The Mac Sucks!

The folks at Google have decided to take a stab at developing their own computer operating system. Details are still a little sketchy, but they’re expected to release it in 2010 and are (confusingly) calling it “Chrome” (like the browser they released a while ago). Chrome is reportedly based on a Linux core, with what appear to be some Google-designed user interface elements.

PCWorld has posted a good, consumer-focused analysis of the Chrome OS on their site. It’s recommended reading if you’re curious about the new OS.

The PCWorld article makes a couple of good points. The most relevant to me is their argument that when it comes down to it, consumers really don’t care what OS is on their computer. What they really care about is whether that computer can run the software they want to run. PCWorld says this is one reason Linux was all but eliminated from the netbook market. Early netbooks shipped only with Linux, so people bought them because they wanted the devices. When Microsoft saw it was losing market share, it made Windows affordable enough for netbook makers to use. The familiar Windows label assured consumers the netbooks would run many of their favorite applications. Given a choice between a Linux netbook (which, while offering a wealth of free software, didn’t run Windows applications natively) and a Windows netbook (which would run Windows applications), consumers chose the Windows version because it was more familiar.

To some degree, I think this is the “battle for hearts and minds” that both Linux and OS X face. Consumers probably DON’T care that their computer runs Windows. However, they DO care that it runs the programs they’ve invested the time and trouble to learn, and they care about losing the files they’ve taken time to create. Apple has an advantage over Linux here in that many big-name applications like Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office exist for Mac OS X, and work with the files as-is. While Linux has many good, free applications that are comparable (if not superior to) their big-name counterparts, most consumers aren’t aware of that. Even if they learn that those applications exist, some will still choose Windows because they’re worried about issues like file compatibility, having to re-learn an application, unfamiliarity with UNIX-like operating systems, etc. I think Apple’s relative success in the market is having something of a “halo effect” on Linux (i.e., Apple’s touting of OS X being a UNIX OS makes UNIX-like operating systems seem less “geeky”).

I’m not trying to put Linux down. It’s a great operating system, made greater by the fact that it doesn’t cost a nickel to own. It offers a wealth of excellent (usually free) applications and tools. It has the one of the most customizable user interfaces of any major desktop/server OS. It’s secure, stable, and reliable. I use it on a fairly regular basis, and I enjoy doing so. With WINE, you can even run many Windows programs (including some games) on Linux. But as good as Linux may be, it isn’t Windows, and it can’t run every program Windows can. For the average consumer, who thinks he or she needs that big-name Windows application, that’s a problem. (It may only be a perception problem, but in many cases perception becomes reality.)

Will Google’s Chrome OS make Linux somehow “more cool” or “more acceptable”? That’s the million dollar question. Having another hat in the operating system “ring” should make things more interesting, as it will challenge Apple, Microsoft, and the Linux developers to continue to improve. That’s a good thing for consumers, even if they don’t switch to an alternate OS.

Glyn Moody posted “The Huge Hidden Cost of Microsoft Software” on June 30, 2009, on Computeworld UK’s web site, and a similar article on Slashdot. In the post, Moody discusses how various UK government organizations had to spend a great deal of money cleaning up the Conficker worm. Moody explains how this is a “hidden cost” of running Microsoft software in your environment, much as Microsoft and others have tried to claim there are “hidden costs” in running free open source software and Macs.

There are certain of Moody’s points I agree with. More malware exists for Windows than for Mac OS X and Linux combined. That’s just a fact. If the PCs in your organization become infected with malware like the Conficker worm, it can be extremely time-consuming and costly to clean up the mess. Again, it’s a fact. If you ran Linux or Mac OS X throughout your organization instead of Windows, a Windows worm like Conficker would be stopped dead because it can’t infect those operating systems. Fact. But the conclusion that this is a “hidden cost of using Windows” may be true to some degree, it’s not quite on target. Allow me to explain.

I work in a company with approximately 2,000 Windows PCs, maybe 50 Macs, a small number of Sun Solaris workstations, and a data center including Linux, Windows, Solaris, and mainframe operating systems. In an environment like this, with so many Windows desktops, you might be thinking I’ve had to clean up some massive infections.

Ironically, in my 20+ year career, the biggest malware mess I ever had to clean up didn’t affect Windows at all, and it wasn’t at the shop where I work now. The culprit was a little Classic Mac OS virus code-named “WDEF“. Infection via WDEF was very Mac-like. It “just worked”. If an infected disk was inserted into a Mac, it instantly infected the Mac’s hard drive. You didn’t have to run any programs or do anything. If you inserted a clean disk into an infected Mac, that disk became infected. The WDEF virus managed to find its way onto every Mac in our company and on to most of the floppy disks. I was able to trace it back to a disk a single employee (yeah, it was me) brought into the office from home. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent cleaning up that mess (we had only a dozen Macs but literally hundreds of floppies to scan). I only found it because I was showing a co-worker how Macs didn’t really need antivirus software by running a scan with a free tool called Disinfectant. It was very humbling to see it detect WDEF, in addition to being painfully ironic.

It was also a valuable lesson. Over the 10+ years I was a Mac user, I had downloaded lots of free Mac software. When I ripped the shrinkwrap off my first antivirus package (bought after the WDEF incident), I was shocked to see how many viruses had already infected my supposedly “superior” system. During my time as a Classic Mac OS user, I saw more viruses than I’ve seen since… even though I’ve primarily been a Windows user, and still download lots of free programs. Mine may not be the typical experience, but it’s a true story.

Moody’s stories and mine share a common theme – and it’s obviously not Microsoft software. Take proper security precautions, no matter what computer you’re using, or you will pay a price eventually. I’m willing to bet if you investigate any of those very expensive cleanup deals mentioned in Moody’s article you’ll find that certain basic security precautions were ignored that would have cost FAR less than the cleanup effort for Conficker eventually did. Maybe they merely needed a cheap hardware firewall to keep the worm from getting in, or a cheap antivirus package to detect and clean it, or just to deny administrator access to their employees. As far as I’m concerned, Microsoft may share some of the blame but the bulk of it lies with the organizations themselves. I can say that with confidence because our 2,000-machine Windows environment didn’t see a single Conficker infection. Not one. (And no, I wouldn’t be so bold or stupid as to say that we “never will”… only that we’ve made all reasonable precautions to prevent such an occurrence. That’s about as much as you can ever really say about your security.)

While Mac users have been relatively free of malware, viruses have existed for OS X, Mac malware has made it into the wild, and it has resulted in the creation of a Mac-only botnet. I’ll bet if you could find the owners of the Macs whose systems are part of that botnet, they’d tell you they don’t need antivirus software because they’ve got a Mac, and Macs are immune to that stuff…

Linux has been relatively immune as well, but it too has seen Trojans, viruses, and other malware. The threat to Linux is nothing compared to the situation on Windows, but that doesn’t mean there is “no” threat.

If you go through life with the assumption that your platform of choice is totally secure, completely immune to malware, and impervious to hackers, the odds are good that you’re going to find yourself very sadly mistaken one day… just like I did when I ran that disinfecting program on my Mac those many years ago. Good security is a “hidden cost” of owning a computer, no matter whose logo is on the box or whose is displayed when you start it up.

