For those of you not into computers, there is a whole vast array of operating systems. Operating systems (or OS for short) is the basic program that allows you to interface with your computer and run other programs such as your browser (to surf the web) or email.
Without getting into the specifics and variations (such as mainframes) and giving you a lesson on this, it comes down to a handful of OS’s that the average Joe might use:
Microsoft Windows and all it’s derivatives
MacOS
LINUX / UNIX
Windows wins the popularity award. It doesn’t mean it’s the outright best but it does mean that they were very successful at marketing it and they did a lot of good things with integrating the applications.
MacOS has always been the OS of choice for those into graphic arts, audio / video applications, or that think they are part of the elite avant-garde users, or just hate Bill Gates and Microsoft.
LINX / UNIX is the preferred operating system of many administrators because of it’s stability and open-source platform (LINUX). It’s also a great OS for hackers due to it’s granular level of control.
But first, let me clarify two things:
Article 1 – If you are the kind of person that would argue that LINUX and UNIX are not the same thing, then you are also probably the kind of person that would argue that variants such as Debian, Solaris, AIX, etc. are not LINXU or UNIX. It’s really simple, they are ALL freaking UNIX. Do you know why I am just as dangerous in Ubuntu as AIX as Solaris? Because they all have the same command structure and share commonality between directory structures….oh, I know…it’s hard for me to say that when Ubuntu puts it’s distribution build libraries under a sub-directory with a slightly different name than CentOS, but I can fuck either box up just as easily. If you are this person, get over it. Get out of your mom’s basement, go grab a beer and try to have some fun.
Article 2 – MacOS is LINUX with a nice-fancy GUI thrown on top of it. If you want to argue that it’s a derivative of debian, see article 1. The main reason I’ll never own a new Mac? The cost. I don’t see why I should pay twice to three times as much as the same hardware that I can get from another vendor, and they still don’t have two buttons for the mouse on the laptops!! HELLO! This has been around for 20 years! Put another button or two on the mouse and quit trying to be so god-damned separatist. Your GUI shell is not worth that kind of money. Far cooler ones are out for LINUX and they are FREE. Last but not least, don’t argue with me how intuitive a Mac is. I’ve used them. I’ve even used them with people that love Macs. You know what? It’s so intuitive they can’t find files and folders because they aren’t sorted alphabetically and in order to do so would require an act of God and five hours on the phone with tech support. Yeah, that’s slick.
All of that being said, I really like LINUX. It’s free. It’s stable. It’s inherently more secure than Windows, and it can be highly customized.
But it hates me. I’m not a “normal” user. I’ve used computers since I was about 5 or 8. I was programming my own stuff in the 5th grade and grew up around them all my life. I got into network some years ago and never looked back. What I’m trying to say is that I am not your average idiot when it comes to computers. But I am also not an uber-geek LINUX guy (see Article 1). Because of this, I find LINUX very frustrating. It’s difficult to get around and everything is cryptic. OH! But you just load this GUI shell, and this application and now it’s all graphical. Umm…yeah, that’s AFTER you get the basic OS installed, the shell AND the slick package that is supposed to alleviate all the other dependency problems that LINUX has.
Why, just in the last few days I tried loading Ubuntu on two test machines I have here. One is an old dell piece of crap that is great for testing. It has very little RAM and two hard drives in it.
The other is a Compaq 1RU file server with a gig of ram and a SCSI RAID controller.
Guess what Ubuntu did? It loaded right up on the dell, and then proceeded to puke on boot-up and never worked again. Nice.
Then I tried loading it on the Compaq. The installation GUI loads up just fine, but it can’t find the SCSI controller and hard drive array. So I went out to Ubuntu and read the documentation on installing the required drivers during the installation process so it could find the hard drives. You have got to be kidding me. I’d rather have my eyeballs plucked out by Jehovah Witnesses on crack.
That’s not to say I’ve never gotten some flavor of LINUX to load on either machine but really, things should not be so difficult.
You know what loaded great on either machine the first try? Windows. When LINUX can get it’s proverbial shit together to pull this one off and be usable to the less-than-average user then we’ll probably have a winner.
Advantage here? Probably Mac – but not at the cost.
2 comments:
I am going to have to disagree with you on Ubuntu. It is easy to install and get going. With a live CD I can have an working system installed in less than an hour generally and then within three hours have a patched system with all the software capabilities that a Windows system comes with out of the box. For me to do this starting from a bare drive with a Windows box, loading windows and office and patching takes at least six hours.
The other thing that surprised me recently, my mom opened up my laptop and entered the password, and got into Ubuntu. She was using it like her own laptop without issue. I was amazed. She knew what the icons were for and clicked on them and get busy playing scrabble on the internet. It never occured to her that she was using Linux.
well here is the dealio - you can disagree with my opinion, but the OS not installing and being difficult on my two machines is factual.
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