Of course you can't run OS X on just any Intel it must be a Mac Intel computer. You can't just build one from scratch. And you need boot camp to dual boot Windows on a Mactel you can't just install it along side.

On a side note you should know that Apple was bailed out of bankruptacy by Microsoft. Now why do you suppose they would do that unless they wanted a visible competitor in case they got hit with a monopoly suit. They can then say "Hey look there's Apple that sells computers still." (That was back in 97 before Linux got bigger.)

Here's a little youtube video of the partnership:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY&

It's not problematic, really, just plagued with poor user interface design and people actually expecting me to pay for a CD burner.

I really don't see that many good applications for Windows out there. In any domain of applications, there's a few best of breed apps, and the rest, which essentially does not matter. I'm counting only applications that have a considerable userbase and are good/stable enough to get included in Linux distros. The average end-user cares very little for richness of applications, because the average end-user isn't interested in shopping around. Only really good, powerful apps with features unavailable elsewhere (Like iTunes) can challenge whatever is bundled with the OS and comes as default, or whatever everyone is using.

Running flash is now functional thanks to Adobe, running embedded video is Just Fine with mplayer and w32codecs in countries where you can get that legally, or when licensed from someone (IE, Linspire) which licenses it legally. Sadly, most distros still stick to Totem's horrid embedded video implementation.

I've never even heard of people having issues with ADSL modems... is it an USB modem? That's probably the issue. Get an ethernet one - they're just as cheap, and based on open standards you can rely on.

All current ATI, Nvidia and Intel video cards run fine on Linux with hardware acceleration, but your mileage may vary wildly. I always suggest getting an NVidia.

It really varies from person to person. There are plenty of Linux desktops which emulate Windows' look and feel very accurately; Lin/Freespire notoriously bends over backwards (Some would say forwards) to resemble Windows.


Like I said, substantial portion of the population. Not everyone. But like I said, I don't speak English out of any formal education on the subject. And I believe English is a de jure official language, along with Filipino.

It's kinda hard to be out of touch when you can't go out on the street in certain parts of town (Not impoverished parts of town, even) without handing out change to homeless people, or tune in to national television without being made painfully aware every ten minutes of it. I don't presume to know what you do in your personal time; please don't be so pretentious as to think you know anything about my life.

What forums?

Macs don't compete directly with Windows... as stated, Microsoft owns a part of Apple, Macs can run Windows, and most importantly, they cost more than anyone would sensibly spend on a computer.

Horse-drawn carriages are a viable alternative to cars if you are willing to buy and maintain four horses.

While I agree with most of what you say, I have to take issue with this. Windows XP (or Server 2003 - which is what I use) is actually a quite little system and will run on an Intel Celeron 233 MMX with 64mb of ram if you strip away all the extraneous bloat that comes packed with it.

Oh and just in case you were wondering why I use Server 2003 instead of XP - its a free download from the Microsoft website with a 180 day timebomb which is easily disabled. If it wasn't I would just reformat my computer every 6 months and it would all be legal. Considering that Server 2003 is a far superior operating system (for both applications and gaming) and is completely compatible with all Windows XP applications (I think there have been a total of two found ever) than Windows XP that further devalues what Windows XP is worth.

Edit: And Verithrax - it must have been the Ubuntu forums. They are obviousful of horned baby-eating demons from the lower pits of hell.

Oh and some newer games run perfectly fine on Linux and have for ages. It doesn't take much time or effort - the entire Unreal Tournament series has shipped with Linux installers included on the cd's.

Verithrax, I just walked outside, gave a dollar to a begger, and then came in and watched CNN for a bit. Now I too am in expert one what it is to be poor, at least by your definition.

Now unlike you, I am going to say this: I have never had money problems, and yes this may shift my view somewhat. I do not pretend to know what it is like to be poor, but I can tell the fiscal reality of being poor by simply looking at the numbers.

If a computer costs 400 amaerican without an OS, and you are paid 40 cents a day... wow you are never going afford that... no need to pirate Windows...

If you have a family of five, all working for 40 cents a day... oh my god, you just might actually have electricty then. You even alluded to the fact the poor have money when you mentioned giving money to beggers. Why would they be begging if they had the money for a computer?


The point being of all of this, is that saying the piracy by all these 'poor' people who could not afford it helps microsoft is BS, because THEY CAN NOT AFFORD A COMPUTER. If they have a computer, it is very likely going to be a hand me down 386 or some such. And this I have seen with my own eyes.

Of course Verithrax, now that I have an idea of your socio-economic status in the country you live in, I am not at all surprised by your elitism.

Yeah, you really have no clue at all of how real life works; your 'if they can afford a computer, they can afford to bend over for Microsoft' rhetoric makes me twitch. And you accuse me of elitism.

Where? In your country? Because I used to work for a charity (less than a year ago) rebuilding older computers for the disadvantaged, and every single one of them was more than capable of running Windows XP in some form or another.

