Linux is free. But windows cheaper than linux????

[capitan]

Gordon,

The Linux community will often confuse sheer volume for quality. Of those
5000 apps that bloat a Linux distro's install, 4985 are at alpha quality
level. Another 15 are at beta level.

Typically, when one clicks on a menu feature of one of these "apps", nothing
happens save a dialogue box saying "To be implemented". 5000 apps, my
you-know-what. I almost really don't know how Linux users stand it. But I
actually do: it's amazing how much a person can convolute to keep his
delusions intact.

Gordon has much more constructive posts to this thread than you.

 

[Text Stephen]

Gordon has gotten so out of his tree he's doing Linux advocacy in a
Microsoft peer-to-peer support group.

Geesh, you know, you Linux worshippers. Of all the operating systems out
there, the steamiest pile of dog doo is Linux. Yet, God forbid one word of
crticism is made against it. But that's blind devotion for you. You and
Osama Bin Laden - great minds think alike I suppose.

 

[Gordon]

Gordon has gotten so out of his tree he's doing Linux advocacy in a
Microsoft peer-to-peer support group.

Only because the original post was SO full of total and absolute b*****ks
that it had to be replied to.

 

[Text Stephen]

Gordon,

Wrong. It was a fair and sensible, intelligent and rather accurate
assessment of reality.

Git, now, git to COLA. Git Git

 

[All Things Mopar]

Today Mike Hall (MS-MVP) commented courteously on the subject
at hand

IBM wrote the contract.. They had no idea that the PC would
take off like it did.. they expected to sell a few thousand
and that would be that.. BG was given all of the rights
because IBM didn't consider that it would amount to much..
it was not long before IBM licensed out manufacture because
they could not keep up with demand..

In the early days, all producers of the PC's, IBM and the
IBM 'clone' manufacturers could afford to make proprietary
stuff.. but Microsoft Windows 3.0 and the cheaper Intel
based clones (the PCs with 5 pin DIN keyboard sockets and
serial mice) broke the mould as they marketed specifically
at home users and small offices who couldn't afford the
'corporate' machines of the original makers..

OK.. so Microsoft encouraged the cheap clone producers to
pre-install the OS, but they were not the only company
doing this.. Lotus took a shot at it by offering cut down
SmartSuite as an Office option, and they did ok until MS
released their Office products which, with all respect,
were more accomplished.. pre-installing also gave 'value
added' to the PC manufacturers, and meant that home users
could run the computers straight out of the box.. everybody
won back then..

Of course, sales would not continue at break neck speed for
ever, and as the downs hit, some companies gave up or took
advantage of being bought out by the big players.. lets
face it, if you or I had a small software or hardware
company, and somebody like MS came and offered us more
money than we could reasonably imagine, we would sell out,
yes?..

At the end of the day, the best won out.. Lotus Office
products were not exactly integrating too well, being a
mish mash of bought in items, and WordPerfect's first
attempt at a Windows version was quite honestly dire and
buggy..

Bill Gates and MS had much better marketing skills than the
opposition, and put more effort into software production
than the others.. in the end, only IBM were large enough to
stand up to Microsoft, but IBM could care less whether they
sold software or not.. now they are trying to fight back
with Linux.. hahahahaha..

in the 19th and early 20th centuries, BG's practices would
have been decried as those of a "robber baron", and TR
would've done his "trust buster" thing back then.

 

[Text Stephen]

Jerry,

What a bunch of baloney. Things were aligned: IBM didn't believe in its own
operating system, Linux was near unknown and raw, Apple was a closed system
both operating system and hardware. Microsoft was the only major operating
system company that was both in a position to succeed and gave itself
permission to succeed. That and hard work.

Later jealous people cooked up a court case, so what?

 

[Guest]

Ok well this is a topic for loosers. Windows does control 95% of the market.
80% of windows since "ME" were all downloaded free from websites from third
world countries.

Linux is free and it is improving. But it will never be where windows is
now.

Windows needs to find better way to distribute thir software and write code.
I have recently become a Mac user and I am not going back anymore. MacIntel
new pc's are great and one reason,

You guys ever here of a Zombie comptuer. (look it up) the only reason
people(experst and beginners) will switch to Linux-FreeBSD-OpenSolaris-and
Mac is that its is lot more difficult for these OS to become a Zombie pc.

