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They're monopolies because big companies bribed politicians into giving them monopolies.

Don't be absurd. They've been monopolies since the beginning of time because no one wants multiple sets of wires runnings through their neighborhood, or multiple sets of water pipes, or multiple sets of gas pipes, etc.

The pharmaceutical industry. Virtually no newcomers due to interlocking patent issues.

That's so absurd as to be parody. Exactly which patent stops someone from opening a lab and doing research? Here are two that I found in about five seconds of searching:

New pharma 1
New pharma 2

It is simply not possible to make a "clean room" clone of, say, Windows 2000. [snip ridiculous nonsense] It is far too complicated to make EXACTLY the same systems from scratch.

*cough*ReactOS*cough*

and if anyone who has access to the source code tries to re-implement part of Windows Microsoft will sue them and win easily.

As I pointed out to someone else in this thread, say what you want about Microsoft, but they have rarely, if ever, used lawsuits as weapons (unlike, say, Apple). The ReactOS project has been around over 10 years. I assure you that Microsoft knows about it. If they were going to try and crush the life out of them, they would've done it before now, when they have an XP-level beta release possibly coming out this year.

Also note that the WINE project has also not been crushed out of existence, despite the fact that you typically need to use real Windows DLLs to make it truly functional. See also: CodeWeavers, which makes *MS Office* run under Linux.

Of course, your own example of Samba also kills your argument. Last I checked, Microsoft hasn't sued them out of existence.

At least try and do a little research before posting rants like this.

Look at Windows, apparently the fact that Vista hardly runs on current-gen or last-gen hardware isn't a problem.

Vista seems to run fine on current generation hardware. I don't recall Microsoft promoting running Vista on last generation hardware by the way.

Except that you can actually write standard HTML for a default web browser and it would render correctly? Compare that to IE where about every single line of code has to be duplicated to work on it.

And that has nothing to do with having access to the source code of the browser. I will restate the question:

How does having access to the sourcecode of a web browser in OS X make OS X more flexible?

Number 1, easier to port applications to.

I have written numerous cross-platform applications, and it is quite obvious you have no experience with doing so. This has nothing to do with making it easier to port applications to a specific platform. I can even come up with plenty of instances where I had hell with porting things to OS X.

Such as: standardized cross platform OpenGL code that works between Windows, Linux, Solaris would not work on OS X, without special workarounds for buggy drivers and Apple's OpenGL bugs. The state of handling OpenGL on OS X is so bad, that Codeweavers have to specifically write special hacks for each and every game that they support on crossover games for OS X due to the numerous bug issues - They don't have to do this with the Linux port, at all.

The POSIX environment on OS X is broken, I have had so many issues getting pthreads that work fine under Windows with it's POSIX subsystem, Linux the BSDs that it's ridicules that Windows POSIX subsystem does it properly when OS X, which is supposed to be a certified "Unix" environment does not.

Number 2, easier to write applications for if you don't own the OS.

What? A good developer kit makes it easier to write applications for a OS, not OS sourcecode.

As for Samba and etc, if Apple finds a bug that the other developers haven't found yet, it gets fixed both places and vice versa.

Apple has a terrible reputation for fixes. Often, they seem to ignore fixes until some major OS X release that usually requires people to pay for an upgrade. This is especially a huge problem on OS X server - where they can't even package things to work out of the box. Such as packaging the only version of PHP that doesn't work with Squirrel mail that they package by default with the system. Using broken Samba setups etc.

An NDA kinda violates all of these points to make things OSS. Just because you can see the source doesn't mean that it is open source.

I didn't say it was opensource. I said you can get access to the entirety of Windows' sourcecode under NDAs, while you cannot at all with OS X. The only stuff that appears to be opensource in OS X, is the Darwin kernel - which is so terrible nobody wants to use it and why there isn't really a Darwin community. The only other opensource bits in OS X that I can think of are the projects started as opensource in the opensource community that have what some people refer to as 'viral licensing' which prevents Apple from close sourcing the projects.

I really don't see the additional 'flexibility' in OS X over Windows that you claim. Maybe you should give some practical examples?

You might check out codeweavers crossover Linux. They claim some success with the CS2 version. It's only $40 so it might be worth trying it if dumping Windows makes your life easier.
 
