Wilson John D. Barbon wrote: > Since we talk about philosophy, Socrates was famous for saying "know > thyself" or "the unexamined life is not worth it"--for linux failing to see > linux beyond the many "technical" blabber in this mailing list...
I don't know if this is still the case today, but it sure was maybe 5-6 years ago? If you look at Slashdot postings nowadays, the number of clueless Linux zealots (I will certainly admit to having worn that hat occasionally in the past ;-) posting anti-MS rants seem to have toned down greatly since and in fact there seems to a bit of a reverse trend where you see people defending MS technologies. But that is also because MS technologies are no longer(*) the garbage that they used to have their deserved reputation for. You can thank Linux and open source for waking MS up, and this, if for no other reason, justifies the former two's existence. (*) The boast is that IIS 6 has less vulnerabilities than Apache 2 If you ask me, I think this is most likely due to the fact that IIS6 usage is much less prevalent, but it still looks as if IIS6 is finally a worthy competitor to Apache. > Personally, after many sleepless nights looking for solutions just to > make my soundcard work, or wifi device to work--I am aksing myself is > it worth it? If you love tinkering and tweaking with code and long for the thrill of solving logic puzzles (which is what device configuration for most Linux devices is like), it's like being a kid in a candy store. If you're an end-user just looking to get things done... FORGET IT. Assimilation is a far less gruesome fate. > Using OpenOffice alongside MS Office users is a nightmare. Powerpoint > presentations from my co-workers or Word documents especially the ones > with tables are all in disarray opening it in OpenOffice. One time, I > was even reprimanded by the boss .... <snip> ... trusted OpenOffice > Impress to just smoothly convert to .ppt and did not bother to check > if its ok for the file to be opened in powerpoint. Serves us right for believing everything these hippies say. The sad but true fact is that Ooo victims can be found all over. Ooo is so undersupported, it doesn't even have official standalone viewers for its formats, you gotta download close to 100MB of bloat just to _view_ Ooo docs. > Am i more productive in Linux than using MS Windows XP? I asked. Really depends, I'm a pretty hardcore Slackware Linux user and for server tasks, I still prefer Slackware to Windoze Server, although I'm starting to have growing respect for Server 2K3 (generally anecdotal and based on reading about its abilities though and not from using it... yet.) For the desktop, I believe there is just no comparison... Windows wins hands down for me. But then, a lot also depends on your mastery of the environment and the particular task at hand. Regarding mastery of environment, I have invested mucho hours in learning my way around Windoze, and that is a big reason why I can make it my biatch whereas it's the other way around for most people. ( Under Linux, even though I've invested probably even more hours in it than I have with Windoze, I still feel like the biatch most of the time ;-) Regarding task at hand, if, for example, you're hacking deep networking stuff, Linux/FreeBSD is the undisputed winner. While the hacker-level stuff available for Windoze is nothing to sneeze at either, the number of small annoyances and limitations prevalent in Windoze eventually add up and make it look positively lame in comparison. > few are coming from desktop users. I sometimes I get the > impression that linux is not ready for the desktop user all the more for > people who are not into programming, sysadministration and the like. If we were transported back to 1995, then today's Linux would give Windows _serious_ competition on the desktop. But it's 2006 and the Linux desktop is still doing what it has been doing since: playing catch up with Windows. With the introduction of working voice and handwriting recognition on Windows Tablet PC Ed. the gap is in danger of becoming a chasm. But also, to be honest, Windows has become a great environment for me because it makes a great host for all the cool open source software I love! And these interoperate nicely with most of the MS technologies that count too. I get to have my cake and eat it! Those who say that people should not be developing or porting OSS to Windows, keep your political agendas to yourself. Good software is good software wherever it runs. Open source software is open source regardless of the platform that hosts it. -- reply-to: a n d y @ n e o t i t a n s . c o m _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
