Why do so many people have this innate need to be different from everyone else when it comes to computers & operating systems?
For gods sake, people, computers are nothing more than tools that are designed to get tasks done and provide amusement to you - nothing more than that. So go use whatever you need to use that best fits your needs, okay?
Personally, I use a bit of Linux and bit of XP and, combined, I can get a computer to do what I need it to do and as efficiently as I want to do it. Yes, Linux is great for some things and XP is great for others - so I don't need to give Vista a second thought and, even worse, ever even consider paying 30% over the odds for an Apple Mac purely because it looks pretty.
But most of the Vista people on Slashdot seem to constantly complain about it - which tells me that they've not made a considered choice before upgrading to it but have done so "on a whim" just to be the first person on their street to be using it.
And the people now bleating on about Server 2008 on the desktop are even worse, quite frankly...
Sorry, people, but life is far too short to worry about fashion statements. Yes, I'm a Linux geek and Open Source fanatic but even I know that THERE IS A REASON WHY SO MANY PEOPLE USE WINDOWS XP! It's because it works pretty well for what it is - SO WHY THE HELL CHANGE FROM IT?
Any red-blooded, middle-aged British male who ever watched comedy shows or sleazy movies from the 70s knows that housewives are sex-starved nymphomaniacs who "accidentally" disrobe in front of the window cleaner, drag milkmen in by their lapels through the front door when they knock for payment of the dairy bill, and accidentally reach for their driving instructor's crotch rather than the gear stick when on a driving lesson.
And for some yet-to-be-discovered reason, as soon as a particular piece of music starts playing on the TV, they strip to underwear, stockings & suspenders and either chase Benny Hill around a park or are themselves chased around a park by Benny Hill.
I use Linux most of the time, my job at work centres on securing telecoms applications servers that invariably run Linux - but I also recognise XP fills a lot of the needs that Linux cannot just like XP cannot fulfill my needs for writing scripts and programming at the shell prompt.
But the fact is, I have two PDAs that are Windows based and for synchronising calendars and emails, for the moment it has to be Outlook and Activesync to do that.
I also spend a lot of time minimising the footprint of XP as much as possible - I truly hate with a passion the default XP UI but I've used "Classic Explorer" for years now & can live with that.
Then I get XPLite, strip out the MS-provided apps that I never use and stick on my favourite free stuff like VLC, Media Player Classic, Firefox, Notepad++, The Gimp and a few others. And once I've thrown PuTTY on, I can SSH to my home server wherever I can get a low bandwidth Internet connection if I need my shell prompt.
To be honest, I've always thought of a geek as someone who just tries to find the best software to do the job he/she needs to and there's plenty of free or Open Source apps on Linux and Windows that are useful tools to have.
Yes, Linux does most of the stuff I need to do with computers and one day it would be nice to be able to just use one OS - but XP fills the gaps quite well and apart from a bit of extra time administrating more OSes on my PCs, I'm pretty happy with my whole computing experience.
I must admit that I do find this amusing even though I side with anyone who puts two fingers up to a big corporation and just does it themselves if the corporations won't do it.
And despite us being a bit "backward" with our broadband speeds here in the UK, I could never see the same situation happening here.
At the moment, over here we have two types of broadband infrastructure - either the fibre "half-network" put in by NTL (now Virgin Media) which is okay provided that you live in the half of the country (by population, not geography) that has it, otherwise you have broadband over your existing copper telephone cable which ultimately BT (British Telecom) gets the initial line rental for, no matter who your ISP is.
It's only when that copper cable is connected to another ISP's equipment inside the BT telephone exchange that you then pay that ISP for the service - ultimately, any ISP is paying BT for the service, it's just that as ISPs they buy broadband services wholesale from BT so can then offer different tariffs.
So over here, if you wanted to "do it yourself", then you would just buy the bandwidth from BT, stick a box or two in their exchange, and either put in your own (very expensive) cabled network or (cheaper) wireless network to people's homes.
Yes, we do have problems with legacy copper cabling over here which means that high speed Internet access will be a long time coming but ultimately the privatisation of the Post Office into BT some years ago has been a success story all round - because telecoms over here is one of those industries where there is true competition, the consumer has ultimately benefited from better prices.
