Yet another Microsoft vs Apple



  • I'm neither a Apple, not a Microsoft zealot, and I realise of course that Paul Thurrott is naturally biased towards MSFT, but this was a bit of a WTF moment:

    http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista.asp

     
    "Apple and its supporters will tell you that Apple spent the past five years churning out major new Mac OS X versions while Microsoft fumbled around trying to finish Windows Vista. This is completely untrue. Though I use and respect Mac OS X, virtually every version Apple has shipped since 2001 has been a minor update, akin to a Windows 98 SE or Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Meanwhile, Microsoft has pushed an amazing variety of Windows versions out the door since 2001. Some highlights include Windows XP Embedded, Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), Windows XP MCE 2004, Windows XP MCE 2005, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (TPC), Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. It has also shipped major updates to its digital media software, including three major updates to Windows Media Player, a major IE release--IE 7--major new client-based security applications and services, including Windows Defender and Windows Live OneCare. And this is just a partial list. The point here is simple: Microsoft hasn't sat still, contrary to the FUD you read online."

     



  • Of course Microsoft has been very active; they've been spinning their wheels in the mud an awful lot.



  • [quote user="donazea"] The point here is simple:
    Microsoft hasn't sat still, contrary to the FUD you read online."

    [/quote]


    Oh, no, they've been very active. It takes a lot of effort to drop announced features from your upcoming software. That code doesn't remove itself! (Windows Vista: XP has never looked so good.)



  • [quote user="donazea"]

    Windows XP Media Center Edition
    (MCE), Windows XP MCE 2004, Windows XP MCE 2005

    [/quote]

    There was more than one?!
    Who uses it anyways? I'm not sure if it's possible to buy it in my country, even if I'd like to.
     



  • [quote user="TehFreek"]Of course Microsoft has been very active; they've been spinning their wheels in the mud an awful lot.
    [/quote]

    Shouldn't that be "spinning their wheels in the FUD"?

     



  • [quote user="viraptor"]

    There was more than one?!
    Who uses it anyways? I'm not sure if it's possible to buy it in my country, even if I'd like to.
     

    [/quote]

    I use it. But only because it came installed on the machine. I have no intention of hooking it up to
    my cable or TV. As a general purpose OS, it doesn't seem different from regular XP at all.



  • The acronym FUD is overused in my opinion.  It seems to be the most popular tag on /. these days.



  • [quote user="viraptor"][quote user="donazea"]

    Windows XP Media Center Edition
    (MCE), Windows XP MCE 2004, Windows XP MCE 2005

    [/quote]

    There was more than one?!
    Who uses it anyways? I'm not sure if it's possible to buy it in my country, even if I'd like to.
     

    [/quote]

    You can't buy it anywhere.  It's only available to OEMs.  So you can buy a PC with MCE on it, but you cannot purchase MCE.

     My mother-in-law actually recently purchased an MCE box.  The software's really quite nice.
     



  • [quote user="Anonononymous"][quote user="viraptor"]

    There was more than one?!
    Who uses it anyways? I'm not sure if it's possible to buy it in my country, even if I'd like to.
     

    [/quote]

    I use it. But only because it came installed on the machine. I have no intention of hooking it up to
    my cable or TV. As a general purpose OS, it doesn't seem different from regular XP at all.
    [/quote]

    XP Home SP2 with bells and whistles. IIRC, the original MCE was XP Pro only because key stuff required by MCE didn't come with XP Home (something to do with Remote Desktop?? Can't even remember now).

    What I do recall was the ensuing hilarity relating to the fact that the original MCE was more than a bit crippled.

     

    RE: Overuse of FUD on /.

    isn't /. all about FUD?
     



  • [quote user="Joe Luser"]

    [quote user="TehFreek"]Of course Microsoft has been very active; they've been spinning their wheels in the mud an awful lot.
    [/quote]

    Shouldn't that be "spinning their wheels in the FUD"?

