This whole Mac vs. PC debate

[Lupine2]

It seems now that every other post is "Macs kick ass in Photoshop" while 30 PC people reply "Well, show me the Q3 scores, then we will talk". The fact is, these are two very differnt platforms, and there doesnt NEED to be an endless debate over which is the better platform, they are different. This isnt AMD vs. Intel, you cant just compare the two platforms like that.

Fact: Macs kick ass for photoshop and other image products (esp anything made by adobe or macromedia). Dont bitch about this PC fans, YOU CAN NOT ARGUE THIS. If you have ever used photoshop on a mac vs. it on a PC of the same mhz, you will know how much faster it is on the mac, as well as how much better it integrates into the OS.

Fact: PCs kick ass for gaming.
This is what most of the people who constantly flame the apple people SHOULD say. Sure, a GF2 + Thunderbird 1ghz will destroy any Mac at Q3A....but is Q3A really any more of an important benchmark than Photoshop? Some would say that PC people should find a new benchmark, as that is pretty much the standard for performance nowadays. The fact is that if you dont play games, then there is no need for this benchmark, same as many PC people have no need for a photoshop benchmark.

This leads me to my main point. DIFFERENT PLATFORMS. They accel at DIFFERENT THINGS. The PC is AMAZING at games, while the mac is AMAZING at graphics. Depending what you want on a computer, you can choose which to buy. Obviously if you are a gamer (which it looks like most of this board is) you will want to get a PC, as a good 95% or more of all computer games released wont ever come to the mac.
Now if you want to do some webpages, sound editing, etc...but maybe only play Q3A once a week or month...then maybe a mac is for you. Sure, they are more expensive, but if you REALLY want to be at the top of your game in that area, then go for a G4.

(note: I use both PCs and Macs regularly, I have both at work, and a PC at home. Im not trying to incite a riot here, just pointing out that comparing to two platforms is hard, as they are different)

 

[Electric Amish]

I use Macs everyday at work and PC's in the lab at work, as well as my PC's at home. Some numb-nut PHD in the front office decided that the company should have Macs on the employee's desktops for normal office routine duties (e-mail, Word, Excel...etc.) All I can say is that Macs are a waste of time and money for this purpose. They are unstable, slow, and expensive. The company should be saving their money and put PC's on the desktops. They are faster and much less expensive. As for more stable....well, that depends on who sets them up and how the user abuses it.

amish

 

[Sunner]

Most people who blindly hate the other platform are technically ignorant people who have little knowledge about the other side, and little understanding for what uses a computer might have besides their particular needs.

 

[MisterM]

<< Macs kick ass for photoshop and other image products (esp anything made by adobe or macromedia). >>



Agreed, they´re good for that.



<< you have ever used photoshop on a mac vs. it on a PC of the same mhz >>



Hahaha! On the same MHz!
You do know that you can get an PC that`s a lot faster MHz wise for the price of an Mac, do you? So this comparison is completely biased.



<< This leads me to my main point. DIFFERENT PLATFORMS. They accel at DIFFERENT THINGS. The PC is AMAZING at games, while the mac is AMAZING at graphics. >>



Photoshop on the PC:
Generally a little bit slower on the PC as on the Mac, but the Mac is a lot faster at optimised filters, so it may be a lot faster depending on the filters you use.

Games on the Mac:
Well...they don´t work at all.

 

[BenSkywalker]

&quot;while the mac is AMAZING at graphics.&quot;

2D graphics, not 3D.

&quot;Now if you want to do some webpages, sound editing, etc...but maybe only play Q3A once a week or month...then maybe a mac is for you.&quot;

Macs offer no advantage whatsoever in web page design. In fact, they tend to be quite a bit worse in many respects at least until OSX ships. Testing on a Mac and having your page take down the whole system gets quite annoying after a while. OSX is supposed to fix all the major problems with the MacOS but as of now they are too numerous.