Sam Dean at OStatic.com suggests that Linux should aim at delivering a Mac-like user experience. Dean asserts that “many Linux distros are offering a very graphical, Mac-like interface experience now. I’ve been using the new KDE, and it definitely does so. Matt Asay reports today in another post on how great a usability experience you can get in Red Hat’s just-released Fedora 11 operating system…[snip]… Moblin and Ubuntu Netbook Remix are also getting a lot of kudos for their easy, graphical interfaces, and both have bright futures in the red hot netbook market.”

Dean suggests that as our use of computers becomes increasingly browser-centric, this is opening doors for the Linux desktop. However, it is noted that “Desktop Linux still has some ground to make up when it comes to compatibility…[snip]… There are still too many problems with drivers and hardware compatibility with Linux, though. These problems will get ironed out. Linux has over one percent of the desktop market already, and if it can get to fix percent, it will be sitting right at the market share level that the Mac commanded for many years. There’s no reason an operating system has to dominate all desktops to usher in lots of innovation.”

It’s an interesting bit of thinking. I’m not sure I agree or disagree.

PC World’s Brennon Slattery published “Three Reasons Why Android-Powered Netbooks Could Kill Microsoft Windows” a few weeks back. Slattery suggests that Google’s Android OS could kill Windows in the netbook space based on three factors: Money, Exposure, and Simplicity.

Slattery notes that Microsoft charges “hefty licensing fees” on the use of Windows, while Android is absolutely free to use. Thus, the use of Android rather than Windows could save manufacturers and consumers a lot of money – at a time when saving money is particularly important.

In terms of “Exposure”, Slattery says that it “might take a while” for Windows users to adjust to Android, but that Google has a trusted and highly recognizable name. As a result, people who are tired of paying for Microsoft products might be willing to take a chance on the Google name and use Android. This would allow Android to evolve into a “richer, more popular experience”.

Finally, the article explains that netbooks are primarily aimed at a “casual computing” crowd which may not be looking for a full desktop or laptop experience. Given this, Slattery asks, “What better OS than one originally designed for a device that fits in the palm of your hand?” Android could simplify the user interface and experience, making for a practical, easy to use device.

While I would like to see these speculations materialize into reality because it would continue to push Microsoft and Apple to innovate in the OS space, I’m not convinced Android will ever displace Windows from the netbook space. Here’s why. Initially, virtually all the netbooks shipped with Linux or some Linux variant. Many early netbook owners, being less technically savvy, assumed the devices ran Windows and were disappointed to find they could not run their favorite Windows programs on the Linux-based devices. Some returned the netbooks to the store, while others installed Windows on them. Microsoft, sensing a Linux threat, stepped in to make Windows XP licenses available at a lower-than-usual cost for the devices. Linux began dropping from its dominant position in the netbook space in favor of Windows. Other netbook users, being of a more Apple-centric nature, loaded modified Mac OS X distributions on the devices to give them an inexpensive, portable Macintosh computer. Relatively few stuck with the original Linux load.

Android may have a better chance at success than a “general” Linux build, only because Google took the time to polish the platform and give it the kind of eye candy seen in commercial products like the iPod. (I’m not suggesting they’re equals in this area, but rather that Android’s “eye candy” is arguably superior to that in, say, Windows Mobile or Windows XP.) An Android device that fits in somewhere between the current netbook design and that of a tablet-sized iPhone/iPod might have enough “wow factor” to it to capture the public’s attention and convince a few people to switch to it. This could generate a momentum that would make Android-based netbooks more of a standard than Windows.

However, this still doesn’t take into account the reason Linux lost the netbook crown. If appropriate applications aren’t released for Android to allow for seemless integration into VPN networks, Windows-centric corporate LANs, Microsoft-standardized intranets (based on technologies like Office Server, Sharepoint, and the like), etc., Android netbooks are likely to remain more a consumer niche item than a broadly accepted computing platform. Looking at the iPhone gives some indication of what Android netbooks are up against. In corporate environments (admittedly not a netbook stronghold), the iPhone still hasn’t quite done as well as the RIM Blackberry devices because those devices do a better job of fitting into corporate environments. Corporations can run their own Blackberry servers and be in control of their devices, while they can’t run “iPhone Servers” and control a fleet of iPhones. Blackberry devices integrate well with Microsoft Exchange Server systems (I know, Apple is doing well with this one now). In general, RIM has listened to its business customers and delivered the kinds of features they wanted and needed. I’m not saying that Android devices need to replicate the Blackberry at all, but rather provide a comparable level of integration because even though consumers may be buying the devices, many will need and want to connect to corporate networks at least occasionally. Windows-based netbooks do this with ease.

If you’ve been reading this site for any length of time, you know that platform neutrality is a big part of what we’re all about. We don’t hate or love Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux, in spite of the site’s name. Operating systems are just tools to help us get something done with a computer. Each has its good and bad points.

Take Linux, for example. The “idea” of Linux is a great one: a free operating system that runs on a wide range of hardware and offers a plethora of free applications to go with it. It’s stable, secure, performs well, and can be an ideal computing solution for many people (probably far more people than are actually using it). When appropriate, we support, endorse, and promote the use of Linux on this site. But the key there is the word “appropriate”. While Linux is very appropriate for many people, it’s not appropriate for everyone, as much as we might like it to be.

Recent Linux distributions like Ubuntu have gone a very long way toward making Linux much more accessible to laypeople who have little interest in command lines, shell scripts, compilers, and daemons. As Artem S. Tashnikov reports, there are a number of things preventing Linux from gaining a much wider acceptance on the desktop. Tashnikov’s article does a great job of explaining where Linux is behind Windows and OS X at the desktop level. I won’t re-hash it here except to give a personal anecdote.

I’ve experienced his item 1 (and its sub-items 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3) directly recently. When I read about a very interesting open source media system called “Boxee” I decided to put an older AOpen XC Cube PC I had to use that had been gathering dust. I installed Ubuntu on the box, updated it, and walked through the (largely command-line based) installation process. When it was finished, I launched the software and it looked great. But there was no sound. I dug through the forums online, both for Linux and Boxee, and managed to get a test sound to play. Unfortunately, the test sound hung the sound software and Boxee still didn’t play sound. Eventually, I gave up trying to make the ATI video card I had been using work and switched to an Nvidia video card that connected to my sound card directly. This improved the situation. I had sound in some videos but not others. More time spent in the forums and I still wasn’t able to get it to work. I found the Windows (alpha) version of Boxee and installed that. It worked and had sound, but crashed after playing a few seconds or minutes of video. I ended up abandoning the idea of a Linux-based Boxee system and built a Windows XP based XMBC system instead. XBMC crashes occasionally as well, but works for quite a long time between those crashes. Eventually I will probably look into why it’s crashing. But that’s not the point.

The point is that while troubleshooting the Boxee sound issue on Ubuntu, I learned that there are at least three different sound-making systems in Ubuntu. There’s the Open Sound System (OSS), the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), and something called Pulseaudio. They don’t appear to interoperate well and each has its advantages and disadvantages.

That’s one of the good things about Linux that’s also bad. Because it’s an open system and anyone is free to contribute to it, you end up with lots of different ways in the OS to do the same thing. That’s good because it gives programmers flexibility to find an approach that suits them. But it’s bad because it means that different programmers working on sound applications may choose different (potentially incompatible) tools to do the same thing. An average user will have no idea why sound isn’t working. They’ll just know there’s no sound. Some will poke around long enough to find a solution. Others will walk away from Linux completely, assuming it to be defective and buggy.

