Before I get to my trick question, I want to say a couple of things.
From wikipedia, a definition which is very good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
quote
An Operating System (OS) is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the details of the operation of the hardware. This relieves application programs from having to manage these details and makes it easier to write applications.
end quote
I’ve been away from TR for a few weeks, mostly to do with research etc for a fiction book I’m writing. I return to find a flurry of articles and posts all in favour of Win 7 and they mostly say “look how great this thing in Win 7 is.” Now that’s OK, except just about everything being mentioned does NOT come under the heading above, in fact the majority of them are applications that have been built into Win 7 by MS, and thus cutting into the profits of the third party companies that write and sell better versions of those applications, while bloating out the operating system footprint and affecting its performance capabilities. Wasn’t the inclusion of certain applications as part of the operating system install what lead to huge fines against MS in the past, because it affected other people’s profits unfairly? Oh, well, let’s move on.
Now, because all these applications come on the same DVD as the operating system they are being regarded as a useful and important part of the operating system itself, and touted as such.
The big question is – –
Since MS can put applications on the install DVD and say how great the OS is, can I tell people how great my SimplyMepis Linux is because the install DVD I bought for about $30.00 comes with such useful features / capabilities as a full office suite, CD/DVD burning, extensive graphic manipulation, music playing and ripping and editing, video playing and ripping and editing, PDF viewer and creator, text to speech and speech to text, file and hard drive back up process, file archiving and opening (like winzip), web browser, mail client, IM client, firewall, file management, address book, news reader, system monitoring, anti-virus, web page design and creation, fancy 3D desktop display features, drivers for ALL my hardware, and a swag more that I can’t remember?
………….
OK, I admit it, I got p’d off by all the posts saying how great the OS was simply because MS had stuffed another application inside it – so I’m saying what you get with Linux – for all those who don’t really know – as a way of balancing it out.
I’d rather see a post that says something great about the operating system itself, like ‘How it works well on older hardware’ – yeah never happen, I know; or, how compatible it is with third party software written for earlier versions of Windows, whoops, another never happen. Sheet, what can they say? Oh play up the fancy pretties most people don’t care about, which is what they’re doing. Hmm, sad really, isn’t it?
Oh, I feel so much better to get rid of all that angst.