Sound editing has a lot to do with the platform of choice amongst particular musicians. The hardware and software are both available on the PC, and they both work extremely well. Again, no big advantage for the Mac but at least they tend to be more stable when handling music then when handling pages that aren't up to par.

Macromedia software- Director runs much better on NT then under the Mac OS, I've never seen a version that hasn't.

Your post attempts to make it sound like Macs are great for everything but gaming, the fact is that their only appreciable strength is in 2D graphics, and you must pay a rather significant premium for that edge.

If you'd like I'll gladly go point by point with you for what people do with their computers and which platform is better, ignoring games completely. The fact is that for most tasks the PC is the better platform all things considered.

 

[Eug]

&quot;Sound editing has a lot to do with the platform of choice amongst particular musicians. The hardware and software are both available on the PC, and they both work extremely well. Again, no big advantage for the Mac but at least they tend to be more stable when handling music then when handling pages that aren't up to par.&quot;

Actually, for the amateur musician wannabe it seems that the PC may be better suited for this type of thing, depending on what is needed. I don't know anything about the high end or even mid-end, but at the low-end it's much cheaper to set up a system on a PC that works well enough.

That said, I am sub low-end with my Live! Platinum. and (5-octave) keyboard. I wanted something better, but even the low-end is too expensive for me.

One thing I'd love to have is GigaSampler (http://www.nemesysmusic.com/products/gigasamp.html), just to play around with (although I'd probably need a different sound card ideally). But that's too expensive for me on a PC. Unfortunately for the Mac people though, it doesn't exist at all.

 

[Noriaki]

I'll give Mac's one thing. The G4 is an extremely nice CPU. But I'm sorry the support around it is awful. Photoshop may be better on Mac's yes. But that's only one app.

I've been greatly looking forward to a G4 + OSX + Radeon (afterthought: Steve Jobs is a bloody spastic idiot, I can't stand that guy, sorry...). I'd like to see what that kind of setup can do, but Mac has a long way to go before I'll look seriously at it.

I put a Celeron 466 (or maybe 433 can't remember) into an i810E board, use all the built in stuff and I dropped 128MB of Ram in it and nice zippy hard drive (IBM 36GXP I believe..a 7200rpm IBM anyways) put that together with a decent monitor in 10x7x32bit and you've just satisifed 90% of computer users (the example the guy gave about Macs in his office). Macs are way to expensive for this segment.

We don't need to talk Games, that's a pointless argument.

And Mac's at the same clockspeed beat PCs in Photoshop, no arguments there, I'm not stupid, the G4's RISC FPU will slap an x86 silly at the same clockspeed. But at the same price you can get a PC that is much much faster. Ok I'll give the G4 the benefit of the doubt, and lets just say a G4 500 can smoke an Athlon/P3 1000. 1 Point for macs.

But take anything 3Dish and the apple will suffer becaause of it's lack of a decent video card.

Well anyways you get the idea, Mac people always argue the photoshop angle, and that's fine, but it's about the only thing Mac's do better (right now) than PCs.

I'll say this simply, I HATE Windows (Well 9x, NTs not so bad). I can't stand it, it's one of the worst operating systems I've ever seen, but do I care about my OS? No not really. It's an operating system, it has to help me operate my computer. Win9x runs all the software I want, and runs it well enough. MacOS doesn't. MacOS is far to unstable, Apple makes everything in their boxes I expect it to run near-perfectly. Does my VCR crash? (ok this is a bit unfair, I'm exagerating a bit to make my point) Windows runs on millions if not billions of hardware configurations and if it crashes once in a while, yes it's annoying, but we all like the versatility.

I hope that OSX comes out really well (which it should being based on BSD Unix), that would go a long way in raising my opinion of Mac's because their current OS is garbage. I also hope that Steve Job's stops being a spastic idiot and starts talking to ATi again so we can see Radeon's in G4s. That would make a nice setup and I'd like to see the comparision between a G4+Radeon and a PC+Radeon (both at the same clock speed and the same price).

