Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> 
> Most LOL-inducing moments: Standing in PC World and looking at the "Why
> Mac?" sticker on the shelf.
> 
> "#7: It runs Micro$oft Office."

Yep. Linux, *BSD, Irix, AIX and Solaris doesn't.

To be fair, I haven't tried MSO-over-Wine, but...

> Uh, dude, isn't the whole *point* of a Mac to get *away* from M$
> products? :-P

It's one point - and works here too (Win+MSO is more MS than OSX+MSO).

> Anyway, whatever. I doubt running highly compute-intensive applications
> in Parallels is a good idea...

Possibly, I haven't tested Parallels actually. Over Xen
compute-intensive applications work nicely.

>> No, you'll first need to find out what's it like and then decide if it's
>> what you'll want.
> 
> Heh. Well. No obvious way to do that...

You find that Apple store again and start clicking. ;)

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
   http://www.zbxt.net
      aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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>>> From Amazon the non-OEM non-upgrade 32-bit versions
>>>




>>
>> You'd be silly not to buy the OEM version though...
>
> I agree, except the point is these are the real prices Microsoft are 
> trying to sell their operating system for. You're essentially saying it's 
> silly to buy that suit from the actual store when you can get it cheaper 
> in their 'factory' store except what is the cheaper price based upon?

Actually I read an interesting article the other day about things like this, 
where you get certain groups of people to pay more for essentially the same 
product.  Like when cinemas charge kids and OAPs half-price, what they're 
actually doing is charging people who have a job and can afford it double. 
Seems the same with MS here, they're just charging people who aren't geeks a 
lot more.  Which kind of makes sense, as the geeks are the ones most likely 
to switch to another OS...

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On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:50:04 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> [Last I heard - and I don't have any hard data for this - the guys you
>>> named aren't exactly short of cash.]
>> 
>> They're not, but what does that have to do with hardware support? 
>> Dell, HP, IBM/Lenovo all sell machines with Linux pre-installed on
>> them.  It would see that this would be hard to do if hardware support
>> "wasn't there yet".
> 
> Well, if you decide exactly what hardware goes in, you can select only
> supported hardware. Easy. :-D

As a consumer, I don't, though.  The vendor builds the machine with 
functioning hardware.

However, here at home, I have:

1 IBM Thinkpad t42p, running OpenSUSE 10.3 (work-provided)
1 Compaq EVO desktop, running OpenSUSE 10.1 (mine, not upgraded yet)
1 Dell C640 laptop, running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (work-provided)
1 HP Pavilion s7727c, running openSUSE 10.3 (mine)
1 custom-built AMD system, complete with external 1TB storage device, 
internal IDE drives, off-brand video card and USB 2.0 controller, running 
Open Enterprise Server 1 (which is SLES9 + additional software)
1 Compaq Armada M700 with an off-brand PCMCIA wireless adapter, running 
OpenSUSE 10.1 (my wife's, not yet upgraded)
1 custom-built gaming machine running Windows XP (my kid's machine, he's 
just upgraded it again)

Additionally, I have an Epson P1660 scanner that's connected to one of 
these machines (the OES box, I think, but I'd have to chase the cables 
down) and a Deskjet 882C (connected to the Evo via USB), both of which 
are accessible from any machine on the network.  That's right, network 
scanning, baby (thank you saned!).

Now of all of these machines, which one has the most problems, do you 
think?

Yep, it's the WINDOWS machine.  Ken's had to reinstall the OS at least 3 
times now because of BSODs, driver issues, and other problems.  If it 
weren't for gaming (as the games he plays don't run on Linux), he'd be 
running openSUSE as well.

My wife has run Linux on her laptop since the day we got it, and hasn't 
had any serious problems with it.  "Ah, but she has you to fix anything 
she has trouble with", I hear you say.  Yes, but I can't remember the 
last time I did anything on her machine other than shut it off at night.  
She's pretty non-technical, but she's managed to figure out how to use 
it, and she's shown some of our neighbors who were curious about Linux.

"Linux is difficult to use" is simply a myth.  5 years ago I would've 
agreed with you.  I see real differences in usability between GNOME 2.4 
(which runs on the OES box) and GNOME 2.20 (which is on my 10.3 boxes).

"Linux lacks hardware support" is also a myth.  Sure, you need to do some 
research before buying your hardware to make sure there are drivers 
available.  Consumers do research on all sorts of things they buy (cars, 
houses, stereos, etc.) but expect to not have to find out what the best 
hardware is when buying a computer?  Sorry, I don't buy that.

Jim

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On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:51:56 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>>> It's still not [yet] as easy to use.
>> 
>> Wrong.
> 
> "Easy to use" is highly subjective.

