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I think it depends more on the apps you require then how much control you want.

I do a lot of graphics design, movie editing, and flash development. There are applications that allow me to work in Windows or on a Mac, but I'm out of luck when it comes to Linux.

I'm sure other people are in a similar position.

I think it depends more on the apps you require then how much control you want.

True and this is a good point. The applications you require may well push you to a certain platform.

If you're going to leave Windows and take the inevitable productivity hit that goes along with changing platforms, then it's important to think about the future. You don't want to suffer through that migration just to find that the platform isn't moving in the right direction for your needs.

That's why I chose Linux. I switched over a few years in the late 90s. Those of you who ran Linux during this time remember that it wasn't a slam dunk experience. But I realized that this was a platform that was moving in the right direction for my needs. I knew that it would keep getting better and better all the time.

I think that proprietary software development is inefficient, and those costs get past onto the consumer. But more importantly, the commercial software industry has a conflict of interest between protecting its revenue stream and producing innovative technologies. This is why there's so much demand for iPhone and AppleTV hacks. Users often want features that jeopardize the gravy train.

Free software largely eliminates the barriers that keep users from the capabilities that they desire in their programmable devices. As post-PC gadgets become more central to our lives, proprietary vendors will want to limit these devices to specialized roles in order to build profit centers. An AppleTV has all the hardware to be a great thin client. But that's not what Apple had in mind, so only intrepid hackers can unleash the potential of their devices through dubiously legal means.

Right now, the computer industry at a crossroads. We have a lot of horsepower and some interesting new shapes and sizes, but it seems that proprietary vendors are reluctant to deliver the true promise of personal computing. Between DRM, format wars, closed development frameworks, and restrictive EULAs, consumers are lukewarm to the direction of these platforms. It's all about what they want. There's nothing personal about proprietary computing.

So, as computing changes, do you want it to become more about them, or more about you? In which direction would you like the industry to move? If you're going to commit time and energy to a platform, then you should think about where the platform is headed. Are you setting yourself up for empowerment or disappointment going forward?

Could it be that because desktop operating systems licenses aren't a primary source of income for IBM and Sun that they are in fact in a far better place to see what direction the desktop should evolve into than the current self-appointed ones?

I already saw this happening a few years ago and now that new and second-hand hardware is pretty cheap to come by there is more of an incentive to acquire that, install an open source operating system on it and enjoy that until the hardware breaks.

That's why I have been developing a distribution based on Slackware for the last few years. Recently I have ported it to MIPS and I have started a SPARC port now with PPC, IA-64 and PA-RISC still to come.

I know Debian runs on all these architectures as well but with Slackware I have a lot more control over it and of course it's as stable and fast as you can get, maybe with the exception of AIX/HP-UX/Solaris/OpenVMS and mainframe operating systems.

That's funny. I can run pretty much any GNU software, X11 apps, Windows programs, and Mac OS X applications under Mac OS X. I've got Apache, MySQL, PHP, and all the goods.

My hardware feels like it was manufactured for the default operating systems and I have less limitations than other platforms.

Apple's Mac is ...

a. arguably one of the best user centric platforms
b. a platform for running Windows software
c. a platform for running Unix/Linux titles.

No other hardware/software platform can really claim to do these things. Sure you can kind of run Windows with a runtime under Linux or use virtualization but the Mac OS X w/ Parallels or Bootcamp offers far more versatility. Of course a large part of the GNU/Linux crowd believes feature parity equates to quality parity so this point will be missed by many.

I have bash, csh, tcsh, zsh ... everything Linux has alongside a nice graphical UI, solid APIs under a single unifying authority, and the ability to run Windows apps.

To talk down of the Mac as an "appliance" simply shows a very narrow minded definition and a willingness to misrepresent the facts on your part.

Edited 2007-08-02 19:43

Agreed. It depends on what the user wants the computer to do. Do they want proprietary media such as movies, and music on it? If so then OS-X combined with Apple's iTunes and meager movie selection on iTunes is their answer.

As much as I dislike DRM it's here to stay. I like the movielink downloads for movie rentals and being able to get just the music I want rather than entire cd's so I'm stuck with Windows and I have a Linux box for file serving and other work.

As much as I like Linux, until apps are built to handle DRM for it, it remains a hobby or utility OS only.

True but a mac is also the only Computer that can run just about every OS out there.

