Slashdot Mirror

They don't expect users to change to fit their products, they make products that fit their users

I've been an Apple user, their products didn't fit me and didn't even offer the ability to make it fit.

I made these pictures at the time in question:
http://ash-fox.quickfox.org/temp/dock-customizability
verses
http://ash-fox.quickfox.org/temp/kdepanel-config

When trying to address this issue, I was told that I should get used to the way Apple does things.

I have to strongly disagree with what you said, Apple expects users to change to fit their products.

They don't expect users to change to fit their products, they make products that fit their users

I've been an Apple user, their products didn't fit me and didn't even offer the ability to make it fit.

I made these pictures at the time in question:
http://ash-fox.quickfox.org/temp/dock-customizability
verses
http://ash-fox.quickfox.org/temp/kdepanel-config

When trying to address this issue, I was told that I should get used to the way Apple does things.

I have to strongly disagree with what you said, Apple expects users to change to fit their products.

IT IS TIME FOR THIS TO STOP.

Cry some more, you're not getting any sympathy from me. You made your bed, now sleep in it.

I've never seen an update break anything.

You obviously haven't used many Macs for a long period of time - I can recall numerous events where java updates broke things with a simple scorch game on OS X

Java updates break lots of things on lots of systems.

I've never seen an update break anything.

You obviously haven't used many Macs for a long period of time - I can recall numerous events where java updates broke things with a simple scorch game on OS X - to the point I had to put stupid warnings on the site. I can recall when my network uPnP was borked by a security update from Apple, I can recall the numerous daemons being broken in various OS X server updates too.

My anecdotal 'evidence' is based on years of experience over a wide variety and vast amount of Macs.

I shake my head when I hear the windos admins at the company test a bugfix update.

Because making sure things don't break is obviously stupid of IT.

Isn't that what the vendor is supposed to do before sending it out?

The vendor didn't test the fix in your environment, they tested it in theirs.

The main issue for OSX GUI apps vs. GUI apps on other platforms is that apps tend to be laid out differently on OSX. So while you can reuse your layouts from other platforms, they look out of place.

The main issue I found, was that the display stuff is broken. Just check out my slashdot link, http://scorch.quickfox.org/ - On older versions of OS X, it flickers to hell (hence the epilepsy warning), on newer versions of OS X the scroll bars are missing, on some versions of OS X server it will cause the system to kernel panic (all 100% reproducible). The only solution I am aware of, to get around it, is to add platform specific code, which I have absolutely no interest in doing.

The application in question even works on kaffe, msjava and plenty of other java runtimes.

You seem to be one of those people who don't get it.

I'm going to nerrrrrrd raaagge for the hell of it.

It's not any one individual feature, or lots of them that makes OS X polished. It's how they work together, and how usable they are (usability is all about hiding complexity or exposing the absolute minimum necessary to get something accomplished in an as intuitive way as possible).

Drop shadows worked just fine on the start menu since it was first introduced in windows chicago. When windows search came out, it also 'just worked' fine with those other features.

Sorry, but if you're not going to provide examples, I'll use the examples that I was provided and in those cases, it's random non-sense.

When I first switched to it from years of mental abuse from Redmond

I'm not a "switcher". I'm platform agnostic, I have a tendency to hate all OSes. Now, the problem is - You're talking to someone who knows OS X very well and I know all of OS X's little nooks and crannies. From the broken UNIX support in the BSD subsystem which is inferior to Windows' POSIX subsystem (which is also unix certified mind you) to the broken OpenGL implementation with poorly polished graphics drivers.

I felt naked without complexity (where is my regedit

Why, it's the billion xml files included with OS X, where if you screw up the formatting can prevent OS X from even letting you boot in because there is no GUI tools for letting you modify most settings (compared to other OSes) since they're completely hidden from the user.

computer icons on desktop to right click on and choose manage

Use the control panel like on OS X if you don't want to hit that.

Christ, you should see the popups I get on OS X whenever I try to do anything with Safari and downloads.

things steeling focus

You've never worked with fullscreen applications on OS X extensively, obviously

where are the problems for me to tinker with instead of you know doing things that I turned the computer on for).

Yes, I just want my computer to work - And that involves it working the way I want, not the way Apple deemed I should jump through a billion hoops to do. I don't care for editing secret files, googling settings when I can get it all in GUI settings - amazingly, Windows and Linux is far better at that than OS X.

Now, maybe for your tasks (webbrowsing with Safari, Mail.app (provided it's not using imap), iphoto) it's fine, and I congratulate you, great, marvelous. However, the moment you need to do something with OS X out of it's tiny little box, you're going to have problems and this is where most other OSes can go beyond.

IT just all seemed too simple, and I was wondering, what the hell, how can you do anything with so little.

Yes, I needed the Unix/POSIX support that was claimed for OS X, that OS X was promoted to be so awesome at. A standard fork() without exec() (this is POSIX specifications compliant - Works on real Unix just fine), however OS X cannot guarantee that the libraries in use are 'async-signal-safe' and crashes the thread and thus the entire application.

