If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines...

UNIX Airways

Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the
airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together
piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are
supposed to be building.

Air DOS

Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and
let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push
again, jump on again, and so on...

Mac Airlines

All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look
and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details,
you are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want
to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having
to know, so just shut up.

Windows Air

The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy
baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10
minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air

Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and
takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it
explodes.

Windows XP Air

You turn up at the airport,which is under contract to only allow XP
Air planes. All the aircraft are identical, brightly coloured and
three times as big as they need to be. The signs are huge and all
point the same way. Whichever way you go, someone pops up dressed in a
cloak and pointed hat insisting you follow him. Your luggage and
clothes are taken off you and replaced with an XP Air suit and
suitcase identical to everyone around you as this is included in the
exorbitant ticket cost. The aircraft will not take off until you have
signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be
the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. You have
to phone your travel agent before you can have a meal or drink. You
are searched regularly throughout the flight. If you go to the toilet
twice or more you get charged for a new ticket. No matter what
destination you booked you will always end up crash landing at
Whistler in Canada.

OSX Air:

You enter a white terminal, and all you can see is a woman sitting in
the corner behind a white desk, you walk up to get your ticket. She
smiles and says "Welcome to OS X Air, please allow us to take your
picture", at which point a camera in the wall you didn't notice before
takes your picture. "Thank you, here is your ticket" You are handed a
minimalistic ticket with your picture at the top, it already has all
of your information. A door opens to your right and you walk through.
You enter a wide open space with one seat in the middle, you sit,
listen to music and watch movies until the end of the flight. You
never see any of the other passengers. You land, get off, and you say
to yourself "wow, that was really nice, but I feel like something was
missing"

Windows Vista Airlines:

You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have
ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if
you are "sure" you want to continue walking to your plane and if you
would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue
walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After
the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you
want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger
because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to
fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the
flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then
it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively
the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are
punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked "Are you sure
you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?" you
instinctively say "Allow".

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn't
updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in
the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the
pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon
the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver
update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles
with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close
friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much
better alternative and helps.

Linux Air

Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start
their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave
the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of
printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket
yourself.

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench
and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable
seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without
a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell
customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can
say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"

"Dude" <chris.holub RemoveThis @gmail.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:a3d10f85-1440-4ddf-815e-a27df955beef@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"

Sounds about right ;o)

A few details are missing though:

In Linux Air the pilots have to work very hard, because all the auto pilot
systems are patented to XP and Vista flights, the in flight entertainment is
limited to low sample rate MP3's, and there is no phone connection what so
ever. Take off and landing can only be done from Linux and Unix airports,
where the other air lines can use both MS, Unix and Apple airports, and some
Linux ones.

The on board meals might be home cooked, but most are made no less than one
week ago, and all are packed in sticky cling film (household wrap) and wont
fit your plate. ;o)

Tommy C, Denmark
Who still haven't found a video driver to make Ubuntu work