A new Loose Wire blog feature, collecting some links that aren’t necessarily new, but worth pointing out in case you missed them:
- Good summary of what ubuntu, the new Linux windows-like interface, is and isn’t, from David Weinberger: “Until Ubuntu handles its inevitable errors and failures as well as Windows and the Mac do, users won’t get far enough to fall in love with it.” My experience exactly.
- New (beta) version of Skype out, 2.6, which lets you click to call ordinary phone numbers on any website, find and join Skypecasts and share clickable links in your ‘mood message’. Being Beta, 2.5 won’t automatically find this update, you need to do it manually. (That said, 2.6 has crashed on me once so beware.)
- Talking of crashes, there have been glitches with the new version of iTunes, according to pieces appeaing by digg: skipping, distorted songs, lost music, and rejected iPods.
- Microsoft releases a beta version of its Web design software, Expression, a successor to the infamous FrontPage. More from Scoble here.
I don’t think you and others are comparing like with like. As most ppl never have to install Windows themselves it’s unfair to compare it to Linux in that manner.
I have a vanilla copy of WinXP which I installed 3-6 months ago, and had terrible problems getting wifi to work (the card’s manufacturer’s (Belkin) driver were v crappy and out of date, so I had to hunt down drivers from the chipset manufacturer, which were also non-trivial to install).