The Coburn Blog

Ever since I can remember, its always been highly debated which is better. A Mac, a PC with Windows on it, or a PC with Linux or FreeBSD on it. I see so many people switching to Linux, rather it be Debian, Fedora, centOS, SuSe, everyone has their preference these days.. Nowadays, your not considered a true “geek” if you haven’t tried Knoppix at least once

That leads us to the age old question though, “why don’t more people use Linux”?

My personal thoughts, I don’t think the type of Operating System, or how its laid out, has anything to do with it. I think the majority of people just want their games to play, their software to run, and their hardware to function. This, I believe, is why Macs and Windows are so popular over UNIX like distributions.

When a person sits back and looks at all the different distros out there, Debian uses the apt repositories, redhat uses the yum repositories, SuSe uses a similar yum repository, Gentoo uses emerge, so on and so forth, but none of those distros really ever took off in the mainstream community like OSX and Windows did, and I believe, the reason is because these distros, regardless of what package manager, or windowmanager they use, don’t run the games and software that is generally used. Alot of people choose PC’s, for instance, because Mac’s don’t play their favorite games, but Mac’s are popular, because the webcams and other hardware that they purchase for it still come with Mac installation software on the included CD, and in my opinion, this alone is what makes or breaks an OS, is rather the OS can recognize your hardware, and run what you want it to run.

but with Vista out now, I have noticed that more people are switching to Linux, because Vista requires so much more beefy hardware then before. People just want to use what they currently have, they don’t want to have to turn around and purchase a new computer every few years, people just don’t have the money to do that except for doctors and lawyers and people like that.

but at the same time, not everybody can afford a Mac either.. I know from my own experiences looking at the cost of both platforms, PC’s are still cheaper to own, because its cheaper to build a PC from scratch, then it is to purchase a $2 grand Mac computer. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to both of those platforms too, but again, whichever platform people choose all depends on what all they do with their computer, what games and software they got, and what other hardware they got for it.

like Linux for instance, don’t get me wrong, the GNU/Linux project is really nice, but still lacks in hardware compatibility… This has nothing to do with the distro, or the package manager, it has simply to do with the fact that the hardware vendors don’t come out with hardware drivers for these platforms, so in order for the kernel to support these types of hardware, reverse engineering has to take place, which always has buggy or unpredictable results.. Even if the hardware can be made to work by reverse engineering the drivers back into C language machine code, its still not stable, or considered to be stable, because its nont written by the hardware manufacturer, and isn’t guaranteed to be compatible, which makes all the difference usually. Same with Wine for Linux, sure it may run Windows programs, but only some, and still unstable, so again, people would rather use what they know and trust.

but in conclusion, I think this trend will change in the coming years, thanks to Windows Vista.. I mean, software and games that used to run fine on any version of Windows, now have to be written specially for Vista, or they don’t work, which is why alot of people have been so reluctant to upgrade, more so then price or system requirements I think. I think Mac’s will become more popular, because hardware vendor support is also there, but there still more expensive then PC’s, so I think the PC market will continue to look towards the Linux platform, until a suitable alternative is found.

Even I don’t run Linux full-time, my eprompter email client doesn’t run on either the Mac or Windows platform, which alone will keep me to Windows for some time. eprompter saves me time by checking all my webmail accounts in one handy program. Also my password generator, Password Agent, is only available for Windows. I’ve thought about switching to KeePass, which does support the Linux and U3 platforms too, I’m a man of habit, where I like to use certain programs, or play certain games, on a daily basis, and if I can’t run those things, I get irritated.

So in conclusion, I think we’ll see more popularity in alternative Operating Systems, which right now is only Linux or a UNIX variant like FreeBSD, then we will the Mac, because although Mac’s are nice, even Mac’s don’t run the games, and programs, that alot of people like to do on Computers, so even though Windows will always be on top of anything else, I think that because of Vista’s problems, we’ll see more and more people looking to other alternatives, not just now, but more so in the coming yearss, regardless if MS fixes these problems or not, because Vista is just an example of how that company is turning focus now. For that reason, I don’t think people will be switching to Mac so much, as they will focus their attention more on researching other alternative Operating Systems.. If one company, like IBM did for OS/2 for a time, could develop an Operating System that supports the Windows games, programs, and hardware that everyone likes so much about Microsoft Windows to begin with, that one OS would blow everyone else out of the water, including Vista, and thats the downright fact of it all, because even XP will come to its end of life before too long, and when that happens, alot of people are going to be pissed and look to OS alternatives that don’t require them to buy new hardware..