Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 00:41:59 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Andy Sjostrom" <andy_sjostrom@yahoo.com>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: BSD Question's. Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNGEBNFDAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20051224081054.29659.qmail@web31304.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Andy Sjostrom >Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 12:11 AM >To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >Subject: BSD Question's. > > >To whom this may concern, >H-E-L-P! > [diatribe against Windows deleted] > I have decided to start the search for a new OS. >In my case the new OS must be completely 100 percent user friendly. Impossible. > Is there any thing you can do to help me. Such as point me in >the right direction. > Yes, stay with Windows. Andy, here is the fundamental issue about operating system software. In a nutshell, the OS exists for 3 main tasks: 1) To provide a library of functions that an application developer can use to avoid having to reinvent the wheel when he is writing his applications. 2) To interface between raw computer hardware and the application programs, so that the application developer does not need to know how to program the 100+ soundcards out there for example. 3) To facilitate basic non-application tasks for the computer user, such as organizing files, connecting to the Internet, etc. Both the free OS's and the commercial OS's do item #1 well. But item's #2 and #3 are where the commercial operating systems like Windows are really advanced. Now, a user can get around #2 easily by simply swapping the hardware out, if the free OS of his choice does not play well with the hardware he has. But, # 3 is a big problem under any kind of UNIX because of a simple fact: UNIX allows you to solve a problem multiple different ways. It gives you a choice in how you want to solve a problem. Windows does not. Now, consider the process of buying a car. You go into Toyota and they have 3 kinds of cars. Cheap, medium, expensive. You just choose the one that fits your budget and drive away. You don't have to know anything about a car to do this. By contrast you go into a Chevy dealer and buy a car. You are given a list of 50 options that you can choose the car to have. The cost of the car is determined by what options you order. Well, now guess what, you actually have to know something about cars to buy one of those Chevys. It makes the process of buying a car a lot harder. Sure, you can get a Chevy tailored to exactly what you want - but you have to understand how to use the options you order, before you know if you want them or not. The Windows world is like a Toyota. You do things the way that Bill Gates has decided you need to do them. This makes it very easy to learn to use Windows because there is only 1 way to do something. Thus it is very user friendly, because anybody can just jump on and start using it. The Free OS world is like the Chevy. You really have to know a lot to get the value out of it. Once you do know a lot then you get a great deal of value from it, and you will not need the software to be "user friendly" But, getting to that point means a lot of work with what seems like little return. Windows has a low learning curve. It is easy to get to learn how to use it, but once you have learned the easy stuff and need to do more sophisticated stuff, you have to spend considerable time learning the intracies of an application. (like a spreadsheet) And none of that considerable knowledge is usable with any other application because all the apps do the sophisticated stuff differently. UNIX has a high learning curve. It is hard to learn how to use it, but once you have learned how to do the easy stuff in UNIX then you have to spend less and less time learning how to do the sophisticated stuff, because everything builds on each other, and all the apps take a similar approach in their intracies. Anyway, getting back to your situation. The stuff you have listed that you need to do with the computer is not sophisticated. So what will happen to you is you will start on that UNIX learning curve, get about 20% along, and realize that it would be easier to learn how to get Windows XP to work properly then do what you want to do, than to finish the UNIX learning curve. Consider that in your diatribe not once have you listed a problem with an APPLICATION. All your problems are with Windows. Yet, when you listed all the stuff you use the computer for, nothing in that list was "operating system stuff" If I could drop a version of Windows on your desk that ran perfectly, you would probably put all your apps on it like a shot and never look at a Free OS again. And to be perfectly honest about it, I -COULD- do such a thing, and so could a lot of other people. And, so could you if you spent the time learning how to run your Windows properly, from someone who knows, rather than just clicking away at things. Another way of saying this is your not running TO a system like FreeBSD, your running AWAY from a system like Windows. Nothing in the Free OS market is attracting you other than the possible thought you might not have as many problems with it, a thought which just shows you don't know anything about Free OS's. Anyway, that's the long and short of it. Now, I will finish up by saying that just about ALL of the real bleeding-edge stuff in computing today is happening in the Open Source world. Gaming, and heavy graphics work are exceptions, but with just about everything else, the normal progression is for the idea to happen in the Open Source world first, then migrate to Windows. And there's lots of stuff - like e-mail processing - that is so far ahead on the open source stuff that Windows isn't even trying to catch up. So it's not like spending the time learning the Free OS's would have no rewards. But, I just think that you wouldn't be interested enough in those rewards to spend the year or two needed to get over that learning curve. Ted
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