Hello!
Facing reality, folks:
If you ask this group to compare Windows and Linux at any time for any
purpose in any version whatsoever, guess who's gonna win!
This isn't surprising since the members of this group generally know Linux
better than Windows. People feel better about and are more comfortable with
things they know well. Moreover, since Linux is an inherently simpler system
and tries to do less for you, things are likely to be more straightforward.
However:
Uninstall _programs_ are _programs_. Just like any other programs they can
have bugs, and the emotional investment of programmers being what it is,
it's highly likely uninstall programs receive relatively little testing.
Further, anyone who doesn't know an operating system very well is likely to
attribute to it ills that people more familiar with it will wish to correct.
I, for example, know Windows much better than Linux at this point, so I may
have erred here. On the other hand, someone said people will replace Windows
libraries with their own versions because the standard ones are deemed not
good enough. While it's possible to program just about anything if you try
hard enough (and I can think of at least one instance where this has been
alleged though not pin-pointed the last I heard), I can't see why Linux
would prohibit people from doing the same thing.
Personally, I've always liked the Windows model of putting the whole
component (aside from shared system libraries) in one tree; executable,
libraries, help files, manuals, DLLs etc. are more than likely all in the
same place. Delete that tree, you delete everything. In Unix, though (and I
assume Linux), you've got binaries under some flavor of /bin or /usr/bin or
/usr/local/bin, manuals under /usr/man or related (or unrelated) entities,
libraries under /lib or /lib/share or whatever ... An uninstall package that
remembers to grab all of these will uninstall everything; a package that
forgets something, or a user who forgets something, will leave stuff behind.
Bottom line: The uninstall is as good as the uninstaller, not as good as the
operating system.
--
Lee Maschmeyer
lee_maschmeyer@wayne.edu
"Now I've reached the awkward age of man:
Too old for Castoria and too young for Serutan."
--Homer & Jethro
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