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Is Mac OS X Threatening Linux?
An unnamed correspondent asks: "Does anyone think that the release of Mac OS X will threaten Linux? A UNIX-based OS that XFree86, the GIMP, Apache, etc. run on, and is easy to use and maintain for a beginner, might not bode too well for the little OS that could. I'm not talking about techies -- I'm talking about people who might use Linux on their desktop (companies who are deploying it, etc.). Why would they want to use Linux instead of OS X?" It's not a new question, but it won't go away, either. Anyone out there planning to jump to Mac OS X from Linux or one of the (other) BSDs?
>linux != unix
No it's just a blatant copy of it. Face it, Linux doesn't do ANYTHING new or better than a real unix. It's just free and runs on cheap hardware, and has token vendor support and those are the only 3 reasons most people even consider using it.
Why is it that some people on /. pretend that Linux users don't use Mac OS right now because it's not mutithreaded, doesn't have fancy memory protection, etc.? Linux users use Linux for a few of reasons:
1. It's free.
2. It makes them feel good that they can compile their OS, and, with enough diligence, maybe even improve it.
3. It makes them feel smart to use a command line an compile everything that they use.
Mac users use their computers for a completely orthoganal set of reasons:
1. Fancy-looking hardware.
2. Ease of use, and overall attention to detail.
3. Zealotry and tradition.
OS X will not change any of these for Linux users, and will change very little for Mac users (other than the fact that there is no longer any ease of use in OS X).
Time to call it flamebait,
Mr. Subtrousers, posting as AC because I forgot my passwd.
Can you use 3D Studio? Lightwave 3D? Photoshop? Illustrator? Any good graphics software?
If Mac OS X is not open source, then the answer should be obvious. If it is, then there is no worry either because end users will have an even greater choice. This is a non-issue.
I have been a mac user since near the beginning when my dad brought home a an Apple ][ e to run Visicalc to analyse the cashflows for his business (long story with many tense moments and a happy ending). So I have preferred mac's for year's for many reasons, some emotional, some practical. I have also used many wintel boxes and a few Irix boxes in the meantime for work purposes, but I never ventured into the mysterious realm of Linux partly because I always had mac boxes at home and was satisfied. So along comes OS X PB and I take the dive to discover that most things I learned about Irix applies and I now have a yin-yang computer that offers two faces: gui and unix. Sure there are some wierd things about the directory structure and and netinfo but on the whole I now have a Unix box with a Mac GUI on top running on all my favorite Mac software. This has been sheer delight for me to be able to start compiling apps (if anyone has gotten report magic compiled for X-PB..tell me how) and (re-)learning apache, kill -9!! and all that other control freak goodness that Unix gives. I have my web-server, e-mail server, sshd, IPFW etc all running flawlessly behind the scenes while I am creating new graphic's in Photoshop, fetching mail (from my own box) with Eudora or toying with the amazingingly powerful program "Create" from the Stone Super seven suite. Every week new apps crawl out of the woodwork (Samba...MySQL...rBrowser) and I realize what a huge community of software has just been welcomed into my Mac. It is pure nirvana to have all of this on one box, in pretty a stable for the first public beta. Then I hear that Steve (you know who) has actually listened to me and the bro's and given us back the apple menu and pop-up windows (or a close fax) along with audio and DVD theft tools and I begin to shake. It is just a dream? This can't be the real world!
Only drawback is my girlfriend is getting lonely as my attention has been diverted for the last month or two.
Oh Happy Day!!
Mac OS X is bliss.
Um. Let's take a tune, "Mary Had a Little Lamb": E, D, C, D, E, E, E, D, D, D, E, G, G.
If you change all the C's to C#s, and all the E's to Eb's, you get this tune:
Eb, D, C#, D, Eb, Eb, Eb, D, D, D, Eb, G, G.
Now, I cannot articulate why, but this sounds horrendous. Likewise, any UI I have tried on Linux simply does not feel as polished and as smooth to me as BeOS, MacOS, or Windows. I believe that it has to do with a lack of one of the basic elements of graphic design: Unity.
So what about it don't you like? The colors are wrong? Change them. The button shapes and/or placement is weird to you? Change it! Don't think it's fast enough? Turn off special features, animations, and transition effects. If you don't like what happens when you left-click a window border, change it!
The point is, I shouldn't have to be making these choices. A professional graphic designer should be.
- A.P. (um, malda, how many caps are in this post? it tripped the caps lameness filter.)
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
uhhh...
what?
Connectix makes VirtualPC, and AFAIK has no deal with Apple.
The name Insignia Solutions does ring a bell, but I see nothing on their Web site about any similar probuct.
RedBox was, AFAIK, to be developed internally by Apple, and would basically emulate all the Win32 APIs (not at all like Virtual PC, which only emulates hardware, not software). RedBox got Steved quite awhile ago.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
All the FUD that was spewed against Linux five years ago applies now to OSX. It is too new to tell anything about it. People have expertise on Linux, which makes it far easier to deploy and support over a largely unused and untested OS like OS X.
It may not be the best platform but Linux's "coming of age" has been due in large part to the ubiquity of the x86 processor. Many companies and schools and even a large number of families, have older PCs lying around and it's much easier IMHO to experiment with Linux. OSX, at least for now, is relegated to the Mac platform and Apple will probably have a more difficult time convincing Mac users to upgrade.I've been using the OSX public beta on a Beige G3 and while I'm mostly pleased with with the OS, performace leaves alot to be desired. So, while I think that OSX will probably go a long ways towards helping Apple gain new users, I don't think that Linux/x86 users will be jumping ship in large numbers any time soon.
Try again. Try 733MHz with dual probably coming within months. Still behind AMD and Intel, but not by as much, especially since the 7450(or G4+, or G4e, or V'Ger) can effectively process Altivec instructions twice as fast.
Once Moto moves to SOI(Apollo G4s) you should see speeds easily over 1GHz. SOI alone is supposed to give a 30% increase, and rumor is that Moto was already running procs at 800MHz, but Apple underclocked them because 800 was too hot.
All Moto needs to do at this point is keep the G4 in the same ballpark as x86. Apple can then do a couple things to keep up in performance:
MP - especially with OS X, this is a fairly viable option
Altivec - not only can Apple put pressure on devs to optimize, but they can(and will) optimize commonly-used parts of OS X, such as OpenGL
If Moto can do that, then we wait for G5. 64-bit, binary compatibility with the old stuff, starting at 2GHz, etc.
Apple certainly doesn't look as screwed as they did a month ago.
Okay...
But, lets say I wanna upgrade. For Photoshop, I install 5.5 or whatever - done.
For gimp, what if there is not a debian package for the newest release with all the required libs? Then I'm back in the same boat.
I'm gonna have to look at debian again - apt sounds a LOT better than dinstall ever was!
I dont even know where to start with your misinformation garbage
Dude, cut it out; you're embarassing us Mac zealots. Seriously. There was much misinformation in his post, yes, but your response has even more.
first of all you cant run darwin or anything on x86 yet, nobody has ported it.
Actually, they have.
thirdly, apple hardware is not second rate, the g3 with altivec in the imac dv edition is the state of the art (3.2x intel speeds)
One, what happened to "secondly"?
Two, the G3 doesn't have AltiVec; the G4 does.
Three, the iMac doesn't use the G4 anyway, not even the DV+SE.
Four, while the G4 is in fact much faster than any Pentium-class chip out there at equal clockrate (though clockrate is meaningless across platforms anyway), even Apple hasn't ever made the sort of claims you're making.
It is true, however, that by Intel's own testing the G3 and G4 trounce any chip Intel has ever put in the production lines, at least MHz-for-MHZ and currently the fastest G4 is faster than the fastest P4 (though we have Intel to thank for that, considering that the P4 is actually slower than the P3).
finally, mac os is very relevent - i have worked at many major newspapers that use them ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY that is maybe an windows nt box here and there for some reason...
I tend to believe your bit about some, or even many, newspapers using Macs almost exclusively (though you obviously didn't work in any department involving copy-editing). But I also think you're exaggerating.
maybe you should check your facts before you go trashin somethng u dont know about
Yes, he should. And so should you. Or step back and let those of us Mac defenders who actually know what we're talking about do the work for you.
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FYI, AIX is IBM's Unix, not a relabeled A/UX
no, it asks you things like do you already have an internet account, are you using a lan connection, if so should it use dhcp or manual tcp/ip settings, that sort of thing.
And the time server can be reset to use your own local ntp server instead of Apple's.
FYI, I've got a bash pkg predone for OSX PB at http://osx.ApesSeekingKnowledge.net
Usable for what, I wonder? Have you actually used an iMac? Plenty of people are happily building web pages, running Photoshop and doing useful things with them.
A $800 iMac running OSX or LinuxPPC will handily keep a T1 pipe nice and full.
http://osx.ApesSeekingKnowledge.net/packages/AirPo rtHack.html
has a premade package and instructions on how to configure your base station.
...so maybe no one will ever read it, but I don't think Max OSX will have any effect on me. I will always run Linux on my servers (my main web/mail/ftp/samba/firewall server is a P166 with 64mb. It's been up for 100 days, check for yourself :). My main computer is always a dual boot of Linux and Win9X. Ever shall it be (unless someday I can actually get rid of 'doze once and for all).
Besides, I can build a 1Ghz Athlon system for less than a grand. You can't come anywhere close to that price with Mac hardware.
Meine kleine zwei pfennige......
Over the short haul I think Apple will do fairly well with OS X. A lot of people will be introduced to UNIX that otherwise wouldn't have touched it.
:-)
Over the long haul, I suspect it will provide a fertile ground from which to recruit new Linux users. Apple is not especially price-competitive and I suspect that, given a few years, the relentless improvements in the open source community will result in free OSes that have equivalent power. Maybe Apple will stay ahead, and maybe it won't.
Whatever happens on that front, the leap from OS/X to a freeware Unix is a heck of a lot smaller than the leap from the current System and Finder. I can't help but think that some percentage of that population is going to become interested in systems and projects that have all the source code available.
Anything that strengthens Unix overall strengthens Linux and the BSDs. They are free -- they don't have to worry about market share the same way that the commercial companies do. And a truly commercial Unix-based desktop is going to be a real kick in the pants for the entire Open Source community -- I suspect that the freeware OSes will move, for a time, faster than they ever have before, borging the best ideas from Apple and leaving behind the cruft.
And while I'm waiting (I'll NEVER EVER buy ANYTHING from Apple; they have screwed people over far, far too many times) there's always BeOS to play with.
Mac people use / like / love their machines not for the OS it runs, they do so for the applications they can use and the interface they've grown used to.
If they can get that AND proper multitasking and memory management, well then they'll be happy as ... as very happy people!
Unless Linux were to gain greater application support, MacOS X will rule the Mac world. Especially if they straighten out the Aqua interface ( some people long for their old desktop )
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
Right. Linux won't "die". However, it may not have a very enjoyable life if something comes along and takes most of its users away. Right now, there are enough people using Linux and Linux is hyped up enough that many hardware vendors think it's a good idea to either write drivers for it or provide the free software community with the necessary documentation to do so. Some vendors would release specs anyway, and their hardware would continue to be supported if the number of Linux users dwindled but, whether we like it or not, some don't and I still want to use their hardware (GeForce2 is a fine example). That's why I, for one, want Linux to be not just alive, but strong and healthy.
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
IIRC, A/US hasn't been supported by Apple since 1994-5ish. We had a wacky Mac tech at Poly who put it on a box that no longer booted MacOS. (It was a Workgroup Server 95 with some form of bad firmware).
The freakiest thing, seeing that login: prompt on a Mac... before mklinux or linuxppc.
--Ben
Uhhm, Linux has had IPv6 support since at least 2.2.0. I can't remember if it was in 2.0.x or not. Oh, and can you explain the difference between chroot and jail?
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
On my win2k box drag and drop and related mouse actions stop working after some time. Sometimes it takes 2 hours, sometimes it takes a number of weeks. I have to reboot to correct the problem. The same hardware once ran NT 4.0 sp6 and it was fine.
For the record I prefer a Unix over WinXX as: I am never sure what the OS is doing; I can't configure the GUI to behave they way I want (hot keys & sloppy focus).
I like the idea of Linux a lot. It's got potential. Honest it does. But let's face some bitter facts here. The UI for Linux sucks. More than that, the Linux community doesn't seem to care.
Usability is why most people love Mac OS, and they just put that lovable Mac OS on a unix platform. The only drawback is performance for the web server apps I write... which just means I need another machine running BSD to host those apps.
Everything else is in one nice neat package. So what's not to love? Well, I guess you can't call it free.
What's it going to take to make Linux as good as a Mac? First you need usability to become the mantra. Take a note from Krug and "Don't make me think." I can't count the hours lost trying to find the right configuration file to tweak in Linux. Time I would have rather used for production of my own.
The point here is that until I can push a button and make a Linux server work, the Mac will keep looking like a better option.