Wonderful, that POSIX/Unix stuff 'just works' with the system, doesn't it? Works all pretty with those drop shadows with the crash mes.. Oh wait, there is no crash messages, it just, disappears. Yes, no popups there, very helpful. What would I have done with these popups I get on windows, they weren't useful at all for debugging anything after all, I'm going to skip the bit about how posix threading is broken because I don't feel like writing a huge piece of documentation to explain the problem.

You seem to be one of those people who don't get it.

I'm going to nerrrrrrd raaagge for the hell of it.

It's not any one individual feature, or lots of them that makes OS X polished. It's how they work together, and how usable they are (usability is all about hiding complexity or exposing the absolute minimum necessary to get something accomplished in an as intuitive way as possible).

Drop shadows worked just fine on the start menu since it was first introduced in windows chicago. When windows search came out, it also 'just worked' fine with those other features.

Sorry, but if you're not going to provide examples, I'll use the examples that I was provided and in those cases, it's random non-sense.

When I first switched to it from years of mental abuse from Redmond

I'm not a "switcher". I'm platform agnostic, I have a tendency to hate all OSes. Now, the problem is - You're talking to someone who knows OS X very well and I know all of OS X's little nooks and crannies. From the broken UNIX support in the BSD subsystem which is inferior to Windows' POSIX subsystem (which is also unix certified mind you) to the broken OpenGL implementation with poorly polished graphics drivers.

I felt naked without complexity (where is my regedit

Why, it's the billion xml files included with OS X, where if you screw up the formatting can prevent OS X from even letting you boot in because there is no GUI tools for letting you modify most settings (compared to other OSes) since they're completely hidden from the user.

computer icons on desktop to right click on and choose manage

Use the control panel like on OS X if you don't want to hit that.

Christ, you should see the popups I get on OS X whenever I try to do anything with Safari and downloads.

things steeling focus

You've never worked with fullscreen applications on OS X extensively, obviously

where are the problems for me to tinker with instead of you know doing things that I turned the computer on for).

Yes, I just want my computer to work - And that involves it working the way I want, not the way Apple deemed I should jump through a billion hoops to do. I don't care for editing secret files, googling settings when I can get it all in GUI settings - amazingly, Windows and Linux is far better at that than OS X.

Now, maybe for your tasks (webbrowsing with Safari, Mail.app (provided it's not using imap), iphoto) it's fine, and I congratulate you, great, marvelous. However, the moment you need to do something with OS X out of it's tiny little box, you're going to have problems and this is where most other OSes can go beyond.

IT just all seemed too simple, and I was wondering, what the hell, how can you do anything with so little.

Yes, I needed the Unix/POSIX support that was claimed for OS X, that OS X was promoted to be so awesome at. A standard fork() without exec() (this is POSIX specifications compliant - Works on real Unix just fine), however OS X cannot guarantee that the libraries in use are 'async-signal-safe' and crashes the thread and thus the entire application.

Wonderful, that POSIX/Unix stuff 'just works' with the system, doesn't it? Works all pretty with those drop shadows with the crash mes.. Oh wait, there is no crash messages, it just, disappears. Yes, no popups there, very helpful. What would I have done with these popups I get on windows, they weren't useful at all for debugging anything after all, I'm going to skip the bit about how posix threading is broken because I don't feel like writing a huge piece of documentation to explain the problem.

Linux is unusable, compared to Windows 7.

I don't know where you get that from, but I am pretty capable of making things crash on Windows 7 without even trying.

Amusingly, the majority of crashes are caused by the C++ runtime according to eventvwr.msc.

Absolutely. Unusuable. Linux is only fit to be installed as a system where you will likely never need to mess with it's software ever again after you have it running.

Don't use a Linux for the insane distribution then.

windows 7 is infinitly more stable that xp ever was.

Windows 7 RTM has done a BSOD on me 11 times acording to eventvwr.msc.

My XP system has yet to BSOD.

My XP system does not randomly have issues with software I run.

not to mention that 7 runs faster and does everything just plain better that windows XP.

Like displaying animated gifs in the image preview program? Oh wait...

Like running 16bit applications? Oh wait...

Like running DOS applications? Oh wait...

Looks like you weren't telling the truth. Next time you'll want to backup those statements with something.

Wine and CrossOver are pretty sweet, but pretending that either one is anywhere close to 100% compatible (especially with new releases) is ridiculous.

I don't pretend, I just use. For some reason, there is a lot of people that assume I don't and just make up this stuff.

some other thing - like the video driver not doing hardware accel for no discernable reason (I've seen this three times, on three different versions of Linux across two different hardware configurations) - may prevent you from gaming.

