beware of the updates you install

Even then there were Linux programs readily available to read Word docs and Photoshop images. No idea about Ventura.

Just because people don't need to care what you choose to do, doesn't mean they have any opionion of you one way or the other.

Nope, not the whole world, but 90% makes for a fair majority. Just as English is the default language on the internet, many people can and do choose to stick with what they know instead. And since English is not the first language of 90% of computer users, a far better case can be made for some people using another one! Doesn't mean you have to learn it though. Thankfully or the whole world would do nothing but learn dozens of languages. Same goes for companies who choose to support only the majority operating systems, and users who prefer a mainstream "standard".

Trevor.

I have been using Linux almost exclusively for ten years. I prefer it, it works well for me. I do a lot of software development and it is well suited for that. I do have Windows and Linux machines I deal with at work. Updates are much simpler on Linux than Windows. I like that it is very gard to get a virus in Linux unless you do something really stupid.

Having said that, I think people should use what they like and what suits them. I think arguing about operating systems is as pointless as arguing over religion.

Can we get back to radios now? I have an old Tek 453 on the getting some power supply work. Those are tight little units, but I like them. They are funky. It is amazing how they crammed so much performance in a small package in 1966. I'll be looking for a 454 when this is done.

For me that is a lot of the charm of working on old stuff. I realized it as a teen back in the early '70s when the Staten Island Historical Society let me work on their antique radio collection. It is amazing what they did with what they had.

Certainly. We'll just go for a couple weeks with essentially zero messages posted other than the occasional, "Is anyone home?" :-)

Joe, N6DGY

Oh hey, I get that. If Linux was what I knew, I'd probably use that, myself.

And the old stuff gets respect from me, for sure. I know that modern cars are more evolved, but I miss my first car--a 1967 Mustang fastback. And right now I'd really enjoy foolin' with an old tube radio for the fun of it.

Sometimes I do miss the tinkering...

Lidiots are just about worse than iDdicts.

geoff

If Windows (and to a lesser degree, the Mac OS) didn't exist, there would likely be a plethora of operating systems, and people would be complaining "Why can't we have a single standard?".

I do not grovel in front of Windows. I use it because it's what I started with when I worked at Microsoft, and it has the widest range of available applications. It also works well.

The basic problem with Windows is that it's designed to be a more or less universal OS that meets just about anyone's needs. Unfortunately, Microsoft has never put out the effort to minimize the amount of "fussing" a serious user has to go through to get the most out of the system.

I strongly recommend the book "Windows 7 Annoyances". It has good chapters on security and networking that are almost worth the price of the book.

And this was what it was like in the seventies and eighties. And, overall it was a good thing because it encouraged people to make their applications portable.

I think having a heterogeneous environment is a good thing for a lot of different reasons, not just because it makes malware propagation more difficult but also because it forces people to think about the compromises being made in their implementations.

It also means that people developing more complex systems based around a computer (like a DAW for instance) have more choices. Often those systems have requirements which are very different than those of "general purpose" computing appliances and it is good to have such choices available when they are needed.

--scott

Portability is pretty expensive. And given how dissimilar platforms are, it is of mixed value, IMO.

Very basic functionality is quite different from platform to platform.

People don't generally like to think about implementations when they don't have to.

I don't really think we'd have had DAW programs at all had it not been for Mac and Windows as platforms. Maybe something lire RADAR, but it wasn't priced to sell. Maybe something like the Amiga, although it was pretty limited.

Agreed; although it's not clear that the propagation of such systems would have been ... satisfactory.

The last thing I read about the Linux standards group for audio/ multimedia , they were still designing the basic atoms of things.

No argument -- in principle -- but isn't Windows+Mac+Linux sufficiently heterogeneous?

Maybe it is. They're all three running on the exact same computer architecture most of the time, though. And certainly they are far more heterogeneous than they were even a decade ago.

--scott

How do you justify paying $200 for a computer operating system that does nothing but send you places that ask for money? The Windows world is like North Las Vegas. It is crass, commercial and everyone has to get their hands dirty. I have a netbook with XP that I need to talk to my iPod. Next year I plan to buy a Windows7 refurb from a Windows reseller. They go for between $50 and a $100 n eBay, less than half what a builder pays for the OS alone. This is only so I can run the Apple crap and maybe some LT spice. My main surfing machine and my ham radio machines are 100% open source and commercial free..

I love all the shiny gold switches etc. inside Teks.

If you can use Windows you already know 98% of Linux.

You can have a triple boot Notebook if you want. YouTube looks the same on WIN and *X.

Unless the implements are very shiny.

There were DAWs before Windows and Mac

dave

Mac OSX and Linux are cousins (both derived from from AT&T Unix). Windows is based on patching and quilting and something called "Quick and Dirty Operating System".

The fastest computers on earth all run Linux.

BTW You can occasionally find a Nagra IV-S for under a hundred bucks here nowadays.

I prefer VMs

I LIKE SHINY THING! SHINY THING GOOD!

Sorta. But now, we have the capability of a New England Digital system for much less trouble.

The good news is that REAPER runs in Wine...

I'll take all you can get at that price. Prices on those machines are actually rising... they hit rock bottom a few years ago but they now seem to be getting snapped up by collectors. I have been getting a lot of repair work from guys buying the things who don't know what they are buying.

--scott

I had an uncle killed by blueberry pancakes.