Why do so many forum users use M$?????????
 

I have been totally facinated over the last few months by this fact. I run an Internet server and have often referenced an article on setting up an Internet server on an ADSL connection. The vast majority of referrals that come from these threads (about 80%) are using some form of M$ os and IE. I have however noted recently that the increased use of Firefox has been staggering.
Anyone else with the same observations or perhaps the admins at LQ could give some stats as well.

Unfortunetly here at work, I have to use Windows/IE because I installed Firefox on a shared PC that was giving me pop ups. The next day, a person ratted me out and blamed firefox for allowing the massive amount of spyware on that computer. While I had to laugh at the idiot who said this, a little memo when out telling us not to install any un-authorized software.

This is more suitable in General.

We use it because we have to. At work, I am a Windows admin, my partner prefers Windows and for the rest of us I'd guess that there is one app that is needed but doesn't run under *nix/Wine or have a port,

I work at a hotel... my job consists of sitting around and staring at the wall (for the most part). I spend the largest chunk of my time on this forum when at work -- it occupies my mind and often provides some interesting reading material.

I often bring my laptop with me (FreeBSD) but when I am at the front desk I need to use the computers they provide. Windows computers with IE (although I fought and won for the right to have FireFox after they kept removing it... my boss isn't pig-headed and realized it was not stolen software and not going to cause a problem).

With all that said, I have never been to your site and play no role in the statistics you have seen. If the article is about setting up an internet connection (like I think you said it was) then it only seems reasonable that most people would connect with a computer that had a working network connection (Windows for most people who are transitioning).

RE:
 

some of us use it just because and Im sure if you asked every user on this forum it will always boil down to one or two or more applications that they run under MS. Its not that we love Windows its that we love ummmmm: Rome Total War, Adobe Photoshop, Neverwinter Nights, Dreamweaver, Ages of Empires II, Half Life II... I could keep going on and on.

Mmmmm turning out more interesting than I ever imagined. Personally I have a '98 partition that I haven't been into for many months and use for games only. Linux for me is a working system.

I'm often using my brothers windows computer to play games like HL 2, counter-strike: source, splinter cell, AoE II. So everynow and then I drop by and post here while waiting for a round to end if I get killed early, or while im waiting for a player to join the AoE II game im hosting on the Zone.

I am depressed to say I still haven't finished Half-Life 2. I removed my dual-boot and I've got it installed under Cedega I just never feel the urge to play... I guess linux just won me over :p

Dont feel bad, I haven't finished it either. :p

TigerOC

You do realize that operating systems are tools, and are not GOD, right? Don't make a religion of Linux. :D

Linux may have matured over the last few years but there are still reasons to keep Windows or MacOS/OSX around:

* Visio
* MS Office (because OOo has serious performance issues in some areas)
* Hardware/Driver support (just TRY to get an ATI AiW card to work 100% under *nix - I dare ya!)
* Business decisions out of your control (e.g., "Linux is different so we're sticking with Windows")
* You develop applications which you'd like to actually sell (hint: with better than 90% market penetration, Windows is the ideal market to sell to end users)
* Photoshop (yes, it runs under wine - kind of, color profiles won't work properly)
* Illustrator (yes, it runs under wine - kind of, but color profiles won't work properly)
* InDesign (yes, it runs under wine - but don't try printing, the color profiles won't work properly)
* PDF generation (Acrobat is still king. Native Linux programs don't deal with layers and alpha blending properly. Adobe programs are the only ones which generate correct PDFs for complicated layouts)
*Gaming (you can run some games under Cedega, with a performance penalty)
* 3D accelerated extended desktop (nvidia's TwinView technology is the exception rather than the rule under Linux - sadly. X.Org badly needs 3D acceleration in Xinerama, especially with multiple cards, and especially with the VESA driver)

Also, this issue has been rehashed THOUSANDS of times in HUNDREDS of media on the intarweb since 1995 or so, and they invariably turn into flame fests because there are those who worship Linus Torvalds, think he's the second coming of Jesus Christ, and think Bill Gates is the antichrist, and in their blind worship they forget that the goal of forums like this is to improve Linux, help other users, and even more importantly, help fellow users pick the right tool for the job. Just as a given hammer is not the ideal tool for every type of fastener, Linux is not the best tool for every single computer problem)

Edit:
Why I still run Windows (booted to Windows twice this year as of yesterday):

1. To sync my Motorola V400 telephone (yes I should have sprung for the V600 -- I wanted it -- but Cingular didn't offer the V400 as of November 2004, and I hate Nokia's and Samsung's current offerings)
2. to sync my PocketPC (for the life of me, I CANNOT get the KDE sync apps to talk to my PPC, even though the kernel enumerates the PPC properly)
3. We design DVRs and I have yet to find a good, solid multichannel DVR card for Linux. I've evaluated many, and the driver quality, well, in a word: sucks.
4. web design: test web apps under MSIE (I generally use another box for that) because MSIE under wine is not a proper test to validate a web application and guarantee 100% compatibility
5. Graphic design: because Adobe apps kinda-sorta work under wine, but are not 90% there, let alone 100%. NEED color matching, NEED proper PDF support, and it'd be darn nice if dropmenus in the palettes worked properly under wine

Because I like them. I find their software useful and does what I need it to do without any hassle. I find Windows XP much better for my laptop then Linux. Linux loses an hour of the battery life and refuses to display any info for my battery. I like linux too. i find it enjoyabkle and a pleasant experience to use. But I enjoy both. and like the previous poster said. They are tools not gods. And I never restrict myself to one OS afterall if I had done that I would have never bothered to try linux.

I have to use MS at work, and given that I spend 8 hours a day at work on the computer, I suspect most of my hits are MS ones.

However, thanks to a USB disk drive and the Portable Firefox project, I'm delighted to say I'm no longer one of the IE hits :)

Well I'm not going to get into a debate about whether I "worship" Linux as I think this is ridiculous angle to come from in the first place. You see this is a Linux forum and one would expect the majority of people using the forum to use Linux as their base system. I would hardly expect to go to M$ forum and find the majority of users using Linux. The comments so far indicate that people either visit the forums during work hours and therefore use M$ products because they don't have a choice or they choose not to because it doesn't suit their needs. Either way that is fine as I don't have a problem with anyone's free choice. I am merely trying to establish the reason for something that is unexpected.

Also, a great deal of people don't use liinux as a desktop operating system, they use it as a server, and control it through putty/X.

My hits will be from Windows because I use Outlook 2003 to interface with our Exchange server :-) So, when I click links, IE runs. I don't do much surfing, so the risk is minimal (plus I don't like firefox).

OS X is my desktop of choice, but haven't been able to get any Exchange clients to work right. I use Safari as my browser there.

Linux and NetBSD boxen are currently only used as servers, but I have had both as desktops before. Konqueror is my preferred browser on them.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!! That's like blaming a firefighter hosing down a blaze for the fire in the first place!

Maybe they need to access your info from Windows because they are trying to get their linux connection working. ;)

Bah!

Networking in Linux is simple now. It wasn't so easy ten years ago.

I don't know... Slack was a bit hard to get on the net with, but it was dead easy with RH4.2 :)