That's easily resolved by just clicking the check-boxes for the hardware in restricted manager (installs proprietary drivers).

but when two CS students with five years of Linux expecerience between them can't figure it out in the first hour

I know people who have 10+ years experience with Windows and can't figure out how to change their wallpaper. Stating a profession and years of experience literally means nothing to me because I have seen all kinds of people being in places they shouldn't be.

the average computer user who is switching for the first time doesn't have a chance

Maybe, maybe not. This isn't really a point I can argue much with because I've seen a 19 year old guy unable to handle a icon being somewhere else and then I have seen a completely computer illiterate 60+ year old lady learn the Linux CLI on her own, without help, because she hated the mouse so much.

First and foremost you need to realize that "getting a boy/girlfriend" is not like getting a pizza. It's not like an achievement in WoW. It's not a goal. If you treat it as such, you will be all uptight, needy and hopeless. It is simply choosing to spend time with someone and having them choose to spend time with you. It's simple, natural and normal.

I beg to differ.

It's called presumptuous arrogance.

Fine, I have "presumptuous arrogance".

You're trying to pass off something that could only have been taken as insulting by saying "only kidding".

Fine, I apologize that you don't get my humour.

Yet you're plenty interested in telling me what my needs in an office suite are.

To be honest, not really interested. I'm more interested in correcting a certain sentence that I have quoted four times.

Now that your personal issues are resolved, let's get back to the topic:

Well except for the fact that the ribbon reorganises itself so you can't ever find anything.

So far the best to prove this point is quote an article that isn't about the Ribbon interface and claim that the contextual tab that appears for only displaying tools is some how equal to "the ribbon reorganises itself so you can't ever find anything", despite the fact that everything else is still in the exact same place.

I don't see "reorganising" occurring here. I see a additional tab appearing for the context of the operation the exact same way a additional toolbar that would appear when editing a object in previous versions of office. Additionally, unlike the previous versions of office, it won't rearrange the buttons by rearranging the toolbars in certain instances.

I don't see how that can possibly make it even the slightest bit harder to find the tools that... Are still in the same place and haven't moved and haven't even been "reorganized".

On another note:

I was already convinced that MS zealots were by definition irrational

You would think if I was a MS zealot I would be running MS office on Windows right? Heh...

I suppose what I find amusing about the fact you think I'm a Linux zealot is the fact I spend a considerable amount of time working on helping people in my spare time with Linux distros and various FOSS projects (like Wine, Crossover, Freenet project etc).

I don't actually like Microsoft for many things, but I don't have a hatred for Microsoft to the point where anything they do is 'bad'. You probably won't take this suggestion since it's coming from me, but consider looking at yourself in a mirror. I know my failings, I know I am quite the asshole on Slashdot (just because I'm nice and patient when helping people on a support chat does not mean I will give the same courtesies on a tech forum where techies roam).

If they don't:

1. Game,
2. Use Adobe products, or
3. Use some other Windows-only software

then it's already desirable for non-tech-literate users. Certainly if it's already installed and configured by a manufacturer, with a simple recovery disc that fixes everything if you somehow manage to break it (no more likely than with Windows, and probably a bit less likely).

*shrugs*

I don't use Adobe products but, I certainly do game on Linux with various games and I definitely do use some Windows software too. Didn't really take much more effort than running the installers too.

I get fed up of hearing about the "killer applications" that everyone needs on Linux, a lot of them do run just fine already.

Impossible, you need Microsoft Office TM to do actual work !

Also not a issue.

I've heard it said in Geekdom that BSD is full of elitists, but generally I've found the support community to be a lot friendlier than of Linux.

I generally sit in a lot of different communities, Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris etc.

Here is my overall experience with certain BSD communities.

Note: OS X is not considered by most a BSD community.

was also tried of dealing with the "If you don't like it, code your own" mentality that I kept running across.

That's pretty much the OpenBSD answer to a lot of things, they also say "donate your hardware".

OS X 10.2 was out. That got me my Unix development stack AND commercial applications such as Adobe's apps and *gasp* MS Office and no hardware compatibility issues.

I'm guessing you were not a Windows power user if you didn't know of Windows' native POSIX subsystem or the POSIX alternative implementations under Windows.

That said, I've never really had a problem running commercial applications under Linux. That includes my games.

I agree some swear by different platforms. I get riled and carried away myself when I hear or read people say they need Windows because they have to be able to run MS Office or something else not realizing Office is available for OS X and there are other apps that can do the same for both Linux and OS X.

I'm actually platform agnostic, I'll use every OS under the sun. Ironically, when I stopped trying to tell people about using other platforms (not forcing people, just letting them know they exist), I've had much more interest when people see me actively using a alternative platform. I do however get annoyed when people tell me random non-sense about other systems like: Linux can't run games, Linux can't do ms office and so on.

I heard Morse Code was dropped but I couldn't confirm it.

Hopefully you trust these sources:
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2007/01/24/100/?nc=1
http://www.navagear.com/2007/02/morse-code-requirement-dropped-for-ham-radio-license/

Was the requirement that you design and build your own transceiver dropped too?

