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Mac OS 9 Versus Corel GNU/Linux At CNet
petard writes: "CNet is holding an OS death match between Corel GNU/Linux and Mac OS 9. An advocate of each is invited to answer the question of which is better on the desktop in the areas of Installation, Interface, Applications, Hardware Compatiblility and Internet Support. At first I thought it was flamebait, but the article is reasonably well done and highlights genuine strengths and weakness of each OS." It's really easy to say, 'Yeah, well, wait for Eazel,' but this comparison is a hard reminder that people think about the here and now, not just the soon.
What the heck is this title I'm seeing? "Corel GNU/Linux"? What the heck is that? I've looked all over the Corel website, and they don't offer such a product! The closest I could find was "Corel Linux". Is this what you meant, emmett?
I can only conclude one of two things. First, since Corel Linux is derived from Debian GNU/Linux, the names got confused while the proofreader was asleep. Or second, this is GNUspeak. Slashdot, beholden to the whims of the FSF, has to rename everything. God forbid they should get a reputation as independant thinkers!
Regardless of your views on the name of a certain operating system, at least have the moral fiber to call a rose a rose! You can argue all day whether the OS is GNU/Linux, LiGNUx, Linux or Fred(tm), but the name of the distribution offered by Corel is correctly spelled as "Corel Linux OS". Shortening the name to "Corel Linux" is certainly acceptable, but changing it is not.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't read them at all, much less auto-mount them. For the 3 Mac users who might actually be interested in such a feature, I'd suggest they just use FAT-formatted disks when copying the files off their Linux box. :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
The comment about them inventing it is hyperbole, certainly. I won't even try to defend it. But the networking on a Mac really is just like the GUI: simple, easy, and works out-of-the-box. That's the whole point as far as I'm concerned.
- Where was the "system recovery" round? (I'm dealing with this right now, and let me tell you: at the best, diagnosing an ill Mac is a hair-rending, tooth-gnashing occation - and fixing it is worse, often involving three or four third-party apps).
I suspect this reflects much more on your experience with both platforms. I find things to go the exact opposite. My Mac, when it breaks, is fixed nearly instantly, and almost never requires 3rd-party apps.
- Where was the free support round? (Visit alt.linux, your problem is usually solved right there before you even have to post a question.)
You know, Macs have newsgroups too. There are also web sites, forums, and so forth. In short, the same sorts of resources that Linux users have. You don't have to ask Apple just because you own one.
- Where was the free documentation round? I can find out anything about linux for free, and usually right after I do a Google search. When I had questions about Mac, I had to BUY a book.
This reflects on your inability to conduct a coherent web search, as opposed to the lack of documentation. There are plenty of sites, ranging from newbie stuff to obscure things like how to change that enter key next to the spacebar on powerbook keyboards into a command key. There's also that little Help menu (did you miss it?) that will answer many common questions.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
just imagine...
BeOS vs. DOS 2.1
Let's see... both have CLIs, both run on intel chips, uhh... they both can boot from a floppy. Sure - let's do a death-match
Installation:
- DOS 2.1 - no install, just boot from floppy
- BeOS - quick, intelligent install, though can also boot from floppy
- Tie
Interface- DOS - CLI with a limited set of commands
- BeOS - purty GUI with POSIX-compliant CLI
- winner: BeOS
Applications- DOS - Lotus 1-2-3, and IBM Write
- BeOS - many, many found on http://www.be.com/software/ including Quake II.
- winner: BeOS
Hardware Compatibility- DOS - need really old machine, probably 8086 >= x >= 386
- BeOS - need rather new machine, pentium class and higher
- tie - BeOS requires expensive equipment, whereas DOS restricts me to only using shit I should have recycled ages ago.
Intenet Support- DOS - I once used my 9600 baud modem to gain a telnet connection, where I could surf the web using lynx.
- BeOS - native TCP/IP
- winner: BeOS
Stability- DOS - I never saw it crash
- BeOS - I never saw it crash
- tie
Price- DOS - (originally bundled with $5000 piece of hardware) currently - $.25 at local garage sale
- BeOS - (originally $100) currently - free Lite version, full version is $69.95
- tie
Death Match winner: BeOSCome back next week when we pit the Palm OS vs. Irix
- passion
Yes, it is preferable to not have these server services running (or even installed) by default for a desktop user. A "typical" desktop user doesn't even know what the heck telnet is, let alone find it a useful tool. If, however, they do find such services helpful, they can get them for the Mac. And if they like them too much, they can get OSX, or for that matter, LinuxPPC, Yellow Dog, whatever.
http://www-ccsl.cs.umass.edu/~barrett/bm/Viewer_Se ctions/Articles/15_BS2
BS/2. The world's fastest OS.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
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Interesting, that it is such a small world.
My brother has a 7100, which I believe only came with 16M of RAM and a 1G hard drive. Many of the even older PPC Macs (6100, etc) were not even equipped that well -- I've seen a number of them with 200-500M HD's and only 8M of RAM. A 1G hard drive is probably adequate, but would MacOS 9 actually run very well in 16M of RAM? Especially when it came time to try to run heavyweight applications like Microsoft Office or Photoshop as mentioned in the article?