To the credit of Ubuntu developers, I find that this distribution of Linux generally “just works” when I install it on the hardware at my disposal. Applications install fairly quickly and silently, and they too “just work”. It’s only when I start working outside the confines of the Ubuntu community and install applications that haven’t already been vetted by Ubuntu users (like Boxee) that I have problems. And having some skill in UNIX-like operating systems, I can often sort out the problems I have without help, and more often find the answers online. Examples like the Boxee example above are actually fairly rare for me, but they do happen. But I’ve always been a technical guy, so I can tolerate a fair amount of tinkering before I get frustrated enough to give up.

I’m not the mythical “average user”, though. They’re not going to be satisfied with having to look up instructions online, wade through command line stuff, configuration files, etc. They’re going to get up and walk away, or wipe Linux off in favor of another operating system like Windows or Mac OS X which (for their level of patience, skill, etc.) “just works”.

I’d like to say I have the magic answer to this dilemma, one that would help Linux to achieve a significant desktop market share, but I don’t. This kind of frustration is probably the flip side of having a completely open system. While there are plenty of “ills” in the closed source model used by Microsoft and Apple in their respective operating systems (I know, parts of OS X are open), those companies at least have the power to dictate things like “these are the only acceptable ways to do X if you want your application to work”. As a result of this level of control, randomly chosen Windows and OS X applications have a much higher chance of working “out of the box” than randomly selected Linux applications.

Linux is a good operating system, and is appropriate for many people and many different uses. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a good choice for every user. (For that matter, OS X and Windows aren’t good choices for every user, either.) Linux continues to grow and improve, but as Tashnikov notes in his article, it’s not readyto be everyone’s desktop yet.

PCWorld’s Keir Thomas raises some interesting points in his April 2, 2009, column entitled “Linux Needs Critics“. In fact, it is the same kind of thinking that sparked me to create this site several years ago.

I realized then that the mainstream media was in Apple’s back pocket. If Apple created a new iPod, even my local newscasters were talking about it (even though they didn’t talk about, say, new Intel CPUs, new Dell laptop models, etc.). Mainstream technology news sites like CNET unfailingly produced positive reviews for anything Apple put out, and it seemed like there was no one taking the “devil’s advocate” position, pointing out the flaws in Apple’s offerings. As someone who was once an unabashed Mac fanatic, I felt like it was practically my duty to present an alternative view of Apple’s offerings. It wasn’t that I wanted to “hurt” Apple or get back at it for some perceived wrong, but rather that in the midst of media coverage that glossed over the flaws in Apple’s offerings I felt that less-savvy consumers could be misled into believing that Apple products were as “perfect” as Apple advertising made them out to be. As a Mac Administrator (at that time, my responsibilities have since changed), I dealt with the down-side to Apple products on a daily basis.

In the beginning, my daily frustrations led me to write some intentionally inflammatory stuff. If I spent hours resolving some esoteric Mac OS X problem that wouldn’t have existed in OS 9 or Windows, I complained loudly. Over time, though, as I spent less time dealing with Apple “frustrations” and more time with Windows and Linux, my viewpoints began to mellow a lot and gel into their current state. Right now, I see myself as more a “critic” of Apple than an adversary, as I once did. I see the value Mac users find in OS X, and respect their point of view. At the same time, because I’m no longer a Mac fan as I once was, I exist outside the “Reality Distortion Field” and can see not just the good things in Apple products but also the flaws and shortcomings. There are lots of places you can go to read about all the wonderful things about Apple’s products, such as AppleTell, AppleInsider, Macworld, and the like. Those sites will give you all the reasons why you need to join them in their Mac fandom, and that’s fine. This site, however, is here to provide the counterpoint. We’re here to show you the opposite point of view: what’s missing from an Apple product, what might frustrate you about it, what might cost more, what you might lose by switching to one, etc. We do this for two reasons.

First, believe it or not, we want to serve as a resource for Apple to use when looking to improve its products. By showing the advantages of alternative products or weaknesses in Apple products, we can help Apple see where improvements can be made.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, we want to counter a lot of the hype out there about Apple products and provide information about the products’ shortcomings so that consumers are better-informed. We’re not out to stop people from buying Apple products. All we want to do is provide an alternative viewpoint for consumers to consider when making their purchase decision. If, after hearing what we have to say, the consumer goes on to purchase an Apple product, we’re just fine with that. It will mean they’ve made an informed, considered decision that Apple’s product is a good fit for their needs in spite of its possible flaws or shortcomings. Similarly, if our words point out something about a product that the consumer isn’t comfortable with, we’re happy to help them make a possible mistake by buying an Apple product they eventually grow unhappy with.

That’s basically what Keir Thomas is saying in the PC World article. He explains that within the Linux community (as within the Apple fanbase), people tend to focus on the good points about Linux and gloss over or ignore the bad points. There’s very little criticism of Linux within the community, and any significant criticism often degenerates into personal attacks or pressure to “hush” the criticism. That’s unfortunate, because genuine constructive criticism of Linux (or indeed of any technology) can help its creators fix the problems that prevent wider adoption.

Thomas’ article actually has us thinking that maybe this site needs a Linux counterpart… and maybe we should start it.

While visiting Doug Holton’s EdTechDev blog, I was struck by his post “The State of Ed Tech Funding for Schools” dated March 2, 2009. In it, Holton explains that Obama’s recent announcement that schools would receive $650 million for educational technology sounds like a lot of money, but boils down to about $11 per student. Even in this economy, you’re not going to get a lot of technology for $11.

Holton says that estimates indicate it would take $10 billion to fully wire schools, but that other ideas could cost less and have a greater impact on students’ education. For example, he says, “Give each student a netbook laptop (~$200)… If you limited it to students whose families could not afford to buy one on their own… the cost would be around $6 billion.” This cost could be further reduced by donations and other means such as not spending millions on textbooks and other “overpriced curriculum materials” and instead using open e-texts and open source software. As he puts it, “Do you really need to buy the full Microsoft suite and Adobe suite of applications thousands of times over when OpenOffice, Gimp, Inkscape, and other free software can do the same things?”

When I was in high school (back in the ’80s), the only computers we had were Apple IIs. When I got to college, there was a mix of Macs and shared systems like mainframes, UNIX, and Vax. My step-children went to a grade school where Macs were the standard. Now, they’re in high school and the standard has become Windows based PCs. In fact, my step-daughter has a school-issued HP tablet/laptop device running XP. In other words, Apple is pricing itself out of the education market. Holton’s blog shows enough evidence of that.

In the past, Apple offered significant discounts to schools and students. If you look at the education price lists on Apple’s site as of this writing, the discounts are pretty mediocre. For example, the low-end Mac mini is priced at $579 versus $599 for non-education customers. Financially-strapped schools, even if they wanted to buy Macs, would find it hard to justify a $579 computer when they can pick up others for much less from equally well-known PC producers. As Holton notes, a netbook would cost only $200-400 and would include a built-in monitor, keyboard, and mouse with the added benefit of being very portable.

What’s replacing Apple in schools, increasingly, isn’t Windows. It’s Linux. As Holton explained above, it doesn’t make sense for schools to invest in Microsoft or Apple products. They can acquire inexpensive, lowest-common-denominator PC hardware for a lot less than a Windows or Mac OS X solution, getting more bang for the buck. In fact, configured properly, Linux could be made to look and behave a lot like either of those more-mainstream options so that the “trauma” the students might experience in the real world is considerably less. Linux is at least as stable as OS X or Windows, and every bit as secure as either, so the schools aren’t really giving anything up to adopt it. It also helps them leverage older hardware longer.