Yes, true.

While I understand some people may have a preference for Apple computers because of their design and OS X I don't understand why the fact that it can run run all operating systems is considered a strength.

In my opinion it is rather a weakness. Mac OS X is the only operating system that requires a genuine Apple computer to run while I can install Linux and BSD on any hardware I want and Windows on any x86 system.

It's just another form of lock-in that I don't commend Apple for but it is probably a major reason to buy a Mac over a Dell, HP or whitebox system.

> True but a mac is also the only Computer that can run
> just about every OS out there.

The Mac ist the only Computer that is _allowed_ to run just about every OS out there.

One quick thought: you can run Linux on your existing hardware (normally), but if you want to run OS X legally you need to buy new hardware.

Agreed and thats really what sealed the deal for me on which 'alternative' to use. I already had some good x86 hardware around and was looking for a replacement for Windows XP on a laptop (Got sick of constantly updating a machine I used to do nothing more than surf while on my couch).

So I installed Ubuntu and haven't looked back. Its been awesome. No more virus scans at startup, messages popping up about updating .dat files and spyware scanners being out of date. I just use the machine and enjoy it. I never really did that with windows on the laptop.

Here we go again with the you can run Linux on just about every piece of hardware. I am sure you can if you try hard enough, but damn a brand new T60p out the box ubuntu 7.10 fails without tweaking, Fedora 7 fails without google and tweaking, SUSE 10.2 completes but hell things don't work.

I am not bashing Linux but I am sure you can run Linux on a older system but it always appears that you have to run lats years model to install correctly. Anything else you hacve to fiddle sorry after 2200.00 I don't want to fiddle I want to be productive.

Welcome OSX, I will take it and my new Unix 03 certification and run with it.

>>>ubuntu 7.10 fails without tweaking,

You do realize that 7.10 means October 2007. Why do you expect something planned for future release to 'just work'?????

I do realize that I spoke of 7.10 That is because the t60p came out after 6.04. What I am saying is that it really is a pain when you have a hardware vendor such as Dell or IBM and you cannot upgrade the system without having to tweak and install this and that. However in the defense of Linux I recognize that the issue lies with the OEM's and that they could indeed select and configure hardware that has Linux ope n drivers out of the box. Or they could pre-install drivers and the way that they do with Windows.

Who said this, exactly? Anonymous Penguin said "you can run Linux on your existing hardware (normally)", which clearly does not imply that it runs on "just about every piece of hardware", while Bit_Rapist talked only of the x86 hardware he already had.



How do you explain the knee-jerk reply that misrepresented what the two previous posters had said, then?



Appearances can be deceiving. The *smart* thing to do is to check if the hardware is compatible *before* buying it.



Do you realize that you just criticized Linux for not running on all hardware, and then championed OSX? Surely you're aware that OSX runs on *less* hardware than Linux?

Look, all three big OSes have their advantages and disadvantages. These pissing contests are becoming quite tiresome...

What I was saying that you clearly missed was that you can purchase a new system and have to tweak some Linux OS's to make run on that brand new system. I don't criticize OS X for it's lack of hardware support because I know that that is not the goal of OSX. However I do know that when I buy my macbook and go home and boot it up OSX recognizes all my parts in my macbook.

Also FYI constructive criticism is what I was supplying your interpretation was bashing that is why I made it a point to say that I was not bashing it. I use it on servers where I don't user OSX server as for the OS it is top notch once configured and tweaked. That does not remove the fact that in a server environment it took forever to get stable SATA support in major Linux distros when I had new servers already shipping with it. Therefor I prefer the power of unix in OSX on the mac hardware I don't see anything wrong with that.

OSX on an IBM Thinkpad T60p? Now this is what I would call tweaking!

Yeah, they forget to mention that OSX came pre-installed on their mac. People should really try to compare apples to apples (no pun intended). BTW, have they tried a vanilla install of windows on these machines, I've had issues with the images we have at work, the T60p has a lot of hardware, one of which I think is an ATI video chip.

I totally agree with you. With Linux, you must try to find out whether the distro can support the hardware.

Otherwise, you will end up installing 1001 distros of Linux and find the one that can work.

By the time you find one Linux distro that works, your hardware is obsolete.

FUD. Pure and utter FUD. You have been called on it.