Most of the 486's I have can be bumped up to at least 32M (if not 64), which is adequate for most things for Linux. The exceptions would be wretched abominations like a couple Packrat Bill's I've seen which could only go to 20M (4M soldered, and 4 30-pin sockets). I've actually used Word Perfect 8 under KDE on a 32M 486 box, and it was usable. You can actually get by for light usage on 16M, but that can be a little painful in X.
BTW, if you are at the LUG meeting, say hello so I have a clue as to who you are... You obviously know who I am.
Applicatons: truthfully I would rather have vi then quicken or rather have vi then notepad, word, Word95, any MacOS or Windows Editor.
Why do I choose `vi`, well because I am a system admin and wanta be programmer and could give a shit about `easy to use` and want `effective to use`, I don't want to trip over any dam pull down means or stroke my mouse off to save a dam file, I want it raw.
But then again, I am a system admin and wantabe programmer, I want a Unix or Unix-like system to work with, not some glossy peice of shit as my server. I want to be able to sleep 5 hours staight without getting a call saying "You know that iMac with MacOS 9 you are using for your web server/ ftp/ radius and email server for 50,000 users? Yea, surpise it went down again, please fix it again"
But then again I have differant requirements in OS then other people, surpise NOT EVERYONE in the world wants the exact same thing. Sure Macs and great, for GrandParents, but they totally suck as server, as Linux totally sucks as a "point-click-drool" type of system.
I wonder if CNET is doing an article next week "Apples VS Oranges, the DEATHMATCH, which really is the BEST fruit"
Dam atleast the Gnome Vs KDE or BSD Vs Linux or vi Vs Emacs had some dam content, atleast they where comparing to things that it made sense to.
CNET next week, which is the BEST FOOD, find out in our next DEATHMATCH: Ford Vans Vs Empty Soda cans.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Did you read the articles? They tell exactly why they picked either OS to win in a catagory. It was a c|net article written for the average suit or home user not dudes who think in Assembler.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Actually.. TCO *IS* well understood in companies. Believe it or not, most cfo's and finance types, ceo's, upper management *WILL* hear a different solution, other than windows, based on TCO. They understand these financial terms better than the technical ones. Usually, I find the argumen thinges on two key points.
1) What is the TCO according to the IT dept. analysis?
2) Is your IT dept. competent enough to handle the scope of the switchover?
#2 is by far the biggest.
I mean.. heck.. I sit in a company. I *know* that in the long run, a linux/solaris mix (solaris for those engineering apps that aren't 'ported' (recompiled) for linux yet) may cost more in initial setup and outlay, and appear to do less, but cost out over the next 3 years, it more than pays for itself in reliabilty alone, nevermind the way cool integrated IT environment you could build out of it.
My problem is putting it down on paper, in terms that beancounters can understand. You have to be very thorough with these guys... VERY thorough. It's big business. There can be no doubt as to your numbers.
If an IT professional took a week to install corel linux, he should go learn some basic computing theory.
Linux seems strange to some because windows (or perhaps the mac) is the *only* thing they have ever known. Some of the concepts involved are completely alien (like.. partitioning...)
I find it strange that people can be sysadmins, be responsible for million dollar budgets, tons of computers, yet not understand what partitioning really is. It makes me damn ANGRY!
Unfortunately Be is missing alot of the things c|Net was paying attention to. If every OS was as easy to set up and use as Be the desktop world would be a wonderful place.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Really, though - that's what this is. The two operating systems are, at this point, not really comparable.
It's comparing Apples to Oranges.
I like oranges better.
Hmm, that's not as hard as a lot of people make it out to be....
-Denor
This is a good point, for any OS discussion including NT. If it takes me a week to get a box up and running smoothly or I have to spend X number of hours of my day reading manuals on how to do something it adds to the overall cost of the system. Lets say I want to put in a SCSI card and hook up a RAID to a system. With Linux I have to find a SCSI adapter that will work (Adaptec 15xx series tend to work well but that may or may not suit my needs) and then get a RAID setup. If I was using many other Unix vendors finding such hardware would be easy, I call up the Unix vendor and tell them what I need. With Linux you don't have that sort of support which is a serious drawback that many people don't think about. If I have MacOS or Windows on a machine I can grab a SCSI card that in Windows or Mac compatible (has drivers written) and then order a RAID that is also certified for the OS. A really great IT dude would know these things before hand but not every company can afford such IT dudes.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Yeah, Linux has great apps for every aspect of the Internet...except for what people actually spend 99% of their time on the Internet doing: browsing and email.
Email is of course a matter of preference, although the fact that until Evolution there won't be a good multi-pane GUI email/PIM program for Linux is a definite weakness of the platform overall. Pine may be good enough for you, but for someone whose job revolves around contacts, meetings, etc, it doesn't cut it.