(Posting anonymously to continue moderating...Cue Dr. Horrible mad scientist laugh: Muhahahaha.)

I'm sure there are disks that are even beyond Disk Doctor, but I've had good luck rescuing 4 different disks that wouldn't even play on a computer (a Mac with iTunes in my case).

Having said that, importing to iTunes using the error correcting features of your CDROM would be my first recommendation. (Turn on error correction in the iTunes options (Advanced > Importing)....fyi, I think iTunes works in WINE/CrossOver, so use it that way if you don't have another good option for error correction and you're on Linux.) If it works and the errors are fixed, I'd still make sure you rip to a lossless format and burn a fresh hardcopy.

The Disk Doctor would be my second choice since it actually alters the disk. Having said that, I've had 100% success on the 4 attempts where I've used it to recover a CD. FYI, DD actually abrades the play-surface of the disk, so it will look aweful when it's done doing its thing. I guess to a laser it looks "good" though - at least better than a scratch. Again, I would rip to a lossless format and burn a new hardcopy if this works.

Hope you have good luck with it!
-Matt

Wine isn't known to reliably run ANY version of Office with anything that would be called reliability. [...] Would outside contributions that removed these limitations from Wine even be merged?

Yes. The most important criterion for deciding whether a patch gets in Wine or not, is whether it makes Wine behave more like Windows or not.

[...] What would be the point of me (me taken as generic) considering looking at Wine with an eye to contributing unless I am first a Crossover Office customer?

That would not be an issue at all. Most Wine developers work on Wine and are not CodeWeavers customers.

Because the odds are good that any particular missing feature in Wine is already implemented in CX, so one would first want to test there to avoid reinventing a wheel

The chances of you reinventing the wheel are very small to inexistent. Yes I think that CrossOver is better than Wine for regular users, but that's not because it has a set of hidden extra Wine wheels somewhere <g>. By the way don't just trust me. Grab our source code (anyone can get it) and compare it to Wine's.

that probably wouldn't get merged anyway.

As I said, if your code is correct and reasonably well written, then it will get merged.

The way I look at the crossover vs. wine distinction is: wine is 100% pure "do it right" source code, and crossover is wine plus some code that doesn't meet that standard yet, but does make Office (and other supported apps) run well. (See http://www.codeweavers.com/products/source/ for the hacks in question.)

So really Wine is where the action is for developers, and Crossover is what end users who need Office to run well should run. The only reason Wine doesn't run Office well yet is that nobody's figured out how to do it right yet, and the temporary bandaids that do it wrong but work for now are in Crossover. If you figure out a clean replacement for any of the crossover hacks, they'll gladly commit them into the Wine tree.

In other words, from what I can see, Codeweavers' heart and actions are 100% where they should be from a free software point of view. All apps are permitted to run under Wine. None are reserved for CX.

Does that help?

(Disclaimer: I'm a big Codeweavers customer, occasional Wine contributor, and release manager for wine 1.0.)

Codeweavers releases their modified wine, as they are forced to under the LGPL. I also believe they submit all patches that they make back to core wine, but wine is focused on the purity of the implementation whilst Crossover uses application-specific hacks. What Codeweavers is really selling is the support and the management systems, not their patched version of wine itself.

CodeWeaver routinely does contract work with companies to improve support for specific applications, which sounds exactly like what you are talking about.

My brother, who runs his own business & is a recent Ubuntu evangelist, said that Quickbooks doesn't function on Wine.

That is a rather important piece of software. It's on the order, if not exceeding that, of Photoshop.

My brother, who runs his own business & is a recent Ubuntu evangelist, said that Quickbooks doesn't function on Wine.

That is a rather important piece of software. It's on the order, if not exceeding that, of Photoshop.

The chaps at Sparx Systems make software and have designed their UML tools to be compatible with Crossover Office, the commercial Wine variant: http://www.sparxsystems.com/support/faq/ea_on_linux.html.

For others, I would advise to check whether your favorite application is in CodeWeaver's compatibility database. This database is maintained pretty well.

Actually the commercial variant from CodeWeavers has reached version 7 today, which is saying much more about the maturity of Wine.

Every time I have needed Wine to work on a piece of commercial software I have been disappointed.

