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Can't we all just get along?
2006-09-14 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearI'm always surprised at how emotional some people can get about my choice of software. I get ad-hominem attacks when I mention that I prefer Emacs and LaTeX to somebody's favorite WYSIWYG word processor. I stopped allowing anonymous comments after somebody literally accused me of "child abuse" (those words, exactly) when I mentioned that my kids sometimes used Linux. I continually get snide comments whenever I mention that, as a visual illiterate and long-time X user, I find the Mac user interface unuseable. (And I'm not saying that Windows is much better, but nobody sends me hate mail when I criticize Windows.)
Seriously, I get fewer flames when I mention that I'm an agnostic Druid. In fact, I don't think anyone has flamed me about my religion recently.
I'm not asking for tolerance, exactly. Or maybe I am. At least until Linux achieves its goal of world domination. Then we'll see who...
Oh. Right. Sorry about that.
SOMEONE really needs told to get a life
Date: 2006-09-14 04:47 pm (UTC)So if Linux is supposed to dominate, why can't someone explain to Fred & me how to install it? (Or are you only dominating people who can afford new hardware or have time to backup everything before repartitioning the hard drive with EVERYTHING on it)
Re: SOMEONE really needs told to get a life
Date: 2006-09-14 07:09 pm (UTC)For the rest of us, boot from an Ubuntu CD, which runs Linux without touching your hard drive. When you feel like it, do the install, which includes repartitioning without having to back up.
And if you're willing to spend $150 on a USB hard drive you can use Linux to back up your Windows partition any time you feel like it.
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Date: 2006-09-14 04:52 pm (UTC)As you know, Rick is Real Annoyed that I can't find the open source programs I need to run only on Linux and that I would rather just buy off the shelf Account Programs that run on Windows. The fact that they are the Industry Standard and nothing in the Linux World has that standard is immaterial.
Religions are ugly no matter what you do.
By the By, Moose has decided he loves the Mac OS, then again, he's highly visual. But he's also working to set up the windows machine to dual boot with Linux. He's real open about his OS, though windoze is his least favorite.
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Date: 2006-09-14 04:56 pm (UTC)That's the remaining thorn in Linux' side, is the non-appearance of good small-business accounting software (and the fact that the Dominant Paradigm is so firmly entrenched in the banking world)...
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Date: 2006-09-15 03:32 am (UTC)Oh, yeah, they also need to be Affordable! I work for Non-Profits! Usually donating the program. So programs costing $300+ are not in my range. Which believe me I'm bummed about because I really like Peachtree and just can't afford it.
Still if you know of some Big Fancy Program that costs a fortune, sorry, it will never be on my list.
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Date: 2006-09-14 04:53 pm (UTC)And frankly? Windows is abuse, in more ways than I can count. Partcularly 95-98, where you're stuck in god mode all the time whether you like it or not. Anybody that would turn a kid loose on the internet with that swiss cheese of an OS deserves the screams s/he will inevitably be woken with...
OS X is just *different* enough from what you and I grew up with to be really damn confusing. Although I imagine I find it easier than you do because I got so used to shifting gears when I first really got into computers: CCASTGS could log into a pair of Cyber 170's running NOS, a Cyber 180 running NOS/VE, a Pyramid running plain vanilla BSD 4.3, an AT&T 3B20 running the One True Squished'em Vee, a cluster of Sun graphics workstations, another cluster of Macs running System 6 and later System 7, ... and the PC's with Windows 3.1, which I didn't use very much because I had unlimited access to so much better. To me a PC was a big semi-smart terminal.
As for world domination: Frankly, I'd settle for world acceptance. And a belly full of herring.
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Date: 2006-09-14 07:15 pm (UTC)I've actually used all three UI's extensively; the problems I have with the Mac are:
1. menu bar at the top
2. click-to-focus (which is required by 1)
3. no "drag-to-select" plus "middle mouse button to paste" the way you do in X.
4. the reliance on icons, which I can't parse.
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Date: 2006-09-14 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 05:44 pm (UTC)WTF?? Somebody needs to get a) a clue, and b) a life.
I continually get snide comments whenever I mention that, as a visual illiterate and long-time X user, I find the Mac user interface unuseable.
