The State Of The Personal Computer

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PC = personal computer. it's the hardware. windows and linux run on pc. apple computer = pc. apple os runs on a pc.
 
So BSOD in windows is = to trying to put linux on a laptop and then throwing the thing across the room because of GPU/screen and wireless support. Or for that matter trying to get Far Cry 2 on OSX.
 
I dont know how you can live without an Ipod Touch neg me, if you will, this thing is badass. For 200 bucks Im blown away. Im getting tired of my PC. Apps are the future its great.
 
Sorry guys but the article is biased so much one can't find an unbiased paragraph.

Windows is a major system in the corporate environment and from there it spreads into common households. Also several key document excahnge chains require MS software. It has nothing to do with quality. MS did not create anything worth paying for with Vista.

MAC is a nice OS. However the hardware control of Apple prohibits it from taking a larger market share. Basicaly it is the same as the gaming consoles. Same restrictions, same polish feel.

Linux is the engineering OS. It is not meant to be primary a desktop system. It is a technical workstation system. People trying to get it to mainstream desktop are wrong.

As you can see, each of these has it's own role and place. They do interfere in some areas but that's about it.

I had to keep my restrain to not shout at the article writer about his Linux misinformation 🙂 His claim that he uses/was using Linux seems to me highly unreliable given the information he is sprouting.
 

Its easy, you goto the store and pick up a Creative Zen or other player and presto, FM radio and WMA(You know a company is acting like a child when they refuse to support a format just because its made by MS. WMA is not ground breaking, but many users still have full collections of it and transcoding it and loosing further quality going from one lossy format to another makes NO sense.) support yet still cheaper then Apples offering. Best part, NO ITUNES!!!

You know that an "App" is just short for Applications right? Your right, all applications are the future 😛
 
@JimmiG, windows is stable, as long as you don't use it, a big chunk of that Pie Graph of Vista Crashes was Microsoft related: 17.9%
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1585

The problem with Linux is: it doesn't have an advertising budget, and it doesn't have an R&D budget, it is mostly dependent on reciprocity of others, the biggest incentive Linux has is community.

Driver support is starting to come around, if you build it they will come, if Linux had a 20% market share on new computers I think that would be enough for mainstream third party support {software and hardware}.

I think the business sector will be the first to adopt mainstream Linux, if only to cut software and hardware costs, but would have to increase support cost.

I use OSX at work, and Ubuntu and XP at home.
 
[citation][nom]heltoupee[/nom]I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone will ever "checkmate" Mac. Mac will continue to enjoy the (roughly) 10% market share they've always had. WINE will not be the lynchpin that will take them down, either. Ever seen Parallels? It's what WINE should be. I should preface all of this by saying that I've run Ubuntu as a primary OS for several years. Before that, I was a FreeBSD user since way before version 4 came out (I think I've still got install media for 3.4 laying around here somewhere). I had a windows laptop that got taken from windows 95 through 98SE, and then another with XP. Now, I have to dual-boot to Windows occasionally to load iTunes and update the software on my iPod Touch, so I've run the gamut.I am a HUGE fan of Linux, but here is the reason Linux will never make it on the desktop: third party driver support. Yes, I know, more and more companies are writing good Linux drivers. Both nVidia and AMD/ATI have the newest version of their drivers available for both Windows and Linux. That's not really the problem. ....

.... But, for a living, changing system over a period of time, it's really a pain in the butt sometimes.[/citation]

Ive read all that, believe me and ive passed it.

But the thing is....Joe consumer doesn't need updates, doesn't really knows what anti-aliasing is, never understood what the Translate look Aside Bus was, and believe Netburst is a Spiderman ability.

My mom is very happy with her Ubuntu. On her desktop and netbook.
My sister in law is very happy with her Ubuntu (in Galician, not spanish).
My brother Dual-boots. Vista 64 for games, Ubuntu 8.04 for work.

Just of the top of my head. And i'm sorry for your Itunes.

WINE just needs to get better on a productivity level. I don't really need to do my work on Windows. I only have windows for gaming. Nothing more. Linux is still a step away, mainly because of Directx. It will always be i guess.

