I read through the Popular Mechanics article and one thing it didn't mention was that if the U.S. was to use solar, wind, and/or nuclear power to create hydrogen to use in cars the dependence on Middle East oil would be greatly reduced; the article said cars accounted for 2/3 of the oil usage in the U.S. This would have many benefits besides just purely economic. After all, many of the terrorist's financers made their money in oil (practically the only Middle East export of value).
Damn, I just bought a copy of MS Virtual PC off newegg.com about 4 or 5 months ago for something like $30 or 40. Go figure, I resist the urge to pirate and buy it legit and then a few months later MS gives it away free. Maybe they're release the source code in a few more months? (It's a good product, though. Espicially if you're just trying to run another MS OS like Windows Server 2003.)
I wasn't comparing xgl to Vista, I was comparing Novell Linux 10 with xgl to Vista, graphically. I don't know how Novell Linux does USB support and all that other stuff you said, I just watched a demo of the UI features. And I wasn't really defending Linux so much as saying that everyone will adapt Vista within a few years after it's release while the Mac lovers will call it a ripoff of Mac OS X. I'm not sure why you got so caught up on the xgl mention. Apparantly MS lovers get so sick of Windows bashing that they see it even where it's not. I'll save my Windows bashing for the securtiy topics and not go off about it's UI.
Vista won't fail, it doesn't really matter if it's far better than XP or not. Will Vista be more stable or secure than XP? Probably not. Will that matter? Probably not. It will look different and all the PC manufactures will preinstall it on their machines, everyone that buys a new PC will get and use it, and within several years after it's release it will be used by the majority of PC users (since the majority will have bought a new PC by then). Meanwhile the Mac lovers will call it a cheap ripoff of Mac OS X (which it probably is) and the Linux users will say you can get that stuff for free (watch the demo of Novell Linux 10 with xgl, it demonstrates all the cool windows effects MS is saying will be in Vista, and then some). But the majority of PC users won't know or care. To them it's a new feature when it shows up in MS Windows. The only thing that will break the cycle of everyone adapting MS's newest OS is the ability to effortlessly run Windows apps on Linux, or Mac. It's sad but true.
The only way to not pay for MS Windows is to order your hardware components and custom build your PC, then install your OS of choice. But not too many PC users do this and most, I suspect, of those that do are gamers. Gamers will, of course, run Windows since that's what most video games are written for. So yeah, as long as MS Windows comes preinstalled on all the major brand name prebuilt PCs MS will maintain that 90% desktop market share. This will only change when companies like Dell offer customers the option of prebuilt PCs with SuSe (or some other Linux distro) preinstalled.
It seems to me in many respects MS is playing catchup to OSS. The tabbed browsing in IE 7 (that's been in every other browser in the last year or two), the all grahpical installation of WinVista (the two Linux distros I've installed, Mandriva and SuSe, had all grahpical installations), the interface in WinVista (looks kinda like KDE or Mac OS X), and so on. Maybe WinVista will actually have a decent partioning tool during it's installation like Mandriva and SuSe do.
So yeah, MS does have things to learn from OSS (and the Mac).
This post will probably incite a flamefest from the MS Windows apologists that hang around message boards but that's not my intent, just my observations from using Linux and MS Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot myspace. Unfiltered access to myspace (and for me Slashdot (I'm actually at work as I write this)) is also critical.
I read through the Popular Mechanics article and one thing it didn't mention was that if the U.S. was to use solar, wind, and/or nuclear power to create hydrogen to use in cars the dependence on Middle East oil would be greatly reduced; the article said cars accounted for 2/3 of the oil usage in the U.S. This would have many benefits besides just purely economic. After all, many of the terrorist's financers made their money in oil (practically the only Middle East export of value).
Mentioning RMS and Linus Torvalds in the same post; this is going to start a flame war ...
Damn, I just bought a copy of MS Virtual PC off newegg.com about 4 or 5 months ago for something like $30 or 40. Go figure, I resist the urge to pirate and buy it legit and then a few months later MS gives it away free. Maybe they're release the source code in a few more months? (It's a good product, though. Espicially if you're just trying to run another MS OS like Windows Server 2003.)
I wasn't comparing xgl to Vista, I was comparing Novell Linux 10 with xgl to Vista, graphically. I don't know how Novell Linux does USB support and all that other stuff you said, I just watched a demo of the UI features. And I wasn't really defending Linux so much as saying that everyone will adapt Vista within a few years after it's release while the Mac lovers will call it a ripoff of Mac OS X. I'm not sure why you got so caught up on the xgl mention. Apparantly MS lovers get so sick of Windows bashing that they see it even where it's not. I'll save my Windows bashing for the securtiy topics and not go off about it's UI.
Vista won't fail, it doesn't really matter if it's far better than XP or not. Will Vista be more stable or secure than XP? Probably not. Will that matter? Probably not. It will look different and all the PC manufactures will preinstall it on their machines, everyone that buys a new PC will get and use it, and within several years after it's release it will be used by the majority of PC users (since the majority will have bought a new PC by then). Meanwhile the Mac lovers will call it a cheap ripoff of Mac OS X (which it probably is) and the Linux users will say you can get that stuff for free (watch the demo of Novell Linux 10 with xgl, it demonstrates all the cool windows effects MS is saying will be in Vista, and then some). But the majority of PC users won't know or care. To them it's a new feature when it shows up in MS Windows. The only thing that will break the cycle of everyone adapting MS's newest OS is the ability to effortlessly run Windows apps on Linux, or Mac. It's sad but true.
The only way to not pay for MS Windows is to order your hardware components and custom build your PC, then install your OS of choice. But not too many PC users do this and most, I suspect, of those that do are gamers. Gamers will, of course, run Windows since that's what most video games are written for. So yeah, as long as MS Windows comes preinstalled on all the major brand name prebuilt PCs MS will maintain that 90% desktop market share. This will only change when companies like Dell offer customers the option of prebuilt PCs with SuSe (or some other Linux distro) preinstalled.
It seems to me in many respects MS is playing catchup to OSS. The tabbed browsing in IE 7 (that's been in every other browser in the last year or two), the all grahpical installation of WinVista (the two Linux distros I've installed, Mandriva and SuSe, had all grahpical installations), the interface in WinVista (looks kinda like KDE or Mac OS X), and so on. Maybe WinVista will actually have a decent partioning tool during it's installation like Mandriva and SuSe do. So yeah, MS does have things to learn from OSS (and the Mac). This post will probably incite a flamefest from the MS Windows apologists that hang around message boards but that's not my intent, just my observations from using Linux and MS Windows.