From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 28 14:25:33 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freebie.atkielski.com (ASt-Lambert-101-2-1-14.abo.wanadoo.fr [193.251.59.14]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6E0237B416 for ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 14:25:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from contactdish (win.atkielski.com [10.0.0.10]) by freebie.atkielski.com (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id fASMPJx00304; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 23:25:19 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from anthony@freebie.atkielski.com) Message-ID: <011501c1785b$911c42b0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> From: "Anthony Atkielski" To: "doug" , References: Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 23:25:12 +0100 Organization: Anthony's Home Page (development site) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Assuming one already uses FreeBSD (why else > subscribe to this list ;) there are advantages > to using it as a desktop. Obviously. My point was that, if you are choosing an OS for primarily desktop use, the best choice is Microsoft Windows. If you already have one machine and it is running FreeBSD for other purposes, it may be more economical to use it for desktop use as well, rather than buy a different machine and run Windows on it (and dropping FreeBSD to switch to Windows is very unlikely to be justifiable, unless you are making a major change in your computer use with almost total emphasis on the desktop). I really don't understand this preoccupation with desktops. Doesn't anyone run FreeBSD as a server, or is that simply not considered cool enough to please anyone anymore? > Since I am of the opinion that Windows will > eventually become as much of a closed software > environment as the Mac is for hardware ... The OS itself is already completely closed, since it is proprietary. The same is true for the Mac. However, Windows has always been more open to third-party software products, and I don't expect that to change, as it only benefits Microsoft (owner of the Windows OS). That is something that Apple just could never understand, it seems. > For the health of Open Source OSs in general > I would point out that there are (tens of??) > thousands more desktops than servers in the > world. If there is going to be an OS war it > will be won or lost there (IMO). I doubt that. A single mainframe is worth ten thousand desktops. We still have MVS with us. UNIX is the closest thing we have to an open-source mainframe OS. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message