Do We Spend More On Linux Or Windows? 468
jmcneal writes with this chin-stroker: "My colleages and I have been debating this for a while at work: 'Do people spend more money on Linux Distributions or on windows?' The limited sampling we have is that users buy distros almost every six months, at full price, at retail outlets. We have
only one person who has gone out and purchased Windows at a
software outlet, the rest of us only get a new copy when we
purchase a new PC, about every 1.5 to 3 years. Is this behaivior
common? How much have /.ers spent on distro's vs Windows in
the last 2 years?"
I know I've spent more money specifically on GNU/Linux distros than specifically on Windows, buying various boxed sets and books-with-disks, but when an operating system is part of an OEM package, some costs are hard to tweeze out. (Not to mention whether, and how much, Windows users would have to pay for the functionality of the nice free, Free software that comes with typical Linux distros. And that in a workplace, support costs more than the OS's initial purchase price.)
Neither. (Score:2)
Sure puts a different spin on the "Windows Tax" (Score:2)
Mod me down, whatever, you know it's true and you just don't like it.
Zero (Score:2)
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What WolfSkunk Designs has spent Linux VS Windows (Score:2)
Slackware 8, $0 (DLed)
Drivers, $0 (ditto)
VMWare, $79
Windows:
Windows 2000 distro: $0 (Gotten as a Student Developer)
Dreamweaver: $119
PalmOS Desktop: $230 (comes with Palm IIIxe)
Lets see now, $79 verses $349? Even running Windows in VMWare is expensive!!!
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
Buying and Supporting (Score:3)
As I recall, I've purchased Slackware 2.3, Slackware 96, Red Hat 4.2, Red Hat 5.1, Red Hat 6.1, Slackware 7.1, and now Slackware 8.0. In most cases, I actually downloaded the distribution first, tried it on a machine, liked it, and bought it.
I suppose the total cost of these must have added up to around $280. When I compare that to buying boxed versions of Windows 95 and Windows 98 for all three machines, it really doesn't look too bad.
My cost (Score:2)
Regarding Linux, I bought a $40-$60 Mandrake Powerpack version 7.0 last year.
Also, I've bought the official 2.8 OpenBSD CD set, and some posters/t-shirts + donation (total came to around $100 - $30 of which was the OS CD)
Of course, I also had the option of downloading and burning ISO's (which I often do), but I wanted the goodies.
The big difference. (Score:2)
In the GNU/Linux world, I'm willing to pay for something.
Secret windows code
Re:Clarification (Score:2)
Exactly, that's why my most recent workstation purchase came as a stack of parts. It was the only way that I could guarantee that I wasn't paying for Windows. There was a price savings, but mostly I hate paying for things that I don't want.
Besides, am I the only one who thinks that comparing how much you paid for Linux to how much you paid for Windows is insane. After all, what useful software do you get with Windows, besides notepad and freecell? When I consider how much it would cost to replace all of the Linux software that I use regularly with a commercial replacement my investment in Linux starts to look pretty intelligent. By the time you pay for an Office Suite, development tools, database (PostgreSQL rocks), application server (Zope), and all of the other nifty tools you are talking about a substantial pile of cash. The fact that I can then put these tools on as many machines as I like and use them for whatever purpose I want only sweetens the deal.
Linux is a sweet deal no matter how you slice it.
Re:Clarification (Score:2)
Yes, there certainly is a lot of Free Software for Windows. In fact, I don't feel comfortable on a Windows box until it has Cygwin, Emacs, Perl, Python, Bash, and a host of other good software.
Which sort of makes my point. Why pay money for Windows, and spend time and effort downloading all of the Free Software on your list if you could simply get a Linux CD from Cheapbytes and get nearly all of the above software right on the same set of CDs. Better yet, run Debian Linux and update your software to the newest version with a simple 'apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade'. Plus, you get virus protection for free.
Of course, I suppose that it is possible that I simply like the Unix environment, and so my opinion is biased.
Exactly the same... $0 (Score:2)
I haven't bought a distro since SuSE 6.1 in 1999. Anything newer has been downloaded by myself or someone else in the local Linux users group. Until someone gave me a machine that had Win95 on it a couple months ago, I didn't have a Windows box for couple years [I was going to install linux on it, but decided it could be useful for playing w/ Samba]. So unless buying a game or two from Loki counts, the amount spent on linux and Windows is the same: zero.
I'd rather put the money into hardware.
Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:2)
When you type those commands, you need internet connectivity, which, in turn, would cost money. In some places the internet would cost you nothing, but in places stuck in the ancient world of modems, and high priced ISP's, we get charged over 19c/Mb (most of the time that is when you go over the download limit, avg. on modem is about 300Mb).
But, I will concede that some ISP's out there give a lot of bandwith for very little, but I still believe that if you wanted to measure the cost of Linux, how much you pay for the cd's is only the start.
Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:2)
Yes, or I could use anacron on my 802.11-equipped laptop. But I am not so confident that I want those "unstable" packages installed while I'm sleeping. My workstation is also my main web server.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:3)
Thanks
Bruce
Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:5)
I'll tell you what I'm doing on my personal system. Every day, I type
and my system is updated to the latest version of Debian [debian.org]. No charge, ever, and the software quality is best-of-class. I have my choice of "stable", the released version, or "testing", or "unstable", with "unstable" being the least tested (and the one I use) and "testing" being leading-edge packages but ones without show-stopping bugs. Over the past 5 years or so, I've really had only one situation where I had to stop and fix my system before I could get work done, because a package was badly broken. If I were running "stable" or "testing", I would have avoided that.Thanks
Bruce
Could be (Score:2)
Re:I don't spend anything. (Score:3)
Yeah but... (Score:2)
have you factored that the after-sales cost of a Windows installation? Some of my old Windows desktops shall the install CD at least once evry 5 weeks, some of my Debian machines have never seen a CD.
Consider the support of developers cost as well. I buy probably one openbsd CD a year. Not because I need it, but because the developers work saves me time and money and purchase of the CD is a reconised support channel. Also I like their stickers.
Well, nothing in either case (Score:2)
That's not to say I've never spent any Linux-related money; O'reilly has gotten guite a lot of my hard-earned money over the years, for example
Linux $125, Windows $330. (Score:2)
I bought Windows 98 SE for $180. It came with a lousy thin manual and not even a jewel case for the CD. I also paid $50 for Norton Antivirus, which I count as part of the OS because not having an antivirus is not an option on Windows. And, I paid around $100 for an Office 97 cd (Mandrake 7 came with StarOffice).