About VMware, it is not very easy to "mod". Ive crashed several Kernels tempering with .... well, stuff. But in the latest analysis the problems, you broke your Kernel due to updating drivers and playing with VMware. I don't see any Joe Consumer doing that.

Try to install Catalist or Forceware with desinstalling first on Windows. then come back for the results.

Linux is still the "geek" choice for an OS. WINE idea is great, because it is not a VM, but a middle-layer. Check phoronix forums for WINE vs WINDOWS benchies for gaming.

The problem with WINE and linux in general, is that, a "geek" or a "tech savy" is making a GUI with apps associated, for people that just want to push a button. It is a hard task or a impossible one.

But will be fun to see.

At MU_Engineer, a windows box "can" be as stable as Linux. But it is very hard to see a windows box having the uptime that many linux boxes achieve without much sweat.
 
I came from Thailand where we never heard of OS X or Linux, until i came to US of A. In those 3rd word country, they get software for free(illegally). Those software are so expensive, so they cannot afford one.
 
Noticed a funny thing reading all of our comments. Windows is better, they say, because it has support for more software & hardware. Yes, it does have more support. However, Windows is less stable. They say that it's not unstable, but it's the drivers & 3rd party software that is unstable, thus making windows suffer. But isn't it that same software, and those same drivers that make Windows so much better than Mac or linux??? Riiiiiggggghhhhht.

I'm supposed to use Windows because it has better hardware & software support, but oh, I'm also going to have to deal with the instability caused by those same things. That makes a lot of sense.
 
Linux desktop needs:

A serious chatclient! Be 100% interoperable with MSN / Yahoo / other... Think about it, how can a windows user switch to linux if he can't easily chat on his familiar MSN account? The eee-pc couldnt out of the box chat with webcam, flipping it from 80% usefull to 20% usefull for my non-geek gf. After some googling and hacking I could get aMSN to recieve webcam but not send it.

In my experience it is the lack of MSN compatible chatclient why I fail to convince completely-non-tech people to use linux. And after custom installing aMSN and painfully configuring the usb cam it still looks and works like a rundown car.

Which is a pity since I have not seen any of the same non-tech people that did not have on average 10 viri / trojans / spyware instances per week of chatting since the last HD reformat / OS reinstall. And this is exactly where linux use as desktop OS would be strong.

Make a distro that works 100% as universal chat appliance and you already have a business case for selling cheap linux laptops with integrated webcams. Linux's inroad into the desktop will not come from being a fully functional windows replacer but from effectively levering a limited set of functions on a stable platform.
 
Stability is dependent on hardware. If you want Windows to be stable, get good hardware, if you want Windows to be unstable, but generic crap hardware. Back in the days of Windows 98, I ran into a bug with windows that involved keeping your system up for 43 days and some odd hours (memory started overwriting itself at that point causing a blue screen and was a known bug fixed in SE). Quality of hardware = stability, this is why Apple refuses to let anyone run Mac OS on anything but their hardware, cause if they did, people would complain about how unstable Mac OS was too.
 
page 4...OSX offered better power management ON A MAC! try installing it on a standard laptop and then see if it still offers improved power management, or if it was just because it wa sbetter optimized for the macbook than vista.
 
[citation][nom]haplo602[/nom]MAC is a nice OS. However the hardware control of Apple prohibits it from taking a larger market share. Basicaly it is the same as the gaming consoles. Same restrictions, same polish feel.Linux is the engineering OS. It is not meant to be primary a desktop system. It is a technical workstation system. People trying to get it to mainstream desktop are wrong.[/citation]

Apple Inc can't get their hardware open up, for they know they will suck worse than M$ had they done that. Apple Inc is driven by "design" people, and not software engineers as in the case of Microsoft and Google.

Linux was a joke taken too seriously, just like C++. Linux isn't supposed to be an OS for specific environment. It is essentially an open platform under GNU licensing. It can be OS for workstation, virtualization server, embeded, desktop, laptop, tablet and even gaming console if corresponded software/driver package is provided. The only problem is that it lacks centralized organization, such as Microsoft, to regulate development of API and drivers.
 