Maybe if I ask Slashdot nicely, they'll take a look through their posting logs and reveal your IP address or even you Slashdot account details (if you have one).
Then, unable to cower behind your AC status, you will shit yourself for fear of being exposed and the need for toilet paper will thus be negated as your underpants will have served the purpose.
Oh, and before you ask, I don't follow any organised religions - but if some other people do, then I'm tolerant enough to let them get on with it and not try to incite the same type of religious hatred that obviously seems to give you & few other extremists their jollies.
I don't know what mechanism Blizzard are planning to use for WoW but generally the authentication works by generating a random "seed" number which will only accept a single valid number as a response - the ones I see commonly at work (using a proprietary mechanism) give a 7-digit seed that require a 7-digit response.
Essentially the keychain allows you to generate the response (as a one-time password) based on being given a specific seed number.
Incidentally, the problem I have with this system isn't so much the mechanics of it but the fact that if everyone starts using them, it becomes unmanageable for the poor user.
I'm already seeing this over here in the UK where I have online banking with two banks here. Both have now sent me a small calculator-like device that I put my card into, enter my pin number and the seed number in order to get a response number to allow me to authenticate in order to do online transfers.
Although I can view my accounts without needing the "calculator", if I want the facility to transfer money no matter where I go, then I have to take these things with me. (Although, in reality, I've not yet tried to see if I can use both cards in one of them on the basis that although they look slightly different physically, they may have the same circuitry inside.)
If by "Open Source zealot" you mean that as somebody who uses both Linux and Windows XP, I look for free software that runs on either (or both) of them in order to get done what I need to do, rather than resorting to Usenet or BitTorrent to download cracks or pirated commercial software, then OKAY! I'll volunteer & put my hand up!
If by "Open Source zealot" you're implying that I won't or never pay for software, then I'm afraid I'll need to put my hand down again. Nope, I don't buy much commercial application software because I can do must stuff I need to in OSS software but, on Windows XP, I am a registered user of a number of applications that don't have an equivalent in OSS - plus I can 100% GUARANTEE YOU that you will never find an unlicensed or cracked piece of software (okay, maybe a no CD crack or two for games I've bought) on any of the computers I own.
So you don't like OSS software? Fine, don't use it then. What's the problem? It's not as though it cost you anything apart from a bit of your time to try it and not like it.
But I'm sorry to tell you that by keeping my options open, doing some stuff with Linux and some with XP so that I use an appropriate tool just to get a computing job done as quickly as possible, I'm pretty happy with my overall computing experience. So I'm afraid the only "losers" I can think of are those that have lost their noses, after cutting them off "to spite their faces" by refusing to use what can be some great, free tools.
I should say I am more of an OS & LANs guy rather than a WAN guy but your post above was useful because I noticed the very same thing when I was doing a two-ended packet sniff a while ago - namely that the TCP Window size had changed somewhere en route. I could see it had changed from the traces & although it wasn't relevant to the problem I was looking at, I couldn't figure out why it would need to be changed - but your post explains why so thanks.
I do work as a techie for a telecoms company putting in VoIP systems and, yes, I know of systems that will do it but they are all at business-level prices and far too expensive for a home user.
However, there are a couple of things to bear in mind before you go to any expense in buying a bandwidth reservation device.
1. Yes, prioritisation of VoIP packets is part of the way to go but even though you set up prioritisation at your end of things, how do you know your ISP or any of the interconnecting providers are going to preserve that prioritisation? Routers do weird and wonderful things with packet queues and remarking packets such that the priority you sent the packet with is not necessarily the same the far end receives it with.
2. Bandwidth reservation is all fine and dandy as long as reserved ALONG THE ENTIRE PATH of the call. Sure, your broadband connection is theoretically the lowest bandwidth part of the path - but what happens if your ISP hits a congested period?
With point 1., you can at least packet sniff both ends to see if the prioritisation is preserved but unless your ISP can reserve bandwidth for VoIP, I'm not sure that a router that does it at your end only is going to be much of a guarantee of overall service.
