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Linux Outpacing Macintosh On Desktops
An anonymous reader points out this article in the International Herald Tribune about corporate acceptance of computers running GNU/Linux, which includes this snippet: "Linux is already outpacing Macintosh on desktops: "Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst for International Data Corp., said Linux had a 3.9 percent share of desktops worldwide, outpacing Macintosh's 3.1 percent." The article does not specify from where Kuznetsky draws either figure, but can it be true that Linux systems currently outnumber Macintoshes?
In most of the companies I know about, Macs are relegated to marketing types for graphic intensive applications. Most of those users have Windows machines to run "corporate" type applications. The Macs are highly specialized.
Linux has developed a reputation (at least amongst the tech-saavy) of being a serious OS for real work, be it on the desktop or server. The Linux machines are specialized too, but in a more utilitarian, jack-of-all-trades way.
And Windows is for the unwashed masses.
brand new G4 with all the fixings is over 3,000. for 600 i could put together an on par x86 system.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
A stripped, feature-poor Mac system can be bought for $800.
Funny how nobody who speaks up in a geek forum has that kind of low end disaster machine. That Mac is equivalent to the $400 WalMart special.
Be honest, if you're going to be a Macintosh advocate, and admit you spent more for the 'Mac experience.'
That's not what they are for. User-Agent: headers are supposed to allow servers cope with horrible bugs in clients and vice versa.
Steve said that "Apple is the number one supplier of Unix worldwide. Bigger than Sun, bigger than Linux..." If Steve said it, it must be true. Other than the fact that Linux is NOT Unix, but merely a clone. And since when was Linux a ,uhm, company supplying UNIX??
.NET, buying the U.S. government, BSA, incompatibilities, daily security "patches", Big Brother EULAs and shove them up your fat, money grubbing ass.
I own a Mac too, (G4, 640 Megs memory 2x 18G SCSI, Radeon 8500) but let's face it, Mac OS X is nothing more than FreeBSD 4.4 (pretty outdated by my standards) running Aqua as a window manager. Oh and by the way, it has a crap-load of Open Source goodies rebranded to sound like they came straight from Cupertino.
I'll give Apple one thing: If you think Apple hardware is fscking expensive, try buying a new Sun workstation! I could put a good down payment on a car for that much!
So, the question I have for Apple is: If you want the "average" Windows user to switch platforms, how are you going to convince them to pony up 3x more than a PC with less than a third of the available software? Keep in mind that the average computer user likes to swap out hardware quite a bit instead of buying a new machine every 9 months.
Steve said himself that there are "over 1500 Mac OS X apps". Most of these are haxies or simply Linux software such as GCC or Samba that have been ported over. Or maybe the iApps that are so amazing. Obviously Photoshop wasn't the "killer app" that makes everbody want OS X... So, how about something useful that doesn't cost a kidney to own (Office X, cough, cough)
With all this in mind, I'm not the least bit surprised that Linux is outdoing the Mac. I am surprised that the margin between the two is so close. For one, I can build a box that outperforms even the newest dual 1.2 Gig G4s (Uh, people use more than just Photoshop, Apple. You also haven't benchmarked the Athlons, which beat the shit out of all but the fastest P4s...) and has the latest and greatest hardware for well under $1K. Also keep in mind that the average PC user doesn't throw his entire box away after seeing new product announcements just to have the latest and greatest. If it's that hard to get Motorola to build faster G4s, then you should look elsewhere. Add to that the fact that your typical Linux distro (I also ripped into Macslash.org for calling Mac OS X a "distro")has many thousands of apps and goodies and no DRM, spyware, or product activation bullshit like Windows, and I just plain fail to see why anybody would want to bother with Mac or Windows.
Steve, it's time to break out of the Reality Distortion Field(TM) and offer cheaper hardware to get better penetration in the Windows camp.
Bill, you can take your "Trusted Computing", DRM, WMP9,
In the words of Chandler Bing: "Could I BE more sick of corporate bullshit?"