I have minimal experience with Linux. I have experimented with it, but never really used it for anything practical. I like it, but have never had the time and ambition to really switch myself over. This guide gives a nice overview, if biased towards Linux (as a guide for Linux will obviously be). I do think that the idea of open source is a good one, and I use several open source programs myself: GIMP, OpenOffice (I have been too cheap to keep up with the latest versions of M$ Office), Blender, and Firefox, to name just a few that you may have heard of / used. I think that Linux has great potential, and that this potential has done nothing but continued to rise since it was created, but it is not quite ready for everyone, if only because so many people are already used to other OS's.
Mac OS X
These articles together give a very complete overview of the workings of Mac OS X. I have no experience with Mac OS X, aside from using it a few times in computer labs or in the homes of friends who own a Mac. From what I have seen, though, I like this OS far better than Apple's old operating systems (which, again, I have minimal experience with). It is an entirely different experience, at least for a person unaccustomed to it – fairly intuitive, very sleek, maybe even a little fun to use. These two articles both, however, focus mostly on the technical aspects, and though that is important (to me at least – I was a Computer Science major), I would have liked to have read more about the experience itself – how it feels to use the OS. Still, the articles filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge about Mac OS X.
An Update on the Windows Roadmap
This is certainly the most biased of any of the writings that we read. Of course, the letter is from the Senior V.P. of Microsoft, and he is not exactly going to put down their operating system. What seems to show through his writing, though, is a problem that he cannot directly acknowledge: people are not switching to Windows Vista as quickly as Microsoft hoped they would. Bill Veghte seems to be trying to convince people that it really is alright to switch to Vista now. I believe Microsoft has been trying to convince people of this since Vista came out. Of course, advocates of Linux and Mac OS X, and any other operating system, tend to do this all the time. This is perhaps more noticeable, though, because Microsoft does not usually have to put as much effort into persuasion as they so right now. I am very curious about how things will turn out in the future – what operating system(s) will most people be using a decade from now? I am hoping that someone combines the best of all of them (and no matter how much you hate Windows-users/Apple-lovers/Linux-nerds, they ALL have their advantages) some day.
1 comment:
It certainly is interesting that Windows is having to work for once to convince consumers that their newest OS is worth the price of admission. We'll all have to wait and see how their strange Mojave ad campaign works out for them!
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