Speaking of numbers, I work in bioinformatics (Dana Farber Cancer Institute) and most of us are using linux. Macs are very popular because they can be easily used for taking notes in a conference or visualizing experimental data for example. But when it comes to real work, data mining, tool development and so on, linux/unix are by far the winners. Windows just doesn't fit in here. MAC has also made big improvements with their OS getting closer to our needs. We bought 40 Dell blades recently and we're planning to have them loaded with a Fedora Core 4 image. Also most of our workstations are running Core 3 and just a few java developers have still prefered to stick with XP. While I'm by far one who can call himself an expert, I do have some experience in this field. And that means I know just a few good ways of getting things done and hundreds of wrong ways that leads to failure. Windows is among those hundreds wrong ways. for a growing linux community, Val >Message: 15 >Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 03:16:30 +0800 >From: "?? Wei-Yee Chan (Made in Chinar)" ><survivor@xxxxxxxxxxx> >Subject: Re: system-config-users 1.2.39 broken? >To: Craig White <craigwhite@xxxxxxxxxxx> >Cc: For users of Fedora Core releases ><fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx> > > >I don't mean to be rude, but if your speaking in your >personal >capacity, >then all is fine, but if your speaking on behalf of >the Linux >community, >then I'd have to refute your claims. > >Having numbers on our side helps plenty, really. >Microsoft is one good >example. > >Craig White wrote: > >> ---- >> >>The problems with your assumptions are: >> >>Linux isn't interested in obtaining wholesale >switchovers from Windows >>to Linux OS's. That's a common misconception that >many Windows users >>make. Linux is it's own operating system without a >commercial bent and >>thus no need to keep selling the same thing over and >over again to the >>same people. >> >>There are some distributions that are interested in >selling their >>packaging against the Windows packaging and this list >doesn't have >>anything to do with that - fedora is a free >distribution. >> >>For some things, GUI is a more efficient way of doing >them. For other >>things, you can't beat the power of the command line. >The problem of >>course is the knowledge of when and how and between >Macintosh and >>Windows, there's a lot of computer users that have >little interest, >>little reason to garner up the knowledge of things to >get up and >running >>and thus rely on setup wizards. Most of the Linux >distributions aren't >>quite up to the level of Windows wizards. For other >users, i.e. the >ones >>that aren't afraid to learn some of the inner >workings of a computer, >>once they get over their fear of something different, >like Linux, a >>majority of them will appreciate the education they >get, finally >>figuring out how things are supposed to work and the >ability to fix >>things without 'reboot' or 'dump and reload' >philosophy which is so >>prevalent with Windows usage because of the various >inaccessible >>internals. >> >>Craig >> >> >> __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