I find Mandrake 8 to be a much better OS, with a superior install package, and much better internet tools. It installs and finds everything on my system (though I haven't tried the scanner yet). Also, the Linux drivers for my HP Deskjet 952 are much better than HP's Windows drivers that lock my system up when I print.
Linux 1, MS 0, HP 0
Jon Acheson
Ask me which OS I buy more software FOR. (Score:2)
I have purchased numerous CD's from cheapbytes, but now I have a cable modem I download my distros.
However, were you to ask how much money have I spent in the last little while on software?
I have spent $50.00 on Deus Ex for Windows (Because I did not know that there was a Linux version in the works - DAMN!)
However, I have also purchased:
Corel Word Perfect 8 for Linux
Quake 3 Arena for Linux
Soldier of Fortune for Linux
Decent 3 for Linux
Heretic II for Linux
Unreal Tournament (No Linux specific version, but it works under Linux if you download the installer.)
So I have spent more money on software companies that support Linux than those who support Windows.
Re:Why people buy boxxed retail (Score:2)
Is it morally wrong to borrow medicine if you are deathly ill and not going on health care until next month? Is it morally wrong to borrow medicine if you have maxed out your credit card? How about borrowing food to feed a starving child? How about borrowing food to feed yourself before next week's paycheck? How about borrowing software when you are a poor student? What about when you are rich student?
Yes, morality and ethics are fuzzy, but you should mention to your professor that stealing is stealing, not borrowing. Sometimes it is justifiable, of course. Just don't kid yourself about what you are doing.
PS, one of the reasons that I love free, open-source software is because the author gives the public the right to make their own decisions about such things. But intellectual property laws protect the author, and say that he or she alone has the choice to grant away that control and propriety as they see fit. In other words, the laws should protect the author, and isn't it great when the author turns out to be a good person?
I've spent more on Linux... (Score:2)
On the other hand, when I first tried Linux about 3 years ago, I bought the Red Hat box set because I wanted the documentation, wanted to support a company that I believe in, and because I didn't have the bandwidth to download a distribution. I wasn't aware of places like CheapBytes [cheapbytes.com] at the time. Since then I've purchased numerous CD's online through companies such as these who sell for a couple bucks each. Nowadays I have DSL and a CD burner so I download or write every bit of software I use.
Re:The question misses the point... (Score:2)
I don't know about the job market in your area but from where I'm at this isn't actually true. One can get an MCSE cheap, but you get what you pay for, a B-school dropout who heard that "There's money in them computer thingies". A competant MCSE and a competant Unix admin are going to cost around the same.
If you want to mentor a young'in there are probably more people around who are familiar with a /bin/sh prompt than you think. Try asking around, maybe at your local LUG.
Buying box sets every 6 months? (Score:2)
I don't believe that. The last boxed set I bought was RedHat 6.2 back in 1999. I bought StarOffice and WordPerfect since then, that's it. The rest has been downloaded from the net. Of course I only buy boxed sets for major upgrades, minor releases I upgrade piecemeal as needed.
When figuring Windows, you also need to consider functionality. Windows is cheap at under $200. Add in mail and news software and a browser that aren't security breaches waiting to bite you, a version control system, development tools, a database system, SSH client, a compression and archiving tool, a word processor and so on, and the Windows system starts to cost a lot more than the equivalent Linux system.
Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:3)
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Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:5)
There's a program called "cron" that you might want to use to automate this. To learn more about it, try "man cron". No need to be ashamed about this advice; I was a newbie once too. Hope this helps.
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I spend more by defnition (Score:2)
I have both download
I have six machines and a laptop at home, all running Linux (okay, one FreeBSD machine in the name being ecumenical).
Two of those machines dual-boot: one to Windows95. One to Windows98. On my laptop I have VMWare (come on, Plex86!) and I have Windows2000 Workstation running under it (because I'm consultant and sometimes you work for people who force you into that sort of thing).
Now, if I had to run IIS, 2000, SQLServer on my home network instead of Apache/Linux/PostgreSQL, I would have paid and be paying a lot more.
Maybe I upgrade my Linux more often than I would Windows, but that's BECAUSE Windows costs a lot, not because Linux is more expensive!
All of this is anecdotal and doesn't prove a thing about TCO. But my point is, who cares about a lower TCO if you hate the product? Liver has a lower TCO than Filet Mignon, but that doesn't mean I want liver every night!
Re:It depends... (Score:2)
Judging by how trivial you found Apache, Perl, MySQL & PHP setup I can presume that you are hardly a typical computer user.
Subscriptions (Score:2)
So I am paying about $75 per year for two operating systems with complete userland utilities, applications and extras. A bargain if you ask me. And I can still get them cheaper or for free, I just chose to support their development with cash.
Re:It depends... (Score:4)
The big difference for me is, once I install and configure Linux it stays installed and configured. With Windows there's an eternal annoyance of fixing spontaneous reconfigurations and mysterious breakages.
Useless anecdote: Yesterday I ran by a place of business to pick something up. They were expecting me, so I was only in the room for a couple of minutes. What did I hear while I was there? A secretary complained that something wasn't working right on her computer, and someone standing behind her said, "He reinstalled your software yesterday."
The ordinary cost of running Windows makes the hassle of virus repairs look cheap.
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Not like they really give a damn, is it? (Score:2)
Kick 'em in the servers, that's what I say.
My 2c: I've bought a couple of FreeBSD distributions, and got the original Win95 upgrade when it came out. Hey, I was young, I was experimenting, I didn't inhale.
Dave
Linux wins hands down, but... (Score:2)
I spend a lot more on Linux than Windows, even if you count the Microsoft tax payed with each new PC I bought in the past (I build them now).
The important distinction, however, is that I spend the money becuase I want to, not because I have to. Even if I download a distro, I eventually buy the boxed set when I happen by a computer store because I want to support the Linux distro companies, but unlike with Windows, nobody is compelling me to do so.
download baby download (Score:2)
Linux costs more (Score:2)
$15 - CDs from CheapBytes [cheapbytes.com]
$15 - CDRs for distros that I've burned
$30 - stuffed Tuxes from ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com]
In the same time, I've spent the following on Windows:
$0 - oh, that's right, I don't use Windows on machines I control.
And every computer I've bought since my very first 8088 has been in pieces & sans OS, so no MS-Tax there.
So that's $60 on Linux and $0 on Windows. So clearly Linux is infinitely more expensive than Windows.
Hmmm...Since Linux costs so much more, perhaps I should consider switching...
