You can talk all you want about how Mactels aren’t going to be that wonderful, but if you want to see many enterprise Linux desktops around in 2007, start making it happen says Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
Linux Desktop Must Work to Head Off Straying Users
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I loathe billionaires of all types, Gates, Jobs, etc. They are perversions of capitalism. However apple, going to Intel, via the “law” of unintended consequences, might just “democratize” itself by default. Macs were never cheap. If you want a cheap computer you have to build it yourself, or at least build some of it. As everyone knows, Jobs never allowed this HUGE market of DIYers into his “elite” flock. For example, look at the success of New Egg–based almost entirely on DIYers.
Linux, however, welcomes DIYers. They sort of go togehter, notwithstanding the various “user-friendly” Linux desktop distros. Many Linux distros work on all sorts of computers, “obsolete” or cutting edge. Whether by hacking or Job’s choice, Mac OS will probably end up–who knows when– working on ANY Intel/AMD PC, and this ironically might be the key to getting Apple some large scale purchases, by schools or government, of the Mac OS, giving institutions the ability to run an OS–the world’s most user-friendly OS–on any cheap computer Institutions want to buy.
Also many musicians, for example, would want to use the Mac OS, but need a cheap computer. Jobs would be cutting his company off at the knees if he attempted to continue insisting his precious OS run only on proprietary hardware. The law of unintended consequences works both ways. It would be one of the best moves he ever made to just “let go”, and allow people a CHOICE of hardware, which is what drove many of us to Linux in the first place.
I seriously doubt you’re going to find too many people running OS X on non-Mac x86 PCs. For all the talk of how it will be hacked to allow it to do so, everyone overlooks
1. the effort involved in doing so will be prohibitive to all but the geekiest geeks (ie you’re not going to see Grandma with OS X on her whitebox PC)
2. you’ll find yourself with an OS lacking drivers for the majority of hardware configurations, unless of course you built your machine using the same parts as Apple uses, in which case you may as well have bought a Mac anyway.
I don’t doubt that there will be unauthorized hacked copies of OS X, but I think people overestimate how far reaching the effects of that will be.
by switching to a mac? No virus’. Thats all I can come up with. IMHO, It seems stupid to pay $x,xxx.00 for BSD with a candied up GUI. Id rather stuff that cash into mad hardware, sick amounts of storage, or donate some of it to my favorite project.
-nX