Much as I agree with your sentiments, unfortunately the world no longer works that way, particularly when it comes to major sporting events.
Even if they could buy tickets, just how many people in China (or indeed in my homeland for the 2012 London Olympics) are going to want to pay the extortionate ticket prices for any of the events?
These days, it's all about corporate sponsorship. It's about company boxes and "jollies on expenses" so that salesman can take big clients to events in order to close huge deals and absolutely bugger all to do with the normal man in the street.
I don't know how the Olympic stadiums and campuses were financed by the Chinese but here in the UK it's all being financed through council taxes paid by ordinary people - it's already many times over budget and, with usual British efficiency, there will surely be a huge great rush to complete it in time.
So please don't confuse the Olympics with conscience and real people - in China, you can guarantee that the Chinese government will have conveniently placed happy smiling and flag-waving Chinese people whenever a camera points itself at a crowd and that big corporations will be out there in force making money.
Recently, I had to build a desktop XP lab machine for some application testing I needed to do. So I went to out IT department, asked if it was okay to do it and could they give me the corporate license key. (I did actually know it but I wanted to make sure IT were aware that I was adding a PC onto it.)
So they gave me the key and I started a slipstreamed build with Service Pack 3. When it came to entering the key, it wouldn't accept it so I compared it to the key I knew already and it was identical.
So I started again using a trusty SP2 slipstreamed build, got to the same point and it wouldn't accept the key again.
I rang my IT guy and he told me I needed to enter the key on an XP machine with either SP1 or no Service Pack and once the registration had gone okay, I could then put SP2 or SP3 on. It wasn't deliberate on his part, I know the guy well and he just assumed I knew that I had to do a non-SP2 or SP3 build first.
Anyway, with several hours wasted, it worked exactly as he said on the third attempt.
So yes, I too have wasted far too much time mucking around with the Microsoft license key issues also.
PS. Your blog sucks. If you actually rid yourself of some of the emotion and venom, I get the feeling that there might be one or two intelligent arguments in there that would make it worth reading all of the way through, even if I don't agree with them. But the fact is, blogs containing "ranting monolgues of insults" are two-a-penny and I got about halfway through the second article before being completely bored with the whole thing.
Actually, I have found Open Source developers very receptive to new ideas and suggestions for improvements.
Unfortunately, the real problem is that most of the world has come to accept that you buy a piece of software, it may need a patch before it's usable (in the case of many games) or may have 200 features you don't need and doesn't have the one you really do need. Therefore, they sit there, moan and do nothing - or approach developers in the wrong way by saying "Your software is shit because it doesn't do X" instead of explaining clearly what the issue actually is.
Incidentally, I hate to piss on your "linuxhaters" firework, but have you actually bothered to take a look at the sheer amount of Open Source software that runs on Windows and every other OS out there? And have you actually tried any of it? And when it hasn't done what you want it to do, have you bothered to actually email the developers and explained to them nicely why it doesn't do what you need it to do?
Why is it obviously a Linux troll? Why not an aggrieved ex-Microsoft developer who got sacked? Or an OS X user? Or even Steve Jobs himself?
Let me tell you something. I use Linux most of the time and I LIKE XP!!! Why? Because it fills in some of the gaps Linux doesn't currently by letting me play a few games and use a few applications on Windows that don't exist yet on Linux. Yes, I'd love to be in a position to use Linux only but having both means that all I want to use PCs for is there - so it is the next best thing.
Do I care that there aren't more people using Linux than Windows? No. Because it makes bugger all difference to me using Linux for stuff I need it to do.
Oh, and guess what? When my teenage niece drops her Windows XP PC round to my house because she needs her geeky uncle to fix it, I do actually reload XP on it for her rather than sticking Ubuntu on it and launching into a monologue about how wonderful Open Source is.
So please don't tar us all with the same brush - a lot of us do have the intelligence to use what's best to get a job done quickly without giving a shit who it's made by.
Mac usability is what it is BECAUSE Steve Jobs spends a huge amount of his time browbeating his staff over just such sorts of details
Answer me one question - why is Mac usability to you any different than Linux usability to me? Or indeed Windows XP usability to my missus?