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Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:2)
apt-get update
apt-get -u dist-upgrade
You want to use dist-upgrade since you are upgrading your distribution with every upgrade. It provides for better conflict resolution algrithms that are needed with a distribution upgrade. Second, the -u option flags you to make sure you really want to continue, listing every package it will upgrade, add, or remove. It is important to see what apt-get wants to remove due to version number conflicts before you boldly delete some required packages that you actually use. Currently, if I allowed the upgrade to continue, it would delete my nvidia 3d drivers. The current mesa drivers are not compatible with the nvidia drivers.
You can always upgrade any group of packages with:
apt-get install package1 package2
Good luck
quack
my datum (Score:2)
Work: I've spent about $100 on Linux software. Probably about $10000+ on M$ stuff (sorry, until Gnumed is ready for use, I'm stuck.) On a per box basis, it really gets ugly. About $150+ per M$ box. Even figuring for having bought two actual distros (and dl'ing tons more, and buying many through CheapBytes) I've spent perhaps $25 per Linux box. On software.
At home, between wife and I, we've spent around $300 on M$ software (full retail on Dos 6.22, Win '95, and Win '98. Gotta play them games. No bundles. I build my PeeCee's). I've spent maybe (at the far outside) $15 on distros. Most of the Linux I've used at home have been from those work CD's. On a per computer basis: $7.50 for Linux. $150 for M$.
Books: Many hundreds Linux specific (maybe $300). About $200 on M$ stuff (mostly for NT networking stuff. Turns out it was easier for me to put the tricky stuff on Linux boxes rather than pay for CAL's on the M$ boxes). And about another $300 for program specific things (Apache, NFS, Samba, etc.)
So, there is a bit more actually spent on the M$ stuff. But here is the interesting bit: Even if I had paid around $1000 each for the distros for work, I would still save money. How? CAL's. I don't need to work through and pay for weird licensing things to run services on a Linux box like on NT boxes. I can let 1 or 1000 people hit Apache on Linux. Not so for IIS.
Anyway, there's another point. And given that my data is no more useful than anyone else's, I'll even forego the +1.
Re:Why people buy boxxed retail (Score:2)
Re:Why people buy boxxed retail (Score:3)
That's how I wound up buying two distros (RH 5.1 and 5.2) Now that I've switched (Progeny) I may send them some money someday (ie, when I have some)
I remember what a prof said to me in college (economics, not comp sci or business, BTW). Paraphrased: "I don't think it's morally wrong to 'borrow' software while you are a student. But the day after you graduate and get a job, you should either delete it, or send someone a check." Buying a GPL distro is not too different. I have the legal right to get as many copies of FooLinux (I don't think that's a real distro, but I could be wrong:) for free/download/cheapbytes, but if you find one, and like it (and in the case of Progeny and others, use their servers for updates) then you should pay for it. Eventually. When you can.
Of course, I would like a 'set your own price' version. Works like this: I dl'ed Mandrake (as an example. I'm working on something right now that will work MUCH better with rpm's, and haven't tried Mandrake in many moons) but didn't pay for it. Say I like it. So to give something back, I want to send them some money. But I can't afford the $80 packaged set. Heck, I don't even really want it. So I go to their webpage, and click in $15 (example only) and my credit card number.
I'm sure this scheme would require some odd accounting (at least in the US) in order to get the IRS weasels satisfied, but it's a situation that I would like. Kinda like 'non-micro micro-payments'. Or something.
Anybody have something like that running?
Re:You seem to know about slack (Score:2)
Slack allows you to do whatever you want.
When selecting packages (in expert mode) the text goes something like "Packages marked with an asterisk are required for your system to run. however, it IS your system..."
If you know what you're doing, you can even install slack without the installer - the packages are split into categories (base, games, X, KDE, Gnome, network, development, etc...) you can just tar -xvzf the files onto a new partition or subdir (if, for example, you're creating a root NFS for diskless terminals)
This is the main reason that Slack is my distro of choice..
Development tools vs OS (Score:2)
So, anyway, perhaps a more interesting question is how much have you spent on your development environment.
As far as Linux itself, I bought RedHat 5.2 retail, and Mandrake 7.2 and 8.0 (crap) from cheapbytes. I'm considering buying SuSE (retail).
Re:I've never spent money on windoze (Score:2)
I've never, ever, bought anything from Micro$haft. Since I haven't bought a complete PC since Windows was released (I've just upgraded piece by piece since the 8088/DOS days), I don't think I've even paid the new PC M$ tax.
my purchasing breakdown goes something like: (Score:2)
Money spent on Windows: $0 (The only prefab computer I ever bought came with MS-DOS, I have never paid the MS Tax)
Money spent on Linux, including CD-Rs: $19
So in my case, yes, it is true, I spend more money on linux.
-- iCEBaLM
Re:my purchasing breakdown goes something like: (Score:2)
That should read PC-DOS which was IBM's version of it...
-- iCEBaLM
Bizarro World questions (Score:2)
With a Windows release, you get Windows. That's it. It might be enough to get your mother on the internet, but not much more. (Unless your systems come bundled with Office, in which case you're spending closer to $500/system than $100.)
With a Linux distro, you get the OS, editors, compilers, databases, web servers, mail servers, etc., in that base price.
If you're the average business user and only need Office and a single application (e.g., an accounting package), your software costs might be as little as $500/system. Still far more than the cost of CD bought in a store and shared among the systems. The only reason people don't squeal, loudly, at this price is that it's largely made to look like part of the cost of the hardware.
But if you're a developer, the cost of your tools (compilers, database engines, source control programs, libraries, etc.) can easily hit tens of thousands of dollars.
Re:It depends... (Score:3)
I rarely lose any work, since the crashes usually occur when I'm playing an "obscure game". On the other hand, I never use Office and I'm not running a server, so my experience may be atypical.
The point is that Windows does what I need it to do, and so does Linux when I use it. But if they can both do the same thing (web browsing, for example), I'll pick Windows.
-Chris
It depends... (Score:4)
I've spent a grand total of $0 on Linux (if you don't count CD's to burn). However, I'm not very skilled with Linux, so it takes me a long time to get everything installed and configured correctly.
Windows, on the other hand, has a fixed cost, but (for me at least) requires much less time to get to an operational state.
Like everything else in life, there's no easy answer. If you've got plenty of free time, Linux is "cheaper". But if you're like me and a lot of your time is spent on other things (homework, drinking, Counterstrike, etc.), then your time is too valuable to spend figuring out options in a config file.
-Chris
(and yes, I am running Windows and Linux on two separate computers. but I use Windows most of the time.)
