To be honest I don’t agree that Jobs is vicious. He sells a certain product to the population that wants to buy it, and you generally know what you get with apple. there is a certain quality to the hardware/software that I, for example, am willing to pay for. I have my 3rd mac now (because I got an option to update) and I love it – I would not, however, buy an iPhone (te he he!).

Hardware runs like a dream with Mint except the right click combination which works with some apps and not with others. But that is Apple’s stupidity.

The ‘out of the box’ experience is actually quite good these days, and I think for the ‘average’ user (people who just want to use a browser, check email and write a few letters etc) it pretty much is there. Certainly with distro’s like ubuntu and mint. Case in point being my mom and her fiancee, I switched them to linux a while back and had far less calls for help than when they were running windows. They are both 60 and pretty much clueless on a computer btw. So for a fair number of users it is a good out of the box experience. :)

Of course that doesn’t include them setting things up (not that I did much for them, installed flash and made a few shortcuts, that was it), but then they wouldn’t have a clue how to install windows either. They can’t even operate an AV programme. :D

I do very much agree with you on the design front, we seriously need some good designers. A pleasing design adds a hell of a lot to an overall experience and that’s something that linux really lacks in general. I have to say it has improved in the last few years (especially with the actual desktop/window manager stuff), but not nearly enough. It seems most thing about code first and design last when building an app – they are equally important in my eyes.

I’ve just recently dual booted my intel iMac with Ubuntu too (though I’ve been using linux for years previously). I have to say I was expecting tons of problems with drivers and stuff but I didn’t have a single one.

It’s not a popular thing to say amongst the open source crowd but I do like OS X. Well, maybe not so much the os itself but the apps (not the built in ones, they’re crap!). Some of the apps you can get are just so nicely put together, both visually and in functionality. But I have to say I’ve learnt my lesson and won’t be buying any more Apple hardware, it’s very overpriced and since buying my iMac I’ve realised what a bastard Mr Jobs is. :)

Thanks for mentioning the podcast and forums as well, much appreciated ;) I’d like to hear more about the hardware you’re using. I know people say that the Intel Macs will support Linux easily but I know little about them. Could you elaborate on that a bit in a future article maybe? Just a thought.

Thanks

One of my points was though, that the choice is an imperative to you. A lot of people want to be told how to do things, because they don’t want to dedicate time to decisions – they want to do it quickly, efficiently and easily. There is a lot of 3rd party mac software, granted it tends to subscribe to that ‘way of doing things’, but that’s because it is an easy way of doing things. Which is why I’m arguing that holding the choice up like a flag will actually devalue linux for a lot of people, who are not this way inclined.

I guess I’m trying to say that values are not the same for every one.

PS. Believe or not I used Windows for years and Linux (admittedly in it’s early days, circa 1999) before I bought a mac – hardly forced into it. I made that choice, because I like that system

Just two things to keep in mind:

1. You are switching from a Mac which has pretty specialised and very closed hardware (Apple is not very forthcoming with its driver specs), so you will have more copatibility issues.

2. Speaking of habits, switching from a Mac to Linux will also be much harder than switching from Windows. One reason why I personally can’t stand stand Macs at all is the way Apple (or Mr. Jobs) force you into doing things and using their software in specific ways. Long time Mac users get dependend on this schema in my opinion. If you are used to Windows, with its huge ecosystem of third party software where no clearly defined way of “doing things” exists, switching is much easier I think.

I generally agree on the whole design issue, but that has been improving greatly even in the few years I have been using Linux. Also keep in mind that you are probably talking Gnome and there are *a lot* of other desktop environments and widget toolsets out there.

Out of curiosity: Have you tried Banshee? What do you think of that UI?

:)

Where you say that it is “not good to use out of the box” Then you say this is “mainly due to the fact that you already have your own little ways of doing things”

I would argue that “good to use” and “Working exactly how you want” are two very different things.

I think however, I’m splitting hairs and I agree with the point itself. In my experience Linux doesn’t Just Work™.