     

    [/quote]

     

    LOL! This is so well said. I love the irony and the wit on this site. 



  • Yeah, so, wake me up when Apple releases a tablet product, or when you can run OS X on embedded devices.  Apple have a better desktop OS, but that's basically all they have (ignoring the iPod, which is just a media player), while Microsoft's product line is really quite diverse.

    Funny how the Apple fanatics seem to gloss over that. Seems some people just aren't interested in evaluating the competition fairly.



  • Oh come on!

    Windows Embedded vs. ???

    Windows CE (multiple releases) vs. ???

    Office 2003, 2007 vs. ???

     

    Microsoft may be bashed for many things, but Apple is nowhere when compared to variety of products released by MS. Vista is lacking significant features when compared to XP, but are you missing anything in XP so much? I don't.
     



  • @Iago said:

    Yeah, so, wake me up when Apple releases a tablet product, or when you can run OS X on embedded devices.  Apple have a better desktop OS, but that's basically all they have (ignoring the iPod, which is just a media player), while Microsoft's product line is really quite diverse.

    Funny how the Apple fanatics seem to gloss over that. Seems some people just aren't interested in evaluating the competition fairly.

    Not to mention that Apple only has to design their products to work against a very small subset of hardware that Windows has to support. It's easy to churn out new operating systems when the product support requirements are a fraction of the competitors. Wake me up when Apple releases Mac OS X that will work on any computer out of the box, not just what they want it to work on...



  • [quote user="Iago"]Yeah, so, wake me up when Apple releases a tablet product, or when you can run OS X on embedded devices.[/quote]

     But I don't want Aqua on my cell phone. I use my phone for making calls. How hard a concept is that?



  • [quote user="Iago"]

    Yeah, so, wake me up when Apple releases a tablet product, or when you can run OS X on embedded devices.  Apple have a better desktop OS, but that's basically all they have (ignoring the iPod, which is just a media player), while Microsoft's product line is really quite diverse.

    [/quote]

     Ah, "never mind the quality, feel the width"? I don't think anyone here cares how many versions of Windows or Office have been released. The fact that gets in everyone's craw is that Microsoft manage to dominate many markets with second-rate products.

    You are the only one who brought Apple back into the discussion. Personally I don't think they're much better. 

    [quote user="Iago"]

    Funny how the Apple fanatics seem to gloss over that. Seems some people just aren't interested in evaluating the competition fairly.

    [/quote]

    Some of us have evaluated the competition and come to the conclusion that it's all shite. Take your corporate apologetics and get out of here. Come back when you're willing to talk about the technology. 



  • [quote user="freeplatypus"]

    Oh come on!

    Windows Embedded vs. ???

    Windows CE (multiple releases) vs. ???

    Office 2003, 2007 vs. ???

     

    Microsoft may be bashed for many things, but Apple is nowhere when compared to variety of products released by MS. Vista is lacking significant features when compared to XP, but are you missing anything in XP so much? I don't.
     

    [/quote]

    Yes, nothing excuses the poor quality of a product like the existence of other products worked on by entirely different development teams.

    If your argument held any water, then it would actually be a much better argument for Microsoft to stop bothering with products like Windows CE, Windows Embedded, and the Xbox and focus on the mainstream version of Windows, since obviously the poor quality of Windows Vista is a result of all this fiddling with other systems.

    [quote user="nuclear_eclipse"][quote user="Iago"]
    Yeah, so, wake me up when Apple releases a tablet product, or when you can run OS X on embedded devices.  Apple have a better desktop OS, but that's basically all they have (ignoring the iPod, which is just a media player), while Microsoft's product line is really quite diverse.
    Funny how the Apple fanatics seem to gloss over that. Seems some people just aren't interested in evaluating the competition fairly.
    [/quote] Not to mention that Apple only has to design their products to work against a very small subset of hardware that Windows has to support. It's easy to churn out new operating systems when the product support requirements are a fraction of the competitors. Wake me up when Apple releases Mac OS X that will work on any computer out of the box, not just what they want it to work on...[/quote]

    Ooh, another stunning argument. Apple was smart enough not to want to provide support for every yahoo who buys unidentified brand-X junk off the shelf, and that's a flaw? Windows got its reputation for driver conflicts and similar nuisances precisely because Microsoft did that. Not allowing Mac OS X to run on any old motherboard is a deliberate decision, not a coincidence. (And in point of fact, you could probably run OS X quite happily on any hardware that Darwin runs on, a fact which Apple's critics have often pointed out.)

