I don't get it. If the major cost difference is the G5 processor vs. the Pentium 4, I would expect a Mac with a P4 processor to cost less than a Mac with a G5.
The only flaw in your theory is that how much it costs Apple to make a PowerMac is completely independent of how much they choose to sell it for.
I wouldn't count on the Mac "always will be" more expensive.
I would. Apple's market is not people who buy based primarily on price and never has been.
And second (the most disturbing part) this thing isn't even out yet... so why the hell is it running anti-virus software?
An unfortunate fact of life in retaining binary compatibility is that the nasty stuff also remains compatible.
For three years now I've refused to use anything that *requires* anti-virus software. I can't abide shoddy workmanship.
It's got nothing to do with "shoddy workmanship". There's nothing an OS can do to tell the difference between "the user wants me to do this" and "a virus wants me to do this".
This is probably true in general, but you need to ask yourself why this occurs.
Because there's just not that much "new stuff" to do, that people are interested in.
But if Linux is instead improved by hackers who have a few ideas and want something interesting and worthwhile to do, innovation is likely to keep going.
The vast bulk of Linux development in the last decade has done nothing more than bring it up to par with existing platforms. Ie: those "hackers" are just reimplementing (often without any improvements) existing concepts that have already been in other platforms for years.
Perpetual innovation is now the rule for a successful company that is using Linux as a base.
There is a fundamental difference between "innovation" in/services/ and/internal processes/ (which is what nearly all companies "using Linux as a base" are using it for) and "innovation" in the actual software, which is what (I assume) is being discussed here.
As long as there are people who are unhappy with the alternatives, I can't imagine Linux development slowing down -- clearly not the case with Microsoft.
But it will - Linux has basically been playing catch-up with Windows, OS X and other unixes for the last decade[0]. Once it's reached feature parity, and stabilised, the introduction "new stuff" will slow for the same reasons it does on other platforms - there's just not that much "new stuff" and user demand for it is low.
[0]There are certain niches where Linux is arguably ahead (eg: embedded devices), on the average though, it's at best on par. There's not a lot of stuff in Linux that isn't just reimplementation-without-improvement of technology that's been in other platforms for years.
You still have to right click, select rename, and type test.aaa.
Or you could click on it twice. Or you could highlight it and hit F2.
(I do have to ask why, though, seems an extremely contrived example.)
How much slower is that than my example?
get file a:\test.aaa
A second or two at most - more than made up for by the greater intuitiveness of the operation.
Which is more complex
Your example (which, again, I suspect was carefully contrived to pick a rarely performed action) requires specific existing knowledge of how to use FTP, the floppy drive letter and the syntax of the GET command.
My example simply reuses generic knowledge that is similar - if not identical - to copying files elsewhere.
More steps != more complex.
If you have commonly used scenarios, there is no reason these can't be set up as aliases under bash (like ll is ls -l, for example) to make things easier.
Precisely as I said - automation is easier, and that's about it.
Yes, it takes a little more learning, but do you want admins who don't take the time to learn?
Firstly, I'd much rather have UIs that simply didn't require extensive amounts of very specific knowledge have to be learned before people using them could be productive. Not only is it simply a waste of time, but it dramatically increases the potential for human error.
Secondly, I'd much rather my admins spent time learning _principles_ and _practices_ rather than specific examples of commands. A better UI makes it easier to concentrate on these things, because the input semantics are consistent for similar actions (in other words, copying a file from some directory to a floppy and copying a file from an FTP site to a floppy are two nearly identical operations, thus allowing the user to spend more time concentrating on the what and the why, rather than the how).
Unfortunately, it's a hack that works -- and Windows doesn't have one. I try running on a non-admin account at home on Windows, and its a PITA at times with no workaround.
One answer might be to sell Windows computers. They would compete with Dell and offer Windows users computers that cost the same as Dell's, plus Apple styling and a Windows/OSX dual boot. Maybe better performance too.
Much as I'd love to see Apple selling machines that are price-competitive with Dell's, I can't actually imagine it happening. It would be a fundamental shift in their target market.
AMD, on the other hand lost a deal that could have been a (near) deathblow to their archenemy intel.
Holy hyperbole, Batman !
Would Apple going with AMD instead of intel have been a coup for AMD ? Most certainly.
Would it have been a "death blow" for intel ? Not even close.