Even Microsoft seems to be doing better for students than Apple. When I went back to college to get a second degree a few years back, one of the things I received (at no additional cost to me beyond my tuition) was a bundle of Microsoft educational software. That bundle included Windows XP, Office XP Pro, Visio, Visual Studio, and some other software. On the street, that bundle would have cost me hundreds of dollars. I wasn’t offered anything Apple other than some “educational discounts” on Apple hardware. Maybe the situation has changed in colleges since 2004-2005, but I was impressed then by Microsoft’s commitment to education. From Apple, I’m not seeing it.

On February 25, 2009, OSnews’ Thom Holwerda posted “Ballmer: Linux Bigger Competitor than Apple“. It’s an interesting piece from a few points of view. In Holwerda’s post, a slide from a presentation given by Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer shows that Microsoft’s biggest competitor to Windows is “unlicensed” or “pirated” copies of Windows, followed by Linux, then Apple.

As OSnews tells the story, “As much as I find Ballmer a rather annoying figure, he does score a major point here. About 300 million PCs were shipped worldwide in 2008. Round and about 9-10 million of those were Macs. Apple’s market share might be increasing, but it’s still relatively irrelevant compared to the bigger picture. As we said yesterday, Apple might be doing swell in the United States, but on a worldwide scale, Cupertino still falls a bit to the wayside. In any case, it appears that Linux (and piracy) is a larger blip on Microsoft’s radar than Apple, and it’s not hard to see why. With an economy that’s not doing very well, people will opt for cheaper products. Apple cannot offer those, but Linux and piracy can.” (Emphasis added by The Mac Sucks.)

We recently covered how CNET blogger Matt Asay, an admitted Mac fan, thought that just the opposite was true… that people would increasingly seek out the Mac because it represents a value in excess of its sticker price. The statistics presented in the OSnews article by Microsoft would indicate that people don’t seem to agree with Asay’s point of view. In spite of the economic climate we’ve been living in for a while now, Microsoft’s biggest threats are pirated copies of Windows (i.e., a “free” OS) and Linux (another free OS) – and not the Mac. It seems that “free” is more desirable in bad economic times when people have less disposable income. Go figure.

I will readily acknowledge, however, that Ballmer’s words and Microsoft’s actions are somewhat incongruous. On the one hand, Ballmer says Apple isn’t really a threat because they’re only a tiny part of the overall personal computer market. At the same time, Microsoft is launching a number of initiatives that are clearly an effort to replicate Apple’s business models: the Zune to compete with the iPod, the Zune Marketplace to battle the iTunes Store, and Microsoft Stores similar to Apple Stores. (Admittedly, not one of these is really a direct aim at the Macintosh or OS X, so Microsoft is at least somewhat consistent.) Will Microsoft be successful with any of its Apple-like efforts? I don’t know, but if you look at the articles linked in that earlier sentence it’s clear that people are finding things to like about Microsoft’s offerings.

It reminds me of the cola wars. Coke practically owned the soft drink market, but they tinkered with their formula to compete with Pepsi, a smaller competitor in terms of market share. Today, the phrase “New Coke” is often used as a derogatory term to refer to business disasters. In the cola wars, Coke eventually went back to the original formula that made it successful. One wonders if Microsoft will someday do the same thing. Maybe Vista was Microsoft’s “New Coke” and Windows 7 will take them back to a winning formula?

If you look at Microsoft’s history, it’s clear that they are serious competitors in the long term. Initial versions of Windows paled in comparison to the Macintosh of the day, but Microsoft gradually improved the operating system to the point that it (and Apple’s mis-management) nearly eliminated Apple from the market in the mid-to-late 1990s. Even with Apple’s sales growth of late, Microsoft is still the 600-pound gorilla in the personal computer OS market. The early Zunes met with a lot of derision, but more-recent reviews are comparing it very favorably with the iPod Classic. Even the XBox 360, which (like the Sony Playstation 3) has been beaten by the Nintendo Wii, still garners a fair amount of praise from developers and players when compared with the Playstation 3 from former market leader Sony. All of these indicate that while Microsoft may enter the market in a fairly weak position, its products slowly but steadily reach a point where they become “good enough” to be serious contenders for market leadership.

Perhaps that’s why Linux is a bigger threat to Microsoft than Apple. While Microsoft could always turn a battle with Apple into a price war, that’s not the case with Linux. Linux will run on older (i.e., much cheaper) hardware and cost nothing to install, compared to Windows, which will need relatively current hardware and of course a license fee (i.e., “not free”). In a tough economic climate, it will be increasingly difficult for Microsoft to convince customers to invest in new licenses and new hardware when there’s a free alternative that requires no new hardware and offers a lot of comparable software at no charge.

A company named Marvell Semiconductor is shipping an interesting little computer to developers, so that they can produce home automation devices, service gateways, and other types of small, inexpensive computer appliances. The device, known as the Marvell SheevaPlug (pictured at left) draws only 5 watts of power, comes with Linux, and features a completely open hardware and software design. The mini computer can run ports of several different Linux distributions, including Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo. It features a 1.2 GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 512MB of flash storage, gigabit Ethernet, and USB 2.0 ports. It’s priced at $100 in small quantities and is said to be available in larger quantities at a price of approximately $75. This makes its price well within the reach of home hobbyists and experimenters.

There are already companies either planning or shipping products based on this design. Two companies have products that essentially turn the plug computer into a network storage device (it contains gigabit Ethernet) when a USB drive is attached to a USB port on the device. Another has used the device to create a home media server. Another is building an application that can move media content between devices in the home (e.g., from a PC to a DVR to an iPhone).

It’s an intruiguing concept, and it will be interesting to see what other uses the device is put to. I can already imagine a very nasty use. Given its size, capabilities, and low power requirements, it would be an ideal device to slip into a company’s officers, attach to their LAN and a handy wall outlet, providing a powerful and inexpensive network snooping tool and “server behind enemy lines” (i.e., the firewall)…

According to a post on the Ubuntu developer announcement list by Mark Shuttleworth, the Ubuntu developers are working on “Karmic Koala” (the name for the 9.10 release of Ubuntu Linux). The announcement carries the following interesting tidbits:

• Cloud Computing will feature in the server version: “Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of cloud computing by embracing the APIs of Amazon EC2, and making it easy for anybody to setup their own cloud using entirely open tools.”
• Energy Saving features will be added to the server: “A savvy Koala knows that the best way to conserve energy is to go to sleep, and these days even servers can suspend and resume, so imagine if we could make it possible to build a cloud computing facility that drops its energy use to virtually zero by napping in the midday heat, and waking up when there’s work to be done.”
• A prettier, more graphical boot process: “…the good news is, boot will be beautiful. The bad news is, you won’t have long to appreciate it! It only takes 35 days to make a whole Koala, so we think it should be possible to bring up a stylish desktop much faster. The goal for Jaunty [the release currently being wrapped up] on a netbook is 25 seconds, so let’s see how much faster we can get you all the way to a Koala desktop.”
• A netbook edition will be offered: “…the Ubuntu Netbook Edition will be updated to include all the latest technology from Moblin, and tuned to work even better on screens that are vertically challenged.”
• Improved visuals: “The desktop will have a designer’s fingerprints all over it – we’re now beginning the serious push to a new look. Brown has served us well but the Koala is considering other options.”

