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Old 2008-10-27, 07:59   Link #41
Sides
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WanderingKnight View Post
So, do +50% of home and office users make an extensive use of CAD and video editing software?

Really?
Nope, but the choices is linked directly with what kind of software runs on the OSes. If you want to use a certain software any it only runs on one OS, there is not much of a choice, unless you look for an alternative. But then again alternative software solution isn't something for everyone.
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Old 2008-10-27, 08:59   Link #42
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But OSS progresses as its userbase grows. If those users who don't need CAD/video editing ran OSS operating systems on their PCs, then I'm sure those OSes would be more attractive for CAD/video editing developers.

Don't you think?
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Old 2008-10-27, 17:10   Link #43
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I guess it all comes down to how vast ur knowledge of computers are and what u need the computer for
If very little and plays alot of games go with Windows Xp/Vista
I dual boot Gentoo Linux 2008 and Xp on my computer
And i have Fedora 9 on my PS3
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Old 2008-10-27, 17:20   Link #44
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I play games ALL the time, and i use XP and my other computer(which is achualy my bro's) has vista

It depends on what you use, my fave is XP
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Old 2008-10-27, 22:51   Link #45
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Originally Posted by WanderingKnight View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by npal View Post
Now IF that philosophy can also give me everything I need so much the better
It can. That's the whole point of Open Source, that everyone can collaborate to make software better (that's without the whole Stallmanist Free Software, Free Society advocacy). That's why I said that all software sucks--because it does. One of the best ways to make it better is to open it up so that more people can help to make it suck less. See "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (yes, ESR is an asshole, but he does make some interesting points).
You can help it by pointing out problems but it's not "wiki"-source, it's just open, you can not just go in and "make software better". You can submit a small patch with crystal clear code (and explanations, and extra explanations) to the developers to fix some obvious problems but there's still the core team and community split so the responsibility still rests 95% on the developer team to make software suck less.

Of course being open source has it's coolness aspects. Bugs (on a popular project) can be nuked pretty quick, and there's always the finger pointing to stupid source. I suppose the biggest pro to open source is that if it sucks from version X onwards someone else can usually go and create their own version of the software that doesn't suck (provided the legal issues allow it). But this is not in the definition of better software, just better a development cycle.

Open Source makes better software, but Open Source Software won't by default be better then their counterparts (you just can't help bad design and concepts). Lets just say a project will most likely be better developed if it's open source as oposed to the same project being closed source.
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Old 2008-10-28, 06:26   Link #46
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Quote:
Open Source makes better software, but Open Source Software won't by default be better then their counterparts (you just can't help bad design and concepts). Lets just say a project will most likely be better developed if it's open source as oposed to the same project being closed source.
Oh, but of course. OSS is based on the concept that software sucks by default, and the only way to improve upon it is make it suck less.

The problem is no one but Microsoft can make Windows suck less.
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Old 2008-10-28, 06:42   Link #47
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Originally Posted by WanderingKnight View Post
I believe it's impossible for open source software, by simple nature, to "get it together as a package". OSS is what the development community wants it to be. And, for OSS, the more users it has, the bigger the development community will be--always. The latter isn't necessarily true for closed source software.

But of course, everything boils down to choice. What matters to me is not that people don't use Linux, it's that people don't choose Windows, either. They just see the PC as a toaster (an appliance) and feed their money to Microsoft when they could simply be using other equally (or more) competent free and open alternatives... which I'm sure many would choose if they gave the matter a simple thought. But most people don't... and Microsoft leverages that.
What I get from this is Linux will never ever be viable as a desktop in a corporate environment from a medium to large scale business, particularly those using in house proprietary software. THe lack of focus results in a scattershot approach, which makes it extremely difficult for businesses.

As I said what choice is there really? Every high school graduate since the early to mid 90's has had significant exposure to Windows. OSX/Linux to date is good for 10% of the world's users combined. Where is the readily available talent pool? Where is the certifications? Anyone at this stage can say "oh yeah I know how to use Linux" but how do you prove it? SUn and Novell have certificate courses but not for the mainstream., which are rare as hen's teeth to begin with as well.

