David C. wrote:
Hi there Calvin,
With respect to all of the "other" operating systems and their various
adherents, if you really want a comprehensive perspective as
described, then you need to stop "watching with interest" and start
TRYING it for yourself. If all of the waiting and watching is based on
popularity of brand x, then you will never know the difference. ;-)
Well said.
Long-time Mac users know how difficult it is to be taken seriously based
on market share alone, esp. considering how much such numbers vary:
W3CSchools.com says 5% of their visitors are running Linux:
<http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp>
Wikipedia says 1.53% worldwide:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems>
What do those percentages mean in terms of numbers of happy people?
Gerry Carr at Canonical says there are 12 million users of Ubuntu alone:
<http://ostatic.com/blog/canonical-announces-12-million-ubuntu-users-google-makes-a-comeback>
And it looks like Red Hat is on target to make more than US$1 billion in
revenue for 2011:
<http://blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/2010/11/30/red-hat-at-1-billion/>
Not bad for free software. :)
Mac people should be the least concerned about what other people use,
since here we are in 2011 at Apple's peak and we still see almost 90% of
the world using Windows.
Use what makes you happy.
There are plenty of choices for OSes these days, and if you're thinking
of giving Linux a spin there's a vast world of helpful support in the
Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and other forums. I read the Ubuntu forums
almost daily, and have been having a great time there.
Almost every modern Linux distro "out there" will have a Live CD for
their offering, which means you can easily test it for yourself.
Download the iso file, burn it to a blank CD (there's your only cost)
and simply reboot with it in the tray.
The Ubuntu disk image can be installed on a USB drive as well, so you
can try it out on a netbook before install. I imagine many of the other
popular distros have a similar option.
I keep a bootable USB drive handy for whenever I get a new machine: if
it'll run Ubuntu off the USB, it gets partitioned right away for a
dual-boot. :) I have one machine that's so old it barely runs Ubuntu,
so I switched it to Puppy and it's been running very well. There's
hardly any hardware out there for which you can't find a good Linux
distro for - even ultra-tiny boxes like this one:
<http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2008/08/27/a-real-space-oddity-arrives-at-pc-pro/>
From a user experience, if you regularly watch commercial movie DVD's
on the computer --or if-- you absolutely must run proprietary
Windows/Mac software, -or if- you are joined at the hip with iTunes
due of your choice in mobile devices and/or past music purchases, you
may not like Linux very much (or at least for very long).
For licensing reasons Ubuntu doesn't ship with the proprietary codecs to
run many commercial DVDs, but they maintain a repository where those can
be downloaded and installed easily. I've been able to watch DVDs well
with that install.
The NVdia chip in my Dell blows the pants off the ATI x1600 in my
MacBook Pro, so not only do I get smoother video performance but Google
Earth just flies on that machine.
Linux is certainly not for everyone, but you'll never know for sure by
sitting and watching from the sidelines.
It's so easy to deploy to Linux using LiveCode it's almost a shame not
to explore it for some markets, esp. for EDU software since Linux has a
massive base in EDU throughout Europe and the developing world.
One of the things I've been enjoying as I migrate ever more of my work
from my Mac to Ubuntu is having so much choice available over hardware
configs, and at prices I had only dreamed of back when I used to buy
Macs exclusively. :)
This video shows off some of the effects available with Compiz, the
compositing engine available for every machine with a decent video card
running Ubuntu and most of the other popular distros:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFodLE4iYHE>
This is a more down-to-earth demo showing more practical workflows:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D88ZjSGS1bw>
And here the famous Nixie Pixel shows you how to install Ubuntu in under
5 minutes:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhnLk3gviWY>
It's not her best video, but helpful.
I still think OS X has an edge in the "it just works" category,
something no one else can do because it requires the uniquely tight
integration between the hardware and software possible only when both
come from a single company.
But for flexibility, not so much. Mac OS offers a choice between gray
and blue in its Appearance Manager; check out Ubuntu's themes and then
drop into Compiz Config and you get a very different idea of what it
means to personalize your computing experience.
Ubuntu offers all the security we enjoy on our Macs, but IMNSHO a better
user experience than Windows. It boots much faster (under 20 seconds on
my Dell), and I don't have to run my system and anti-virus updates for
several minutes at the start of each session - I just boot and enjoy. :)
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World
LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv
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