Well I work at this local PC-repair shop and untill i see someone bring a pc
with other then Windows to the store, I will support anything and everything
other then Windows.

OH Text dude,

you should look up more information. over the past year our costumers
switched from Win users with problems to other OS has gone up 250% with most
people switching to Mac. so keep on dreaming in you fantasy world and
thinking you are the best. Go to search and look up poeple switching from
Win to other os. Most people are dual booting to learn.

LOL

 

[Guest]

*Kenny*

There is a user friendly version of Linux, get yer facts straight. Its
called Mandriva (or Debian, SuSe, Slackware) - any of those are fuser
friendly. And the reason we rip stuff off Windows is the fact that windows
insist on making shedloads of money, selling us stuff which Linux gives us
for nothing. If Windows adopted a little of the Open Source Philosopy, and
let users help work out all the crud and things that go wrong with Windows,
rather than hiding all the code from us so we can't do squat, and we have to
leave it to the "devs" to sort out ptoblems, often getting things wrong, or
making them worse, maybe Windows would have more of a footing for Linux
users, and we wouldn't take the pee so much.

I have been on Linux for 5 years. I took to Linux overnight, after
suffering one to many major crashes with windows. Linux on the other hand,
Mandriva particularly, has been so reliable, I almost forgot what a Blue
Screen of Death looks like.

In short, Linux works. Windows - only works if it feels like it, crashes
more times than a videotape of a 747 going down (on loop), and has more bugs
than a sleazy back street apartment in harlem!

Sort out Windows, bring it to stability, charge us less for it and maybe,
just MAYBE, people will start coming back to Windows. When you can get it as
reliable and crash free as Linux, call me!

*Don't mess with the Penguin!*

 

[Alias]

*Kenny*

There is a user friendly version of Linux, get yer facts straight. Its
called Mandriva (or Debian, SuSe, Slackware) - any of those are fuser
friendly. And the reason we rip stuff off Windows is the fact that windows
insist on making shedloads of money, selling us stuff which Linux gives us
for nothing. If Windows adopted a little of the Open Source Philosopy, and
let users help work out all the crud and things that go wrong with Windows,
rather than hiding all the code from us so we can't do squat, and we have to
leave it to the "devs" to sort out ptoblems, often getting things wrong, or
making them worse, maybe Windows would have more of a footing for Linux
users, and we wouldn't take the pee so much.

I have been on Linux for 5 years. I took to Linux overnight, after
suffering one to many major crashes with windows. Linux on the other hand,
Mandriva particularly, has been so reliable, I almost forgot what a Blue
Screen of Death looks like.

In short, Linux works. Windows - only works if it feels like it, crashes
more times than a videotape of a 747 going down (on loop), and has more bugs
than a sleazy back street apartment in harlem!

Sort out Windows, bring it to stability, charge us less for it and maybe,
just MAYBE, people will start coming back to Windows. When you can get it as
reliable and crash free as Linux, call me!

*Don't mess with the Penguin!*

I haven't had XP crash on me since I got it a couple of years ago, on
three machines.

Oops, I guess YOU, the user, didn't know what you were doing with XP.

Alias

Use the Reply to Sender feature of your news reader program to email me.
Utiliza Responder al Remitente para mandarme un mail.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I haven't had XP crash on me since I got it a couple of years ago, on
three machines.

Oops, I guess YOU, the user, didn't know what you were doing with XP.

Alias

I'd have to agree with your assessment. The only time (in 2½ years on
hundreds of PCs) I've *ever* seen a BSOD on a WinXP machine, it was
caused by defective hardware - something to which not even Linux is
immune. (Although, like Win9x, some Linux distros admittedly are more
tolerant of borderline and/or sub-standard hardware.)



