From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 28 22:19:29 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from y3k.shacknet.nu (morr0652.gti.net [208.216.122.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3354E37B428 for ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 22:19:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from shacknet.nu (localhost.gti.net [127.0.0.1]) by y3k.shacknet.nu (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id fAT6MCY31264; Thu, 29 Nov 2001 01:22:14 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from y3k@gti.net) Received: from 208.216.122.52 (SquirrelMail authenticated user mark) by y3k.shacknet.nu with HTTP; Thu, 29 Nov 2001 01:22:15 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3797.208.216.122.52.1007014935.squirrel@y3k.shacknet.nu> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 01:22:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) From: "Mark Yeck" To: anthony@freebie.atkielski.com In-Reply-To: <01cb01c17896$abb81500$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <01cb01c17896$abb81500$0a00000a@atkielski.com> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: SquirrelMail (version 1.0.6) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG hum. i'd hoped not to get sucked too deep into this thread, but here goes... > Mark writes: > Yes, but Windows still has the technical advantage of being > purpose-built for the desktop, whereas UNIX does not. Thus, someone > choosing a desktop for the first time today would be well advised to > choose Windows even on a purely technical basis alone. Yes, you've mentioned that repeatedly. Being purpose-built isnt in and of itself a technical advantage and it could be argued that it's offset by the fact that UNIX was on the desktop years before Windows existed. As far as I can recall, the only strictly technical arguement you've offered was the tighter integration with the hardware (mostly for games). > Neither is your explanation above of UNIX domination of high-end > workstations. True. I didnt think the technical reasons were relevant. At the risk of getting even further off topic: -this isnt strictly a technical advantage, but at the time that UNIX was gaining it's dominance of workstations, Microsoft offered only DOS and eventually Win3.0 and 3.1. -RISC workstations used a wide variety of hardware and UNIX offered a relatively consistant interface to all of them. -UNIX's networking capabilities made it particularly well suited to the applications that the workstations were used for. Capabilities including: -Networked Filesystems -Network transparent display(Xwindows) I'm sure there were other things that I cant remember right now. Many capabilities that UNIX had then are now offered by Microsoft to some degree, including real multitasking and networked filesystems. -mark To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message