Don't forget the main commercial sponsor CodeWeavers. Alexandre Julliard, one of the leading developers of Wine, now works for them. Their main product is CrossoverOffice, which regularly snapshots the Wine branch and then does bugfixing on it. Then they charge $40 for a solid and stable version, and include a GUI to make installing IE and other applications a cinch.

It's a small shop and very sympathetic. They also read Slashdot. Jeremy, the CEO, is active here as user jeremy_white. Befriend him to let his comments show up as +5.

Disclaimer: I'm just a happy customer since version 4 (about 5 years ago).

There are partial solutions for this. For instance, sometimes I need flawless Office document im/export. OpenOffice just doesn't cut it with its imperfect import/export filters, so I bought the commercial Wine version from CodeWeavers. The latest version, 6.0, is listed in the compatibility database as being able to run Visio 2003.

Under Windows, there is no sure way of detecting malware once it's already installed, as it takes steps to hide itself.

The only sure way is a clean install or re-imaging from a hidden partition at boot. Something that would be a pain to set up and probably wouldn't even work with the current incarnation of Windows.

Your bet bet is to get your friend to install these Sysinternals ">utilitys and see if they can detect the keylogger by its activity. Monitoring activity at the firewall is also a good place to detect suspicious activity.

What is it about Windows that your friend absolutly needs to use. Are there alternatives out there.

If you absolutly can't survive without Microsoft applications then why not use a version of Linux that comes with CrossOver, this allows Windows applications to run natively on Linux, without the the same level of malware threat. Eg, by clicking on an URL or opening an email attachment.

P.S.-Since I don't have much experience with Macs, maybe someone could tell me-Is there something similar to Crossover on Linux for Macs? It would be nice if I could play Return to Castle Wolfenstein and a few other games while I killed time between classes. I'll probably keep a frankensteined XP gamer rig offline just for gaming, but Wolfenstein plays better on my laptop under Linux than it does on Windows so I was just curious if there was anything similar. Thanks and have a great weekend!!!

There is crossover for OS X http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/

As well as a port of wine for OS X http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX

I would assume the crossover product is at least in part based on the OS X port of wine. I have not used either of these so I have no idea how stable they are or if either will work with the game you mentioned. I am just aware that they exist.

Really, you could run Windows in an emulator before, and though performance wasn't fantastic, it was often adequate. The larger benefit, I think, is the fact that you can install Windows to run natively on Intel-based Macs. So even if you didn't like OSX for some reason, and you wanted to switch back to Windows, you could do that. You can run Windows at full speed, no virtualization needed, and with full hardware support.

Also, since Macs use Intel chips, you can use something like Codeweavers' Crossover to run Windows applications in OSX without a copy of Windows at all. Admittedly, it's not a perfect solution, but I've used MS Office, IE6, and even played Portal on my Mac without installing Windows.

Forgot the link

Yes, Photoshop 7, according to their website: http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/cat/?cat_id=19

Ok, it's Photoshop, but it certainly isn't a new version.

Photoshop runs fine with crossover, and has since at least 2003.

If you're not developing for Windows, you can junk Visual Studio. None of the devs where I work use it (even the ones who use Windows).

Even if you ARE developing for Windows, you don't need Visual Studio. Many of the alternatives run fine under wine (better than they do natively in Windows).

Also, those who have switched to linux from xp have found the kde desktop to be superior to the windows desktop. Switching chat programs was just a matter of entering their icq and/or msn info. As for media playing, try playing 3gp files from your cell phone under windows. Or accessing your cell phone w/o special software. Under linux, just plug it in and start transfering the data.

If you really need hand-holding (*real* developers don't need no stinking IDE :-) eclipse supports java/c/c++, and there are IDEs for pretty much everything else if you really need them.

For the average user, linux is easily the better solution for one reason - updates for ALL the software for the thousands of optional apps is centralized - just hit your distro's update servers or let the auto-updater take care of everyting, unlike Windows, which only updates Windows.

There's no registry, no HK_KEY crap, backing up user data is as simple as making a tarball of the /home/joe or /home/mary, and those hundreds of thousands of Windows viruses just don't run ...

Also, photoshop runs on linux, and has for the last 5 years - go here for support for many more Windows apps

BTW, GIMP can handle hundreds of layers, no problem. When I first switched, I found it klunky, but part of that was that its different. For many people, it's overkill, same as photoshop, and size is, like always, dependent on ram and cpu.