Intel sells _lots_ of chips. Dell, alone, probably buy more than 5x as many intel chips as Apple will. Not getting Apple's business (as opposed to, say, actually _losing_ business) wouldn't have been intel's brightest hour, but it would hardly have put the company under any sort of hardship.
But a CLI allows the user to present much more complex information (such as commands) to the computer much more rapidly than is possible via mouse clicks and a few typed strings.
You've confused cause and effect. CLIs (typically) *require* you to present much more complex information to achieve the same ends.
The advantage of the CLI lies primarily in automation. Outside that, it sucks - very little context or feedback, utterly reliant on specific prior knowledge and poor to nonexistant data and syntax checking.
A _good_ GUI interface makes most things just as quick and easy to do as a CLI, while also removing many of the possibilities for introducing human error.
You have just downloaded the file and saved it on the floppy, and renamed it to test.aaa. Try doing this in a graphical FTP client. How many extra steps do you have to do?
Fewer, if anything (there are numerous ways to do this, here's one):
Windows advocates are more likely to make assumptions than Linux advocates. Windows advocates usually haven't used Linux at all, yet they're willing to repeat what other people say about it, without having any personal experience to indicate to them that what they are saying is the truth. It is hard to provide realistic or credible criticisms of something that you don't have any experience with.
Funny you should say that, given the typical criticism of Windows on/. - particularly from a systems administration perspective - tends to be a shining beacon of ignorance.
Linux advocates are usually ex- or even current Windows users (sometimes not by choice, due to their work situation), so they're typically speaking with a level of experience.
Using Windows to play games does not give one sufficient experience to comment on anything except using Windows to play games. I've met _very_ few "Linux advocates" who had any real in-depth knowledge of, or experience with, Windows - and most of the ones who did were similarly OS-agnostic. Shit, you don't have to look any further than the number of people who think IE is somehow part of the Windows kernel.
That says to me that in 5 years time it will be Windows playing catch up to Linux on the desktop, not vice versa.
What it should say to you is Linux had a lot further to come.
Improvement rates tend to slow dramatically as the product reaches the "good enough" point. Another example is OS X, which for a few years had very quick releases with major improvements - but the flipside is it had a lot further to go. OS X's release rate has slowed dramatically as less things have needed improving. The same will happen to Linux.
That way if Microsoft tries to "prove" Linux is inferior by running old and misconfigured versions we can say "And here's what it looks like if you don't try to screw it up."
The problem is, of course, that these "Linux users" will show up with heavily customised installs that are the end result of days (if not weeks) of setup and configuration requiring non-trivial knowledge.
The Linux community will stack the deck just like Microsoft (or anyone else, for that matter) does. To claim otherwise is (at best) naive.
One thing that drives me nuts about the registry is if it gets corrupted, it often makes the system unusable/unbootable.
I'd be fascinated to know what you people do to your Windows machines to get file corruption so commonly. I don't think I've ever seen it happen on any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of Windows machines I've been responsible for over the years.
However, if one of my Linux config files gets mangled, 99.999% of the time the machine can boot just fine and I can easily fix the problem.
And how about if filesystem corruption takes out the entire/etc directory ? Or the entire filesystem ?
Putting all your eggs in one basket seems to lead to problems that are much more difficult to fix, at least in my experience.
At some level, all your eggs are almost always in one basket.
Someone pointed out that KDE and Windows are the same (with regards to browser integration), that Microsoft did it first (hence qualifying as "innovation", at least by the standards that seem to be have been previously set) and that KDE (and since, GNOME and OS X) copied the design.
You said no, KDE is different, because it isnt't tied to the kernel - and offered no other differentiation. As I said, explicitly implying you think IE is somehow "tied to the kernel".
This actually highlights two rather amusing (at least to me) aspects of this whole "Microsoft is evil because of IE" stupidity:
1. Every other remotely desktop-oriented platform has since gone on to implement the same basic design.
2. Most of the people who criticise Windows+IE for its design seem to be completely ignorant of this.
You made a similar claim, as I asked why a compiler would help the script kiddies, and you replied that executables might not be compatible across platforms.
Actually I used compiler ubiquity as an example of how Linux has enough of a monolculture for it to be a vulnerability.
OK, but the requisite libraries might not be compatible across install.
Which libraries are you thinking of that might not be compatible ? Why do you think it can't be handled in the same way such "incompatible libraries" are handled by the vast numbers of other programs that can be easily compiled across multiple unixes ?