Ummm. My T60p installed and runs ubuntu perfectly and I'm a new linux user so I have no clue on how to tweak it. I still love my G5 iMac though. It's still my main computer and it probably will remain that way for years to come.

You are correct that this kind of things happens and it is largely a problem with quality assurance in the various Linux distributions.

Therefore for all the patching and breaking that the various "market leaders" are doing I'd rather have they thoroughly test their creations instead of putting out broken distributions that the end user has to patch and configure before it is usable.

I saw this kind of thing years ago and I'm sad that it's still happening when Linux should be a mature platform and not an everlasting playground anymore to at least cater to the mythical common user (there are developer/geek distributions for that such Debian unstable and Fedora).

A few weeks ago my dual-booted SUSE 10.2 installation even lost its network connection forever and that was the last straw to make me erase it and I will probably never run it again anymore despite its polish, userfriendliness and precompiled packages.

That's why I've been running Slackware for the last few years, one of the few distributions where quality is paramount even if there are not that many applications included. I have scripts and packages for all the things I tend to use and I'm very happy that it stays out of my way.

If this distribution was not around I'd probably be using Solaris or FreeBSD as my main operating system by now or even have (reluctantly ) bought a Mac. Debian and Ubuntu are also pretty nice and stable but not really to my liking. I will install either for anyone that wants any of them, though.

So I installed Ubuntu and haven't looked back.

Yes, and the article used Ubuntu for it's reference Linux, as most people seem to do these days. But I'm kind of disappointed that PCLinuxOS doesn't get more attention. I recently installed both it and Ubuntu on a test machine and they're both great, but I'm more impressed with PCLinuxOS

Hear hear.

PCLinuxOS is easier than Ubuntu, especially for "newbies".

PCLinuxOS is a close second to Ubuntu in the level of interest (according to the page hit ranking anyway):
http://distrowatch.com/

Ubuntu does however have a far larger community and a larger repository. You are arguably more likely to find any given application for Ubuntu and also more likely to be able to find help for Ubuntu.

I recently installed both it and Ubuntu on a test machine and they're both great, but I'm more impressed with PCLinuxOS

Cool I'll check out PClinuxOS. Thanks for the recommendation!

Yes, but that isn't /so/ wrong. Having a computer that looks good in the lounge is definitely a priority to some users. Maybe you're upgrading and want to replace old hardware, or want to use a new computer, for a new purpose (such as a Mac Mini for a home server). It's not to say that because you have to buy hardware, that it's a total non-possibility.

Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Of course there can be several reasons why you want to buy new hardware.
But if you want to simply ditch Windows and you don't need new hardware, with Linux you won't have any expenses.

That says a lot more about BSD and SkyOS than the article

Don't get me Wrong I love BSD and think SkyOS is an interesting Idea but really BSD and other will have to make the same inroads to really be considered. Linux and Mac are both on fire right now and are expected to really Challenge MS in the near future and thats why the focus is on them.

There is NO DESKTOP TO RULE THEM ALL. There is just everybodies very own "desktop", nothing more, nothing less. Maybe you should narrow your view on the >desktop environment< and not the whole operarting system.

- BSD is not broken, nor is it illegal under any jurisdiction I am aware of;
- it is just as secure as any other *nix - actually, as a server OS it is considerably more secure than most Linux distros - netBSD is considered one of the most secure operating systems around;
- it is as "complete" as any other *nix if not more so in many respects (exactly how you are defining "complete" I am not quite sure);
- while BSDs do offer slightly less hardware support than Linux, it makes up for it by being superior in other areas, particularly integration of core OS components, so it is hardly inferior in any general sense;
- BSD has active commercial backing: iXsystems and Wasabi for example are two companies providing commercial support, and while BSD certainly doesn't have the level of support that some other *nix platforms enjoy, it is grossly untrue to claim it is unsupported.


And while BSDs might not detect and work properly with every bit of hardware out there, I very much doubt it would fail to install on just about any x86 compatible PC.

BSD will run pretty much any software that runs on Linux or UNIX, it will work with most of the same hardware that most unices will work with, and is therefore as reasonable an alternative to Windows as Linux or Mac Os X is likely to be. And I highly doubt the proprietor of a computer reseller will take kindly to people installing operating systems on their display stock, so I would not recommend people try that if they don't want any trouble with the law...

Next time check your facts before posting, you'll save yourself some considerable embarrassment.