As for browsing--which, for most, *is* the Internet--there's simply no comparison. IE 5 for the Mac is hands-down the best web browser ever made. (Except for the fact that most Macs only have 1 mouse button; of course, that's hardly IE 5's fault.) If you disagree with me, it's almost certainly because you haven't used it. And no, I'm not a Mac owner. In any case, Netscape for Linux (or anything for that matter) is objectively god-awful, and Mozilla, Konquerer, etc., while promising, are not ready for prime time yet.
Frankly, for the way most of the computer-using population (and the people for whom this article--and Corel Linux, while were at it--was targeted) use the Internet, the Mac is clearly the better platform.
The other thing to consider, of course, is the castly different user bases. Unix boxes will often get used by geeks who like being able to bost aout an uptime in months, Macs tend to get used as workstations by the designers. Hence likely lower average uptime as they get switched off at the end of the day.
:) - but my memory of their uptime was that some apps would crash fairly frequently but the system stayed up pretty well. And, importantly, when it _did_ crash, it was quick to reboot.
It's a few years since I've used a Mac unfortunately - though I want to play with iMovie
To a user, a crash matters a lot more if the rebooot takes 10 minutes (as with my Windows box if it has to ScanDisk) than if it takes 10 seconds (as with my old Amiga before I started adding lots of toys to it...)
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
>As I post this message my OS 9 server(it provides email and backup services for a small company) has an uptime count of 840 hours 37 minutes and 35 seconds. That's pretty good stability,
And I set up a BSD box on a 486 with 32 meg of DRAM handling 20,000 seperate e-mail users that has 228 and 847 DAYS of uptime. If you use the Micro$oft downtime methods, it was up for over 1000 days. (They had to unplug it to move the box.)
840 hours is not a timescale Unix users consider 'long'
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Well, there are always sweetheart deals out there, but they really can't be used for general comparisons, as they can't be reliably found. In general, I think it is fairly safe to say that Macs usually hold their value better than PC's (which is a good thing if you are a Mac owner that wants to sell, and a bad thing if you are in the market for one) and that really cheap deals on PCs are easier to find, if for no other reason than there are so many 'obsolete' PCs out there.
I've not run into very many problems using large EIDE drives even in relatively old x86 machines. I have a 486-DX4/100 machine at home with an 8.4G drive in it. Its BIOS autodetect wouldn't automagically find the correct settings, but I had no problem entering the cyl/hd/sec values in.
Nope. OSD, DFSG.
Can Apple ban me from distributing the modified source on the slightest whim? Yes. All your efforts can be rendered useless if it happens to suit Apple to ban you from distributing the source. (It says in the license that if they claim that you infringe their IP, you have to stop distributing modified-APSL software until it's sorted out in court. That could potentially be indefinitely). [At least, this was all true the last time I checked the APSL].
You can't e.g. have a viable business strategy that permanently depends on the whim of a potential competitor.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I predict lots of Linux zealotry to follow this post. What the heck was c|net thinking? Thanks for stoking the fires, emmett.
Anyone with sense knows that Linux and MacOS have vastly different user bases. Comparing the two head to head just isn't going to work. Give it a year, though. With a BSD-based MacOS X, and a little more time for Linux application development, 2001 will probably be a great year for everybody concerned: the average end-user (Mac guy) is going to have excellent stability, and the uber-geek (Linux dude) will have kick-butt productivity apps. Best of both worlds!
Constitutionally Correct
There's a fair bit of merit in what you say, that much is agreed. /somewhere/, after all.
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
OTOH there is a large degree to which 'suitability for purpose' is apposite. In particular, there are stereotypes: Mac for graphics, Unix for servers, Windoze for desktops; and I have a suspicion that stereotypes come from
What you learn by advocacy is not that 'linux r00lz' but rather that the person advocating it for roll-out across a 1000-strong company as a desktop OS is an idiot.
OTOH there are also one or two OS-independent factors; I don't know of anything where reliability isn't key, I know security is generally favourable, and ease of *use*[0] is also probably a good thing.
[0] I said use, not installation. I'm more than prepared to spend 2 days installing a Debian GNU/Linux system if it makes my life easier for the next 6 months...
~Tim
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Am I the only one who wondered why there wasn't a 'Stability' round? I mean, that's pretty important, to me at least.
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Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
I can't believe they gave macos the internet support category. It took me months to find ssh for the mac. ssh is definetly an internet necessity. Also outlook sucks and crashed many times on my mac eudora doesn't come with an imac or macos. You can download the free version but then you get an advertisement filling your screen. With linux I can do what I want on the net. proxies, servers, clients. Not so with macos, does apache run on a mac.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Who's to say that a cat couldn't be an NT admin? Although I hear that cats sometimes have problems understanding TCP/IP..
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I just had to point out, as a regular Mac user/owner:
1) PPP is in a control panel called either PPP, or Remote Access, depending on if you're running MacOS9.
Alternatively, there might be a Remote Access icon in your control strip in addition to a Control Panel, looking like a computer next to a telephone pole.
2) To save as a postscript document, select the Laserwriter driver from the chooser, hit print, and change the "Destination" drop-down menu from "Printer" to "File".