Many Windows users trigger viruses/malware by browsing with Internet Explorer. How are going to do that in Linux?
Exactly the same way - with a buggy browser (or other software).
How do I do the equivalent of setuid in Windows XP home? I can't.
You can't because it would violate the NT security model.
Setuid is a hack to get around unix's primitive permissions model.
Therefore, if I want to run any of these programs that require admin access, I have to be logged in as admin, or enter userid/password. Not much fun when it's a game my kids want to play when I'm not around.
Chances are extremely high those programs don't really need admin access, they're just poorly written and want to write to files and/or registry keys they shouldn't. The proper solution (and this applies to all platforms) is to adjust the permissions on only those files and registry keys (after filing a bug report with the developer), *not* to allow those users to pretend they're someone else.
That part Microsoft could have fixed.
Microsoft cannot fix broken applications that try to write to places they shouldn't be. Nor should they try to, IMHO.
Not to mention the possibility of spoofing, where requests to read and write the C:/ directory could be redirected to an app data directory.
So how will the OS know a "valid" write request to $SOME_SYSTEM_DIRECTORY that should be redirected from an attempt to do the wrong thing that should be denied ?
But at the time they were making those poor decisions, Unix and Unix-like OSes had already solved the basic issues, MS just ignored them.
NT is not unix. It is not "broken" because it doesn't act like unix (and repeat some of unix's mistakes, like the permissions model), it is just different.
Saying that there are other people doing it does NOT justify Microsoft doing it.
I never suggested Microsoft applications should be exempt, I was merely pointing out the problems running as a non-Admin are not problems with Windows, but with poorly written applications.
As such - outside of fixing the few apps they write that have problems - there's not much Microsoft can do about it.
Again, you are wrong. Linux and the various *BSD's manage to fix existing problems, yet they can still run most apps from years ago.
I'd be fairly willing to be malicious code from ten years ago can still cause damage on unix systems today. rm -rf still works, after all.
I have. And one of those "basic security principles", for Windows, includes daily downloads of anti-virus/anti-spyware signatures.
How is this malicious code getting onto your systems ? Why are users running with enough privileges to install it ?
I find it very amusing that you seem to be suggesting that anyone using Windows become well versed in "security".
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The only flaw in your theory is that how much it costs Apple to make a PowerMac is completely independent of how much they choose to sell it for.
I wouldn't count on the Mac "always will be" more expensive.
I would. Apple's market is not people who buy based primarily on price and never has been.
An unfortunate fact of life in retaining binary compatibility is that the nasty stuff also remains compatible.
For three years now I've refused to use anything that *requires* anti-virus software. I can't abide shoddy workmanship.
It's got nothing to do with "shoddy workmanship". There's nothing an OS can do to tell the difference between "the user wants me to do this" and "a virus wants me to do this".
Are you a lawyer ? If not, you might consider a career change...
And what Linux-compatible browser is as buggy as Internet Explorer?
Doesn't matter. We're talking about principles, not specific examples.
Also, a program might require libfoo.so.3 and the user has libfoo.so.2. Some software won't compile.
Indeed it mightn't. Just like some pieces of malware only work on certain versions of Windows.
Although I'd have to wonder what specialised libraries you're thinking of that malware will be after.
Because there's just not that much "new stuff" to do, that people are interested in.
But if Linux is instead improved by hackers who have a few ideas and want something interesting and worthwhile to do, innovation is likely to keep going.
The vast bulk of Linux development in the last decade has done nothing more than bring it up to par with existing platforms. Ie: those "hackers" are just reimplementing (often without any improvements) existing concepts that have already been in other platforms for years.
Perpetual innovation is now the rule for a successful company that is using Linux as a base.
There is a fundamental difference between "innovation" in /services/ and /internal processes/ (which is what nearly all companies "using Linux as a base" are using it for) and "innovation" in the actual software, which is what (I assume) is being discussed here.
But it will - Linux has basically been playing catch-up with Windows, OS X and other unixes for the last decade[0]. Once it's reached feature parity, and stabilised, the introduction "new stuff" will slow for the same reasons it does on other platforms - there's just not that much "new stuff" and user demand for it is low.
[0]There are certain niches where Linux is arguably ahead (eg: embedded devices), on the average though, it's at best on par. There's not a lot of stuff in Linux that isn't just reimplementation-without-improvement of technology that's been in other platforms for years.
Or you could click on it twice. Or you could highlight it and hit F2.