I gotta agree with the article. This makes complete sense from a business perspective.

I agree too, it does make good business sense. However how often does Microsoft make decisions that are good for business? I can name 1 decision which I think was a bad decision, not releasing a version of MS Office for the Unices. In part because MS didn't Open Office has gained ground. Now, some will say or ask who wants to run Office on Linux but if no one did then CodeWeavers would not have created CrossOver so Office could be run in Linux. Nor would there be people working to do the same with WINE, which CodeWeavers contributes to.

If you want a PC to just run out of the box, you install Windows. Linux is getting better, but just isn't to that level, yet.

A year and a half ago I bought a new PC, just walking into a brick and mortar store, with Linux preinstalled. After unpacking it I plugged in the KVM and cable modem, then booted up. It asked me to create a root account then a user account. There was info on what each was for. When I logged into the user account to import my old bookmarks which I had on USB flash I plugged it in and within seconds a window popped up with the contents of the flash on the desktop, which looked like an MS Windows desktop. Clicking the browser icon and it launched and connected to the distro's homepage, which was set as the browser's homepage. I didn't have to do any configuration to use the modem or anything else.

Look into Crossover. http://www.codeweavers.com/ They provide a good distro of WINE that has been quite reliable in my limited experience with it, as well as a support path, albeit a limited one.

The Swiss/Austrian way over apprenticeship and Berufsmatur is great, but - to my knowledge - pretty much only available around there.
[Quick info for outsiders about the western european education system: Nine year mandatory school (this is roughly equivalent to everything up to an U.S. high school). Then either Matura/Abitur (three years; leads up to university for another some three years to a bachelor's degree) or an apprenticeship. In the latter, you'll spend three to four years working for a company and earning some money. Also, you'll be going to school for one or two days a week (the CS path is four years with two days of school). During this time, the second day of school can be replaced (or added, if it'd only be one otherwise) by the Berufsmaturitaetsschule, leading up to the Berufsmatura. The apprenticeship will get you qualification papers for a real-world job, the voluntary Berufsmatura gets you into college after the apprenticeship.]

Working through your evenings is an option, but making $30k p.a. while studying full-time seems near impossible. At four hours each and every day including weekends that'd be an $20/hr job, a lot more than what a typical U.S. student job pays.

Back to you, OP: It's a tough decision. I'd recommend to try and contact the institutions you want to go to first. Then, look further for some grant money. Local/federal scholarships, that kind of stuff. If that won't lead to a result, ask some companies you know you might like. Propose a realistic, drawn out plan of what you intend to do, how it applies to them and how long you'd work for them after completing your studies.
If that won't help out, you could go with a student loan. Keep in mind though that $120k (30k/yr, 4 years for a bachelor's) is a metric fucking shitload of debt. I, for one, wouldn't want to be there after finishing college. I also wouldn't want to be tied to some company for x years, but that's up to you.
If all else fails, make an extensive list of all colleges you can find, ordered by how much you'd like to go there. Contact at leastthe top 20, ask for financing possibilities and so on. Keep in mind switching between different colleges is possible. Save some money in the three years leading up to graduation and study real hard, then switch to MIT and graduate there. You may lose some credits and time and you'll probably have to study really fucking hard to make the switch work, but it could very well be worth it.

As a last suggestion, to get this buried as -1 Troll: Sell software. Build that app you're talking about, build a few more and sell them. Sell support for your apps, support for apps you understand. Sell your time to build what other people need. Work on Wine, earn pledges. Short and sweet: make money (to pay for your tuition yourself).

CrossOver has a lot of improvements in the areas around Wine. More specifically:

• CrossOver will install our set of supported Windows applications out of the box. We achieve that by configuring Wine just right for each application, knowing which prerequisites each needs, etc. You can do the same thing with plain Wine but you will have to figure out the exact recipe by yourself (or by trying somewhat contradictory advice from the web).
• CrossOver is tested against our list of supported Windows applications so you know they will work now and in the future. In contrast, Wine does not try to support any specific application and is still in beta so regressions are still quite common. An application may work this week and not next week.
• CrossOver has much better integration with the KDE / Gnome environments. For instance you'll find the Windows applications directly in the KDE /Gnome 'Start Menu'. You can also click on a file or email attachment and have it open in a Windows application, etc.
• CrossOver works on the Mac which is not quite the case of Wine yet. Again this has much to do with the stuff surrounding Wine.
• Finally, we provide support for those cases where things are not working just right.