This isn't even going into the fact that even a poor family might pool together to buy a computer (my family did for our first one - my parents were both on a disability pension and me and my brother and sister were running odd jobs all over the place to help out) just so me and my brother and sister weren't severely disadvantaged when it came to our homework. My family was so poor that for the first few years of high school (where we were supposed to hand in our assignments printed instead of hand-written) I used an old typewriter that had been in the family for at least two decades. Could we afford windows? Hell no. We used it anyway because without it (and the internet - as fledgling as it was back then) we were simply that far behind the rest of the class in grades that we might as well have not bothered handing in any assignments at all.

Go shove YOUR elitism where the sun don't shine because its even more not appreciated.

It's not elitism. Again, theft is theft. I'm by no means what you'd call rich. I'm a single mother of two. However, I STILL see it as theft. I don't agree that the price being that high is the best thing in the world. But, that's still no excuse to steal.

I used to use a pirated version of windows (back in the old 3.1 and early 95 days) but as I said earlier, now I don't because Microsoft provides Windows 2003 Server as a free download off of their website with a 180 day time bomb that is either easily disabled or a quick reinstall fixes.

Good to see astroturf movements are alive and well.

I was not refering to the American poor class, they have opertunities and benefits most of the worlds poor do not have. (Minimum wages, that pension you mentioned, etc...) It is possible for poor American families to get upto date computers. When we talk Africa, Southeast Asia, the South Seas, Central and South America and parts of eastern Europe poor... we are talking people who can barely afford to feed their families, even with some homegrown food products.

And I do admit to being elitist at time, it is part of how I am trained as an officer, and for any eltisim I show, I am sorry, however... taking me out of context to crucify me is not approperate, nor really warrented, so please, back off.

From what I can tell anyways, this argument is now moot, no point carrying it on...

Theft is not theft. . I'm not sure about you, but the world I live in is not black and white. If someone takes something of mine, and I don't notice, where's the harm? If you take from the rich to support the poor, where is the harm?

Windows isn't food, obviously. It's a luxury, even in this digital age. But you know what? Microsoft has billions of dollars; they can take the hit. And even if it does drive the price of their software up, oh well. If I can buy Windows for $300, I can buy it for $320. When I decide I need it and am going to spend on it, the extra price imposed by piracy is not even annoying, let alone an actual hindrance.

Guess that means I can go out and steal myself a new car seeing as I can't afford it, it's not all black and white, that these huge car companies have millions, and they'll never notice it from their profits. Or is theft only theft when the police are banging down your front door because of it?

I'm not going to argue this. Think what you will, I'm not going to change your mind. My morality isn't absolute, yours is, leave it at that.

I am with Verithrax in almost everything he has stated here, and I agree that you presume too much of what Verithrax knows and doesn't know of what it means to be poor.

Pirating a program is like making a copy of a painting to hang up in your house: You could of paid the guy that made the painting to paint you one, but why would you if you can do it yourself?

There is an old story.

A man has a barrel of peanuts outside his shop. He charges $0.01 per peanut. There are thousands of peanuts in the barrel. A man passes buy and thinks to himself, wow, those look like some good peanuts, I think I'll take one and taste it. Maybe it will be good, and maybe someday later I will come and buy more peanuts. So he takes a single peanut, eats it and keeps on walking, thinking next week he will come bye and support such good peanuts.

A weak goes bye and the man comes back to the shop only to find it closed. "What happened?" asked the man, "those peanuts were so good." An old beggar on the side of the roads replies to him, "A thousand other people just like yourself thought so as well, and now the store owner doesn't want to sell anymore peanuts."

Could you have found a WORSE anecdote? Peanuts are consumable, you'll need more if you use them. Software isn't. Taking a peanut means one less peanut. Copying software means one more piece of software. Try again.

I dissagree. It doesn't matter if its consumeable or not. The issue is lost profit from the point of view of the store owner. If I spend 10 billion dollars to make a piece of software, and I only sell 1 copy at $350, I'm never going to try to make that software again. Replace Peanuts with Customers, and replace eating with satitsfying. Its the exact same concept. With peanuts you are selling peanuts, with Software you are selling number of computers with that software. There is infinite software, but there are not infinite amounts of people or number of computers on which that software can go.

This is why if I buy Adobe Photoshop student version I can install it on only 3 computers, but if I buy Adobe Photoshop Professional I can install it on 10.

This is also why Microsoft attempted to reduce piracy by having less computers sold with No OS.

Here is a quote from one of my old contacts at Sierra publishing... I had found his number, and called him asking some questions, but since I had given up on this argument I wasn't going to post them, but after thinking about it:

"Half-Life 2 was our last major project in the gaming industry, since then we have decided to dedicate our resources to other forms of software publishing. There were two main reasons for this, one was that Valve's steam managed to cut out the middle man, and two, pirating of our published discs dropped sells to an all time low. For every one disk we sold, it was estimated that twelve others were stolen, and that is the US alone. It is not worth our money to publish games anymore."

Thought you guys might like to hear that. (No I am not going to reveal the source, one, he broke company policy telling me that, and two he asked me not to.)

I dunno I think that's actually counter productive to reduce piracy. It made everyone need Windows but not necessarily want it.