Tuesday May 01, 2007
Tuesday May 01, 2007
Ubuntu vs. Windows: Head to Head, Toe to Toe, and Heart to Heart
Is there a better way of ascertaining the superiority of one operating system over another than to compare how they implement "Hearts"? Though the correct answer to that question is "yes, in fact, many", let's explore this unlikely sidetrack anyway, for who knows what we might find on our journey. Possibly, even something vaguely useful. Few can argue against the effectiveness of "Hearts" as a tool to further the cause of procrastination, a human activity engaged in on a daily basis and hence requiring the appropriate tools, which is where "Hearts" plays a central and, potentially, decisive role when deciding whether Ubuntu is better than Windows. Keeping scores to establish the most inane statistics, such as the number of times various colleagues volunteer to get you something from the store down the road, is also an intrinsic part of procrastination, while simultaneously providing a good basis for making snap judgements, so let's also keep a score card for the pluses and minuses of various aspects of each approach.
Out of the box experience. First off, let's state quite openly that Ubuntu does not support Hearts out of the box. One needs to make use of the Synaptic Package Manager first. After that, one finds it in the "Games" menu. Windows is, without question, better in this respect, since it always comes with Hearts. However, the fact that one needs to use the Synaptic Package Manager to get Hearts means that one learns how to use the Synaptic Package Manager, while one learns absolutely nothing when beginning to use Hearts under Windows. However, who wants to learn anything while procrastinating?
Score: Windows 1 - Ubuntu 0
The "Cheers" effect. For reasons that have never become clear to me, Hearts under Windows always assumes that my name is "Tom". Some very excellent people in the world are called "Tom", so I mean no disrespect here. However, my name is not "Tom". I am also fairly sure I never typed "Tom" the first time I played, which, if I did do that, might have resulted in it remembering my name as "Tom" for ever afterwards. Nevertheless, whether I change it or not, Hearts under Windows always seems convinced, the very next time that I start up the game, that my name is Tom. Or maybe I'm wrong and I type in "Tom" every time, without realizing it, although this is an unlikely scenario. However, the point is, under Ubuntu... Hearts always knows my name! This is unquestionably a plus.
Score: Windows 1 - Ubuntu 1
Look and feel. I must say that the pooltable-green background of the Windows implementation is pleasant. At least, it's not disturbing in any way. Plus, there are peaceful, non-threatening clouds on the back of the cards. And the cards are large, while the space on the table is well used. Unquestionably, everything is friendly all round:
Not so on Ubuntu, however. There one finds a rather intricate pattern, based on puke-green and (strangely) the terrifying footprints of a deformed (mutating?) four-toed creature (from the black lagoon) on the back of cards that are small on a large table with lots of wasted space, all of which conspire to play weird tricks with one's concentration in the middle of an already challenging game. Sure, one can change the background of Hearts under Ubuntu. But who wants to take that much trouble for a game of Hearts?
Score: Windows 2 - Ubuntu 1
Communication. Somehow, the game needs to tell the player when wrong choices are made. For example, when you choose a wrong suit under Windows, you get told as much in the status bar. Under Ubuntu, things go a few steps further, in the form of pretty useful hints that arrive when prompted:
Although these hints are only useful for the absolutely awkward beginner and the sadly serious advanced professional, one should applaud the effort that went into this aspect of the Ubuntu implementation.
Score: Windows 2 - Ubuntu 2
User friendliness. A game of Hearts should proceed with as little clicking as possible. As a player, all you want to do is select the appropriate card. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest should just happen by itself without any prompting on the part of the player. That's, in fact, how it works under Windows. Under Ubuntu, however, you need to (1) click "the hand of Mike" to pass the cards at the beginning of the game and (2) click "somewhere" between each of your moves:
That is almost completely unforgivable and nearly bad enough to disqualify Ubuntu completely from this comparison. However, clicking "the hand of Mike" is kind of funny and, plus, we are in a forgiving mood. Nevertheless, Ubuntu justifiably does not get a point in this category, while Windows breezes through.
Score: Windows 3 - Ubuntu 2
Scoring. In the game of Hearts, after a series of rapid rounds that gradually lay waste to one's self-confidence, the final blow to the tattered remnants of one's frail ego is dealt when the scores are added up. How do the two versions of Hearts compare? Which is more effective? Which most soothingly conveys the news of one's fresh loss? I must say that being called "Tom" is an advantage here (which, as pointed out above, is the default name attributed to me when I play Hearts under Windows), particularly if one's name is not actually "Tom", because then one can blame someone else. Someone called Tom. The Ubuntu implementation of Hearts is brutally frank here, since it doesn't confuse you with someone called Tom. (Someone called Pauline tends to win in both versions, which is a bit disturbing, in both versions.) Soothing trumps frankness, in the world of procrastination, and therefore Windows wins this category.
