[talk] Ask Slashdot: Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop?

[Scott Robbins]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 11:34:37PM -0500, Brian Cully wrote:


> 
> 	Hence “bifurcated.” Unix is very good at server/cli stuff. It basically requires being used that way. Linux (even Ubuntu) sucks on the desktop because it can’t cope with what most people want out of end-user machines. OS X is the most popular Unix out there /because/ most people get confused when a terminal pops up.

No argument there.  I don't think that even Ubuntu, or PCBSD on the BSD
side, is ready for someone who just wants to get a computer and have it
work.  Where I would give an argument is that it's not that difficult for
someone with knowledge to set it up for them, but I suspect I agree with
you more than I disagree.   :)

> 
> 	As for the cost of a mac to watch Netflix, you can get used laptops on eBay from a few years ago for a few hundred bucks, or less if you’re willing to go further back, and they can do what you want at least as well as a Chromebook.
> 


A chromebook might have even worked for that person's needs--hotmail,
skype, watching videos, some documents and possibly spreadsheets, in
English and Japanese.  However, for F-1 visa students, only allowed to
work 20 hours a week, which usually means something like waitressing, and
paying for classes, living on an allowance sent by their parents, a few
hundred is a lot of money.  Heh--these days, even for those of us working,
all it takes is one root canal and suddenly, a few hundred can seem like a
lot.

Hrrm--I wonder if they should also count as Unix like systems....

(Doing a very quick google indicates that the Playstation 4's OS is
considered Unixlike--shows you how old I am, gaming was well after my
time.) 

Dodderingly yours,


-- 
Scott Robbins
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