Actually, that's to do with building some kind of device, you can't build a transceiver, because you're not licensed to use it, so you can't test it - Most people build receivers using some build-your-own kit thing. Additionally, to get the first license level in the US (Technician Class) or UK (Foundation License), it's not needed. I believe when you get to the second level US (General License) etc. that it's required you build something.

Wow, I was thinking the same about running Office 2007 on Windows.

I thought the ribbon was ingenius, it was so ingenius that I decided that my next cross platform application would use it. It did however take some getting used to at first. It also feels a bit weird when switching between it and other office suits at times.

If you don't like the way Macs are now, you might as well keep that copy of XP backed up for years to come. The shelf life of CD media is only so long.

Believe it or not, I'm not set in my UI ways. I just don't happen to like OS X's methods. I use more than just Windows, I use more than one *nix desktop environment/window manager. I just don't like OS X's interface any more that I like fvwm (which I think isn't that user friendly if you want to customize it).

Just because I don't like one thing, doesn't mean I'm utterly set in my ways.

Whenever I have a problem with Linux, I just go to a Linux fanboy site and post "Linux SUXXORS. I can't get 'x' to work. I'm going back to windows"

Someone always seems to helpfully step up and try and prove me wrong. I mean, answer my question.

I generally don't give enough information to do that. I'll usually just take a snapshot of it working for me.

Example:
"Linux sucks because Microsoft Office doesn't work!!"
Me: Works for me.

Example 2:
*Someone trying a silly come back against me*
Me: I am.

Example 3:
"Fuck Linux! Magic the Gathering: Online doesn't work on it!!!"
Me: Works for me.

Someone always seems to helpfully step up and try and prove me wrong. I mean, answer my question.

I guess you haven't found me some place outside of Slashdot yet.

Whenever I have a problem with Linux, I just go to a Linux fanboy site and post "Linux SUXXORS. I can't get 'x' to work. I'm going back to windows"

Someone always seems to helpfully step up and try and prove me wrong. I mean, answer my question.

I generally don't give enough information to do that. I'll usually just take a snapshot of it working for me.

Example:
"Linux sucks because Microsoft Office doesn't work!!"
Me: Works for me.

Example 2:
*Someone trying a silly come back against me*
Me: I am.

Example 3:
"Fuck Linux! Magic the Gathering: Online doesn't work on it!!!"
Me: Works for me.

Someone always seems to helpfully step up and try and prove me wrong. I mean, answer my question.

I guess you haven't found me some place outside of Slashdot yet.

Whenever I have a problem with Linux, I just go to a Linux fanboy site and post "Linux SUXXORS. I can't get 'x' to work. I'm going back to windows"

Someone always seems to helpfully step up and try and prove me wrong. I mean, answer my question.

I generally don't give enough information to do that. I'll usually just take a snapshot of it working for me.

Example:
"Linux sucks because Microsoft Office doesn't work!!"
Me: Works for me.

Example 2:
*Someone trying a silly come back against me*
Me: I am.

Example 3:
"Fuck Linux! Magic the Gathering: Online doesn't work on it!!!"
Me: Works for me.

Someone always seems to helpfully step up and try and prove me wrong. I mean, answer my question.

I guess you haven't found me some place outside of Slashdot yet.

Microsoft have once again proved that they're ahead of curve, and have already equipped their system with a special facility that displays a red circle on the screen to indicate that all gaming has been suspended for an indefinite period.

I heard the switch was controlled by a HAL 9000 series computer.

Every time (well, most of the time) there a new Slashdot article is posted or commented on with any vague furry connotation, I see you incessantly whining about the representation of your sexual fetish (as if anyone cares).

The amusing thing about many anti-furry trolls is that they are often jelous of the fact furs can find amusement in doing little things, however, they also love the fact that they can get a rise out of a few of them easily. I think this AC didn't get enough love and attention as a child and I feel sorry for him, one can only hope the future gets better for him.

I bawww for you, Mr. Anonymous Coward.

But probably not as well as a PS3 (which is capable of running OpenOffice via Linux) or Xbox 360 could.

I can't agree since I often find the games I own which have console versions, perform, look and work a lot better on the PC than on the consoles [1] and as such, I prefer my laptop - Which additionally, is running Linux (the sad thing is that my Windows games, running under Wine+Linux run faster and often better than they do under Windows Vista).

By the way, per your sig, on some systems (like the YDL I have installed on my PS3) netcat is "nc"

'nc' is supposed to be the name used for the original UNIX netcat application (by *hobbit*), while 'netcat' is supposed to be the GNU version (maintained by Giovanni Giacobbi) due to some backwards compatibility issues with parameters.

I wonder if yellow dog Linux actually has the GNU version and named it "nc".

One of the biggest resons that people are stikking with Windows, is Games.

I run all these games on Linux.

