In 2000 years, there have been many epic battles, many of which have produced both heroes and villains and many producing winners and losers. However, in today’s world another cold war is brewing, that cold war is between Microsoft’s Windows XP and Ubuntu. They will never pull out all the stops and launch nuclear missiles, but instead will try to provide a whole new world for people to enjoy with the use of GUI’s, servers, games and even a text editor. For the next few paragraphs and pages, this epic battle will present itself and try to prove who is the more dominate operating system and vying to get into your home computer. Although, if Las Vegas was involved, rest assured Windows XP has huge favors of winning while Ubuntu is the long shot in this epic battle.

When it comes to the most popular operating systems out on the technology market, people are asked what’s the most popular computer operating system out there is, the instant answer is Windows. Why? Well to simply answer that question, almost the whole world runs that operating system because of some interesting ideas, a few graphics here and there and of course the most integrated system of command lines and source code an operating system can offer. However, with Windows XP now off the market, Vista will be taking its spot as the dominating Windows operating system. However, it will be some time before Vista truly replaces XP as the most popular and used operating system (Strohmeyer & Edward, 2008). However, the two operating systems that will be discussed are at war with each other and vying to be in your home.

To start off with this comparison and contrast essay and to keep it simple, the first part that will be discussed is the costs of these two operating systems. My reason for doing this first, will be apparent shortly. I recommend going to www.amazon.com and search both Windows XP and Ubuntu, but to see where I am going with this you’re better off opening a new window and going to the Ubuntu website for this one. As you will notice from these two websites that one operating system has a price tag, while the other is completely free, even ordering a CD is free as well. Oh the price is worth it; just ask any of the millions of users, computer experts and the criminal underground. The obvious winner is Ubuntu and I tell you why, when it comes to using the word free, the designers of this operating system meant it because of the rules of open source. Sadly though some are willing to make a profit, when Best Buy said they are going to sell Ubuntu for twenty dollars and it comes with various prepackaged software, a question comes to mind. Who would pay the twenty dollars for something they can get Ubuntu for free? (Kingsley-Hughes, 2008)

Obviously the same question can be asked again, is the $20 worth it? Yes, but a person is better off getting support from the Ubuntu community then a store, but that is this writer’s opinion. Either way, when it comes to buying one of these operating systems, Ubuntu has XP beaten by so many dollars, between one and two hundred but trust me when I say this, the cost of these two operating systems doesn’t even matter much these days. What is important is what is built inside these operating systems and that is where it will get interesting.

Ok, if you haven’t bought pre-built computers with an operating system installed or are in an unfortunate position of reinstalling the operating system because of some unfortunate event. Then some computer users, both beginners and experts, will know what a tedious task installing an operating system is especially if the computer was set up to dual boot or have two operating running on the system. So let’s assume that you have either operating installed or dual booted and we talk now about what is under the hood in these two operating systems. To make a long story short, they have everything a basic user needs; text editors, games, graphics program, system software (backup and recovery). Web browser and of course the most sophisticated directory systems people have ever seen when it comes to organizing ones files and of course making an operating system run smoothly.

For someone who reads this, he or she has an idea what comes preinstalled and so let’s discuss briefly about everything else. When it comes to software designing, software designers design for Windows because of its global dominance as the software is easy to install through a simple, eye pleasing graphical user interface and a couple of the mouse. However, Ubuntu does something different and that [is] it cuts out the use of CD installation altogether and uses an Add/Remove function to install or uninstall recommended software in just a couple of clicks. Or for the Ubuntu experts, the use of the Synaptic Package Manager in which you have the choice to choose from thousands of programs to install on the computer to fully customize your Ubuntu experience and make it more enjoyable (Yegulalp, 2007).

However, I have a small problem or rather a quirk about Ubuntu and that is there are too many versions of the same software and so it is hard to decide which ones to use in order to complete my tasks. That is where I favor Windows because I know what right software to use to complete my tasks of web designing, graphic designing and of course checking my email and so I have everything I need through Windows XP. However, with Ubuntu I have to decide what I want to install and what not to install and as a computer user who is often busy, I don’t have that kind of time to go through all those different applications. Although Ubuntu makes the process of installing, running and updating the applications a lot easier, Windows wins in this category because the big name applications are more efficient for a user like this author rather then what Ubuntu has to offer. I have kept it simple when comparing the two operating systems and if I had more room I think I could have pushed it a bit more further, but now comes the fun part, computer hardware.

Without the computer hardware, computers would just be a giant paper weight, but the computer hardware is what drives a computer to do its thing, whatever that may be. You have the hard drives, motherboards, graphics cards and RAM, but in order to get your computer to run stable that hardware has to be compatible with the operating system. That is where Ubuntu or rather Linux itself sticks out like a sore thumb. One blogger by the name of Rich Menga pretty much sums up how hardware and Ubuntu (Linux) go together and that is “One of the most outright frustrating experiences using a Linux distribution is having hardware that absolutely, positively will not work with it for whatever reason” (Menga, 2008). Even though getting older machines to run Linux might be a bit tricky, there are many resources, such as the internet or people that will be able to answer your questions or point you to the right direction.

I remember stating earlier that Windows XP was going to win this epic battle of operating system dominance. Well I have to say that XP is still the top operating system, however, Ubuntu and other various Linux flavors are slowly replacing Windows XP at the home user level. Even though Linux is the dominate operating system in devices such as cell phones, GPS units and even used in automobiles, it will be sometime before Linux/Ubuntu becomes a threat to an operating system that has been dominating since Windows 3.1. As to when that will happen, well it is up to the people as to what operating system they want on his or her home computer.




Kingsley-Hughes, A. (2008, July 11). Best Buy to sell Ubuntu for $19.99. Retrieved July 18, 2008, from zdnet.com: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2222

Menga, R. (2008, May 13). Ubuntu Hardware Compatibility List. Know It, Love It. Retrieved July 18, 2008, from pcmech.com: http://www.pcmech.com/article/ubuntu-hardware-compatibility/

Strohmeyer, R., & Edward, A. N. (2008, June 26). Windows XP Departs: Good Riddance or Sad Farewell? Retrieved August 1, 2008, from PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/arti...d_farewell.html

Yegulalp, S. (2007, April 27). Ubuntu Linux Vs. Windows Vista: The Battle For Your Desktop. Retrieved July 18th, 2008, from InformationWeek: http://www.informationweek