If you are just looking for a system to email and surf with, the G4 is a bit too hardware for that.
;)
I would agree, but for the high-end current and next-gen consumer apps (video editing, MP3 ripping, video ripping, analog music synth emulation (Reason, Rebirth, variants of which will be consumerware)) the G4 is ideal..
Meesa love 128kbps normal stereo at highest-quality VBR at 6x, faster since I put on the DVDROM firmware update
Your Working Boy,
Oh, and I absolutely LOVE the G4 hardware. The instant I openned the case, I thought "Damn, why didn't anyone else think of this!?" You really have to see it to understand, though.
:pp
You think _that's_ cool, check out the _insides_ of a Cube sometime.. Bloody brilliant packaging and engineering IMHO.. I recently slapped a 512MB DIMM into mine, just cuz I could.. Nice to turn off virtual memory..
Apple owns (and charges for) superior personal system design.
Oh, and I may have enough for one of the Ti PBG4s.. though I'll wait for a bit more high-end market slumpage to pick out some bargains...
I can't wait for a fully functional OSX that supports my Airport and other widgets.. Now if only Deus Ex would work with my 3-button USB moose
Your Working Boy,
Little things like not using X make it non-standard (besides the *steps, name a Unix that hasn't used some incarnation of X post the Sun vs The World(tm) desktop war).
:pppp)..
Well, if it's not using the Win32 APIs, then by default it is not part of the desktop/workstation "standard".. And quite frankly, with side-by-side XFree now and integrated XFree probably coming, this is a non-issue IMHO. Most OSX users won't need X, but it's available to the ones that do and can be bothered to find a copy of XFree and install it. Good enough for me..
but I think I heard something about a good number of config files moved to XML? If so, that's pretty far away from any of the current *nix's.
Your tone seems to imply that that's a _bad_ thing. Why _NOT_ try something new based on an open standard to make system configuration both human-'readable' (and text-editable) as well as machine-parser-friendly? I think consolidating configs into XML or some other easily-parsable structured TEXT (not binary/ISAM/ODM/whatever) is clever and could be exceedingly cool if done correctly. What's wrong with trying something new?
We won't be able to get any better if we are beholden to the design decisions of the past to the point that we are too lazy, jaded, or bored to try something new. There's room to try new ways of doing things: it's up to the real world to decide whether they're better or not..
Frankly, I'm pretty darned excited.. I wonder how long it'll take to turn samba admin into a 'control panel', and be done with Dave..
(now if only for the cool 1U OSX PPC servers
Your Working Boy,
I don't think it'll be an issue. I know I plan on getting a G4 so I can play with OS X (and Linux, and BSD, etc on a new platform), but to play with OS X, I have to get a PowerPC.
Linux runs on so many architectures, I can't even keep count. Apple seems to be pretty certain that they're limiting OS X to the PowerPC (and a good call on their part IMO). Darwin apparently runs fine on x86, but how many other platforms?
To move to OS X means new hardware. Moving to Linux means finding a distro that runs on your arch. Sure, it'll steal some desktop market, but I think it's better to see a Unix with a solid desktop than to see Linux in particular.
"Whatever can go wrong, will." --Finagle's Law
After using Linux and FreeBSD exclusively since 1994 I have moved over to OS X. Since the public beta came out I have been using it on a G3 Powerbook, and I have to say that is is incredibly well done. Last week I had to install Linux on a new laptop and was amazed at how clunky and hard to manage linux is. The difference is that Mac OS X "just works". I know I probably sound like an Apple commercial or a plant, but it's true. From the .app application bundles to the XML config files to the nice, simple, GUI configuration tools for everything, I am very impressed with the quality of software. And the fact that it comes out of the box with ssh, emacs, vi and friends just makes me love it even more. OS X does something that I previously thought impossible - to please both the hard-core power users as well as the GUI-loving end users. The smooth dock magnification, transparency, and liquid UI are nice eye-candy, but the design that went into the underlying system is the most beautiful of all.
They've also made my life easier with very nice Java2 integration, and the Terminal app is better than almost anything you can get under X (although I do wish I could get the old NeXT-type scrollbar back).
If OS X ran on x86 then I would predict doom for Linux (on the desktop at least). Since I doubt Apple will release OS X for x86 then both will probably live on for quite a while, but I hope OS X takes lots of desktop market share away from Windows.
Hopefully the linux distributions will take a lesson from Apple on how to build a nice GUI on top of a unix-ish kernel.
I'm an engineer, I deal with UNIX all day. The absolute last thing Iwant to do when I get home is deal with UNIX. I want a nice stable and reliable OS that I never have to fuck with, but at the same time, should I want to, I want to be able to fuck with it. I'm a typical American, i want to have my cake and eat it too.
OSX allows me to come home to a computer that just does what i want it too when I want it to do it. Should I get the 4am wake up call from work I can still login and ssh to the machines to do my job, plus I can run apache and samba and a million other cool things.
Linux is a long long way off from this type of usability.
Just FYI, Mac OS X ships with tcsh, ssh, apache, etc (and bash is an easy compile). If you download the free developer tools, you also get gcc, a GREAT IDE (ProjectBuilder/InterfaceBuilder), perl, and more.
Russell
Plenty of Linux experience. Plenty of Solaris experience. Plenty of HP-UX experience. Plenty of NT experience (shock :) (Plenty is defined here as "more than five years' worth in a work environment, not just dabbling at home, in each of these environments."
The production systems are Solaris (with a few Linux boxes mixed in -- I never said it was a Linux network ;) and the network is mostly Cabletron (*shudder*) and a bit of Cisco. I didn't get there in time to influence the hardware purchasing decisions ;)
Most of my experience is on the systems side. But there's no way you can avoid dabbling in the network side of things either; what happens when all your systems are running but a router's puked and your network admin's gone? Time to crack open the books and put on a new hat. Nothing teaches faster than trial by fire. :)
Aren't there are few pieces of "misinformation" about the world o' networking in the MCSE training materials? I wish I could remember the specific things they said in "Networking Essentials" that were complete bunk, but I never bothered trying for MCSE myself (I just remember seeing lots of, er, "less-than-glowing" reviews of M$'s curriculum).
MCSE helps close the gap, *only* in the Windows world. You drop an MCSE into a Unix environment, and you might as well start a dead pool on him or his systems.
Read my stuff.
Yes. I have no alphabet soup behind my name either, and don't need it. They've been bugging me for months to go get Sun's precious "Sun Certified Solaris Administrator" badge, but I've got better things to do with my tim. If you can get an NT environment to be stable, good for you! But "guess what"? The only stable NT platform I've ever seen is when someone uses a PC as a stepping stool. You can claim reliability, but let's talk uptime. How long did it take you to install each NT box? How many reboots did the installation take? How many patches before you had a TCP/IP stack that could withstand more than a newbie script kiddie's first tries? My mail server snickered as Melissa and ILOVEYOU trounced all over NT networks. And even forgiving NT's love affair with reboots and low uptimes, how about functionality? How do you remotely manage the box? VNC? Great. Hope you never need to unstuff a full event log over a modem. Sorry to flame so hard about NT, but it's experience talking. I've heard that clever argument before that "if you know what you're doing, NT is just as stable as Unix." For those of you who buy this, I've got some awesome swamp land in Florida to sell you with *great* retail potential! Sure, experience can go a long way in keeping any box going, we're comparing apples to oranges methinks. Sure, you might coax a one month uptime out of an NT box (but not a freshly-installed Windows 98 box :), but with only moderate skill you can coax uptimes of *YEARS* out of just about any unix box.
Read my stuff.
Heh. I hate to agree with the anonymous coward, but he's right ... you don't use either one, nor do you know enough about UI design to make constructive criticisms, but you can tell us that without a doubt it feels horrid to you.
I'm not trying to flame. I really want to know what feels horrid! How do you expect it to get any better if you can only whine about it?
And if you're actually weak-minded enough to pick up behavioral challenges from Slashdot, I can't wait to see what you can pick up from an episode of Jerry Springer ;)
Read my stuff.
I can know that the user interface sucks, even though I can't articulate exactly what is wrong with it. Why can't you articulate it? It's the same with music -- you don't need to know squat about "music theory" to know you dislike something and why. I know I don't like most rap music. I know I don't like it because I can't stand the systematic butchering of real music by sampling on top of repetitive drum loops with an incoherent rambling buffoon talking over all of it. In the same way as music, there's only so much an interface can be made of. There's color, shape, speed, and behavior. So what about it don't you like? The colors are wrong? Change them. The button shapes and/or placement is weird to you? Change it! Don't think it's fast enough? Turn off special features, animations, and transition effects. If you don't like what happens when you left-click a window border, change it! My point is that if you seriously can't put a finger on what you dislike about an interface (or a piece of music), how can you seriously expect anyone to take your complaints seriously?
Read my stuff.
So you can criticize and admit it's been awhile since you've used it, all in the same sentence? Wow. Control panel's there. Why should your desktop environment handle your system's printing, btw? Shouldn't that be the print daemon's job? If you're that bent-out-of-shape about editing files, install Debian, and use CUPS for your print daemon. Last time I checked, drag and drop works. Then again, "it's been awhile since I looked at [it]" and I've always considered drag and drop to be a pain in the ... you get the idea :)
And I've *never* invested more than half an hour on installing a Linux box. When I started rolling out Linux workstations here to replace the daily-reboot Win98 boxes, a simple tarball (with Debian's *default* (i.e. unmodified) boot disk) was all I needed to drop Linux on a box in 10 minutes.
I'd hazard a guess why you reformatted, but you'd probably take offense ;)
(In case you can't tell, I'm really not trying to be inflamatory towards these people. Don't the !@#$ing smileys say anything?!?! Hell, people, take criticism with grace. Ignore it if you want, but if you let it bend you out of shape, you've already lost.)
Read my stuff.
No they don't, but it's amazing how fast they take notice when things improve as you migrate things off NT. As the senior system administrator of a network environment that hasn't gone down in over a year, I know people listen to me.
Read my stuff.
I can articulate why that sounds horrendous in two words: "Off key" :)
The point is, I shouldn't have to be making these choices. A professional graphic designer should be.
And that professional graphic designer should inherently know what exactly you expect and had damned well better get it done right the first time, right?
You ask the impossible. Don't worry, someone will get around to doing it eventually, but I still think it's insane to bitch about something when you can't specify what's wrong with it.
Read my stuff.
It's just the sex, isn't it? Hehehe of course it is! It just wouldn't be right any other way ;)
Read my stuff.
Something that has always bothered me is that all of the windows seem to use the same thread for everything, so if one window is stuck rendering a huge table (Slashdot forums, for instance), all of the other windows will be stuck too.
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No, there isn't. It was all removed in a law suit with Bell Labs a long time ago. BSD is no more Unix than Linux is.
Hello? Why do we care if cluebies use OS X? Isn't that like a win/win situation? An easy to use, stable, unix-based alternative to Micro$oft that the masses can use, without the burdensome responsibility of having to hold their hands on *our* mailing lists? I'm gonna talk OS X up to every cluebie I know!
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Actually, I cant see MS releasing an OS for the G4... kinda why BeOS never could either... damn proprietary mobos...
But anyways.... you have to keep in mind that Motorola put quite a pinch on Apple with all their CPU blunders.... X is running in full form minus classic at Apple. They may never release it, but its certainly nice to know they have chip options in the future...
Oh, and the Finder is a separate app. Carbon actually. If you want, build your own and get rid of Aqua... make it look like windows, kde, gnome or whatever.... they power is yours.
People think Microsoft is the answer. Microsoft is just the question, "No" is the answer.
Apple has been pretty good lately about keeping their developer docs on the web. Right now, there's a fair amount of stuff missing and incomplete amongst the OS X documentation (notably a full Quartz API) but there's still plenty to read. I also note that they now have a print-on-demand service through FatBrain, which appears to be a good sign.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Tip: For the"getting slower and slower" problem, it's usually a LaunchCSMApp process getting stuck and eating CPU, kill it from command-line or ProcessViewer.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Every time the BSD tcp/ip stack beated the Linux tcp/ip stack, masses of linux geeks threw their weight at the problem until linux came out on top.
Meanwhile, BSD had already finished with its IPv6 stack and started moving on to other things, like jail(2)
Oh but Linux has khttpd. It can keep it.
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Existing Mac customers may not be interested in MacOS X on x86, but potential new MacOS X customers have no such reservations. The Mac hardware doesn't interest me one jot. MacOS X on x86 however does because it preserves my investment in my current hardware!
I would be very tempted indeed if MS Office on MacOS X could get me out of the MS Windows trap and onto a Unix based system that enjoyed the benefits of MS Office compatability & access to Quicktime.
So what I'm saying is that [you] are one market segment ; but I am completely different ; and we are both potential MacOS X users under the right conditions.
