Viewing Thread:
"How much do you know about computers?"

Here's a little questionnaire. It's all a bit of fun.

INSTRUCTIONS: Copy the questions, click reply and paste into the post box. But the number of your answer underneath the question as a new paragraph. Please don't click "Reply quoting message".

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Q1. What is the best operating system available?
1. Microsoft Windows.
2. GNU Linux.
3. They all suck.

Q2. What operating system do you use?
1. Microsoft Windows.
2. GNU Linux.
3. Both.

Q3. How do you feel about Bill Gates?
1. He gave the world Windows! He rules!
2. I hate his very being and is merely a waste of floor space.
3. He's a nice guy. It's his company I hate.

Q4. What do you think of Windows?
1. It's great. It's the World's Most Popular OS!
2. It sucks, it's slow, it crashes all the time and Linux rules it in every way.
3. It's OK. It has its uses but it could be better.

Q5. What do you think of Linux?
1. Li-what?
2. It rules Windows in every way and is better at everything.
3. Has its bad points and sucks a bit at some things but generally better than Windows.

Q6. Where did your PC come from?
1. Packard Bell/Tiny/Compaq etc...
2. I had it built for me by Gateway/Mesh etc...
3. I built it myself.

Q7. What is your PC's environment?
1. A nice tidy kitchen/office.
2. My room with various computer magazines and games strewn around.
3. A room littered with internal gubbins, keyboards and other stuff.

Q8. Do you have a home network?
1. Network?
2. Just me and my Mum's/Dad's/sibling's.
3. This box, my boxen upstairs and the 486 in my toilet.

Q9. What do you use your PC for?
1. Games, office.
2. IRC, lodsa Net stuff etc...
3. LAN, network administration, making coffee.

Q10. What do you think of Macs?
1. Bit geeky. I prefer a hoody.
2. Look nice but they don't have the support.
3. Macs are cool. I want one, but I probably wouldn't use it often.
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Right, tot up your score, and divide it by 10. Look at the table below:

SCORE:
AVERAGE:

1-1.5: Novice computer user who just spends an hour a night on it chatting to his mates on MSN and playing Wolfenstein.

1.5-2.5: Advanced user who spends a lot of time doing stuff that's a bit geeky. You have bveen using computers for about 3-5 years

2.5-3: You have reached the Zen stage of computing and have advanced to a higher plane of reasoning and understanding. You also have a script that tells you how much porn you have.

3+: You have the intelligence of a pre-pubescent rabbit and need to learn how to do basic maths.

Turbonutter wrote:
> It's already much faster and stabler than Windows, and looks damn sexy

Is that what you see in your Desktop Screengrabs? Looks nice, a bit NS6, but nice!!

You should.

Debian wasn't built for desktop use, but as always it can be. I've spent ages trying to get my Debian working 100%, all I need to do now is get VMware up (minor permissions thing I don't know how to do) and get UT working, which is a Loki problem. Then, my Debian system will literally be perfect. It's already much faster and stabler than Windows, and looks damn sexy while it's at it. I have most of the aps I want under Linux and if I want a Win32 program I either WINE it or open up a Windows window using VMware. I also have UT, which I have I hopes of being faster than my Windows version, judging by the OpenGL performance I've seen so far.

Linux is NOT easy to use, and you can't just expect to fire it up and work (at least not Debian anyway). You have to work hard at it, but it's incredibly satisfying when it does and the rewards are worth it.

Turbonutter wrote:
> He obviously doesn't get the point.

I should hope he does, he's been a Linux/Unix developer for over 8 years, and loves it for industry use, but this was his first time for using it at home. He's quite happy to give it the thumbs up for "pro" useage, but for domestic, it stinks (his opinion).

I'll have to introduce you both as you'd get along even if different in views!!

Turbonutter wrote:
> I found out
> something very interesting the other day:

> A survey was carried out by some people I can't remember about desktop market shares.

Windows: 95%
Linux: 3.2%
Apple Mac: 1.6%



Interesting, but no context, are these world wide, egion based, web only, general sector?

I found some stats on the PCAlmanac, not far fomr yours but:

Win: 92%
Mac: 3%
Other: 5%

Other can cover anything from Linux upwards, but as it's listed as other, the actual figures are difficult to go by.

Another stat was that over 80% of the media/Design industry use Macs and that over somehitng like 40% of websites have been designed on a Mac.

It's horses for courses and as with all stats, unless there is contrext to show what they are refering to, they have no substantial impact.