I'll give you this, though: The Chooser is a poor piece of UI. Even Apple admits so. It's GONE in MacOSX.
I spend a good chunk of time working with Windows, MacOS and Linux, as my profession requires of me and despite the internal deficiencies of the MacOS, it still allows me to get my work done a fair bit faster and with FAR less aggrivation than Linux or Windows.
While I'm on the soapbox, I might as well say it, MacOSX IS going to be the OS that people will have a hard time complaining about. The kernel is Mach, which is BSD compatible. The kernel is also open-source, and thus, hackable (See Darwin). Is has:
1) MacOS interface.
2) UNIX reliability.
3) UNIX compatability (command line programs should compile without complaint as they would on FreeBSD, X Window server is availible as an option)
4) A great selection of business applications.
5) Runs on fast, pretty hardware.
I could even go on to speculate that it should be possible to write support for PPCLinux executables into the kernel, the same way that X86 Linux executables will run on FreeBSD.
Now if only Apple will fix that stupid dock feature, and move the widgets on the window scroll bars back where they belong...
"since when is being able to set a computer up to display applications running on another computer by default a bad thing? "
"Gee, boss, I don't know why that dialog with porn popped up in front of our CEO. Must've been some nasty vandals or something.."
There's a reason why things should be secure by default. OpenBSD is the only distribution of a free OS that I've seen that takes this into account (3 years without a remote root hole in the default setup, 2 years without a local root hole in the default setup, and audited applications all around!).
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Ah, but MacOS version 8.x will
Actually, I am pretty sure that the most recent MacOS that will work on a 68020 or 68030 based Mac is 7.6.x. I believe that you need at least a 68040 to run MacOS 8.x, although I've heard that with some limitations software hack called Pseudo040 and Wish-I-Were which can kind of kludge MacOS 8.x onto some 030 machines. I'd be surprised if it worked on an 020, especially one without a 68881 MMU, as most Mac II's didn't ship with the real MMU. At any rate, the articles I've seen describing how to do it make it sound like it is a fairly big hassle in that you have to boot 7.6.x and then restart into a different partition/drive with 8.x.
Compared to the MICROS~1 world, both Linux and Mac OS provide astonishing life-spans for the hardware they run on.
That is true.
Apple is preparing to move Mac users to what... MacOS X. Which is based on ... BSD. So what then, will all the 'SMART' people go to?
Personally, I don't really believe that all Mac users are complete morons. I don't even believe that all Windows users are morons. I don't understand the idea that the Linux community can't coexist with non-techies, or that if the techies must all flee from Linux just because some non-techies might be able to grok it.
Look, no matter how they wrap Linux or BSD or whatever with GUIs, they can't take away from us techies the command line tools we know and love. Even if they take them out of the distros, they can't keep us from putting them back in ourselves.
Listen, there is room enough for a wide variety of people in the Linux world. If you can't deal with diversity, maybe you should go to something else, albiet I bear FreeBSD (and the other *BSDs) no ill will, so I can't say I would wish a lot of negativity on them.
"You know, Macs have newsgroups too."
Yes, for Warez. Not interested.
Obviously you've either never actually looked for them, or you're a total smeghead. (Ok, ok, it's possible your ISP doesn't carry them. If they don't, sorry.) Check out the comp.sys.mac tree.
"this reflects on your inability to conduct a coherent web search, as opposed to the lack of documentation."
[snip commentary about lack of info on problem]
Ah, sarcasm. Tell you what, I'll read that help menu as soon as you give me a coherent, relevant, and competant description of how to turn on the iBook in question without it bombing due to a rotating cast of type 11, bus, and address errors at startup, before the extention loading phase.
Have you called Apple? They offer free support to their users for a reason. This sounds like a fairly serious problem. Anyhow, without more information I can't say for sure, but here are some things to try. First, boot while holding down shift. If that works, then it's probably a bad extension; look through the Extensions manager and turn off any 3rd-party ones. (I believe MacOS Help should work at this point as well.) If that doesn't work, then your system is probably shot. I can't recommend anything better than booting from the CD and reinstalling the OS, and even that's not guaranteed. As another poster said, this sounds like it may be a hardware problem.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Mac OS 9 isn't going to run on the Macintosh II which had just come out in 1987... Mac OS X sure as hell isn't (though I suppose Darwin could be ported!).
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
That's funny. I once did a short analysis of some of the factors involved in converting everyone in a 7,000 person company from NT to Linux. A few of the major points were:
- Heavy usage of Office with no drop-in replacement for Linux available
- Business critical apps deployed on Lotus Notes; migration to another platform expensive and time consuming; Notes client not available for Linux
- One really bizarre business critical app from some vendor I've never heard of that is sure to never port to Linux
Obviously some of those are internal to the company, and some of those are gaps that the open source community is hard at work filling in.It's interesting to note that everyone I spoke to who had ever heard of Linux was very interested in it, and in the last year or so, I think nearly all of them have, and many have switched over on a regular basis. A few have dumped Windows altogether. Those who hadn't heard of Linux took longer to convert, though...