Macka
Well if you're going to use Mac OS X your software is going to run on only one architecture anyway, so how is this any better.
Any why are we forgetting Debian? I'm using Debian for x86, and it has a massive amount of packages. I was under the impression that most of these packages are recompiled for different architectures and included with the distributions.
Compiling software is for when you want to customize software, or of course, for people who *like* compiling software (certainly not me).
Companies won't go with products from companies that are late, and who admittly admit, that they fucked up. Apple, with Jobs at the helm, has a tendancy to fuck up in short. As soon as they made Jobs the CEO again, everything started taking longer to get to market, a degradation in product quality, and of what people expected.
Besides, we all know windows lovers will never touch that evil thing called unix!
imho, you should check your facts better before you start spouting. I hope you don't mind my little interjections :)
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Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!
That has got to be the most hilarious sig I've seen in quite awhile. :-)
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The reasonable definition of UNIX(tm) is contained here: http://www.opengroup.org/public/prods/xxm0.htm
AT+T heritage is not required. A number of independant products have been certified as UNIX, including Microsoft Interix (a UNIX subsystem for NT), and OpenVMS, OS/400, and so on. A particular Linux or BSD distribution shouldn't have too much trouble qualifying, if someone wanted to do the testing and put up the money.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Yes, Win2K is the first Microsoft product since MS-DOS 6.22 that doesn't require 3 or 4 reboots per day. I switched to it at work (from Win98), and really like it.
:-)
But since there aren't any device drivers for Win2K, there's really not much difference anyway.
If you're forced to use it at work, just install Cygwin and forget the concept of multiple users and there's not all *that* much difference. Well, except that XF86 4 crashes all the time.
Win2K is really just another fringe OS like BeOS to me.
And besides, OS/X on the desk and Linux in the server and on the power user's desk is a much better idea than Win9x on the desk and NT/2K for the server and power user.
If you read the thread, you'd see i was talking about how unix like macos x vs linux is. Name one other unix system that uses xml config files? Just one? They took standard unix utilities changed them so they acted *less* like the other unix's. That was my point.
... an embedded device that uses Linux as it's OS. You can debate whether you think Linux is a good solution (I think WinCE and Pocket PC are awful when compared to Palm, but that's besides the point).
Furthermore, you may have heard of devices such as the Tivo
If this were a thread about how Windows like MacOS X is, if it didn't support Win32 I'd say not very. Since this is a thread about how Unix like MacOS X is, I'd say not using tools that are standard on just about *every other Unix* makes it less Unix like then Linux. The same statement goes for xml config files. I have nothing against config files in xml, but taking standard config files and turning them into xml makes them different from *every other Unix's config files*.
The only nitpick I have about what you said is this:
... and no, there really isn't anything interesting in a Mac. Yes PowerPC is a nice architecture ... nicer then x86 ... but Alpha's and Ultra Sparc's are nicer still).
***
The Cocoa (formerly Yellowbox/Openstep) development framework by itself is a find.
***
Now, the keyword there is (formerly Yellowbox/Openstep). How is it that a former OS that basically failed (mostly due to Steve Jobs, no fault of the OS) being reincarnated as MacOS X and having basically the same development tools as before is a find?
I'm not posting this as a flame, I just want to know how people think MacOS X will do better then NextStep considering the same person who drove Next under is at the helm at Apple.
And anyone that doesn't believe that Job's drove Next under can criticize this post, but look it up before you call it FUD. Next machine's where beautiful and before there time. But they also cost a mint and Job's didn't (and still doesn't) keep up with competitors (anyone who thinks that colored plastic is moving computers forward has a problem
I'd have to disagree with you. Yes, MacOS X's pedigree is more Unixy (is that a word) then linux's, but Linux is more of a *nix. Little things like not using X make it non-standard (besides the *steps, name a Unix that hasn't used some incarnation of X post the Sun vs The World(tm) desktop war). I'm sure if I poked around it a bit more, I'd find more things to nit-pick, but I think I heard something about a good number of config files moved to XML? If so, that's pretty far away from any of the current *nix's.
Furthermore, x86 MacOS X is really laughable at best. Linux runs on "real" server processors like alpha's, ultra sparcs and mips. And linux can run in large scale SMP or cluster configurations (we all know Beowulf and there was an article somewhere about Linux booting on a 32 proc Compaq Alpha system). Not to mention S390's. These are all server platforms that as far as I know MacOS X will never see. Mach may be cross platform, but I'd like to see how hard it is to move the rest of the crap they put on top if it to different platforms. It would also be fun to see MacOS X scaled down to the pda's and embedded systems. These are all areas that Linux excels in and has been proven as a good solution. It would take a bit to convince me that Apple's first *nix since A/UX is gonna cut the mustard on any of those tasks.
And I'm also not saying Linux is the best for all of those tasks, but it's a far cry better then MacOS X is today, and that's the point of this discussion.
The masses have shown they like Apple products? Maybe the iMac sold well, but I'd have to say the number of x86 boxes in use today dwarfs the number of Macs. The "masses" don't care what machine they use, they just want to surf the web, check their email and *not* spend more then $300-$500 on a computer.
Interestingly enough, I went to netcraft (http://www.netcraft.com/survey/developers/apple.h tml) and saw what Apple is running. A bunch of MacOS (of course), but also bunch of Solaris and , get this, _Linux_. Tee hee
f t.html
m l).
Kinda gets you right here...
I'm as giddy as a schoolboy! Thanks Apple!
I also see a few Linucees at http://www.netcraft.com/survey/developers/microso
And the "Most true to form" Award goes to SGI (http://www.netcraft.com/survey/developers/sgi.ht
-Wes
Computers aren't Gods, they're machines. OS's aren't Religions, they're software. - Wes Yates
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I agree with you both, but my perspective is Linux is ubiquitous (I hope that's the correct word - has more of an install/hardware base). Much more so than MacOS X.
Let me add to a list of things that stand in MacOS X's way:
[] I've read of getting "Steved". Jobs doesn't like it, he changes it.
[] Only one type of hardware. BAD IDEA.
[] Little Open-Source effort.
[] Possible harder time "fitting in" to a more Linux environment (or Windows for that matter).
Just my 2cents
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
Won't porting Mac apps to a Unix(like) filesystem such as MacOS X make it easier to port to Linux? Eh?
:-)
Port me baby. I'll go on most all Unices at that point
Photoshop for MacOS X/Linux anyone?
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
DoOoOoOd, you fergot thu "MaN"
@@@@@ Maks KiK AsSsSsSs oVEr LiNUkS, MaN @@@@@
You hippie coward Mac Freek.
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
Consider this analogy: Usenet.
Before there was the Web. Discussions like this primarily took place on Usenet. Usenet is like water. It's free, and as long as someone who loves it is continuing to run it, it will continue to move messages.
On the other hand, Usenet is practically irrelevant now. It's been polluted by spam and other forms of abuse. Of all the open source projects I can think of, none more so than Linux seems to be as susceptible to the problem that rendered Usenet irrelevant: the Tragedy of the Commons.
So long as Usenet could be managed by The Cabal, its facility as a medium was maintainable. When it grew to the point that the Cabal was overwhelmed by abuse, Usenet's obsolescence began. Its obsoletion arrived in the form of the Web.
That said, there is no reason to believe that Mac OS X is any more likely to attract Linux desktop users away than any other Unix OS, e.g. Solaris, HP-UX, Irix, A/IX, etc. Nor is there any reason to suspect that a confederacy of major Linux distribution service providers could not scale to manage the levels of demand that Microsoft currently services.
Linux advocates needn't ph33r the Mac. They need to ph33r themselves.
jhw
anyone who thinks that colored plastic is moving computers forward has a problem
It's about industrial design. You know, when you have three competing products, sitting there on the shelf, and as a consumer, you don't know which is technically superior (consider the average person trying to decide which washing machine to buy)... so aesthetics, company image, lifestyle etc. are maybe the only things the customer has to choose from.
Of course, true techies will not be seduced by this frivolity, but Apple is targetting home users, artists, musicians... I mean, I have a friend who wants to get a mac to manipulate her photos... and she "just prefers a mac" -- can't really tell me why.
So while the industrial design does not move the tech forward, it can get it off the shelf and into the customers' home. Just about every other product from tooth-pick containers to steam irons to VCRs to watches (especially watches and other stuff you wear) gets serious industial design.
Most people can't de-assemble their car engine. What they see is the styling, the interiors, a few specs (MPG etc.) and the image/prestige/price tag. In a way, the PC has been a 'personal' installation... but now Jobs is making it 'personal' lifestyle.
Yes, she attends an evening class in photography, and they have a lab of macs, and other apps like GraphicConverter (Mac only?) are very handy. And indeed, at least photophop on a mac is well proven.
It's not just great industrial design (though that is part of it) it is because a lot of that design had your friend in mind.
Yes, I think this is what mac-user-bashers are just not aware of. That's it's ok to use intuition -- that not being able to list all the 'technical' points is not a sign of being dumb. Of course those intuitions could be wrong, but so can an ill chosen set of technical comparisons.
And your list of specific points is very good (IMHO) -- it gives the intuitives something to say... put into words "what they already knew, but couldn't tell you"
Ever been job interviewed by an intuitive? They just sit there, not saying much. But they notice everything about you. Yeah, this guy is ok, but he just doesn't fit with our team mix and what we need... etc.
Apple really does care about those intangibles: there's an article on ArsTechnica commenting that only Apple would bother to make QT movies continue playing while minimised in the dock and being transluscently dragged -- not that it's technically impossibe -- it just consumes engineering resources that could have been spent on something "useful" -- but apple understands these priceless little intangibles ... as well as the big important ones like ColorSync and iDVD
Maybe what we are seeing (to get back to the main topic) is computer systems differentiating themselves more to cater to different cultures (needs/tasks/work methods/people)... so the visual artists use macs, the admins and hackers use linux, and the business world keeps lumbering on with win/office. Of course there will be some overlap... scientists may go for more of a mix of linux and mac etc. but generally the "one WinPC fits all" is history. And maybe MacOS X won't threaten Linux in any significant way. They'll just each build on their own strengths in different fields.
MacOSX is a step in the right direction, but as many people have already stated it is only available for the Mac. If they did create an Intel version (Which is very easily ported due to the BSD core), then they would grab a greater portion of the desktop business market.
Linux being an Open Source OS hurts it as much as helps it. Many businesses avoid Linux due to its 'hack' reputation and low support structure. This could all change by a major company backing it. Apple is one name that many businesses would trust for support and implementation.
Companies do not want to search web pages to get hacked drivers for their hardware. They want HP to make that driver. Apple will work with Hardware manufacturers to make that happen.
Many applications will already be ported to MacOSX. If they port the major apps, and they may, then many businesses would look at upgrading these applications on a new OS rather then the one they currently have as long as the new OS has security, reliability and support. MacOSX will!
If Apple plays their cards right, they could really make hit! As for Linux, it would always be there but it would be hurt against the desktop market.
Free may be nice, but when a company needs to support 1000 PC's, they can afford the cost of the OS. They want support.
Face it, MacOS X is going to take a bite out of everyone's market share. Some Linux geeks will switch, Dozers will switch, MacOS9 people will switch. Even some Amiga people will switch, and you know how we are. ;-)
As for use of the word "threat", maybe you're going too far. MacOS X isn't going to wipe out Linux. The world is just going to get a little more heterogenious, that's all. And diversity is a good thing for everyone except Microsoft.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Linux runs on "real" server processors like alpha's, ultra sparcs and mips. And linux can run in large scale SMP or cluster configurations (we all know Beowulf and there was an article somewhere about Linux booting on a 32 proc Compaq Alpha system). Not to mention S390's.
You and so many other people are completely missing the point here. Sure, Linux will run on some bigger iron than most mac users can afford, but so what? The question was, given the choice between Mac OS X and Linux (both of which are one way or another related to Unix) what would a typical end-user choose, assuming that they're in the mood for a "Unix" system?
I still agree, however, that Mac OS X and Linux are apples and oranges (oops, I just made a pun). Linux is still a much much more exposed system than Mac OS, despite X's BSD ancestry. Mac OS X is still a much much more pampering environment than Linux, despite all the dressing up with desktop environments. The end user market is very much a segmented market and these two operating systems don't even wave at each other as they pass. They don't really even tread on each other all that much when divide the market into "sheep" (MS users) and "cats" (users who refuse to be herded).
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Actually incorrect partly. Your right the issue is in the codec (Sorenson specifically). But the reason that it has not been allowed to become more public is found in the licensing agreement Apple made the Sorenson people sign (I think its like the university of utah or something). See xanim for the real info.
Ummm, to be able to get off AppleTalk and have a decent IP stack under the hood? Lord knows they need it, especially on switched networks.
Well, they switched some 4 years ago to OpenTransport.
Opentransport is based on the same Mentat streams stack which Digital, IBM (AIX), Sun (Solaris) and some other vendors are using.
