Scottish Martial Arts wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 14:53:
Theyarecomingforyou, have you even used a modern Linux distro? Nearly all of what you said is demonstrably wrong, particularly on the useability/attractiveness front, which leads me to believe you're arguing based upon old stereotypes as opposed to any practical experience.
I was basing it upon the latest version of Ubuntu.
Verno wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 14:58:
For example Linux has a massive driver database spanning decades of hardware, just like Windows. It's current driver support that often suffers but thanks to USB many of these problems are moot nowadays. Quite a bit of people do audio mastering on Macs and Linux as well. Saying one is inferior because it doesn't have a driver for something you use is just as dumb as the guy who said Windows was inferior to Linux.
My point wasn't to pick out a single piece of hardware that doesn't work - it's more than no commercial multi-track audio recording hardware comes with Linux support. The Linux driver situation is dramatically better than it used to be but it simply isn't as robust as the Windows ecosystem.
Scottish Martial Arts wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 14:53:
For that matter, have you ever used the Unix Command Line Interface? I do most of my Linux work in the CLI, and I have to say that nothing in the GUI world quite matches the computing relationship that forms between you and your shell of choice. The Unix/Linux CLI is powerful, flexible, fast, highly customizable, elegant, and, although it's hard to learn, is incredibly easy to use (think about that for a moment: it's not a contradiction).
No. I dealt with CLIs back in the DOS days but I really have no interest going back to that. They may be more efficient for some tasks but that goes in the exact opposite direction of a user friendly experience.
Agrajag wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 14:10:
But, guess what ChromeOS really is underneath? Linux... So is Android... There are your mainstream user-friendly Linux distros right there!
I'm aware of that. But Android on a mobile phone is an entirely different affair to when you're talking about tablets, where Android just doesn't hold up as well - certainly not when compared to the upcoming Windows 8.
Verno wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 14:58:
You in particular seem to get really defensive when other peoples usage choices in hardware/software differ from your own.
Not at all. In fact I'm all for Linux doing well and don't deny that it has its strengths, particularly when talking about servers. But where I am highly critical is when someone paints Linux as a better operating system despite offering huge drawbacks over Windows systems. As I said, my workflow and leisure time is fundamentally incompatible with Linux. That doesn't mean it won't work for other people but this is a gaming site, focusing on PC news...
Agrajag wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 14:10:
Meh, one man's "productivity software" is another man's "useless garbage"... ;-)
There's no denying the appeal and functionality of the software that I listed. I'm not talking about a niche app for a fringe activity. And again, it's software that is fully supported on Mac but not on Linux.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."