[CentOS] OT: linux desktop market share more than 1%

[Warren Young]

On 10/8/2010 4:09 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> But OS X can legally only run on Apple (tm$$$) systems, where Linux can
> run on *anything* and anybody's inexpensive hardware.

Apple hardware is fairly priced when compared on quality.  Yes, there 
are cheap POS PCs that compare favorably on features with Apple hardware 
at a lower cost.  I've used many such.  They often break more readily, 
or fail to satisfy on some other level.  There's more to a PC than spec 
list.

If cheap commodity junk solves your problem, great.  I, however, want a 
quality computer, and to get it, I'd pay about the same for one running 
Linux as for a Mac.  Since I'd rather be running OS X on the desktop, my 
choice is clear.

I addressed this same point differently in my previous message.  You can 
point to choice of scads of computer builders on the Linux side, but I 
can point at scads of different software packages on the Mac side that 
will never run on Linux.  I specifically mentioned Final Cut Studio, and 
called it an unfair comparison because obviously Apple will resist any 
effort to make that run somehow on Linux.

But a fair comparison would be the Adobe Creative Suite, since Adobe 
presumably wants their software used everywhere.  You can't blame Adobe 
for not porting it.  They've dipped their toe in the water several 
times, and shied away each time.  Most recently, it was with Flash 
Builder, which they ended up discontinuing for Linux.  Farther back, 
there was a version of Photoshop for Solaris, which never did make it 
over to Linux, presumably because they couldn't sell enough copies to 
make it worth their while.

I'd rather let my buying choices be dictated by software than hardware. 
  Playing with computers as computers is fun, but in the end, I'm more 
interested in running software on them.  So, I pick the software first, 
then pick the hardware that will run that software.