You can have the best product in then world but with no infrastructure, no/limited qualified users then it's just a white elephant.

Case in point look at the Linux server market share vs the desktop marketshare. The server market has infrastructure, qualified staff to keep it going and really make full use of the potential (last look 20-30% market share). Desktop = 0 infrastructure (and no an internet forum doesn't count)= 1 % marketshare. This is where I feel Linux is failing horribly. It all starts in schools. Kids are forced to learn Windows. Adults/kids choose to learn Linux. The product can be competitive. It doesn't have to be perfect (When was a MS product perfect out of the box?). It's too much to ask the 1% to go out and spread the word and teach people to use the o/s. And anyone saying there is no learning curve or it isn't steep is lying. It takes effort, commitment and an interest. For the vast majority of people, adults in particular - learning an operating system in their spare time doesn't even register in the top 1000 things they'd use their spare time for. Particularly when they've been indoctrinated from an early age.
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Old 2008-10-28, 12:13   Link #48
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Originally Posted by hobbes_fan View Post
What I get from this is Linux will never ever be viable as a desktop in a corporate environment from a medium to large scale business, particularly those using in house proprietary software. THe lack of focus results in a scattershot approach, which makes it extremely difficult for businesses.

As I said what choice is there really? Every high school graduate since the early to mid 90's has had significant exposure to Windows. OSX/Linux to date is good for 10% of the world's users combined. Where is the readily available talent pool? Where is the certifications? Anyone at this stage can say "oh yeah I know how to use Linux" but how do you prove it? SUn and Novell have certificate courses but not for the mainstream., which are rare as hen's teeth to begin with as well.

You can have the best product in then world but with no infrastructure, no/limited qualified users then it's just a white elephant.

Case in point look at the Linux server market share vs the desktop marketshare. The server market has infrastructure, qualified staff to keep it going and really make full use of the potential (last look 20-30% market share). Desktop = 0 infrastructure (and no an internet forum doesn't count)= 1 % marketshare. This is where I feel Linux is failing horribly. It all starts in schools. Kids are forced to learn Windows. Adults/kids choose to learn Linux. The product can be competitive. It doesn't have to be perfect (When was a MS product perfect out of the box?). It's too much to ask the 1% to go out and spread the word and teach people to use the o/s. And anyone saying there is no learning curve or it isn't steep is lying. It takes effort, commitment and an interest. For the vast majority of people, adults in particular - learning an operating system in their spare time doesn't even register in the top 1000 things they'd use their spare time for. Particularly when they've been indoctrinated from an early age.
Doesn't OSS rule the roost in terms of Hollywood in terms of CGI?

Also there are 5 countries that are heavily investing in OSS for their infrastructure and with the credit crunch hitting home hard, this might be the thing that pushes people to save the additional pennies that a MS or Apple system would cost them.
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Old 2008-10-28, 13:53   Link #49
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@hobbes_fan:

You're asking for corporatist infrastructure from a purely community-based meritocracy, which is almost completely the opposite. There are companies involved, but they seek their profits elsewhere (the server market).

The problem comes from the chicken-and-egg problem of Microsoft dominating the market and thus people learning Windows because, for most people, it's part of the PC. Linux doesn't even exist for most people. It's not about certifications, it's not about learning the operating system, it's about learning about the existence of alternatives. Most people don't even know what an operating system is. How do you expect them to choose?

Of course, schooling is a very important issue here. But with Microsoft dominating the market (and Microsoft lobbying schools into teaching computing only as MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint), it's very hard to make a breakthrough that way.

But we're holding strong, and steadily we're gaining new users everyday. For our Gutsy Gibbon release party, Ubuntu-ar managed to gather less than 20 people. For the Hardy Heron party (which I didn't manage to attend), there were about 25 people. We have scheduled the Intrepid Ibex release party for next Thursday, and we have already over 50 people who said they were going to attend, and from what I could see, more than 30% were relatively new users (and that's only in Buenos Aires, we've got about 40 people meeting in other parts of the country).