(I do have to ask why, though, seems an extremely contrived example.)
How much slower is that than my example? get file a:\test.aaa
A second or two at most - more than made up for by the greater intuitiveness of the operation.
Which is more complex
Your example (which, again, I suspect was carefully contrived to pick a rarely performed action) requires specific existing knowledge of how to use FTP, the floppy drive letter and the syntax of the GET command.
My example simply reuses generic knowledge that is similar - if not identical - to copying files elsewhere.
More steps != more complex.
If you have commonly used scenarios, there is no reason these can't be set up as aliases under bash (like ll is ls -l, for example) to make things easier.
Precisely as I said - automation is easier, and that's about it.
Yes, it takes a little more learning, but do you want admins who don't take the time to learn?
Firstly, I'd much rather have UIs that simply didn't require extensive amounts of very specific knowledge have to be learned before people using them could be productive. Not only is it simply a waste of time, but it dramatically increases the potential for human error.
Secondly, I'd much rather my admins spent time learning _principles_ and _practices_ rather than specific examples of commands. A better UI makes it easier to concentrate on these things, because the input semantics are consistent for similar actions (in other words, copying a file from some directory to a floppy and copying a file from an FTP site to a floppy are two nearly identical operations, thus allowing the user to spend more time concentrating on the what and the why, rather than the how).
Which is almost certainly what's going on here anyway.
With doing it ? Nothing.
With pretending you're _not_ doing it ? Everything.
What are you trying to do ?
Much as I'd love to see Apple selling machines that are price-competitive with Dell's, I can't actually imagine it happening. It would be a fundamental shift in their target market.
Holy hyperbole, Batman !
Would Apple going with AMD instead of intel have been a coup for AMD ? Most certainly.
Would it have been a "death blow" for intel ? Not even close.
Intel sells _lots_ of chips. Dell, alone, probably buy more than 5x as many intel chips as Apple will. Not getting Apple's business (as opposed to, say, actually _losing_ business) wouldn't have been intel's brightest hour, but it would hardly have put the company under any sort of hardship.
Nitpick: you are talking about the Pentium Pro, not the Pentium.
For all the things Longhorn might be, "an in-depth architectural redesign" it most certainly is not. It's Windows NT 6.
Actually Microsoft were only found to have a monopoly on a very specific part of the market - "intel compatible desktop operating systems".
Note also that things "proven in court" do not necessarily mean "things that are true".
Microsoft have a relatively featureless, uninnovative browser compared to the competetion. Why is it so popular?
Because from approximately mid 1997 until late 2003, it had nothing that could really be considered competition.
But a CLI allows the user to present much more complex information (such as commands) to the computer much more rapidly than is possible via mouse clicks and a few typed strings.
You've confused cause and effect. CLIs (typically) *require* you to present much more complex information to achieve the same ends.
The advantage of the CLI lies primarily in automation. Outside that, it sucks - very little context or feedback, utterly reliant on specific prior knowledge and poor to nonexistant data and syntax checking.
A _good_ GUI interface makes most things just as quick and easy to do as a CLI, while also removing many of the possibilities for introducing human error.
You have just downloaded the file and saved it on the floppy, and renamed it to test.aaa. Try doing this in a graphical FTP client. How many extra steps do you have to do?
Fewer, if anything (there are numerous ways to do this, here's one):
Start -> Run -> ftp://ftp.server.com
Change to directory of interest
Drag file to floppy disk (or just right click -> Send To Floppy).
Explorer in its default configuration should allow this, as should any reasonably decent FTP client.
Funny you should say that, given the typical criticism of Windows on /. - particularly from a systems administration perspective - tends to be a shining beacon of ignorance.
Linux advocates are usually ex- or even current Windows users (sometimes not by choice, due to their work situation), so they're typically speaking with a level of experience.
Using Windows to play games does not give one sufficient experience to comment on anything except using Windows to play games. I've met _very_ few "Linux advocates" who had any real in-depth knowledge of, or experience with, Windows - and most of the ones who did were similarly OS-agnostic. Shit, you don't have to look any further than the number of people who think IE is somehow part of the Windows kernel.
What it should say to you is Linux had a lot further to come.
Improvement rates tend to slow dramatically as the product reaches the "good enough" point. Another example is OS X, which for a few years had very quick releases with major improvements - but the flipside is it had a lot further to go. OS X's release rate has slowed dramatically as less things have needed improving. The same will happen to Linux.
