I knew it was only a matter of time before these stories started showing up:

Earlier this month a few of the blogosphere’s geek elite publicly switched from Mac OS X to the Linux Ubuntu operating system, citing the Mac’s proprietary data format and expensive hardware as the reason.
Given the chance to run an operating system as nice as OS X for free on less expensive hardware, I’d jump right on that bandwagon. The thing that keeps me from full-time Ubuntu (besides, you know, writing about the tech that most of the world uses to make my living) is fear that it just won’t work as well as Windows or Mac OS X.
But that’s just me. What would it take to get you to switch to Ubuntu? If it’s something you’ve considered, what’s holding you back? Current Ubuntu users, is the OS ready for primetime? Let us know what you think in the comments or to tips at lifehacker.com.

Let’s look at a couple of the switchers cited before addressing the utterly silly claim that someone could switch from MacOS to Ubuntu and be equally happy.

Mark Pilgrim: Switched to Ubuntu because his iTunes library got corrupted, his iPhoto library got corrupted, iMovie wasn’t powerful enough for him, Safari wasn’t good enough for him, and so on and so forth. So what did he do? He switched to a Mac, which has zero equivalents for any of the above. Oh well. I’m sure he’ll be pleased because he’s fighting the “man” who’s locking down his content. Woopdeedoo.

Cory Doctorow: As much as I like Cory, his philosophy is generally if it isn’t free and stealable, it isn’t worth owning. All content creators should allow 100% unfettered use of their content and so on, and just trust that people won’t be bad about it. His way of fighting the power was buying a chinese-made laptop (surely you know China? The repressive country Boing Boing is always on about?) and installing Ubuntu to liberate his content. In doing so, he would also follow Mark’s “essentials” list, which, oddly enough, included no content production software. Surely you remember content. It was the reason Mark switched to begin with!

I’m under no delusions here. I think Ubuntu is a great operating system. I have an Ubuntu box and I have Ubuntu running on my Windows desktop in Virtual PC. Frankly, I think it’s a great OS, and easily the best distro of Linux thus far. As a content creator, however, not only do the apps fall short, but the available apps don’t come close to what’s included with a Mac, let alone what’s available commercially from third parties. The same goes for Windows XP.

Another problem is that often the most basic of hardware doesn’t install properly on an Ubuntu machine. Period. Windows users don’t have that problem, and Mac users don’t have to deal with it because their hardware is mostly integrated. No one is making “Linux” hardware, though, meaning if you want to get something as obscure as the ubiquitous Linksys WPC54g WiFi card working, you have to wait for some guy in some forum to hack out an install for you if you don’t know how to code a driver. Does that sound appealing to you? Certainly not to me.

Ubuntu has its place, and even from version 5 to 6 (Breezy Badger to Dapper Drake, for those of you up on the lingo), the improvements are not only noticeable, but profound, but there is no mass market appeal for Ubuntu. At least not now. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any in the future, of course. In fact, throw in a few more content-creation apps, some better hardware compatibility, and a good way to partake in formats that every other platform can. Mark’s assertion that Apple locks down his content is utterly laughable. Last I checked, you could easily produce a DVD with iDVD. If you don’t want to produce Quicktime or H.264 / MPEG 4 encoded movies, don’t use iMovie; use Final Cut, Avid, or any of the myriad of other options. In Windows, you can use Premiere Elements (or Pro), and so on. Photos are manageable through so many other apps, it doesn’t even pay to mention them. Your content is as free as the software you use, not the platform you use it on.

I’m not surprised that someone like Cory Doctorow would make a move like this. It seems right up his alley. For some people, though, content creation is still number 1. I prefer creating content to tweaking an OS. Taking pictures to organizing them, and editing video to getting my firewire connection going.

I have a damned good desktop PC, and an even better Black Macbook. Nothing on Ubuntu hardware or software-wise can touch either one of them. As the saying goes, however, you get what you pay for, and Ubuntu is free after all. Some day people may switch to Ubuntu from Mac or Windows and be able to make that move stick. In fact, many people can do it right now.

I’m not one of them.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, mac os, windows, osx, operating systems, geeky, os

This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.