Download, Then Donate (Score:2)
A week or two later, the CD set arrives in the mail. I've got a subscription set up where they automatically bill me and send me a CD set when a new release comes out. This serves to get money donated to people who help FreeBSD.
In my opinion, I spend $0 on my Unix.
--
SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
It adds up. Just from a quick count of my FreeBSD CDROM collection, I can account for at least $400 worth. Plus the $100 I just sent as a donation.
I spent maybe $80 on Win95 a few years ago, and don't plan on spending any more...
Apples and Oranges (Score:2)
I've bought most of the Red Hat releases since 5.1 -- 5.2, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0, 7.1. I tended to buy the premium boxes (at $70-90), but a couple of times I got the basic package (about $40). All told it comes to about $360, maybe as much as $380.
As a developer I bought MSDN for a few years and got my Windows releases from that. I needed MSDN for my work anyway so it was a pretty good deal. That was $500/year and, since I bought the machine clean of any OS, I didn't pay for the OS twice. That's like $1,500 not including the compilers. I stopped doing that when the MSDN price jumped to $800 (my bill arrived the same week Microsoft was telling the court that they weren't a price gouging monopoly
Since then I've bought Win98 full retail ($190) to upgrade a desktop PC and Win98 and NT were bundled with my laptops (not sure the real cost, but probably on the order of $50 and $150 respectively). I've not upgraded to WinME or Win2K purely because they offer little to no benefit over what I currently run.
So over the course of the last 5 years that I've been using Linux I've paid Microsoft $390 for my operating systems, ignoring for a minute the developer stuff. I've paid pretty much the same for either OS, although I've kept much more current with Linux than Windows. It's not looking so bad for Microsoft.
But there are two problems with that comparison. First, those aren't complete systems -- they're just the OS -- and I'm running fewer Windows systems than Linux systems. To see how much it really cost we have to look at
In terms of installations, I'm running just three Windows-capable systems (one of them dual-boot to Linux). I'm running six Linux systems (again counting the dual-boot). Average price per box is, therefore, about half that of Windows before we even start looking at what it costs to make Windows actually useful.
Now, when I install a Linux system it's pretty much complete. I have gone out and bought Wordperfect ($50, but not used now that Abiword is up to the job) and MTV ($20). $70 on add-on software to do everything I need to do. So far I've only had to buy a single version of these things.
With Windows, however, I bought Office 95 ($200 with a big education discount), Office 98 ($300 with a PC), and virus software ($70) just to get basic functionality. So tack on $570 to the Windows figure, and keep in mind that I was pirating an Office installation for awhile. And, again, I didn't fork out the money for Office 2000 so I'm running a release behind.
Even running without full legal licenses we're now seeing Windows cost more than twice as much per box, with only one system ever being upgraded, as Linux did for six boxes and six upgrades. Effective cost per box if you never upgrade is something like $420 for a WinME installation and $520 for a Win2K installation because Office and antivirus software is so necessary. And that's minimum!
Now, again as a developer, I need compilers. Last time I bought VC++ (5.0 I believe) it cost me $300. So, for a usable developer system, I paid $1,100 for MSDN+Office+VC++. I haven't looked at VC++ prices lately, but last I knew MSDN was $800, so today's prices are $1,400 or more -- and $800 of that comes due again next year.
Compare that to the Linux developer's system. I paid for Red Hat and
Now, I also run Linux as a server. It runs e-mail and web services (and other things, but those are critical). Were I to do the same on Windows I'd have to buy Win2K Server (what's that, $800 minimum?) to get IIS, plus somebody's mail software (never even tried to cost that out). So for my server box we're looking at a grand or more (a LOT more if I were so stupid as to run Exchange). I opted out of that approach entirely.
So for my wife's box we've got about $350 in Microsoft software (excluding the $70 we spend on ant-virus). For my development box we've got $1,100 in Microsoft software (again no anti-virus). For my laptop we've got $50 in Microsoft software (running Win98 w/o Office or anti-virus since I only use it to play DVDs). That's $1,500 in Microsoft software
Compare that the $80 I just spent on RH 7.1. I don't need WordPerfect anymore, but I like MTV, so that gives me a total system cost of $110, and that covers three laptops and three servers. And, if I wanted, I could
Given that I have not yet spent as much money on Red Hat software, over five years, as I paid for a single year of MSDN I would have to say that yea, Microsoft software is more expensive
The numbers I've paid to Microsoft start to get really scary when I add them all up. Conversely, the numbers I've paid Red Hat were so low that it's hard to see how they will ever make much money.
jim frost
The question misses the point... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this is where most people stop reading, and decide that for their money, they will get MS, pay more now but have less TCO down the road. Anyone who works with the stuff enough knows that you get what you pay for. If you want to get the less skilled MCSE's, its your business.
I still do not get what the point of the original question is. I get Windows from my University, burn my distros. Otherwise, I would pay $2000 for the windows MSDN license or nothing for a linux distro. Hmm, let me think...
Re:Not Even a Question (Score:3)
OTOH, I'd bet most people (in the US, anyway) are within an hours drive of a Linux Users Group meeting, and could get someone to cut them a CDR for the cost of a blank.
On the gripping hand, if your like me, and think that the companies that put out the distros are performing a service to the community, you might consider the price of a shrink-wrapped distro money well spent.
--
I have no fin
no wing no stinger
no claw no camouflage
I have no more to say...
Support Your Local Code Monkeys (Score:2)
Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
XP will cost more (Score:3)
If you ask a bunch of Linux users if THEY spend more on Linux or Windows, I would be VERY suprised if they spent more on Windows.
If you are a Mac user, how much will you spend on Windows? Most likely $0.00 unless you have bought it by accident & could not return it or bought virtual PC for your Mac.
Does anyone think the case would be different for Linux users?
The arguement that a distro is free but it costs you $$$ to get all of the O'Reilly books falls flat. To actually figure out most advanced Windows features (comparable to those that high level administrators using the books would use), you would still need to get materials. I know of no one (Linux, Windows or Mac users) that feel Windows "help" is actually helpful. I know I can learn lots from the man pages but I have rarely been able to find anything resembling helpful in Windows help.
A better question would actually be several questions:
This is by no means all of the possible questions, just a few to get everyone thinking.
I know many people will say "Hey, I never bought windows" but they will have gotten 95/98/NT4/2000 and are currently running XP on their systems. Does it mean Windows is free? No, it just means they don't have a legal copy of it.
Hope this helps.
