Difference engine: Free is too expensive

Posted by Fettoosh on Apr 2, 2012 3:37 AM EDT
The Economist; By N.V. 		Mail this story
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LINUX, the free operating system that brought professional-grade computing to the lowly PC, has come a long way since doing something as simple as switching off meant performing secret handshakes or offering arcane prayers to the computer gods (eg, “computername ~ # shutdown -h now”). Today, practically all Linux distributions (some 450 are in circulation) hide their stark command lines behind prettified user-interfaces such as Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment or Xfce which mimic the desktop metaphor familiar to a billion Windows users. Should it ever be necessary, shutting down a Linux machine gracefully nowadays involves no more than a few clicks of a mouse.

Note: Very typical praise to crush blog. Ends with very negative conclusion. Many good rebuttal comments in the feedback though.

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Oh gee, and I forgot my asbestos (non-fryable) underwear. dinotrac 22 1,566 Apr 4, 2012 7:26 PM
Is it just me, or... smallboxadmin 1 1,025 Apr 2, 2012 4:12 PM

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