Yet another reason to get yourself an OS on a liveCD.

When you go to a store, you can see if your OS will work in any given machine by putting in the Linux liveCD and trying to reboot. You won't change a single thing on the machine's hard drive with this test. If the machine doesn't come up in Linux, take out the liveCD and tell the salesman his machine is no good for you.

If the salseman won't let you put in your test CD, then don't buy his machine. Walk away.

netBSD is considered one of the most secure operating systems around;
- it is as "complete" as any other *nix if not more so in many respects (exactly how you are defining "complete" I am not quite sure);

Actually the distinction of being the most secure is attributed to OpenBSD, NetBSD is known for portability, though the lines do blur. OpenBSD can run on a myriad of platforms:

alpha Digital Alpha-based systems
amd64 AMD64-based systems
armish ARM-based appliances
hp300 Hewlett-Packard HP 9000 series 300 and 400
hppa Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture(PA-RISC)
i386
landisk IO-DATA Landisk systems
luna88k Omron LUNA-88K and LUNA-88K2 workstations
mac68k Motorola 680x0-based Apple Macintosh with MMU
macppc
mvme68k Motorola 680x0-based VME systems
mvme88k Motorola 881x0-based VME systems
sgi SGI MIPS-based workstations
sparc Sun sun4, sun4c and sun4m class SPARC systems
sparc64 Sun UltraSPARC systems
vax Digital VAX-based systems
zaurus

and NetBSD can be very secure.

If BSD or any distro of BSD has been having legal problems, why not post about it here? That's definately something newsworthy.

Just ignore him. Trust me, you'll realize why quite soon.

Edited 2007-08-02 04:24

Dont feed the anti-BSD FUD machine.

[angry rant]
You truly are talking out of your rear end today, again!
I have never seen a single BSD installation that was in any way as messed up as you just mentioned.

There is nothing illegal about BSD, which anyone who has looked into *nix platforms knows to be the case. You are so purposely miss informed it's truly sad.

Why is it that every time somebody mentions BSD, you have to post such total flamebait drivel? Can you not let somebody voice a personal gripe about they're favorite platform without getting involved? Who asked your opinion anyway? Why is it that, to this day, you still have not understood that nobody gives a rat's ass about your opinion of any facet of the BSDs?

Just F**K OFF already!

[/angry rant]

Nothing wrong with *BSD. On the contrary i wish OSX had more of it underneath the bonnet. for example address space randomisation and stack/heap smashing protection.

You know that Mac OS X, which this thread is also about, contains significant amounts of both user-land and kernel-level BSD code, right?

This isn't just a GNU/Linux article. Darwin is a BSD-based operating system. Certainly, it's quite different architecturally from the "typical" BSDs, but that doesn't stop it being comprised of an awful lot that makes BSD what it is.

Regarding your patent trolls, you know that whole thing is Microsoft FUD, don't you? The onus is on the accuser to back up their claims, not the accused to demonstrate that unspecified claims are false; the opposite is a logistical impossibility in any realistic scenario.

I tried to read your post, I really did, but frankly it's so hard to understand what your saying that I just gave up. Please, if you want to save yourself from further ridicule, go away!

+ skyOS doesn't exist yet, at least not in a form that you can 'switch' to.

They should've included Minix, because we all know how much more relevant to the desktop-user experience Minix is than OS X or Linux.

QFT

Edit: sorry for offtopic, but it needed to be written one more time.

Edited 2007-08-01 20:51

come october when the next version of ubuntu comes out, all that configuring will be automatically done by the new version of xorg.

I'll reserve judgement untill I actually see it.

What the fsck is that guy's problem? Is he actually ranting about some whiners who don't like MS dropping the prices in China? Ranting about some kiddos who whine about big MS-marketshare?
Yeah, like, everyone that uses Linux thinks so, right?

Also, I've been using Linux for a few years as a desktop system. What now? Tell me how stupid I am because I don't use the "superior" Windows or Mac? Tell me that it must have been a shitload of work (it was half an hour of work...) and that would justify buying a Windows-license instead?

What an idiot.
No sorry, he's not an idiot. He's too pathetic to be one.

Edited 2007-08-01 21:05

Sorry, I resisted, but I have to post this:

He's called fake Steve for a reason: it's a parody of Steve jobs. Fakesteve isn't real. It's made up. He's deliberately antagonistic.