    As for Microsoft's diverse product line: the Xbox is sold at a loss, even now. The cell phone market is also a loss, although Microsoft may not be taking the loss themselves (the cell phone manufacturers may be taking it instead). The Zune is sold at a loss. I suspect that, if you figured out how much time and effort went into Windows CE, you'd find that on average, it's sold at a loss, too. Basically, all these products you're so proud of are subsidized by Office and mainstream Windows. You'd better hope that Vista sells well, or Microsoft may suddenly find that it can't support all these deficit projects.

    (I've kind of wondered about that for some time now. Practically every new product Microsoft has done recently has been a loss. Do they have some sort of hyper-developed NIH syndrome -- "I just found out that someone, somewhere, is using a computer product that we aren't paid for! Quick, hire some developers so we can sell a competing product at a loss to break into the market!")



  • [quote user="The Vicar"]Ooh, another stunning argument. Apple was smart enough not to want to provide support for every yahoo who buys unidentified brand-X junk off the shelf, and that's a flaw? Windows got its reputation for driver conflicts and similar nuisances precisely because Microsoft did that. Not allowing Mac OS X to run on any old motherboard is a deliberate decision, not a coincidence. (And in point of fact, you could probably run OS X quite happily on any hardware that Darwin runs on, a fact which Apple's critics have often pointed out.)[/quote]

    Yes, Apple have definitely made a conscious decision not to allow their OS to run on any hardware but their own. They made that decision more than 20 years ago, and are still living by it today.

    However, it's because of that decision that Apple has only a very small share of the market. The PC has flourished because IBM allowed other manufacturers to produce "clone" hardware, driving costs down. This in turn created a market that could allow software companies to grow and flourish... Companies like Microsoft.



  • [quote user="eimaj2nz"]

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Ooh, another stunning argument. Apple was smart enough not to want to provide support for every yahoo who buys unidentified brand-X junk off the shelf, and that's a flaw? Windows got its reputation for driver conflicts and similar nuisances precisely because Microsoft did that. Not allowing Mac OS X to run on any old motherboard is a deliberate decision, not a coincidence. (And in point of fact, you could probably run OS X quite happily on any hardware that Darwin runs on, a fact which Apple's critics have often pointed out.)[/quote]

    Yes, Apple have definitely made a conscious decision not to allow their OS to run on any hardware but their own. They made that decision more than 20 years ago, and are still living by it today.

    However, it's because of that decision that Apple has only a very small share of the market. The PC has flourished because IBM allowed other manufacturers to produce "clone" hardware, driving costs down. This in turn created a market that could allow software companies to grow and flourish... Companies like Microsoft.

    [/quote]

    Actually, IBM fought like crazy to stop clones and lost because Microsoft's lawyers had outsmarted IBM in a big way when IBM contracted for MS-DOS. (Until that time, if you bought from IBM, you were locked into IBM hardware from that point onward because IBM owned everything and their documentation was largely on a need-to-know basis. Microsoft was clever enough to retain the rights to MS-DOS so they could resell it to clone makers. Although to be fair, IBM thought that PCs were a fad that would die away, and never expected there to be as much demand as it turned out there was.) (Microsoft kind of did the same thing on a lower level to Intel -- X86 clone chip makers like AMD would have had next to no demand if they had not been able to ship for Windows, yes?)

