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OS Wars are over, we all lost?

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    #11
    Perhaps this thread should have been entitled "Desktop PC OS Wars".

    In the world away from your PC desktop (and small server), UNIX is king, like it or not.

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      #12
      Originally posted by NickFitz View Post
      OS X has a RRP around £85. A version of Vista that supports the same general level of functionality (though lacking the applications like iPhoto, GarageBand, etc. that are bundled with OS X) has a RRP somewhere around the £220 mark.

      I'm not sure that "You may be sure that the price is high" is being applied to the correct product in your appraisal...
      I did say "Choice of computer and OS", and I didn't just mean the OS RRP itself: for me, OS X means having a Mac.

      I understand that OS X is specifically for Macs, and that Apple are not in the OS business exactly. That's probably why it works so well as well as being less costly, and I suspect that may be the only way to get it to work right. But the hardware that is Apple's real business, is what I object to; or rather, the idea that, like Nike and Tommy Hilfiger, what they are selling is a brand. Half the price or less is the stuff (good though it may be), the rest is the cost of associating your life with that brand. That's not me.
      Last edited by expat; 23 October 2008, 08:18.

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        #13
        OpenSolaris rocks my boat.

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          #14
          Originally posted by PAH View Post
          There's so much software out there now that any OS is irrelevant apart from deciding which base you want to build your castle on. Take Vista for example. Nothing really innovative on top of XP, just a pretified re-hash with some apps thrown in that are nothing to do with the OS side of things. I dare say most if not all of the stuff they built into Vista could be obtained from third parties for XP.
          Not really.

          If you are a PC gamer you would almost certainly choose Windows. If you were serious about audio/video/graphics then it would be a smart choice to get a Mac. Linux runs on low powered PC's and lot's of portable devices. It's free and open and this appeals to more and more people each year. I think some people like the hacking side of Linux that most people would classify as stress.

          OS software is some of the most mature, even the largest software company in the world failed to add any useful or innovative features to it's last release. Over the next ten years Linux based OS's will show more improvement than the already mature OS's offered by Apple and Windows.

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            #15
            Originally posted by jkoder View Post
            Not really.

            If you are a PC gamer you would almost certainly choose Windows. If you were serious about audio/video/graphics then it would be a smart choice to get a Mac. Linux runs on low powered PC's and lot's of portable devices. It's free and open and this appeals to more and more people each year. I think some people like the hacking side of Linux that most people would classify as stress.

            OS software is some of the most mature, even the largest software company in the world failed to add any useful or innovative features to it's last release. Over the next ten years Linux based OS's will show more improvement than the already mature OS's offered by Apple and Windows.
            Well put.

            But my problem is not that my demands are too high, it is that (as far as PCs go) I am a pretty non-power user. I don't play games. I don't do any serious audio or video (OK I photoshop photos but I am not having any trouble with that). I don't have any devices that I would regard as exotic, nor any unusual programs. I don't develop software on my PC.

            So I expect to pay my money and then have zero problems. That is what does not happen.

            However, I suppose I should be careful not to blame the OS, or its maker, for everything. Many of my current gripes are in fact aimed elsewhere:

            -- I dislike software and hardware that claims to install itself but doesn't always; where getting any kind of help with this failure is regarded as a paying extra.
            -- I dislike broadband providers who sell you this, and give you only a useless call centre operation guaranteed to waste hours of your time and probably take years off your life.
            -- I dislike manufacturers who sell PCs with Windows pre-installed, and don't provide install disks or any other way of fixing the OS.

            None of that is really the OS's fault.

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              #16
              Originally posted by Churchill View Post
              OpenSolaris rocks my boat.
              Now available on the mainframe!!!
              Brexit is having a wee in the middle of the room at a house party because nobody is talking to you, and then complaining about the smell.

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                #17
                Originally posted by darmstadt View Post
                How about MVS on the PC?

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                  #18
                  Originally posted by expat View Post
                  -- I dislike manufacturers who sell PCs with Windows pre-installed, and don't provide install disks or any other way of fixing the OS.

                  None of that is really the OS's fault.
                  That last one is entirely down to Microsoft's licensing terms - until a few years ago OEMs would provide a full Windows install disk with an OEM install key, but Microsoft changed the rules.

                  Now, OEMs only get the discount that makes their machines affordable if they stick to the preinstall + recovery disk method of distribution - they have to pay Microsoft full whack (or very close to it) to provide the customer with a proper OS install disk. This adds up to £200 to the cost of the system, which is a killer if you're selling machines at £400 a pop.

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                    #19
                    Originally posted by bogeyman View Post
                    Surely, an OS for today should be a tiny-kernal, modular, multiprocessor-aware, vastly-scaleable, web-aware, cooperative entity with extreme hardware abstraction (hardware sublimination?)
                    Sounds good and with in built file sharing capability would be excellent. But could you make money out of it ?
                    Bored.

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                      #20
                      Originally posted by ace00 View Post
                      Sounds good and with in built file sharing capability would be excellent. But could you make money out of it ?
                      Spot-on I guess. The three sisters that I mentioned are all defined by the money question:
                      Windows is there to sell shrink-wrapped, end.
                      OS X is there to sell Apple hardware.
                      Linux is not there to sell.

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