Appletalk nowadays runs on top of IP.
This is called Appleshare IP.
And yes, it still works perfectly.
If you look at the network performance of an average Mac you'll see that it runs rounds around all that crap from Redmond.
Even the first iMac can completely saturate a 100baseT full-duplex link.
Nontheless, I highly recommend Win4Lin if you are running Windows 95/98. (Yes, I know the poster is using Windows 2000.) It is extremely fast and runs almost all non-game programs flawlessly (Outlook is probably the most notable exception, but Office, IE, and most stuff should be fine).
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In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
Touche. :)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Have you seen the price on the new Titanium G4? People run Linux because it's free and most of the hardware supported by it is really cheap compared to the competitors. i386 as compared to PPC? MacOS X will be fun for those who already love using their Mac and want to have some of the benefits of UNIX too. But when it all comes down to it, I'm not going to run out and buy a $3000.00 machine just to run an OS that probably won't compile most of the stuff I use. Besides, have you seen KDE lately? :)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Linux is machine side MacOs is human side..
Linux is basicly hacker Os and MacOs Newbe Os..
Before anyone is offended or gets the wrong idea.. MacOs makes a very good hacker os and Linux makes a very good newbie os...
But in the end MacOs is a better os for the "Human" interface and Linux a better os for the "Machine" interface... They just cover the other side so well that when an application needs both they do both...
But as the rule is "try being all things to everyone" and you end up being Windows...
MacOs isn't trying to be a HackerOs it just covers that area becouse it's needed...
Linux isn't trying to be a newbie os it just covers that area becouse it's needed..
So with MacOs becomming MacOs X.. A Unix system.. it complements Linux even better..
Some applications are more Human and need Mac and some are more automation and need Linux...
TiVO is more automation... Linux...
CADing is more human.. MacOs...
But as you should know by now.. while MacOs was favored for Cading in the 1980s and Linux runs TiVOs...
Newbies use TiVOs and experts do CADing..
In any case... the application favors Linux or MacOs...
"See MacOs makes a horrable TiVO... so use Windows for your web browsing etc" Some companys (not exclusivly Microsoft) will do whatever it takes to hurt a quality compeditor...
I don't actually exist.
Other fun slashdot stories:
Is Windows9x more stable than Linux?
Are home-row commands more efficient than modeless operation?
Do yard-narcs pick on geeks?
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
But then with OSX, install Virtual PC, Xfree86 and run OSX, classic Mac, Windows, and all the BSD apps you want. Then you can boot into LinuxPPC and run Classic MacOS using Mac on Linux. Yes it will run on the new Titainium powerbook.
photosMy Photostream
As the asker of the question pointed out, it's not the geeks he's interested in, it's the masses. The masses have shown they don't care about open vs. closed software.
#3. Its (sic) GUI is *VERY* closed. fairly unthemeable. geeks dont (sic) like that.
As the asker of the question pointed out, it's not the geeks he's interested in, it's the masses. The masses have shown they don't care about open vs. closed software.
#4. Its (sic) an Apple(tm).
As the asker of the question pointed out, it's not the geeks he's interested in, it's the masses. The masses have shown they like Apple products.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
> 12 months ago Microsoft was nearly $120 now it's around 30 (25% of its Jan 2000 value)
Actually MSFT is 54 today (Jan 18)
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it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
It probably won't switch many Slashdot readers, but it could get a lot of people who want speed and reliability with ease of use. If anything it will help push Linux developers to write software that doesn't require a Ph.D to use. Competition is good.
"There are no cool guys in musicals." -- Coach McGuirk
I agree Apple's stock is undervalued but come on now...
12 months ago Red Hat was pushing $120 now it's around 9 (7.5% its Jan 2000 value)
12 months ago Microsoft was nearly $120 now it's around 30 (25% of its Jan 2000 value)
12 months ago apple was at $50 now its aound $17 (35% its Jan 2000 value)
Who's stock is in the tank again? There are a few that are deeper -- If you had bought stock everytime people predicted Apple's demise you'd be a very rich man.
As for the processors they've released their 533, 667, and 733 -- as well the 533 is available in a MP config.
just my $0.02
I find I have to turn of the "intelipoint" setting in the control panel for specific applications to get my MS moose to work with games..
My question is why everyone assumes that the instant OSX rolls off the shipping lines, that it's going to be perfectly bug free and a drop-in replacement for both Linux and MacOS?
Having gone through months of turmoil due to a rushed deployment of OS9, our university for one, won't even consider OSX until summer of 2002. I would guess that a lot of businesses will also freeze at OS9 until it is clear that OSX is a reliable operating system. That gives Linux coders a lot of time to catch up on any functionality that OSX brings to the table.
Don't forget that come March, the release version of OSX will be a brand new OS, with no real track record. Linux has proven itself in years of enterprise level work, and also runs on cheaper hardware. That's going to be a hard case for CIO's and the like to ignore.
I will be getting the Titanium Laptop when I can get it installed w/ OS X =)
I think PPC-only Mac OS X will not real be a real threat to Linux, an x86 version could make things interesting .. either way, still not open source, so it matters not ;)
that was easy enough now wasn't it?
IF you care about running Mac software, then sure you will buy a Mac. But chances are that's no loss to Linux. On the other hand if you mostly want to run Unix (perhaps plus a little Win), then you'll buy x86 + Linux and no gain to OSX. It's only for that miniscule set of the population that are keen on MacOS AND Unix that will love OS/X and probably Linux will lose those persons. (Both of them!).
Actually OS-X runs on a BSD variant which is a real Unix. As far as the NeXTStep stuff, I love it. IMHO if Jobs hadn't had his head so far up his a** back in the NeXT days, Microsoft would be a much smaller player. The NeXTStep development environment was a lot like cocaine. Once you try it, nothing else will ever satisfy you again. The development tools and the underlying infrastructure give you a big productivity boost. I'm a Unix/Linux kind'a guy but after playing with a G4, I seriously thinking about getting one just for the development environment.
I'm switching. I can't stand another six months with X windows. KDE and Gnome make the best of it, but even they can't seem get me a real clipboard, one that works with more than just text, and works the same on all apps.
I've been using Linux for 3 years, and I'm going to be jumping for joy the day I can finally get a UI that is more than skin deep.
If I'm not mistaken, all gigabyte ethernet automaticaly does this. I'm not exactly sure, though.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I use Linux because I like it.
I can download it for free. I can analyze it. I can learn from it. I can program for it, for free. I can accomplish anything in Linux that I could in Windows.
Plus, I get a warm fuzzy feeling contributing to the Free Software movement.
Why do you use Windows?
(That's a rhetorical question: I do not want to start a flamewar here.)
When I feel artistic, which is rare, I use GIMP. Perfect for my needs. But I know there are many 3D design applications out there for Linux. Check around (I don't know how good they are or anything, I never had any desire to use any.)
Once MacOS X goes final, it'll be bye-bye forever to Linux at our place.
The defaults tool is absolutely wonderful for all sorts of customisation. For example -- if you want a translucent terminal window, a la eTerm:
defaults write com.apple.Terminal TerminalOpaqueness 0.9
If you have lots of terminals/text on the screen, 0.98 might be a better setting, so things remain clearly legible.
There are a gazillion other 'undocumented' options (ie. the options aren't in any of the default plist files) available with a quick search of the web.
Now that XFree86 (4.0.2) works perfectly in tandem with Aqua, I have less and less reasons to jump over to my Linux/FreeBSD boxes. Actually, X is far easier to configure under MacOS X and Darwin than any other OS... it configures itself using IOKit -- no more tweaking XF86Config required. OS X is truly impressive... and the latest (non-public-beta) screenshots on Apple's site look spectacular.
Ummm, to be able to get off AppleTalk and have a decent IP stack under the hood? Lord knows they need it, especially on switched networks.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
And while I know that many of the masses like Apple products I would be willing to postulate that the masses like MS products even more. Considering that even tossing in Apple's share of the market Windows has 85+ percent of the consumers locked those masses are not going to toss out their 1Ghz P IVs to buy a slightly more expensive G4 cube.
Add to that the fact that the masses can dabble in linux on a machine dual booting Windows and my answer is no. OS X is not going to threaten linux at all.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
What you forget is that, under Linux (or any Unix that uses shared libraries, I believe) you get things like "libc.so" "libc.so.2" "libc.so.2.2.1" If your app needs libc.so.2.2.1, preferentially, it'll get that. But you can also have libc.so.2.2.2 installed for another app. An app that requires just libc gets the most recent version, I believe. (I forget the exact semantics of ldd, honestly, but the gist is here) In windows, you get mfc42.dll and mfc43.dll. It's up to the application to ask for the version it wants, and if it can't find it, keep looking for the different versions until it finds the one it wants. In Linux, that happens automatically. (I don't know about other OSes, as I haven't gotten nearly this detailed with them.) So, Yes, Windows has a similar problem, but it's so, very very much worse.
Why is this even a question? I mean, it's downright dumb to ask this. Who's threatening who?? I haven't heard anything from Steve Jobs sounding like "We're really gonna cream that Torvalds geek" or anything like that, so what's your damn fear from? Fear of not using the "Geek-fad of the moment" OS?
If the person who's pondering this kind of thing KNOWS what he/she wants to do with a computer, then maybe he/she'll pick the right OS for the task: Linux, Free/Net/Open BSD, BeOS, etc. AND, if it's a newbie, then either he/she'll use OS-X (if on the right architecture) or get burned/learn with some other OS.
Yeesh people, at least TRY to make a truly intelligent question, and not try and make others do YOUR homework: "What color shirt should I pick on a monday?", "Should I use Netscape or Opera?", "Should I switch to Python or should I keep using Perl?" Damn it all, THINK BY YOURSELVES!! and after a while, then ask an intelligent question ("Which language have you found to be more scalable to large-scale applications, Perl or Python?" or something like that).
-elf
pd: I know, I should chill and not even send this rant, but there's been a rash of downright lazy and stupid questions lately, obviously from people just wanting to stay in fashion with the OS / Language / OO-technique / http-server / db-server of the moment, and lame questions like these really piss me off.
- /System/Library vs.
/lib
- /Library vs.
/usr/lib
- /Users/username/Library vs.
/usr/local/lib
- /Users vs.
/home (or /usr/home)
- /private/etc vs.
/etc - this one is notable because most of the stuff in /private/etc is not used. Network settings, user authentication, etc. are stored in the NeXT-style NetInfo database. /etc is still accessable as a symlink to /private/etc.
- /Users/username/Library/Preferences vs.
/home/username/.*
There are a few other differences, andokay, i know this is incredibly off topic, but if you are doing any a/v work that requires an environment that is so quiet a cpu fan disrupts your abillity to hear you should buy a pair of nice headphones...
that way you can block out other background noise, as well as other sounds the computer makes, like hard drive access (macs do have hard drives, right?) in fact, not having a fan is a really stupid idea when you could easilly put one in. even if the prcessor doesnt really need a fan, its always a good idea to have one, if you can, just in case...
i mean, what if someone turned off their ac in 100 degree weather so they could hear for their audio video production?
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
How do you remotely manage the box? VNC? Great. Hope you never need to unstuff a full event log over a modem.
Actually, a number of the NT management utilities (including event viewer) can be connected to remotely (requiring of course that you have the tool on your workstation and the appropriate open ports on your firwall). Speed over a dialup line isn't too horrible either. (Provided of course that your phone line isn't utter crap like mine... 1000+ pings routinely which render even ssh useless).
Still, it's no match for being able to ssh in and do absolutely anything right at the command prompt (or even tunnel X apps back to your workstation if necessary).
to be honest i use windows2K for quake 3 team arena because that's what i have it for. don't have the linux binaries.
radeon support is a little better in win2k.
as soon as i have the time i'll cram 2.4 in and try to get quake running with the penguins.
peace.
mcmaster university in the great white north eh.
Of course there is still a lot of great software for Linux, and there is great software on Freshmeat. I'm just pointing out that the ratio of crap:quality is much, much higher than it was three or four years ago. Not much creativity, either. What percentage of apps on Freshmeat are "a clone of..." or "inspired by...", etc.? A *lot* of Linux software these days are poor, incomplete copies of Windows apps. For the most part, the license has become more important than the quality of the software, which is very, very unfortunate.
It has been my hope for many years to have a robust, high quality OS that would serve all of my purposes. I thought that it would happen with Linux, but the community has become so skewed to Free software that they are *actively* discouraging commercial software on Linux, no matter how high quality that software is. In my opinion, that's a big problem because it forces comapanies that actually have to make money to survive to ignore Linux.
It remains to be seen whether OSX will have the power and flexibility of Linux, but if it does, I think it will be a very attractive platform. The user will have more choices than on Linux - they can choose to use proprietary, commercial software (like movie players that support the Sorensen codec, etc.) when convinient, or choose to use Free alternatives.