    As for flourishing software companies, give me some examples, please. Operating systems for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft. Office software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft. Server software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft (except, thank goodness, for Apache, but not on Windows). Games? Plenty of small players, but there's pressure to lock into Microsoft technology and release on Microsoft's Xbox. Anti-virus software? Still some competition, but Microsoft has just launched their product... I guess there's graphics and AV software, but that market is still vitally Mac-related, so it isn't a good example. The only way you can claim that software companies are "flourishing" under Windows is if you say "well, selling to a small segment of a huge market is okay", and that justifies Apple's decision with the Mac OS, so I presume you don't want to say that.



  • [quote user="The Vicar"]

    As for flourishing software companies, give me some examples, please. Operating systems for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft.[/quote]
     
    Linux usage is always on the up. Widespread home adoption will be driven by adoption by businesses, which is proceeding at a modest pace.
     
    Office software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft.
    Perhaps 
     
    Server software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft (except, thank goodness, for Apache, but not on Windows).
    Now you start bullshitting. Apache does run on windows, though why would you want to? Linux, Apache, My or Postgre ~SQL, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc. Samba has been found to be the best performance and most scalable windows file server, beating even MS' own efforts. Outlook certainly has competition. 
     
    Games? Plenty of small players, but there's pressure to lock into Microsoft technology and release on Microsoft's Xbox.
    Complete. Utter. Nonsense. On the contrary, the last generation of consoles saw an explosion of multi-platform games. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all provide major platforms, while the number of development studios is vast, even counting only releases that make it into the chart. Gaming is not and will never become as monopolised as the desktop OS market or offfice software is today.
     
    Anti-virus software? Still some competition, but Microsoft has just launched their product...
    And doubtless do an IE with it. Predatorialy price it to send the competition bust, then let it stagnate, buggy and feature poor.
    Though I find it hard to see MS eschewing the usual revenue model of charging for updated virus definitions, without which a scanner is worthless. But since they've got a tidy new source of money by saying you have to buy Vista again whenever you hardware upgrade, maybe that'll pay for free virus definitions.
     
    I guess there's graphics and AV software, but that market is still vitally Mac-related, so it isn't a good example.
    It's a very good example. MS haven't broken into the software market in that. Have they tried? I'm not sure myself.
     
    The only way you can claim that software companies are "flourishing" under Windows is if you say "well, selling to a small segment of a huge market is okay", and that justifies Apple's decision with the Mac OS, so I presume you don't want to say that.

    A smaller piece of a bigger pie indeed. Microsoft can certainly be credited with driving the widespread adoption of what has become the home computer of today. Though they have arguably at some point switching from being beneficial to other companies to being hostile.

    On of the unfortunate features of the software industry is it seems to promote monopoly in a way no other industry does. Because too many users are unwilling to find their way around a different interface to what they're used to. They learn one thing, and stick with it. There's not enough standardisation. The average Jo(e) is using one of the most complex things around, yet often gets no special training on how to use it.
     



  • [quote user="The Vicar"]Office software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft.[/quote]

    *coff* OpenOffice *coff coff* WordPerfect

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Server software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft (except, thank goodness, for Apache, but not on Windows).[/quote]

    Apache runs on Windows.  There's also Tomcat which you can run standalone from Apache.

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Games? Plenty of small players, but there's pressure to lock into Microsoft technology and release on Microsoft's Xbox.[/quote]

    I don't think it's pressure to know that when you develop for one platform it will be easily portable to another i.e. PC <-> Xbox and help capture another audience.

    [quote user="The Vicar"]I guess there's graphics and AV software, but that market is still vitally Mac-related, so it isn't a good example.[/quote]

    That sounds like typical designer babble.  "My Mac is sooo much better for designing with because my old PC was beige colored and had a big monitor".  Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash run on both OS X and Windows.  If your after a professional 3D application, supported on the target platform by the developers then you can use Maya on a Mac vs Maya, XSI, and 3D Studio on a PC.



