Uhm, no it doesn't. Office 2008 for Mac sucks. Secondly, it's Mac, not MAC. MAC is entirely different than Mac, u know? Thirdly, OS X is not "UNIX type", it's pure UNIX with full POSIX & UNIX standard complience on Intel hardware.

While the Mac is based on BSD, there are many unique features to it namely the Darwin GUI that are found no where else. Also, you can run Linux and other types of UNIX on a Mac. The spelling mistake is mine. I know of 2 people who had a lot of trouble with Office on XP. When they switched to the Mac, the problems vanished. Emails stopped disappearing and they had no lockups anymore. I believe that they were using earlier versions of Office for the Mac, specifically 2004. Obviously, one never uses any M$ product for either a year or the roll out of service pack 1.

You have it all wrong:
1) There isn't anything called "Darwin GUI", Darwin is the damn kernel of OS X and Aqua is the OS X GUI. You can run KDE as a "Darwin GUI" if you feel like it.
2) Linux is nowhere near UNIX, it's hardly even POSIX compatible. OS X on the other hand is 100% POSIX & 100% UNIX.

I "know" loads of people who had their Entourage databases messed up bad in Office 2004. I was their tech support. From experience I know that 2008 is painfully slow and isn't well integrated to Aqua.


You don't happen to be V!NCENT in disguise, are you?

Some XP's run on for ages without a problem on office or anything else, I find problem for business use is the OS/app deciding what the user wants without opportunity to easily configure, eg folder views, network. Good software can be expensive, "free" software risky. Package management is hit & miss with new packages doing odd things to existing packages, you need to be a guru to fix these problems, the system can get slow & bloated. But I will say most XP's I've used were OK.

Linux systems have a few irritating & very minor disadvantages, I would like to be able to rightclick & open a new doc in a folder, I want to batch rotate my photos so they stay rotated. Sure someone will tell me I've missed something, that'd be welcome. Major issue is imho a deliberate spoiling technique by __ ie some web services can't be reached without activeX. I've ranted elsewhere on that one. Big big advantage is package management & opensource repositories, the home or business user can do almost anything without a software budget. And LQ! Yes there are loads of forums but the reliability & quality of help here and positive attitude to newbies brings the system within reach of non CS graduates.

And the tech support?
"It's probably already addressed with the update, it's been woked on, or You really wouldn't want to know..."
by the ones
And if You couldn't fix it Yourself already: "It's impossible to do it"
but on Linux, I still have to find that thing i can't do
I even run Windows _on_ Linux (Virtual machines) or even (!) vice versa must it be.

Mnaax, Linux rules AFAIK!

As a relatively experienced Windows user, (My toils started with '95. From there, I moved up to Me, 3 XP boxes, and a (new) Vista.), I've found that Microsoft is seriously lacking in letting me do what I want to my own machine. Error messages like, "Access restricted," "Moving file could cause system instability," etc. It's starting to remind me of 2001:A Space Odyssey, where Dave says, "Open the pod-bay-doors," and "Hal says, "I can't do that Dave." Well, Microsoft is becoming more and more like Hal. What I want is to own my own machine, got it? If I wanna delete a file, no matter how important to system function, I'll delete it. And you should've seen the trouble I went through trying to get Semantec, Norton, and all derivations off MY Machine, I still can't get LiveReg to uninstall... LiveReg won't uninstall while Norton Firewall is installed and vice versa.

And about these virus-protection programs... I've had a year trial of McAfee, a three year subscription of Norton, and a year of Trend Micro-PC whatever, and none of the three have ever found a single harmful virus, malware, spyware, trojan, or anything else they scan for. Spybot used to find spyware popping up around, like DoubleClick, but that has ceased since I disabled IE. I did a complete format and reinstall of XP, and it works as good as it did out of the box. Which isn't saying much. But then I had to go through the arduous task of removing Norton, and 6 month free AOL, and all that other garbage I didn't want to install.

I've debated going back to Win95 SP2, just so I can do what I want with the programs. Linux, (Specifically Ubuntu) is a godsend. Not only does it do what I ask, it does what I want, before I ask. [I tried to burn Ubuntu onto a CD using Windows. It burned the iso onto the CD just fine, AS AN .ISO IMAGE! Wasted a perfectly good CD-R. Now I have a fancy drink coaster]

I'm just about ready to HD wipe my new box, and permanently install Linux. I did, however, revert the "Theme" to windows classic view, and reverted the folder view to windows classic, along with all the other little settings that have the wrong thing as default. And good GOD, do not try to right-click a CD with Audio, Video, or Pictures on it. It locks up and crashes Windows explorer, ironically leaving Firefox safe and sound.

(I've also been a Firefox user since Netscape Navigator 2. Take THAT Bill Gates.)

I don't see why I have to feed him money to get something that takes no effort to reproduce. It takes them five years to make an Operating even worse (A feat worthy of five years research), and they want to charge the price of a brand new computer for it.

--------------------------------------------

I haven't used a Mac since Elementary school. I haven't got the money. Not that I much liked it then either. But really, what can a Mac do that Linux cannot?

I'm very much like you in this respect...99% of the time when I delete a system file, shhh...*it was on purpose so I could see what would happen, and no, I'm not scared of reinstalling!*

You never learn to ride a bike properly when you've got training wheels tagging along everywhere you go, right?

