BSD Question's.

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Andy Sjostrom
>Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 12:11 AM
>To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: BSD Question's.
>
>
>To whom this may concern,
>H-E-L-P!
>

[diatribe against Windows deleted]

> I have decided to start the search for a new OS.
>In my case the new OS must be completely 100 percent user friendly.

Impossible.

> Is there any thing you can do to help me. Such as point me in
>the right direction.
>

Yes, stay with Windows.

Andy, here is the fundamental issue about operating system software.

In a nutshell, the OS exists for 3 main tasks:

1) To provide a library of functions that an application developer can
use to avoid having to reinvent the wheel when he is writing his
applications.

2) To interface between raw computer hardware and the application
programs,
so that the application developer does not need to know how to program
the
100+ soundcards out there for example.

3) To facilitate basic non-application tasks for the computer user, such
as organizing files, connecting to the Internet, etc.

Both the free OS's and the commercial OS's do item #1 well.

But item's #2 and #3 are where the commercial operating systems like
Windows are really advanced.  Now, a user can get around #2 easily by
simply
swapping the hardware out, if the free OS of his choice does not play
well
with the hardware he has.  But, # 3 is a big problem under any kind of
UNIX because of a simple fact:  UNIX allows you to solve a problem
multiple
different ways.  It gives you a choice in how you want to solve a
problem.
Windows does not.

Now, consider the process of buying a car.  You go into Toyota and they
have 3 kinds of cars.  Cheap, medium, expensive.  You just choose the
one that fits your budget and drive away.  You don't have to know
anything
about a car to do this.  By contrast you go into a Chevy dealer and buy
a car.  You are given a list of 50 options that you can choose the
car to have.  The cost of the car is determined by what options you
order.
Well, now guess what, you actually have to know something about cars to
buy one of those Chevys.  It makes the process of buying a car a lot
harder.
Sure, you can get a Chevy tailored to exactly what you want - but you
have to understand how to use the options you order, before you know if
you want them or not.

The Windows world is like a Toyota.  You do things the way that
Bill Gates has decided you need to do them.  This makes it very easy
to learn to use Windows because there is only 1 way to do something.
Thus it is very user friendly, because anybody can just jump on and
start using it.

The Free OS world is like the Chevy.  You really have to know a lot
to get the value out of it.  Once you do know a lot then you get a
great deal of value from it, and you will not need the software
to be "user friendly"  But, getting to that point means a lot of work
with what seems like little return.

Windows has a low learning curve.   It is easy to get to learn how to
use it, but once you have learned the easy stuff and need to do more
sophisticated stuff, you have to spend considerable time learning the
intracies of an application. (like a spreadsheet)  And none of that
considerable knowledge is usable with any other application because
all the apps do the sophisticated stuff differently.

UNIX has a high learning curve.  It is hard to learn how to use it, but
once
you have learned how to do the easy stuff in UNIX then you have to
spend less and less time learning how to do the sophisticated stuff,
because everything builds on each other, and all the apps take a
similar approach in their intracies.

Anyway, getting back to your situation.  The stuff you have listed that
you need to do with the computer is not sophisticated.  So what will
happen to you is you will start on that UNIX learning curve, get about
20% along, and realize that it would be easier to learn how to get
Windows
XP to work properly then do what you want to do, than to finish the UNIX
learning curve.

Consider that in your diatribe not once have you listed a problem with
an APPLICATION.  All your problems are with Windows.  Yet, when you
listed
all the stuff you use the computer for, nothing in that list was
"operating system stuff"  If I could drop a version of Windows on your
desk that ran perfectly, you would probably put all your apps on it
like a shot and never look at a Free OS again.  And to be perfectly
honest
about it, I -COULD- do such a thing, and so could a lot of other people.
And, so could you if you spent the time learning how to run your Windows
properly, from someone who knows, rather than just clicking away at
things.

Another way of saying this is your not running TO a system like FreeBSD,
your running AWAY from a system like Windows.  Nothing in the Free OS
market is attracting you other than the possible thought you might not
have as many problems with it, a thought which just shows you don't
know anything about Free OS's.

Anyway, that's the long and short of it.  Now, I will finish up by saying
that just about ALL of the real bleeding-edge stuff in computing today
is happening in the Open Source world.  Gaming, and heavy graphics
work are exceptions, but with just about everything else, the normal
progression is for the idea to happen in the Open Source
world first, then migrate to Windows.  And there's lots of stuff - like
e-mail processing - that is so far ahead on the open source stuff that
Windows isn't even trying to catch up.  So it's not like spending the
time learning the Free OS's would have no rewards.  But, I just think
that
you wouldn't be interested enough in those rewards to spend the year or
two needed to get over that learning curve.

Ted