Of course, that doesn't mean we will see everyone who promised to come actually come to the party, but nevertheless we've almost doubled the attendance. In just six months.

The other day, the guy who came home to fix my AC saw my Ubuntu-stickered PC and told me, "Wow, you run Linux". An AC guy over 70 years old.
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Old 2008-10-30, 05:07   Link #50
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See as much as I find Linux useful - the sheer number of distros and some of them are more painful than others (I'm looking at you Sabayon and Gentoo) the lack of standardization is also a problem.

See the O/S is an afterthought for most people. Hey even for me I don't particularly give a crap as long as an o/s sits there and lets me do what I want to do with the least amount of effort. The main concern (particularly for businesses) IMO in order of priority is:

Spoiler:


Quote:
Doesn't OSS rule the roost in terms of Hollywood in terms of CGI?
Don't think so AFAIK Disney/Pixar uses OSX (Steve Jobs - CEO of Apple is on its board of directors). Hardly open source software.

Now certifications do play a role - there's a direct correlation between the number of certified Linux server admins and certified Windows server admins and their respective marketshare. People are willing to pay for support. When I call helpdesk I expect someone qualified to answer. Case in point some assholes at the ubuntu forums a little while back were giving out instructions to delete the root directory to fix issues. There was a massive sticky about 2-3 months ago. Now the mods banned the users and fixed the posts within a reasonable amount of time but in the 5-10mins it took that poor user could have royally borked
his setup.

In a word I think the difference is professionalism. You can be an NPO and be professional - unfortunately IMO even Ubuntu is nowhere near what I'd call professional at this stage.
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Old 2008-10-30, 05:14   Link #51
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In terms of home usage I've found that support from linux is far from amateurish if you are willing to pay for it. Until recently I've always brought the boxed version of SuSE which gave me full support for a little while and they were very professional.

This is how I summerise it...
Windows/Mac - You pay for support if you want it or not
Linux - Most of them you pay for their company based support if you want it, but otherwise they mostly have darn fine free support based on everyone's good will.

Makes for a good read

http://www.linuxmovies.org/
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Old 2008-10-30, 07:30   Link #52
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Quote:
See as much as I find Linux useful - the sheer number of distros and some of them are more painful than others (I'm looking at you Sabayon and Gentoo) the lack of standardization is also a problem.
I see that as a plus rather than a negative. I don't understand what's the problem with having many distros. It just means you have more choices. But seems like people don't like to make decisions.

Quote:
Ease of use - have to give the edge to Windows here
90% of the time both are point and click. The distros I'm using are slowly moving away from CLI. The only time I use the CLI is to troubleshoot. But still Linux troubleshooting IMO is a lot more troublesome and problematic than Windows.
This is highly subjective and corresponds more with what people are used to instead of some golden rule of usability. The example I give often is my grandfather, who was happy with his Windows 3.11 on his old, old machine, until my dad came, scrapped the old PC and put Windows XP on the new one. My grandfather was confused as hell--years of usability standards had flown past him in a whim. He spent more than two months before he was somewhat proficient with his tasks once more (and those were extremely basic tasks).

Quote:
Support-Windows by far
You may need to be on hold for an hour to a call centre in India but they are accountable. The o/s in itself is well documented. Linux support is far from professional and that's to be expected when the helpdesk consists of volunteers. Documentation is hit and miss
Now THIS surprises me. I can google 95% of the time any error I find on Linux and get a hit on someone who had the exact same problem and a solution (or lack thereof) was posted to him or her. There's plenty of information posted on the web, since the system is, well, open.

I haven't had the same success with many Windows problems, and some have forced me to reinstall the whole system (I remember an instant login bluescreen problem I discussed in this very forum--completely non-informative output with no way of producing any useful google result).