Re:Neither. (Score:2)
I do buy linux distros, mainly because I can purchase three or more of them for the cost of one Windows license, and I get those cool Red Hat stickers. I am also supporting a company that I believe in. Having CD installers around makes things easy, and you get some support with your CD purchase, and though I've never actually used it, it does make my bosses happy that I have that to fall back on. The real difference, though, is that I only have to buy one set of Red Hat CD's for 20 linux boxen. Cost per year, about $100. Upgrading from NT to 2000 cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000 (including staff time). Upgrading from Red Hat 6.2 to 7.1 cost about $500 including staff time.
What we were talking about, though, is total cost of ownership. Windows machines, mainly running After Effects and Maya. Expensive workstations to begin with. The cost of the software that runs them and on them pushes the purchase price per system up to about $20,000. This is for, for example, dual processor, gig of ram, ultra160 SCSI or RAID, Fire GL4 3D card, 21" trinitron, sometimes two of the above, plus the software. They are windows machines, so I spend about an hour a week on each machine doing routine maintenance, software updates, figuring out why they are crashing, dealing with hardware failures, etc.
Macs: purchase price: $4,000-$5,000 plus $3000 for software (Photoshop, Quark, After Effects, Premiere, etc). This gets you dual processors, gig of ram, we can normally live with ATA hard drives in those machines. I set them up correctly, and then annually, I burn a disc with all of the software updates, reformat the hard drive and make everything current. 3 days of my time per year. In 6 years, I have never had a hardware failure on a Mac, with the exception of a keyboard that somebody dropped a cup of coffee on. I always get angry when people say that Macs are more expensive than PC's. That's probably true on the low end of the spectrum, but when you are talking about workstations, and not desktop PC's the mac is a real bargain. I've got two machines on my desk: a G-4 450 with ATA and a Dell dual P3-700 with Ultra 160. Both have .5GB of ram. The mac is as fast in virtually every measureable or practical comparison. and cost less than half of what the Dell cost. Not that I do that many comparisons now that the Dell is running Red Hat instead of NT.
The linux machines. Mostly servers, a lot of them from Penguin Computing. I have had one hardware failure, an IBM deskstar 75 GB hard drive, which Penguin replaced in the most painless warranty experience I have ever had. They tend to cost less than $5000, I set them up, and basically never think about them again, with the exception of our firewalls and web servers, which require constant tending.
The biggest hassle with the Windows machines and the Macs is that most of the software, you have to pay for as well. While the hardware-cost to performance comparison is about dead even between a Linux workstation and a Windows workstation, the total cost is much higher on the Windows machine because of the enormous software investment. Even Office is insanely expensive unless you're buying an upgrade. At one point, when discussing the liability associated with software piracy, my boss suggested: "wouldn't it be cheaper to pirate the software, then just drop the cpu's out the window into the lake if anyone from the Business Software Alliance ever shows up?" Do the math. He's right.
The linux workstations and servers are pretty much fire-and-forget, but in the event of a mishap, the repair time is huge.
Bottom Line:
Windows: high initial cost, highest maintenance cost, highest software cost.
Mac: mid-range initial cost, low maintenance cost, highest software cost.
Linux: low initial cost, low maintenance cost, lowest software cost, longest down-time in the event of a failure.
The answer to the question is: Linux is cheaper than Windows, particularly when you realize some economy of scale by installing it on numerous machines. And at the end of the day, all my boss cares about is how much it costs.
my $.05
Buying the first distro is just a window in. (Score:2)
I've bought a couple RedHat releases, 5.0 and 6.2, but they were just because I was a newbie when it came to Linux. It was nice to have a booklet on hand, even if all the documentation was available online. After having used Linux for a while, I'm unlikely to buy another boxed set of it, with high speed Internet connections keeping me up to date.
I think the more important thought on this are the associated costs. It might be simpler to set up Windows out of the box, but the application base is pretty commercial. For example, I have a CD burner in my Windows box, and I wanted to burn an ISO to CD. I fired up the software that came with my drive, and lo and behold, after about ten minutes of futzing with it, I found myself unable to burn the image. Under RedHat, I would have been up and running pretty quickly, with stuff that comes bundled with 7.1. A search turned up a bunch of shareware and commercial apps for Windows -- very little for free. (Ironically, the ISO was for Windows XP, and this little quirk was making me long for Linux.)
I've spent ~$200 for Win95, ~$100 for Win98, and around $250 for Win2K. For Linux? Probably somewhere around $60 total. Then figure in all the software I buy for Windows, that have freeware alternatives under Linux. If I were an accountant, I'd be scratching my head over this. "Why does it make sense to spend more money on something less stable?"
Re:Free to install, expensive to support? (Score:2)
poll (Score:3)
Re:Free to install, expensive to support? (Score:3)
Re:over 3 years: Linux: ~$500 | Windows ~$2800 (Score:2)
1 Win98 (included with machine): $0
You can't be daft enough to assume that the OEM didn't make sure to pass on the full cost of a Win98 install licence in their profit marign, regardless of the actual price from MS to them. Or are you?
The only "free" Windows is a warezed one you put on clean hardware you build from components.
--
Re:over 3 years: Linux: ~$500 | Windows ~$2800 (Score:2)
As for the rest, I only skimmed the article, and skimmed the comments. The discussion here generally peters out too quickly for me to want to get involved anyways. 2-3 days tops.
--
Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:4)
I'll be patching IIS, SQL server, and Exchange later, that's another 270M total..
I'm now 350M over the d/l limit, and a few megs over what'll fit on a CD..
First timer? Buy retail, after that many options. (Score:2)
That being said, if we compare apples to apples this is a difficult metric. Historically, I would get a "patch" from Windows. However, with Linux it has proven to be just as easy, especially in the newest releases to install the entire new version. I get everything that is up to date without hunting for the Access Fix, the Word Fix, MSIE's security updates of the week...etc.
If you are out purchasing the full retail, box version for each new release, I would ask "Why?" What can you possibly get in the 7.2 box that you didn't get in the 7? [This is easier to understand when companies foot the bill. For some reason we can always spend someone else's money easier than taking our time to download a version, burn new CDs, etc. ]
If you are buying new retail versions each time, I would make the suggestion that you buy a good set of manuals (look around here someone is always suggesting). Then get your distros through ftp (or auctions if you cannot download at high speed). You will be money ahead and have a better working reference.
One caveat, if this is your first implementation buy the retail with the manuals, etc. The install guide that goes with the specific distro you have is invaluable when you first start. Other manuals may be better, but you won't know until you have done the first install.
