[KLUG Advocacy] Linux Outpacing Macintosh On Desktops

[Adam Williams]

>>>Sounds nice, but for the price of hardware. I can put together a really 
>>>cheap PC. I haven't priced Macs recently but I'm pretty sure they run a
>>>little more.
>>It depends, you can get a "nice" Mac for not much money,  but still
>>several hundred dollars more than you can a "nice" PC.  The Macs do come
>standard with some features (DVD, etc...) that are extra on a PC,  but
>>not anything that the average end-user will really care about. (IMHO).
>Overall, the spreads between Macs and PC's are narrowing, and it seems that 
>it is easier to add a number of things to modern Macs that it used to be. I
>tend to think that TCO runs about the same; what the typical Wintel user
>saves in up-front cash is lost later, in time to find and configure new
>hardware, in systems that are not as stable, and in fairly rapid and enforced
>software turnover.

It is interesting, at least from my looking about, that the price of
name-brand PC bundles has actually crept up a bit.  This has helped to
narrow the gap.  But Macs are still only a good deal when compared with
higher-end PCs.  With Compaq selling very serviceable units for $450
that is still well below the Mac price point.  And Apple is on a crazy
release cycle for OS X,  the Mac nut I know has purchased Mac OS X three
times since it came out,  so that has to be figured in.  Plus the price
of M$-Office for the Mac (the ones I saw came with Apple works).  So I
think the ongoing cost is still pretty high, and the upfront cost
difference is still hanging out between 300 and 400 dollars.  I haven't
used OS-X much, but the Mac people I know swear by it, rather than at it
(OS 9).  I have used OS 9 units pretty extensively, and they make WfWg
look rock solid.

Has anyone used Open Office for the Mac?

My personal beef with OS-X is that it isn't X.  One can't run apps
remotely.  The utility of ssh just dropped 90%.  It probably isn't an
issue for most people, but for me that is a show stopper.  Apple can
bubble all it wants out its PDF driven display, but my GNOME2 desktop
looks sweeeeet.  I think they killed a fly by dropping an anvil on it. 
X11R6 with frame buffer support could do anything they needed, and let
people harness the incredible heap of X11 apps.

>I can also understand why a large organization would go with Wintel vs. Mac.
>At that point, it's a question of driving unit costs down, and employing
>people who work full-time maintaining things.

The real issue with institutional use is IE.  And IE on the Mac is like
IE on Solaris, it isn't, really.  An IE only site usually means
IE-on-wintel only.  We have to use Windows in most places because the
companies we deal with run IE sites, and that is the only way to
purchase parts.  Use a Mac and get "You need IE version 5.5 or greater
to view this site".  It has to do with Active-X and all that crap, 
which depend on Windows on the client side.

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