Sure, my machine is a consistent reinstall-fest (especially since I moved from Linux to *BSD*...eek), but meh...you get what you ask for. And I just want to *learn* and not be restricted by my "Operating System".

Thanks for pointing out your frustrations...and welcome to LQ.org!

Edit - WARNING: IF YOU ARE NEW TO LINUX DO **NOT** RUN THIS COMMAND! THIS IS TO MAKE A POINT!
Proof that *nix power is truly in the hands of the administrator:
# nohup rm -rf / >/dev/null 2>&1 &
will happily remove every file on your disk...and it won't ask "Are you sure you want to continue?"!

Ditto, I have a "Main" computer, in which I keep ALL of my critical files, backed up to USB, and then I have several progressively older computers to play with. Unfortunately, it won't let me play with them. Humbug.

I believe that most viruses and information leaks are due to to the stupidity of users, rather than the genius of hackers. If someone offers you a free Xbox, if you merely input your credit card number; date of birth, adress; first, last, and middle initial; and mother's maiden name, then you have no one to blame but yourself when someone charges a plasma TV to your account...

Remember folks! Genius has limits, stupidity is not thus handicapped...

I have many, many, many more frustrations. Most are still percolating.

One thing that I hate about Vista, moreso than XP, is that whenever I open a program, or go to change settings, Vista asks me if I'm really the one that opened the program, and to click "Proceed" to continue. Nope, weren't me. Musta been a couple o' them there aliens moved my mouse with their mind control... Though, I don't know why they would want to change my screen saver...

---------------------------

On the plus side, thanks for welcoming me. I look forward to a great Linux experience. Plus, if you're special, you can create a Bootable USB Flash Drive, and boot Linux at school, and then you can get on YouTube! And Myspace! Or you can sell them for profit...

What, in your opinion, is the most straight forward (idiot proof) distro to put on an external bootable hard drive or a thumb drive?

... now if I only had a spare drive.... $$$

You want to know?
1) A high quality Video Editor. None of the Linux Video Editor is currently ease-to use for beginners. All of them were not on to par. We do not have the freedom to name our image files (Some of them even if can import images, it must be in 001 to 099 sequences.) and most of them can only import videos from DV Camcorder. (I want to import musics and image to make video)

2)Secure delete file Graphically. (Mac do gives option to delete files securely in 1 , 3 , 7 or 35 passes if deleting a partition in disk utility.) Linux only offers 3 passes if I am not wrong in Ext3 file system

www.slax.org.
a 256 MB one will do the thing ;-)

If you aren't too terrified of the command line, if you read man shred it has the default number of passes set at 25

Actually, FWIW, srm (secure_remove) will -by default - over-write the file 38 times: 1 pass with 0xFF; 5 random passes; 27 passes with Gutman values ; 5 random passes. Then it renames the file to a random value, and then truncates it.

Easy as pie to use: srm -v <file-to-be-removed> and chugs away quietly in the background until it's finished. It can also be used recursively. All in all, a great little tool for the more paranoid puppies among us.

I have been a confirmed GNU/Linux user since circa 2002 (Slackware 8.0 was my first desktop distro that I used as a desktop; before that I had experimented with RH7.2 and again RH8, but went back to Slackware until 10.1 and switched to Debian). I would eschew anything to do with MS Windows and whenever I bought a new machine would relish great pleasure in wiping the HDD clean

However, due to a degree programme I am studying, I have found I am in need of a lot of simulation and modelling software for ecology and environmental studies. Most of the software isn't available for GNU/Linux. I was successful in installing a couple of programmes (True Basic and Extend) under WINE, but other programmes will only run on Windows.

So I found a good deal on eBay, bought a Dell laptop with Win XP installed and ready-to-go. I use XP at work everyday, so I was familiar with it from a use perpsective, but not from an owner/administrator perspective. I do hate how on a Windows machine you have to confirm that you want to do something several times before it gets done (e.g. delete - are you sure you want to delete - yes - deleted albeit not permanently, it is still in the trash can which will take another two confirmations before it is ditched from there), and I'm pleased to report that I have only had a few hangs. Now I know that I have been spoilt by Debian's inimitable apt-get system for installation, but I would sometimes struggle installing on Slackware: dependency hell was never too far away, and then once something was installed, one would have to search it out to use it. At least with Windows, most things seem to install okay, and that is due to its homogenic structure and APIs, which is also what makes Windows vulnerable in part. However, if something does croak during a Windows install, then it is a hellova job trying to fix it. The error messages are useless, the location of configuration files arcane and inevitably not geared for the user to tweak if s/he can finally track them down, and one almost always encounters the limitations of making a Windows machine one's own because the framework is preselected by a coder somewhere in Redmond, Washington, regardless of what someone in another part of the world might want.

All told, this has been an interesting experience going back to using Windows XP, and I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't for all those applications I need to work with that don't have a GNU/Linux compatable version. But, it also always feels so much better to come to my desktop and the friendly world of GNOME or Xfce (suddenly a choice of configuration, etc.) and my Debian Lenny machine, so that when it is time to use those programmes that do compile under WINE, my preference is to do so on the Debian desktop rather than the Windows XP laptop, and that is more than just the difference between laptop and desktop!!

I think shred cant be used with journaling filesystems; its great for shredding entire drives though
Anyway, IIRC, KDE has a graphicalfile shredder already...