You want it or not, the command line is a powerful tool, for working and especially for debugging. If I have a non-booting Linux PC, I can still be reassured that I'll find some sort of output with which I can attempt to fix the problem, and tools at my disposal to do so (Live CDs, etc). I haven't had such luck with Windows.
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Old 2008-10-30, 08:31   Link #53
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Pixar's render farm has run on Linux for quite a few years now. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the design workstations are Macs, but the heavy lifting occurs on large Linux clusters. See: http://blogs.computerworld.com/if_it...ects_its_linux

The ability to create large clusters using commodity hardware has been a big sell for Linux at places like Google as well. In fact, I once read that Google's search cluster is so large that they don't bother to replace machines that die for quite a while. It costs more to track down the dead server than it does to throw another one in the rack.

Let me give an alternative view to hobbes_fan's criteria list, especially as it applies to business computing.

*ease of use
I generally see two types of (non-technical) people using computers. One group, and it's a large one, consists of people for whom no computer or OS offers "ease of use." One of my clients describes some of his office workers as people who would say their computers became unworkable because you moved an icon on the desktop. For these people, any change is unwelcome, even upgrades between Windows versions. For businesses forced to upgrade Windows by decisions in Redmond, you'll still need to invest in retraining people like these.

The other group is much more comfortable with computers and are perfectly willing to muck around in some menus to figure out what they need to do. For them the choice of an operating system is really not that important if it supports the functionality they seek.

*functionality
As I said earlier, most mainstream users don't need more than perhaps a dozen or so applications. Even for people sticking with Windows, the array of FOSS applications like Firefox and OpenOffice make it possible to leave expensive closed-source applications behind. Businesses face the problem of proprietary software that appears to run only under Windows (though Wine and Mono may actually be sufficient even in these cases). In another ten years, though, many of these applications will have migrated to the web, either through third-party providers like Google Apps, or running on local servers. I always argue in favor of web-based solutions in the office environment when possible rather than having to support some proprietary application on every desktop. Commercial vendors in general would prefer the opposite solution since it provides a built-in requirement for support and upgrades. I find this especially infuriating for applications that consist largely of database access where a server running Apache and PHP could provide the entire user interface. Instead you're given some VB or .NET application that has to be installed everywhere and maintained by the provider.

I see more and more people moving back in the direction of thin clients and distributed computing to save money and to enable centralized management of resources. If everyone's running the same copy of OpenOffice, upgrading and troubleshooting takes place on the server not on hundreds of scattered desktops. Those of us with long histories of using computers are amused by this trend which harkens back to the mainframe and mini-computer days of yore.

*support
Last I heard, Microsoft provides essentially no support for Windows or its desktop applications; you're told to ask your computer's manufacturer. If you have a Windows problem, you call Dell, not Microsoft.

Also, based again more on reading and discussions than recent personal experience, professional support for things like Exchange come at a high price. A single support call to Microsoft costs a minimum of $175, I believe. Businesses usually rely on third-party system integrators to provide this type of support. Linux system integrators aren't that big a business yet (sadly for me), but you can get professional service contracts for Linux from companies like IBM, RedHat, and Novell. RH is known for writing bug fixes into the Linux or application source code in response to customer concerns then submitting them upstream to the project's maintainers.

and finally price
Price isn't always at the bottom of everyone's list. One of my clients is a community health center facing substantial budget cuts as a result of the economic crisis. We're moving to Linux-based thin clients and probably a Linux terminal server or two to support the computing needs of the medical staff.

The true cost of Windows is, I believe, much higher than the true cost of Linux, even ignoring the cost of the software itself. Most studies show that Linux installations require fewer support staff than Windows installations. Now part of this difference might be that the average Linux administrator is probably more knowledgeable than the average Windows administrator, but a lot of it has to do with the greater reliability and security of Linux systems. If you can eliminate two or three support staff members at an average cost of $80-100K or so with salary, benefits, overheads, etc., you're looking at numbers that might attract some attention from the folks over in accounting.

