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Re: I Don't Have to Use Windows



One could argue that the various holy wars over the years have led many
Windows users to leave PHYS-L, hence we are disproportionately high in
Mac and Linux enthusiasts. However, I doubt its as simple as that. For
one thing many of us talk about using multiple systems. I use Windows
predominantly because it is the predominant system to have to deal with
in most situations, and overall it isn't really all that bad. I prefer
to run Linux - note I say "run", this assumes the headache of installing
it is over, I would rather install Windows. I also use Macs in a few
settings and consider it a great system for many purposes. The only
system I've ever intensely disliked was VAX VMS.

Listening to the general buzz on PHYS-L I think that I'm not at all
atypical. Furthermore, the web server logs for my various physics pages
show unusually high numbers of non-Windows systems. It is still
predominantly Windows systems that enter, but if I compare with stats
such as those on http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2001/July/os.html I
consistently see about twice the percentage of Mac and about 5 times the
percentage of Unix and Linux.

What I find perplexing about the academic use of computers is that you
frequently find scientists trying to make sophisticated use of systems
(Win 95,98,ME) that are intended for home use - games and light office
work. I expect that a few dollars saved on the operating system leads
to more frustration than it is worth. If you have a serious computing
problem and want to go with MS, use NT or 2000 - its worth the extra
money.

In response to statistics someone posted I see more Mac users than Linux
and Unix combined, and theCounter sees about 7 times as many Mac users
as Linux users. I haven't seen any numbers suggesting Linux has 5% of
the desktop market, I'd be curious to see the source of this statistic.
For servers however the number is indeed high. Netcraft is always
counting and recounting this in different ways to deal with new
objections (e.g. should a $1,000 intel based machine hosting a site
count the same as a $1,000,000 machine hosting thousands of sites).
Everybody has their own spin to put on the statistics. The counting
methodology in http://www.netcraft.com/survey/index-200007.html shows
that if you count operating systems on active sites Linux is actually
1.5% ahead of Windows (see pie charts towards the bottom of the page).
Numbers vary depending on what you count, but Linux always comes out as
a very strong contender in the server market.

For those scared off Linux by the installation horror stories and the
fear of repartitioning their drive, I'll repeat my advice... try
Winlinux http://www.winlinux.net/2001/

\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\

Doug Craigen
http://www.dctech.com/physics/about_dc.html