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery? .... I know not what course others may take, but as
for me, give me liberty, or give me death! -Patrick Henry

 

[Vagabond Software]

*Kenny*

There is a user friendly version of Linux, get yer facts straight. Its
called Mandriva (or Debian, SuSe, Slackware) - any of those are fuser
friendly. And the reason we rip stuff off Windows is the fact that
windows
insist on making shedloads of money, selling us stuff which Linux gives us
for nothing. If Windows adopted a little of the Open Source Philosopy,
and
let users help work out all the crud and things that go wrong with
Windows,
rather than hiding all the code from us so we can't do squat, and we have
to
leave it to the "devs" to sort out ptoblems, often getting things wrong,
or
making them worse, maybe Windows would have more of a footing for Linux
users, and we wouldn't take the pee so much.

I have been on Linux for 5 years. I took to Linux overnight, after
suffering one to many major crashes with windows. Linux on the other
hand,
Mandriva particularly, has been so reliable, I almost forgot what a Blue
Screen of Death looks like.

In short, Linux works. Windows - only works if it feels like it, crashes
more times than a videotape of a 747 going down (on loop), and has more
bugs
than a sleazy back street apartment in harlem!

Sort out Windows, bring it to stability, charge us less for it and maybe,
just MAYBE, people will start coming back to Windows. When you can get it
as
reliable and crash free as Linux, call me!

*Don't mess with the Penguin!*

I am most experienced with the Debian distribution, and it is far from
user-friendly. Oh, don't get me wrong. I think the package management is
the most user-friendly (for IT folks) I've seen. I even like it better than
Redhat's RTM manager, but I would never recommend Debian to the average joe
looking for a computer that his wife can use to scan in the family photo
album and his kids can use to play educational games. Sure, Debian will do
all of those things, but not like Windows; not even close.

Personally, I've never had too much trouble with Windows crashing since
Windows 95 OSR2 was released. I also didn't have any trouble with security.
However, I've met plenty of people who couldn't keep a linux system stable
or secure.

So, is that a problem with Linux?

carl

 

[Guest]

Winux P said:

- MS Office 2003 Professional on my XP machine takes up 402MB. Open Office 2
- on the same
- : machine - 202 MB. Which one, in your opinion, is bloat?

MS Office 2003 takes 402 MB ??

That doesn't happen in the actual world.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Winux P said:

- MS Office 2003 Professional on my XP machine takes up 402MB. Open
Office 2
- on the same
- : machine - 202 MB. Which one, in your opinion, is bloat?

MS Office 2003 takes 402 MB ??

That doesn't happen in the actual world.

Office Pro 2003 takes up over 1.4 GB on my computer.

Kerry

 

[Vagabond Software]

Office Pro 2003 takes up over 1.4 GB on my computer.

Kerry

Office 2003 Pro takes up 441 MB on my machine, and it kicks the living tar
out of Open Office. Office 2003 has Outlook and integrated Sharepoint
version control and collaboration. It is Active Directory "aware" and
includes fully functional Visual Basic for Application language and
debugger. Office 2002/2003 also extends the interop assemblies for easy
integration with the .NET Framework.

That's not too bad for $30 per computer, per year.

carl

 

[Gordon]

Winux P said:

- MS Office 2003 Professional on my XP machine takes up 402MB. Open
Office 2
- on the same
- : machine - 202 MB. Which one, in your opinion, is bloat?

MS Office 2003 takes 402 MB ??

That doesn't happen in the actual world.

And which "real" world are you in then? That's a DIRECT quote from the sizes
in "Add/Remove Programs".

 

[Gordon]

Office 2003 Pro takes up 441 MB on my machine, and it kicks the
living tar out of Open Office. Office 2003 has Outlook and
integrated Sharepoint version control and collaboration. It is
Active Directory "aware" and includes fully functional Visual Basic
for Application language and debugger. Office 2002/2003 also extends
the interop assemblies for easy integration with the .NET Framework.

And in all my 25 years as a Management Accountant (including time in a Stock
Exchange quoted IT company) I have NEVER been in any organisation that uses
all that stuff. The VAST majority of organisations just DON'T use it!
UNNECCESSARY BLOATWARE.

Open Office 2 is easily the equivalent of Office 2002 - many organisations
just didn't see the additional cost of upgrading to Office 2003 justified by
the additional "functionality" opf office 2003 that they would NEVER use!

 

[Vagabond Software]

And in all my 25 years as a Management Accountant (including time in a
Stock Exchange quoted IT company) I have NEVER been in any organisation
that uses all that stuff. The VAST majority of organisations just DON'T
use it! UNNECCESSARY BLOATWARE.