Heh, they're competitors so take this with a grain of salt... Imho, no there's no benefit to using Cedega. CrossOver and Wine can already run games almost as well if not better. The reason is that TransGaming forked Wine years ago and made almost no contribution back (so funding them does not help Wine either). So now they're on a mostly separate, years old, code base and it shows...

Both of course!

All the work we did for Google was committed straight to the Wine repository. But that's just business as usual for us: we already submit 99% of the changes we make to Wine. The remaining 1% are those hacks that are rejected as too ugly by Alexandre (the Wine leader) but which we keep as a temporary fix / workaround.

See, the thing is that improving Wine is so central to our business that it's just part of our mission statement:

one of my courses require it (meh) which means not only using office, but having to boot into windows to do it. its better than OO, for certain, but i just write essays and basic research papers, why its required is beyond me.

First MS Office also runs on OS X. Then with Crossover MS Office, up to 2003, Office for Window will run on both Linux and OS X. However I don't use MS Office at all, on my Mac with 10.4 I use the Mac native port of OO.org, NeoOffice I have had no problem opening even MS Office 2007 documents. When I download a .doc document NeoOffice handles it with no problems.

My wife has [Vista] on her new laptop. It replaced her Windows ME laptop.

Now THAT'S bad karma!

That's skipping a generation or two instead of buying every new version from Redmond that comes out. It ran Office 97 for her homework just fine, connected to the LAN, and printers, and such just fine. We just knew it was not an internet media machine. We surfed with something safer and kept it behind NAT.

Did I mention I updated my laptop to Ubuntu? Does that help the Karma? I put Ubuntu Studio on my Core 2 Duo tm. machine as an A/V workstation. The wife was locked into a propritory Office Suite. I didn't spend the money on Codeweavers Crossover Office.
We just used what we had as it worked.

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/

There is an alternative to shove money down microsofts throat: try if CrossOver Mac runs the application you need.
Version 7, that is expected within a few weeks, should support even more apps, because it is build on a recent wine.

Look, you gave IRIX and Solaris as evidence that a Linux port of Photoshop made sense. But IRIX and Solaris versions of Photoshop flopped,

Is IRIX still in production? Last I heard SGI stopped building PCs and now concentrates on supercomputers. And what is Solaris' market share? Especially in graphics. But Adobe still makes a version of FrameMaker for Solaris, they even make an educational version. I don't know if all the open source graphics programs available for Linux can also be used on either IRIX or Solaris. However their existence as well as people paying extra for CrossOver Linux to run Photoshop indicates there is a market for Photoshop on Linux. People even jump through hoops to get PS running in WINE. Here's a Ubuntu forum on running PS CS3 in WINE.

Look, you gave IRIX and Solaris as evidence that a Linux port of Photoshop made sense. But IRIX and Solaris versions of Photoshop flopped,

Is IRIX still in production? Last I heard SGI stopped building PCs and now concentrates on supercomputers. And what is Solaris' market share? Especially in graphics. But Adobe still makes a version of FrameMaker for Solaris, they even make an educational version. I don't know if all the open source graphics programs available for Linux can also be used on either IRIX or Solaris. However their existence as well as people paying extra for CrossOver Linux to run Photoshop indicates there is a market for Photoshop on Linux. People even jump through hoops to get PS running in WINE. Here's a Ubuntu forum on running PS CS3 in WINE.

Because there is a market for their products on OS X, there isn't on Linux.

If all that matters to Adobe is a market then they would release a Linux version of Photoshop. Admittedly I don't know how big it is but there are a bunch of Linux users who'd love to pay for it. Many are installing it in Linux with WINE, and others are paying extra for CrossOver Linux to install Photoshop.

Adobe was even developing for MacOS and MFC, both of which are far worse than Cocoa; they really don't give a damn how bad a platform is if there is a market.

Then they should be developing a Linux version. Adobe had already developed versions for Unix, both SGI IRIX and Sun Solaris.

