This is a good post. People constructively discussing an issue with
out a lot of the mess that has gone in the past when Micro$HAFT has
been mentioned.
But I will agree with some of the things said, understand some others,
and just simply comment on others.
Linux is sort of a "Hippie" sort of get up. I never thought of it like
that, but in a way you can see the comparison. Which personally I
don't think much is wrong with that. Some people do take things to an
extreme, but so do other Mac users, so do other Windows users.
The truth is, there's an OS for everything. Mac has always been about
graphics. I don't care how good you are with GIMP, even my sister the
GIMP master who can do some crazy things with an image, Mac still rules
the graphical world. I mean from the start of it all!
Windows as been the "corporate OS" for some time. Damn near every
company in the world is a "Microsoft Partner!" They get free software
from them, but they shell out tons of money paying for new licenses and
database tools. How many of you haven't been to a job that wasn't
dominated by NT servers?
Linux is for the "techie" hippies! lol The people that love to dive
in and tear things apart because they can, then see if they can't put
it back together. Hell I remember being 10 taking apart an alarm clock
my Father gave me. Saying "Fix it if you can." I didn't unplug the
damn thing so when I grabbed the wrong wire and my hair stood straight
up, I learned! But magically the thing worked after I put it back
together!
The car comparison I can't agree with though. I mean every body's
experience is different. As is the case with cars themselves. In my
experience I'd call Windows a Ford. It can look good sometimes, but
the thing's just going to break down on you very shortly, and often for
no reason.
I don't know that I could really compare a Mac to a car at all. But
I've always felt it was a woman, or a child's machine. Now I know that
may sound bad at first, but I'll explain. They are now built to be
attractive. Eye catching. Most people I know with PCs have the box
itself in a corner or under a desk where nobody can see it. Meanwhile
the Mac just screams "Look at me!" The mouse and keyboard are much
smaller. And seem as if they were more suited for a smaller hand, of a
woman or a child. Having worked with Macs around the time the G3 was
being released, working with that small mouse hurt my hands. The
keyboard was about the size of a laptop keyboard, and that doesn't work
for somebody that has big hands. The machine itself never crashed on
me, but it was just uncomfortable to use. I understand that now you
can order better mice and better keyboards, but I see an iMac with the
tie-dyed colors and I just picture it in a dorm room of two college
girls saying it's cute.
Linux I'm not sure what to call other then we're comparable to a bunch
of hippies! :0)
But I still believe Linux was built for everybody. It's built for
power users that love the use of the console. Being very sound for
script writing, web servers, FTP servers, and the like. I like being
able to ssh to another machine, then open a GUI such as NEdit to edit a
file on that machine. It then opens the GUI on my local desktop to
edit it. Windows can't do that.
There's the GUI for those that are more point and click oriented. And
that doesn't mean they're not as accomplished users as the console
experts. I have however noticed that sort of attitude being directed
to those people. I've caught myself doing that myself, and that's not
fair. But as somebody said, some GUIs are just not friendly. They're
awkward and just simply suck. Whether they're just ugly, or just not
functional. Meanwhile some of them are quite nice, and I use them.
But I'll still most likely type the command in a console. :0)
But everybody has their own way of using a machine. Just as they did
in Windows or Mac previously.
All bashing aside, when I compare the OS' that I've used, Linux is the
one for me. I can do more, longer, with out worrying about saving my
work because the system crashes. Or it not allowing me to do 20
different things at a time. I mean checking email once every 4
minutes, 2 telnet/ssh sessions open, and research in a Internet
Explorer on a Windows machine will crash! On my Linux box, I can do
that times 3 or more, and the only problem I run into is that Netscape
just really sucks since AOL took over!
Over the past 3 months, the only reason I had to reboot my workstation
was for new hardware, or testing the new kernel I compiled. Today
alone, only having worked on my lone Windows machine for 4 hours, I was
forced to reboot the machine 3 times. "Uncle Bill" just can't build an
OS that can keep up with me.
But there's my $2. (Not saying it's worth more then others posts, just
mine was much longer then $0.02! :0)
tdh
--
T. Holmes
-----------------
UNIXTECHS.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------
"Real Men Us Vi!"
Uptime:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
9:27PM up 9 days, 11:19, 2 users, load averages: 0.01, 0.01, 0.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| At this time I see no objective reason for splitting up
| Microsoft ... what purpose will it serve? And why is Bill Gates
| so dead-set against it? What's the threat? Is it just a
| comfort-level thing? A nuisance change that he's concerned
| about? Or is it a huge threat to their monopoly? In fact, the
| remedy is seen as tepid by some people who are not M$ fans.
| Perhaps the latest suit is not a strong one .... are there ones
| that are? But litigation is such a slow and contentious process,
| I just think M$ is able to play that game better than anyone
| else (sounds painfully familiar).
|
| Has anyone really figured out a market that hasn't been tapped
| yet, within the industry, that Microsoft hasn't and will not be
| able to steal? Maybe better innovation is the answer, not
| litigation. Just wondering.
|
| The only real desktop option out there is the Mac .... thinking
| of kids, adults, etc .... and it seems that there needs to be
| more of an effort by others to become more user-friendly. There
| just doesn't seem to be a huge market out there for "power"
| users .... or even curious users who are willing to struggle
| through what seems like techie,
| hard-to-understand-on-a-higher-level-than "it says so in the
| manual" attempts to solve *many "wierd" techie problems. It's a
| shame about the IMAC not cutting it for people beyond the
| fanatical ... what are you basing that opinion on, besides what
| you see personally?
|
| I would *love to see a product that will give a lot of people a
| highly usable alternative to M$, because I dislike their
| tactics.
|
|
|
|
| __________________________________________________
| Do You Yahoo!?
| Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
| http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