You Apple people endlessly portray Macs and OS X as the final answer in operating systems but the FACTS are that it comes a long way behind Windows as the second most used OS in the USA and probably third behind Linux everywhere else in the world. So, just like Linux, it is NOT what most people want to use at this current point in time, probably because, similarly to Linux, it doesn't support all the applications and games people want.
And let me just add that MY definition of "usability" is that I WANT to work in the command line occasionally so I can write all manner of powerful scripts for doing all the automation I need to - a closed OS where this aspect is hidden from me is precisely what I would define as UNUSABLE.
I personally do not care whether Linux is the first, second or twenty fifth most used OS in the world, I will still use it for what I need it to do. And if OS X does it for you, then use it with my blessing - just PLEASE stop preaching about its wonderfulness because if it was that good, a lot more people would be using it.
I find it difficult to believe anyone would buy any piece of hardware based on a piece of software that can run on it AND just about any other piece of hardware out there.
To be honest, even "he's buying a Macbook because it looks nice" would have been a far more convincing reason to go buy one...
So I read the leaked memo and, sure, Gates' own experiences with the Microsoft download site sounded particularly unpleasant.
But am I missing something because why does this have anything to do with Vista?
I don't use Vista, I don't even plan to upgrade to it and I use mostly Linux with a bit of XP. But I do frequently bite chunks out of Windows people who criticise Linux with arguments based on FUD and speculation, not fact.
So, in the same way, don't turn every criticism of Microsoft into one about Vista just for the sake of it. I can't criticise Vista because I don't use it and, yes, it's a pain having to wait for the sometimes slow MS web site to deliver updates and then expect you to reboot an XP machine when it probably doesn't need it - I can state that from experience.
But please keep on topic and if you're going to criticise something, then do so from a position of fact, not speculation or just because you're having a bad day at the office.
I'm not intending to get into a slanging match because although I mainly use Linux, I do also use XP and accept that, given the inherent design flaws in Windows, it works pretty much okay.
However, the last time I installed printers on Windows, it took me equally as long to get them up and working on Windows as it does with CUPS on Linux. One was a Samsung Laser printer, the other was a HP Deskjet - in the case of the HP one, I had to load the drivers from the supplied CD then about 200MB of other crap that HP put on there for automatic updates etc. Then it had to download another 50MB of stuff from HPs web site before I finally rebooted XP and the printer was there. The Samsung one took less time but still needed the CD to load the drivers.
I did the same thing in CUPS on Linux. I use Gentoo Linux, emerged CUPs, then a Samsung driver package, spent about 10 minutes configuring CUPs and then the printer was there. The same with the HP one.
Okay, I'm pretty expert with Linux but haven't played with CUPS much and didn't need to resort to any flashy command-line stuff to get either printer working.
So I don't know where you get this perception that everything "just works" in Windows - it doesn't. Some stuff does work immediately but then if you install a Linux distro with a modular kernel, then the same is true of that also.
By all means, have an opinion on Linux and don't use it if you don't want to - but please base your arguments on fact, not FUD.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, apologies. There is one guy who gives a shit, here's his IP address:
127.0.0.1
For gods sake, people, computers are nothing more than tools that are designed to get tasks done and provide amusement to you - nothing more than that. So go use whatever you need to use that best fits your needs, okay?
Personally, I use a bit of Linux and bit of XP and, combined, I can get a computer to do what I need it to do and as efficiently as I want to do it. Yes, Linux is great for some things and XP is great for others - so I don't need to give Vista a second thought and, even worse, ever even consider paying 30% over the odds for an Apple Mac purely because it looks pretty.
But most of the Vista people on Slashdot seem to constantly complain about it - which tells me that they've not made a considered choice before upgrading to it but have done so "on a whim" just to be the first person on their street to be using it.
And the people now bleating on about Server 2008 on the desktop are even worse, quite frankly...
Sorry, people, but life is far too short to worry about fashion statements. Yes, I'm a Linux geek and Open Source fanatic but even I know that THERE IS A REASON WHY SO MANY PEOPLE USE WINDOWS XP! It's because it works pretty well for what it is - SO WHY THE HELL CHANGE FROM IT?