It is still not the norm to make games for other then Windows, and when game companys do, it is offen whit 6+ month delay after the windows release.

So? Use the Windows version on Linux.

So gamers can't really leave Windows :-(

Sure they can, I did.

And there is A LOT of gamers out there

And a lot of miss conceptions. I've done everything from running Microsoft Office on Linux to using specialty windows-only software.

So how *did* they manage to change the color of the "Ring Of Death" over the 'net?

Now you've gone and angered it.

And as for Amarok... I don't know how much "sexy" there was in there previously, but if I was willing to put up with this sort of mess, I wouldn't be using a mac in the first place

Me neither. Fortunately my Amarok looks nothing like that.

No, you can't skip the registration, you can't do it later, you can lie if you want to but you have to fill these fields out, and if you don't have an internet connection availible it will strongly suggest you register later.

Use the force quit shortcut keys, it works.

You get to your desktop, and it's beautiful. You can customize the window decorations, you have the whole choice between 'Aqua' and 'Graphite'. Basically, Graphite is a colorless Aqua

I don't like it. As for customizations.... Apple is rather primitive, compared to other solutions.

No, you can't skip the registration, you can't do it later, you can lie if you want to but you have to fill these fields out, and if you don't have an internet connection availible it will strongly suggest you register later.

Use the force quit shortcut keys, it works.

You get to your desktop, and it's beautiful. You can customize the window decorations, you have the whole choice between 'Aqua' and 'Graphite'. Basically, Graphite is a colorless Aqua

I don't like it. As for customizations.... Apple is rather primitive, compared to other solutions.

Who would want to use that when the GUI of OSX is far better?

I consider KDE's GUI superior. It is far more flexible, offers more and lets me use a real menu and taskbar instead of a "dock".

Just this small thing makes me prefer KDE (and there are many things about KDE that I prefer mind you):
OS X vs KDE

I have used OS X and I have been OS X user for many years, but I still prefer KDE, period.

Who has time to scout the Internet for software that MIGHT work?

I don't, that's why I don't use Windows or OS X on my laptop.

Most free Mac software comes on DMG a disk image that opens and installs the software with a few mouse clicks.

Or drag and drop application. A archive format doesn't impress me.

For example GIMP installs on OSX and runs with x11.app which comes with every Mac. Other X-11 programs also work just fine. Much fine free open software runs in the native OSX environment.

Drag and drop doesn't work in OS X's X11, clipboard is broken in OS X's X11 (many applications worked around this by using Aqua's clipboard functions - but, who wants to bother porting all this crap. We just want to use the software) there is probably other numerous issues in X11, but by that time, I had enough of porting with OS X.

Much fine free open software runs in the native OSX environment.

Not really. A lot of finf, macports packages crash on OS X, upgrading OS X will cause special problems with them - weird segfaults etc.

Applications aren't quite native either when they have to run in a special window interface, because stuff like GTK on OS X is messed up beyond belief, making porting a nightmare. Thus it's far easier to just run the proper GTK libraries under a broken X11 server.

Who would want to use that when the GUI of OSX is far better?

I consider KDE's GUI superior. It is far more flexible, offers more and lets me use a real menu and taskbar instead of a "dock".

Just this small thing makes me prefer KDE (and there are many things about KDE that I prefer mind you):
OS X vs KDE

I have used OS X and I have been OS X user for many years, but I still prefer KDE, period.

Who has time to scout the Internet for software that MIGHT work?

I don't, that's why I don't use Windows or OS X on my laptop.

Most free Mac software comes on DMG a disk image that opens and installs the software with a few mouse clicks.

Or drag and drop application. A archive format doesn't impress me.

For example GIMP installs on OSX and runs with x11.app which comes with every Mac. Other X-11 programs also work just fine. Much fine free open software runs in the native OSX environment.

Drag and drop doesn't work in OS X's X11, clipboard is broken in OS X's X11 (many applications worked around this by using Aqua's clipboard functions - but, who wants to bother porting all this crap. We just want to use the software) there is probably other numerous issues in X11, but by that time, I had enough of porting with OS X.

Much fine free open software runs in the native OSX environment.

Not really. A lot of finf, macports packages crash on OS X, upgrading OS X will cause special problems with them - weird segfaults etc.

Applications aren't quite native either when they have to run in a special window interface, because stuff like GTK on OS X is messed up beyond belief, making porting a nightmare. Thus it's far easier to just run the proper GTK libraries under a broken X11 server.

Ever tried to install something on a desktop distro ?

Yep, I've used SuSE (not OpenSuSE), Mandriva and Kubuntu excessively as desktop distributions with in the recent years.

most of the time no entry in any menus....have to look at installed files in user/sbin or whaetever..

Nope. I cannot recall that ever happening to be honest.

That is because graphical applications /must/ have a .desktop file or the package doesn't get accepted into the distribution's repositories.

Windows installers makes it easy:it asks for icons, shorcuts etc, and put them at the end.

