RE: OT: What OS

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

Mark,

Sorry - have to disagree with the "similar cost" thing:

- I don't know where you're buying your Linux distros from, but "at
similar=
cost" to Windows suggests either you're paying significantly over the
odds=
for Linux, or they're selling pirate copies of Windows at way cheaper than=
a legal copy.

- If you are, say, a school, you probably have multiple PCs. With Linux,
yo=
u'd only need to purchase _1_ copy of the O/S for all your machines. With
W=
indows, you'd need to buy a separate licence per machine.

- Alternatively, borrow a CD from a friend and install. Perfectly
reasonabl=
e with Linux, perfectly illegal with Windows. My Linux installations in
the=
past have _all_ been from borrowed media.

As an aside, I've seen copies of Windows "with licence" at
computer fairs f=
or =A310 a pop. On close inspection these have always been OEM copies. As
s=
uch, the licence is non-transferable, and it is not legal to buy them and
r=
un them on your machine. If you are under the impression that purchasing
on=
e of these makes your Windows installation legal, please be aware that it
d=
oesn't, and you are, in the eyes of the law, running pirated software.

Regards,

Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Hetherington [mailto:mark.egroups@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 5 May 2002 01:18
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] OT: What OS


All the mentions of Linux and free/low cost etc reminds me that while Linux
is free to download, since one needs an OS to connect a computer to the
Internet to get hold of said "free" operating system plus
availability of a
CD Writer and an OS to run writer software, it suddenly has an intrinsic
cost. The alternative is to purchase a distro from a retailer at a similar
cost to the more popular and easier to administer MS OS offerings.

Cygwin is now getting quite advanced so it would be relatively simple for
someone to install an MS OS, add Cygwin and be able to see both operating
systems from an interface point of view while avoiding the intricacies of
Linux management.

I am now running KDE under Cygwin. Yeah it is pretty slow on my machine
whe=
n
compared to a native Linux implementation, but given the spec of PCs today
(mine is old and slow) given a high enough spec PC, it would likely not be
that different on a high spec system.

Referring back to an SQL discussion a short time ago, the postgresql
packag=
e
I mentioned runs well under Cygwin allowing Windows users to use a package
that is not acutally targetted to that OS. The way things are going, it
wil=
l
not be too long until I can retire my Linux machine for good while keeping
the best of both worlds.

Mark.



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