My reply to that has always been that Windows is only $300 if you don't value your time. (Preserving archaic cost of Windows to match JWZ quote.)
The implication that the one system is free and time-consuming and the other moderately in price but not time-consuming is entirely false. At the time, for many requirements, configuring and administering a Windows machine would have been more time-consuming than for Linux. It's also glossing over the fact that you can't horizontally scale your $-per-cpu/server solution once you do have the configuration worked out, without going back to the well for more money.
This amusing and glib quote also deliberately glosses over the "freedom" part of free software, which is essential. For example, I wonder if Google would exist today if not for a free unix workalike.
Haven't found that to be the case. And I'm an old UNIX hat, using SUN OS, HP UX et al in the early nineties and Linux from around 1998. My two observations:
1) Linux, even the most modern distro like Ubuntu, is a huge time sync for anyone that's not just content to browse the web and check mail in a system setup for them.
2) More users that we think are in that category (besides the proverbial "grandparents" perhaps).
You got a video from your wedding you need to edit? Might or might not work. You got a hobby that requires you to use a specific peripheral (like a soundcard) or software? Do you feel lucky? You got a new phone you need to sync? Prepare for an adventure...
1. "I need to do X in Linux." Web search for software.
2. Try to install it. Find out I need Gnome 3.44 and I'm not running Gnome at all.
3. Find something else. This doesn't seen Gnome.
4. I try to install it. Wait, I need a newer version of a library.
5. I grab the latest version of that library. Wait, idiot, that version is TOO NEW!
6. So I find the exact version and install it and oh son of a cow now everything is broken.
And at each step there's a different sub-community telling me I'm a complete idiot. ("Why don't you use Gnome?" "Why don't you use package manager X?" "Why the fuck are you using that package manager???!")
The sad truth is that most software sucks, regardless of the license, there's just a lower barrier to entry, use, and discoverability with OSS so it's more visible. At least with OSS we can fix the issues instead of just accepting the suckage.
After a year I find the only advantage of OSX are browser with touchpad gesture experience and windows edge handling. Haven't tried any distro ever since switching to MBP, wayland might have a better chance of replicating the experience. Hoping for the camera driver to be done.
In Linux everything else is better, fuller implementation of base tools, customizability, no crap like /var/folders..
This is entirely subjective; it is not a wise comment to make because it is better FOR YOU, not for everyone. For me, I liked the configurability in Linux desktop land but there comes a time when you want to sit in your office and get stuff done instead of spending all the time moving the furniture around and decorating; OSX doesn't let you do any decorating or move the furniture, so you're forced to do work (to some extent).
I daily use Linux, yet my day-job is to write software on OSX and Windows, so I get to use every system every day. They're all pretty much a muchness.
Great for servers.
Basically, each to their own. None is "better".
Used to say? How long ago was that?
Ubuntu and many other distros are incredibly easy and effortless to use. I know devs using apple products who spend more time mucking about with brew and other tools trying to accomplish things that are very easy to do on the most popular linux distros.
My point is that Ubuntu is complex [as is Windows] and when something doesn't run quite right, the right answer is usually hard to find and hard to recognize because it will be embedded in a culture of highly technical cross referencing. The tradeoff for going down the rabbit hole is that Linux is really powerful and flexible.
I'm loving me some Xmonad this week, but I had to root around in xkb and xmodmap and write a little haskell and read about out how to switch layout engines in Ubuntu [and then translate that into xfce based Ubuntu Studio]. It's non-trivial and requires reading stuff on the Arch Linux Wiki. Ubuntu isn't really self contained in the way Windows is.
Knowing that information about Ubuntu goes out of date and that changing the search criteria helps: [1] doesn't make Ubuntu less complex [2] prevents it from being as user friendly as Windows for a broad audience.
I don't use Ubuntu.
I have a USB disk with Snow Leopard on it that I can boot on my work's 2008 Mac Pro but that kernel panics on my 2012 MacBook Pro due to the i7 "from the future" according to Snow Leopard. It's a pity because it'd make a really great test system (I would like to check that my software runs on 10.6 OK).
Does anyone know of a way of booting Snow Leopard from disk inside a VM without many kernel kext kerfuffles? Parallels tells me that I stink if I try and install OSX inside it (I have the regular DVD, not the server edition)
I wish I had that option, but I'm an iOS developer, so I upgrade when Apple forces me to, and right now their forcing Mavericks and up.
> Linux is only free if you don't value your time.
Amazing how the largest server farms on earth are all run by administrators who don't value their time...
But yes, the CLI is a requirement.
Actually, Windows isn't free for the companies who hire them. And you need to hire a lot more Windows admins than Linux admins if you want to keep your server farm running. But Windows admins are cheaper than Linux/Unix admins, so the phb can crow about that.
Yeah, like installing drivers for all your peripherals on Windows never takes time, right?
OS X has many merits on this front, but since 10.3 I've found that the first few dot releases of OS X have the same caveats often enough (both in terms of bugs/hazards and in terms of gratuitous UI "progress") that it usually seems better to wait past .x.4/5.
Now there's this, of course.
Since the problem showed up in 2011, maybe I should go back to Snow Leopard; I can't think of a single valuable change to OS X since then...