I do get fedup of certain windows installers that just create icons on the desktop or quick launch without asking.

Even if you have icons in a distro..you have to hunt for them...and ask another gui to move them where you want...(gnome)

Eh? .desktop files are universal.

Hell distros dont even have something to identify your hardware that does not suck monkey balls...hard to know what to install then.

There is only one device on my system that requires specialized drivers to be installed and my distro provided everything needed to identify and install it. All I had to do was tick the check box and it downloaded and installed the appropriate drivers.

In the original poster's case, he had drivers that worked, but they did not work as well as older version of drivers - which is not a very common scenario.

linux sucks on the desktop cause you need a professional administrator to use it.

If your points were valid to begin with, that might be true, but they certainly aren't with the popular desktop distributions.

Perhaps those points were valid eight years ago, I don't know.

If you don't consider OS X an advantage, then don't get a Mac.

I can install OSx86 on most common x86 hardware, so the fact it runs OS X is not really a big thing to me. It might be a bit easier to get into initially with OS X, but being a techie, it doesn't really stop me. If I want to run a specific OS, I will run a OS.

With Linux or FreeBSD you get a decent OS, but no commercial software.

Yeah, whatever.

With Vista you get lots of software, but it's running on an OS deliberately designed to cripple what you can do with it.

I'm generally platform agnostic for the most part. Windows is best at running Windows software. Linux is best at running Linux-based software (and for some reason, some Windows games perform better for me on it). OS X is best at running OS X software.

OS X doesn't get you as good an OS as FreeBSD

Wine is very unstable on the BSDs actually and driver support is a large issue. Personally I prefer OpenBSD in the BSD range by the way.

and it doesn't get you as much software as Vista, but it gets you a WAY better OS than Vista, and WAY more software than any free UNIX.

Last time I tried, Wine support for various games, had to have specific driver hacks for each game (source: Codeweavers), thus preventing me from playing, the majority of games I enjoy on the Mac. The interface doesn't appeal to me because of how simplified it is in most cases. Never mind the developer tool chain is such a pain on OS X when it comes to crossplatform development (mixing of xcode, finf and macports to get a working cross-platform development environment is not very convenient for me).

Most of the free software I use, simply does not compile at all, or out of date and crash a lot on OS X. These is things from Krita to Amarok

If THAT is not worth anything to you, then that's fine, but it's what makes them wort their price for the people who do buy them.

Your points are in my opinion mostly invalid. As I've said before, Macs are affordable, but it is not cheaper in my opinion.

"Not overpriced" doesn't mean "cheaper" any more than "more expensive" means "overpriced".

I don't know what you're trying to imply here through vague statements. Do you want me to say Mac hardware is overpriced in my comparison?

I am not here to get into a OS war, but you are forcing me into a cornor where I feel I should refute certain points you've raised.

I can tell you plenty of issues on Linux, BSDs, Solaris, Windows I have. My initial post was really about the cost of hardware, nothing else.

If you don't consider OS X an advantage, then don't get a Mac.

I can install OSx86 on most common x86 hardware, so the fact it runs OS X is not really a big thing to me. It might be a bit easier to get into initially with OS X, but being a techie, it doesn't really stop me. If I want to run a specific OS, I will run a OS.

With Linux or FreeBSD you get a decent OS, but no commercial software.

Yeah, whatever.

With Vista you get lots of software, but it's running on an OS deliberately designed to cripple what you can do with it.

I'm generally platform agnostic for the most part. Windows is best at running Windows software. Linux is best at running Linux-based software (and for some reason, some Windows games perform better for me on it). OS X is best at running OS X software.

OS X doesn't get you as good an OS as FreeBSD

Wine is very unstable on the BSDs actually and driver support is a large issue. Personally I prefer OpenBSD in the BSD range by the way.

and it doesn't get you as much software as Vista, but it gets you a WAY better OS than Vista, and WAY more software than any free UNIX.

Last time I tried, Wine support for various games, had to have specific driver hacks for each game (source: Codeweavers), thus preventing me from playing, the majority of games I enjoy on the Mac. The interface doesn't appeal to me because of how simplified it is in most cases. Never mind the developer tool chain is such a pain on OS X when it comes to crossplatform development (mixing of xcode, finf and macports to get a working cross-platform development environment is not very convenient for me).

Most of the free software I use, simply does not compile at all, or out of date and crash a lot on OS X. These is things from Krita to Amarok

If THAT is not worth anything to you, then that's fine, but it's what makes them wort their price for the people who do buy them.

Your points are in my opinion mostly invalid. As I've said before, Macs are affordable, but it is not cheaper in my opinion.

"Not overpriced" doesn't mean "cheaper" any more than "more expensive" means "overpriced".

I don't know what you're trying to imply here through vague statements. Do you want me to say Mac hardware is overpriced in my comparison?

I am not here to get into a OS war, but you are forcing me into a cornor where I feel I should refute certain points you've raised.