The only other major issue is price. Mac's are much to expensive.

Well that's enough ranting for now...hopefully I made a few decent points and didn't just b|tch about macs too much.

 

[Noriaki]

I'll give Mac's one thing. The G4 is an extremely nice CPU. But I'm sorry the support around it is awful. Photoshop may be better on Mac's yes. But that's only one app.

I've been greatly looking forward to a G4 + OSX + Radeon (afterthought: Steve Jobs is a bloody spastic idiot, I can't stand that guy, sorry...). I'd like to see what that kind of setup can do, but Mac has a long way to go before I'll look seriously at it.

I put a Celeron 466 (or maybe 433 can't remember) into an i810E board, use all the built in stuff and I dropped 128MB of Ram in it and nice zippy hard drive (IBM 36GXP I believe..a 7200rpm IBM anyways) put that together with a decent monitor in 10x7x32bit and you've just satisifed 90% of computer users (the example the guy gave about Macs in his office). Macs are way to expensive for this segment.

We don't need to talk Games, that's a pointless argument.

And Mac's at the same clockspeed beat PCs in Photoshop, no arguments there, I'm not stupid, the G4's RISC FPU will slap an x86 silly at the same clockspeed. But at the same price you can get a PC that is much much faster. Ok I'll give the G4 the benefit of the doubt, and lets just say a G4 500 can smoke an Athlon/P3 1000. 1 Point for macs.

But take anything 3Dish and the apple will suffer becaause of it's lack of a decent video card.

Well anyways you get the idea, Mac people always argue the photoshop angle, and that's fine, but it's about the only thing Mac's do better (right now) than PCs.

I'll say this simply, I HATE Windows (Well 9x, NTs not so bad). I can't stand it, it's one of the worst operating systems I've ever seen, but do I care about my OS? No not really. It's an operating system, it has to help me operate my computer. Win9x runs all the software I want, and runs it well enough. MacOS doesn't. MacOS is far to unstable, Apple makes everything in their boxes I expect it to run near-perfectly. Does my VCR crash? (ok this is a bit unfair, I'm exagerating a bit to make my point) Windows runs on millions if not billions of hardware configurations and if it crashes once in a while, yes it's annoying, but we all like the versatility.

I hope that OSX comes out really well (which it should being based on BSD Unix), that would go a long way in raising my opinion of Mac's because their current OS is garbage. I also hope that Steve Job's stops being a spastic idiot and starts talking to ATi again so we can see Radeon's in G4s. That would make a nice setup and I'd like to see the comparision between a G4+Radeon and a PC+Radeon (both at the same clock speed and the same price).

The only other major issue is price. Mac's are much to expensive.

Well that's enough ranting for now...hopefully I made a few decent points and didn't just b|tch about macs too much.

 

[Noriaki]

Uhmm...why did that post twice?

 

[Czar]

About 5-10 years ago everyone knew that the Mac was &quot;THE&quot; computer to get if you were doing any sort of graphics. Because of their old fame and glory many people still think that its the computer for graphics. It has changed now, some people know that the PC is better than a Mac and some people disagree with them.

It is best to compare the Mac to a Voodoo card. Few years ago the Voodoo1 was &quot;THE&quot; card to get if you were going to play any sortof 3d game. The Voodoo line of cards also lives on old fame, people buy them just because they are Voodoo and have a 3dfx sticker on them.

I think that everyone here &quot;knows&quot; that GeForce2 and Radeon are better overall cards than the Voodoo5 but there are still people who buy the Voodoo's, because of older fame, company loyality and because in some areas it is better than the other two.

So alike.

 

[Modus]

BenSkywalker,

<<Your post attempts to make it sound like Macs are great for everything but gaming, the fact is that their only appreciable strength is in 2D graphics, and you must pay a rather significant premium for that edge.>>

Exactly. Given this, is it surprising that Macs only hold a 10% share of the market?

