On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Paolo Falcone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As for me, on a normal day I'm content with using my Mac. It's not as fast > as Linux, nor as pervasive as Windows, but it does the usual tasks I do > without the headaches :) > > For work though, I've elected to use Ubuntu 8.04 on a Dell Vostro 1400. It > was a challenge to find a good solution to the dual monitor problem with the > Vostro having a GMA X3100 card, but after a few tweaks from a colleague > here, it was working. I still miss my old Thinkpad T42p though as everything > just works out of the box, even on Linux.
This is the reverse for me - my work requires that we use Macs because it provides the power of Unix and dramatically reduce the time spent on maintaining the development environment. We're a Rails/Java shop with 150+ (and growing) Linux servers but 100% OS X for development. My time spent on a Linux desktop is mostly at home which I still enjoying tinkering with gnome so my needs are not that big. > From what Orly has described, it seems that there are problems with hardware > support, although I think it's unfair to blame it all on the OS. It does > have a lot of shortcomings: Flash on Linux is buggy - then again that's > Adobe's fault, Intel's latest wireless driver being unstable/incomplete/both > since they don't release the full specs of the firmware due to US laws, the > Java SWT doesn't play well with Compiz, but that's Sun's software, Broadcom > wireless having only 90% signal despite being one meter away from the wifi > router - then again Broadcom doesn't release specs as well, forcing > developers to reverse engineer the drivers, and a lot of half-baked software > - which is understandable, since many only do these projects to scratch > their own itches, faulty hibernate due to a buggy ACPI - thank you Hell, err > Dell for me! > > Stability-wise though, I'm already very thankful that I can run my hardware > at full speed without the stupid effects of antivirus software chewing a lot > of CPU, resulting in better productivity. Software that I need is very much > available and runs uncrippled on Linux (BSD tools on the Mac really sucks > ass compared to GNU core utilities). In my case Linux works... but that > can't be said for everyone. Despite these setbacks and real issues on the Linux desktop, we've come a long way - I still remember the days when I was so impressed with the ease of installation of Caldera OpenLinux on my HP desktop complete with sound and KDE 1.x and StarOffice (before they got acquired by Sun). With applications slowly (but aggressively) moving to the cloud and current online applications have become indispensable, it doesn't matter what operating system you are using (unless you talk about games) as long as you are running the right software. The browser, along with technologies like Adobe Air and Silverlight (surprisingly good and cross platform) are moving towards that future. -- Jerome _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List http://lists.linux.org.ph/mailman/listinfo/plug Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
