chevy said:
the main advantage of the Mac over Linux is that it runs MS Office, no ?
Oh, but there are SO many other advantages of OS X over Linux.
Like, for example, I can install software without getting the obscure error message "ApplicationX depends on gtk+2.4.3-2 which is not installed". And after installing this mysterious "gtk+2.4.3-2" I don't get an error message that says "Nice job, braniac. ApplicationY depends on gtk+2.2.10-3 which will now terminate and will devour random blocks of data while it's at it".
I have a Window manager/evniroment (Finder/Quarts/etc) that doesn't make my brain explode with its quirks, bugs, non-intuitaveness, and duplicity. I have programs that work (have you ever tried using GnomeMeeting? iChat AV it is not. It isn't even NetMeeting, and using tin cans + holding up a picture of your chat partner hand-drawn by a 5-year old is better than NetMeeting).
I can run OS X on ALL of my hardware, I can use 802.11G NICs, and sound tends to work. I don't have to spend 50% of my time trying to get the machine to work for me (as opposed to the other way around). Sure, I'm "forced" to know more about how my system works internally, but you can bet if I was "forced" to spend 50% of my "driving time" working on my car, I'd quickly become a permanent pedestrian.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Linux, and I LOVE OSS and the idea behind OSS (I'm a contributor to a couple of different programs). I just think desktop Linux needs some serious work, and its developers need some serious attitude adjustments (get over it folks -
just statically link libraries into the @%#% programs! They'll actually *run* on people's machines!). See my earlier "linux killed my grandma" rant - Linux 2.6, KDE 3.2, and Gnome 2.6 have improved things a little, but not nearly enough.
Needless to say, if MS Office was suddenly made available for Linux in some suped-up, shiny version, Linux would still be unusable by 95% of the population. This will be fixed eventually (hopefully sooner than later; as soon as MS starts to feel the pain it'll whip out the "patent" stick, and then the party will be over. It's registering 2000 patents a year, so the sooner Linux becomes a viable product and gets this out of the way, the better). In the meantime, I'll stick with OS X (or even, gasp, Windows), which I can actually *use* on a day-to-day basis.