Linux distro != Windows (Score:2)
- Database management
- E-mail server
- Terminal server
- Revision Control
- Compilers
- Encryption software
- Firewall software
- Unlimited-client fileserving
For anyone who actually uses their machine for more than just surfing the web and reading email, a Windows machine needs lots of costly packages added just to be in the same league as a $50 Linux distro.--
Slackware, then Mandrake, then Slackware (Score:2)
My very first Linux distro was Slackware, downloaded over a modem back in about 1996 or so. I was mainly curious and managed to get it working into a usable system. Remember, back then, there was a LOT more configuration to do before you had a 100% functional system the way you wanted it. I toyed with it on and off for two years, but just as I was getting permanently hooked on Red Hat Linux 4.2 (bought on cheapbytes for $2), I had a bit of lifestyle change and effectively went without a computer for 8 months.
In the middle of 1999 I returned to the real world and decided that I really wanted Linux on my current computer, a laptop. While browsing through a department store, I happened upon Mandrake 6.0 for about $40 and up until about 1 month ago, remained a dedicated Mandrake fan.
A month ago, I purchased the Mandrake 8.0 PowerPack for around $75 and was immediately disgusted when neither machine I installed it on would boot. On one machine, it took about a week to customize it, that is, to remove all the extraneous crap. Don't get me wrong, Mandrake is probably a fine distribution for many people, but I've gotten to the point where I just want a minimal working system and then simply add my own customizations and software.
After cursing myself for the Mandrake debacle, I started looking for other distros. I considered Debian, Slackware, even FreeBSD. (Note: I know BSD is not Linux.) I even tried putting together my own system, but glibc proved to be too much of a challenge.
Just as I gave up on glibc and my homebrew distro, Slackware 8.0 was released that same week. I downloaded it, installed it on a crappy P166 to see how I liked it, and found that I liked it immensely! I installed it on the rest of my machines with no troubles and no regrets.
Funny how I had the right idea all along in the beginning of my Linux adventure.
Just to make this post a bit more on-topic, the Linux distros I've bought total about $150. The only copy of Windows I ever bought came with my laptop, and so cost me around $90. Glad to see that Linux has gotten more of my cash.
Apples to Oranges (Score:3)
Re:My insightful response ... (Score:2)
At last check, 344 articles pending review. I'd say not. Bad editing? Maybe.
Silly Slashdot... (Score:3)
Re:Not typical behavior. Anyway, you need Debian! (Score:2)
Tell me about it! The only times I've paid for a Linux distro were:
In download fees, Mandrake 8 cost me $NZ80 to install. Thank God for cheaper bandwidth plans these days (and why can't a minimal install of Mandrake fit into 70MB like some *nixes and distros? Huh?).
UNIX cost me more than Windows. (Score:2)
Bought a copy of 3.1 NT, upgraded to 3.5, then 3.51. Bought a "reseller" only verson of 4.0, "for evaluation purpostes...you an:t use it for day to day use" or some such restriction. $1150 or so.
Got handed a copy of NetBSD and FreeBSD 2.0.5, and have just used the features like FTP install and packages/ports. $0.
DLing a FreeBSD release mens I get it faster than they can ship it to me.
With the ability to DL new releases with FTP, the packages/ports, why would ANYONE bother buying one of the 200~ linux versions? Sticking with FreeBSD made it (SO( easy to kick the Microsoft habit, the SYS V habit and no need to spend $30 for "a better linux".
I spend less....although (Score:2)
Not Even a Question (Score:2)
Windows *can* be free, but only if you steal it. Assuming that this is not an option (especially in a commercial environment), there's no way to acquire, implement, and support a Windows system for free.
Clarification (Score:2)
When you purchase a pre-OSed system, you're still paying for the OS!
Sorry, someone had to say it.
Re:Clarification (Score:2)
I believe that the debate should be kept within the realm of things that are legal. To do otherwise would pretty much invalidate any argument either for or against free software because it could simply be said that "All software is free when you steal it!"
Sure. (Score:3)
Being a windows and linux user myself, I _should_ be spending more money on windows, because I have to buy the software I use (eudora, X server, etc), but I don't. And linux I just download, and it's not illegal.
It's about the money, but it's also because it's more confortable to download the cd and burn it without having to go to some store with salesmen.
--
Windows buy many use once ... (Score:2)
It's almost impossible to buy a PC with out Windows pre-installed on it. This is the only thing that keeps people from buing Windows in a retail box. This means even if you are replacing a machine that you will no longer use, you are going to pay for another copy of Windows. If you decide to upgrade a machine to another version, the OEM license does not give you permission to transfer the old version to another machine so you have paid for 2 licenses and you only get to use one.
With Linux (for most distros at least), you buy one factory burned set of CD's and you can walk around to 100 different machines and install it. If you buy a new machine you don't get forced to buy a new Linux distro. If you upgrade your distro from version x.y.z to version x.y+2.z you don't lose your right to use the x.y.z distro.
The only reason why Linux seems more expensive is because the cost of purchase is very clear and immediate. Microsoft buries the cost of Windows into the machine and so you can't see that $100.00 worth of that machine went to Microsoft. If computer retailers could break out the costs of the computer I'm sure there would be no talk of what we pay more for Windows or Linux. Windows is definitely more expensive.
Never paid for linux (Score:2)
I have never paid for a distro. I have always downloaded them and burned ISO's or done FTP installs.
We purchased one bulk 10 user NT license years ago. NT just sits in a cardboard box (not a real boxen) in the backroom. Linux saves us thousands of dollars per year as a company, when considering that we do not need Office, Exchange, etc.
Re:It depends... (Score:5)
Having been in the same situation a year ago, allow me to ask you this. If you want to learn Linux, why are you using Windows for your everyday work? If you're using Linux every day to get your work done (not even complicated things - just getting familiar with the text editor and some of the other common tools available), you'll find that it becomes much easier to use very quickly. Even if you avoud the config files initially - once you learn how to read (not access, read) man and info pages, they're easy. (Although the fact that Debian's config files are very well-commented helped a bit...)
Yeah, there's a learning curve. But if you don't jump back to Windows every time something starts looking difficult, you'll get past it fast.
-RickHunter
Not much $ on either, too much time on DOZE. (Score:2)
I've only "bought" three Windows packages directly. One XT with DOS 3.2 on it. One 486 with Win3.1 on it and bundled software. One laptop with a bare Win95. The last purchase was a waste as Debian works much better on it. That 486 was upgraded with someone else's software, and other machines were treated much the same. Three years ago, I bought a Watcom Fortran Compiler for Windows. All of it helped at the time, but now I regret all the time I spent learning MS BS.
Indirectly I've supported much greater costs. My schools and now my company pay out the nose for Windows junk. It's sad. Yes, you and me both are paying for all those windows boxes in all those labs on campus and sucking the life out of you at work.