  • Yeah, so, wake me up when Apple releases a tablet product, or when you can run OS X on embedded devices.  Apple have a better desktop OS, but that's basically all they have (ignoring the iPod, which is just a media player), while Microsoft's product line is really quite diverse.

    Funny how the Apple fanatics seem to gloss over that. Seems some people just aren't interested in evaluating the competition fairly.

    With your logic, Microsoft's product line is way behind Linux, since I can run Linux on my my x86, PPC, ARM, (well, pretty much all processor known) PS2, PS3, iPod, cellphone, SIP phone (Snom), router, printer, etc.  Heck, I could probably make it run on my toaster !

     I have a PBX (Asterisk), a router (WRT-54G), a MythTV machine, a domain controller/file server and my workstations. They all run Linux.

    I'm sure you have at least one device in your home that run Linux, but maybe you don't know it.

    So wake me up when Windows can run anything without crashing !

    as a side note, this is my PBX :

    [root@panoramix root]# uptime
     08:00:44  up 231 days, 17:47,  1 user,  load average: 0.04, 0.07, 0.08

     



  • so wake the rest of us up when linux can run anything worth running....



  • someone did make a linux toaster..

     

    dont forget maya runs and linux, don't forget lightwave...

     

    don't forget that pretty much all the major graphics in movies now day are churned out on linux clusters (props ILM) 



  • [quote user="The Vicar"]As for Microsoft's diverse product line: the Xbox is sold at a loss, even now. The cell phone market is also a loss, although Microsoft may not be taking the loss themselves (the cell phone manufacturers may be taking it instead). The Zune is sold at a loss. I suspect that, if you figured out how much time and effort went into Windows CE, you'd find that on average, it's sold at a loss, too. Basically, all these products you're so proud of are subsidized by Office and mainstream Windows. You'd better hope that Vista sells well, or Microsoft may suddenly find that it can't support all these deficit projects.[/quote]

    If you check the general trend, then you will notice that is is common practice to sell hardware at "below production cost", however MS have reduced the cost of Xbox360 production to below sales price... check this link for further info: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20061120132150.html



  • [quote user="The Vicar"]


    (I've kind of wondered about that for some time now. Practically every new product Microsoft has done recently has been a loss. Do they have some sort of hyper-developed NIH syndrome -- "I just found out that someone, somewhere, is using a computer product that we aren't paid for! Quick, hire some developers so we can sell a competing product at a loss to break into the market!")

    [/quote]

    Yes. 



  • [quote user="TimeBandit"]I can run Linux on my my x86, PPC, ARM, (well, pretty much all processor known) PS2, PS3, iPod, cellphone, SIP phone (Snom), router, printer, etc.  Heck, I could probably make it run on my toaster ![/quote]

    I can toast bread on my CPU, does that count?



  • [quote user="Tann San"]

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Office software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft.[/quote]

    coff OpenOffice coff coff WordPerfect

    [/quote]

    Yes, OpenOffice and WordPerfect have such huge market share, too. My argument was about "flourishing", and "exist" doesn't equal "flourish" -- heck, the Mac has OpenOffice, Pages, and Mariner Write still plugging away as well as Microsoft Office. Doesn't mean you see anyone distributing documents in those formats, though. (On the other hand, though, all Macs running OS X can print to PDF without additional software, so Mac users tend to distribute things on the web as PDF automatically unless there's a compelling reason not to do so.) 

    [quote user="Tann San"]

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Server software for PCs? Used to be some competition, now pretty much just Microsoft (except, thank goodness, for Apache, but not on Windows).[/quote]

    Apache runs on Windows.  There's also Tomcat which you can run standalone from Apache.

    [/quote]

    Once again: "exists" does not equal "flourishes". (And for that matter, the argument I was trying to counter was an economic one; Apache, being open-source, is not making money for some software development house.) (That's not an argument against Apache, by the way -- I'll take Apache over any existing alternative I've encountered any day of the week.)

