The Big Mac Hoax. aka OS X is a dog 399

I don't "hate Linux". I think its the best solution there is for a server OS. OTOH, it IS fairly useless as a SERIOUS desktop OS. I have the open source versions of the types of Linux apps I "would" need installed on my Mac under X11, so I'm not talking out of my butt here. I have GIMP (Photoshop "replacement"), I have InkScape (Illustrator "replacement") and I have Scribus (InDesign-QuarkXpress "replacement") and I have OpenOffice (for an MS Word "Replacement") None of them are adequate for the tasks for which I need such applications. I realize that Maya is a big commercial 3D package and is available for Linux, and that's probably a good thing. A render farm of cheap PCs all running a free Linux distribution would be very cost effective for a small motion picture-TV special effects house. But Linux Central only lists 34 commercially available breastles for Linux; THIRTY-FOUR. That's not much is it? And even though there are hundreds of open-source breastles available, like I said, they are all open-source, and that says it all: crude, perennial works in progress - many aren't even to v.1.0 "yet" even though they've been out there for years, buggy, with inconsistent interfaces, lacking in important features, etc. Now, having said all that, I will grant that if all I did was play with a computer, "messing around" with graphics, touching-up my own photos and "publishing" a xeroxed club newsletter, then applications like the GIMP, Scribus, OO, and InkScape etc., would be ideal, if somewhat limiting, and certainly prefereable to pirating the real stuff for Windows or the Mac from some "warze" site. If I had a small company and all we needed was a basic 0ffice suite, again, Linux running on a cheap PC and OO might be ideal. OTOH, often, these cheap $300 PCs come with Windows XP already installed so there's no advantage to replacing the OS with Linux, there. Sometimes they even bundle MS Office, in which case, there's NO advantage to using Linux in that situation either.

Now tell me if there's anything fundamentally "hateful" or even wrong in my buttessment of Linux as a desktop OS.

-- George Graves The health of our society is a direct result of the men and women we choose to admire.