news: was (erroneously) Linux-users digest

[Bill Campbell]

On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 03:36:36AM +0200, Zoki at linuxix.2y.net wrote:
>On May 11 Collins was heard saying:
>
><snip>
>
>->An excellent point.  I'm sure the flames are on the way (proprietary
>
>*** Not from me...
>
>->offering - evil, etc., etc.), but I, for one, see no reason to exclude
>->Apple products from the discussion.  As for as I'm concerned linux is
>->unix is xxxbsd, and all are not Windows.

Agreed.  I've been doing a fair amount with OS X over the last month.  It's
been a while since I worked in a Berserkley environment, and I'm still not
totally comfortable with it, but it's head and shoulders above anything
Microsoft has to offer.  The biggest challenge for me was to find an
adapter so that I could plug a PowerMac G4 into the PS/2 KVM switch on my
desk to share my 20in Nokia monitory, Microsoft natural keyboard, and
3-button Logitech MouseMan.  I despise the Apple keyboards, and one-button
mice aren't fit for cat food.

>*** ... because if it was not for the exagerated hard- & software prices I 
>would be probably owning one...

IHMO the current Apple hardware prices aren't all that much more than
purchasing good quality Intel hardware (not the crap that's pushed over the
counter such as eMachines, and other commodity boxes).  The old style iMacs
are available at some pretty righteous prices.  We just installed five of
them at a clients replacing dumb terminals for $799.00 each retail, less
than we could have done with decent Intel hardware including monitor, and
considerably more economical of desktop space.  They're running XFree86,
xfce window manager, and running X-clients off a couple of Linux boxes and
a rapidly dying SCO OpenServer box.

I picked up the G4 at an auction for $750US including a very nice NEC
monitor, CD-RW, and Zip-100 drive.  Other than the PS-2/USB adapter the
only other thing I needed to buy was a floppy drive since the only way I
could convert last year's Windows TurboTax data was to write it out to
floppy, then import it.  That leaves only a couple of network management
programs I need to run occassionaly that absolutely require that I ever run
the Microsoft virus.

Bill
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