I’m curious to see how well they deliver on these promises.

CNET’s Matt Asay found that Microsoft is searching for a new “director of open source strategy, with a focus on the desktop” to “lead Microsoft’s global desktop competitive strategy as it relates to open source competitors”. Asay suggests that since Red Hat is relatively inactive in the desktop space that Microsoft must be focusing mostly on Novell and Ubuntu. Further, he says that “frankly, only Ubuntu is really changing the game around desktop enough for Microsoft to need to staff a position to counter the threat”.

A lot of the feedback I get from Mac fans who visit this site implies that they think Linux is a third-rate operating system, held together with duct tape and bailing wire compared to Mac OS X and Windows. Certainly, with Linux’s roots as a “garage project” by a largely unpaid development force, such a viewpoint is understandable. However, my experience with Ubuntu is that it’s easy to use, stable, secure, and in nearly all cases “just works”. (The only case I’ve found where it didn’t “just work” recently was my Asus Eee PC laptop, and by following a simple online tutorial I was able to fix the things that didn’t work in a matter of about 5 minutes.)

Microsoft definitely has something to fear with respect to Ubuntu and Linux in general. I would equate the security, reliability, ease of use, and overall appearance of a stock Ubuntu install with Microsoft Windows 2000. With some tweaks and additional software, it can look and feel a lot like XP or Vista. (For that matter, it can also be made to look and feel a lot like Mac OS X.) My experience with Ubuntu on most hardware is that it “just works” without any tweaking or tinkering needed. Linux has come a long way from its early days.

When you combine Linux with the WINE software, which provides binary compatibility with the Windows API (a fancy way of saying it lets you run Windows software without having to use a virtual machine or a copy of Windows), then Microsoft has a bit more to fear. While I’m not suggesting that Windows users should all dump their Microsoft licenses and start using Ubuntu and WINE, I would contend that there are many people for whom this would be a very viable and (perhaps most importantly) free option.

And when looking at the wealth of free software available for automatic download and install through Ubuntu, there are many very usable alternatives to Microsoft’s other desktop products. Firefox is certainly a worthy competitor to Internet Explorer (if not a superior one). OpenOffice.org could easily replace Microsoft Works or Microsoft Office for the majority of users I know. VLC is superior to Windows Media Player in many ways. And I could go on. The point is that Linux is a serious competitor to Windows.

In fact, apart from the hardware, Linux is a serious competitor to the Mac OS. Open source projects have done much to duplicate the look and feel of OS X in Linux. There are some packages on Linux that even provide eye candy that is superior to what can be found in Windows or Leopard (e.g., compiz). Like Mac OS X, Linux has a long reputation for being relatively virus-free and secure. Like OS X, Linux is a UNIX-like operating system (yes, I know OS X is an official “UNIX” operating system, which is what makes it “UNIX-like”). And I would venture to guess that the library of free and commercial software for Linux is of a size comparable to the library of software available for OS X. Again, I’m not suggesting that Mac users should all run out and dump their Macs for Linux boxes. But I am saying that if they were willing to invest the time, I think many Mac users could find that their computing needs are very easily satisfied by Linux. (Some obvious exceptions might be people who are heavy into digital video work, DVD authoring, and other high-end media activities.)

Bottom line, I think it’s smart of Microsoft to be looking for someone to help them understand and respond to the threat posted to Windows/Office/IE/etc. by open source software.

ZDNet’s Michael Krigsman posted a blog entry recently entitled “Why I love Windows 7, hate Linux, and think the Mac is Lame.”  Krigsman has been involved with Windows, Linux, and Macs “since the early days” and says that he’s finally settled on a platform (Windows 7) with no regrets.

He describes early versions of Windows as “virtually useless”, says that Linux is “sleek and powerful, yet nearly impenetrable for most users”, and that “Macintosh adherents tend to be frivolous time-wasters dazzled by cheap sensory effects”.  I don’t really agree with him, though I do understand where his opinions originate.

The earliest versions of Windows were pretty much useless.  They were Microsoft’s attempt to come up with something vaguely Mac-like, and they failed.  Since then, however, Windows has steadily improved over time.  In my opinion, Windows Vista didn’t fail because of its flaws, but because Windows XP was (for the bulk of users) fast enough, stable enough, secure enough, and reliable enough for the vast majority of users.  Where people were ready to give up Windows 98 and its headaches for the more-stable 2000 or XP, there wasn’t a similar incentive to switch to Vista from XP.  Add to that the bad press Vista got at launch time, and still gets periodically, and it’s no surprise the OS didn’t meet Microsoft’s expectations.

Linux has come a long, long way from its early days.  In particular, Ubuntu tends to “just work” on most hardware configurations.  It’s easy to use, offers lots of free software, and doesn’t require high-end hardware configurations.  While it’s easy for a novice user to start getting in over their head when they start digging deeper than the GUI, there seems to be a helpful community of people ready to lend a hand when it happens.  If you go beyond the basics, it can be a lot to learn, but just as many Mac or Windows users never touch the command line, it’s not necessary in Linux either.

As for the Mac, well, it’s not a bad platform.  While I do think Apple has had a tendency to focus on form over function, style over substance, etc., the fact that people remain loyal to Apple proves that there is an audience for all that eye candy.  I don’t think most Mac users are frivolous time-wasters, though.  I know plenty of people who are hard workers and use Macs.  I also know Windows users who aren’t. 

As for Windows 7, I’m planning to cover that more in depth when I’ve had the chance to spend more time with it.  I’m using Windows 7 right now to work on this article, as a matter of fact.  I’ve had no problems with it at all so far.  My XP drivers loaded without a problem and worked with Win7.  My applications have all installed and run without a glitch.  I haven’t seen a single crash or blue-screen even though this is beta software.  The GUI changes are generally proving to be more productivity-oriented than style-oriented as they were with Vista.  In short, I can see myself using Windows 7 when it’s released.

It wasn’t that long ago that people talked about “The Microsoft Tax” on PC purchases.  In order to get the best price possible from Microsoft for Windows licenses to sell with their computers, manufacturers like Dell and HP would make exclusive agreements with Microsoft to sell all their PCs with Windows.  At the time, Linux was drawing converts in large numbers, and those people lamented the fact that they couldn’t buy a PC without an OS license attached.  They referred to this as “The Microsoft Tax” because they reasoned that they were paying more for their PCs because they included a Windows license that they were never going to use.  I understand where the Linux folks were coming from. No one wants to pay for something they don’t want, need, or use.

It’s ironic, then, that the company accused of placing a “tax” on the PCs sold by major manufacturers is itself accusing another company of placing a tax on its users.  As reported by CNet’s Ina Fried, Microsoft is suggesting that Macintosh purchasers pay an “Apple Tax” when they switch from Windows to the Mac.

