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I have used Windows at home since 1992, Linux since 1996 and Mac OS X since last year. At work, I maintain a farm of Windows and Linux servers (fortunately more Linux boxes than Windows). But I am over the top satisfied with OS X. iWork is a fantastic deal for the money. I think you may be under estimating the power of the happy Windows to Mac switchers….

Oh yes, I have nothing against Mac, really. Everyone seems to love it, even I find it funny, but that’s not the point.

For long the priority is Windows, then Mac and at last, if someone was bored enough to port it to Linux, it got eventually (badly) ported. For some time I used FreeBSD as my desktop and things were even worse!

But now I’m happy! Linux seems to have passed Mac as the second choice for applications to be ported to and Mac’s appreciations didn’t fall since then, so it must be a Linux increase instead of a Mac decrease.

I (don’t have the numbers but) bet that Mac users are still mac users, but Windows users (see previous post about it) are slowly migrating to Linux (and Mac), which is a good thing!

Even Microsoft is talking about porting some of their APIs to Linux…

Very soon? I’ve been playing around with Ubuntu a couple of times in the past, so called the most user friendly version of Linux and it’s still a complete pain in the ass to get around with.

As long as it doesn’t offer decent installations for applications and native support or at least easy installation of it for direct x applications linux has no hope for the masses.

Now I understand that the blame here doesn’t fully lie with the distro’s but also with the ones creating the software and such. But still, with each distro coming with a ton of different standards how can it be expected for installers to be created for all every time.

In windows at least though when working on 64 bits I can pretty much install all still, I don’t have to dive into a crappy kernel. Not sure about mac, but don’t think so either.

When wanting to play games, on a mac and windows this is a lot less of an issue than the horrific process which one has to go through on linux. Making linux useless if you want to game and aren’t a complete linux geek.

And I must say that after installing ubuntu the last time and not getting any screen because the drivers it delivered along didn’t support the ati mobility cards was just very poorly done, if I didn’t have a second computer to check up on the ubuntu support forums on how to fix that mess I’d have to install windows again or an old version of ubuntu to get rid of that issue.

So, from a user standpoint. Do I think linux will hit mainstream any time soon? I highly doubt it, the benefits of using linux are far from to be seen. It might be free, but that also shows in the amount of applications which support it and how shitty it gets released.

I hope you have learnt a lot about drivers, kernel, games, etc while debugging your problems. Next generations will be easier and so.

You probably had lots of problems with Windows as well but you tend to ignore thinking “this is normal”.

Sorry pal, Linux IS user friendly, it just chooses well it’s friends…

Talking about mainstream? Some people are developing Linux distros for the mainstream every minute or so, one of them might be good for you.

Games? Well, we can’t do much if the hardware companies don’t write good drivers and we have to hack the bloody things into it. But, with the attentions coming up more and more those same companies will eventually support better Linux, and games will come easier and faster and so on.

I didn’t say YOU should switch now, I just said we’re on own way to a fairer market.

Happy gaming!

It’s not so much that it doesn’t happen in windows, it’s the way in which to solve it. In windows if a problem occurs, you solve it in a visual environment, not within your kernel. When it comes to linux though the moment you have to do anything out of the ordinary which is nearly daily you have to dig into the kernel to fix it.

It seriously would help a lot already if that’d be one of the main things they’d work on.

So my say still is that it ain’t user friendly, choosing it’s friends well is a lame excuse. I have been using the computer for a pretty long damn time now and can make my way pretty damn good throughout windows, I’m not a mac user but when I go sit behind a mac though I can use it and install applications with ease. That’s being userfriendly.

With linux, absolutely nothing has changed in the past 3 years, problems are still to be fixed mainly inside the kernel and installers are barely being used. Yet again you have to dive into the kernel, it’s as if you’re moving back to the period of DOS the way you have to type your way through again.

The moment linux can directly be used by any windows or mac user without having to use the kernel more than once a month, it can start to be called user friendly.

I’m afraid I disagree with you…

First, graphic environment to fix bugs are lame, in my opinion. I’d rather have the kernel open to me than to wait for some fix whenever (if ever) they happen.

Second, I don’t know which Linux you’re talking about the last 3 years, you might be using the same distro since then. MUCH has happened in the last 3 years, many new applications (internet, office suites, audio-video, etc) appeared and are now constantly being ported to Linux.

Maybe you’re using Windows too much…

But, enough talking about Windows my friend, the topic here was Mac and Linux, not Windows vs. Linux. Anyway, I appreciate your comments!

I agree with you that linux is becoming a real alternative for regular people. I have been Ubuntu for while now and it is excellent - and very few issues require any IT skill. I have had a couple minor issues but you do with Windows too - I don’t use a Mac so those people can say they never have any issues if they want

The reason that OpenOffice.org X11 2.3 hasn’t been released yet for Mac OS X is due to a lack of resources in the testing of the build to make sure it is ready. There will continue to be OpenOffice.org X11 releases until OpenOffice.org Aqua is stable enough.