None of these arguments says much about what ordinary people should be running. I fully expect Microsoft to maintain its control over computing in the home for many years to come. There are obvious benefits to home users in staying within the Windows monoculture because of its familiarity and because, as WK notes, it's really all they know. Businesses have different incentives and different resources, and it's there that I think we'll continue to see the expansion of Linux both in the server room and on the desktop. I'm not expecting these changes to happen quickly though. If Linux achieves a 20% desktop share in businesses a decade from now, that will represent a major achievement.
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Old 2008-10-30, 09:45   Link #54
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None of these arguments says much about what ordinary people should be running. I fully expect Microsoft to maintain its control over computing in the home for many years to come. There are obvious benefits to home users in staying within the Windows monoculture because of its familiarity and because, as WK notes, it's really all they know. Businesses have different incentives and different resources, and it's there that I think we'll continue to see the expansion of Linux both in the server room and on the desktop. I'm not expecting these changes to happen quickly though. If Linux achieves a 20% desktop share in businesses a decade from now, that will represent a major achievement.
Seeing how those subnotebooks, or netbook, are exploding on the market at the moment, it is just a matter of time people will jump to alternatives. Obviously OSes like QNX, FreeBSD or OpenSolaris probably won't make it onto people's desktop.

Funny, i always thought that pixar were using solaris for their rendering farms.

So linux is the new Windows, when is the point people need to start hating it? ^^
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Old 2008-10-30, 13:16   Link #55
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So linux is the new Windows, when is the point people need to start hating it? ^^
When Compiz gets integrated into the kernel? </badattemptatajoke>
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Old 2008-10-30, 20:23   Link #56
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So linux is the new Windows, when is the point people need to start hating it? ^^
Wah? I though linux users already hated each others guts. ^.^ (why else all the distros and variations)
"What?! you're using Ubuntu/Archlinux/Debian/Suse/[blah blah] with [la la la la] you fuckin' n00b!"
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Old 2008-10-30, 20:36   Link #57
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Nah, that would be "you are using (K)Ubuntu/Suse/Mandriva/EasyDistro, nooo000b!!!111"
"You're using Slack/Arch/Gentoo/DIYDistro, get a L.I.F.E."
"WTF You're using Canonical/Novell, they've sold their souls to the devil, DIE noob!!11"

Then there's the usual "OMG, {GNOME/KDE} users, lolz, you suck".
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Old 2008-10-30, 23:39   Link #58
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Then there's the usual "OMG, {GNOME/KDE} users, lolz, you suck".
Anyone who doesn't have initdefault set to 3 (text mode) is a wuss.
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Old 2008-10-31, 05:24   Link #59
grey_moon
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A recent article from the former head of IT at the german foreign ministry, the interesting line is on the end....

Quote:
The biggest hurdle proved to be to convince the two hundred IT workers a the ministry. "Their issues were not technical. They just did not know anything about Linux and Open Source and we had to change their views. We took all of them on a crash course of using Linux servers and configuring Apache. There they discovered that it works."
It just shows that getting people to adopt something different isn't just limited to the users, but also to techies too....

http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/cont...279/4/lang,en/
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Old 2008-11-16, 20:59   Link #60
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Originally Posted by Sides View Post
Linux is fine for devs and for home usage, but when it comes to business it is either Unix, MacOS or Windows.
Tell that to Google, whose entire search farm runs Linux. Or many of the image rendering shops used by or at many motion picture studios (including and especially Dreamworks SKG).

However, what do you mean when you say "Unix"? Do you mean an OS specifically named "Unix" (only one platform that I know of actually is called "Unix", notably SCO's UnixWare) or any platform which has been certified by The Open Group (which owns the trademark to the name "Unix")? Given the fragmented nature of the Unix market, you need to be very specific.

Besides, a lot of sites do run Linux, plus a few run the BSDs, e.g. FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
Anyone who doesn't have initdefault set to 3 (text mode) is a wuss.
It depends on how a distribution uses the SysV runlevel system, if at all.

Debian presently uses the exact same runlevel for multiuser interaction whether you're using a GUI or not, which is runlevel 2.

Ubuntu does not use the SysV init system at all, but instead, uses an event-driven program called "Upstart". There are no runlevels in the SysV init sense, though it can be emulated. More info can be had at http://upstart.ubuntu.com. Debian is using it in experimental, while Fedora Core apparently already uses it according to the page.