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
That's the funny thing; on the surface it seems eminently reasonable to combine file & HTML browsing. It seems to me like a logical progression. Microsoft did it wrong, of course, and in the process deliberately tried to force Netscape out of the "market" ... but really, should there even *be* a browser market? Despite all the technical improvements and new features added to HTTP/HTML I can't help feeling that users have been short-changed in this stupid browser war. When Mosaic was the only browser, everything worked properly ;)
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It's a
-- Danny Vermin
How can they do a Mac vs. Linux article and not mention BSD-based Mac OS X?
That's a great question...
I don't follow Apple very closely, so I don't know if OS X is officially released yet, but I would think that either way it would factor heavily into this comparison.
Mac OS X DP4 (that's Developer Preview #4) was released to developers last week at Apple's annual World Wide Developer's Conference. In the conference keynote speech, Steve Jobs announced that a public beta of Mac OS X would be available this summer, and it would ship pre-installed on Apple hardware starting in January.
Mac OS X looks very good so far. Its got the Mach kernel, with BSD on top (all opened sourced as Darwin). Above this sits three API layers: Cocoa - dervied from the NextStep operating system; Carbon - essentially the legacy Mac OS APIs; and Java - the JDK 1.3.
On top of these API layers is Aqua, which is the new improved Macintosh UI. This is gives a single, high quality user experience to the OS.
The Eazel work is potentially very interesting, but its still going to be just another of many Linux UIs. Apple hardware will have full-on BSD with a single, elegant, easy-to-use UI. Its going to be a compelling experience to use one of these new Macs.
Sailing over the event horizon
I think this article is fairly ridiculous. Not that it wasn't well written and fair enough (although it was a bit brief), but I wouldn't say that either one of these OSes is better then the other. If the article was going to talk about some kind of technical points that could be quantified, that would be one thing. But what we have here is some vague generalizaions about what "most people" would want.
THe choice of OS is mostly a matter of personal preference. There are no 'average' users, and if there were, they would be using Windows anyway.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Anyone know how many more months before Corel, touted here many times as the Linux distribution juggernaut to destroy Microsoft on the desktop, has until they either go bankrupt or have to start selling off pieces of their business? Less than 90 days now, isn't it?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Still, 7.5.3 does almost everything 8.1 does, and on older hardware it often does it better, so I think my point is still valid.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Still, 7.5.3 does almost everything 8.1 does, and on older hardware it often does it better, so I think my point is still valid.
However, we've now slid all the way back to MacOS 7.5.3 from MacOS 9. If you want to talk about old and/or spartan hardware, Slackware 3.x will run pretty smoothly on a 386... This whole tangent has strayed an awful distance from the original article.
It's true that Apple's Macintosh was the first *PC* to include networking support - however - it was support for the incredibly proprietary AppleTalk, which was limited to troublesome daisy chain topologies only and a maximum speed of 230 kbps.
Although they finally gave in a couple of years ago, Apple resisted Ethernet like hell: in the early 90s they did everything they could to make Ethernet expensive and hard to use on the Mac. In fact, IMO, it was this insistence on running up the cost of Ethernet for Macs that was chiefly responsible for them getting drummed out of most corporate networks in the mid-90s, as Mac adapters were always a minimum of about 4x the cost of their ISA counterparts.
Remember, Apple went so far as to establish thier own completely incompatible tranciever interface, AAUI, which had no benefit over the tried and true AUI except that it used a (slightly!) smaller connector, and forced customers wanting Ethernet to buy from Apple for a year until the third parties got geared up.
And then there were the heinous atrocities that AppleTalk and AppleShare inflicted on the rest of your network if you through some means ever put those protocols on your Ethernet.
Apple was no friend of networking other than the proprietary kind until they realized they had to interoperate or die. They came to the Internet party even later than Microsoft, so I have lttle respect for them as a network innovator. Keep in mind that AppleShare (file sharing) was a very expensive extra until a few years ago.
Apple doesn't "get" cost, and until recently has always assumed that it didn't matter, and even intentionally drove it up. It was this attitude that led Intel-based hardware to become cheap and commoditized and that in turn drove the creation of Linux. Apple has made its bed, and now must sleep in it.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
People can, and do, run Photoshop and web browsers on old '030 and '020 Macs.
Like I was saying, the differences from 7.5.3 up to 9.0 ammount to mostly incremental upgrades. Specifically, a slightly spiffier-looking desktop, PowerPC-specific code, and support for new hardware like USB.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
How can they do a Mac vs. Linux article and not mention BSD-based Mac OS X?
It was mentioned.
I don't follow Apple very closely, so I don't know if OS X is officially released yet,...
It's not out yet.
When I started reading this article, looking at the first page, it looks like they may pick CLOS as their choice, I was thinking that's pretty impressive since the distro is only version 1.1 running on an underlying kernel that is only version 2.2.x.
However, peeking ahead at the conclusion page I read the headline and saw they picked MacOS because of its support for 'applications'. Without reading anymore I predicted that when c|net says applications, what they really mean is MS Office. Low and behold, when you read the detailed reason for the decision they specifically cite failure to support MS Office as one of the key reasons behind picking MacOS over CLOS.