Most Mac users probably react much the way Ina Fried did, suggesting that this is an old argument from Microsoft and that it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  But if you dig a little deeper, there is some merit to what Microsoft is saying.  It boils down to the following points:

• Macintosh list prices tend to be at least a little higher than the prices of Windows PCs with comparable hardware specifications.  That’s not always the case, but it’s common enough.  (I’m not talking about bundled software, fit and finish, or anything more than raw hardware specs and features.)
• Windows users who switch to the Mac will have a learning curve to switch to the “Mac way” of doing things.  For example, retraining their fingers to press Command-C for copy instead of Ctrl-C has a time and frustration cost to it.  I’m not saying this is a huge factor, just that it’s a factor.
• Windows users who switch to the Mac will either have to give up some familiar applications or spend money on a Windows license for their Macs (possibly along with a product like Parallels).  This is not a cost they’d incur staying with Windows or going to a new Windows PC.
• There will be compatibility problems.  While both the Mac and Windows have come a long way since the 1990s in terms of file format compatibility, there can be problems moving files back and forth between Windows and Macintosh (and/or Linux).  These are issues not seen in an all-Mac or all-Windows environment, but since we’re talking about “switchers” here, it’s implied that there will probably be some swapping of files across platforms.  That means there will be some incompatibility as well.  Maybe not a lot, and maybe it won’t take up a lot of time to sort out.  But it’s yet-another cost of switching to a Mac.
• There are fewer peripheral options.  OS X does support a large number of peripherals and devices out of the box.  But new devices are being introduced all the time, and it’s not uncommon for manufacturers to release Windows drivers for those peripherals first.  Linux drivers will likely come later (though not always).  Mac drivers will probably come even later, if at all.  Some technologies, like SLI video, have yet to make it to the Macintosh product line (and perhaps never will).

As with many things, how much of an “Apple Tax” you see after a switch from Windows to Mac OS X will depend a great deal on your preferences, your uses for a computer, your skill level, and other factors. 

If you make only very basic use of a computer (e.g., web browsing, email, and office productivity), you may find that you have no need of a Windows compatibility solution like Parallels.  Thus, that’s not a “tax” for you.  You might have had only older peripherals that you planned to replace anyway and so buying new Mac-specific ones wasn’t an added cost.  And so on.  So not every switcher will see a big “Apple Tax” coming from Windows.  Others, however, will really feel the pain.

So while I don’t completely take Microsoft’s side, I also don’t think they’re “full of it” either.  There are plenty of people for whom a switch to the Mac could be an easy and positive move.  There are also plenty for whom it will be a frustrating, expensive exercise.  And lots of them in the middle somewhere.

If you’re thinking about switching from the Mac to Windows, researching the following factors may help you judge what your personal “pain level” or “Apple Tax” might be:

• How comfortable are you paying Apple’s hardware prices?  If your idea of an expensive PC is $499, you’re going to find that Macs give you a bit of a sticker shock.  While Mac users tend to hold on to their hardware a little longer than PC users, that’s offset a little by a higher up-front price.
• What software do you use most, and is there a Mac equivalent?  In the short term, you can probably run most of the software you want using Boot Camp or parallels.  In the long term, you’re probably going to want to switch to native OS X applications if for no other reason than to simplify your life.  So do some research now and see if you can find all the applications you need for OS X.  If possible, test drive them on a Mac and see if you like them.
• Are you the kind of person who likes to play with the latest-and-greatest technology?  While Apple is sometimes ahead of the curve, perhaps announcing Macs with the latest Intel processor weeks ahead of other companies, there are a number of technologies that Apple holds back on.  For example, they’ve never done SLI video, have yet to release a Mac with Apple-installed Blu-ray drives, built-in media readers, thumbprint scanners, and other technologies.  If that kind of thing will bother you, you might not be the ideal Mac owner.
• Are you a heavy gamer?  Most new games come out first for Windows and later for the Mac (if at all).  If gaming is important to you, you may find the Mac frustrating because you can’t play the latest games on OS X, and many games don’t work well using the Parallels solution.  Your best option in that situation may be Boot Camp, but if you’re going to be booting into Windows very often it may not make sense to have a Mac.
• Do you share files with a lot of other computer users?  What do most of those other people use?  If it’s a Mac, you’ll probably find the document-sharing much less frustrating if you have a Mac as well.  If most of them use PCs, expect to start hearing (and perhaps doing) a lot of grumbling when files that swap back and forth between platforms start to exhibit odd problems.  Maybe you’ll be lucky and it will all “just work” but don’t count on it.  If possible, test it by moving an extra copy of an important document back and forth between platforms.

There are plenty of sites out there to tell you what other reasons or benefits you might get from switching.  Seek out and refer to those as well.  The message here is to do your research and make an informed decision.

According to Slashdot, Microsoft and Novell have cooperated to bring the Silverlight technology to Linux. As a result, PCs running Linux should be able to view sites that use Microsoft’s Silverlight technology. The Linux runtime library for Silverlight is called “Moonlight” and is expected to be released within the next few days. A few version is already in the works.

Australia’s PC Authority magazine published an interesting interview with free software advocate Richard Stallman.  In it, Stallman talks about the difference between “free software” and “open source software”, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, the Asus Eee PC, and some related topics.  It’s an interesting read, if for no other reason than to see Stallman’s thought processes in action.

He states that to be truly called “free” the software must meet four basic criteria:

1. The user is permitted to run the program as they wish.
2. The user may study the source code and change it, making the program do what they wish it to do.
3. The user may redistribute exact copies when they wish.
4. The user may distribute copies of their modified versions when they wish.

Any software that doesn’t meet these criteria, Stallman says, isn’t truly “free”.  As you might guess, Stallman is against any software that doesn’t meet these criteria, including open source software.

According to the interview, someone gave Stallman an Asus Eee PC as a gift, but he refused to use it because it required him to agree to a software license.  I found it amusing that his solution to the problem was: “I asked someone to install a free GNU/Linux distro so the machine could be used.”  I’m amused not because Stallman stuck to his guns, which I respect, but that he had to ask someone else to install Linux on it.  What, he couldn’t boot it up from a GNU/Linux CD (that doesn’t have a EULA) himself?  Or does he simply refuse to touch anything that has proprietary software on it? Either way, odd.

I guess my own opinion on free, open source, and proprietary software is this… It would be nice if all software was free, or at least open source.  However, I also respect the right of the programmer to determine how best to benefit from the software they’ve created, just as I respect an author’s right to distribute their written work, or a musician’s right to distribute their music, or that of any other creative person.  If you believe that releasing your work as free software is the way to go, that’s fine by me.  After all, you created it.  If you want to release it as open source and retain certain rights as the creator, I’m OK with that, too.  And as someone who’s worked for software companies, I also respect the right to adopt a business model that allows you to control your work the way you want to.

Similarly, what I’d really like to see is that when a peripheral manufacturer decides that supporting the drivers for a given device is no longer worthwhile, that they release the source code for those drivers.  While I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a manufacturer to stop releasing updated drivers for a device they haven’t manufactured for several years, I also think it’s reasonable for the customer to want to still be able to use it.  Releasing driver source code could start a whole cottage ndustry of maintaining drivers for old, but still viable, hardware.

I mentioned earlier in this series of articles that one of the things I do on Windows is write ad-hoc Microsoft Visual Basic applications for different things.  I lamented the fact that there’s no Visual Basic 6 for the Mac.  (Heck, VB6 for Windows is ancient at this point… need to update my skills…)  I looked at REALBasic and while I think it’s an intriguing product, the version I’m most interested in (which would allow cross-platform programming for Mac, Linux, and Windows) is priced way out of my ballpark ($500).