BSD init does not support runlevels at all. The machine is either running single-user, multiuser (GUI or not), or it is down.

On my desktop Linux box, because I use a GUI on it, does that make me a wuss? I quite frequently have at least one terminal window open, so there.

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Originally Posted by Sides View Post
Seeing how those subnotebooks, or netbook, are exploding on the market at the moment, it is just a matter of time people will jump to alternatives.
In the ultracompact laptop/netbook market, Microsoft SERIOUSLY missed the boat. Linux already has a stranglehold on this one, while XP Home is eking its own market, but I still think Home is a poor choice if you want to do anything serious.

Quote:
Obviously OSes like QNX, FreeBSD or OpenSolaris probably won't make it onto people's desktop.
Actually, you are wrong. Just in that list above, some of them have already been on users' desks.

Remember the i-Opener? Its native OS was QNX. The main people who bought the i-Opener were hackers who wanted a nice, cheap Linux platform, which was not the device's target audience. Though it also should be noted that the i-Opener was not a general-purpose computer. Its only intended uses were to browse the web and read e-mail.

Plus it could be argued that FreeBSD is already on people's desks in some form, notably in the form of Macos. Granted it uses its own form of BSD (Darwin), the fact that Jordan Hubbard, the initial leader of the FreeBSD project, has moved on to Apple, bringing a lot of his FreeBSD experience with him, brings some of FreeBSD onto users' desktops.

The only item enumerated in your list I can really agree with you on is OpenSolaris.

Quote:
Funny, i always thought that pixar were using solaris for their rendering farms.
Sun has never been known for graphics work, but that's not to say that it hasn't been used as a rendering farm platform.

Silicon Graphics Inc., on the other hand, very much is, being the specifier of OpenGL. As such, the main commercial OS which has found such use is IRIX. A lot of Square's work is rendered using IRIX-powered render farms.

And if you don't think Linux isn't big in the render farm market, think again. Titanic's CG scenes were done with DEC Alpha machines running Linux. Any CG movie released by Dreamworks SKG is done with Linux. As for Pixar, I don't know.

There's a lot of info about Linux in the motion picture production industry as well as software that can be used (and even obtained) from www.linuxmovies.org.

Meanwhile, to go to my own systems, I use a wide variety of systems based on the need.

In my case, I use:
  • Windows XP as my main desktop and entertainment platforms. Windows is a great desktop system. And it should stay that way.
  • Windows Vista is on my laptop only because it came with it. This doesn't mean I have to like it. In fact, I absolutely hate it. I make it livable by switching everything over to "classic" interfaces, which has an additional beneficial side effect of killing Aero, the biggest resource pig in Vista.
  • Ubuntu Linux on several of my infrastructure systems. I went with Ubuntu because I got a bit tired of Debian's politicking as well as long development cycles. However, since I've used Debian in the past and since Ubuntu is directly based upon Debian, my admin skills transfer (with a very few exceptions) right over.

    I have a desktop which runs Kubuntu, but I presently do not run it due to space and electrical constraints. I may get a secondary machine, like an Eee with an HDD or an Acer Aspire One and put a larger hard drive into it to have Windows XP Professional and either Kubuntu or Xubuntu on it (mainly as a platform to take to jobsites for equipment installation, configuration and/or troubleshooting).
  • FreeBSD on a few more of my infrastructure systems, partly because that's what my revenue systems run, which were based upon the systems I had acquired from my last job when it closed its doors. Partly because I want some heterogeneity in my network. Partly due to familiarity (I used it at my most recent workplace as well as the one before it). Mostly because I like it as much as I like Linux.

I think OS choice depends entirely on skill level and needs. I think my network setup fits my needs and skill level (very high) pretty well, but then, to fulfill said needs along with what I want to do, I use multiple computers each with different operating systems and configurations to suit the need/want set they are set up for.

For just one computer for a normal user, that's another matter entirely, and as others have said, it's a very personal thing. You have to weigh what you need against what the desired system can(not) do, what sacrifices you feel willing to make (if any), and how comfortable you feel with learning a new system.

--Ian.
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