Why someone that is trying to select an alternative to Windows, would set MS Office support as a selection factor is totally beyond me. MSOffice IS Windows. Just ask Bill Gates, in his TIME editorial he explained how inextricably linked the two products are. At anytime, MS could shutdown support for a MacOS version of Office, in fact they practically did in the past but eventually conceded to continue the line only with Jobs' promise to bundle MSIE (and therefore even more Windows code) with MacOS.
If you want a Windows free machine, you must also have an MSIE and MSOffice free machine.
I also got the strong impression that the MacOS advocate (Becky) didn't even look at WordPerfect Office. She seems to think that Excel (and aparently every other component of MS Office) is better than Quatro (and every component of WPO2K-L). If she can identify a feature, or usability issue, that Excel has and Quatro doesn't, I would like to know what it is. I expect the only difference is that she is more familiar with Excel.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I've had windows computers fail to respond to the 'three fingered salute' plenty of times. I've even had a few so screwed up that they lost track of their power switches (which, like the iMac, were not simple hardware switches).
You may want to look up and see if the iMacs have the latest firmware. I believe that there was a stability helping fix published try
http://asu.info.apple.com/
and click on the search for the imac updates link
This seems like two zealots largely ignorant of the other platform talking past each other. Here's my take:
Installation: Nothing is easier than the MacOS install. The only thing that comes close is installing Linux on Mac hardware. I've never tried Corel Linux so I'll assume that the installation is as easy as Rex says it is, when it works. But let's see it on the "486 'o' mystery" in my office. As CNet notes, if you're installing on a PC, Corel wins.
Interface: Becky hardly does the Mac justice here. I like KDE but the Mac blows it away. (Yes, you can buy a two, three or four button mouse. No, the flexibility of Mac cut n paste more than makes up for having to go to a menu or Cmd-C).
Applications: Well, do you want Quicken or vi? Word or LyX?
Hardware: I'm not sure what the editor's point is. Macs support most standard interfaces so you can get most any PC hardware to work. The only problem is when there's no driver. You can bet the Linux people will write one themselves before the Mac gets one.
Internet: They can't find anything to disagree about.
It seems to me this completely neglects Linux's strengths - vastly better performance and a CLI.
Emmett writes: It's really easy to say, 'Yeah, well, wait for Eazel,'
Well, easy but silly. You may as well say, "Wait for OS X." I guarantee the Mac will have friendly Unix before Linux becomes easy. And instead of vaporware, why not point to KDE betas available today?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
C|Net's fundamental error was to try to say "This OS is better", not "This OS is better for this type of user". Granted, at the end, they make a money issue, saying that OS 9 wins, unless you're a cheapskate, but the whole article is flawed by the approach.
A much more useful article would have been "What users should get Linux, MacOS, or Windows". For my wife, Windows is still the best choice (we don't have the money to buy Macs), and I couldn't do my job at work with Linux (and the company would rather not spend the money on Macs), though it's on my home machine.
When I got it (used) it had 24mb of RAM and a 700mb hd.
That is better than average for what you usually find on the used market. I was looking out on eBay, and most of the PowerMacs I saw equipped like that were selling for more than $200.
As for expandability, the 7100 could take up to 4 32MB sticks (128MB) and had 8MB on the mother board IIRC. The 486 that I have can only use single sided SIMMs and I didn't feel like searching for higher density SIMMs for that, so I'm currently stuck at 16mb on that machine.
One bad thing about x86 machines is the complete anarchy of hardware compatibility. I've got dozens (literally) of 486's, and their rules for memory expansion vary quite a bit. I've got several that have 4 72-pin sockets and can easily expand to 128M, and like I said, one really crapola Packrat Bill which can only go to 20M due to the 4M soldered, and 4 30-pin sockets.
I'm not complaining (too much) as it was free,
Yea, free is awfully hard to argue with. Although I'd have never bought a machine like the aforementioned PB, for free I have plenty of storage space in my basement.
but my point was that I put MacOS9 on a 7100 as it sat in my bedroom, while I have had to upgrade and limit the functionality of Linux on the "free" 486 I have.
In all fairness though, if you didn't already have a well equipped 7100, it would cost less to put a 10G drive and 32M of RAM (should run about $175 for both) in a free 486 than it would to buy a used 7100. For that matter, you could probably find a used low end Pentium machine (75-133) for similar money to a 7100.
That's OK, I have fun w/it. Both machines serve purposes in my house and I do think the whole concept of the article was silly (along the lines of: what is more masculine, a pinapple or a schoolbus?) and was argued by advocates that were woefully inadeqately knowlegable about their opponent's OS (and in some cases their own).
You'll not get any argument from me on that one. The article certainly would have been more interesting and accurate if they had found a little more knowledgeable people (both on their own platform and on the other's) to advocate for each platform.
I was under the impression that the three layers were Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic -- classic being the layer that still runs legacy apps.