Openoffice and AbiWord don't matter because they aren't "office." They're plenty useful, but they don't have 100% Office format compatibility, and therefore aren't good enough for Mr. Average Joe.

Same with the Adobe products, really. GIMP is still not good enough for print work, but really it all comes down to industry standard formats and applications. Go into a graphic design interview with GIMP/Inkscape experience but no Adobe experience and see where it gets you.

None of the listed applications hold a candle to the iLife apps for "just getting things done." They aren't as slick, as easy to use, or as integrated.

"The reasons? 'Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn't; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn't; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux doesn't; Apple is driven by someone who has some understanding of end-user needs, Linux is not,' says Howard"

Hmm lets see as far as Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suites are concerned anyone ever here of crossover office by these guys

because I know that it will run MS Office and I am pretty sure it will run Creative Suite as well and if not I know it runs just plain Photo Shop. Not to mention who understands user needs more than the users?

Who are the Linux users? Hmm lets see, a good majority of the time they are the people who write the distros so that theory is all shot to he||!

Utter horseshit. under Linux, you can't even get many types of app - for example, there are no Photoshop-class image editing apps

Gimp?

Whereas Photoshop has 32 bits per colour channel for a total of 96 bits, GIMP still only has 8 bits per channel for a total of 24 bits. For print media that added colour bit depth is important. However there's Film GIMP or CinePaint which also has 32 bits per colour channel.

As a final point, I actually find installation and usage of applications to be very intuitive and easy under Ubuntu. Add/Remove software is built directly into the interface, and it contains any type of software I've ever really wanted or needed to use. There's also the availability of Wine.

Drag and Drop is even easier to install software on Macs. Macs also have Wine and CrossOver.

Someone into graphics and photography is not going to be happy with the Linux offerings, no matter how complete, since the apps don't even exist for the platform.

While I agree different Linux distros come with different programs there's not much of a problem with apps for graphics and photography. Sure Adobe hasn't released Photoshop for Linux yet, but it can be installed on Linux systems with WINE or CrossOver. Even if Linux won't install CS3, though it doesn't have everything CS3 does, there's CinePaint, formerly Film GIMP, used in the movie industry. For graphics other than for photography there's Inscape, Xara Extreme, Blender, and other programs that are cross platform. Actually because I want to learn it I picked up a book yesterday on Blender. Now, only if I could find one for CinePaint. And yes, though only an amateur now I hope to break into photography freelance. Because I've only done film and not digital work, I'll probably be working with film a lot at first. But I'll scan film and work digitally, so I'll tryout CinePaint first and then only if it doesn't workout well will I get Photoshop. Then to save money on it I'll get an old version then get the upgrade version.

Ah, it's be good to get back into the darkroom.

If they gave IE away for free, I could legally download it and install it under Wine. But I can't legally do that.

Perhaps I am missing something - perhaps the distinction is between "technically able" and "legally permitted" - but this is something I can easily do. Everytime I've installed MS Office using CrossOver, the Office installation has prompted me to install IE, since it is a necessary component of Office. So it is certainly technically possible.

As to the legality, IANAL of course, but my understanding is that the MS Office license does not and cannot require a Windows license (that would illegally tied selling, no?), and that since Office requires IE, IE itself cannot require a Windows license.

You could argue that I've needed to give $$$ to MS to get IE, and you'd be right: I needed to spend those $$$ to get the entry point that would give me IE. But I think that's a quibble rather than a real counter-argument. MS is carefully controlling the technical means by which one obtains this particular piece of free software. They could just as easily make it easier for you to get it. That they don't is their choice. It's their software, they're free to distribute it as they see fit (within the law of course :->).

Of course, all of this is mere speculation and conjecture based on my interpretation of my experience. I'd love to read a reply from someone who might actually have a clue (not to imply you don't, just using a turn of phrase, I think you know what I mean).

Are any of our /. lawyers about? NewYorkCountryLawyer? Bueller? Bueller?

I noticed your sig, calling for donation to Wine. Have you thought about just buying the Codeweavers products? Of course it's not the same, but it's a nice alternative that gets you a solidly-working MS Office under Linux.

Why use windows? It's cheaper than Apple, gives me more options, and i don't have to manually do everything like I would with linux.

