IMHO the single greatest difference between Winders and Linux on the desktop is that, in Windows, EVERYTHING works fairly well together. One comparison although I have dozens: I set up a printer in Windows in only one place, and every app works with it. In Linux, I have gotten my printer to work well and easily through the magic of CUPS (after years of hating LPR and failing with it), but individual applications often require separate integration.
If this kind of problem could be reduced, we could push Linux penetration far more aggressively.
You get this with central control -- if you get to dictate the shape of the platform then you can get everyone to follow you. If you provide a limited mechanism for a resource then everyone will have to use it. Warts and all. On the other hand, providing a general mechanism lets people try out different ways and we get gradual improvement. For my money -- figuratively speaking -- the combination of CUPS and kprinter is very hard to beat, and you still get all the relatively low-level stuff that you get with lpr and the command line.
To be honest the freedom to construct different mechanisms is what drives Linux development forward to get something better in the end. At the moment the one of the big choices is between Gnome and KDE. A little while ago we had X, NEWS and a couple of others. Some longer while ago the big choice was between csh, tcsh, sh, jsh and ksh which basically resulted in bash. It's the ability to plug things together in different and exciting ways that separated Linux/Unix from Windows. You can change practically anything -- you can even choose between X and whatever it is that runs on MacOS X.
Don't be tempted to stifle change to get uniformity. Enjoy the diversity -- revel in it. Don't ever forget that Windows is a WYSIAYG (what you see is all you get) environment.
jch
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