Their marketing department should all be hung by their genetalia. They constantly use underhanded tactics and feed off peoples ignorance, and even worse: They fuel it. They sell an inferior product for outrageous prices, force people to use their product (since no other programs are compatable with theirs), and right now all they have to run off of is momentum.

Other OSs don't really NEED marketing: They have a reputation. Thats all they need. Who gives a damn whether they have comercials or not?

Don't you guys read? :mad:

You are correct in saying that Linus was originally using Minix while developing Linux, but that's where it ends. Minix is a micro-kernel based OS which was created by it's author as a practical teaching tool.

Linux and Minix are poles apart. Apart from the fact that they can both run many GNU utilities, they have very little in common. They are so different, that in the early days Linus and Andrew had some very public arguments about the design and implementation of OS kernels. Tanenbaum still believes that Linux is poorly designed, because it is a monolithic kernel.

As for "look & feel," Linus tries to adhere to POSIX, which is an open standard for Unix-type Operating Systems.

Read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX

And you can read about Minix here:

http://www.minix3.org/

True... at least I have the pleasure of knowing that people who may not know what Linux is have heard of it. I was ranting about Vista the other day and someone asked me what this "Vista thing" was. Also when was the last time that you heard of any particular Windows feature being advertised in a commercial? All they say is Microsoft - Ready for the PeopleReady Business or something similar after showing some guy IM-ing a co-worker... I thought it was a spoof commercial or something the first time I saw it because it made no reference to any product in particular.

The whole "who stole what" operating system argument is dirty and pointless. Everyone's copied something from someone else and trying to pin down who exactly took what and what exactly they took doesn't make any sense.

I also don't understand what is to hate about Microsoft's marketing department. Anyone who makes a decision solely on marketing is stupid. Microsoft didn't make people stupid, they just saw an opportunity and capitalized on it. People are also lazy - too lazy to try anything new or different. Microsoft didn't make people lazy, they just capitalized on this opportunity as well. They're good sales people and there's nothing wrong with that.

Spoken like a true MSFT initiate. Microsoft has spent literally millions trying to kill Linux. Directly with "there are 202 patent violations in Linux (which turned out to be a myth) and if you use it you could get sued. And indirectly by supporting SCO group's claim that Linux contains proprietary UNIX code, by giving them 30 million via Bayview Investing. Because the have a perfect record of creating fallacious remarks about Linux. Drop by http://www.groklaw.net and do a little reading before you claim that MSFT has done nothing illegal.:mad: :tisk:

What's the password test?

Murdock

FewClues, I think your right, but I don't think thats what powerwindows was trying to say.

Hack #75 is about resetting passwords and it uses chntpw to reset or recover passwords.

Probably I missed it. I go into my curmudgeon mode pretty quickly when it comes to the Evil Empire. All the patents they've filed on stuff they didn't work on - like the iPOD! How strange was that - and then the double click - used for a generation before MS was even in business. OOPS! I'm doing it again.

My point is that although all companies pick up concepts from others, they don't pick them up and then threaten to sue the source! I wonder what the total number of lawsuits against MS for "misappropriation" there are. Wow I just can't get on that subject without attacking. Sorry folks! I'll just bow out of the discussion - its obvious I'm biased.

Alot of people here are. If MS really did go through and "steal" code/ideas from others, then I think they would have something, while illegitamite, but something useful. This obviously isn't the case.

MS is just a corp. Nothing more. They want money money money, and Linux/BSD want secutiry, stability, speed, versatility...

The list goes on and on. MS just attempts to scratch by with their cheap little DOS hack they call an operating system, while everyone else is not only going forward, but doing so by leaps and bounds.

I'm waiting for a convention where they have a MS vs. Linux test. That would be interesting to see.

Yea, it wasn't what I was trying to say. I never said they haven't tried to kill Linux, and I never said they haven't done anything illegal.

what were you trying to say?

The Windows market has always been for people who buy a PC, with the OS preinstalled, and they go on the internet, send email, type documents, look at pictures, play music, watch video, and don't really do serious work. People with attention deficit disorder can use windows because it's at least partially entertainment. Windows PC's have tech support, and the people who buy them need this.

I have a friend who uses Windows XP. I was talking to him on the phone trying to get him a yahoo email account. When he got to the page that doesn't say a single thing besides: 'For New Email Account "Click Here"' he said, "What do I do now"? I told him to read the monitor. He still didn't know what to do. He said, "The monitor - Is that the big bright thing?" I said, "Yes! Where it says "CLick Here", click on that. He said, "Do I click right on the actual words: 'Click Here'. "Yes", I said. "Well then why couldn't they make an icon for me to click on", he replied. "The world isn't made of icons, and if you can't read you can't use a computer", I said. He replied, "OK, I'm going to click on the words 'Click Here'. It didn't do anything. Oh wait, there it went. Now what do I do?" "Answer the questions by writing your answers in the little boxes. You can use TAB to move to the next box", I said. He replied, "Isn't there some way I could get a keyboard on the screen so I could use my mouse for everything"? So, I taught him how to use the on screen keyboard. He said, "That's a lot better. Is there any way I can get rid of all these wires coming from everything?" I said, "It is detrimental to performance if you remove the cables connecting everything". He said he didn't care about performance, he just wanted the wires gone. I told him to go get a wire cutter, chop all the cables off, and thrown them away. He said, "Wow, that looks a lot better, but the big bright thing is blank now". "I think it's better that way", I replied.

Thats a good reason to use Linux - You CAN make it pure point-and-click (Ubuntu anyone?).

Funny story, though.

classic Windows user!
 

Funny! And clear evidence the guy was a Windows user! But Linux folks can be as funny. I teach beginning programming and before the start of session 3 one of my students came up and asked if there was a way she could still use her computer but keep the rest of her family from using it? I should have known the first session she was wearing an "I'm with stupid" T-Shirt.