And for some yet-to-be-discovered reason, as soon as a particular piece of music starts playing on the TV, they strip to underwear, stockings & suspenders and either chase Benny Hill around a park or are themselves chased around a park by Benny Hill.
I thought everybody knew this?
But the fact is, I have two PDAs that are Windows based and for synchronising calendars and emails, for the moment it has to be Outlook and Activesync to do that.
I also spend a lot of time minimising the footprint of XP as much as possible - I truly hate with a passion the default XP UI but I've used "Classic Explorer" for years now & can live with that.
Then I get XPLite, strip out the MS-provided apps that I never use and stick on my favourite free stuff like VLC, Media Player Classic, Firefox, Notepad++, The Gimp and a few others. And once I've thrown PuTTY on, I can SSH to my home server wherever I can get a low bandwidth Internet connection if I need my shell prompt.
To be honest, I've always thought of a geek as someone who just tries to find the best software to do the job he/she needs to and there's plenty of free or Open Source apps on Linux and Windows that are useful tools to have.
Yes, Linux does most of the stuff I need to do with computers and one day it would be nice to be able to just use one OS - but XP fills the gaps quite well and apart from a bit of extra time administrating more OSes on my PCs, I'm pretty happy with my whole computing experience.
And despite us being a bit "backward" with our broadband speeds here in the UK, I could never see the same situation happening here.
At the moment, over here we have two types of broadband infrastructure - either the fibre "half-network" put in by NTL (now Virgin Media) which is okay provided that you live in the half of the country (by population, not geography) that has it, otherwise you have broadband over your existing copper telephone cable which ultimately BT (British Telecom) gets the initial line rental for, no matter who your ISP is.
It's only when that copper cable is connected to another ISP's equipment inside the BT telephone exchange that you then pay that ISP for the service - ultimately, any ISP is paying BT for the service, it's just that as ISPs they buy broadband services wholesale from BT so can then offer different tariffs.
So over here, if you wanted to "do it yourself", then you would just buy the bandwidth from BT, stick a box or two in their exchange, and either put in your own (very expensive) cabled network or (cheaper) wireless network to people's homes.
Yes, we do have problems with legacy copper cabling over here which means that high speed Internet access will be a long time coming but ultimately the privatisation of the Post Office into BT some years ago has been a success story all round - because telecoms over here is one of those industries where there is true competition, the consumer has ultimately benefited from better prices.
"Vell, zats survey zese zings happen!"
...you have not paid your monthly MS subscription - here's a blank hard disk back.
Who needs "high tech detection" with some good old "low tech prevention"?
Oh, right. So it was nothing to do with the fact that maybe Microsoft offered him a higher salary then? I just throw that one in.
Personally, I don't give a shit & fail to see why this is news, even if programmers were leaving Microsoft for Google.
Maybe if I ask Slashdot nicely, they'll take a look through their posting logs and reveal your IP address or even you Slashdot account details (if you have one).
Then, unable to cower behind your AC status, you will shit yourself for fear of being exposed and the need for toilet paper will thus be negated as your underpants will have served the purpose.
Oh, and before you ask, I don't follow any organised religions - but if some other people do, then I'm tolerant enough to let them get on with it and not try to incite the same type of religious hatred that obviously seems to give you & few other extremists their jollies.
Essentially the keychain allows you to generate the response (as a one-time password) based on being given a specific seed number.
Incidentally, the problem I have with this system isn't so much the mechanics of it but the fact that if everyone starts using them, it becomes unmanageable for the poor user.
I'm already seeing this over here in the UK where I have online banking with two banks here. Both have now sent me a small calculator-like device that I put my card into, enter my pin number and the seed number in order to get a response number to allow me to authenticate in order to do online transfers.
Although I can view my accounts without needing the "calculator", if I want the facility to transfer money no matter where I go, then I have to take these things with me. (Although, in reality, I've not yet tried to see if I can use both cards in one of them on the basis that although they look slightly different physically, they may have the same circuitry inside.)