• I plug in a device, it usually works out of the box. No drivers required (this includes tablets, bluetooth, wireless cards etc)
• On the off chance a device doesn't work after I plugged it in, I start restricted-manager, which automatically downloads the required (proprietary) drivers and sets up the system for me. Working immediately after that (exception is graphical drivers where you will need to logout and back in, or simply restart).
• I do not need to defragment my drives or invest in expensive software to maintain for me (while many people do not under Windows, I do because I notice the performance difference -- Hell, it's so bad that Valve even had to add a defragmenter to Steam). Linuxs' file systems just do not require it.
• I do not need to manually go around to websites, download the applications, install them. The distribution's repositories contains the majority of notable software.
• I do not need to constantly visit websites to find updates for my preferred software, the package managers in my distribution inform of updates and let me install them automatically if I so wish

I use windows because out of the box I can play games with my friends, I can connect it to my 360, I can use 100% of the software that I WANT to use.

If these things are even possible with your alternatives, you have done a pathetic job of making that information available to the non-geek inclined public.

They have a free trial (I believe it is for 90 days) so if you are curious or just want to give it a spin you can grab a copy. I have been using it for 3 years and so far it has worked with everything thing I've thrown at it, hassle free (including the PITA Broadcom 4318 wireless and Winmodem built into my laptop). When you figure in the price of the Crossover you get with it, along with the hassle free setup(partitions and sets up a dual boot with any Windows you may have installed without a bit of trouble) it really is a good deal. I highly recommend it.

So, lets say that MS's toes are stepped on. So what can they do? Stop making OS X Office?

Many people only use MS Office, even Mac users though more are trying out OO.org. Having to install X11 would put off some people. I knew a bit about what I was doing so I installed Neo Office when I got my MacBook Pro, but how many even knows it exists? And yes, MS can stop releasing MS Office for Macs. MS has already threatened to do so. Back in the late '90s, bu then someone there suggested that Macs be used as a test bed. The Mac version could have new stuff added but if it failed, because it had such a small market share MS wouldn't loose much if anything.

and Windows Office runs under both boot camp and Parallels anyway

Both Bootcamp and Parallels require a licensed Windows installation. And the Windows ULA requires the more expensive version of Windows to run on Macs, at least in Parallels. Another option is to run Office in either WINE or CrossOver Mac. But how many know of either one?

Stop allowing Windows to run on Apple machines?

Yes, MS is afterall a convicted monopolist.

And finally, don't you think that by producing a competing OS in the first place, they're *already* stepping firmly on MS's toes?

No, the Mac OS only runs directly on Macs. It's only been since Apple switched to Intels that OS X, Tiger, was able to run on generic PCs, but only after hacking. And no Mac OS prior to the switch could run at all on an Intel, or AMD, based PC. However since at least the early 1990s Windows could be run on Macs, there was SoftPC, and Virtual PC which MS eventually bought, as well as other possibilities. With the switch to Intels MS stopped Virtual PC for Macs.

I think they might see some hardware sales dropoff, I think they'd make more money overall, and I think that's the point of it all anyway.

It's not "might" see hardware sales drop, they already saw it. Back in the mid '90s Apple did license OEMs to make Mac clones. However when Apple got smart and brought Steve Jobs back he took a look at the numbers and saw Apple was loosing money on licensing so he ended it. While Apple may be able to make it work now if OS X were able to be installed on any PC, with the myriad different hardware combination possibilities OS X can become just as unstable as Windows. And yes, they'd also be stepping on MS's toes and MS IS A CONVICTED MONOPOLIST, eve if the Bush admin didn't even slap them on the wrist.

the only reason that they made a deal with Novell is to make money off the people who wanted an enterprise Linux solution, so that MS can make money from Open Source.

I don't think the MS deal with Novell had anything to do with trying to make a profit off of Linux. MS could have easily made money off of Linux by selling a version of MS Office for Linux. If MS had created such a version 7 years ago I doubt Open Office would have gained as big, and getting bigger, a share of office suites. There was some demand for Office for Linux otherwise CodeWeavers never would of thought they could make a profit from creating CrossOver to run MS Office on Linux. OO may not of been developed either. Even at this late date MS could probably make money releasing MS Office for Linux, the longer they wait the lower the chances are though.

