Re: Question about the number of Apple users vs Mac users

[Justin Scott <djnospam@impakt.net>]

william strutts <wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com> wrote:
> I have used Unix back in the 80's as a student programmer and even
> then I found Unix to be unglamorous.  There were lots of *nicer* OS's
> out there like VAX/VMS which were just as powerful and easier to
> use.  I hate Unix's archaic command struture and its cryptic commands.
> It is a lot of work to remember the nuiances of unix commands.
> I used to create Alias's that were close to VMS command to make
> life easier for myself.  I hated remembering the various switches
> to commands such as LS.  The termcaps files on our BSD 4.3
> was not very good and most of our Perkin Elmer terminals didn't
> function properly on Unix.  Although I did have a liking for VI
> and I used a version of it on a 6809 called TSEdit in OS-9.

I could argue the other side of this argument, and point out things that I
dislike about VMS (file version numbers- who needs them?).  There's no doubting
that VMS was a great OS for its time, and some sites still use OpenVMS.  More
power to them, they're using what suits their needs best.

> The thing to remember here is that MS has 90% of the OS market
> and hence most worms/virii are designed to attack it since it is the
> dominant OS of the day.  If Linux were to become dominant, I am
> sure hackers would invent some way to attack it too.  Right now
> most of them use a Windows variant and are familiar with that.
> I am sure that a portion of them have Linux installed but what is
> the sense in writing a virus for Linux when the big news would
> be in the Windows realm.

90% is a big number.  Are you counting all the people like me who only own one
Microsoft product... 1978 MS Basic?  I guess I fall into that 10%.  I despise
Microsoft, and they'll have to seriously work at getting their act together
before I attempt to use their systems.  At work, I'm forced to use a
workstation with Win2k on it. <shudder>

Of course, another point to keep in mind is that I'm a power user.  If I don't
have complete control over every little bitty thing that I do, or if my OS
thinks it knows better than me, I get very upset.  I'd agree that 90% of all
computer owners are better off using Windows (or preferably MacOS).

As for attacks, there's plenty of ways to crush a Linux or UNIX system from the
outside, if it's not configured properly.  It may even be more susceptable to
outside attacks than Win98.  The fact that it's a multi-user SERVER operating
system (MS tries, but they've not made one of these yet- in fact, my
explanation for the moniker 'NT' is "Nice Try") makes it a little more
prone.

> Linux is what I call a Not Ready For Prime Time OS. 

I'll second that.  I have used Linux off and on since 1992/93, and I've watched
it grow by leaps and bounds, but I really think that since the RedHat
explosion, too many people and companies are putting their time and effort into
making "a better distribution" rather than concentrating on making it a "better
operating system".

FreeBSD is where it's at, baby. :) (From a die-hard SunOS 4.x user who just
upgraded this year)

cheers,
j