That Apple and Microsoft are both douchebags? Why is it that whenever an update for an apple or microsoft product is released, they decide that they should re-insert an icon onto your quicklaunch and desktop, regardless of what you chose during the install? Just one more entry on my list of things that give me the redass.
How much open source stuff have you actually worked with? Because no matter how much MS/Apple annoy me with their antics, they still have yet to do a single thing that would make me think "Boy, those open-source guys are doing a better job." Hell, just look at the recent Pidgin/Funpidgin debacle.
I always figured that if the opensource people were that good, they'd be working for people that paid the big bucks.
I like pidgin when I'm on pcs. I use a lot of open source programs on my mac like adium, quicksilver, aurora, colloquy, etc.
Here's a few things I can list that open source is doing a better job than the "big guys" at (as far as I am concerned): Internet Browser (Firefox) Video Player (VLC) Instant Messenger (Pidgin) Plain-text editor ( KATE, Notepad++, several others ) Source control (Subversion) File Compression (7-zip) Password control/generation (KeePass) I admit, I use Windows Media Player / iTunes for listening to music, and I play games, which are closed-source. But besides those, there's really not a lot of other things that I do with my PC on a regular basis.
I agree. I use itunes only for apple products, and microsoft office. That's it. There are no other good media players for mac (except maybe cog, but it's very very unstable)
Some of them do. NASA runs most of its gear on Linux as do a lot of the big internet retailers. MS is now making some of its applications like Silverlight OS independent, so it runs on Windows, Linux and OSX.
What am I going to use a computer for? Surfing the Web. Check. I got Firefox for that. Checking e-mail. Thunderbird. Office applications. I got Open Office. And that'll even save things as MS Office interoperable. All I need from an OS is to be able to boot up and open my apps. Looks like Open Source will do pretty much everything I need it to do. I guess maybe multimedia and instant messenging aren't on my list, but it looks like there are solutions for those too.
It's funny that Apple uses Microsoft's holes to install stuff when you do updates. That doesn't happen when you do it on a Mac. It's unfortunate that iTunes doesn't work very well on PCs. I hear people trash it a lot, but it works great on my Powerbook G4. You'd think they would want to fix that so that they could draw people to Mac stuff rather than push them away. I love open source, and I use a lot of open source software. The thing is, I'm running on computer that's a few years old, and so I need something that runs fairly smoothly with little memory and a slower chip. Some of the open sources that I've tried (notably OpenOffice) just bog right down. Most of what I use open source for is web development and server stuff. It's all good there.
OpenOffice runs slower on older PC's because of the fact that it runs on Java and requires a virtual machine running in the background.
I've had so many problems with my mother's ipod nano (the new one) just plugging it in and having it not recognize. It works fine on my mac.
So long as you too like doing everything the same way as the developers. But if you dare use something like the Send button on rare occasion, oh man, look out - you don't get a Send button, because the devs decided to rip it out. Meanwhile, Firefox just now got to the point where I'd call it a good piece of software (Sorry, memory leaks, security holes, and standards noncompliance do not a good web browser make). OpenOffice is shit. Just try to make a table in it, and I swear, it's like tearing your hair out. It's an attempt to replicate MS Office, but ends up being its cursed twin brother that got partially consumed in the womb. It doesn't run well on much of anything (because it's written in Java), and nothing converted to/from MS Office is ever going to look the same on both sides of the fence. Don't even get me started on the distros themselves. The only one out there I can stand is Ubuntu, and even that makes me wish I was running Windows 98. Basically, it's like everything works great on OSS unless you happen to look at it in a different way than the developers did. Then it becomes a never-ended adventure of reading obscure forum posts, sifting through MAN pages, and hearing a barrage of "If you don't like it, go fix it in the source code itself. OS software is great!"
it's better than AIM itself. When they went to 6.0 it all turned to hell for me. (I tried it and downgraded) Now, I run portable pidgin whenever I'm on a pc and it works great
I don't use it that often, but I've never had a problem with Open Office. For me, it's about on par with Office 98 or something. Yeah, it may not have all the bells and whistles of whatever the latest version is, but it's good enough for 95% of what I would do with it. And if you really want something to look the way you want it to, do it as a PDF. Shit, I've fought with transferring PowerPoint slides on the same OS, version of Office, same build, identical machines, where it would change stuff from saving it onto a thumb drive and loading it up on the other machine.
I've used Open Office before, my dad uses it, half my cousins, and my roommate. We send each other files without a problem and it's very, very easy to use. It takes a little getting used to, but I've never seen any of those problems. My dad has installed it in dozens of computers and has never had a complaint.
Actually, now that I think about it, I can see where Open Source won't cut it for me on everything. Financial applications, graphics aps, and CAD all might be a bit challenging to do on an Open Source box. That said, the one I'm getting really isn't set up for that. Only regret is my trusty W2K box is probably getting a bit long in the tooth too. I shudder to think what updates it is going to demand when I take it out of storage and attach it to the Net again.