I'm not enamored of the Mac UI myself - to me it's clunky and limited. Too many steps to do basic admin. Mice need *three* buttons, not two or only one! ;-)
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Date: 2006-09-14 05:53 pm (UTC)But the joy of it is that the Power-PC-based Macs are USB, and having a Real Mouse is a matter of plug-and-play...
OTOH, the one Microsoft product I'll admit to using is the Logitech-built ergo keyboard, which needs a PS/2 to USB converter to be used with the Mac... the advantage to that, though, is that said converter usually also has a mouse port, saving a USB jack on the Mac...
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Date: 2006-09-14 07:21 pm (UTC)I'm currently using an IBM model M keyboard and Logitech Trackman FX, both plugged in to a PS2-to-USB Y cable. (Running Etch on a Dell box with a 1980x1200 display.)
I look at that icon and think
Date: 2006-09-14 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 07:58 pm (UTC)Like yours, my litany of OSes is also long, and along the way I must say my favorite was AmigaDOS. Though I use WinXP (and Vista) pretty much exclusively, I still have my OS 9 based Macs around. I can't stand OS X, I actually like Win XP, and I'd never ever use Windows 1-98/ME. I never liked unix as a client system and linux is not much better, though I like how well linux works in embedded spaces. I loath X-windows, find the damage done by OS X to Apple's once nice UI (well, the top-menu model was a major mistake) makes it ugly to me.
I outgrew 80-column real or virtual displays long ago.
On mice/mouses, I'd like to see 5-buttons, one per digit, but that's venturing into hand gesture systems.
I have gotten to the point where I see the use of computers as ease-of-use devices and that anything that expedites data interchange is often more important than other features. That speaks to marketplace ubiquity, so generally Windows wins hands down.
Now eventually or sooner, WEB services will begin to address data interchange ubiquity and I think the distinction between linux based or Windows based end-clients may become irrelevent. Indeed the WEB services model (or what some people call 'cloud-OS') will commoditize what we think of today as OSes to the point where all that code base will be effectively free. So, this Windows vs. linux debate will just slide into the commodity black hole. When was the last time anyone argued about their wired telephones and their features? Even cellphones are no longer compared - the offered services, however, are considered worthy of comparison becasue that's where the value lies.
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Date: 2006-09-14 08:36 pm (UTC)The apps on my desktop are almost entirely 80-column text displays, including xterms, emacs frames, and Firefox (which I configure to the same size as an Emacs window, though the proportional font tends to get more than 80 columns on the screen). Those rare occasions when I have to view a legacy Office document I fire up OpenOffice and grit my teeth at the UI.
I personally don't believe web services will take over in the next decade, if ever, and in any case interfaces are getting more diverse, not less. I do think that open source will prevail, and commoditize OSs and data interchange formats.
None of which really addresses the original topic, which was the degree to which people get defensive about their preferred UI's. Except perhaps to illustrate the point.
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Date: 2006-09-14 09:28 pm (UTC)I think it illustrates the counterpoint, that people can differ and yet remain amicable. When I see you go off on Windows or OS X or GUI versus command line interfaces, I just see you and I differ.
"In an old and perhaps forgotten tradition of a place elsewhere, Draco settles himself next to the bar and offers Mandelbear a drink."
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Date: 2006-09-14 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 10:26 pm (UTC)Not forgotten here -- let me buy the next round.
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Date: 2006-09-14 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:52 pm (UTC)I've used pretty much every OS around, but these days run three or four different ones as standard. Oddly I get the most negativity from people who've standardised on one...
To be honest, I'll respect anyone's choices - and I'll defend their right to use whatever tools they want.
After all, that's what they are. Tools.
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Date: 2006-09-14 10:35 pm (UTC)I currently use OpenOffice on Linux for business cards and address labels, Emacs for almost everything else, a Mac laptop for viewing Quicktime movies, Windows 98 for my taxes; basically whatever works. And I'm buying my Mom a Mac -- probably a 17" iMac -- for her 86th birthday this year. My older daughter has both a Macbook and an HP mostly-windows box, and reads her email in pine over ssh.
Did I mention that we're a cross-platform household?
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Date: 2006-09-15 01:37 am (UTC)Laugh or weep, as you will.
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Date: 2006-09-15 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 03:04 am (UTC)And my mom works at microsoft :P
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Date: 2006-09-15 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-09-15 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-16 06:05 am (UTC)