If by "Open Source zealot" you're implying that I won't or never pay for software, then I'm afraid I'll need to put my hand down again. Nope, I don't buy much commercial application software because I can do must stuff I need to in OSS software but, on Windows XP, I am a registered user of a number of applications that don't have an equivalent in OSS - plus I can 100% GUARANTEE YOU that you will never find an unlicensed or cracked piece of software (okay, maybe a no CD crack or two for games I've bought) on any of the computers I own.
So you don't like OSS software? Fine, don't use it then. What's the problem? It's not as though it cost you anything apart from a bit of your time to try it and not like it.
But I'm sorry to tell you that by keeping my options open, doing some stuff with Linux and some with XP so that I use an appropriate tool just to get a computing job done as quickly as possible, I'm pretty happy with my overall computing experience. So I'm afraid the only "losers" I can think of are those that have lost their noses, after cutting them off "to spite their faces" by refusing to use what can be some great, free tools.
Erm, who's the "zealot" again?
I can, it's called Zimbabwe.
I should say I am more of an OS & LANs guy rather than a WAN guy but your post above was useful because I noticed the very same thing when I was doing a two-ended packet sniff a while ago - namely that the TCP Window size had changed somewhere en route. I could see it had changed from the traces & although it wasn't relevant to the problem I was looking at, I couldn't figure out why it would need to be changed - but your post explains why so thanks.
However, there are a couple of things to bear in mind before you go to any expense in buying a bandwidth reservation device.
1. Yes, prioritisation of VoIP packets is part of the way to go but even though you set up prioritisation at your end of things, how do you know your ISP or any of the interconnecting providers are going to preserve that prioritisation? Routers do weird and wonderful things with packet queues and remarking packets such that the priority you sent the packet with is not necessarily the same the far end receives it with.
2. Bandwidth reservation is all fine and dandy as long as reserved ALONG THE ENTIRE PATH of the call. Sure, your broadband connection is theoretically the lowest bandwidth part of the path - but what happens if your ISP hits a congested period?
With point 1., you can at least packet sniff both ends to see if the prioritisation is preserved but unless your ISP can reserve bandwidth for VoIP, I'm not sure that a router that does it at your end only is going to be much of a guarantee of overall service.
Even if they could buy tickets, just how many people in China (or indeed in my homeland for the 2012 London Olympics) are going to want to pay the extortionate ticket prices for any of the events?
These days, it's all about corporate sponsorship. It's about company boxes and "jollies on expenses" so that salesman can take big clients to events in order to close huge deals and absolutely bugger all to do with the normal man in the street.
I don't know how the Olympic stadiums and campuses were financed by the Chinese but here in the UK it's all being financed through council taxes paid by ordinary people - it's already many times over budget and, with usual British efficiency, there will surely be a huge great rush to complete it in time.
So please don't confuse the Olympics with conscience and real people - in China, you can guarantee that the Chinese government will have conveniently placed happy smiling and flag-waving Chinese people whenever a camera points itself at a crowd and that big corporations will be out there in force making money.
So they gave me the key and I started a slipstreamed build with Service Pack 3. When it came to entering the key, it wouldn't accept it so I compared it to the key I knew already and it was identical.
So I started again using a trusty SP2 slipstreamed build, got to the same point and it wouldn't accept the key again.
I rang my IT guy and he told me I needed to enter the key on an XP machine with either SP1 or no Service Pack and once the registration had gone okay, I could then put SP2 or SP3 on. It wasn't deliberate on his part, I know the guy well and he just assumed I knew that I had to do a non-SP2 or SP3 build first.
Anyway, with several hours wasted, it worked exactly as he said on the third attempt.
So yes, I too have wasted far too much time mucking around with the Microsoft license key issues also.
PS. Your blog sucks. If you actually rid yourself of some of the emotion and venom, I get the feeling that there might be one or two intelligent arguments in there that would make it worth reading all of the way through, even if I don't agree with them. But the fact is, blogs containing "ranting monolgues of insults" are two-a-penny and I got about halfway through the second article before being completely bored with the whole thing.
Unfortunately, the real problem is that most of the world has come to accept that you buy a piece of software, it may need a patch before it's usable (in the case of many games) or may have 200 features you don't need and doesn't have the one you really do need. Therefore, they sit there, moan and do nothing - or approach developers in the wrong way by saying "Your software is shit because it doesn't do X" instead of explaining clearly what the issue actually is.
