[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

Sat Jun 21 10:56:41 EDT 2008

Really good discussion. What does Mac do that Linux does not? Vice versa?

Thanks,
TimJowers

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Matthew Pusateri <
mpusateri at wickedtrails.com> wrote:

> Life's too short to be a windows admin, and I love linux, but I have
> two macs now and love them as well.  I recommend macs to non geeks b/c
> it all just works!  Why do I have a macbook, b/c it just works.  And
> their is more mainstream ISV support for  mac's than linux.  Case in
> point, I did my taxes this year on my mac, Don't remember seeing Turbo
> Tax or Taxcut versions for Linux.  It was only in the last year or two
> that the Mac versions of those programs came out.  Most of what people
> do, email, pictures, word processing, web browsing the mac does really
> well with little retraining.   apple-C to copy versus control-C.  It's
> not that hard to make the switch.  And I say again, I love Linux, but
> it's still hard for the average user when things go wrong.
>
> Matt P.
>
> On Jun 18, 2008, at 12:06 PM, William Sutton wrote:
>
> >
> > I've been a Linux user since way back in the Red Hat 4.1 days (my
> > mentor
> > was the great Mark Spencer).  I've used Red Hat 4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.x,
> > 9, ES
> > 2.x, ES 3.x, Gentoo, Debian Etch, and made a passing stab at
> > Mandrake.  I
> > cut my teeth on Solaris, and have decent familiarity with AIX and HP-
> > UX as
> > well.  I've used Windows 3.1, 95/98, 2000, XP, NT 3.1, and NT 4.  I've
> > used Mac OSX.  I expect my experience is fairly common with other
> > people
> > on this list, but I wanted to give a little background anyhow.
> >
> > On the *NIX UI side, I've used olwm (ick), fvwm2 (not so bad, but
> > not eye
> > candy), KDE 1.x and 2.x, Gnome (and the later Sawfish extended
> > variants),
> > and Enlightenment.  I'm presently an E .16 user.
> >
> > On the Windows side, I usually install Cygwin, Virtual Dimension, and
> > TweakUI so I don't feel completely powerless.
> >
> > I've been a web developer, part-time systems administrator, and
> > professional Perl programmer (UNIX when possible, Windows when
> > necessary).
> >
> > My wife (accounting by trade, Windows by experience) is picking up
> > E .16,
> > although my screen edge desktop flip annoys her.
> >
> > I refuse to support Windows for family members other than her.  I
> > don't
> > have the time or desire to mess with the broken morass that is
> > Windows in
> > any flavor.  I've also come to the point where I don't much want to
> > support Linux for myself when I get home in the evenings (it's too
> > much
> > like work, and work belongs at the office).  When people ask for my
> > recommendation, I tell them to get an Apple (I recently purchased a
> > MacBook Pro for myself).
> >
> > *NIX support for major software packages is better than it was when I
> > started out 10 years ago (OpenOffice has been a godsend), and I
> > think that
> > is due to recognition of Linux as a major player in OS space.  I think
> > it's nifty that Dell is selling Ubuntu preinstalled, and that Ubuntu
> > (and
> > derivatives) are making a case for a consumer-ready Linux PC.
> >
> > Microsoft is helping as well by releasing Vista and killing XP
> > support.
> > Nobody I know who has OS knowledge is buying Vista systems because
> > it is so
> > horribly broken.  A co-worker of mine who let his wife get a Vista PC
> > despite his knowledge that it was broken told me that much of the
> > slowness
> > comes from Vista DRM that encrypts and decrypts data as it passes
> > through
> > the various OS layers.  Combine this with the fact that one cannot
> > run XP
> > on most of the new Vista hardware due to driver issues, and choosing
> > Microsoft looks like an even worse idea than at first glance.
> >
> > Given the Apple price points for hardware (expensive), and the
> > Microsoft
> > brokenness, I see great opportunities for a consumer-ready Linux
> > PC.  That
> > said, I'm sticking with my MacBook :-)
> >
> > William Sutton
> >
> > On Wed, 18 Jun 2008, Owen wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 12:56:16PM -0400, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> >>> I don't recommend Linux.  Why would I recommend Linux to a typical
> >>> user
> >>> who wants to do simple tasks that OS X and Vista both do so well and
> >>> require no specialized training or support with?  I especially don't
> >>> want everybody's brother calling *me* personally to support their
> >>> Linux
> >>> system when it can't get on the net or "runs really slow" (as every
> >>> computer seems to do over time.)
> >>
> >> I know this is different to installing Linux as a primary OS for a
> >> novice user, but for the past few years when family come to visit for
> >> extended periods, I set them up to login to my Linux box rather than
> >> dual booting into Windows, and they have had 0 (as in zero)
> >> problems so
> >> far.  And that is a Gentoo box, not your super friendly latest
> >> Ubuntu or
> >> Fedora release. It started because I had no time to sit and install
> >> updates for Windows and all the little bits of related software
> >> that get
> >> installed to make it useful, rebooting countless times along the
> >> way ...
> >> I just setup my desktop to log them automatically, started a browser,
> >> pointed them to the computer and ran out the door to work. No
> >> questions,
> >> no problems.  Seems like progress from a few years ago to me.
> >>
> >>> If you put your personal politics and preferences aside, you have to
> >>> admit that Linux, Mac OS X and Vista are all very powerful and
> >>> capable
> >>> operating systems.
> >>
> >> Hmmm ... that must be why my wife is almost begging me to replace
> >> Vista
> >> with XP on her new Dell laptop. And I get the feeling that her Vista
> >> laptop with a more powerful processor, more memory and newer
> >> components
> >> runs noticeably slower than my older laptop running XP. Seems like
> >> progress to me. :-)
> >>
> >> Owen
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> >>
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