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What's Keeping You On Windows?
schnell asks: "Here's something I've wondered about for a long time. While it seems that the majority of Slashdot readers are no fans of Microsoft, recent polls show that 47% of Slashdot Users are using Windows as their main OS (and I bet that number is much higher in server logs). So I have a two-fold question: 1) Is it just the 'vocal minority' that favors alternate OSes over Linux and 2) if not, what's keeping you from 'putting your money where your mouth is' - why are you using Windows? My own situation is that I use an IT-mandated Win98 (ugh) laptop at work, but at home I'm Mac OS X all the way. While I did pay Microsoft for Office for Mac, I try to avoid filling their coffers whenever possible, so for all the family/friends who rely on me for computer recommendations I recommend Mac or Linux. Do people like using Windows? Are games the driving factor? Or is it just 'the right tool for the job?'" It's a perennial question, and one that is fitting to review every so often, if only to see how far Open Source has come, and how far it needs to go.
Is the stability. Also the vast number of easy to come by applications. And they all meet or exceed industry standards everywhere. Microsoft Word and other Office apps are what get taught in school, and it's what I'm glad to have learned. And for development, I was lucky enough to go to a place that taught in Visual C++.
-2 (too easy)
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
>So yes, I can supply all the functionality you need
I see you have made both broad and incorrect assumptions as to what I need.
First let's speak of drive bays:
I recently used my 5.25" drive to play an old game I purchased. Many old games are surprisingly playable due to their low-flash high-content composition, and they sell for much less second-hand than the new graphical crud. My copy of Railroad Tycoon is on 5.25", 360k discs, for example. I wouldn't want to lose it.
It's easier to give someone who asks for a floppy a 3.5" floppy than trying to explain to him why he's getting a USB keychain or burned CD instead. And do I really want to risk giving a USD 90 USB keychain to someone who may damage or fail to return it? Finally, unless you'll buy me an iBook, I'm stuck with a circa-1992, 486, pre-PCMCIA laptop, with no Ethernet card. I'm not joking. How will I share files with it?
I use, and purchased, a Zip drive because a site which I wanted to interchange data with had them. At the time, they did not (and indeed may still not) have CD burners, and I'd expect they don't take kindly to people shunting around their boxes to get to the USB ports for a keychain.
Admittedly, I could combine the seperate CD reader and burner, but I do it this way because 1) I had the reader first and 2) it saves wear and tear on the burner, which costs more than the reader to replace if it goes bad.
It doesn't matter that my x86 box lacks four 3.5" drive bays, because I have exhausted the available IDE positions with other hardware. If I wanted more hard drives, I'd have to drop another peripheral just to free room on the bus, even without concerning yourself with drive bays. It would be the same with a Mac. However, if I wanted another hard drive, and freed the space for it on the bus, I could remove the device I didn't want anymore, and put the hard disc into the now-vacant 5.25" bay. I can't go the other way if all you give me is 3.5" bays.
At the best, I'd need a 3.5" floppy (admittedly, no 5.25" retrogaming there), a Zip, and a CD burner. Three devices. Two slots. Problem. And a problem I don't want to solve by settling for an external peripheral that's clunky, often slow (I've used a USB Zip-- truly awful) and further clutters my desk with cables.
Onto the ports issue:
I'm not convinced USB is a good REPLACEMENT for any of the legacy ports. It's a good SUPPLEMENT for things that lacked a home before (notably digital cameras and scanners), but for things like printers, keyboards, and mice, it simply increases the internal complexity of the device. I'm sure it's really necessary to make the OS device support more complex and the devices more awkward (and often more expensive) to support the noble dream that we should be able to connect 43 keyboards and 19 printers to the same jack on the machine. I also don't like the idea of USB mass storage. You want a transportable storage device, use a removable media item and a fixed drive. Much less chance of little Timmy tearing the cable out in the middle of a fsck.
I respectfully withdraw my concern about the Apple monitor ports. I am only familiar with the older machines, which were often teamed with the sort of cute little Apple->VGA adaptor you know costs way more than it should.
Apple's policies always seem "like it or lump it", and forget about the consumers who don't want to hop on the next spaceship to the future. I'm sure plenty of people wanted, at various times:
-Faster 680x0 Macs, for apps heavily tied to the 680x0 architecture or hardware design
-Legacy ports on newer Macs, because of sunken investments in accessories
-OS 9 support and delivery continuation, for those who aren't comfy with OS X (would a place with 10,000 installed OS 9 systems want an order of 100 new systems to be OS X-only)
I also don't want to deal with a manufacturer who I can't say "***** you! I'm buying {ECS|FIC|AOpen|Lucky-Star|Amalgamated Sweatshop|...} instead!" to.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
One of the big draws (for some people) is the number of choices that they have.
Choice, schmoice. If none of the options work completely or correctly, then your choices are reduced to zero awfully quickly.
It'd be better to have one desktop environment that works than sixty-four that are almost there.
I write in my journal