Cheers,
Mark
"Good people drink good beer"
> Sun is selling fully supported hardware,
I'm thinking mostly about multimedia hardware (DVD-R, professional video capture, multihead 3D, etc). For years, I had hoped Linux would be a viable replacement for IRIX machines, but it never quite happened. I'm positive that OSX will become the platform of choice for multimedia content creation. For companies like discreet, NewTek, etc., the support costs for Linux just aren't worth it. Artists already love Macs, it just remains to be seen whether the techies will love it, too.
"Good people drink good beer"
As long as Mac OS X isn't too dumbed-down, then yes, it will take a lot of users away from Linux. Why would companies deploy on Linux with all of its support hassles, configuration nightmares and overly-vocal zealots when there is another commercial OS with the power of UNIX?
Personally, I'm getting really tired of all the Gnazis whining about Free software all the time. When I started using Linux, it was because it was solid, flexible and technically superior to windows (mainly because of it's UNIX roots). The 'moral' superiority of Linux was never an issue for me. These days, moral superiority has taken precedence over technical superiority, and Linux is suffering because of it. Freshmeat is now flooded with crappy software, but hey, it's Free man! Shovelware for the GNU generation.
If Apple can deliver an OS that has the power of UNIX, the ease of use of a well-thought-out UI, consistent, *fully supported* hardware, and lots of professional apps, then I will probably buy a Mac. (But they seriously have to do something about the one-mouse button issue).
"Good people drink good beer"
I have seen this happen when you change the default web browser to something other than IE (e.g. netscape). DND just stops working in the shell.
Fix: change the default web browser back to IE. You can keep using netscape, but you lose the ability to launch URLs from shortcuts with it. And if you're accustomed to doing Start|Run and typing in a URL, you'll have to add 'netscape' to the beginning of the line.
Hands in my pocket
Although Wine has improved a lot, I must recommend Win4Lin. For $30 I bought version 2 and it runs all the apps (Quicken and Turbo Tax, MS Office) I need on Windows without ever rebooting. Although it is not great for gaming, but I don't do too much of that, and when I do, I try to pick the games that run on Linux (Quake and UT).
But Win4Lin is great, it lets you do things on Windows without rebooting, it doesn't cost the same as VMWare nor is it a hog as VMWare is. I run things smoothly on 94M RAM, (it seems as though my windows apps run faster in Win4Lin then they do natively, but how can that be?)
Win4Lin is NOT a true virtual machine. I call it a semi-VM. It will NOT run NT or 2000. It is only for the 9x series. So it is not for everyone. It also has problems with MS SMB, but TCP works fine. If you want a product that you can do windows work (Office, Quicken, and the Like) without rebooting from Linux, I strongly recommend it. It helped me out a lot at work, since I do my developing in Linux and all my coworkers keep sending me power point and word documents.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
You could use the same argument for games on Linux---x86 PC doesn't mean a damned thing games wise unless it's x86 running a Win-32 derivative. Linux people know the workarounds. Casual user does not.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
As previous poster noted, QuickTime's file format is open. The problem is codecs, some of which are bound by licensing agreements. Yea it sucks. I know. But it's not always Apple's fault.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I sincerely doubt that my particular arrangement of window managers, mail clients (mutt is the only one worth a tinker's damn), shortcuts, and modifications has undergone ANY TESTING AT ALL but it feels right to me and makes me more productive.
So what, you are going to tell me that "experts" know more than I do about how I work? I doubt it.
On top of that, you're not even a good Mac zealot; Macs have ALWAYS been ahead of Windows in terms of prettiness and usability. Prettiness? Please, Windows has always had the flair of a polyester suit coat. Mac have been its unfortunate equal in stability for a long time. That may change.
As for expensive hardware, the new G4s should contain more than their share of value in terms of the lamely named "superdrive" which still rocks, and gigabit ethernet. Again, they are ahead of the curve in value, although the base price is still high. But if Apple continues the trends the've shown since Jobs came back, they should be able to trickle this down as fast as the cheaper and more open pc market can catch up to their technical jumps (look for compaq to offer an "ultradrive" or similarly named crap by the end of the year).
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Are you aware that this description fits the profile of things that create their own serial numbers and register themselves?
I'm not saying I believe you (or believe that what it seems like you are saying is what you mean to say) but when I check it out I will definitely sniff (and block) those outbound packets!
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
how does that fix your floppy penis?
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I will continue using freebsd and linux for work and for servers, but if I can get bash, ssh, gcc, apache, etc working on os x it's a fair bet that it will become my home and media system.
Why? Because I just don't have the time to teach wife to use unix, even with xdm and nice window system, and it will be a long time before I can edit my video and burn dvd on my x86 bsd box. Of course I will when I can, but more importantly, i can now proudly paste a "dont' do windows" sticker on my front door.
Ok, so I'm not really that lame, but I try. The point is that it should not be seen as an either/or choice but a yes, and!
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
1) I upgraded from win98 to w2k
2) SQL server was not running on my machine only the client components were. You see you have to apply the service pack both to the server and the management machine.
3) I will broadcast to everybody I know from now on that Dells are not compatible with windows 2000. I will point out to them that people being payed by MS are saying this on public forums.
4) I did have to wipe out windows98 and re-install w2K from scratch which cost me dearly in productivity.
5) If someone like me who has been in the computer business for almost 20 years is unable to install and use W2K properly then what can the average user expect?
Here is the summation of the points you made.
1) Windows 2000 is unstable on dells (and presumably most off the shelf computers as well)
2) Windows 2000 is too hard to install and maintain except by highly paid professionals.
3) Even when installed by highly paid professionals it's possible for users to dusrupt the system severly.
Funny how even when being paid to defend W2K you seem to be dissing it. Perhaps it's something subconcious at work here.
War is necrophilia.
My story.
I upgraded my windows 98. Bad mistake it crashed about 5 times a day. I bit the bullet and reinstalled it in another directory and re installed every single piece of software I had on it. All in all this took about a month (I reinstalled them as I needed them). For two months after it stayed relatively stable. In the last two weeks it has gone back to it's unstable self. I am not sure what threw it into a tizzy I am guessing it was the SQL server service pack three (client components). I could be wrong though who know what registry setting is goofy or what DLL is corrupt.
BTW please don't say hardware this is a relatively new DELL 700 pentium factory stock. I will bet a thousand dollars that if I wiped it and installed linux I would never have a problem with it. It ran windows 98 OK and it ran win2K Ok for two months.
War is necrophilia.
"Linux and MacOS X are not really the same sort of thing."
/usr/local/bin mean why don't they rename the directories something sane" and it goes on and on.
Well maybe not but consider this.
How many have you read on slashdot gripes about linux being too obtuse or too hard for the ordinary user. I can hear them howling now.
"X is an abomination it's ugly and slow get rid of it", "/etc is horribble with all those config files why can't you get a unified xml based config system or a registry", "there are too many competing desktops why can't they sttle on one", "It's too hard to program where is VB?", "what the hell does
Guess what every single one of those complaints has been adressed by MacOSX. It's linux with a unified config system, a unified desktop, an understandable-to-the-average-joe directory structure, all backed by a fortune 500 company with an advertising budget.
Yes it's a threat.
OTOH I can definately see linux market share growing if (a big if) macOSX actually gets people used to using non windows stuff. Maybe it will be easier to switch to linux from macOSX then from windows.
War is necrophilia.
I have seen high school kids run linux smoothly. It really doesn't take much. I do both and I find it easier to whip up a perl script or two then to dig through endless tabs or clicking through the tenth screen of a wizard. Once you set it up (which might take a while) it really just humms along no muss, no fuss, no bother. NT is very finicky and IMHO very high maintenance.
War is necrophilia.
I have used various flavors of *nix over my 16-year career and am currently using mostly Linux and some Solaris.
... and it would be cool to have a shiny new dual-processor to try it on. ;-)
That said, I am intrigued by OSX for a few reasons:
1) the method of bundling software (Bundles) that puts libraries, config files, binaries together as opposed to the typical Unix method of putting like file-types together... seems like a more object-oriented method
2) extensive use of XML in configuration files
3) a re-newed perspective on directory names that are more meaningful (why does usr contain so much non-user stuff?) like System, Library, etc.
4) the fact that all this stuff can be hidden when I just want to forget about all that stuff (yet to be seen if this is true but...)
Basically, it comes down to a lot of "things that make you go hmmmm". I will be taking a serious look to see if it something I could switch to
~Head
It's somewhat telling that, from a programming perspective, this (for Cocoa anyway) is controlled by a single method, applicationShouldTerminateAfterLastWindowClosed:
(no doubt a space will be stuck in that by Slashdot). The default behavior of the OS is to keep applications open, with the application responding YES to that method if they want the kind of behavior you prefer. I don't know of a mechanism currently in place that changes the OS default, but don't be surprised if it shows up.
I actually prefer to keep applications open, as having to relaunch them every time I open and close a document under Windows is, well, one of the reasons I don't use Windows much. The ugly window-in-a-window solution to this that many apps use is yet another reason I avoid Windows.
...the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Perhaps this will be considered Off-Topic, but I don't think that it is:
/get things done/. This, and other problems (memory management?) are addressed in OS X, though to be fair I don't have a Mac and haven't used it much. But back to the point:
"_Any_ additional player getting a larger share legitimises the very concept of 'additional player'."
I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes a certain amount of sense. What it reminds me of is the argument (in the US) regarding elections and "third party candidates". I think that OS X has the potential to take just as much market share from MS as it does from Linux. Personally, if I had to name one thing that I have hated the most about MacOS, it is the inability to get a command line and
If Apple can open up the OS market a bit in the public opinion (and as a bonus, expose more people to *NIX), then it benefits Linux in the long run.
And back to my political analogy: even Pat Buchannan supported Ralph Nader's (along with his own) inclusion in the presidential debates. Cheers...
Calling MacOSX a unix is the biggest insult to other unixes out there.
/etc/resolv.conf. What you mean that didn't work?
/etc/hosts? You mean to tell me that didn't work.
./a.out. Now double click on it. It won't run the program. MacOSX will think its a text file and procede to open it as such.
For those of you using macosX try editing your
How about
Looks like all the net things on macos are reliant on netinfo. and all previously human readable configuration files are now xml.
Wait, there's more. It seams like ufs doesn't work very well with macosX.
So you are pretty much stuck with hfs+. This means that having a file called Makefile and makefile in the same directory is out of the question. Many times this has been prooven usefull for me. Many, many unix apps relly on the fact that on a posix system files that defer in case are diffrent files. I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing, it's just legacy and MacOSX breaks these apps.
Furthermore the unix tools and the macos tools don't play together, so you're either stuck in command line mode or graphical mode, never sharing files between both.
Try compiling helloworld with gcc for MacOSX. It will run if your type
Untar an archive and try to add some c files to a codewarrior project. It's all just a big headache.
I hope that MacOSX will not give unix a bad name.
MacOSX is not proffesional enough. The thing looks like a candy shop. I would never be able to use MacOSX to do work because I would never feel like I'm working.
The damn thing is not that functional. Bouncing Icons, really, give me a break.
Mac OSX is slow. I'm not getting a new machine for it. I don't need it. Linux does whatever I want it to. Mozilla is becoming a great fast browser. For me mozilla-0.7 is much, much faster than ie for MacOSX(on the same machine).
My ibook is perfectly happy running linux and so am I.
Furthermore BSD utils are far worse than GNU utils. Don't believe me. type df -h See wheather or not this works on MacOSX, or any other bsd for that matter. More examples of gnu only flags. du -sh tar xzvf.
I really don't think the MacOSX interface is better than regular macos. In fact I prefer the old interface better. The old macos was useless though. Non-preemptive, non-protected, useless virtual memory.
I really prefer the customizability of gnome and a good shell. That is the best thing about linux, it is trully what you make of it, and not something that either Jobs, or Gates, Gnome, Kde or anyone for that matter thinks you should use, linux is your own personal os.
Oh yes and one more thing. multiple desktops are great.
MacOSX is just a slower prettier macOS with a unix shell, and a little posix(It doesn't matter that it uses bsd code). A unix shell doesn't make a unix.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
One, you will have to pay for MacOS X to run on (for the time being) Apple hardware. I, for one, cannot wait for the PC port.
Beyond all of that, MacOS X's ease of use does not scare me as much as WindowsNT (wannabe Network Admin's who run server os's because it looks like Windows9x). The fact that X is UNIX and that all the Mac geeks that I know run and love X (and love the power of the command line) makes me all giddy inside. No, I am not a Mac lover but I have been working with Macs since version 7.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
I mean, its not like mac OS/X is realy a mainstream system.... the mac population covers roughly the same about of space as does the non comercial OS people...
and apple somewhat supports open source.. perhaps not their most secret inner workings, but its better then nothing..
Now, imagine being able to run photoshop and my usb scanner under linux because someone wrote mac drivers which could be converted? heck, id have absolutly no use for windows anymore..
less redmond, more everything else...
