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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."
I'm sorry but this is not a level playing field. What this is is acknowledging the competition so as to appear fair and silence advocates, but then show off the latest features of Vista's interface, but not show the same in Linux and OSX. They have been playing this game for long enough that they know that eye candy sells. For goodness sake a Linux user that I work with said he was going to buy Vista just because he thought the box looks cool.
Unique? That's Virtual Memory. Sure, the fact that it's easy (may be) a good thing (though how many people are going to keep an empty flash drive around for this? Easier to get the kid down the street to install more ram for you and be done with it if you cant do it yourself. However, unique? I can put a swap file on flash drive and itd do the same thing...
Will the swap be encrypted so taking away the stick can't reveal confidential data? No.
Will taking the swap out in the middle of the OS running lock it up? Yes.
Will the OS benchmark the Flash for you and determine which pieces of data are best stored there and which not for best performance? No.
So when you say "it's the same" you're stretching truth quite a lot.
I know there's at least three other people besides me who are shocked at the complete lack of AmigaOS 4.0 coverage from the BBC.
-- Religion is not an exact science
> good that the BBC has given equal time to the major alternatives
I use Amiga 4.0 you insensitive clod!
The problem is an issue of values. You assume that people value the ability to tinker over the value of what is essentially an appliance, which is not true--some people would prefer the Apple "just work" mentality. As computers grow more specialized (media servers, desktop workstations, mobile information devices, etc.), the desire for a self-contained, reliable, attractive solution will only grow.
Some people don't see open source as a virtue, and it's not simply because of Microsoft FUD. Most people I know honestly don't care because they don't want to have to dig around in the depths of the OS. They don't want to compile applications, and they don't care that the same source tree works on four different platforms thanks to elegantly designed tools. As long as there are Windows developers making applications that allow them to do what they want, it's an immaterial advantage. Some don't care that Linux costs nothing, because they never buy Windows either. It comes with their computer, so from their perspective, Windows doesn't cost anything either. If computer makers sold their machines at one price and offered to preinstall Windows for a separate fee, that act alone would be Linux's greatest boon in a decade.
Trying to "educate" users about how "wrong" they are is the fastest way to look like a pretentious computer geek and lose credibility. It's not about "seeing the light," it's about what values people have and which OS most closely matches. People here hate and mock attempts at religious conversions and many seem to resent government deciding what to do with tax dollars, but they have no such problem with pushing their Linux agenda on the masses.
Linux will always be relatively small because its virtues appeal only to a small portion of the population. It can't compete on ease of use with OS X, or the universality of Windows, or on cost with Windows (as long as Windows is bundled with PCs), or on the cohesiveness of OS X, or on many other fronts. Linux is great for tinkerers and those with an allergy to closed source; the rest of the population isn't broken because they don't care about those things.
Actually the BBC micro and its cut-down counterpart the Acorn Electron preceded RISC processors and ran a 'basic' OS, (MOS/BASIC) that was little more than a tape filing system and a BASIC command line.
A pretty good one for its day, I have to admit.
It was followed by a disc filing system they simply called "DFS", and then later progressed to a directory-tree system called "ADFS"
It was Acorn, the manufacturer of these computers, who went on to develop what I believe is the first RISC processor, the ARM, and made a line of computers based on these with RISCOS for many years
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
I disagree.
At face value, you are right. You buy a computer, it comes with Windows pre-installed, IE, Outlook, maybe even Office. You and I know that you paid for the software in the purchase price, you just didn't see that cost since you were going to pay it even if you wanted Linux or x86 Solaris or FreeBSD or... So, it looks like Linux can't compete on cost with Windows.
Then you get infected with a worm or trojan because the anti-virus software installed on your computer didn't come with free updates for then next N months. Now you have to buy a subscription to McAfee, or Norton, or Kaspersky (or if you're really smart Nod32, but I digress), and that is a re-occurring cost every year. Because you've done some homework, you also buy firewall software from McAfee or Symantec or (shudder) Black Ice. Yes, XP comes with a firewall, but you want the reporting features and ability to block by program that a commercial product offers. Oh, but you're getting a lot of crap in your e-mail, so you also buy mail filtering software. Then your thirteen year old, who knows way more about computers than you ever will (okay, this is
Now how much cheaper is that Windows computer than Linux? There are free (as in speech and as in beer) alternatives for each of these problems available for Linux.
So, yeah, the initial purchase price may be equivalent, but after that, you are just throwing good money after bad. But that's just my opinion. YMMV
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
"Hi! You're now connected to the same wireless network you were connected to before you closed your laptop, the only wireless network available, in fact, and your signal strength is Excellent in case there was some doubt about your ability to get a clear signal from the wireless access point sitting in the closet six feet away from you. Please stop what you're doing and move the cursor down to me to acknowledge this critical information!"
I agree. Now lets just agree to respect each others opinions, no matter how wrong yours may be.