If I gave you my stats for our corp website, it would say something different, Win: 80% Mac: 15% Other:5%, The stats fro the URL I asked you to look at for me, again Win:75% Mac: 10% Other:15% (The other consisting mainly of Linux)

on thing I did find interesting was that Apache hole something like 40% of the internet with MS coming in behind at anout 25% with the rest being various others. So in this case for sever tecnology, Linux/Unix would be the higher useage stat...

He obviously doesn't get the point. Millions of other people swear by it. Debian is less of a distro and more of a way of life. But there you go.

I found out something very interesting the other day:

A survey was carried out by some people I can't remember about desktop market shares.

Windows: 95%
Linux: 3.2%
Apple Mac: 1.6%

Very interesting. I don't blame them. I spent ages fiddling around with MacOSX in PC World today (bloody Homebase...) and I found it very similar to KDE and Nautillus. The similarities were striking. I also found it a bit slow on a top-of-the-range iMac but I know G4s are much better. MacOSX looks very pretty but I'm still undecided as to which I prefer between my current GNOME theme (estimated life span: 3 days) and MacOSX. I'll ruminate on this one.

G'night!

Final Quote from a developer frined of mine on Linux...

"I've had one hell of a lot of hassle with Debian. It's a lot less friendly than FreeBSD to install. apt is a nice concept but in practice dselect seems to be more useful. The way the source trees are organised is, IMHO, stupid. The stable tree doesn't contain the latest tested-and-proved-stable packages, as I thought it did. It's exactly the same as the CDs I have. So to get the latest version of a package (in this case, the ALSA sound drivers) I have to dist-upgrade my entire source tree to testing, which will take many hours and expose me to experimental untested code. Sucky."

Turbonutter wrote:
> Tyla wrote:
> Linux isn't as wide spread for personal use as you would lead
> us all to
> beleive...


And a Mac is probably even less so!

Over 1 million sold for domestic use in the UK, Over 2 million being used by UK businesses not to mention thew US ans Aus, comapred to 10 million Linux users World Wide!!(figure from Linux.co.uk)... that's wide enough spread to say it's more widley used in the DOMESTIC market than Linux...


>It's much more useful than most people, than even I used to think. A Mac is probably the same. It's more useful than you think, but like Linux it's more suited to a particular task - graphic design, web design, etc... in the way Linux really well for networks.

My point exactly, Linux wasn't designed for the domestic market, your questionairre is trying to comapre an OS designed for domestic/business and allround use to an OS designed for administration and network management... Apart from those with a vested interest in Linux and possible people who take their work home, Linux is not a domestic OS like Win or MacOS...


> So, it was a straight choice between Linux and Macs, and I know that more people here have had experience with Linux than Macs, and ALSO, Linux is more available realistically.


There you go again... More People here... your argument started off about general penetration and then to corerct yourself to "here" is a bit pointless. Your argued that Mac couldn't be classified as a computer and the OS could not be used in your comparison mainly due to your lack of knowledge about that platform and as with your PHP bashing, your constant bashing on Linux... We know you like linux, and we are glad for you, but apart from the job it was designed to do, just as with Unix, it is not deigned for your common joe in the domestic market.


>If you want Linux, you buy a CD for £3.95, if you want MacOS you *have* to buy a Mac.


If you want MacOS you buy the CD? If you want Windows, you buy the CD and just as you said if you want Linux, you buy the CD, but you still need a platform to run them on, especially linux, and If I'm not mistaken, it doesn't matter if it's a Mac or a PC, it'll still run Linux!!

To to Install Linux, you still need a base machine, one that probably comes pre installed with a base OS (unless you make your own) and that base OS is more than likely going to be either Windows or MacOS. It would also require a Base processor, which would either be WinTel, AMD or IBM (Mac) based. And apart form those Linux servers out there, most of the people, graduates and Scientists i know of use Linux on either a Mac or Win based machine.


Regards to your argument on Running Windows on a Mac... You said it couldn't be done, I just pointed out to you that it could, and unlike emulation on a PC, It will allow you to run multiple OS's with mulitple software configurations on the one machine at once... Oddly enough, this is because the G4 Velocity Engine, made by IBM is the only true multi tasking domestic processor available, and it's in a Mac!

I could argue this all day, and probably others too... next time you do a questioairre like this, make it clear that it specifically about Linux and Windows..

Quote form Linux.com
"Sadly, it is not easy to find manufactured computers with Linux pre-installed"

Linux is an OS, and as your Questionairre was about "How much do you know about computers" I don't think you can compare Linux as it is not a computer.

I'm not going to get into a slap fight over this, and yes I do see Linux as a decent replacement for NT, but essentially it is still an OS, one that relies on "other" maufacturing of the hardware weather it be Win, Mac or Sun.