While looking to see what other “Basic” options I might have on OS X, I ran across an interesting bit of open source software, the Mono application framework. This is an open source attempt to bring the .NET platform to the Mac, Linux, and even on Windows (alongside Microsoft’s own .NET components).  I brought the development environment up earlier this evening and while it’s somewhat familiar to an old VB6 programmer, it’s also quite different.  I guess maybe it’s time I started learning VB.NET…

My friend brought over the iLife ‘08 DVD so that I could install that, after removing it from one of his Macs it was licensed for.  I was surprised at how long it takes to install that software.  I think I was remembering some of the earlier versions that installed in a couple of minutes, so the fact that this one took more than 10 minutes seemed lengthy.  I guess it’s fair to say Apple has added some things since I last looked at it.

I’ve had several Mac users talk about how cool iMovie and iDVD, so I am curious to have a look at them.  I’ve worked with several digital video packages on Windows, from the very basic stuff that shipped with video digitizer boards to some of the more expensive solutions out there.  It should be interesting to see how this compares.  Along the way, I’ve gotten used to a particular way of working with digital video software, so it will be interesting to see if that style adapts to the “i” applications.

I have no musical talent to speak of, so I’m probably not going to bother with GarageBand for the moment. I will give it a spin, however, just out of curiosity. 

Being something of a web geek, I’ll have to take iWeb out for a drive as well, though I will admit that I’m beginning with a pre-conceived notion that it’s probably not going to be advanced and flexible enough to suit me.

I’m starting to think one of the RAM chips installed in this test system is bad.  I know OS X is far from crash-proof, but I’ve seen a few behaviors that make me think I’m looking at faulty RAM.

Wednesday evening, Safari crashed while I had 2-3 tabs open.  I wasn’t able to reproduce the crash, so it probably wasn’t a bug in Safari.

Thursday, while attempting to install the Mono framework, I got an error indicating that the installer was corrupt. I ran it a second time and it worked fine.  The iLife installer also complained of that problem the first time I tried to use it.  Again, fine the second time. Memory errors tend to be hit-or-miss like that, I’ve found.

One of the screensavers locked up on me Tuesday night, now that I think about it.  I’ve never seen that happen on any of the earlier OS X releases, so again I’m thinking it’s probably the RAM.

I’ll have to see if I have some compatible RAM lying around that I can swap out.  I know OS X’s not crash-proof but this is a lot more crashing than I’d expect in only a few days.

Wonder if this was my friend’s secret motivation in loaning me the machine (to troubleshoot his crashing problems)?  Just kidding, Dave…

As reported on Slashdot and elsewhere, the Dutch Ministry of Finance sponsored a contest to design a new coin along the theme of “the Netherlands and architecture”. The winning design’s creator used Inkscape, The Gimp, Phatch, Ubuntu Linux, and other free software to create the coin design, making last-minute tweaks on an Asus Eee PC.

This is a significant milestone for Linux advocates, because it shows that free and open source software can in fact produce the kinds of award-winning, real-world designs normally associated with artists using the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.  As Ubuntu continues to work toward a “Mac-like” ease of use goal, we may see more designers adopting open source software in the future.

It’s important to note that Inkscape and The Gimp are available to both Macintosh and Windows users, as well as Linux users.  Phatch, as of this writing, is not yet available for Windows or OS X.  

According to a post on Slashdot, Ubuntu Linux 8.10 outperforms Microsoft Windows Vista on the same hardware. This is especially interesting in light of an article we referenced the other day, where a study showed that Ubuntu has been getting slower with each new release.

An article on ChannelWeb entitled “Ubuntu 8.10 is the Real Deal” says that Ubuntu 8.10 “scores higher than Windows Vista in performance testing, does a better job than Windows in making wireless connectivity easy and, overall, leaves fewer reasons to stick with Windows than any other previous release of Linux… For anyone or any business not tied to Microsoft legacy desktop applications, Ubuntu 8.10 may realistically be considered a smarter choice in many scenarios.”

Ubuntu was said to install more quickly than Vista, scored higher in benchmarks, managed wireless connectivity more easily, and booted slightly faster than Windows Vista on the same hardware. The ChannelWeb article also notes that “Canonical continues to bundle key application software with Ubuntu, including OpenOffice.org, Rhythmbox (music management software that can integrate with MP3 players including iPods), FireFox 3.0, GIMP photo editing software and more.”

If you already own a PC, you might want to take a look at Ubuntu 8.10. It may pleasantly surprise you.

Due to a wind storm in my area, our home is without electricity.  I find myself sitting in a local restaurant which is kindly supplying me with an electrical outlet and free Internet access.  I’m not the only person sitting here with a laptop.  Without swinging my head around, I can count about 10 other laptop users.  Of those, 1-2 are Mac users, presumably running OS X.  At least one is a Windows XP user, because I can see his screen and know what it looks like.  I happen to be running Ubuntu Linux 8.04.1 on an Asus Eee PC 1000H that I recently purchased.

If a Windows user walked by and glanced at my screen, their first thought might be that I’m running Windows Vista.  I happen to have my Ubuntu configuration customized with the Emerald Theme Manager and a window theme that’s derived from the look and feel of Windows Vista.

On the other hand, if a Mac user walked by, they might glance at this machine and think I’m running OS X, because I happen to have some the Avant Window Navigator running in a manner that looks a lot like the Dock in Leopard.  In fact, AWN looks, feels, and works a great deal like Apple’s OS X Dock.  I can drag applications to the bar and they become part of it, I can also add applets to it that do things Apple’s dock doesn’t do.

So, at first glance, I might appear to be a Windows or a Mac user.  But as it happens, I’m neither.  Right now, I’m a Linux user.  To be quite frank, I’m surprised to be saying that.  I bought this PC with the intent of dual-booting with Linux and Windows XP.  I expected to be using Windows XP most often, and Linux only occasionally when I wanted to fiddle with an interesting open source program.  In fact, when I partitioned the hard disk, I gave the majority of it up to Windows.  Since that original configuration, however, I’m finding that Linux is actually doing everything I want it to do.

FireFox has allowed me to create and edit my blog posts.  OpenOffice.org has allowed me to create documents and spreadsheets when I’ve needed them.  I’ve been able to put together the occasional vector graphic in Inkscape.  I’ve retouched, cropped, and re-sized photos in The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).  And the one Windows program I’ve wanted to run so far (ConvertXToDVD) ran on Linux under WINE (a Windows API “translator” that allows Windows apps to run under Linux).  I’m even considering the possibility of reconfiguring this machine so that the bulk of the hard drive is available to Linux, rather than Windows. 

Even though the Eee PC is a lower-end laptop, Ubuntu is responding extremely quickly on it.  I’m seeing applications launch quickly, keystrokes recognized instantly, windows snapping open and closed instantly, etc.  It feels much snappier than Windows XP on the same device, and snappier than OS X feels to me on desktop hardware.  To say I’m surprised and impressed is something of an understatement.

In terms of the user interface, Ubuntu has been a joy to work with.  I’m using the “Advanced Desktop Effects” package, which allows me to customize how windows and menus look and behave.  I’ve got what, for me, are the best elements of the Windows and OS X GUIs, combined with some graphical elements that aren’t available in either OS.  None of this eye candy appears to be slowing down the system, either.

