Linuxtard...

[Alexandru H.]

You could buy a computer that comes with a preinstalled OS and get exactly the same deal, only way cheaper...

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

About a month ago, anandtech presented a very thorough "review" of Ubuntu Linux.

http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=3616

It's conclusion:

In searching for an answer to our question of whether Ubuntu is good enough to convince me to switch, I ultimately have failed to find enough compelling reasons to entice me as a user to switch to Ubuntu for my day-to-day operations. I should make it clear that this is not taking price into consideration – this is only taking into account my current situation as a Windows Vista user. Ubuntu does plenty of things well and I could certainly use it for my day-to-day operations, but there are few things it does better and more things it does worse as compared to Vista, such that using Ubuntu likely hurt my productivity even after I adapted to the differences. It's hard to fully compete with commercially developed software when you're giving yours away for free, so I don't consider this a surprise.

From a performance standpoint, there's little reason to switch in either direction. As I stated early in this article performance was never a serious condition for evaluation anyhow, and the results don't change that. Ubuntu outperforms Vista at times, but at other times it looks to be held back by compiler differences and the disadvantage of needing to play nicely with proprietary products that don't return the favor (e.g. SMB performance). As far as I am concerned, Ubuntu performed no worse than Windows for my day-to-day needs.

The author also had some harsh words for the difficulty in trying to get certain items (namely wireless) working, and that when Ubuntu's otherwise flawless installation would break down, it would break down spectacularly requiring access to the command line interface and the need to compile your own drivers.

Other than the pure geeky joy of it (which I do understand) I can see no real reason to move to Linux.

I need to finish reading this, but the impression I get so far is a number of his objections center on third parties not making their applications available for Linux-based systems.  While he does shift the blame to Apple for iPhone/iPod syncing, he knocks Rhythmbox/Totem essentially for not being iTunes without noting that Apple refuses to release Linux versions of any of their software.

The Samba thing I've never encountered, but then all of my Samba shares are on Linux boxes for Windows boxes to mount, so I've never tried that.  Of course, I could turn that around and cite the shitty performance in Windows when mounting NFS shares (the *nix standard at the moment), though since NFS is an open standard it should be better than Samba performance in Linux.

I'll have more later.

[Threviel]

But could you recommend someone a Mac when that person only wants to pay bills and surf the web a few times a month? The cheapest Mac is a hell of a lot more expensive than the cheapest PC.

Mac Mini is pretty damn cheap.

The cheapest mini in Sweden with keyboard and mouse, but without monitor costs 7.943,00 kr. For that price I could buy 3-4 cheap computers. They will have much worse hardware, but they will be enough for surfing the web and paying some bills. I would call that a hell of a lot more expensive for filling the same need.

[Barrister]

But could you recommend someone a Mac when that person only wants to pay bills and surf the web a few times a month? The cheapest Mac is a hell of a lot more expensive than the cheapest PC.

Mac Mini is pretty damn cheap.

The cheapest mini in Sweden with keyboard and mouse, but without monitor costs 7.943,00 kr. For that price I could buy 3-4 cheap computers. They will have much worse hardware, but they will be enough for surfing the web and paying some bills. I would call that a hell of a lot more expensive for filling the same need.

Really?

The cheapest Dell I could find was $409.  The cheapest Mini is $729.  Neither has a monitor.  The mini is more expensive, but not 3-4x more expensive.

[Zanza]

Cheapest Dell in Germany costs 299€, cheapest Apple Mac Mini costs 599€.

[DontSayBanana]

Really?

The cheapest Dell I could find was $409.  The cheapest Mini is $729.  Neither has a monitor.  The mini is more expensive, but not 3-4x more expensive.

Dell used to have some notoriety as an expensive PC brand.  I see the Mac Mini as a minimum $599 USD; Best Buy's offering an eMachines tower for $249.  A comparable computer to the Mac Mini would be the Acer AspireRevo (coming out around the end of the month), which is going for $199 on NewEgg.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Really?

The cheapest Dell I could find was $409.  The cheapest Mini is $729.  Neither has a monitor.  The mini is more expensive, but not 3-4x more expensive.

Dell used to have some notoriety as an expensive PC brand.  I see the Mac Mini as a minimum $599 USD; Best Buy's offering an eMachines tower for $249.  A comparable computer to the Mac Mini would be the Acer AspireRevo (coming out around the end of the month), which is going for $199 on NewEgg.

You can also get the Shuttle SD50X all-in-one with touchscreen (!) for $430.  The only drawback is no one is selling it with an OS preloaded yet.