Linux has cost me much less and provided much more with less efort in the end. My distros have come from books, CD shops and from the web. The book, Linux Unleashed (Red Hat 5.1), was a good place to start but newer are not as useful. CD shops, Cheap Bytes and Linux Central for example, carry up to date CDs for cheap. All can be gotten from web sites if you know what you are doing. Debian is the easiest to get that way and to learn about. Books on most specific subjects I'd have to have bought in the Windoze world anyway, so I won't count that as a cost.
The time saved has been amazing. Installs are much easier for Linux. Without all the propriatory BS of install floppies for each and every device and program, and much less baby sitting Linux installs go fast. Documentation is worlds better under Linux, so I waste much less time trying to figure out how to do something that should work but does not. G77 runs older FORTRAN code without modification and that saved me considerable time for CFD class. FTP, Telnet-ssl and X works much better than Window's quirky file and resource sharing, so there's more time I've saved. Another great time saver is not having to rebuild periodically. Stuff just works when you need it to and it's easy to upgrade when you want to.
As the last of my windows boxes die, I'm just letting them slip off. Now that I've great print support set up on a Red Hat 7.1 box, I have little need for those windows boxes and don't bother with them as their print service fails (parallel and USB!). I tried putting W2K on my wife's box but it failed to even format the hard drive. I put on the older 98 because the Voice of Command demanded it. That was three months ago, but already the printing on it died. Red Hat runs it good. 98 stays there until I can find a driver for the Cannon parallel scanner (doubtful) and a D-Link USB camera, or it quits booting or running those devices. 98 no longer boots on my last windows box, and it's been great to spend the time on cool stuff like IPChains, Exim, Chat, Gphoto, Gimp and gcc instead. Good bye broken, shitty, begging MS junk. I'm off the upgrade mill, cause you suck!
What's expensive to support? (Score:2)
Sorry, it's much cheaper to buy $400 worth of parts, install Linux and keep the thing running for years. It's even cheaper to pick up a "obsolete" box and put Linux on it. After getting over the Nix knowledge hump, it's been much easier to maintian Linux boxes that don't break. As Bruce Perens pointed out above:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
will keep your Debian system patched (not that it needs much of that) and updated against security holes.
Re:are all your friends retarded? (Score:4)
As far as home users, my friends and I have all paid for one or two distribution copies. At 30-50$ we'll say we spend 100$ total on linux. Ever.
Meanwhile with Microsoft, we all have probably twice as many licenses as we do computers, seeing how they come with everything but Color TVs. So while I'm using Windows on a single PC at home, I've paid Microsoft upwards of 500$ for that single license.
That's not even mentioning the support fees. I have tried many times to get tech support from Microsoft, and its fscking impossible! And if you do get through? They charge you for it. Nevermind that I just spend >100$ on a crappy OS, but now I get to spend money just to get it working. According to this presentation I ran into today, this guy at a corporation was spending thousands of dollars in tech support to Microsoft, trying to get them to fix the instability of THEIR OWN PRODUCT! Is that f*cked up or what?
http://citv.unl.edu/linux/LinuxPresentation.htm
Between friends, Linux User Groups(LUGs), and your own bandwidth, Linux is free. Tech support? More for free online(and more helpful users) than you can find for Microsoft Windows.
So your answer? We spend less on Linux. *FAR* less.
Why I Buy "Packaged" Linux Box Sets (Score:2)
There are 3 reasons I have ever bought a "boxed" Linux distribution. These are very simple, yet I know a lot of people who live Linux the same way:
1) Hard Copy Documentation. And Vendor Specific Documentation. There are times, at least on my system, when for whatever reason the MBR gets overwritten or trashed...sometimes by Windows, an AV program, or LILO being written to the MBR instead of GRUB (LILO *hates* my hardware setup). Linux documentation on the internet is *useless* when all I see when I turn my computer on is LI L0 LI L0 LI LO... What saved my ass? The RedHat Manual that came in the Boxed Set. After noticing the damned Boot Disk also used LILO, which was useless for me, I just grabbed the box, flipped to the LILO/GRUB section, and the Rescue Disk/CD and in 5 minutes had a happy system again
2) When I am trying to introduce someone *new* to Linux. Buying a "boxed set" is perfect for both me and them. Many, many times it has been more than helpful and useful for me to say "Hey, just take a look in the book...It will probably help you more than me, because I have become to good at this that I am sure I will miss something that is important to you and not to me anymore..." For example, I use the BASH shell, and I love it for one reason above all else...Command Line Completion. But, as I discovered, I don't even think anymore when I am trying..."Type first 2 letters.....1 more letter.....etc. etc. I can whip around my system like a jet plane. But when I was trying to show my friend something the other day on his *new* Linux install, he stopped me in the middle of my typing to ask me "How do you type so fast...?" That was when I knew I was over his head...It was simply time to give him the book which came with his Distro. It explained, in plain English, what a "shell" was and what "command line completion" was about, and many more things. Books that come with "boxed sets" like RedHat or Mandrake are absolutely invaluable to me and many, many others. Everything you could ever want short of being a system admin can be found in those books.
3) I feel that giving my small contribution of money to Linux makes me feel like I am giving to a cause I can relate to, understand, and at times defend very wholeheartedly. I feel computing at times makes me want to vomit and run away from the United States to find a country where intelligent, normal human beings use computers and make the laws. But, then I realize that battles and wars are won, not by the big battles, but sometimes by just a lot of people fighting the good battles. Giving a little to the good and small fight. And if my $50 can one day help a platform like Linux bring reality back into the computing landscape, with a hope for fair competition, standards, and decent laws...then it was a $50 well spent. And a cause I can be proud to say I was a part of...even if in the smallest way
Re:This will be an issue in the future (Score:2)
================
Re: 'set your own price' version (Score:5)
You already can set your own price for Mandrake :)
Go to Mandrake's Donation Page [linux-mandrake.com] and give them a buck or two. You can even specify a project you'd like to help fund.
my $.02
mr
Re:Interoperability problems? (Score:2)
The point of stable isn't to have the latest stable releases, in fact that's what unstable is for. Stable refers to the fact that it's no longer a moving target. The myriad of software components have been tested with eachother. This means that that ancient version of mozilla is known to work with that ancient version of galeon. That prehistoric version of o'caml works with all the o'caml libraries in that distribution.
Stable and unstable are not statements about likelihood of crashing! Stable is for those situations where you need to know that the software has been tested. A lot. Unstable (and now testing) is for everything else.