Ahh, here's the picture I was thinking of: http://www.apple.com/macosx/inside.html
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
True enough, but that is true in general that many people don't know much about any platform other than their own. The exception is that a large number of Linux users are ex-Windows users (or begrudging co-Windows users). The same thing is true of a lesser extent of Mac user's knowledge of Windows, as many are forced to use Windows at work/school or whatever. Cross knowledge between Linux and MacOS isn't as common. I've got some MacOS experience, but it isn't recent, or at least it isn't with recent hardware/software (I've got a couple of old IIfx's which are running MacOS 7.1 or 7.6.x). I try to limit my commentary on MacOS to what I know for sure to be true, and I certainly don't try to portray myself as being any kind of Mac expert.
in the article, becky complains that linux has a whole bunch of internet services that have to be blocked by a firewall, and the mac is better because it doesn't have those services. *ahem* since when is an FTP server a bad thing? since when is being able to ssh (or telnet) into your desktop from any computer on the network a bad thing? since when is being able to set a computer up to display applications running on another computer by default a bad thing? there's a reason why linux has them-because they serve a *purpose*.
my reccomendation would be to buy the old Mac 6100, drop in a huge HD, and dual-boot with LinuxPPC! :)
For the price that I've seen 6100's going for ($100-$125), plus the price of a decent sized SCSI drive (I found 4G SCSI drives on pricewatch for about $120 -- of course the same $120 will buy a 13G or larger EIDE drive) and a decent amount of RAM (figuring you need at least 32M, and figuring about $40), you could probably get a reasonably equipped midrange Pentium-class x86 box. Not to mention that you either need to buy a monitor converter cable or a Mac-style monitor for the Mac which is an extra cost compared to an x86 box.
Come to think of it, for what a decently equipped first generation (6100, 7100, 8100) PowerMac costs on the used market you can just about buy a brand new low-end prebuilt x86 Linux box (I found a bunch of them for about $330 or so on Pricewatch).
How much does MacOS 9 cost anyway? That has to figure into this equation somewhere too, as used old PowerMacs are probably going to come with MacOS 8.x most of the time I would guess.
BTW, calling MacOS 9, 'OS9' is rather confusing, as there is a real-time OS by that name from a company called Microware, and it has been around since before the Mac existed (like I knew people using it on Motorola 6809 processors back in the 1980 or 1981).
Personally, I thought the same thing. I'd consider Mandrake to be a better choice for this kind of shootout than Corel Linux. For that matter, just picking one Linux distro is eliminating one of Linux's advantages, the fact that I can pick and choose the best distro for what I want to do. With MacOS (and Windows too, for that matter) I have a lot less flexibility.
Macs had Localtalk (PhoneNet) built-in from very early on (possibly the beginning - not sure), up until recently, when they dropped the serial ports and went to all USB & built-in Ethernet.
IIRC, Localtalk was a shared broadcast network running at 400Kbps. Slow as sin compared to Ethernet, but you have to remember that this was in the era when ArcNet and Token Ring were still around, although Ethernet was starting to take over.
Real networking was expensive and quite complicated then, and so it was really impressive to be able to plug 3 stock Macs together with a cheap cable, turn them on, and have them networked, sharing printers, hard drives, etc.
I have been programming for the last 10 years. I am pursuing a PhD in computer science. I have installed Linux networks, and even have coded some Linux device drivers. I can thus be called fairly familiar with computers.
Yet I think that systems are inadequate for the user:It is a pity that with the power of current computers, nobody is able to make a system that is truly user-friendly; that is, that does what the user wants instead of getting him to do stuff in obscure command lines described in even more obscure documentation (Linux) or pissing him off with silly restrictions and railroaded choices (Windows).
I have seen the Eazel presentation at Guadec. I have hopes that it will be a bit more like what I'd like. Yet I am a bit afraid that it is going to be the next step of evolution of the current interfaces: more eye candy and gizmos, but little actual change.
IIRC, office LANs started taking over the world (well, according to the commercials) as soon as Xerox released their coax Ethernet. Actually LANs probably started cropping up long before that, but it seems like they were pretty prevelant in the 70's, and Macs didn't appear until the early 80's IIRC.
Note that I'm too young to actually have experienced any of this, so a lot of it could be wrong.
FWIW, I thought both proponents did a horrible job. The Mac lady touts Mac's allowing you to change the colours on the GUI?! The Mac has a great UI and I'm sure any sane person could have picked much better points (i.e. ones that KDE doesn't do better).
OK, what's the deal with putting the linux review first in each section? By the time you read about MacOS, you forget about what the Corel guy said.
Also, did anyone else pick up on the HUGE problems with her Internet statements? The majority of malicious code is written for Unix? huh? And last time I checked, that file called rp7install is the install for RealPlayer7, which she claims isn't available. Oh, and I'm listening to mp3's that I ripped on my Linux box. But from what she said, I couldn't have done or be doing this.
grr.