--- all posts are not affiliated with my workplace. period. i dont care how good it may make them look, they are all
common. Doesn't the POSIX standard mean anything to you?
How we know is more important than what we know.
ftp://ftp.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Softw are_Updates/US/Macintosh/System/Older_System/Syste m_7.5_Version_7.5.3
Ah, the last peanut -- overflowing with the oil and salt of its departed brothers. -Homer
One thing that OSX has going for it (along w/other BSDs) is standardization. Trying to install a new version of GTK was a huge pain in the butt. It was installed in about ten different places, and GIMP 1.2 still couldn't find it. Not having to give instructions for different distributions, different packages, etc. will be a big bonus. Binaries will probably become a lot more common as well, good for those who can't (or don't want to) debug make files.
Having another OS become mainstream is a Good Thing(tm). It would be a shame to replace one OS monopoly with another, but it would be quite excellent if a large number of binary-incompatible, source-compatible operating systems became popular. Soon, the only way to distribute software could be in source form. I don't mind that one bit. After all, proprietary-with-source is just one word away from free-with-source.
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
- How modifiable is it?
- What about VFS? Can I add reiserfs or coda or something?
- What about binary compatibility (yes, Dorothy, there are BSD variants already running on PPC)?
- Can I rip the Darwin core out from under stock OS X and replace it with the free version? (This would be tremendously cool. Imagine Darwin as the open source core, and then OS X as Apple's proprietary additions, like Aqua, the Blue Box, etc.)
I get a shiny new dual proc G4 sometime this week. I'll repost when I know more.-c
"If you are an idealist it doesn't matter what you do or what goes on around you, because it isn't real anyway."-R.P.W.
They took a sweet ass kernel and then buried it under BLOATWARE. It's crap. no logging, and is by default insecure as hell, and it's pig slow on all but the latest machines. Shame on them. I wish apple would vanish.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
PS: I have 9 konqueror windows open right now and only one konqueror process running.
Not as many people hate aqua any more. Ever since they toned down the colors, and made it more productive like editing the dock, Most complaints were silenced, inluding mine.
The objective-C is not a requirement to make an app in OS X. OS X features full Java2 support, and also has the carbon API for compatibility with OS 9 apps, and Classic for unupdated apps.
I think Openstep failed for a few reasons, namely price. Also, Linux pretty much didn't exist back then, MS was crushing everything in sight. Plus, MS refused any chance of writing any software for it, decreasing its value.
It's coming back, check out Gnustep
http://www.gnustep.org
See this URL to see the unofficial Darwin mascot, Hexley. Pretty cool if you ask me. Competes with Tux in cuteness and public likability but still has that Daemon underneath the soft lovable exterior. Worth checkin' out.
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"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
Don't get me wrong -- i agree with a lot of what you say. It's not hard to see that most Macs are overpriced for what they're offering under the hood. You could make the same argument for most "luxury items".
"Even if there were a good way to compare performance across the two platforms" pretty much kills the idea of straight performance comparisons. There are plenty more reasons but i'm sure we don't have to elaborate on that.
You're entirely right, of course. The thing is, this thread started with someone postulating that Macs were more or less on parity with PCs in terms of potential performance--which simply isn't true. Nor is it true--and this was my original point--that the only reason for this is that the Mac uses slower clocked CPUs; the Mac platform has generally been behind the PC in all sorts of performance-related categories, most notably in terms of cache hierarchy and memory bandwidth, but also in adopting mainstream PC standards as they improve.
Thus--from a performance standpoint--the Mac market is overpriced and underpowered compared to the PC market. As you point out, this discussion completely ignores the "luxuriousness" or even the simple usability experience of using a Mac vs. using a PC. That's entirely true and I completely admit that; but on the topic that the thread was discussing, I'm right.
It's not really fair to compare street pricing of a PC notebook to retail pricing of a yet unreleased product. Try it again when the PB has been out for a month or two (though by my guess it will take a while for the price to drop).
Both prices were taken as configured in the respective OEMs online store. Indeed, I would bet that the street pricing for the Z505 might indeed be lower than the price at sony.com (although since it is apparently on back order this might not be the case with this particular model), but that wasn't what I was comparing. And if recent history is a guide, Apple tends to adjust their prices far far less often than PC OEMs; I'd be willing to bet that this price comparison will have changed more in the Z505's favor in, say, 3 months time.
Also, as another poster pointed out, LCDs are very expensive, so the 12.1" vs 15.2" difference is not a small one in manufacturing costs, nor is usability (at least in my experience using notebook screens).
Very true, although apparently Apple has significantly lowered the cost on this huge LCD by keeping the resolution at a rather unimpressive 1152x768. (Dell's 14.1" screens are 1400x1050 by way of comparison.) The fact that the Sony's puny 12.1" screen has the same vertical resolution as Apple's brings the matter of LCD quality a lot closer than "15.2 vs. 12.1" would seem to indicate.
Still, you're right in that there is no PC laptop which is as thin and as large-screened as the Powerbook, and that therefore Apple is much to be commended on their new laptop. So yes, the Powerbook is very impressive and quite compelling. Still, the poster I was responding to claimed that you couldn't find a PC notebook that would even come close to the Powerbook in price/performance, and I think I did a decent job of not only refuting that, but refuting it using the actual facts on the very laptop which Apple used to "prove" the amazing value of the Powerbook!
As for the mobile Duron, unfortunately it's based on the current (Spitfire) Duron core, which uses a rather large amount of power; thus it is unlikely to find its way into the sub-notebook category very soon, since it would tend to require a large and therefore heavy battery. When the next version of the Duron core (Morgan) *finally* comes out (looking like at least 3 months, unfortunately), it will offer a much more compelling notebook processor, due to an extensive relayout to reduce power consumption and also support PowerNow!, which is AMD's very advanced version of dynamic voltage/speed regulation. (In particular, it's a whole lot better than Intel's SpeedStep.) So yes, AMD is finally making a move on the medium-to-high end notebook market, but it will be a little while yet before they really have the goods.
BTW, the current video card in all but the base G4s is a 32mb GeForce2 w/ an optional Radeon.
I know, I talked about that in my first post in this thread. Unfortunately, you have to spend $2200 before you get a Mac which has a real video card in the default configuration. "All but the base G4" probably includes 80% of the desktop Macs sold (number pulled from my ass; but remember, a real video card isn't even an *option* on any iMac model, nor on the Cube). To offer a $1700 computer (without monitor) with a Rage Pro is simply a travesty in this day and age.
The most expensive Dell I could find that offered a Rage Pro was $1290 without monitor. Of course the configurations aren't identical; for one thing, as usual, the Dell wouldn't come without Office, a $460 option on the Mac. Adjusting to make them as equally equipped as possible (eg. adding ethernet and Firewire to the Dell, cheap speakers to the Mac, upgrading the Dell from Office Small Business to Office Professional even though Mac Office is somewhere inbetween, 3 year support for both, etc.) I get $2566 for the Mac and $1885 for the Dell. And this is comparing a 1 GHz P3 against a 466 MHz G4. The idea that any PC OEM would sell a $1500 computer which doesn't even have the option of a real video card is unthinkable.
Moreover, you still can't get a top-of-the-line 3d card for the Mac; only the budget GeForce2MX has been released in a Mac model, not the high-performance GeForce2 GTS. Yes, the MX is a great card for all but the most hardcore gamers, but there's still a rather large consumer market which the Mac simply can't compete in, at least until nvidia releases Mac versions of all their cards, which they most likely will do eventually.
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't offer the possiblity of higher resolution on their 15.2" display, but have you ever used a laptop display at 1280x960 or 1400x1050? Unless you have a magnifying glass handy, all I can say is 'why'?
e o/ati_radeon_32mb/ )
I run my 17" monitor at 1280x1024; the 15.2" screen on the Powerbook is actually bigger than my screen (because desktop monitor sizes count the edges and LCD sizes don't), and likely crisper too. Moreover, one tends to sit closer to a laptop screen than a desktop monitor. But the Powerbook doesn't offer the option of more than 768 lines of vertical resolution. I'm quite sure I would miss it, personally; of course this doesn't speak for everyone but I'd guess it does speak for many.
No option on the iMac, but then it's a stripper model. iMac users will probably be doing some light gaming, but I don't see 3d rendering in their daily activities.
The point is that the iMac is Apple's "consumer" computer, yet it doesn't offer the option of respectible gaming--a "consumer" use of the PC if ever I heard one. Of course, neither do many PCs in the under $1000 range (under $1500 is pushing it, though); still, the point is that if you want to buy a Mac for a decent price this is the only way you can go. In other words, no gaming for you!
Frankly, in order to do professional 3d rendering one could really use a professional 3d card, like nvidia's Quadro at the very least, if not a Diamond FireGL. Needless to say these will be a long time coming on the Mac, although that's not such a big deal since this is almost as much of a niche market as professional Photoshop users.
I'm pretty sure the Radeon (last I checked it performed respectably in tests (both 2d and 3d) and was considered a "real" competitive 3d video card -- a quote from the Sharky Extreme review: "Despite no longer boasting the fastest 3D on the market, the RADEON should not be scoffed at. Its superior video acceleration, crisp 2D quality, and an aggressively competitive price further add to a sweet slice of 3D gaming pie. " -- see here the aforementioned review: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/vid
Yeah, but that review is 4 months old. That's 2/3 of a product generation in the 3d card world. Frankly, both the Radeon and the MX are good cards; I'd be more than happy to have either one (TNT1 at the moment). Neither is a top-of-the-line product, however; at the moment that description only applies to the really-quite-mainstream GeForce2 GTS, and its more rarified bretheren, the GF2 GTS Pro and Ultra. When nvidia's and ATi's new generation of top-of-the-line cards comes out (in just a couple months now) how long will it be before they're on the Mac? (I dunno, but it's certainly not yet clear that it will be anywhere near immediate.) Moreover, while of course their OpenGL support will be outstanding (awesome Quake support is what really propelled nvidia to the top), these cards are both really designed around the very impressive new features of DX8, which of course won't be available on the Mac.
[The Radeon] is offered as an option in cubes.
Good point; I'd forgotten that. Still, the iMac is Apple's self proclaimed "consumer" line, and I for one think that the fact that it cannot support anything but the lightest 3d gaming is a serious strike against such an appelation. (As is the lack of internal CD-RW, but apparently that will be fixed soon...)
One thing i haven't seen considered here is that some geeks may actually go out and buy a mac JUST for the purpose of running OS X... Personally, I've already planned on buying a G4 when OS X is available. Why? Why buy 500-pound SPARC servers? Why build multiple dual Xeon machines? or alpha systems? Nobody in the geek community thought it so odd when I did THAT, after all.
Experience is the only true killer of inspiration. If OS X does suck, or doesn't actually run X/GTK/KDE/whatever stuff to any decent level, I'll be the person who will know it and know it from firsthand experience, while 95% of you reading this won't have a damn clue, because you aren't even willing to learn the system in the first place... hell, many of you won't even consider taking a look at it in your local computer store!
Apple does "wierd" stuff. Some of their "wierd" stuff has flat-out revolutionized home and low-end business computing. Hypercard... ANYONE remember that? Product of the YEAR for 1985 THROUGH 1987. The precursor to PDF, HTML, XML, Visual Basic-style WYSIWYG devlopment, and more. Apple's OS has brought lots of concepts to the end-user for the first time, including multitasking, time-slicing, and memory-swapping. Even Quarterdeck's DESQView for DOS didn't show up for another 7 years or so.
All i'm saying is that perhaps those who don't automatically hold some sort of bias will spend their money in order to educate themselves on the product, regardless of it being a proprietary solution or not. I still have win9x,NT,2k, and whistler beta machines in the house, despite the fact that i run exclusively Linux and Solaris/SPARC on my desktop machines. Please consider that self-education might just muck up your auto-disqualification demographics. If OS X has features as revolutionary as many of Apple's previous products, you'd better be prepared to see a lot of real geeks pick themselves up a 5.5GFLOP titanium box to toy around on.
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
As a BSD user, I am of course interested to see what effect the wider publicity geberated by MacOS X will have on my favourite family of operating systems. But if you ask if MacOS X will harm Linux, the free BSDs, or any other piece of open software... I have to tell you that I find your question irrelevant. :-)
The market Linux does stand to lose is the one it never really had anyway: The desktop market. Let's face it, we don't have it. My mom doesn't run Linux and probably will never run Linux. I don't blame her; she doesn't know what repartitioning is and I don't think she should have to.
As geeks, some Slashdot readers probably don't see this as a big problem. But I think they should. We need the desktop market, not for profit, but for conquest: There shall be no World Domination without it. Besides, we all start out as computer newbies, and grew up into Linux. But why move to Linux if you can have the best of both worlds? Mac OS X has been described as a geek's playground under a candy coating, and having used it, I'm inclined to agree.