Modus

 

[brian_riendeau]

I had a job once doing Photoshop work on a Mac. I was making flyers and posters and stuff like that. It may have been faster but the lock ups and constant need to mess with virtual memory so I could multitask total offset how much faster the Mac may have been. Once you send Photoshop into the background it seems to slow WAY down as well. My days were like this often, &quot;Yay, I just saved 10 seconds by using a Mac! Crap it crashed...&quot;

Mac hardware I like, the OS is terrible. I can multitask faster on an abacus than I can on a Mac. If OS X turns out to be all they say it is and they drop the insane prices on the Macs, I will probably pick up a Mac for a second PC.

 

[HayZeus 2000]

And Mac's at the same clockspeed beat PCs in Photoshop, no arguments there, I'm not stupid, the G4's RISC FPU will slap an x86 silly at the same clockspeed. But at the same price you can get a PC that is much much faster. Ok I'll give the G4 the benefit of the doubt, and lets just say a G4 500 can smoke an Athlon/P3 1000. 1 Point for macs.

Actually, Noriaki, you're giving the G4 FPU FAR too much credit. The estimated (taken from Motorola's website-wonder why they haven't put out the actual numbers ) SPECFP performance of a G4 450 is 20.4. Compare this to the 13.6 of a Pentium-III 450 and it looks pretty good. But the AMD Athlon 550 has a SPECFP performance of 20.6 and a P-III with a Cumine core at 667 boasts a SPECFP score of 26.9. Not exactly smoking material...

 

[music10k]

I wonder if SpecFP uses AltiVec?

Joseph Duerr

 

[Soccerman]

&quot;Most people who blindly hate the other platform are technically ignorant people who have little knowledge about the other side, and little understanding for what uses a computer might have besides their particular needs.&quot;

Which is why naturally, most people are afraid of the dark. afraid of the dark, becuase they don't know what's happening, because they can't see. it's alot easier to scare someone in a dark room.

Benskywalker, you were just talking about OSX possibly solving alot of a typical Mac's computer. well what if I told you you didn't have to use OS 9, or whatever OS they made? Surprised? shouldn't be, becuase you can do the same on a PC. intrigued? should be, becuase instead of blindly saying Mac's suck in this area, you should specify that, no maybe the hardware is actually good, but up until now, the OS hasn't changed.

The PC is only better, becuase it's more popular. if the Mac were more popular, IT would have all the OS updates, competition, Video cards, you name it. which means, that you are arguing from the point of view where the possibility of it becoming great threatens you, becuase you might have to change.

Intel fears change for example, and change the PC industry is doing. no more will the intelligent buyers get their CPU becuase of name brand, they must prove it to be better.

MS fears change, but change is coming, in the form of Linux, which OSX happens to be built upon (if I'm not mistaken, I haven't been keeping up in that for a while). Linux has gained a fair amount of support from PC users. Servers on the internet being one of the biggest things it is used in. Linux has drivers from Aureal for crying out loud, and becuase of Creative, Aureal hasn't even been able to get Win2K drivers out..

 

[HayZeus 2000]

music10k,
SpecFP 95 is not optimized for any SIMD extension set.

 

[Crypticburn]

I've used Macs and PCs, and although your MAC may run photoshop and a few select programs faster, I will stick with my winNT workstation when it comes to those programs, along with stability and ability to run some of my games. The PC also has win2k, win98, linux, ect. But I wont get into all that.

Sure, macs are good for photoshop, but unless you only are doing pic editing and nothing else, go for the PC. No home user, unless they have more than one comp, can honestly say &quot;I only your my computer for visual editing&quot;, it just isnt realistic. ALthough, having a mac for editing and a PC for everything else, would be acceptable. Although, personally I would just have my winNT4 workstation for editing, and win98 or win2k(which my just substitute NT4) for games that require >DX3. just my opinion though

 

[Noriaki]

HayZeus 2000 Heh heh, yes well I was being somewhat sarcastic At the same clockspeed a G4's FPU will win, but the bit about about a G4-500 beating a K7/P3 1Ghz was rather sarcastic, I was trying to point out that even though at the same clockspeed a G4 is probably a bit faster, x86s come in such ridiculously higher clockspeeds, pure brute force will win out.