The problem is, of course, that these "Linux users" will show up with heavily customised installs that are the end result of days (if not weeks) of setup and configuration requiring non-trivial knowledge.
The Linux community will stack the deck just like Microsoft (or anyone else, for that matter) does. To claim otherwise is (at best) naive.
I'd be fascinated to know what you people do to your Windows machines to get file corruption so commonly. I don't think I've ever seen it happen on any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of Windows machines I've been responsible for over the years.
However, if one of my Linux config files gets mangled, 99.999% of the time the machine can boot just fine and I can easily fix the problem.
And how about if filesystem corruption takes out the entire /etc directory ? Or the entire filesystem ?
Putting all your eggs in one basket seems to lead to problems that are much more difficult to fix, at least in my experience.
At some level, all your eggs are almost always in one basket.
Microsoft were "innovative" by "integrating" a browser module into the OS. KDE (and others) copied this
No they didn't, Konquerer is just a front end wrapper.
This is just how IE (the browser) works.
No, Konquerer is different because it isn't tied to the kernel.
Someone pointed out that KDE and Windows are the same (with regards to browser integration), that Microsoft did it first (hence qualifying as "innovation", at least by the standards that seem to be have been previously set) and that KDE (and since, GNOME and OS X) copied the design.
You said no, KDE is different, because it isnt't tied to the kernel - and offered no other differentiation. As I said, explicitly implying you think IE is somehow "tied to the kernel".
This actually highlights two rather amusing (at least to me) aspects of this whole "Microsoft is evil because of IE" stupidity:
1. Every other remotely desktop-oriented platform has since gone on to implement the same basic design.
2. Most of the people who criticise Windows+IE for its design seem to be completely ignorant of this.
Actually I used compiler ubiquity as an example of how Linux has enough of a monolculture for it to be a vulnerability.
OK, but the requisite libraries might not be compatible across install.
Which libraries are you thinking of that might not be compatible ? Why do you think it can't be handled in the same way such "incompatible libraries" are handled by the vast numbers of other programs that can be easily compiled across multiple unixes ?
Many Windows users trigger viruses/malware by browsing with Internet Explorer. How are going to do that in Linux?
Exactly the same way - with a buggy browser (or other software).
Why is killing and eating plants any more morally defensible than killing and eating animals ?
Instead of tyring to make it a religious/philosophical issue, try writing an email simply requesting ports to other platforms like Linux and MacOS.
You can't because it would violate the NT security model.
Setuid is a hack to get around unix's primitive permissions model.
Therefore, if I want to run any of these programs that require admin access, I have to be logged in as admin, or enter userid/password. Not much fun when it's a game my kids want to play when I'm not around.
Chances are extremely high those programs don't really need admin access, they're just poorly written and want to write to files and/or registry keys they shouldn't. The proper solution (and this applies to all platforms) is to adjust the permissions on only those files and registry keys (after filing a bug report with the developer), *not* to allow those users to pretend they're someone else.
That part Microsoft could have fixed.
Microsoft cannot fix broken applications that try to write to places they shouldn't be. Nor should they try to, IMHO.
Not to mention the possibility of spoofing, where requests to read and write the C:/ directory could be redirected to an app data directory.
So how will the OS know a "valid" write request to $SOME_SYSTEM_DIRECTORY that should be redirected from an attempt to do the wrong thing that should be denied ?
But at the time they were making those poor decisions, Unix and Unix-like OSes had already solved the basic issues, MS just ignored them.
NT is not unix. It is not "broken" because it doesn't act like unix (and repeat some of unix's mistakes, like the permissions model), it is just different.
I never suggested Microsoft applications should be exempt, I was merely pointing out the problems running as a non-Admin are not problems with Windows, but with poorly written applications.
As such - outside of fixing the few apps they write that have problems - there's not much Microsoft can do about it.
Again, you are wrong. Linux and the various *BSD's manage to fix existing problems, yet they can still run most apps from years ago.
I'd be fairly willing to be malicious code from ten years ago can still cause damage on unix systems today. rm -rf still works, after all.
I have. And one of those "basic security principles", for Windows, includes daily downloads of anti-virus/anti-spyware signatures.
How is this malicious code getting onto your systems ? Why are users running with enough privileges to install it ?
I find it very amusing that you seem to be suggesting that anyone using Windows become well versed in "security".
I've suggested nothing of the sort.