Ubuntu Linux vs. Mac OS X

An anonymous reader writes "An article on InformationWeek pits an Apple user against an Ubuntu Linux user (although he talks about other distros as well) as to which OS makes a better desktop operating system. As might be expected, the conclusion seems to be "different strokes for different folks," but it's interesting to see Microsoft cut (mostly) out of the equation."

Comments

Re:It's about switching.

[Yvan256]

People would need to install Windows Vista in the first place to be able to switch away from it.

The fact that Dell and others are still selling computers with Windows XP is not a good sign for Windows Vista.

Going from skiing to snowboarding

[Mr_Silver]

I'm a skier, been skiing for over 7 years now and (if I dare say it) I'm pretty reasonable. I'm not an expert, but as long as it isn't icy moguls (or moguls for that matter) can handle most of the pistes ... and I enjoy it.

Now snowboarding looks cool. You can do things you can't do with skis, it certainly looks like fun and you can do some great tricks. So I gave it a go, several times. The problem was that here was I, standing at a resort with my snowboard on and looking at what I could do. The black down the mountain? Nope. The long red? Nope. The winding blue through the trees? Nope. The rubbish green which snakes past the lifts. Well, sort of as long as I didn't mind falling over a bit.

So here am I, completely unable to go off and explore the mountain because the tool I was using to do it, I couldn't use properly. I hadn't invested the time and the effort to learn and here was I, unable to get the best out of it.

So what should I do? Spend the next week (and only week of my holiday) falling about on a green run? Or slap back on my ski's and head off and explore the mountain, try all the runs, get to the summit and check out the blacks down the back - plus a little off piste?

I did what, I suspect, a lot of people did. I put my ski's back on. My weeks holiday in the snow is precious. I don't have the time and money to fly abroad to ski again multiple times a year so in the end I wussed out, picked what I knew was comfortable and that I could do and went with that.

I rationalise that my holiday was too short to be sitting face down on a green run when I could be taking full advantage of what the mountain had to offer. I did the training and the falling over 7 years ago when I was learning to ski - it's taken me years (literally) to get where I am now and, in one fell swooop, I don't want to go back again to that.

I think a lot of people consider Windows vs something else in the same way that I consider skiing vs snowboarding.

Re:They're not mutually exclusive

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A PC and a Mac are actually the same car, except the Mac has the passenger door(s) and the trunk welded shut.

A PC and a Mac are actually the same car, except the PC needs its windows replaced each week because vandals keeps smashing them in.

Re:*** It's not JUST about the button ***

[Doctor O]

it would not change the fact that the code just isn't there in most applications to exploit the second button...at least well

That's simply not true - I use the right mouse button in all applications I use, and I notice almost no differences between my OSX, Ubuntu and Windows boxes.

Maybe you care to name a handful of applications which fall under your above mentioned category? Maybe I'm just getting you wrong or you haven't even used a Mac much.

(And about that middle mouse button - I have set it up with Exposé's "show all windows" feature, and that boosts my productivity with a lot of open windows *greatly*. Just middle-click to see all windows and left-click on the one you want to switch. I'm eagerly awaiting an Exposé clone for X11, it just ain't coming...)