Incidentally, I hate to piss on your "linuxhaters" firework, but have you actually bothered to take a look at the sheer amount of Open Source software that runs on Windows and every other OS out there? And have you actually tried any of it? And when it hasn't done what you want it to do, have you bothered to actually email the developers and explained to them nicely why it doesn't do what you need it to do?
I repeat!!!
There is a Mac fanboi with mod points!!!
So please say nice things about Steve Jobs and Apple until he's used them all up.
Let me tell you something. I use Linux most of the time and I LIKE XP!!! Why? Because it fills in some of the gaps Linux doesn't currently by letting me play a few games and use a few applications on Windows that don't exist yet on Linux. Yes, I'd love to be in a position to use Linux only but having both means that all I want to use PCs for is there - so it is the next best thing.
Do I care that there aren't more people using Linux than Windows? No. Because it makes bugger all difference to me using Linux for stuff I need it to do.
Oh, and guess what? When my teenage niece drops her Windows XP PC round to my house because she needs her geeky uncle to fix it, I do actually reload XP on it for her rather than sticking Ubuntu on it and launching into a monologue about how wonderful Open Source is.
So please don't tar us all with the same brush - a lot of us do have the intelligence to use what's best to get a job done quickly without giving a shit who it's made by.
Answer me one question - why is Mac usability to you any different than Linux usability to me? Or indeed Windows XP usability to my missus?
You Apple people endlessly portray Macs and OS X as the final answer in operating systems but the FACTS are that it comes a long way behind Windows as the second most used OS in the USA and probably third behind Linux everywhere else in the world. So, just like Linux, it is NOT what most people want to use at this current point in time, probably because, similarly to Linux, it doesn't support all the applications and games people want.
And let me just add that MY definition of "usability" is that I WANT to work in the command line occasionally so I can write all manner of powerful scripts for doing all the automation I need to - a closed OS where this aspect is hidden from me is precisely what I would define as UNUSABLE.
I personally do not care whether Linux is the first, second or twenty fifth most used OS in the world, I will still use it for what I need it to do. And if OS X does it for you, then use it with my blessing - just PLEASE stop preaching about its wonderfulness because if it was that good, a lot more people would be using it.
To be honest, even "he's buying a Macbook because it looks nice" would have been a far more convincing reason to go buy one...
But am I missing something because why does this have anything to do with Vista?
I don't use Vista, I don't even plan to upgrade to it and I use mostly Linux with a bit of XP. But I do frequently bite chunks out of Windows people who criticise Linux with arguments based on FUD and speculation, not fact.
So, in the same way, don't turn every criticism of Microsoft into one about Vista just for the sake of it. I can't criticise Vista because I don't use it and, yes, it's a pain having to wait for the sometimes slow MS web site to deliver updates and then expect you to reboot an XP machine when it probably doesn't need it - I can state that from experience.
But please keep on topic and if you're going to criticise something, then do so from a position of fact, not speculation or just because you're having a bad day at the office.
However, the last time I installed printers on Windows, it took me equally as long to get them up and working on Windows as it does with CUPS on Linux. One was a Samsung Laser printer, the other was a HP Deskjet - in the case of the HP one, I had to load the drivers from the supplied CD then about 200MB of other crap that HP put on there for automatic updates etc. Then it had to download another 50MB of stuff from HPs web site before I finally rebooted XP and the printer was there. The Samsung one took less time but still needed the CD to load the drivers.
I did the same thing in CUPS on Linux. I use Gentoo Linux, emerged CUPs, then a Samsung driver package, spent about 10 minutes configuring CUPs and then the printer was there. The same with the HP one.
Okay, I'm pretty expert with Linux but haven't played with CUPS much and didn't need to resort to any flashy command-line stuff to get either printer working.
So I don't know where you get this perception that everything "just works" in Windows - it doesn't. Some stuff does work immediately but then if you install a Linux distro with a modular kernel, then the same is true of that also.
By all means, have an opinion on Linux and don't use it if you don't want to - but please base your arguments on fact, not FUD.