Yes, but at first you do need to make an effort.  Also note that there is 
a difference between "easy to use" and "works exactly the same way 
Windows does".  Most people confuse the two, and say it's not easy to use 
because it isn't Windows.

>>> Most hardware companies don't supply drivers for it, and refuse to
>>> hand over the information required for anybody else to write those
>>> drivers.
>> 
>> Wrong; this used to be the case, but not any more.
> 
> It's improving, certainly. I don't think it's there yet though.

See my other post.  Also have a look at Greg Kroah-Hartmann's Linux 
Driver Project.

>>> If you're into gaming, forget it. Almost no big developers target that
>>> platform.
>> 
>> Hmmm, Unreal Tournament III runs on it natively, and Cedega does a very
>> nice job for non-Linux games.  Again, maybe 5 years ago this was the
>> case, but these days there are plenty of game developers writing to
>> Linux.  It's not on par with Windows, true.  But it's improved greatly.
> 
> Sure. It's changing. (Doesn't the latest Quake engine also run there?)
> My point is that it isn't there yet.

Just depends on what you want from a gaming standpoint.

I use Linux every day for work.  I'm using it right now.  I've used it 
for 10 years (from when it was actively user-hostile).  I also have used 
Windows extensively, and while I dislike Windows, if it were the optimum 
choice for me, I'd use it.  Given the choice, I'd use Linux any day of 
the week and twice on Sunday.

My HP Pavilion workstation came with Vista.  What a load of horse crap 
that is.

Jim

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On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:17:15 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> is a pitty, because from what I've heard, if Apple did an office suite
> it would really 0wn...)
> 
> Presumably I can run OpenOffice instead though?

Yes.  In fact, there's a version of OpenOffice (I forget the name, but 
it's listed on freshmeat.net) designed specifically for the Mac that 
integrates better than standard OpenOffice does on that platform.

Jim

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Jim Henderson escribió:
> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:17:15 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> 
>> is a pitty, because from what I've heard, if Apple did an office suite
>> it would really 0wn...)
>>
>> Presumably I can run OpenOffice instead though?
> 
> Yes.  In fact, there's a version of OpenOffice (I forget the name, but 
> it's listed on freshmeat.net) designed specifically for the Mac that 
> integrates better than standard OpenOffice does on that platform.
> 

Heh, have a look at other posts on the thread!

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On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:49:23 +0100, scott wrote:

>> Well I don't live in America, do I? :-P
> 
> Didn't they take over Asda in the UK?

Yep.  And I hope Asda treats their employees better than they (Wallmart)
do over here.

Jim

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On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:58:58 -0500, Warp wrote:

>> Same way you do for Linux errors. You google the text of the error
>> message, or search for it on MSDN.
> 
>   Yes, like once I tried to install some modem drivers into a WinXP
> system, and at the end of the installation it said "failed to install
> driver", nothing more, nothing less. Not a single hint about why it
> failed.
> 
>   Now, try to google without an internet connection because you just
> failed to install the driver necessary for the internet connection.

Really frustrating experience here - my stepson's machine (during one of 
it's recent rebuilds) needed to be re-activated.  Problem is, the 
wireless card driver wasn't yet installed.  Do you think you could 
*possibly* install a wireless driver prior to activation?  Hah, he had to 
pack the whole thing into a different part of the house in order to plug 
it into an ethernet jack (older house, we don't have a wired network 
setup other than here at my desk).  I was *really* surprised that he 
didn't get the grace period after reinstalling the OS (reinstalled over 
the prior installation, apparently that means you have to activate again 
- which also means finding the damned license key again).

Jim

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On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:27:18 -0200, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Jim Henderson escribió:
>> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:17:15 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>> 
>>> is a pitty, because from what I've heard, if Apple did an office suite
>>> it would really 0wn...)
>>>
>>> Presumably I can run OpenOffice instead though?
>> 
>> Yes.  In fact, there's a version of OpenOffice (I forget the name, but
>> it's listed on freshmeat.net) designed specifically for the Mac that
>> integrates better than standard OpenOffice does on that platform.
>> 
>> 
> Heh, have a look at other posts on the thread!

Yeah, saw that after my post.  That figures. :-)

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Heh. Reminds me of my first attempt to use Perl for CGI. I tried to run 
>> it, and it didn't work. After a while I gave up waiting and closed IE. I 
>> did some more poking and prodding of the code before the lead tech came 
>> over and said "hey, you've using up 100% CPU on the webserver".
> 
>   Web servers which are configured properly will automatically kill
> any CGI process which is taking too long to terminate. Apparently
> that one wasn't.

Well, you know, small university web server, 4 technical staff 
supporting the entire IT infrastructure... Scary thing is, it's web 
accessible. [Or was back then anyway.]

One would also expect it to not allow a single session to comsume 100% 
CPU...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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