Score: Windows 3 - Ubuntu 3Of course, one could subtract a few points from the Windows version of Hearts, because the Windows version of Hearts has a big fat superfluous advert for Microsoft in the titlebar (I mean, what's the point of calling it "The Microsoft Hearts Network", that's just gratuitous vacuity), but one should be used to that by now, I mean in the world at large, of course, so no points are gained or lost here. And, also of course, one could attempt to assess the various options provided by the two versions of Hearts. But who wants to do that? The point of the game is that it should be simple and devoid of any complexity. It should welcome you like something warm and sensible in this crazy, crazy world full of uncertainties and global warming. And therefore, in summary, I can only conclude by saying, in all fairness and honesty, that if the effectiveness of Hearts as a tool for procrastination is a deciding factor in ascertaining whether to go with Ubuntu or Windows... the winner is, unquestionably, in spite of the 3-3 score card result... Windows.
May 01 2007, 12:06:25 AM PDT Permalink
9 Comments
Trackback URL: http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan/entry/ubuntu_vs_windows_head_to
Comments:
Now I am the last person to defend MSFT, but I think the reason behind the "Microsoft Hearts Network" gig is that Hearts is actually a multiplayer game that can be played between upto 4 human players on a network (and hearts was perhaps the first multiplayer network game shipped with windows).
Posted by Rohan Ranade on May 01, 2007 at 12:32 AM PDT #
Sounds like too much work to set up, Rohan. In retrospect, maybe Windows should lose a point for overcomplexifying Hearts...
Posted by Geertjan on May 01, 2007 at 12:37 AM PDT #
How is it a draw???
The score was Windows 3, Ubuntu 2 and then after "therefore Windows wins this category." Windows still had 3 and Ubuntu now had 3.
Hmmm, maybe you should have used Fedora (it has a easy to use calculator) :-)
Posted by Ben on May 01, 2007 at 11:57 AM PDT #
Ah. Good point. :-) Well, I was playing Hearts while writing this blog entry. No time for calculators. So Windows wins anyway, 4-2. Makes sense. But I've just discovered Desktop Effects, under System > Preferences in Ubuntu, which makes Hearts under Ubuntu much more fun than Hearts under Windows. Therefore, Ubuntu wins some points and it's back to a draw but Windows still wins because of the usability issues of Hearts under Ubuntu. Clicking the hand of Mike just ain't much fun.
Posted by Geertjan on May 01, 2007 at 12:04 PM PDT #
Final results: Windows wins
Hey wait... It's from MS!
WindowsScore = WindowsScrore - Vista.price();
finalize() results: Ubuntu Wins :)
All hail Shuttleworth!
Next week: WindowsVista vs Solaris.
Hey wait... It's from MS!
WindowsScore = WindowsScrore - Vista.price();
finalize() results: Ubuntu Wins :)
All hail Shuttleworth!
Next week: WindowsVista vs Solaris.
[Trackback] From: http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan/
Excerpt: s there a better way of ascertaining the superiority of one operating system over another than to compare how they implement “Hearts”? Though the correct answer to that question is “yes, i...
Posted by Ubuntu Today on May 02, 2007 at 01:38 PM PDT #
I see you found hearts on Ubuntu now. Ubuntu still has more games automatically installed, and more games to be installed. Can you open a package manager in Windows, do a quick search, and have a new game in only a few minutes? Nah, Ubuntu wins on that score. What if Windows did not come with hearts?
Fair point Chris. However, the Package Manager makes it too easy to mess things up, I've found. I'm really new to all of this, so at some point (when I was desperately trying to set up streaming so that I could watch TV at work) I installed a whole bunch of things (media players and their libraries) before realizing that Automatix does it better, and somehow I've ended up installing so much stuff, that I don't know what I need and what I can discard anymore... My fault for being a stupid user and Ubuntu shouldn't have to cater to stupidity. Still, under Windows I would simply have given up and not installed the media players at all and not have had an overload of packages installed. And, after all that, streaming still isn't working optimally...
Posted by Geertjan on May 04, 2007 at 05:36 AM PDT #
...the Package Manager makes it too easy to mess things up, I've found...Not really mess things. It's just that you'd have a fairly large number of unnecessary junk installed.
The difference, that I wish to point out is, the way dependencies are taken care of on Ubuntu. There won't be ANY broken packages (unless you really work hard to do so).
I remember when I bought my first system (as a kid), I just had an innocent request to play songs in JetAudio.
However, MS WinXP uncle never liked my request. He simply RESTARTED my system *each time* I attempted to play a song. May be it was the story of a broken package/dependency. May be not. But would a Googling have worked to find a solution for it the way it'd for Ubuntu?
...and just imagine what if Hearts stops working suddenly.
A system w/o Hearts. OMG...
Posted by Bipin Upadhyay on May 04, 2007 at 07:12 AM PDT #
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