I was pretty disappointed myself when I finally tried it out (I've even got a shrinkwrap version with the little foam penguin). It's as if they couldn't decide what they wanted it to be. It's obviously aimed at the desktop user, so why do they have so many daemons turned on by default? It's not like your average business user needs (or even expects) to have web and ftp servers running right out of the box. That's just asking for security problems -- just as bad was for them to release a distribution in this day and age without shadow passwords.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com,/p>
but they also turned a blind eye to the fact that OS9 can run just fine on first-generation power macs from 1994, which you can easilly find for under $200.
Just like Linux can run just fine on 486's from 1991 which you can get for free. It really depends on what your definition of 'just fine' is. In either case, you are probably looking at upgrading memory and hard disk with either platform, and that still leaves the Linux side as much cheaper.
IIRC, Localtalk was a shared broadcast network running at 400Kbps
I believe it was 230Kbps, unless you purchased 3rd party add-ons to upgrade it to 400Kbps.
Yeah, but how easy does CorelLinux make it for a user to read floppies with other filesystems? Does it do it on the fly, like the Mac, or is he expected to bust out the mount command? If the latter, then for the target audience of the article, I'd definitely give the nod to Mac.
However, I thought that Apple was been telling us since the debut of the iMac that nobody uses floppies anymore. Does the machine they reviewed MacOS on even have a floppy drive? It's a bit odd to hype up its floppy-reading abilities if it doesn't even have a drive.
As far as a telnet client goes, most users don't even use them, especially not the ones that would be targetted in any MacOS vs. CorelLinux review. For most internet users, having Internet Explorer trumps every single internet app available for Linux.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think Apple was first to make it standard on all their machines though. I'm not a Mac guy, but wasn't Appletalk standard equipment like 15 years back?
numb
Interface:While some users prefer the limited functionality of the Cat, the variety of commands available with Dogs is more suitable for the "hacker".
Applications:Most cats will retrieve all sorts of dead animals for you; Dogs can be used as NT Admins for your home network.
Internet:Though Fetch (for MacOS) and Lycos figure prominently on the Internet scene, neither of those compare to the fame of Persian Kitty (that's not an endorsement).
As for myself, I'm tired of living with animals.
[pink beam of light]
It'll provide exactly one window manager, exactly one desktop, etc. It won't bother with any useful network tools...
There already exists an O/S dumbed down to the extent that you described. It's called "Windows" and is available in almost all computer stores.
This is true. Right now (according to Netcraft) the market share of Linux web servers is only about a third (compared to Windows' approximate 20%), and is growing at a much faster rate than anything else (Microsoft's share has been holding steady or actually dropping for the past year or so). A third isn't most, but it would certainly be fair to say that Linux has moved into position as the market leader on the Internet.
It would certainly be fair to say that 'most of the internet is powered by web servers running Apache', however, as Apache and its variants account for over 60% of the publicly visible web. Of course Apache is also popular on the *BSDs and commercial UNIXes.
We're not comparing a Linux box like you or I would use with MacOS, we're comparing a CorelLinux -desktop- oriented distro with MacOS.
:)
This means, quite simply, that every daemon running that doesn't serve a desktop user's needs is one more target for a DoS or other attack. Yes, enabling them by default -is- -bad-. Especially on CorelLinux, where the very notion of logging on remotely while a console is logged in can be considered a security vulnerability.
About the only service a CorelLinux box needs to run is samba maybe, for handy file sharing with Windows boxes. Other than that, I can't imagine a daemon that CorelLinux should be running by default. Quite simply, it's not supposed to be a server, that's why they call it a desktop.
Comparing operating systems in this way is largely pointless. It presupposes that there is an optimal choice that everybody should agree on, and that's probably the biggest problem in the computer industry. Systems like Windows and MacOS wouldn't be such a nuisance if they weren't trying to take over the world. At 20-30% market share each, they'd be fine. At 90% market share, any operating system inhibits innovation and deprives many people of finding the optimal tool for their specific needs.
Specifically, Corel's April 19 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They write:
Corrections welcome, but I'm taking this straight from the horse's mouth, not from any newspapers. (Note that they say they may go bankrupt, not that they definitely will.)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I don't know if I would guess that she was intentionally lying. Exaggerating, probably. However, I think the sad thing is she just plain doesn't know diddly squat about Linux and what she thinks she knows is based largely on outdated hearsay. Her comments about things like lack of Plug-in support for multimedia in Linux (which Plugger handles pretty well) and digital camera support (gPhoto, amongst several others) are examples that would certainly indicate to me she is basically just ignorant. The sad thing is that the guy who was supposedly representing Linux didn't do a very good job of rebutting such obvious inaccuracies.
Tell me that Joe Average-end-user uses CMYK more heavily than is supported by Gimp. Alternatively, if you're talking about for a minority of power users who really need advanced features, then LaTeX beats Word hands down.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Ummm... I am probably feeding the trolls here... But:
There are several million Mac users.
As noted, Macs are fairly expensive. This means that Mac users have money, and aren't afraid to spend it.
Now, doesn't that sound like a group of people you'd like as customers? You can bet that if Linux doesn't think so, Microsoft does.