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In desperate need of help.
planters
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm writing a paper comparing Windows, OSX, and Linux. I'm trying to prove that Windows is better (or at this point I really don't care I just want to finish it), I have these reasons supporting Windows
1. more games available
2. more applications available
3. user friendly
4. more widely used.
Now this is all easy and everything but I have to have 2 pieces of proof (stats or anything of the sort), from a reliable source, I'm already thinking of using PC magazine but I need other sources, Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Tl;dr
Need sources proving Windows is better than OSX and Linux.
1. more games available
2. more applications available
3. user friendly
4. more widely used.
Now this is all easy and everything but I have to have 2 pieces of proof (stats or anything of the sort), from a reliable source, I'm already thinking of using PC magazine but I need other sources, Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Tl;dr
Need sources proving Windows is better than OSX and Linux.
planters on
0
Posts
1 and 2 should be easy to find sources on.
3 is subjective, and will find plenty of people that feel OSX or various flavors of *nix Shells are better.
4 might have some sketchy data depending on what stats you are talking about (desktop, servers, etc).
You can probably source any major retailer as a sampling of current/past games and applications available for all of them.
Because as an OS? It's probably not better. It's very bloated and has a lot of overhead. More games? I'll wipe my ass with your games. And on top of that, other OS's have been learning to virtualize windows which means in the future you will be able to run windows applications on any operating system by using only the libraries gutted from windows and avoiding all the other shit.
Make what your are researching bend to what you want.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
User friendliness is going to be very subjective. There are a lot of articles about Linux's issues in that department from people that do work with multiple OS's, but it's not something you can objectively quantify due to how much variation there can be even in the same OS.
For market penetration, you can cite statistics from sources that deal with the business world since analyst groups/firms love surveying businesses about their practices. I'd recommend poking around at www.cio.com and find their articles on OS use in the workplace.
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You are going about this the wrong way. As most people have pointed out by now, "better" is contextual. You need to create a smaller window, like "better" for what exactly?
Also, you are going to find points 2 and 3 hard to prove.
"applications" is a broad term and you should be a aware of the fact that there are gajillions of applications out there that are only for Linux or only for Mac. If by "more applications that you can buy at Target"
then yes, you would be right.
As far as point 3, OSX trounces Windows in many regards to general "user friendly" features, but again, it depends on your target. Different users have different opinions on what is user friendly.
Overall your argument is way to broad and couldn't be supported even if you tried. You need to at least narrow it down to a target user and then, even then, it's difficult to convincingly prove at an academic level.
You are doing the operating system equivalent of which brand of peanut butter is "better".
There are more Windows applications than Mac ones. They aren't any better (and I believe third-party stuff on Mac OS X is an order of magnitude better than on Windows), but there is a figure for you. You could come up with a very rubbish argument about "choice".
And yeah, as was said, ubiquity.
Your "proofs" are on metrics of volumes alone, so you need to go looking for statistics. As soon as you're looking for subjective opinions, you are stuffed.
And I want to talk strictly about what each OS is good at not the company as a whole.
man what
-a never use this flag, it will destroy your computer
-A always use this or your computer will be destroyed
-b this is bugged, don't use it
-l deletes everything on your hard drive
-I prints output to shell
-j use settings in default config file [of course, it's not specified where this is]
...
If you don't believe me, fire up linux and they type man followed by almost any command. Then, show it to someone who uses Windows / Macs only and ask them if they can figure it out.
Insane, I tell you.
Ah, but "user-friendly" is also context-specific. To power users, the command-line is completely user-friendly, they have a lot of power there, can run programs with unlimited options (you'll eventually run out of GUI buttons...).
To them, a GUI gets in the way of what they're trying to accomplish, so is very un-user-friendly.
Do you see why this is a hard topic yet?
What you need to understand is that there is no topic that is not controversial. Chocolate Cake vs Chocolate Donut. US vs Iraq. Windows vs OS X. Everything has controversy, it's just that some topic has more than others, and some topics are more pointless than others.
There is no proof of anything, except in mathematics.
By that logic, we should all use machine code for everything, because it's more flexible and powerful, and thus more user friendly.
Chocolate cake clearly wins that entire chain of vs.es.
Math is just logic, and you can explain everything with logic. Axioms +definitions => theorems. It's simple.
That entirely not what I said, unless there is someone in the world who thinks entirely in machine-code. I am saying that there are a group of humans who use computers ("users") to whom the command-line allows them to find and express their intentions in a way that is faster/more intuitive to them than the GUI.
Hehe: http://xkcd.com/293/
And most users think in terms of command lines and >s and |s and stringing horrible strings of command line commands together? No, they don't. And there are plenty of people who are very comfortable with machine code. And can, in fact, do things with it that the average command line user couldn't even understand.
But most users don't understand machine code any more than they do command lines. And, despite what your arrogant ass may think, most people define what "user friendly" means, not a very small subset of users.
User Friendlyness
These are from personal experience, Macs are very easy to use and great to start out on. They're nice for basic things but you can't do a whole lot with them (this is of course subjective to what I use computers for). Windows again is easy, but at times can be a real big pain in the ass. You can do pretty much everything that most average users would ever want to do on a computer. Linux is fairly difficult. Things aren't as easy to accomplish as on the other two, but once you can, you can do anything.
So basically:
Linux - Good for people who really know what the hell they're doing with computers
Windows - Good for people who have some experience with computers
Mac - Good for new users
What they're good for
Linux: Work/business stuff
Windows: Gaming
Macs: Artsy stuff
Cost
Linux: Just the hardware, whoo!
Windows: The 'middle' option
Macs: Expensive
This of course has changed as of late, as Apple has been getting more and more competitive with prices, getting to be on par, and in some cases even cheaper than Macs.
From a business perspective
Linux: All software is free and highly customizable. Problem is that when you have issues there really is no one to blame. You're pretty much limited to asking a community or hiring someone who knows more to fix the issues. And while it is free, if you want customized modules you will have to pay programmers for the code.
Windows: Pricey, pricey, pricey. There's very little that you will get for free when you're dealing with Windows, but when you're paying, you're getting more than just the software. You're getting constant software updates for bugs and issues. You're getting support from software developers. Basically with Windows, you have a sort of safety net, and also someone to blame when shit hits the fan.
Macs: I honestly have no experiences with Macs. While in my network administration course at college, I've never run into them. But they seem to do the way to go for any graphics/video editing, etc, etc. Again like Windows, Macs licenses aren't very cheap for that kind of software.
So pretty much when it comes down to it, each system has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Most of the time Windows falls in the middle, never quite excelling, but never being horrible at it. And I think that's largely what's made Windows so successful.
That's all I can really think of off the top of my head. I know I'm not a reliable source, but if you have any questions about any stuff, go ahead and ask. But I'm not gonna find resources for you. :P
but where can I find proof for any of this
I don't care which one is more user friendly or what not ( I know everyone has their own opinion)
I just want something real to back it up
through surveys? stats? anything of that sort
That was my original question but I guess I didn't make it clear enough in the beginning, apologies all around.
The best you could do is potentially find usage rates in particular industries or whatever but then your entire argument is based on a bandwagon-fallacy.
Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_related_to_Microsoft