There needs to be a universal text colour for sarcasm or something, it never comes out right typed :|

 

[HayZeus 2000]

Whoops, my bad-I've seen so many ridiculous claims by/about Apples that I'm conditioned to take them seriously...

For the record, I'd estimate that an Athlon's SPECFP at 450 would be in the neighborhood of 18.8 or so-definitely behind, but not bad considering it pulls that score off while maintaining compatibility with the unholy x87. IMNSHO the elegance of AltiVec is the true calling card of the G4, though as mentioned before I'm sure Intel/AMD could have done better had they not had to deal with x87/MMX limitations.

That said, my all-around favorite is still the knuckle-dragging AMD Athlon...

 

[obeseotron]

The same Mhz point is moot. Mhz are irrelevant completely. What matters is the performance you get for a given price.

Do you realize that the CHEAPEST non imac mac you can get is $1600. After that you need speakers, a monitor, and a replacement keyboard/mouse (the mac mouse is the worst designed piece of computer hardware, ever).

For $1800-$2000 on the PC side your looking at 800-933Mhz, 128MB RAM, 30GB HD, a GTS2 video card, an SB Live, a 19&quot; monitor, and some decent speakers.

On the mac side you have a g4 400 (I know that's a very fast 400, but I don't know that it is gonna beat a Tbird 900 or something along those lines), 64mb RAM, 10GB Hard drive, STEREO 2D sound, an ATI Rage 128 Pro (not even as good as the PC version, underclocked and only 16mb Ram).

Even in something as G4 supportive as RC5, a g4 400 is about equal to a p3 933 (my own tests). Mac addicts own tests show an athlon (not tbird) 1ghz can compete with a g4 500 in photoshop, splitting several tests. So I imagine a p3 1ghz or tbird 1ghz would turn the tide.

 

[DBavaria]

someone get ANANDTECH to put up a poll Mac or PC your pick see who winz

 

[PCAddict]

I find it interesting that we have yet another &quot;Junior Member&quot; with only one post to his credit here singing the praises of the Mac.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Soccerman-

&quot;Benskywalker, you were just talking about OSX possibly solving alot of a typical Mac's computer. well what if I told you you didn't have to use OS 9, or whatever OS they made? Surprised? shouldn't be, becuase you can do the same on a PC. intrigued? should be, becuase instead of blindly saying Mac's suck in this area, you should specify that, no maybe the hardware is actually good, but up until now, the OS hasn't changed.&quot;

If you aren't running the Mac OS than it isn't a Mac, it is PPC hardware running another OS. You can purchase individual PPC components and build your own rig, but without the proprietary ROM you won't be able to run the Mac OS. A Mac running Linux isn't a Mac.

As far as that goes, there is every supposed advantage of the Mac gone. Even less software/hardware support, nothing resemblling ease of use, and no color accuracy advantage(in fact a major shortcoming). The 32bit consumer level PPC hardware can't compete with x86, it is in fact the weakest point of the Mac comparitively.

&quot;The PC is only better, becuase it's more popular. if the Mac were more popular, IT would have all the OS updates, competition, Video cards, you name it. which means, that you are arguing from the point of view where the possibility of it becoming great threatens you, becuase you might have to change.&quot;

Spent about ten years using Macs exclusively. It wasn't until shortly before the launch of Win95 that I owned my first IBM compatible PC. I had a Mac up until about a year or so ago. I'm not afraid of change at all, I have changed already to the better overall platform.

