And Microsoft moves closer to Linus Torvald

[Ian Curtis]

If we're going for usability to the end user, Apple would rule the world, seriously. The way Macs work is very logical and much more eye friendly to a first time user, not to mention the hardware itself is much more than a box.

I've never tried Gentoo, but Suse rules my world .

[wk1989]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

If we're going for usability to the end user, Apple would rule the world, seriously. The way Macs work is very logical and much more eye friendly to a first time user, not to mention the hardware itself is much more than a box.

I've never tried Gentoo, but Suse rules my world .

Mac OS is nice, but is not free, and only runs on $1000 Macs. Even if I have a Mac, I wouldn't run OS X on it.

[Ian Curtis]

Not So! There are cheap emulators which enable you to run OS X. Also eMacs and the Mac Mini are less than 1000 dollars, significantly cheaper actually.

Also OS X is cheaper than Windows XP although Linux is cheaper than both of them.

[t3ch]

As long as we're talking about Gentoo, I'd just like to bring up the fact that Gentoo is one of the most versatile flavors of linux out there. Being that it is great for systems like amd64, sparc, ppc, etc... it can fit on just about any configuration. Another thing that I like about it is the fact that there is no GUI installer out there for it. Though, yes, one is being developed. I, personally, prefer the stage1 install. There's nothing more challanging than configuring everything by yourself. Along with that, the Gentoo Handbook has to be one of the most well-written handbooks I have ever seen, It is incredibly descriptive, and even the most basic user can do a pretty simple stage3 install with genkernel. I learned more with my first install of Gentoo than anything previous to that. And in terms of the 'OSX' look, a friend of mine made a fluxbox theme that basically shared the same look as OSX. It was very nice. Linux has to be, by far, the most versatile OS out of OSX, and Windows. Though I still use Windows, rarely, to play games.

http://www.gentoo.org/news/20050613-drobbins.xml <<<--that is the original article. And in terms of Microsoft, they will probably never be Open Source, and with these stupid software patents (BTW which Microsoft supports, and just recently was found guilty of infringing) the Open Source community may not look good in the near future. So get all you can from Sourceforge before it's too late!

Heh, and btw, in terms of Microsoft having a linux research lab, I believe it is Unix, not necisarilly Linux. But it's still *nix. But that's just my 2 cents.

[tux]

> Microsoft makes a great operating system for the end user, has anybody ever tried to use gentoo?

I can never understand why people suggest windows for end users. Just the spyware problem alone is more than most savvy users can handle. Regular people have a miserable time of it.

One other really nice thing about linux is the ease of updating.

Go and update every part of your microsoft system. Sure, the base system (and maybe office) have an update mechanism, but with a linux system, every installed package can be updated with a few commands.

In gentoo, I do ...
esync
emerge -uD world

and my system is completely updated.

Of course with gentoo it may take a while since everything is compiled from source. I just start it in the evening and let it go.

[evulish]

I fear more end-users are more worried about getting pictures easily from their digital cameras and printing them with their photo printer. Or playing their favorite game. Or syncing their palm. I don't think most people care if they're using the latest x.x.x release of all their software. Linux just doesn't quite offer the ease-of-use of Windows. I just don't think Linux is ready for mainstream (or any time soon.) While Linux offers many choices to users who care, the regular users probably don't want to have to choose between KDE, Gnome, CDE, XFCE, E or Alsa and OSS or Cups, LPR, LPRng or any of the hundreds of Linux distros out there. OS X is really the only Unix-based OS ready for the general public.. I think a large part of that is because they don't offer tons and tons of choices just to have the system running.

[Adam Y.]

In gentoo, I do ...
esync
emerge -uD world

and my system is completely updated.

Of course with gentoo it may take a while since everything is compiled from source. I just start it in the evening and let it go...

That really sounds simple. The common computer user is not even going to understand a single one of those statements.

This discussion reminds me of a presentation someone from Microsoft gave on robotics and their research department.
Man from Microsoft:"You can see our the differnt curriculms that universities use on our website."
Man in audience:"What's the catch?"
Man from Microsoft:"No catch. It's free."
I also learned that Microsoft persuaded First in using something other than the system we use now. Obviously it had to be some type of embedded Microsoft system.

[MikeDubreuil]

I don't really think the comparison between Gentoo and Windows as being comparable solutions for end users is valid.

Gentoo was never designed for end-users. My grandmother will never tweak her GCC settings or know what the heck fomit-frame-pointer means. I don't think I'll see my 9 year old sister compiling Open Office for a 2% speed increase. Configuring Gentoo takes a much more technically savvy person than one who can assemble their computer from components. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

A good comparison would be to compare one of the easier to use distributions such as Red Hat or SuSe to MS Windows.

[tux]

>> my system is completely updated.

> That really sounds simple. The common computer user is not even going to understand a single one of those statements.

Reads like English to me. Not sure what the trouble is.


> Gentoo was never designed for end-users. My grandmother will never tweak her GCC settings or know what the heck fomit-frame-pointer means. I don't think I'll see my 9 year old sister compiling Open Office [...]

Well... in this particular forum, I hope I am speaking to technically capable people who are not so ossified in their ways that they might be interested in trying something _better_.

Sure, Gentoo is a "meta-distribution", but for me that just means that it is perfectly optimized for my needs. That said, my "make.conf" is pretty vanilla. I am not very interested in tweaks, just ease of use.

It seems to me that people out there building their own robots might be interested in leading-edge technology. It is a bit scary to me how few FIRST participants seem to be interested in alternative operating systems.

How much FIRST programmer time has been wasted on battling spyware, viruses and junk? Too much, if you ask me.

It scares me when people scan the monitors in our linux lab, fail to find the little blue "e" and ask "Hey! Where's the internet?"

I guess for most people, windows is "good enough", but not for me.