[ale] Linux bashed by Apple?

[JD]

On 08/27/2012 11:15 PM, Cornelis van Dijk wrote:
> Is this old news or did I just wake up?
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/27/tech/web/apple-linux-desktop/index.html?hpt=hp_t3


Funny, OSX always feels like "Linux-lite" to me.  I spent a week using an OSX
box last February - on purpose.  It was painful.  All the keyboard shortcuts
were wrong.  I suspect if I'd used OSX and only OSX for 6 months, those chords
would seem elegant. To me they were "different just to be different."  The mouse
copy/paste was painful too, but I'm used to pure X/Windows select/paste.

I think the real issue for Linux desktop growth is the lack of 100% compatible
MS-Office software and professional image and video editing software - basically
Adobe tools.  Screwing around with "almost compatible" software is something
most people don't want.

Attempt to work on MS-Office documents with reviewer comments, comparisons and
version editing inside Libre/Open Office on any platform, including Linux. It
doesn't work.  Pagination is off too.

For home users, Quicken, TurboTax, software compatible with iTunes and
commercial games probably matter most. I could be wrong.

Gamers will probably never leave MS-Windows until 5 really big game vendors
switch to Linux as their primary development platform and delay the release of
games at least 4 months to Windows after the Linux release.  Not likely.  I have
a friend in a small "SWAT-Team" company for game publishers. His company
optimizes code to make it perform. They are experts at GPUs, C++ and ASM. He
works for all the game companies we know on a per-project basis, usually only a
few months per game.  He loves Linux and BSD, but none of his clients have asked
for anything related to Linux. Work is 100% Windows.

OSX has really taken over the Ruby and Perl developer communities from what I've
seen. They want the power of UNIX, but the ability to buy commercial software to
get other things done too.  $2000 is nothing to spend in terms of the higher
productivity they believe happens using OSX.  I suspect other professional
scripting language programmers are the same - migrating to OSX.

Apple hardware has that undefined "cool factor" for many. Always a plus. The
$200 iPod was their gateway drug.

Plus, embedding MS-Visio graphics only works for MS-Office, not LibreOffice.
For my work, Visio is a must-have program.

I use Linux constantly, daily, and love it for the most part. When I need to
work with others on documents, I push ODF files so there isn't any need to boot
a Windows VM, but sometimes I'm too slow and the versioning/comments are enabled
in a different format, so I'm screwed.