The PC isn't only better because it is more popular, it is better because there is competition driving us forward. If AMD hadn't had the wild success they have with the Athlon does anyone think we would be close to 1GHZ by now? Even at the launch of the Athlon Intel's roadmap didn't have the GHZ chips shipping until late this year, and that was when they knew what was coming. In the video card market, would ATi and 3dfx be pushing so hard if not for nVidia threatening to take over all markets, and would nVidia be pushing so hard if they weren't worried about them along with Matrox?

For pre-built systems, would prices have plummeted over the last two to three years if you could only by a PC from one company? What if that same one company told you what 80% of the components in any give machine had to be when it shipped, and you had no other option?

&quot;Intel fears change for example, and change the PC industry is doing. no more will the intelligent buyers get their CPU becuase of name brand, they must prove it to be better.&quot;

Intel is changing very quickly. They realize that the server market is an enormous market potential particularly in the next few years when the rest of the world gets as &quot;plugged in&quot; as North America. Their IA64 projects, while not going perfectly smoothly, are a major altercation for the consumer market titan. They also have been able to position themselves to deal with AMD's competition. Intel hasn't stayed where they are because they are foolish and afraid to change, they just are smart and stick with what works, big difference between the two.

&quot;MS fears change, but change is coming, in the form of Linux, which OSX happens to be built upon (if I'm not mistaken, I haven't been keeping up in that for a while). Linux has gained a fair amount of support from PC users. Servers on the internet being one of the biggest things it is used in. Linux has drivers from Aureal for crying out loud, and becuase of Creative, Aureal hasn't even been able to get Win2K drivers out..&quot;

OSX is built on BSD, not Linux. Onto Linux though, what does it offer the average consumer? Far more headaches then it is worth. Do I think that Linux is competition to MS on the desktop, not even close. It takes someone that already posses a large amount of technical knowledge to simply install Linux, and even if they buy a machine with it preinstalled the odds of them operating close to the level they would with Windows is slim to none. Linux is no threat to MS in the desktop space now, Be is the only OS besides the Mac OS that an average user could reasonably be expected to use.

For servers, the custom Unix builds still reign supreme. NT/Win2K offer significantly more features that most IT departments want. Linux has a market, but it isn't the one MS has now. How many people single boot Linux? Judging by online numbers it is in the range of .5%-1%, not exactly sweeping the nation. Dual boot is likely significantly more common, but why do people dual boot if Linux is that great? Exactly, and how long will it take for developer support to reach the level of the Mac OS, let alone Windows.

 

[Sunner]

Ben, I hafta disagree on a few points.
I think you allways seem to have intelligent points about most stuff, but on this one I think you should be a tad more openminded.

The G4 is a very impressive CPU from a technical point of view.
It has relatively few transistors, very low energy usage, quite high performance/clock.
The major problem is that the design itself isnt made for high speeds, something that Motorola is probabaly fixing as we speak.

As for OS's, NT/2000 is nowhere close to UNIX's for server duty.
Take Solaris vs 2000, thats no comparison, thats a joke.
I'd say NT/2000 lacks features rather than the other way around.
Linux right now is a perfectly good platform to do development on, now that Borland has released &quot;real&quot; tools for it(JBuilder, C++ Builder etc).

As for Linux vs Windoze in the desktop space, I agree, its no threat NOW, but noone has ever been successful by thinking only about NOW.
Linux has come such an incredibly long way in an incredibly short time.
2 years ago installing Linux was often a pain, today, installing RedHat 6.2 or Caldera OpenLinux is just as easy as installing Windows.
In fact if I ermember correctly, in OpenLinux its graphical from install to shutdown.
In another year, there's no telling how things might look.

And, as for Intel's IA-64 project, there's no etlling how that will turn out either, right now it isnt looking too bright for the Itanic.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Sunner-

Thanks for the kind words and I can say the same about you easily, I almost always find myself agreeing with you, now onto those points

&quot;The major problem is that the design itself isnt made for high speeds, something that Motorola is probabaly fixing as we speak.&quot;

Doubtful. The Mac market isn't Moto's top concern, embedded devices are. In order for them to offer a competitive part they would need to increase the stages on the 7400, increasing transistor count and power demands making it a poor choice for embedded devices. I don't see this happening.

