On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:33 AM, Vincente Aggrippino <vaggripp...@gmail.com > wrote:
> On 13/03/2011 8:43 p.m., zarul shahrin wrote: > > Most of them are preloaded with FeeDos so that the computer price can be > reduced by as much as 1K? Unlike corporate users, most of the home users > don't give a crap whether their OS is legal or pirated, they just want > something cheap (This is especially in Malaysia). > > > The FreeDOS machines usually are a lower price, but not much lower when > compared to a machine with similar specs and licensed Windows. > > Even when it is lower, the savings are nowhere near 1K. The licensed > Windows 7 Home Basic only costs RM350 if you buy it separately. > > I bought a new computer this weekend. It came with licensed Windows, but I > chose it based on specifications and price. I couldn't get a FreeDOS > machine with the same specs for a lower price. > > > My apologies on the price inaccuracy but RM 350 is still a lot for a Home Basic. > > You're right. People don't care about those laws. I would even go a > little further and say that some of those laws are unjust and immoral. > Modern distributions have more than just free licensing, though, and Linux > *is* better than Windows. I think we've had that discussion many times > already. That's why we're in this group :) > > I will never make a claim that any OS is better than the other. As a technical person who have years of experience in using Windows,Linux (for work) and OSX (home and work), all of them have their strengths and weaknesses depending on your need and area of work. > Microsoft has also damaged their customer base. Their negligence in > handling malicious software threats, and stories about systems becoming > unusable or shutting down every two hours after an update all work against > them. > > When you have approximately 91% of market share, you can't avoid from being the main target of criminals/virus writers. The same reasoning can be applied to the customers who have problems with Windows. You will of course hear more bad news about Windows than let say Mac OS or Linux due to the number of people using Windows compare to the other OSes. But does that make Windows less stable than Linux? A visit to the forums/IRC and mailing list made me believe otherwise. How many times did you get a BSOD on Windows XP SP3 compare to let say a kernel panic message on Ubuntu Hoary? In fact, the problems you mentioned above are usually caused by 3rd party software such as anti-virus software (removing critical OS files due to false positive) than windows itself. Other than that, An OS that launches a new version every few months will make it less likely be a good candidate for everyday desktop. What people need is a stable OS, not something that get updated with new version every few months and break some of their existing software. If I run a company, I personally do not want to have my system admin to run around every few months to upgrade all the systems and then someone complains that the software they are using are now broken because of the upgrade due to an incompatible version of shared libraries (which is something very common). I'm not much of a gamer, but I think that a lot of those games can be played > in Linux using Wine. I can play World of Warcraft using Wine without any > special setup and I know someone else in our KK-LUG who has played Starcraft > with Wine. There are also some companies starting to develop software that > runs natively in Linux. > > Being a user of Codeweaver Crossover myself ( A commercial version of Wine that supports more application than Wine itself) I would say the number of windows applications that can be run through Wine is still limited. Please also keep in mind that Wine is an "emulator" and an application running through it is not running natively as they do on Windows. Trying to run a game that requires a high performance machine is pretty much a no no. (I am still playing World of Warcraft and was an addict, Cata runs on my 3-4 years old Mac without a problem. It's not a game that requires a high-end system) All of those concerns, plus some others, are repeated when considering > proprietary office software, but OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice is really > high-quality software. > > We're not starting from scratch here. Average people (ie: not nerds like > us) have even heard a few of the horror stories about "pirated" software and > the success stories about Open Source Software. It's in the mainstream > media already. This is a good time and place to give consumers the option. > > Just as much as a little Googling will reveal to you how even some of the most experienced Linux users/developers can get frustrated using Linux as their desktop. > -- Ghodmode > > > Best Regards, > > Zarul Shahrin > > > > On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 8:26 PM, sweemeng ng <swees...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> A few of our community events, we did try to have a install fest, the >> thing is none worked the way we want. Probably we did it the wrong way(?) or >> we talking to the wrong audience(?). Really I don't know. >> >> Maybe because it is easy for them to get illegal copy of windows, or in >> university MSDN give them the latest anyway. Again really I don't know the >> real reason. But this is base on feel and observation. >> >> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 8:12 PM, Ghodmode <ghodm...@ghodmode.com> wrote: >> >>> I went to the PIKOM PC fair this weekend and I saw a whole bunch of >>> computers with FreeDOS installed. The people selling them didn't hesitate >>> to offer "unlicensed" windows, though. >>> >>> It seems like this would be a very good opportunity for people in our >>> community. We could treat it like a Linux installfest... give out Ubuntu >>> (or any distro) discs and offer to do the installation for free. Then we >>> give out our our business card and offer to do support for low rates paid >>> into the local economy. >>> >>> This way, people have a more information and more choices... unusable >>> FreeDOS, illegal windows (maybe RM50), or fully updated and licensed Ubuntu >>> with all the features. >>> >>> It inspired a blog entry... >>> >>> "What the heck is FreeDOS?" : http://bit.ly/g44haf >>> >>> If you like it, post a comment on the blog... it makes me feel good :) >>> >>> -- >>> Ghodmode >>> http://www.ghodmode.com/blog >>> >> -- > To unsubscribe from and detail about this group > http://portal.mosc.my/osdc-my-mailing-list-information > > MOSC2011 http://fb.me/mosc2011 > -- To unsubscribe from and detail about this group http://portal.mosc.my/osdc-my-mailing-list-information MOSC2011 http://fb.me/mosc2011
