OT: Antivirus and other antimalware stuff

Because its 2-3 times as expensive.

And its limited.

However, a lot more people are buying apples.

Thats only one part of it, and most of the MacApps are now ported to windows anyway.

Apple means 'i've got cash, I like bling, and I can afford to take it into an apple dealer to sort out every time I realise I am too stupid to own a computer'

It is the default choice for the chattering classes now.

Windows is just plain common, dont you know..

Well, like-for-like I think this has been pretty much debunked. But it does mean you can't go downmarket to save money because there is no Apple downmarket.

That accounts for the reliability in many ways. In some ways (and I hate to say this) Microsoft don't do too badly given the utter crap that people plug into/install on their PCs.

No s*it, Sherlock.

...

It is also rather difficult to build your own Apple, whereas the only computers I've bought ready-made were a Jupiter Ace and a couple of BBC Micros.

Colin Bignell

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Which is the vast majority of business and, indeed, private, users.

Colin Bignell

Why would a business want to build their own kit? As you have previously pointed out, the vast majority have no IT staff and just want it to work.

Most probably won't. However, I always have.

Colin Bignell

Couple (at least) of points - difficult to work out where to insert a post into this thread. Brace yourselves!

I am reasonably computer literate, a long time Unix sysadmin, and have Linux as a dual boot on all my systems. However I tend to use Windows a lot. Why? Because that is where the effort goes to produce applications, because that is where people pay for applications. For example, I had to roll my Linux EEE PC over to XP when I needed to use a combined mapping and GPS system - Autoroute as it happens. Couldn't, at the time, find a Linux alternative.

Of note also is that HP are backing out of the PC business because they claim that the future of computing is in the application space - as demonstrated by Apple with the iPad and iPhone which are currently dominating the market despite wide availability of Android.

It does raise the question of how long Windows will continue to be dominant - can Apple carry their dominance of the portable device marketplace over into desktop computing, or is desktop computing in the consumer market dead in the water anyway? Will we just keep taking the tablets?

I don't know how many of you remember the birth of the IBM PC and all the competitors who fought with IBM and their choice of MSDOS beleiving they could engineer a far superior technical solution at a lower cost. Where are they now? They all fell by the wayside because it was not enough to have technical excellence - people wanted applications and the industry standard for 3rd party application developers was the IBM PC running MSDOS on an Intel

Nothing much (apart from the death of Motorola and non-Intel/AMD processors) seems to have changed since.

We live in interesting times - will Apple finally establish itself as the supplier of the hardware/operating system of choice for all major commercial software developers and consumers? Will someone reprise Compaq's move into IBM PC compatibles (which moved IBM out of PC manufacture) by producing Hackintoshes? Or has Apple got the market more sown up than the IBM/Intel/Microsoft Triad of the original PC?

Whatever, most people will go with Windows today for desktop PCs because that is where most consumer software is targetted. Linux has made great strides but has failed to move from people expecting free software to people expecting to pay for all the software.

You only have to look at the virus writers to know that Windows is still dominant. Where do you get the bulk of computer naive people who can be tricked and infected? Windows machines.

For those who praise Linux/Unix let us see how robust it remains if Apple dominates the market place. Hopefully it will be more secure, but if the big money is in hacking Apple system then we shall see.

Whatever, people will always prey on the unwary in the most effective way possible. This currently seeems to be attacking Windows PCs.

Cheers

Dave R

You're me, you are. I've been thinking what you wrote for ever, almost.

Especially about Linux. When I can use Linux with the hardware I want to use instead of having to choose my hardware to suit the operating system, I'll swap.

And I don't care if the software is free as in speech or free as in beer, if it can't do what *I* want to do, it's useless. So I apply the same criteria to sftware as I do to hardware. I pay for most of what I use, as it's the only way to do what I need/ want to do.

What they claim and what their reason is are two different things. They're thinking of getting rid of their PC hardware business because the margins are too small for them, not because there's no market. The market remains huge, and the HP PC business won't just stop - think Lenovo.

Largely linux works on a lot more hardware than windows.

I find it does for me for all but two apps: Both CAD/Graphics. Windows in a virtual box sorts that out.

The big advantage is if it gets stuffed I can roll back, and windows never needs to go near the internet.

I could indeed totally firewall it out.

Just running those CAD apps it crashes every few hours. Linux stays up for weeks.

What is bling and why would I want it on my Mac Mini?

Never taken any of my Macs to any dealer. I took a disk in once after the controller board was fried by a thunderstorm. But the nice girly there said they had another just the same which had had a head crash so they gave me the controller board off that. £10, all sorted.

So are you saying that Windows users who are too stupid to operate a computer *don't* have to take it to a dealer when it goes wrong?

If you count all the Linux based appliances such as routers, video recorders and such, you may be right. Most internet servers run on some version of *nix, too.

Otherwise, it works if you (a) can be bothered to do stuff like recompile the kernel and use CUPS, jack or any number of other work-rounds that need a deep knowledge of computer systems or (b) want to use a processor that isn't 8086 compatible. All the hardware I need "just works" under Windows XP, Vista or 7, possibly with minor issues that go away after I visit the maker's website, download and install the latest driver.

I've often had this discussion before, and have on numerous occasions been told when item "X" (My preferred option due to its price/ performance ratio) won't work under Linux, that I shouldn't have bought it, but the inferior, more expensive item that the poster *has* managed to get working.

The programs I use that would need to run in a VM need hardware access that Linux prevents, by and large.

My firewall and NAT router are effective enough at keeping most internet problems at bay. All else is dealt with by a program that produces the same security as Linux, at least for my purposes.

I do a fair amount of sound editing, and Cubase is better and easier to use than *any* Linux alternative. Audacity is okay as a basic audio editor, and is multi-platform, and I do use it for basic stuff. Other things like an easy-to-use, halfway decent vinyl to digital converter with automated click and noise removal aren't available in Linux, as far as I can see. Although I could run one in a VM or using WINE, of course.

I've even tried dedicated audio Linux distributions, and I can install and be using an equivalent Windows system from scratch in about half the time it takes to get the Linux version mostly working.

I'd suggest you sort out your (virtual) Windows installation, then. I haven't had a Windows crash for months, and that one was my fault.

Linux, OTOH, while I've not totally crashed it more than once a day in use, won't even talk to my GPRS modem.

Almost like a religion, this OS stuff, isn't it?

I know nothing about linux but typically its only specialist hardware for which there is no OS X driver.

And all of these app types exist for OS X too.

Gosh as long as months eh? My word!

You are kidding?

and why would I want it on my Mac Mini?

No idea, but you have it.

Good grief. You actually took a screwdriver to a Mac?

They buy a new one IME.

CUPS is standard on all systems and on Macs too,. Its no big deal.

Never recompiled a kernel in me life. Device drivers are now dynamically loadeed so there is no need anyway.

(b) want

Never found windows that worked on any other archtecture BUT 8086 compatible.

Its a rapidly changing field.

Well that is the whole point of a VM of course.

Its a known problem 3D rendering chews memory and windows doesnt deal well with 'I want 3Gybte please when its only got 5 left and it cant be arsed to garbage collect it to get a 3G contiguous block.

It proably owuld if you cared to make it.

Not really. Its a question of staring from any one of 4plus incomplete solutions, and finding the fastest route to what you actually want.

NT was originally developed on (but never released for) i860, I've used NT3.1 on Alpha, it was also available for MIPS and PowerPC until NT4.0, as from Windows 8 (next year?) it will run on ARM too (WinCE already does and on MIPS)

Oh yeah, and Itanic too.

We're talking about general software here; that stuff that does the stuff that people buy computers to do.