It seems to me that Gabe must have decided some time ago that PC gaming on anything but the Microsoft platform is an inherent failure. If he actually had any interest in making his games multi-(PC)-platform, then maybe demanding Apple pay Valve $1 000 000 000 USD for just the rights to port HL2 probably wasn't the best start. And frankly, it's just sad when you see announcements like these, showing just how more proactive other people are about making Valve products available to new markets than Valve is itself.

I'm starting to think that internally at Valve, their real stance on this is, "Why bother to support them, when they'll gladly hack compatibility for themselves?"

Further, I'd like to point out that those "pointless Linux distro reviews" never explain how to get, say, your nVidia card to spit out more than 640x480 (the problem which stymied me last time I tried Linux), or how to get wifi to work, or any of the real problems you actually have after install.

Not only did I not have trouble last week getting good video on my Nvidia card, I didn't have trouble installing World of Warcraft and Burning Crusade under Cedega.

Maybe you haven't tried in a while. IE runs in Linux under Crossover Linux. So does Office.

If you don't need Windows to run Microsoft Office, what is it good for? We know what it's bad for: security.

Or maybe you're just incompetent. Or maybe you're a troll. In that case, my bad. Feeding trolls is bad.

My subject and comment express my opinion. My sig is reserved for bringing people's attention to other important issues.

Not the version you would need to use your newest generation iPods.
They seem to support up to 4.9.

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name?app_id=134

I hear ya! My distro of choice is Novell openSUSE 10.2, which is very easy to set up and use, though I had to remove zmd to get efficient updates with opensuse-updater (the upcoming 10.3 doesn't install zmd by default). IMHO, Novell openSUSE 10.2 is an order of magnitude easier to set up and use than Ubuntu, though the /. community in general has taken an anti-Novell stance due to its patent cross licensing agreement with Microsoft (which is funny, considering how /. loves Apple despite Apple's numerous patent and technology cross licensing agreements with Microsoft, but I digress).

I've been able to "convert" two people at work from Windows XP to openSUSE 10.2 based on its merits and ease of use. Ubuntu will hopefully get to a similar position from a technical perspective, but IMHO at this time, Novell openSUSE 10.2 is already there, and Novell has committed themselves to making SUSE Linux a world-class desktop operating system.

From your post, here is what openSUSE 10.2 and likely other distros can offer:

- Browser: Firefox, Konqueror, Mozilla Seamonkey, Opera, and IEs4Linux (I use IEs4Linux to access Outlook Web Access's calendar at work, since I use Thunderbird for my email. I'm looking forward to an Exchange plug-in for Mozilla Lighning)

- Email: Thunderbird (yay! I'm also writing a Salesforce.com extension for it called Thunderforce), Evolution (I actually despise it, though I also don't like Outlook's interface. To each, their own.. Don't bother with the Exchange connector; it's slow and crashes often), KMail, and others

- Quicken 2008 might be tricky. Quicken 2007 appears to work to an extent, but it might have issues, which is probably not good for an accounting package

- GnuCash is a possible replacement for Quicken, though it's more like QuickBooks than Quicken. For a personal finance look and feel, KMyMoney might be the better way to go, though some time might need to be invested in the conversion process. Converting from Quicken Mac 2004 to KMyMoney was not seamless for me, but I haven't gone back and fixed the errors in the import configuration that I used and tried again. If you do the GnuCash approach, then you can use my GnuCashToQIF program to export back to Quicken in case if you want to go back to it or if you need to export your data to an accountant, either as QIF or IIF. I have an old Mac at home that I'm moving away from, though I'm still using Quicken and iTunes on it

- Novell's version of OpenOffice includes extensive support for Excel macros, so it's worth trying out. It might address all of your Excel needs. As a nice bonus, OpenOffice uses a single-document interface (SDI) instead of a multiple-document interface (MDI), permitting you to have two or more separate top-level spreadsheet windows side-by-side or on different monitors. Excel is MDI, though it does create a top-level start menu button for each open document, essentially faking SDI, but it's really MDI. You could enlarge Excel to span multiple monitors and have your MDI windows not maximized, but that breaks down if you have one monitor portrait and the other one landscape. If you really, really need Excel, then it appears to be well supported by CrossOver Office

- Visual Studio 2005 is a tough one because MonoDevelop might not include all the features that you may be accustomed to. It does implement a lot, but it's probably not a drop-in replacement yet.