Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Originally posted by: Cerb
Spyware may end up on there, depending on how tight Safari is. Virii and worms will be less of a problem, though, simply due to design. To do the things that a lot of spyware or worms need to, a *n*x needs you to log in as root. In Windows, you basically are that all the time. OS X, BSD, and Linux are just plain designed better for security, having been based on true multi-user unix.
What's wrong with windows xp's design? You too have to login as a root type account (admin) which should and would technically make XP more secure. But because people are stupid (have a tendancy to do this, I will admit), they will run on the admin account all the time, negating that useful feature.
In *n*x, you usually log in as the equivalent of a Windows power user. To install non-standard software or access any files or services that would need admin priveledges, you must log in as root to do so.
In Windows, that means you LOG OUT, shutting most apps down, log back in as admin, do the work, log out, log back in as the less powerful user. Clunky.
In *n*x, you log in as root
right there, and just that terminal session or other app is root for the duration that time--it's seamless. This makes doing such things easier, and adds a layer of simple security in that you are prompted for the root password. It adds security in that your kids can use the PC w/o having admin priveledges, and that programs that need admin priveledges
must prompt you for them, as they are actually needing to log on as a separate user. If you're prompted for it and don't know why, then we have entered a new age of malware--but still not as simple as using IE to get it in Windows.
Photoshop: check.
GIMP: check, supposedly.
OpenOffice: check (but no specialized 2.0 for OS X)
Seriously, what is so limiting today? Granted, it's not Apple's fault (but they sure benefit!), but there's plenty of good FOSS to choose from.
Not enough to satasfy me. I like the small applications as well, the ones that get little to no credit and there are most definately no substitues on the mac.
[/quote]Such as? I use Litestep, Rivatuner, MBM, and PSPad, not available even for Linux...but if I had a compelling reason to go to OS X or Linux, I could leave them behind easily.
I never really worried about that.
ADDITION: snipped was PM's comment about getting software on x86/Windows first.
Well I do, because I like having my stuff asap.
You can do that with a Mac. For some strange reaosn, Gentoo seems to be really popular, as is FreeBSD.
Why? There are basically two OSes for x86, soon to be three (opened up Solaris), and two for the Mac, with overlap. Is this argument a strawman or a red herring? So what if you can run lots of OSes (I think it was in the low 30s, but multiple versions of early Windows counted)? Why do you need Windows 1,2,3, and 3.11, or OS/2? Between Windows, OS X, and Linux (2.4 and up), you've got solid operating systems with good hardware support.
The guy said he had like 25*+ operating systems (starting to recall it), it was on the screen savers. But agian, that was on a PC, not a mac. I like choices and it's simple as that whether or not I would actually use them is another question.
There is just so much more support on the PC side with much more powerful hardware and so on that there would be no need to switch to a mac. There is nothing on a mac that would and should convince anyone to use it over the pc. The only reason why people use it, is because they need to be compatible with the ones who DO use it, kinda strange if you asked me. If everyone switched to PC, there wouldn't be nearly as many compatibility issues as there are now. I don't even care if they switch to windows or not, just long as they have a pc. That way we won't have to waste money on severely overpriced hardware. I hope it become something like 50/50 for linux and if linux gets simplified enough for everybody, all there will be is just a software market and a free operating system.
Support I'll give. With recent Linux distros, uncommon sound cards and peripherals are all that don't have drivers, and you can do less than an hour of googling to manage a very nice new system that will have full driver support. The way Apple deals with their HW and SW, that won't happen.
I must disagree about more powerful hardware, though. x86 is just lucky that everyone and their compilers uses MMX and SSE. Altivec-heavy benches on the G5 ruin x86 counterparts...there just aren't that many of them (and given market share, won't be), and they probably haven't done too much in the way of optomizing the OS yet. If PPC and x86's situations were reversed, we see the same performance difference.
People did switch to PC, and there are tons of compatibility issues. What we need is to get the good stuff out more. More quality SiS chipset boards, fewer people w/ PoS PSUs, and more driver folks getting things working right than getting them 2% faster, which has been half the problem in the last several years (this coming from a FX 5900XT owner...).
I also hope Linux can grow that much. It would also be good if some of the positive aspects of OS X made it into KDE and Gnome--or Xf86 itself. From a financial standpoint, not open sourcing what made the OS user-friendly may have been a good one, but that still doesn't get me the ability to use it on x86 hardware.
Linux is simplified enough now. It can be, and is being, tweaked, but it is ready for the typical desktop user. You can even run MS Office and IE, if you're so evilly inclined, through Crossover Office
(not free, but freeer in every way than a Windows license).
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