I can tell you plenty of issues on Linux, BSDs, Solaris, Windows I have. My initial post was really about the cost of hardware, nothing else.

Yes, but the n00b surfers are still convinced somehow that they need msoffice for compatability. This even interferes with their potential defection to Macintosh. It's quite bizarre really...

Okay? And the problem is?

Yes, but the n00b surfers are still convinced somehow that they need msoffice for compatability. This even interferes with their potential defection to Macintosh. It's quite bizarre really...

Okay? And the problem is?

One that would not run at all is acrobat.

Firefox crashes constantly.

I could not get AOL online service client to run.

Office XP doesnt run.

Its misleading since the software does not fully emulate windows

even reasonably well.

Release 1.0 when you finally get everything working right.

Too bad the rest of the Office doesn't work

Where are the commercial game ports for Linux?

We have Parallels for Mac OS X, which seems to be quite capable at running Windows programs at a decent speed, with good compatibility.

I think anyone who's actually tried to use either of these will probably tell you that if you really want to run Windows programs on your Linux machine

and the fact of the matter is that most of the commercial software out there is for Windows

Distributions are still a fragmented mess, it's incredibly difficult to produce a binary for Linux that will work across all distributions (especially with Gentoo and their whole CFLAGS fiasco...thank goodness that fad died off)

As much as you'd like to complain about Windows and Apple, binary compatibility is not a problem.

Professional audio? Don't even bother. ESounD, ARTS, JACKD, now PulseAudio seems to be the big name in useless sound daemons...but that doesn't mean everyone will standardize on it.

Linux kernel is supposedly so "flexible" that it can be used in any range of devices from computers to cell phones, then why is it that 18 years or more later after the first release, there -still- isn't an easy way to do very low-latency, high quality audio recording on Linux?

Linux distributions could _EASILY_ supplant a lot of the Windows based environments for professional audio if the kernel was up to the task.

I haven't run Windows on my PC in over six years, so clearly Linux has been capable of meeting my desktop needs

Got a definitive link for it?

Software permission policies in Windows let you define which programs can be executed. Generally the rules most corporations have setup is something like Program Files\*.exe and Windows\*.exe.

Any executables outside of these 'rules' are blocked from being launched. The user is also a 'limited user' (non-administrator) in these situations, so they cannot copy anything to those paths.

There are options for just about everything, so you can tweak your desktop to be just the way you want it.

If you'd asked for references or more information instead of being rude and arrogant we may have been able to have a discussion. What the fuck do you want on a forum? Refereed journal articles? You're being ridiculous.

Not to that extent, but certainly more information than you did provide, rather than the stereotypical flamebait phrases.

Ahh I see so now one of the criteria for commenting on a story is to post references to every comment or anecdote?

A reasonable amount, yes.

Gimme a break. You have no interest in bettering the site

I have far more interest in decent content than you do obviously.

or getting more information from me.

After the generic flamebait material in your post? No, not interested at all.

You're just sore that someone would dare to criticize your pet OS.

My pet OS is AROS, believe it or not I actually use plenty of operating systems daily and I have issues with all of them. None of them is 'perfect' for me. What annoys me is your stupid generic 'memes' which are used as flamebait all the time

How old are you?

If I were to give you any number, you would ridicule it, no point telling you.

That's really too bad because these "memes" are here to stay.

Doesn't mean I won't moderate everyone who uses them as flamebait, and it won't mean people like me will not just simply ignore it.

They summarise a users experience.

That is not a summary.

The fact is Linux isn't ready to be unleashed on mainstream non-hobbyists. Apple does not "just work" and depending on what you do windows may or may not crash every hour - certainly it was true for certain versions of windows (95, ME).

As I said, in certain scenarios. With Apple systems, there is a very good history of the system just not working with everything and even today, there are plenty of oddities and issues with OS X. I have had plenty of widely known, common issues within the mac community, with it for years and I still use it almost daily.

With Windows, the continuous crashing every hour was true for a minority, the systems did not crash to that extent, people claim that happens to the majority of modern Windows systems today - which is certainly not the case.

When most of the desktop software isn't written for Linux/Unix

That has never determined in the past if a OS was desktop ready. People claim OS X is ready for the desktop, but it definately does not get the amount of development Linux gets on desktop applications in comparison (just look at the DE development and compare it to the huge OS X software library sites).

when the alternatives are very weak and often incomplete immitations of better software

Honestly, the majority of the software on my Linux desktop are not even incomplete, cheap imitations...

But, let's see. I'll list the desktop applications:
Crossover, Fontforge, Kooka, KPDF (even supports DRM fully, and has features that help the user in certain circumstances), Firefox, Kontact, Pidgin, Krita, Amarok, K3B, Kaffiene, xmms, Kexi, Staroffice, Karbon, Adept, Dolphin, kbluetooth, Keep, Ark, kate, speedcrunch, Strigi, ktemperature, Skype.

