crass's Profile

  • Jul 11, 2008
  • 2
  • 0

Latest comments made by: crass

  • DM, your answers were well written and to the point, and I agree with most (if not all) of your points. I also believe that the author's intention was to attract informed comments like the ones you made. Comments that would "attack" the general perception regarding linux. But, I must agree with the article's title that "no one cares about linux", as far as the average user is concerned. And by average, I mean the user who is not working in the IT industry. For that user, even if he has ever heard of linux, the general impression is that it is an obscure platform for some nerds, where you have to have a PhD in IT just to set up a printer. The above do not imply that I do not agree with you, that the author has made some terribly wrong points. But I just liked the general idea of the article, as a good starting point for debating, and most importantly, as an opportunity for me to learn something new from more advanced users like yourself.
    crass had this to say on May 19, 2008 Posts: 2
    About Linux and Why Nobody Seems to Care
  • Well, there are two ways to look at this article: the first one is to dismiss it as an article written by a guy with little linux experience and perhaps less than optimal IT market knowledge. In that sense, I agree that strong/absolute conclusions like "free software will never be as good as commercial software", sound like the "640k should be enough for everyone". And yes, Firefox is an excellent example which dismisses the authors point. Additionally, the perceived value of a software can never be equal to zero, by definition. However, the second way to look at this article, is to consider it as the perception of linux by the average user. And in that sense, I find it well written. It is true that, overall, the software offered for the Mac is way better aesthetically and functionally, compared to the free linux software. It is true that if I weigh the cost of Leopard vs the cost of Ubuntu, I prefer to pay 130 bucks for the former and have something that really works, than to fiddle with numerous settings and incompatibilities just to save a few bucks. In conclusion, I just want to state that my main desktop machine is an iMac, and up until a few days ago, my laptop was a WinXP machine. After giving a try at the latest Ubuntu, I erased WinXP from my laptop, since the latest Ubuntu was the only linux distro that finally recognized my laptop's WiFi, Bluetooth, audio @ video hardware, automatically. Now I enjoy a functional, speedy OS on my laptop. But for serious work, I always turn to my Mac.
    crass had this to say on May 19, 2008 Posts: 2
    About Linux and Why Nobody Seems to Care