This has me concerned, but really, we in the Linux community have no one to blame than ourselves. We could have the most stable, practical, and usuable operating system around. We already have two out of the three. But attempts to make a loser--er, sorry--userfriendly distro have been derided and ignored for various reasons (Corel Linux comes to mind). Eazel's a good start, but I wonder if it's too little too late.
Don't brush off Mac OS X just because it's only for PPC based architecture; it's part of a growing trend. If Linux doesn't steal the desktop market, BSD might, and if they don't, Windows will keep it. Compaq's no longer as friendly to Linux as it used to be, Corel is rumoured to be dropping its Linux line, and so on. Linux should be gaining ground on the desktop market.
But I fear we're losing it.
--
Lagos
...then how will i be so 31337? err..nevermind...
and to flex my keen sense for the obvious, id like to point out that this only effects mac users (duh), and i (a mac user) plan to use linux and os X anyway. although i have to admit, linux on ppc seems a little patchy. maybe its me, but i seem unable to compile half of the games i download, or to get 3d acceleration working (ati rage 128, blah, blah, blah), and a bunch of other mishaps that i would otherwise whine about to try to prove my point that.... uh i like linux anyway. must be that penguin.
--- Hey, Jesus is coming! Everyone look busy
You won't need to install ssh or vi, since it comes built in (well, in the Beta anyway). What you *will* need (thanks to Steve Jobs) is a c++ compiler.
The install is really funny in that way; it comes with gdb, but is missing gcc, almost like the developers just rm'd it right before shipping.
Luckily, there's Darwin.
yours,
yours,
kbs
Don't count on it. Apple LOVES to be in complete control of hardware.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
You forgot to mention the MACs are mouse challenged. They only have one button. How many of us would be happy with a MAC? I like being able to upgrade my system myself from parts I got at the local Computer Show for a great deal! I would never give that up. Not mention everything on a MAC costs more! From what I can see, a lot of the new user are from the college scene, and how many of them do you think have the money for a MAC or MAC hardware?
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Whether OS X for x86 ever sees the light of day depends entirely on there being a profitable business plan that increases Apple's bottom line if they were to do it. End of story. OS X for x86 exists just like OS 9 for x86 exists and OS 8 for x86 exists. They were and are the corporate parachute that Apple is keeping handy in case IBM and Motoroloa decide to abandon PPC. Considering the issues that have periodically cropped up with the AIM alliance, it's a wise insurance investment.
DB
What would you call display PDF, the quartz engine, and Aqua? X windows is gone in Mac OS X and the replacement is mmm, mmm, good.
The fact that the display standard is PDF has enormous implications for computing on the desktop. BeOS has a huge app problem and Mac OS X is going to come out the gate with the ability to run more apps than any other startup OS ever. You have the few cocoa apps written by Next developers. You have the wave of carbonized apps that should be out this year. You have the great mass of Mac OS 9 compatible apps running in classic. You also have pine, apache, sendmail, and the thousands of other GNU and non-GNU unix tools that can be compiled and run from tarball. And if you truly want X-Windows, you can compile it, or you can buy it with support.
*nixes have a shot at the desktop. It's called Mac OS X
DB
Let's say that the average hardware replacement cycle is 5 years in the corporate world (some servers get replaced quicker, others hang around a bit longer). This means that, on average, in a given year, 20% of the corporate hardware is up for replacement. Considering that Apple's presence is probably around 3% of the installed hardware base, there is quite a lot of room for Apple to grow by just offering good, cheap file and print server that don't have CALs like all Windows servers do.
Mac OS X + Samba is a great value proposition that doesn't require a lot of corporate admin retraining. I would expect them to win a significantly greater amount of business in the hardware turnover market.
DB
I didn't try mysql on my copy of the beta but Lynx compiled for me just fine with about 5 minutes of tweaking. The thing that will give me hope for widespread adoption of unix on Mac is if they make the terminal app recordable. If I can record my keystrokes in an applescript session and then turn my 5 minute hack into a 10 second applescript, all sorts of possibilities open up for the casual mac hacker.
DB
Virtual PC doesn't run transparently, it just runs well. You are in another environment and inside that environment you get all the benefits and disadvantages of the Windows experience. It is something to be used when you have a required application that only exists on the Windows platform.
DB
If you don't want the GUI, just type >console into the login window. Poof! No GUI. I'm sure it can be automated for server installs so you have to manually invoke the GUI for easy maintenance features.
I would bet that a surprising number of hardcore open source bigots are going to be advocating OS X even though they won't like it. The fight won't be with Apple advocates but Win2K advocates. They will start off suggesting Linux or FreeBSD to their PHB but when the Win2K camp sneers at the maintenance issues and the difficulty of finding and keeping qualified Unix administrators, Mac OS X comes to the rescue by being cheaper than Win2k, a true Unix that can be run in console mode or w/GUI if the PHB's have to maintain it while looking for a real admin, and moderately less sacriligious than the Win2k is to their blessed open source hearts by being based on the open source Darwin platform.
Right now, the cost of an OS isn't the OS itself, it's the seat licenses. Apple doesn't charge $50-$200 a seat like Microsoft but gives better value by offering Unix goodness and stability.
DB
It's not politics, it's business. As the dot.com shakeout is showing convincingly, cool technology without a way to make money is a disaster waiting to happen. Apple almost went down that road when it cloned the last time. When and if they port to other chipsets, they are going to have to do it with a rock solid business case.
As for backward compatibility with previous macs, there are people who have booted OS X on many macs not on the official list. It's just that it runs slowly.
By restricting the list, Apple has a ready answer to all those whiners who otherwise would be shouting from the ZDNet forums, "OS X Sucks! I can't get it to run on my 32Mb 6100/66 at any decent speed." Now you may want to be able to run this OS on old, crap hardware but by restricting the list of 'compatible' systems, it's clearly at your own risk and your user experience is simply not going to be up to Apple standards.
DB
I really dont feel that its that big of an issue. My take on the whole thing is a simple one. I dont care much for the current crop of MS OS's, they have proven themselves to be buggy, unreliable and MS has shown that it is incapable of altering this. I would like to see my users look at rebooting their PC as a last resort or a joyful event because it means new hardware is being added instead of a daily occurnce just to have some hint of productivity. If a Unix OS makes it to the desktop, be it BSD/X or Linux or whatever, we all win.
...and the geek shall inherit the earth...
www.linux-skunkworks.com
The only reason for using Windows is playing (3D) games, and Wine isnt't too good at that, so forget about it.
Indeed VMWare is too expensive.
What I do? I run Windows on my gaming machine, for stupid stuff and games, and access my "real" machine running BSD via X-window. The ideal combination of two worlds for me.
OSX won't be a 'threat', since it requires (expensive and closed) mac hardware, and it doesn't bring real advantages w.r.t. the only thing that windows is good for: gameplay.
Shakey UI? My BSD machine has an uptime of 20 days, the only reason X has ever crashed is because I was running beta software. On my Windows machine, explorer crashes every 5 days whether it's needed or not. I'm sure if Microsoft had never come along and somehow the Linux and BSD kernels had come about, people would be looking at Windows as "that quirky UI that's slowly making it's approach on the desktop market." And as far as code-bloat, it's more than many systems have. At least you can LOOK at the code. The reason XFree86 has so much stuff is because people want it. BeOS costs money as well, and as far as I can tell, MacOSX is the only decent OS that will be available for a while on the Mac market. I think the main argument here was whether or not Linux should be worried about its Mac faction because OSX will be BSD... developers will have to switch to that style if they want to continue development. This, to me at least, is a feeble argument because the only OS to run on a Mac is MacOS(9/X) so I think everybody is in their right place.
OSX will be OSX, it isn't a Linux killer. I welcome it. If it provides a good, usable, fast, robust desktop to the masses, it's about time.
-moibus http://moibus.jfm.net/
hahahahahahahaha, no.
(The lameness filter doesn't like my post.)
A couple of points:
Apple has gone with only one mouse button because this is what all the research has show is the best for new, non computer-people to use. There is no research that shows anything but, so Apple is always going to default to a single button mouse. I am not a non-computer-person, so I got myself a 4 button + scroll wheel mouse, and it worked right out of the box (without drivers, etc)... Granted software only knows what to do with 2 of the buttons.. but get over it!
Apple has been using standard parts in much of their computers for quite some time. IDE (UltraATA 33/66) had drives/CD/DVD drives, USB devices (2 independent ports), PC100/133 RAM (granted they need speed code 322 unbuffered or better, but that is a good thing), PCI (33 mhz and 32/64 bit slots... better than almost all PC's), AGP (all the lines are moving to 4X now), and FireWire/IEEE1384. All of this is standard based stuff.. How is it more expensive? You are living in the past! Maybe you can't use video card X or some cheap ethernet card, but in real life this is not a big deal.
So, periferals are by and large the same ones for Intel hardware.. I assume that you meant that software is more expensive... lets see MacOS has been prices at US$99 for the last few upgrades.. and that was for the full version (not an upgrade, you could take a completely blank HD and install on it without jumping through any hoops), how much is a full version copy of Windows? And comparing prices on cross platform programs such as Photoshop, FileMaker Pro, Office, etc.. leads me to find that prices are either very close, or identical for all these.. where am I supposed to be finding a price gap here?
As to being too expensive, the iMac/iBook lines are priced very competitively for college students. Starting at US$749 for the iMac (including monitor), this is a great price point for college students, remembering this is a full featured computer that includes a Modem and Ethernet, and has an education discount ($50 on the iMacs), what is wrong with it? I suppose if you want to compare Apple's professional line cost with your celeron...
We recently acquired a Mac OS X server at my school. Having used Linux for several years, I figured that this OS X server would be a walk in the park. Well, to put it short, I was wrong. Many of the standard utilities that I enjoy from working in Linux were not present. Configuration of many of the system services (sendmail, ftp, nearly everything...) is made much more complicated than it should be. Documentation is shoddy, there is no tool such as linuxconf to aid in setting the server up. My general opinion of OS X is far behind Linux in the desktop wars.
del c:\micros~1\*.*
Seriously, what on earth do you mean when you say Unix? Do you mean that it is actually based on original code, or that it functions like a Unix system?
If you mean the former, what's the point? Do you think there is even any of the original Unix code still in the BSDs(seriously, I'm no Unix guru, is there?). What's the point of that anyway, I don't see how that even matters, functionality is the only thing that's important. If you mean the latter then Linux is definately more Unix than OS X. It has a much more standard directy structure, all the standard tools etc.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
As the topic suggests, OS-X is Linux based. So IE will be essentially running under Linux. This could either mean that 1) Microsoft will throw a hissy fit and confiscate the IE source code from Apple, or 2) We might be seeing Internet Explorer on other flavours of Linux in the not too distant future?
Before anybody asks, I'm not Bill Gates' love child, but I do happen to be an IE fan. So flame me.
Selecta
Stuii!
*applause*
Can't argue with that in the slightest.
Stuii! - Windows 2000 on the desktop, Linux on the servers. I bet there's others like me.
A technically proficient generation of people, disenfranchised by software institutions, is changing the face of computing.
Open hardware has become a commodity. Open operating systems have become a commodity. The company that offers the largest opportunity to the largest number of people is going to be most involved in the revolution.
How big can an organism become before it can't bear its own weight, or drowns in its own waste products?
Apple's children will live on. Their user interface lives on in Windows. But not all of their children are viable. The BSD/Mach based OS X is too big of a mutation to live. It is a mule.
GNU is a virus, it cannot live without a host. (Linux) It can spread without limit, but it is not by itself viable.
BSD, in turn, is a bacteria. You find it in the gut of other creatures, but it isn't all that impressive by itself.
AIX on the other hand, hopes to become the home for parasites looking to leave Linux in favor of a larger host. But sometimes parasites kill the host.
What is the end result? No one knows. But it won't be like anything alive today.
And linux is. What more do you need to know?
The most important thing to have is open specifications for file formats - the basis for what most of us do with a computer.
For example so apple can't force you to use MacOS* in order to see quicktime movies
Good point, bad example. QuickTime's File Format has been open and public for a long time. Apple ships QuickTime for Windows themselves; you can read and write QT movies on many other platforms - even my digital camera writes them.
thanks for the errata, I knew as soon as I typed it that the quicktime example was flawed but I didn't want to just pick on one company and couldn't think of another one. And the lack of a linux quicktime player is still a sore point for me.
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'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Not ESR, RMS. Eric S. Raymond is the proponent of Open Source, while Richard M. Satllman is the creator of GNU and the proponent of Free Software.
Why is this even an issue?! Last I heard, Linux was providing a cheap and powerful alternative to other operating systems. Is it the goal of Linux to take over the desktop OS market?
No.
Linux provides what is lacking. Mac OSX provides what is lacking as well. As the French say "chacun son gout".
