Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] good free virus protection for Win XP?

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:19:17 -0800, Vern Green <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
>
> Sure so you strip off all the fancy stuff and you are left with BSD.

You say that as if it were an insult.  Now, frankly, I understand that
tastes cannot be argued, but the fact that most Unix users can
transfer nearly 100% of what they know and love to Mac OS X is
generally considered a good thing.

Moreover, some of the "fancy stuff" is not just fancy, but also
outstanding, as in: the best I've seen offered.  So Preview, the PDF
viewer, is, as far as I can tell, the very best PDF viewer I have ever
seen for normal documents (which implies that it is better than
Acrobat, and that's true in my opinion).  iPhoto and iTunes are also
very strong apps, and free with the package.  With OS X Panther and
beyond, you not only get an XServer, but one that works seemlessly
with OS X.  Safari is a very good browser, although I'm having a crush
on Firefox at the moment so I won't even argue that Safari is the best
browser out there.

But, yeah, you can strip off everything and be looking at BSD if you like.
 
> So let me get that straight. I pay more for the equipment than I would
> for a PC, strip off the lame OS so I can use BSD on it?

Obviously, if you don't like Mac OS X, you wouldn't find a Mac
appealing.  Calling Mac OS "lame" strikes me as a bit uninformed,
though.  Maybe you last saw the system in the pre-10.1 days when it
was more promise than achievement?  I'm not sure.

In any case, I also think it would be very hard for many people who
want a noebook to do better than a new iBook, which retails for $999
with wireless built-in (less than that with an edu deal).  I see some
cheaper notebooks out there, but most of them do cut corners in pretty
obvious places.  Resale on the iBook would also be *way* higher (yes,
irrationally higher than it should be in my opinion; most used Macs
these days aren't outstanding buys).

> Seems to me I
> could pay less money on the equipment by buying an Intel type machine
> and install free BSD on it and be ahead of the game.

In my experience, this is probably true only if your time means
nothing, or if you've got a specific custom desktop you're spec-ing. 
Personally, I'm all done with the thrill of spending hours to get
sound to work right on my box, but since it was fun once upon a time,
I won't begrudge you your fun.

jking
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