I also don't think it is that great of an example of design. The Wankel when compared to piston internal combustion engines certainly looked to be great, the fact is that they could never get by the &quot;minor&quot; issues that they had with fuel consumption and emissions. The current PPC 7400 chip has a major problem ramping up speed, one that looks like it will be far too difficult to overcome and stay within the chips intended uses.

&quot;As for OS's, NT/2000 is nowhere close to UNIX's for server duty.
Take Solaris vs 2000, thats no comparison, thats a joke.
I'd say NT/2000 lacks features rather than the other way around.&quot;

I knew I should have reworded that so it would sound more like what I was trying to say, I meant NT/2K to Linux. Several of the *nix variants can't stand up to NT/2K, though the major iron rigs certainly put the lesser 32bit OSs in their place. I was trying to make two different points and should have made note of that, the high end *nix variants aren't going to lose their spot to Linux and most NT/2K &quot;shops&quot; aren't going to switch either, not that NT/2K is currently in a position to replace the major servers(as of now they can't even run the hardware to do it properly).

&quot;Linux right now is a perfectly good platform to do development on, now that Borland has released &quot;real&quot; tools for it(JBuilder, C++ Builder etc).&quot;

Development on is different then for Carmack still gives NT the nod for his choice of development OS, and he is a big supporter of Linux(amount of time Carmack spent on Linux port vs number of users???). I'm not questioning that Linux is a solid platform for developing software, but how viable is it to develop software for.

&quot;As for Linux vs Windoze in the desktop space, I agree, its no threat NOW, but noone has ever been successful by thinking only about NOW.
Linux has come such an incredibly long way in an incredibly short time.&quot;

Linux's main advantages over Windows are mainly two things, it is stable and its' not Windows. Win2K takes care of the first, the other is an enormous disadvantage to John Q Public. Most people want Windows, they don't want to be adventurous, they just want to be able to pick up a piece of software and have it work, or have their printer work without months of trying to figure out how to do it(Quote from a Linux book I was reading at one point, can't recall the name- &quot;Printing on Linux is not a straightforward process&quot.

&quot;2 years ago installing Linux was often a pain, today, installing RedHat 6.2 or Caldera OpenLinux is just as easy as installing Windows.
In fact if I ermember correctly, in OpenLinux its graphical from install to shutdown.
In another year, there's no telling how things might look.&quot;

Be installs easier then spreading warm butter, hasn't helped it much. I think that that mentality in the Linux community speaks volumes for how far they need to go, the fact that the install process is all GUI is a big step. The Linux supporters tend to be geeks, nothing wrong with that as I firmly consider myself one(and don't know anyone who disagrees ), but they are moving Linux in the direction of what geeks want, not what the general populace wants.

Recompiling an OS for patches/updates isn't going to fly, they at some point are going to have to realize that they need to move somewhat in the MS direction. Windows isn't built the way it is because of stupidity, it is by marketplace demands. How long before Linux is comparable to NT for overall ease of use? I'm not talking about basic functions, I'm talking about everything. Even when they do reach that level they have a long way to go as most people wouldn't tollerate NT's quarks in the desktop space, many won't even tollerate W2K's. So say it only takes them another year or two to match Win2K, and I think that is being very generous, and further assume that MS makes no progress, which would be foolish, they would still need another five to ten years before they reached the level of software support needed to be a viable option for the desktop market.

Look at the Mac, that is sixteen years with a marketshare considerably larger then what Linux has now and they still aren't comparable to Windows for support. Linux has much further to go then what many would like to believe, getting it to work in an acceptable fashion for consumers is by comparison the easy part. Be has had that for years, along with the stability of a BSD core, and still no mainstream success(I do run Be along with Windows BTW).