[citation][nom]anonymous2[/nom]Linux desktop needs:A serious chatclient! Be 100% interoperable with MSN / Yahoo / other... Think about it, how can a windows user switch to linux if he can't easily chat on his familiar MSN account? The eee-pc couldnt out of the box chat with webcam, flipping it from 80% usefull to 20% usefull for my non-geek gf. After some googling and hacking I could get aMSN to recieve webcam but not send it.In my experience it is the lack of MSN compatible chatclient why I fail to convince completely-non-tech people to use linux. And after custom installing aMSN and painfully configuring the usb cam it still looks and works like a rundown car.Which is a pity since I have not seen any of the same non-tech people that did not have on average 10 viri / trojans / spyware instances per week of chatting since the last HD reformat / OS reinstall. And this is exactly where linux use as desktop OS would be strong.Make a distro that works 100% as universal chat appliance and you already have a business case for selling cheap linux laptops with integrated webcams. Linux's inroad into the desktop will not come from being a fully functional windows replacer but from effectively levering a limited set of functions on a stable platform.[/citation]

Pidgin ? And there are more, just talk with the K instead of the Gnome.
 
However, for most home computing (office suite, digital photography, and Internet) ... the Mac is the ideal platform for those who can afford it.
Click to expand...
If both platforms have ample power to surf, type and play with photos (especially with Picasa and the like for free) why would you pay a premium? Why is it superior for such menial tasks (especially at a premium)? Is its 'simplicity' or UI worth the extra expense? I think in this case the bottom line trumps all (which is what surfing, typing, photo-ing mom and pops are looking for). These users are looking for less expensive means, not comforts like simplicity and stability.
 
very nice article, couldn't have been more objective.
i just want to add those who says positive about windows stability.
i remember those days with windows95, its really a pain to use which crashes and destroys the registry so often that i had to install the OS twice or more in a month and is not even connected to the internet.
win xp is really good, the only time i had to do re-installation when the system shuts down so fast before the harddisk finishes writing. service pack 1 solved the problem.

i guess, OS market shares will stay the same except Linux which will have more success in organizations avoiding the cost of MS windows especially in developing countries.
 
[citation][nom]libraryeli[/nom]Noticed a funny thing reading all of our comments. Windows is better, they say, because it has support for more software & hardware. Yes, it does have more support. However, Windows is less stable. They say that it's not unstable, but it's the drivers & 3rd party software that is unstable, thus making windows suffer. But isn't it that same software, and those same drivers that make Windows so much better than Mac or linux??? Riiiiiggggghhhhht.I'm supposed to use Windows because it has better hardware & software support, but oh, I'm also going to have to deal with the instability caused by those same things. That makes a lot of sense.[/citation]

So I can build a Mac from scratch using high-end parts like an ATI HD 4870 X2? Please...

It is easier to write Windows programs for Open-Source than it is for Mac.

Instability IS caused by faulty drivers from 3rd Party manufacturers. Denying that is just ignorant, like most Mac users in general.
 
There were some key points in what you talked about that were glossed over. Frozen Pb speaks the truth. The main stability advantage of Macs is that they control the hardware configurations at the factory. Thus all the drivers and components are known to work well together. Thus the OS doesn't have as many moving parts to fail.

As far as Linux (which has .91% market share yet about 30% of this article), the biggest obstacle it has is history and that it's not Windows. If Windows and Ubuntu were both brand new, you'd probably have a real contest (I don't like Ubuntu, but whatever). For Linux to gain market share, it needs to pull Windows users over and have them want to learn something new and different. Nobody wants to do that unless they have another reason in cooperation with it: new job, curiosity/geekiness, can't afford Windows, etc. The biggest advantage that Windows has is its own momentum and that basically everybody learns basic computing on Windows. I can't count the number of people who have said to me, "I got a Mac because they're supposed to be easier and more stable but I don't know how to use it so I guess I'm going back to Vista."
 
To put that into perspective, if 10 in 1,000 flights crashed, one day of flights at Los Angeles International Airport would result in 6.2 plane crashes.

No you mean, that if the LAIA were to detect 10 crash scenarios then ONLY 6.2 would actually occur.
 
