I want them.

Seeing as I'm setting up the laptop for Dual Booting, this is a good chance to compare the "out of the box" settings for Windows XP versus Ubuntu 7.10.

"But Windows XP is old hat now!" I hear you cry. Well, not so. In fact Microsoft are targeting XP on the new low-spec laptops such as the Asus Eee PC, system specs that aren't a million miles away from my test laptop.

System spec: Toshiba Satellite Pro 2600 @800mhz, 256meg ram, 40gb hd, 1024x768 lcd display, built-in wireless.


Working hard drive transferred from older PC

OK, so this isn't something that the regular user is going to do very often, but sometimes if you are upgrading your hardware moving the OS may be something you need to do.

In my case a hard drive was taken from a working dual-booting laptop, which had been set to boot between Windows XP Service Pack 2 and FreeSpire.

On booting the disk on the new PC, FreeSpire autodetected all the new hardware including the on-board wireless card, the higher-resolution screen and sound. Even the new wireless network card auto-connected to my home network.

Windows XP refused to boot. Not even into Safe Mode.

Winner: Linux


Installing a Dual Boot system from scratch

If you do want a dual boot system then the easiest way to do so is to install XP first, making sure that you size your Windows partition to leave enough space to install Linux. In my case I'm dedicating 15GB to Windows XP and the remainder of the 40GB drive to Ubuntu.

Installing XP is a breeze, boot from the CD, follow the prompts and an hour or so later we have a working version of XP. Surprisingly XP actually detected all the hardware. Usually this isn't the case, but here I've been really lucky. Everything including the on-board 3D, built-in wireless card and sound works perfectly.

Ubuntu is installed next. Again, installation is a piece of cake and took a similar amount of time. Ubuntu detected the Windows install and added it into the boot menu. All the hardware except for the 3D card worked perfectly. Accelerated 2D is supported on Linux for the onboard graphics, but no 3D support. Sound and wireless worked perfectly. Even the onboard modem Toshiba Soft-Modem was detected and worked. Ubuntu also mounted the XP partition at login.

Winner: Windows XP


Security

Windows XP Pro makes the first created user account a full administrator. This account has full control over the system. The Windows XP firewall is automatically installed and active. Windows also gives warnings relating to missing AV software.

The first created account in Ubuntu is given regular user access, but can perform administrative tasks by re-entering your password. A firewall is available (it is part of the Kernel) but not configured. GUI front ends for the firewall can be installed via the package manager. Generally speaking AV software is not required but can also be installed in the same way.

Pro's and cons on both sides here (although personally I'd edge towards Linux).

Winner: Draw

OS Updates

For OS updates both Windows XP and Ubuntu performed identically, both allow you to either have notifications, download ready for install, or automatic install of updates.

Windows Update now allows updates for some Microsoft products, such as Office. Ubuntu allows updates for all software packages that have been installed via its package manager.

Ubuntu also allows a complete distribution upgrade via the package manager, so if you've installed Ubuntu 7.10 upgrading to 8.04 is a simple task.

Winner: Linux


Wireless Support

Both XP and Ubuntu were identical in network support. Both were able to connect to my home wireless point, both were able to browse the network from the GUI, both saved the network password and auto-connected every time after.

Winner: Draw


Power Saving support

This is another case where both OS's were identical. Both support suspend to RAM, both support full hibernation. The CPU's speed-step facilities were supported on both. Soft power-down worked identically.

Winner: Draw


Internet / Email support

Both OS's come with web browsers, both support install of Flash Player via the browser.

Both can connect to a variety of instant messenging services.

Both come with email packages (although the Linux one has more features).

Winner: Draw


Multimedia Support

First with Windows we have Media Player. Browsing to my videos share I chose a couple of videos using a variety of codecs (XVid / DivX, Ogg). On each occasion Media Player gave the message that it was searching for the codec, before giving up and failing to play. After manually searching for codecs on the internet and running the installers most videos were able to play. MP3 support was there out of the box.

Ubuntu defaults to Totem for its media player. On trying the first video (which used XVid) Totem gives the message that it is searching for the required codecs, launches the installer, allows you to choose three sets of codec packages, installs them and plays the video. After the initial codec install all other videos played without any problems. MP3 support was added the same way.

