How to Conquer the World for Linux 16809

snips

billwg

Really? Do tell us, then, exactly what office, financial, development and other such tools are in the XP product? Oh, right. None. At some point, you'll eventually get around to acknowledging that XP, despite the price tag, is functionally useless for all but the most trivial tasks.

It'll balance his checkbook? Let him create "complex" documents? Even do something as trivial as letting him chat on IRC or create a database of recipes? I wasn't aware it had all these features built in. Last I checked, it didn't even bundle an HTML editor. Or even a text editor that wasn't a steaming piece of crap. Or a spell-checker. Or even the anti-virus tools it so desperately needs to be used remotely safely. Or... well, you get the idea.

Let us know when "XP", as a boxed edition, comes with even a *tenth* the functionality of a free downloadable Linux distro... then tell us about how useful it is to the user.

You mean the folks who end up supporting the crippled XP by bundling a mess of additional software, from scanning to word processing and more and more and more, all because XP, as a product, is really only useful for email and web browsing?

Yes, well, *they* have figured out that, as a product, XP is about as hopelessly crippled as you can get; if it weren't, they wouldn't *need* to bundle all that extra stuff, it would be part and parcel of the XP product.

Sorry, did you have a point?

Works? Oh, I see, so XP remains functionally useless, unless you add on additional bundled products? So, let's see. I've got a blank HD here. If I go out and buy a copy of XP Home - Future Shop is listing XP Home, SP2, full version for $249.99 - it will include Works? And, say, mIRC? And, say, ICQ? And, say, TextPad? Just to start?

No, of course not. For the $250, you're getting, well, XP. And *nothing* else. As a product, it is effectively useless, until you add on a mess of extra crap. By contrast, take something like, say, Ubuntu. They'll ship you - free - a bundle of CDs. You can run it "live" - something stock XP doesn't do, does it? - or install it. Either way, you have a hell of a lot more functionality - and for a lot lower cost - than XP offers.

Yes, yes, we get it, we really do. As a product, XP is about as useful as breasts on a bull. You need to hand-hold it through the process of becoming useful, either by buying a new system to hopefully get an actually *useful* bundle of software, or by spending Goat alone knows how much time, effort and-or money to get the additional software.

Why you would willingly pay good money for a product that, in the final analysis, doesn't really actually *do* anything, isn't clear.

Not always. Certainly not if you buy XP boxed. We were discussing *XP*, not systems where some vendor has spent God knows how much time overcoming XP's inherent uselessness.

A rock isn't particularly useful, but you know, give me enough manpower and enough resources, and I can add enough extras to that rock to create the Chrysler building. That doesn't mean the rock is suddenly magically worth a lot, or useful. Hell, pour enough molten gold over a turd, and it, too, becomes worth something.

Whether XP can be *made* useful isn't the question; the question is whether XP *is* valuable. You're paying anywhere from $100 on up for it as a product, what does it, itself, do to warrant the cost?

Answer: not a damned thing.