Open Office 2 is easily the equivalent of Office 2002 - many organisations
just didn't see the additional cost of upgrading to Office 2003 justified
by the additional "functionality" opf office 2003 that they would NEVER
use!

That's quite remarkable. As a consultant, I've run accross hundreds of
small companies that use the VBA in their Excel and Access solutions, even
though they aren't even large enough to warrant a server in the office.
Outlook? It is the most commonly used mail client and contact manager that
I've encountered. While it is true that not every organization uses
Sharepoint, a good percentage of those that did use it, used it well and in
conjunction with their office documents. Perhaps accountants at big tech
firms don't do much documentation, but I've worked at several large
companies that maintained their ISO-9000 documents in Sharepoint as well as
in the required binders. I recently did work for a smaller company that
maintained their human resources documents on sharepoint because they had HR
folks spread out accross the country and having multiple versions of a
document floating around in email had been a problem in the past. I must
admit, the interop assemblies are not often used, but then they are a
separate download for those who need them.

I guess it all depends what one classifies as "bloatware". Since I never
create Word documents that uses a table of contents and all that, I suppose
those features are bloatware. Anything supporting Flash is definitely
bloatware since I don't use it.

carl

 

[Kerry Brown]

Office 2003 Pro takes up 441 MB on my machine, and it kicks the
living tar out of Open Office. Office 2003 has Outlook and
integrated Sharepoint version control and collaboration. It is
Active Directory "aware" and includes fully functional Visual Basic
for Application language and debugger. Office 2002/2003 also extends
the interop assemblies for easy integration with the .NET Framework.

That's not too bad for $30 per computer, per year.

carl

Have you included the msocache folder, all the folders in user profiles, and
all the files in the Windows folder and elsewhere? Office 2003 is a disk
hog. I do agree with you that it is an awesome program. I have tried Open
Office. It is a good program. Probably good enough for most people. It is
not as good as Office 2003. Most people have to pay much more than $30.00
per year. If you compare price there is no comparison. Open Office is the
clear winner in that category. I have several customers who use Open Office
because of price. They are very happy with it. In a small network or on a
stand alone pc Open Office is a viable alternative. That doesn't mean it is
the same or even as good as Office 2003.

Kerry

 

[Vagabond Software]

Have you included the msocache folder, all the folders in user profiles,
and all the files in the Windows folder and elsewhere? Office 2003 is a
disk hog. I do agree with you that it is an awesome program. I have tried
Open Office. It is a good program. Probably good enough for most people.
It is not as good as Office 2003. Most people have to pay much more than
$30.00 per year. If you compare price there is no comparison. Open Office
is the clear winner in that category. I have several customers who use
Open Office because of price. They are very happy with it. In a small
network or on a stand alone pc Open Office is a viable alternative. That
doesn't mean it is the same or even as good as Office 2003.

Kerry

I don't know about "most" people. Most of the people I know use their
copies of Office on their laptops as well as their desktops and don't
usually buy every single version that is released. For example, I went from
95 to 97 to 2000 to 2003, but there were development requirements that
forced me into 97. Many of the corporate and residential users are still on
Office 2000 or have only recently upgraded to 2003 within the last year.
So, even if the retail office software is not installed on the second
portable device, it still costs well under $60 per year to operate the full
legal professional version of Office.

By the way, I just took the estimate of space by Add/Remove Programs. I did
not go through and explicity tally up the optional folders (like msocache)
which could be removed without effecting the functionality of office.

carl

 

[Neil Monkey]

Dont blame Linux just because you dont understand it well,

If you think that the computer is just a Magic box which plays music,
videos, a tool for browsing the internet, and some paper works, well,
Microsoft Windows is just Dandy, and i think we should spend some reasonable
money on it just like we buy our home use dvd players;

but if you treat your computer as a Real Computer, then Linux is much more
than merely saving the money, it is the result of constant efforts of many
IT professionals world wide, only one company maintains the Windows
operation systems, but there are countless programmers and IT professionals
all over the world making Lunix better and full-fledged gradually.

Software and Programs could be the common wealth of human beings, and should
not be abridged by Money.