[clue-tech] The cult of Mac

[Angelo Bertolli]

Louis Miller wrote:
>     But, what about my question of why using a Mac or a PC is really necessary with Hardy Heron. I think it is a pertinent question. In light of the fact, that the Linux community felt that Linux being so difficult to use was the reason that the general public refused to adopt it. No one addressed my question. Linux is still being ignored or viewed as an oddity. I guess it is like high gas prices. The public will still use gasoline, even if other options exist, like walking, riding a scooter, public transit, biodiesel. 
>
>    They will pay a high price for conformity. Maybe, with their wallets as well as their piece of mind. If I understand David correctly, I agree with him, that these other OSs extract a heavy price on the user's sanity. It is like Microsoft and Apple are trying to constantly trick the user, because they know he/she is not educated about computers and they use the public's ignorance as their tool to sucker them out of every last dollar. Somewhere along the way, these people know they are being overcharged, and no matter how much they lie to themselves, it still must hurt them psychologically.
>   

My answer is:  the software your OS runs.  I think the biggest factor in 
choosing an operating system is if it runs the software you want to 
use.  The secondary answer is that you want to use the system you're 
most familiar with already (as an average person), but Vista has taken 
care of that for us on the Windows side.

But Linux IS still harder for the average person to run, if for no other 
reason than your hardware is not guaranteed to work or run smoothly.  
There aren't enough people using Linux, so there isn't enough testing 
even for hardware that is compatible.  Therefore, there's rarely a 
"works with Linux" sticker on anything.  Having at least some of the 
components in the store with such stickers for every popular add-on is 
at least necessary!  Contrast that with (if you can imagine) some piece 
of hardware or software that isn't compatible with Windows:  those 
always explicitly state this or at least say "for Mac."

Yeah, the interface has gotten a lot better, but some things are still 
missing.  If you have had any problem getting your wireless running on 
Linux, what kind of feedback has it given you?  Maybe you know how to 
use iwconfig and iwlist, but most people don't.  I'll admit Window's 
feedback is not so helpful but it at least pretends to give the user 
some kind of idea of what might be wrong even if it's just a wild guess.

Linux isn't being ignored by its niche just like Mac isn't being ignored 
by its niche.  But outside of their niches, they're both still mostly 
ignored.  And yes, a lot of it has to do with vendor lock-in.  Take what 
I believe to be the average person:

* Is familiar with and uses Windows
* Gets Windows for free on their computer
* Runs programs they like that run on Windows
* Buys hardware that is 99.99% of the time guaranteed to work on Windows

When making a choice for their next system, and Dell says "well we have 
Linux if you want, or you can still go with Windows," why on earth would 
they go over to Linux?  Only recently is there a reason which I DO 
believe will be a big boost for Linux:  Vista.  Most people I know 
followed that pattern until Vista.  Now with Vista I'm getting a little 
bit more openness about alternatives like Linux.

Angelo