[citation][nom]abydosone[/nom]Instability IS caused by faulty drivers from 3rd Party manufacturers.[/citation]

So, then why do my Windows systems crash more often than my linux machines?? EVERY app on my linux machines is 3rd party, so why doesn't it crash all the time. Also, why do my Ubuntu installations run better than my XP installations on the exact same peice of hardware... that Dell setup to run XP in the first place. Ignorant, don't go throwing that word around, some of it might stick to you.
 
[citation][nom]justaguy[/nom]As far as Linux (which has .91% market share yet about 30% of this article), the biggest obstacle it has is history and that it's not Windows. If Windows and Ubuntu were both brand new, you'd probably have a real contest (I don't like Ubuntu, but whatever). For Linux to gain market share, it needs to pull Windows users over and have them want to learn something new and different. Nobody wants to do that unless they have another reason in cooperation with it: new job, curiosity/geekiness, can't afford Windows, etc. The biggest advantage that Windows has is its own momentum and that basically everybody learns basic computing on Windows. I can't count the number of people who have said to me, "I got a Mac because they're supposed to be easier and more stable but I don't know how to use it so I guess I'm going back to Vista."[/citation]
History definitely has a huge impact, but I don't see user adoption of something different as the main obstacle. Lets for example look at the driver issue.

Microsoft design of Windows isn't based on an interest of promoting hardware standards. Microsoft could have benefited from open drivers and better hardware standards, something that could have improved stability immensely. Since I remember the mess Microsoft created in the 80's I'm inclined to believe that commercial interests overshadowed technical improvements. In a sense this driver mess has been of benefit to Microsoft when open-source alternatives showed up. Strangely enough most don't seem to even question why even the most basic USB devices don't follow a common standard, resulting in all kinds of home made drivers of mixed quality. Linux developers have hence been forced to practically waste time on reversed engineering and lobbying for better standards.

I don't want to touch the subject of why Microsoft has a momentum, but it's sad to see how often the means to get it now is forgotten even though it hurt the market really bad. As a product I've nothing against Windows, it's my work to administrate Windows networks, even though personally Windows feels old and passé for me (a fancy GUI isn't what makes an impression on me). Now we already know that Windows 7 isn't something radically new, but still I hopes that the improvements made will shake the Linux community into working even harder. As I already wrote in this thread I don't agree on the conclusion that Linux should strive to be mainstream in the way that Windows is, instead it should attract those users who appreciate the qualities of Linux, and they are already everything from geeks to clicking-on-applications-users.

Linux needs Windows to improve, just as Windows needs the same sort of competition. The difference though is that Microsoft is one of the very few companies that sells software and not really a service, something Linux never can. Microsoft is obviously evolving, but I'm not so sure which forces within the company that will succeed.

Last and less important note: to say that Linux "has .91% market share" isn't accurate because we don't know. Web statistics are so flawed that it can't be trusted (bots, user agents, automatic services making calls all the time, and so on). Unfortunately we don't have many other options when making estimations. Nevertheless 0.91% might be what is true in your part of the world, but here despite the Web statistic flaws we quite often see the that figured doubled. On the other hand it doesn't matter.
 
[citation][nom]Tjik[/nom] Strangely enough most don't seem to even question why even the most basic USB devices don't follow a common standard, resulting in all kinds of home made drivers of mixed quality. Linux developers have hence been forced to practically waste time on reversed engineering and lobbying for better standards.[/citation]

I have to disagree with this. USB Class drivers are quickly advancing and providing standard ways to interface with USB devices. USB sticks have run off of a standard class driver for years.

The UVC driver is designed to be a generic driver handling all USB video devices. Having worked as a software developer with this driver on all three platforms I can say that Windows has by far the most complete and advanced implementation of the UVC driver.

I would also point out that all new webcams are required to be UVC compliant in order to carry the "Works with Windows" (or whatever their marketing slogan is).

Anecdotally, I had a Mac (OS 10.4) box, a WinXP box and a Linux Box on my desk for over a year. The Mac crashed weekly, the Linux box never, and the Windows box crashed once when the hard disk failed. =)
 
page 4...OSX offered better power management ON A MAC! try installing it on a standard laptop and then see if it still offers improved power management, or if it was just because it was better optimized for the macbook than vista.
 
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