Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TempAcc]

While Apple has certainly taken significant dominion over the portable/mobile hardware market (as I like to call it), its still unable to truly compete with MS's hold on the OS/utility software market. To gain anything from MS's new and unpopular business and sales policy, Apple would have to make a councious move to provide affordable and universaly useful software, something current day apple isn't exactly popular for (under my small field of view of the market, at least. I'm not very keen on apple's software applications for non mobile OS). MS is smart enough to turn around and correct its mistakes if anything goes wrong, unless everyone with power in MS suddenly started suffering from a critical case of amnesia and the inability to notice software sales dropping.

[miauw62]

so yeah i talked to my crush today and

[Jopax]

See, it's not that bad

Good luck with the future of it too

In happy news, I just swept most of the flat (something I haven't done in a long while, mostly because I was living in a single room for a year) while listening to the Peace Walker theme, made the whole thing suitably epic.

Also, slight future happy, I have chocolate and vanilla pudding (the cheap, awesome kind that somehow retained both quality and cheapness since my childhood, possibly the only thing to do so) and some bannanas, I'll be rewarding my physical effort and the exam I kinda aced today by a big jug of that combination.

[Flying Dice]

Just got called in for an interview at a place which is pretty much my ideal job in terms of hours, location, and stress level.

[i2amroy]

@Truean
Not so sure about that. There's plenty of alternatives for most software (Libre Office, Google docs, etc.), and I could certainly see them losing control over that part of the market (they've already lost the web browser war, IE stopped being the most popular browser back in 2008), but I don't see them losing control over the operating systems field anytime soon, unless linux makes some huge strides in making it easier for people to set up or apple decides to either slash their "apple surcharge" down from a 300% markup or let their OS run on non-apple hardware.

[Aklyon]

Linux Mint is more likely to gain sudden popularity than apple is likely to make things cheaper. (and if we're asking from a pessimistic view, arch linux is more likely to be easier to use before apple lets people use different hardware on anything.)

[Bouchart]

Just about all businesses use Windows and Windows based software, and this will continue.  No business is going to use something other than Windows and Office for routine tasks because nobody else uses it and there'd probably be compatibility issues somewhere along the line.

I remember some years ago at work when we had older versions of Excel and Access compared to out vendors.  That was tricky enough.

[itisnotlogical]

Linux is no more difficult to set up than most versions of Windows. The problem is that Linux software generally does not compare favorably to popular Windows equivalents. LibreOffice frequently takes full minutes to load, and my computer is no slouch. The Windows games that run on Linux via some workaround have an extra step in between "installing the game" and "playing the game", which is more than enough to turn away the majority of potential users. Blender's documentation is all over the map, with some parts of it still using screenshots from pre-2.5x versions, not to mention the deficiencies in the software itself. GIMP lacks the large user base of Photoshop, and its documentation/official tutorials are pretty skimpy.

And the Linux community is just as snobby and elitist as the Mac community. Sorry, but it's true. My netbook uses a Broadcom wireless adapter, which means that it basically does not have wifi while running Linux. When asking for help, the majority of responses were along the lines of "Shouldn't have used Broadcom lol". And if you're on a Linux forum, the assumption is that you've been using Linux from the very beginning of the FOSS movement and know all the ins and outs of the operating system, so most help will generally be a "Why don't you just ______", where _____ is a pile of technobabble that would make perfect sense to an experienced Linux user and nobody else.

[Aklyon]

Everyone using it is besides the point though, businesses are for profit. If MS tries to push for only 365 (which they probably will, considering they always push for new directx versions by hiding them in only their newest and least likely to be currently good OS) and they aren't the brightest company) while charging them per device, either the program will die and they go back to normal versions, or it'll drag all of MS' office business down with it and we end up with windows/google docs (or windows/libreoffice).

And the Linux community is just as snobby and elitist as the Mac community. Sorry, but it's true. My netbook uses a Broadcom wireless adapter, which means that it basically does not have wifi while running Linux. When asking for help, the majority of responses were along the lines of "Shouldn't have used Broadcom lol". And if you're on a Linux forum, the assumption is that you've been using Linux from the very beginning of the FOSS movement and know all the ins and outs of the operating system, so most help will generally be a "Why don't you just ______", where _____ is a pile of technobabble that would make perfect sense to an experienced Linux user and nobody else.

You have a point (except for the forum part, though I've only looked at the mint forum recently and its probably friendlier than average for linux), but to be honest, are you sure the problem isn't that you're using a netbook? They were kinda terrible at everything. Too small to be a decent laptop, too big to be a mobile device, crap for keyboards.

[itisnotlogical]

Nope. In fact, the wifi was about the only thing that worked consistently pre-Linux

[i2amroy]

Linux is no more difficult to set up than most versions of Windows.

Well I know that, and most computer people know that, but there's something about command lines that just scares people. (Also the maintenance aspect of keeping libraries working and all that jazz can get much worse over the long run than anything windows or macs have to deal with, albeit at the cost of actually letting you fix things instead of your options just being "it's broke, wait for them to fix it").

[Aklyon]

If you have to use a terminal in recent linux either you broke the package manager gui, you need to install sun java, or you're using a unfriendly distro to begin with. (or you're trying to fix a netbook, which is probably hopeless anyway in my experience)

[miauw62]

Or you're connecting over SSH. I actually enjoy using the Linux terminal, somehow. Feels like a useful skill, too.

[Qmarx]

If you have to use a terminal in recent linux either you broke the package manager gui, you need to install sun java, or you're using a unfriendly distro to begin with. (or you're trying to fix a netbook, which is probably hopeless anyway in my experience)

Or you're trying to run something like CUDA.

I set up a dual-boot between ubuntu and windows a couple months back, and the windows install was both far easier, and didn't require me to set up a script to change my graphics driver every time I shut down to avoid it hanging at boot.

[Bauglir]

and didn't require me to set up a script to change my graphics driver every time I shut down to avoid it hanging at boot.

enlighten me, oh heavenly kaminadwarf

something to do with that nonsense has my machine hanging at boot about 50% of the time