Winner: Linux


Software Installation

On Windows you'll need to download and run installers for any apps you require. There is a good selection of commercial apps, and many FOSS (Free Open Source Software) apps are available for Windows.

Ubuntu has less commercial software available, but a wealth of FOSS applications, many of which can be downloaded, installed and upgraded through Ubuntu's package management tools.

If you want to use FOSS software and would like proper package management then Ubuntu wins. If, on the other hand, you want to use commercial software (and the majority of games) but have no real package management then go for Windows XP.

Winner: Draw


Overall Winner: Linux

OK, so a lot of this is down to personal opinion. Both systems work equally well for many tasks, both can give a good user experience. Ubuntu wins out on ease of use, especially when it comes to multimedia functions. Windows XP wins for choice of commercial software (especially games).

On low end hardware though Ubuntu does give a more up-to-date user experience, and comes with a full range of productivity / entertainment software, something that Windows XP will never be able to match.

I was very lucky that Windows XP detected all the hardware. It's been my experience that this usually doesn't happen. Normally you would need to install at least some separate drivers (although usually driver CDs are provided). Increasingly Linux works "out of the box."

Random stuff from my week

This has been quite a busy week, both at work and at home. Having to children at home keeps you busy at the best of times, starting to prepare for the new baby (due date October 21 folks!) is keeping us in a permanent state of panic.

Work has been busier than usual. Last week was spent on a fast-track Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Planning, Implementing and Maintaining course (Microsoft 2279B and 2282A). Since I've spent the last year or so battling with our current AD setup most of this was pretty familiar, but it is nice to get an insight into the less well used aspects of AD, and also to see the new features for AD 2003. Now all that remains it to persuade my boss to buy the licenses to upgrade our AD controllers to Windows Server 2003.

This week has been varied at work (to say the least). We had a major crash on our main editorial server (running on Solaris) that took a little while to sort out. The problem looks like it was either caused by the network card or by some corruption in the /devs directory. Either way the outcome was the same - neither of the network cards would start on boot-up. After removing and re-seating the gigabit card I was able to start it manually.

After trying quite a few alternatives (checking the network and so forth) we did a "boot -r" to recreate the device nodes, followed by another reboot which got everything up and running again.

This was followed by spending some time upgrading our backup Editorial server to give it enough disk space to adequately hold a copy of our editorial data. Finding out how to get the extra disks added to the A1000 controller was fun, to say the least. To cut that story short you need to be running Array Manager 6.22.1 to get it to run on Solaris 8. A word of warning - don't be tempted to install an earlier version. I did, and had one hell of a time getting access back to the existing raid arrays.

Luckily for me Sun still provides downloads of Array Manager 6.22.1 as well as some decent documentation on installing and running it.

One problem I did encounter is that once we had installed the new disks, created a new LUN and a raid 5 stipe set (with one disk left over for a hot spare) we couldn't create a file system on the disks. In fact we kept getting the error that the disk geometry was unrecognised.

Running format against the new disk set provided the fix for this - the labels on the newly added disks were incorrect. Once they had been re-labeled by format it was a simple task to create the new file system and migrate over the old data from the old disk to the new one.

To top off the week was my yearly assessment. A couple of hours of being told how wonderful I am by my manager is great. Now about that pay rise. . . . . .

. . . . .


To finish off with I've just got round to upgrading the hard disk on my current test laptop. It has a 15gb drive, but I wanted to use the 40gb one from my previous tester. Swapping the drives is the work of a few minutes. How about re-installing the OS?

The original machine dual booted between Windows XP and FreeSpire, the current one was just using Ubuntu. Booting up the new laptop was great. FreeSpire autodetected all the new hardware, went straight into X, started the onboard wireless and connected to my network. Amount of reconfiguring to do - none. Everything works perfectly and at the higher resolution that the new laptop supports.

Now for Windows XP. The story here is not so good. Windows "Blue Screens" about two seconds into the boot process. It won't go into safe mode either.

I'll have to decide whether XP goes back on when I re-format to put back on Ubuntu.