    [quote user="Tann San"]

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Games? Plenty of small players, but there's pressure to lock into Microsoft technology and release on Microsoft's Xbox.[/quote]

    I don't think it's pressure to know that when you develop for one platform it will be easily portable to another i.e. PC <-> Xbox and help capture another audience.

    [quote user="The Vicar"]I guess there's graphics and AV software, but that market is still vitally Mac-related, so it isn't a good example.[/quote]

    That sounds like typical designer babble.  "My Mac is sooo much better for designing with because my old PC was beige colored and had a big monitor".  Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash run on both OS X and Windows.  If your after a professional 3D application, supported on the target platform by the developers then you can use Maya on a Mac vs Maya, XSI, and 3D Studio on a PC.

    [/quote]

    I wasn't arguing that the Mac is superior, just stating that you can't claim the diversity of graphics software as a triumph of Windows, because so much of it derives substantial support from the Mac. Learn to read, will ya?

    Well, actually, now that you mention it, though, I WILL make that argument: the Mac is superior on graphics (and desktop publishing, which is related) to Windows. Even before you get to individual software packages, it has Colorsync (better than any available color correction system in Windows), PDF generation and PostScript rendering built in at the OS level, and even has the Core Image API. And, as I said, most of the software for serious graphic design is cross-platform, so there's no point in arguing there unless you have some pet program you think is vital that isn't available for the Mac.



  • [quote user="The Vicar"][quote user="Tann San"]That sounds like typical designer babble.  "My Mac is sooo much better for designing with because my old PC was beige colored and had a big monitor".  Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash run on both OS X and Windows.  If your after a professional 3D application, supported on the target platform by the developers then you can use Maya on a Mac vs Maya, XSI, and 3D Studio on a PC.[/quote]


    I wasn't arguing that the Mac is superior, just stating that you can't claim the diversity of graphics software as a triumph of Windows, because so much of it derives substantial support from the Mac. Learn to read, will ya?

    Well, actually, now that you mention it, though, I WILL make that argument: the Mac is superior on graphics (and desktop publishing, which is related) to Windows. Even before you get to individual software packages, it has Colorsync (better than any available color correction system in Windows), PDF generation and PostScript rendering built in at the OS level, and even has the Core Image API. And, as I said, most of the software for serious graphic design is cross-platform, so there's no point in arguing there unless you have some pet program you think is vital that isn't available for the Mac.[/quote]

    It seems impossible to weigh in on this without there being something assumed about your choice of platform, so I'll lay mine out up front:  The right tool for the job; I've been using PC's since they were all IBM, all the time.  (But I've never intentionally used anything physically larger than a PC except for an HP 9000).  I used my first Mac around 1990.  At home, most of my boxes run Linux, and I'm in the process of planning the conversion to Linux on my main workstation.  I currently only have one "personal" Mac, and am no longer dealing with them daily on a professional basis...

    A long intro for a short point:  Don't forget that the big hitters in graphics (Notably Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, Freehand [when it existed], and others) were available on Mac long before they were ported to Windows.  The first time I saw Photoshop and Quark running under Win was at Seybold in '93 (? Maybe '94); Photoshop and Quark were around version 3, and the Windows ports were largely regarded as a joke.  I wasn't remotely impressed with either; around this time I wore multiple hats in the graphics business because of my ability with both platforms.

    You could also make a strong argument that PostScript owes its position to Apple.

    Hmm.  Probably wasn't worth the effort to put my foot into this mess.  Oh well. 



  • [quote user="Tann San"]so wake the rest of us up when linux can run anything worth running....[/quote]

    *cough* 



  • [quote user="The Vicar"]My argument was about "flourishing", and "exist" doesn't equal "flourish" -- heck, the Mac has OpenOffice, Pages, and Mariner Write still plugging away as well as Microsoft Office. Doesn't mean you see anyone distributing documents in those formats, though.[/quote]

    I agree Mac software is not what I'd call "flourishing".