If the Mac OS X GUI ever had an advantage over Linux or Windows, much of that advantage has eroded – at least from my perspective.  The Ubuntu GUI has a translucent bar across the top of the monitor, from which I can launch applications, connect to network locations, access system settings, and install software. I can switch virtual desktops (what Apple calls “spaces” and Windows, by default, doesn’t offer).  I can access the trash can, perform a search, connect to a wireless LAN, view an on-screen calendar, and reset/shutdown/hibernate all from that menu.  At the bottom of my screen is a dock that is more customizable than Apple’s, looks at least as good, and works pretty much identically.  I’ve never been a big fan of Apple’s “lickable” buttons on application title bars, preferring the “iconic” approach used by Windows.  Linux has allowed me to customize my windows to have buttons that look and work just like the ones I prefer, while allowing for that powerful menu bar at the top of the screen and a Mac-like Dock at the bottom.

The Linux GUI is also allowing me to overcome one of the disadvantages of the hardware in this low-cost Eee PC, its 800×600 screen resolution.  By dragging a window so that it extends off the bottom of the screen, I can stretch it to any desired length and access the “off-screen” parts on another virtual desktop.  As I have it configured right now, it’s like having an 800×1200 monitor.  Virtual desktop switches take a split-second.

The only disadvantage Linux has to OS X and Windows in terms of ease-of-use is that some of the applications are (slightly) less user-friendly than their counterparts.  With the recent announcement by the powers-that-be at Ubuntu that they want to close the ease-of-use gap between Linux and Windows/Mac, I suspect that will be a temporary situation.

If you haven’t checked out Linux recently, I encourage you to fire up Ubuntu, load the Avant Window Navigator, the Emerald Theme Manager, and play around a bit with your options.  You may be surprised at just how accessible and visually-appealing Linux has become.

Hot on the heels of the announcement from Steve Ballmer at Microsoft that they would try to mimic Apple’s end-to-end user experience, Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth reportedly urged the development of a Linux desktop to rival what Apple Inc. has done.  

Shuttleworth is quoted as telling attendees at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (Oscon) “Can we go right past Apple in the user experience we deliver?  Certainly, on the desktop experience, we need to shoot beyond the Mac, but I think it’s equally relevant [in] the mobile space. The challenge for us is to figure out how to deliver something which is crisp and clean” without sacrificing the community process.

ExtremeTech has posted a very easy-to-read article on the new KDE 4 desktop
for Linux, comparing it to some of the others available, showcasing some
popular applications, development tools, etc., for the platform. If
you’re of the opinion that only OS X offers ease of use, graphical
polish, and snazzy UI features, you should definitely take a look at the
article. It may change your mind.

KDE 4.0, due to release
in December, boasts a number of graphical, functional, and usability
improvements over its predecessors, which were hardly slouches either.
Mac users will certainly
feel at home with the overall look and feel, down to the “three
round buttons” used for minimizing, maximizing, and closing
windows. The Enlightenment
desktop is very Mac-like as well.

If you’re under
the misapprehension that switching to Linux means giving up things like
graphics software, instant messengers, Microsoft Office compatibility,
and the like, you are behind the times. While there may not be
exact-look-alike replacements for your favorite Apple “i”
applications, there are plenty of very useful multimedia and graphical
tools available for Linux. One good example is Amarok which ExtremeTech describes as a
“more-or-less feature complete replacement for iTunes or Windows
Media Player, including wide-ranging format support, audio streaming,
song collection database, portable device synchronization, CD ripping
and burning, and even online music store integration.” It’s a
sharp-looking application
- which even boasts a “cover flow like” feature.

As ExtremeTech points out, there are camera and photo
management tools, CD/DVD burning/ripping/converting suites, video players, BitTorrent download
managers, and lots of
other apps.

If you hate giving money to Microsoft and
Apple hasn’t exactly treated you that well of late, it may be time
to take another look at Linux and what it has to offer you. You may be
pleasantly surprised. Best of all, you can try it for free.

As I write this, I'm currently taking a class on
"application repackaging" for Microsoft Windows.  If the
term "application repackaging" means nothing to you, then you
probably don't work in system administration at a site with more
than 100 desktop/laptop computers.

Application repackaging is, in
a nutshell, when you take the application installer provided by the
application's manufacturer and modify it so that it installs that
application the way your organization wants it deployed.  For
example, let's say your company wants to put Microsoft Office on 500
PCs.  For whatever reason, you don't want your users creating
Microsoft Access databases, so you eliminate the Access component from
Office.  At the same time, you DO want  your users to create
memos, reports, and such using certain company-created templates in
Microsoft Word and Excel.  Ideally, you'd like the Office
installer to run "silently" and give the users the version of
Office you're rolling out to them, include the standard corporate
templates, and leave off Microsoft Access.

With application
repackaging, you can "transform" Microsoft's Office
installer so that it excludes Access but INCLUDES your corporate
templates.  You could even specify preferences that make sense to
you.  Thus, when your 500 PCs get Office, they get the same
software, configured the exact same way, with the same template
files.  This makes technical support easier.  It makes
administration easier.  It's just a good way to do
things.

Microsoft makes this transformation and customization
possible by asking Windows software vendors to adhere to the
"MSI" (Microsoft Installer) method of installing
applications.  At a very high level, MSI technology allows Windows
applications to "play nice together" and avoid stepping on one
another.  It also ensures that all applications are
self-healing.

While you can argue that most OS X installations are
simpler than Windows installations because they generally just involve
dragging an icon into the computer's "Applications"
folder, you can't suggest that these kinds of installations are
easily customizable.  For example, it's not simple for me to
modify the FireFox installer on OS X to include a set of
company-approved bookmarks and eliminate those the company doesn't
approve of which are part of FireFox's default installation. 
Thus, as a system administrator, Mac OS X installation technology is
inherently inferior.  I can't easily "repackage"
FireFox on OS X to include just the things I want it to
include.

Similarly, Linux has no standard installation
mechanisms.  One application may install via a "make
install" script.  Another may install via a Windows-like
installer.  Another may use a Perl script.  Another may use
Python.  While a Linux user might argue that (as with most things
Linux) you have more options and flexibility with the Linux way of doing
things, the truth is that there is no "standard" way of doing
things.

 Why does this matter?  Imagine that you have
500 computers to deploy software to.  Further imagine that each of
those 500 machines may have a combination of any of 200 different
software applications.  As a system administrator, you want a
single method for deploying those 200 applications to those 500
machines, because that will make life easier for you.  Further,
you'd like those applications to install with the features you want
users to have, to leave off the features you don't want them to
have, and to include any custom content you think the users should
have.  With OS X or Linux, deploying those 200 applications to the
500 machines is largely a manual effort.  With Windows, you can
build an MSI file, use an MST file to "transform" the
vendor's MSI file to do what you need at your company, etc., and
ensure that every computer gets its own subset of the 200 supported
applications configured the same way, with the same customizations, as
every other computer.  

Using a tool like the Symantec
Altiris Wise Package Studio, you can create customized installations for
all your applications that ensure a consistent, self-healing, reliable
installation of every application.

OS X and Linux offer no such
tools.  You're forced to build your own custom scripts,
installers, and tools to make this happen.

While I am generally an
advocate of open source solutions, this is one are where Windows easily
outshines its competition.  It's uncommon for a major
application today to ship without an MSI, and thus without a simple,
easy mechanism for customization.  Both OS X and Linux are where
Microsoft was in about 1995 on this issue.