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Domain: ppcnerds.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to ppcnerds.org.

Comments · 3

  1. Re:Short answer? No by mattjb0010 · · Score: 3, Informative · on Intel Ports Developer Tools to Mac OS X

    GCC doesn't vectorize for Altivec

    This used to be true, and as you point out this did create a fallacy that all Mac apps are magically faster because the chip has AltiVec. However this changed with the latest version of XCode and gcc 4.0, see here. This also applies to gcc4.0 on x86 with SSEn.

  2. Re:Desktop Linux will not die, but grow instead by dr.badass · · Score: 1 · on Desktop Linux on x86 - Adapt or Die
    You appear to be suffering from two very common problems that make discussing this issue difficult. 1) You've never used Mac OS X. 2) You've become complacent with existing Linux distributions.

    Your first point is that Linux distributions come with a lot of applications. I can't argue with that.

    (I have even gone so far as to say that most Linux distributions suffer from having too many redundant applications. Why should a desktop install half a dozen audio players, when the user will, in all probability, only use one?)

    But I strongly disagree with the idea that the all (or even a majority) of these are "quality" apps, when considered in competition with comparable free and commercial apps on Mac OS X. This is not an advantage of Linux unless you have no money, in which case your options are already limited.

    not to mention the rich GNU heritage of command-line tools, a variety of programming environments, etc.

    You shouldn't mention this, because Mac OS X includes this. A huge amount of a typical Linux command-line installation is included in Mac OS X, and even more available through the package managers you mentioned. It simply is not an advantage of Linux (or BSD). It is the baseline for any Unix-like OS.

    Linux will run on a TON of hardware, including old hardware, which means you can use to "revitalize" existing machines and save money.

    ...and the Linux Desktop still sucks. Hardware is dirt cheap, and people are more obviously willing to pay for it. (Also, in my personal experience, new releases of Mac OS X are capable of running on older (Mac) hardware than new releases of Mandrake.) Yes, it runs on tons of hardware, but the question is why would you? And that remains unanswered.

    (3) Linux is always uttered in the same sentence with "open source" and more particularly "open source innovation." For people who want to be a part of the open source movement, Linux (or BSDs) is the natural choice. For people who want to be free of proprietary software, to even the slightest degree, will stick with Linux.

    ...and the Linux Desktop still sucks. Nothing you've said here is an advantage. It's just a statement, and with notable numbers of Linux users (including the founder of this site) switching to Mac OS X, it's not all that true.

    (4) Linux, as a kernel, is hyper-configurable. You can strip it down or compile everything in. Tweakers and power users like this idea.

    ...and the Linux Desktop still sucks. There's no particular reason you can't do this on Mac OS X. There just aren't that many reasons to do it. Yes, with Linux there are occasionally major patches that add significant performance boosts, but they're uncommon and usually rolled into the next release of whatever distro you use anyway. Still doesn't make the desktop any better.

    (5) The "slick GUI" advantage of OS X will rapidly disappear over the next few years, as desktop linux developers make more progress with XOrg, composite, direct rendering, etc.

    I long for the day that Linux will have a "slick GUI", but not as much as I long for Linux to have a "useful GUI". Meanwhile, Mac OS X has both, now. There is no advantage to Linux here. It is on par with Windows.

    (6) Linux being used very often as a server, it's just as simple to install major server apps (Apache, Tomcat, mysql, vsftpd etc.) as other apps.

    ...and the Linux Desktop still sucks. These are hardly relevant for a desktop environment.

    But for what it's worth, these things are no more difficult under Mac OS X. Apache is pre-installed (though you can easily substitute it). Tomcat, MySQL, and vsftpd are all in Dar

  3. What about PPC / Mac? by Merk · · Score: 1 · on 18 Live Linux CDs -- In A Row

    I have an iBook, and much as I love OS X, sometimes I just need Linux. Apparently there was just a Gnoppix release for PPC. All the KDE live CD releases I can find are anywhere from 9 months to 1.5 years old.