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OS Comparisons From the BBC

igb writes "As part of their coverage of the launch of Vista, the BBC last week asked people to submit descriptions of the benefits and drawbacks of their chosen system, and today they've posted responses from two Vista users, a Linux user, and an OS X user. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but it's interesting to see the operating systems compared on a level playing field, and good that the BBC has given equal time to the major alternatives."

7 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mac user by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 0, Troll

    "I find it hard to find things to be excited about, given that new rehashes of iWork and iLife are produced each year and it is hard to justify buying each new version, even modestly priced as they are."

    There, now the opinion is more realistic.

  2. Re:Not level by Mongoose · · Score: 0, Troll

    Don't forget the cool flame / star trek / snow / etc window animations. It's fun to make the windows flame in and out like Cole on Charmed. Whooosh demon teleport! ;)

  3. Re:Insecure much? by XCol · · Score: 0, Troll

    ROFL. Further, try cloning 15 of the things in a classroom and try to get Safari to work full stop...

  4. Re:What matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    You MUST be a Gamer.

    Not only does linux have thousands of applications, I would venture to say that you have never used Amarok, Gimp or a dozen other programs that outstip any comercial equivelent.

    "RealityMaster" my big hairy ass!

    "TrollMaster FUD" would be a better nick IMHO.

  5. M$ has yet to master multitasking. by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you look at the adjacent screenshot, you'll see a completely cluttered desktop filled with distractions. I find it amusing that out of all the images, this one has the most clutter.

    The "clutter" you see is her work and play. She could have hidden those tasks, but it was nice to see how a couple of programs looked. Chances are, there were many more programs you did not see. That's what happens to your desktop when you don't have to boot it daily.

    The Linux desktop probably has more running as well. For instance, the 1.2 GHz PIII laptop being used to write this post has some 30 programs running over five virtual desktops, each with nine virtual screens. I've only had it running for the last 12 days, but place keeping rocks. Under Enlightenment, switching between desktops is nearly instantaneous despite the relatively modest processor and 512 of RAM. If I wanted to take a screenshot, I'd cover up most of the clutter by moving to an open virtual screen.

    The clutter free nature of both Mac OSX and most free window managers puts Vista to shame. The M$ entrance into virtual desktops is both late and clumsy - even KDE does it's pagers better. The "3D" flip feature is some kind of bad joke.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  6. Re:Not level by ronanbear · · Score: 0, Troll

    meh.
    That works for Windows too. It's Windows L

    --
    the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
  7. Re:Sterotypical by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 0, Troll

    Nice rant. I, however, stand by my assessment of the OSX user base. I did not call them "clueless noobs", as you have implied; I merely pointed out that most (as few as 0.51) of OSX users have never seriously encountered a free OS.

    Well, you can chalk up about 75 people in my office that use OS X to develop software that runs on Linux and NetBSD. I mean, have you been to any conferences lately? Blackhat, Defcon, etc. are full of Mac users, most of whom were using Linux or a BSD as their primary OS a few years ago. I even had a Linux user I was chatting with the other day tell me he was switching to OS X, not for any given feature, but because everyone else has and it makes it easier to get support for some of the more obscure uses of a computer.

    Do you really find it controversial that almost every Linux user has worked extensively with either Windows or OSX, but the same cannot be said of most OSX users?

    Umm, yes. Reread your question. Is it controversial, that almost all Linux users have used Windows or OS X, but the same cannot be said of OS X users (that most have used OS X)? I'm pretty sure most OS X users have used OS X, sort of by definition. As to whether most OS X users have used some other OS, by the numbers the vast majority of OS X users have used Windows. It is ubiquitous. A fair number have used Linux or some other OS, but that number is a lot more uncertain. Of course most Linux users I know that have not switched to OS X, have never used OS X. I still hear questions from Linux developers that make it quite obvious they have no idea how OS works. One asked the other day if you have to install something like Cygwin to get a usable shell. I think you are way off base with your assertions.