If you feel like you are flamed for posting a contrary opinion, it is only because the fire begins with and is fanned by you. Your posting style is to be confrontational and spammy. I say this not for the purpose of being confrontational myself, but merely to bring this to your attention.pad-thai wrote:you just can't post a contrary opinion without getting flamed for it.
Spammy? Yes: it is not necessary to post separately for each little statement or zinger you wish to shoot off, when one post would suffice, unless you're just trying to stack your post-count.
Mint is a linux distro tailored for the desktop. Windows is also tailored for the desktop. They are both designed to be used by similar people for similar purposes, but built from radically different baseline standards. I fail to see how that makes Mint a Windows clone. Is it that they both have a GUI? I believe that X predates Windows, so perhaps that means both are trying to be Unix clones.pad-thai wrote:I disagree. Mint is about a half inch from being a windows clone now.
The underlying OS of Mint is gnu/linux, which can be tailored for a variety of applications and uses depending on what other tools and applications are layered on it. Mint layers applications and tools most suitable for desktop use. Which is not to say that the underlying OS cannot be used for server purposes, because it can, or that Mint with all of its desktop baggage could not be loaded with server apps, but that the designed/intended/optimal use of Mint is on the desktop not the server.
Two cars in a family's driveway have the the exact same engine in them: a Suburban and a Camaro. Which would they use to tow a horse trailer? Which would you guess is the vehicle that they load their children in to go to church? Which one does the teenage son want to drive on Saturday night to impress a date?
Its like that with Linux. You might have two different distros, both with the exact same kernel (the engine). One might be built out as a lean mean desktop distro suitable for ancient legacy hardware, another might be built out as a solid multi-function web server, another intended for desktop use and a big fat iso loaded with lots of applications, and still another be built as a lean fileserver with a custom web-based admin interface. They're all gnu/linux; they're all Linux.
To be perfectly honest, these people have been lied to. Linux is definitely NOT a free version of Windows. It is a free version of Linux.That's because they've been told, over and over, by members of the Linux community, that Linux IS a free version of Windows.
Linux is as much a free version of Windows as HAM radio is "free long distance".
I'm not so much talking about learning to "maintain" as simply learning to change your own oil or swap a spare tire.pad-thai wrote:NO. We're not talking about DRIVING it. We're talking about MAINTAINING it. Progress is about learning to drive it, but relying on someone else to maintain it.
The reality is that there is a huge infrastructure built around people with zero technical skill and zero interest in learning paying huge fees so that someone with next-to-zero technical skill can perform decidedly UN-technical maintenance on home computers that run Windows. So if you run Windows, have no technical skill, have no interest in learning, you can easily pay someone to do your maintenance for you.
But there is NO such readily-accessable commercial infrastructure, no GeekSquad, for Linux. There are "paid support channels", but thats not the same. If "progress" means that Joe Sixpack can bring "mom's 'puter" in to Best Buy and have someone "fix" the Gentoo install then I agree that would indeed be progress.