Out of that list and comparing against software that is similar which is incomplete and/or cheap imitations of other software, I can confidently say it is: Speedcrunch and Skype. Some of the software listed above obviously adapted concepts from other software, but they are in my opinion, superior to the applications because of the additional features they introduce which the original software does not have, thus not a 'cheap imitation'.

I considered for a bit adding Staroffice to the list, but it

Can i have the article in....PDF format please....

I live in a country that is not my native language, I wish to purchase products in MY NATIVE LANGUAGE. I have to import a lot of stuff for this reason.

I may have no other choice than to no longer purchase their product if they block this.

Good luck doing this in Europe also where free trade is REQUIRED.

You have to imagine that you don't know how to use bash or edit /etc/foobar.conf.

Think like someone for whom "open a terminal and type 'apt-get install foo_bar'" reads like "remodulate the man deflector array and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow".

Imagine that you don't know - and don't care - about the distinction between the kernel, the window manager, the X server etc.

...then I think you'll find that KDE and Gnome are perfectly fine ways of launching OpenOffice provided you have a pet Linux geek to set up your machine handle anything more complicated.

It shows how little you know about security. There's more in /etc/passwd than hidden passwords. There's a list of system users, which can indicate specific SW installed on that system. Some of which has specific vulnerabilities. So an attacking app like Skype (or something that exploits Skype) can detect SW to attack without other tests that can trigger an alarm.

Before you go shooting off your mouth with insults about security, make sure you know what you're talking about. Don't piss off people with superior security-fu to whom you've given your website's URL.

For one thing, gcj can compile Java source and bytecodes to native code, which AFAIK works for those architectures even in the complete absence of a Sun JVM. But then, wherever that runs, so does gij. It's not as good as Sun's, but it does work for a lot of applications.

You just said it yourself: resource-intensive anti-virus software. Java is an alternative to that because the JVM's security architecture has anti-virus capabilities built-in, without needing to be resource-intensive.

One could write a virus in Java too.

The anti-virus software that everyone runs these days has a major impact on performance

Not quite, but certain very common anti-virus software is quite intensive.

and it's trying to do the same thing Java does with its sandbox architecture.

Most resident scanners scan for patterns against their virus databases in active memory. It's rare that heuristic scanning picks up unique viruses.

The difference is that anti-virus software is not nearly as protective as the JVM is

The anti-virus scanner can block known viruses. The Sun JVM doesn't have such functionality. In theory Java is great, because the user gets a dialog on applets/webstart applications to run the application. However, there have been many certificate vulnerabilities with the JVM, there have been vulnerabilities related to executing unsigned java code by the use of certain java bytecode etc.

and compiled executable + anti-virus is a lot slower than a Java app.

Well, this isn't a direct comparison since the code in both of these programs is substantially different but, just looking at some well known programs like utorrent + anti-virus verses Sun JVM + Azuerus, kdevelop (the recent kde related port) verses Sun JVM + netbeans etc. I find the java applications slower responding.

In what cases can I see it's slower? I can see the UIs redrawing, I can see the mouse clicks aren't being handled instantly, I can see the application just freezes somewhat unlike my other applications.

That said, I have seen benchmarks that show reads and writes are faster in Java compared to a C application, but in reality, that's just a small thing for me.

If I find that I can run things like utorrent, kdevelop (with all those kde libs) and anti-virus software without noticing these issues verses the java applications alone, with the anti-virus software disabled... I still notice all the redrawing, latency in my clicks. That in my opinion is not good enough.

And by the way, I do most of my work in a 100% Java GUI (Swing) app, which is NetBeans, a large, complicated, powerful IDE, on a regular PC, and it is just as responsive as any other desktop app,

Can't say the experience has been the same for me. I've messed with Java since 1.1 to 6, I've used various jdks, messed with native java compilers (including those that convert java source to .net bytecode). The alternatives to Sun JDK are always too far behind to run the best/popular java applications I've come across... Freenet, Azureus, Netbeans (although notably, netbeans doesn't run too bad on Sun JVM -- I just notice the UI redrawing).

and it uses less memory. It runs in less than 100mb, all the time.

Memory arguments are somewhat pointless, I could write software to compress data in memory to keep the memory usage smaller, but the side effect is that the application could behave much slower due to this. While unnecessary things shouldn't be in memory, responsiveness on consumer hardware from the interface is far more important.

Too often I see other Java developers, who tell users that their applications are not slow and there is nothing wrong with them, they get these results on their beefed up machine (quite normal for a developer, but bad for testing certain cases if your end user are common people who have 256MB ram, windows xp, crappy intensive anti-virus and who knows what else).

Even now, I look at one of my little side projects under the latest Sun jvm6, verses Sun jvm1.4... I can see clearly there is a lower framerate with i

"Only two remote holes in the default install, in more than 10 years!"

That's as close as you get to 100%, if you could ever say anything is truly 100%

]:P~