[Threviel]

But could you recommend someone a Mac when that person only wants to pay bills and surf the web a few times a month? The cheapest Mac is a hell of a lot more expensive than the cheapest PC.

Mac Mini is pretty damn cheap.

The cheapest mini in Sweden with keyboard and mouse, but without monitor costs 7.943,00 kr. For that price I could buy 3-4 cheap computers. They will have much worse hardware, but they will be enough for surfing the web and paying some bills. I would call that a hell of a lot more expensive for filling the same need.

Really?

The cheapest Dell I could find was $409.  The cheapest Mini is $729.  Neither has a monitor.  The mini is more expensive, but not 3-4x more expensive.

My point still stands even if the mac is only twice more expensive, but here are a list of cheap computers that can be bought for around 2000 kr. http://www.pricerunner.se/cl/223/Stationaera-datorer?sort=3

[viper37]

The configuration curve with Linux is pretty steep.  JACK (audio drivers) in particular doesn't like to play nice with onboard soundcards, I've noticed.  Also, I never found out: have the latest flavors of Ubuntu or Xandros made DVD decryption any easier?  With my version of Xandros, even after installing additional codecs, it would pretty much only read DVDs as data or if they were homemade video.

DVD decryption should be "on the fly" now, but I did not try it.
What lacks is Blu-Ray support.  Well, Ubuntu does support Blu-Ray... but you need to manually decrypt the disc, copy it to your hard drive, then play it, wich amounts to many hrs of work to play a simple disc.

I've reinstalled Ubuntu on my work machine, on another hdd.  I've noticed it lacks the following to be a general OS:

[/list][/list]

• Lack of HDMI sound support with Nvidia chipsets
• Lack of wireless network support
• Lack of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD support
• The "emulator" for games and other Windows software isn't working properly half of the time
Aside that, I think it's a decent OS.  And I think the #1 point is now solved.  Haven't tried it yet, really.

[DontSayBanana]

DVD decryption should be "on the fly" now, but I did not try it.
What lacks is Blu-Ray support.  Well, Ubuntu does support Blu-Ray... but you need to manually decrypt the disc, copy it to your hard drive, then play it, wich amounts to many hrs of work to play a simple disc.

I've reinstalled Ubuntu on my work machine, on another hdd.  I've noticed it lacks the following to be a general OS:
[list=1]

• Lack of HDMI sound support with Nvidia chipsets
  
• Lack of wireless network support
  
• Lack of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD support
  
• The "emulator" for games and other Windows software isn't working properly half of the time.
  

Aside that, I think it's a decent OS.  And I think the #1 point is now solved.  Haven't tried it yet, really.

I know the packaged versions handle DVD decryption, but I seem to recall Xandros stating that it didn't package decrypters that could handle commercial DVDs because those codecs were outlawed in some countries that they do business with.

[viper37]

I know the packaged versions handle DVD decryption, but I seem to recall Xandros stating that it didn't package decrypters that could handle commercial DVDs because those codecs were outlawed in some countries that they do business with.

Don't know about Xandros, but I suppose it works the same as Ubuntu.

Ubuntu, when you download it includes a lot of codecs/decoders that are open source.
Some free stuff might be available (like MP3 codecs) that are given away for free, but are not open source.

With DVD decryption, you need an additional package, that is free of charge, but since it allows you to circumvent the encryption of a DVD, it is illegal in the US, as per the DMCA, hence not incorporated in the downloads.

Rule of thumb: Any DVD that works in Windows will work on Linux based system.  Blu Ray is another matter entirely, but apparently, they are working on it.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Where is this crap about Ubuntu, or any Linux distro, not being able to handle wireless networking coming from?  I've never had any issues in Ubuntu that weren't due to a flaky NIC.  My EEE's connection is flawless.

[derspiess]

Where is this crap about Ubuntu, or any Linux distro, not being able to handle wireless networking coming from? 

~3 years ago, when good drivers for most wifi network adapters were rare.  It was a royal pain in the ass, in fact.

[viper37]

Where is this crap about Ubuntu, or any Linux distro, not being able to handle wireless networking coming from?  I've never had any issues in Ubuntu that weren't due to a flaky NIC.  My EEE's connection is flawless.

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_alles.php
A lot of adapters are still unsupported.

~3 years ago, when good drivers for most wifi network adapters were rare.  It was a royal pain in the ass, in fact.

It is still a royal pain in the ass, in fact.

[derspiess]

Ick.  I think I went through 3 or 4 wifi adapters trying to get one that worked right.  Finally got NDISWrapper to cooperate, but then couldn't get that Netgear adapter to keep a connection longer than a few minutes.