Q1. What is the best operating system available?
1. Microsoft Windows.
2. GNU Linux.
3. They all suck.

2. GNU Linux

Q2. What operating system do you use?
1. Microsoft Windows.
2. GNU Linux.
3. Both.

1. Microsoft Windows

Q3. How do you feel about Bill Gates?
1. He gave the world Windows! He rules!
2. I hate his very being and is merely a waste of floor space.
3. He's a nice guy. It's his company I hate.

3. He's a nice guy. It's his company I hate.

Q4. What do you think of Windows?
1. It's great. It's the World's Most Popular OS!
2. It sucks, it's slow, it crashes all the time and Linux rules it in every way.
3. It's OK. It has its uses but it could be better.

3. It's OK. It has its uses but it could be better.

Q5. What do you think of Linux?
1. Li-what?
2. It rules Windows in every way and is better at everything.
3. Has its bad points and sucks a bit at some things but generally better than Windows.

3. Has its bad points and sucks a bit at some things but generally better than Windows.

Q6. Where did your PC come from?
1. Packard Bell/Tiny/Compaq etc...
2. I had it built for me by Gateway/Mesh etc...
3. I built it myself.

1. Tiny

Q7. What is your PC's environment?
1. A nice tidy kitchen/office.
2. My room with various computer magazines and games strewn around.
3. A room littered with internal gubbins, keyboards and other stuff.

1. A nice tidy playroom.

Q8. Do you have a home network?
1. Network?
2. Just me and my Mum's/Dad's/sibling's.
3. This box, my boxen upstairs and the 486 in my toilet.

2. Just me and my other computer.

Q9. What do you use your PC for?
1. Games, office.
2. IRC, lodsa Net stuff etc...
3. LAN, network administration, making coffee.

2. IRC, lodsa net stuff etc...

Q10. What do you think of Macs?
1. Bit geeky. I prefer a hoody.
2. Look nice but they don't have the support.
3. Macs are cool. I want one, but I probably wouldn't use it often.

2. Look nice but they don't have the support.

I got 20. Divide it by 10 and you get 2.

'Advanced user who spends a lot of time doing stuff that's a bit geeky. You have bveen using computers for about 3-5 years'

Well actually for 2 and a half years but my knowledge is advanced. Nice quiz!

Yep s'bout right!! :-D

Q1. What is the best operating system available?
1. Microsoft Windows.
2. GNU Linux.
3. They all suck.

Probably 1. Microsoft Wondows...hasn't failed me yet!

Q2. What operating system do you use?
1. Microsoft Windows.
2. GNU Linux.
3. Both.

1. Microsoft Windows

Q3. How do you feel about Bill Gates?
1. He gave the world Windows! He rules!
2. I hate his very being and is merely a waste of floor space.
3. He's a nice guy. It's his company I hate.

Not sure, but if I had to probably 2.

Q4. What do you think of Windows?
1. It's great. It's the World's Most Popular OS!
2. It sucks, it's slow, it crashes all the time and Linux rules it in every way.
3. It's OK. It has its uses but it could be better.

3)

Q5. What do you think of Linux?
1. Li-what?
2. It rules Windows in every way and is better at everything.
3. Has its bad points and sucks a bit at some things but generally better than Windows.

Again...3)

Q6. Where did your PC come from?
1. Packard Bell/Tiny/Compaq etc...
2. I had it built for me by Gateway/Mesh etc...
3. I built it myself.

Bought it from shop so...1. But I m building one at the moment.

Q7. What is your PC's environment?
1. A nice tidy kitchen/office.
2. My room with various computer magazines and games strewn around.
3. A room littered with internal gubbins, keyboards and other stuff.

Umm....1 & 2 & 3 :-)

Q8. Do you have a home network?
1. Network?
2. Just me and my Mum's/Dad's/sibling's.
3. This box, my boxen upstairs and the 486 in my toilet.

Erm, no Home network at the mo!

Q9. What do you use your PC for?
1. Games, office.
2. IRC, lodsa Net stuff etc...
3. LAN, network administration, making coffee.

Everything 1&2&3 except making coffee....i don't like coffee.

Q10. What do you think of Macs?
1. Bit geeky. I prefer a hoody.
2. Look nice but they don't have the support.
3. Macs are cool. I want one, but I probably wouldn't use it often.

Don't really like them probably answer 2.
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Right, tot up your score, and divide it by 10. Look at the table below: 26 divided by 10 equals 2.6!!??? Dunno if that right! ....We will see