[Tfug] Why Desktop Linux Holds Its Own Against OS X | bMighty.com

[christopher floess]

Alright, I'm chiming in :)

I think linux works fine as a desktop. While I don't think that it's
for everyone, I do think that there is a specific demographic that can
handle it just fine, and that demographic is the people who
successfully decide to "venture" away from windows and readjust to the
OSX environment.

I really think that people comfortable making that switch are computer
users that are adept enough to handle the transition to linux, at
least the major distributions. Some people aren't computer people.
They don't even really learn how to use their computers so much as
they learn how to "get on the internet" and "write papers", as opposed
to using Internet Explorer, Word, etc.

These people will never switch to a new system. They'll hold on to
Windows 98 because XP is like culture shock (my brother :) ), and as
far as I'm concerned, that's fine. But there is a whole demographic of
young people who move seamlessly and comfortably between Windows and
OSX. I think for these people, the Gnome or KDE environment could be
just another environment like windows or OSX.

Give them the resources to understand some of the most essential
differences like package management and repositories, and they'll have
no problem adjusting to their start menu being a slab, or whatever
else.

I switched to opensuse a couple of months ago and was really impressed
with it, amazed really at how well polished it is. I do have some
complaints, but you know, I'm a tinkerer, I came from FreeBSD running
FVWM, I came from an environment where I never seemed to be separated
more than one or two degrees from the base system, and any sort of
real padding from the nuts and bolts seems cumbersome in that sense,
or at least klunky.

So that's a bit of how I feel on the issue. Furthermore, I don't think
OSX is this great system. At least not compared to Windows. I'll
admit, I have almost no experience with OSX, but I'm really making the
comment based on my experience with XP and then Vista. I don't think
Vista is that bad of a product. Bloated? Certainly, but I had no
problems with it. It seems to be pretty much what it needs to be. How
do you improve on that? To me the enthusiasm behind macs is just the
result of a really good marketing scheme.

Of course that doesn't include the people who really know the system,
and are enthusiastic about it for that reason, but I think it does
explain the recent exodus from windows.

Later ~ Chris