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Once again: "exists" does not equal "flourishes". And for that matter, the argument I was trying to counter was an economic one; Apache, being open-source, is not making money for some software development house.[/quote]

    So what you're saying is that if it's free then it doesn't count in your "flourishes" ideology.  I once had a boss who said things like that, was pretty irritating.  "If it's free then surely it's not worth considering", that being specifically aimed at Apache, PHP and MySQL, he was a tit :¬)

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Games? Plenty of small players, but there's pressure to lock into Microsoft technology and release on Microsoft's Xbox.[/quote]

    [quote user="The Vicar"]I wasn't arguing that the Mac is superior, just stating that you can't claim the diversity of graphics software as a triumph of Windows, because so much of it derives substantial support from the Mac.[/quote]
    Funny since it sounded like you where waving the Mac banner and giving the weak designer call to war :¬)  I especially liked the way you quoted about the games but then didn't say anything about them, or lack of them.
    [quote user="The Vicar"]Learn to read, will ya?[/quote]
    I will if you learn to think before you write.

    [quote user="The Vicar"]Well, actually, now that you mention it, though, I WILL make that argument: the Mac is superior on graphics (and desktop publishing, which is related) to Windows.[/quote]
    hahahahahahahaha let's talk about hardware updates or the amazing lack of choice Mac users have.  Then again you all consider that a plus side, less choice is less stress for my brain to cope with....
    [quote user="The Vicar"]as I said, most of the software for serious graphic design is cross-platform, so there's no point in arguing there unless you have some pet program you think is vital that isn't available for the Mac.[/quote]
    [quote user="The Vicar"]I WILL make that argument: the Mac is superior on graphics (and desktop publishing, which is related) to Windows[/quote]
     
    kinda contradicting yourself there ay?
    [quote user="The Vicar"]Macs are lame[/quote]
    yup :¬)


  • [quote user="Tann San"]so wake the rest of us up when linux can run anything worth running....[/quote]

    Please define "worth running". Is Oracle worth running? Is Quake4 worth running? Is Eclipse worth running? It depends on your requirements.



  • I was thinking in a mainstream commercial software/games sense such as Battlefield 2/2142, Dawn of war, Flash, Photoshop kind of way :¬)

    Don't get me wrong I use Gimp and a bunch of other Linux based Windows ported apps at home but usually they don't hold up against other commercially available solutions (I'm just a cheapass).

    Didn't/doesn't Quake4 require you to purchase the Windows edition....

    Never touched Oracle but PostgreSQL and MySQL are great, leaning more towards the former nowadays.  I thought Eclipse sucked balls btw.



  • Your examples are retread WWII remakes, and Adobe applications? Wow Windows has got some bitching software, I tell you what.

    Listen, if there was any freeware for Windows that I absolutely needed, I'd fire up laptop to use it. Or QEMU running a 2k instance. For everything else there's Dosbox, Wine or CrossOver, which I'd be paying for or have paid for if I needed it to run Adobe Creative Suite or some bullshit like that.

    Which is rarely.

    We're at the point where I don't really care about an OS anymore so long as it has Firefox and a decent text editor. I just so happen to be proficient at programming in a Unix environment, so Linux is a good fit (for hardware support... if I had oodles of disposible income I'd suppose I'd get a Mac).
     



  • well it's clear that your software requirements are pretty nimble, who needs pesky things like images, animations and games anyway right?



  • [quote user="Tann San"]

    Didn't/doesn't Quake4 require you to purchase the Windows edition....

    [/quote]

    Technically yes, but only to get the game data (levels, artwork, music etc.).

    ID software offers a native Linux version of the game engine for download, so it's not wine or something similar.

    UT2004 even included the Linux engine on the DVD (at least in the version I bought), thought a newer version of the Linux engine was available on the net, so it made not much of a difference.
     


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