Re:over 3 years: Linux: ~$500 | Windows ~$2800 (Score:2)
You can't be daft enough to have missed the fact that I calculated my cost in the same (flawed!) way the article did. Or are you? My (not too subtle, I thought) point was that even if you didn't count the cost of the OEM software, since the article didn't, in my experience, it cost (my employer) more than 5x as much to get similar but lesser functionality from a Windoze box as I got from a Linux box. And the cost on the Linux box was optional-- I paid for convenience.
The only "free" Windows is a warezed one you put on clean hardware you build from components.
There's no such thing as a "free" copy of Windows. Even if neither I nor my employer had to lay out a penny of cash for Windows-related purchases, the cost in lost productivity and risk of lawsuits for being in contravention of M$'s license would be >$500, IMO.
If I didn't recognize your handle, I'd think: "IHBT. IHL."
over 3 years: Linux: ~$500 | Windows ~$2800 (Score:4)
Linux:
6 distros @~$50 = $300
4 books @~$50 = $200
Windows:
1 Win98 (included with machine): $0
1 Visual studio 6 (incl. NT4): ~$1600
1 Win2k upgrade: ~$150
1 Office 97: ~$500
1 Office 2k upgrade: ~$250
1 Office XP upgrade: ~$250
1 Winzip: ~$25
1 Nero CD Recording SW: ~$70
1 Norton AntiVirus: ~$70
We buy Linux to support them, silly (Score:2)
the difference (Score:2)
I don't spend anything. (Score:3)
Admin Costs and Learning Curve Deceptive (Score:2)
One of the things that the pro Microsoft camp at the UofM here likes to claim is that the administrative costs for Unix/Linux is higher than for Windows NT/2000. They also like to claim that one can administer a Windows based server with less knowledge than a comprable Linux/Unix server. Both claims are false. Admin costs for running a Linux web server are basically those of hardware and manpower. Which means that you miss the licensing fees of the various Microsoft servers. I dunno what that's up to these days. The other problem you run into with MS products is falling victim to security bug of the day which may cost you dearly. The linux community is a lot more forthcoming about these things. In so far as books go, I have picked up Linux Unleashed, and this really cool Penguin computing Linux book and those are the only two I've needed. Meanwhile three books on NT later and I still had no idea what I was doing. And that brings me to the learning curve part. Windows can get a novice off to a quicker start because the can kind of stumble around the graphical user interface and start to do things pretty quick, but that's a long way from being able to administer a network connected server. In order to run a windows server, you need to understand the registry, TCP/IP, Netware, process control, security, and well, all the other things you'd have with any server. Meanwhile with Unix/Linux you don't have to deal with the registry. Yee haw! So, yeah you have to memorize obscure command line syntax to run linux, but almost everything works, the registry doesn't self destruct every six months, the documentation matches reality, and you don't have to reboot every few days.
Windows is purchased at gunpoint. . . (Score:2)
Linux is purchased as a donation.
The difference may be too subtle for some to grasp I guess.
KFG
Do you pay for something you love? (Score:2)
zero (Score:2)
Well, assuming you don't count the $0.50 per CD-R and the cost of downloading the ISOs.
I've spent about $500 on Microsoft software (Windows NT and Office), but I got much less use out of it than any one of those Linux distros. When I bought NT 4.0, it was very broken and had poor driver support - as a result, it wasn't really practical to use with my hardware for about a year. After a year, the driver support got better and the service packs caught up with the really bad bugs, and about a year of real usefullness followed. After about a year, NT 4.0 started to look really shabby next to Linux, so I stopped using it. After that experience, I'm never going to buy proprietary software again if I can help it. $500 for a year's usefullness is a ripoff.
--
It isn't free just because it came with the PC (Score:3)
Windows isn't free. The PC manufacturer paid something for it and passed that cost, plus a markup, onto you. Granted, it's far less than what you'd pay in a store, but there is a real cost associated with it.
So, let's say that a PC manufacturer pays about $100 for a Windows 2000 license on a new PC.
Each Linux distro costs about $39 for the plain installation. So, you can buy almost three copies of a distribution before you're paying more than you did for Windows.
They key point you're missing here is that you don't have to pay for the distro. Most of them can be had for only what it costs you to download the boot images and the various packages the installer retrieves. Or, if you're a real purist, you can download the entire ISO instead.
Windows has never been free.
--
Re:are all your friends retarded? (Score:5)
Later my retarded brain became so sophisticated that I bought the boxed distros for the accompanying documentation to see which distro cares more about their customer's fullblown retarded brains.
Who would try to use the opportunity to write good handbooks for their distros so that potential clients would finally get cured from their retardism and be ever so grateful to become loyal supporters of open/free software ? That was THE
question which my heart desired to get an answer to.
Now I am cured and have a big, mellow heart. That's why I am still buying every disto I want to try out in a boxed version from my neighborhood computer store. I just fell in love with the idea that people work to keep the source code open and I think they deserve my support.
Actually I am proud to be a retarded supporters of companies, who support free/open source software and am quite willing to invest my couple of pennies in them.
If just the geeks would be as retarded as I am, the world of
Forget the distros.... (Score:4)
Why people buy boxxed retail (Score:5)
If it's a company you believe in, there's nothing wrong with buying the product that keeps them afloat.
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
56k download ISO is possible..been there done that (Score:3)
Re:Interoperability problems? (Score:4)
O'CAML, for example, is still at version 2.x in Debian stable, while the current version is 3.01. When everybody else in the world is using 3.01, it doesn't matter how "stable" the version is that comes with Debian "stable", it is still useless. And there is nothing "unstable" about O'CAML 3.01.
Mozilla in "stable" is at M-18, far behind the current version of Mozilla; in fact M-18 is far less stable than any of the more recent Mozilla releases. And the configuration files have changed between M-18 and recent Mozilla releases, meaning that people cannot share them.
You get the idea, I hope. There are many more examples.
Keep in mind that most of the software that goes into Debian unstable has received extensive testing by its authors and that Debian isn't responsible for non-packaging related problems. There is little reason for Debian "stable" to be far behind Debian "unstable". I don't pretend to know what Debian should do, but I do know that it is pointless for Debian maintainers to recommend to users to just use "testing" or "stable".
Do you count piracy? (Score:5)
Linux, by definition, can't be pirated, and I have spent essentially $0 on Linux. However, I know plenty of people who install Windows with all its bells and whistles, including Office, etc., who also spend $0. Of course these people aren't doint it legally.
I will reiterate a previously raised point ... MS's decision to crack down on piracy opens a window for Linux, since these people will be looking for a new free (as in beer) OS.