Your logic is somewhat flawed. Linux, like water, is cheap (free?) and easily obtainable; but that doesnt mean it will REMAIN that way. If most of the people stopped drinking water for Coke do you think anyone would bother to keep the water running? Linux survives because of the dedicated community of programmers and enthusiasts who use, and support it. Don't take it for granted.
Crap...the iMac is supposed to come with a monitor?
/me packs it back up and hauls back to that shady looking computer-shoppe
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
OSX supports more than one mouse button - if you plug a two (or more) button mouse in it recognises right clicks for contect menues and so on. I have heard that Apple will be releasing a two button mouse at the same time as OSX.
i don't know Macs best. in fact, i've been Windows user since 3.1, and a Linux user since 1994. i've only been a Mac user for a year and a half.
so there Mr. Smartypants.
- j
no Apple discussion here would be complete without one of your posts. (tips hat)
- j
Makes you wonder why they didn't just use BSD in the first place.
amen.
- j
and POSIX-compliant, which means it beats Windows in my book
What is POSIX compliant, and why do I care? Not trying to troll, I have heard lots about POSIX compliant this and POSIX compliant that, and nothing about what it does. Isn't it for x86 compatability?
Try as I might, I can't find the USB module to try swapping it around, or even such a simple thing as the source for the driver and Windows USB API to look into what the problem is. Oddly enough, I was told by all concerned that there was "nothing that can be done".
And there isn't. I have the crappy Speedstream 4060 also. I downloaded the beta W2K drivers and a W2k capable version of Enternet 300 and could not get it to work. I eventually got SWB to send me an ethernet DSL modem, although I still had to download something besides Enternet called RASPPPoE to get it working.
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James Hromadka
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
The PPC A/UX is a re-labeled AIX.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
What? First to *use* USB (not just put it on the board).
Sorry. FreeBSD had a release version of FreeBSD a week before the MacWorld announcement of USB on macs.
"Where do you want to go today" - windows
"Where do you want to go tomarrow" - gnu/linux
"Hey, are you guys comming or what?" - BSD
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Which Versionn of A/UX?
The 68X00 version, or the re-labeled AIX for PPC?
If you want A/UX today, go buy AIX.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Eazel is trying to make the Gnome inerface to Linux seriously cool and seriously usable.
And here all this time I thought Gnome was a UNIX program that had Linux as a list of target OSes.
Perhaps in a 'GNU/Linux rules' world, Gnome is a Linux program. But in the real world, GNOME is a unix app, ported to Linux.
Rather than seeing a whole market that can grow, there is a group of linux marketteers who believe that for them to be 'on top', they must push down others. So much for the talk of 'a new world of Open Source changing everything.' It is the same OLD world of 'my platform must be #1 and to hell with the others'.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
If Linux has 10% of the market or 90%, it doesn't really matter.
And besides, the tons of people who posted here saying that it's all about the hardware are right. I'd love to have one of those G4 cubes to play with, but I can buy 3 times the power in an Intel box running Linux
Oh, and the one button mouse thing too... what's up with that?
This just backs up the fact that Linux isn't innovative in any way.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flatery.
Think of Linux as the Japanese car of operating systems. What the Germans pioneered (ok, you may think differently, but they added a LOT to automotive designs in the last century), the Americans mass-produced, the Japanese took and reworked until their cars were perfect. Fine, they made sacrifices in durability (not a big three strong suit either) to sustain their markets, but few vehicles sold by the US big three compare in overall quality, fit, and finish.
The Germans were flattered by the Japanese, and the US auto industry dealt a black eye in its arrogance.
Anyone handling Linux developers with arrogance also incurs their wrath, or at least competetive spirit. Thanks for telling us what you want improved.
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
The day that OSX runs on my dual celeron, runs all of my X apps at good speed, has full DRI and Xvideo support, and has the lack of bloat that I've come to expect...
That day is when it might stand a fighting change against Linux. Until then... nooo waaaay.
On a corporate note, many companies will not buy hardware unless they can get several bids for it. With Apple being the only supplier for OSX hardware, that cuts them right out.
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I agree with droleary. The MacOS has traditionally used an MDI whereas Windows has used an SDI. Some Windows applications however, like Word, Excel, and Opera, also use MDI, but have the kludgy "window in a window" interface. The MacOS is a better way to implement MDI.
Constitutionally Correct
I still don't understand. Do you want programs to spontaneously quit for no reason? If an app is supposed to quit itself without user intervention (StuffIt Expander comes to mind), it can. I'm glad that user intervention is required.
Constitutionally Correct
It's new it's untested it runs on expensive Macs. Why would you want to use it?
You say lots of programs works for it fine.. but not all programs.
Plus yes you can have a easy to config system but you can't have in a short time lots of people trains to take on real world problems that real servers faces everyday.
So no I don't think that OS X will be a real threat until say at least 1 year after it's released.
No, I want the program to quit when I close the window. It's what I'm used to. I'm not saying that the Mac interface is worse, but since I'm quite used to programs closing when I close the window, it bothers me that they don't in OSX.
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I am aware of that. It's still annoying (at least until I get used to it).
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Actually, I'm not sure. I'd expect that you can find someplace out there that will do it. It makes sense, after all. But I could be wrong on this one.
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Questions like this are what make me not want to join LUGs and be part of the "Linux community". You shouldn't be using an OS because it's "cool". This question screams "I'm cool because I run Linux and I'm scared that this little community that I'm part of will go away because of big bad Apple!" Give me a god damn break. If an OS is useful to you, use it. OS bigotry has to be the most asinine concept I've ever heard of. There have been several times that someone has asked, "What OS do you use?" The first time was at a LUG meeting and I replied "Solaris x86". I thought everything was cool, but I guess not, nobody except my girlfriend talked to me the rest of the meeting. Recently it happened again.. "blah blah OS?" "IRIX." "Oh, uh.. why don't you run Linux?" It's like a damn epidemic.
That notwithstanding, who cares if more people install OS X than Linux PPC on their Macs? I certainly don't. I've only been forced to use a Mac hardware twice, and while it may be good for others, it's not as good for me as PC hardware. I've been running Linux for years and I'm not planning on stopping just because of OS X.
Furthermore, it's not like Linux is a for-profit venture. If half of the Linux users in the world stopped using Linux tomorrow, would Linus go broke? Would people who have been developing portable source code for years suddenly yank their Linux support? A lot of stuff still has support for Ultrix and SCO, for christ's sake.
Open source does for software what reverse engineering the IBM bios did for the PC:
A level playing field where anybody can build software with the same information about the OS, like anyone can build PC hardware (except for the CPU, kinda) with open hardware standards.
Jobs and McNeally play the same game: build finely integrated proprietary OS atop expensive proprietary hardware, and let others write the apps. Gates does them one better: proprietary OS atop open hardware -- only Microsoft can build the apps.
Open source is a different paradigm. It's not the same game that the others are playing... it only looks the same because we have to stoop down to their level and offer "compatibility" in order for the consumer to make the switch.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Or your grandfather, for that matter ;-)
I've used Red Hat 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2. I've used SuSE 6.1 and 7.0. I've used MkLinux and Caldera 2.2. And I've used the OS X beta.
The question of whether OS X is a "threat" on the desktop has already been amply answered. Of course it's not a threat, but if you think of OS X as somehow thwarting Linux's growth on the desktop, let's put aside religion and think about the Average User. Linux's potential to succeed on the desktop has always been limited.
Why do most people buy personal computersr these days? To play games, get on the Internet, run Microsoft Office at home (because they have it at work), and maybe get crazy with some digital photo software and/or CD burning equipment. Now folks are even using tools like iMovie to create their own movies.
Linux simply doesn't have the software that will turn the average home user's head. There aren't many games (though that is changing). There is no Microsoft Office (the Mac's continued existence has in some ways been reliant on the presence of a Mac version of Office). There are no widely-known sound or video editing tools (no flames - I said "widely known"). Basically, Linux has been marketed to those of us who use it for hard-core geek uses like web services and LAN management.
Now, if the process of refining Linux installations continues (kudos to Caldera for their incredibly straightforward installation process), and Nautilus takes hold (let's be honest here - XWindows is a real pain in the butt sometimes), and more software becomes available, Linux will make further inroads onto desktops.
In the mean time, OS X will be there, keeping its guts hidden so that Mac users won't be too intimidated. Maybe a few would-be Linux users will choose OS X instead, but in the long run, it's probably good for everyone. As others have mentioned, the *NIX juggernaut can handle many different flavors. It's not about one OS ruling all, it's about many OSes being able to coexist peacefully.
World Domination is for those with limited imaginations. ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I hatve to agree with this user that this will help the open-source movement. I was a Mac user for many years, and I dabbled a little with Linux, but after I got my hands on OS X DP 4, I really started to appreciate Unix-based OSes. I got myself an old 486 cheaply and put FreeBSD on it and learned even more. Perhaps Linux might lose some popularity, but, overall, I think I forsee this as a great place for the unixes to grow. I mean, I've known a lot of Mac users who have been both Mac and unix users, and, one would hope, that this would open even more Mac folks up to playing around with unix. Not so much to be seen as competition, but perhaps as room for growth. Chuck
programs still don't quit unless you choose "quit" from the file menu, which bothers me
you will get used to this, and someday, working with win2k will be more irritating... (i nearly ground my teeth when watching a winnt user spawn another instance of netscape just to visit a second website.)
mac users usually keep between two and twelve applications open, ready and waiting... often with only one or two windows open with any content.
Anyone remember NeXTStep or NeXTOS and the reason why it failed? There were MacOS emulators for it in its later years and it even ran on WINTEL systems. Yet it failed worse than New Coke or the USFL. Now it is reborn as OSX and Darwin. What makes anyone think it can do better this time other than the fact it runs on Macs?
Darwin is the MACH Kernel, some parts of BSD Unix, and ported to WINTEL hardware and Mac hardware. If anything, this is the OS that competes with Linux, but so far it is only half-baked. They are lucky that XFree86 was ported to it, so it would have a GUI. Nothing as fancy as Aqua, mind you, but hardly anything to compete with Linux yet.
If Apple converts OSX to run on WINTEL machines, would it take away from their Mac market, or create more marketshare?
If Apple discontinues MacOS 9.X and forces everyone to convert to OSX or lose software updates, what will happen?
Face it, OSX is limited to the Mac Only market right now; however, it can change if Apple decides to go after the WINTEL market. As it stands now, I doubt that they will. Even if they did, Linux already has a good user base in the WINTEL market and hundreds to thousands of companies willing to back Linux up. Apple would also have to convince IBM, Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc to pre-load OSX on their PC systems. Apple has a reputation of screwing OEMs, remember the Mac Clones? I didn't think the big name PC Makers have that short a memory.
I wish Apple luck in the Unix market, they are going to need it. But their Mac Only market won't even account for 10% marketshare, and Linux can capture more than that in the next 5 to 10 years. With OSX, Apple has to either sell more Macs, or port to other platforms to compete with Linux there.
Interesting poll on the IWETHEY Forums. Let's see how OSX as a threat to Linux does, shall we? You can log on with a user id and vote yourself if you want to participate.
Sarcastic mode on! *WARNING* Slippery when sarcastic!
Is this just more FUD from the MacJihad? Trying to prove that OSX is superior to Linux? Like those guys at The Linux Sucks Club? They just can't come up with any realistic reasons why Linux sucks and OSX is better.
I mean really what makes OSX better than Linux? That Apple makes it, that it runs on Macs, that it has an Aqua interface? The ability to run old Mac programs in "Classic" mode? Screen Otters? Gee-Gaws that only 1% of the users really need? What?
For more info Visit the Computer Jihad
Then consider using GNUStep on a Unix version for the PC like Linux. Maybe someone can do a Carbon API library port or something?
... the fact that it doesn't run on Intel. If it ran on Intel, I'd probably be much more inclined to run it on one of my home systems or one of my office workstations, but I'm not a big fan of Mac hardware. I know Graeme Devine has been running it here in the office for a while and he loves it, but if it won't run on intel, I'm not really interested. I ended up installing OpenBSD on one of my office systems instead. Another concern I have is I'm wondering how responsive and open Apple will be in addressing security issues as they crop up. That's the one thing in dealing with an open OS such as OpenBSD that sort of spoils you. Knowing how much Apple has invested in OS X, this is probably a minor concern. A good, stable, supported off the shelf *nix for Mac's can only be a good thing IMO. My $0.02 for whatever it's worth. -Xian
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For the idiot readers in the audience: It's a real shame some of you miss things like [SARCASM] being put in a sarcastic post.
For the idiot moderators in the audience: This isn't a 'flamebait' and no it isn't a troll either. It's a funny, like other moderators can most of the time understand.
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
Ages ago I made a statement about not liking the Macs or MacOS at all. This was mostly due to my bad experiences in the past with the older PPC machines and iMacs.
A few weeks ago I actually managed to go out and buy for myself a PowerMac G4 with OS9 on it and love the beast. I was originally going to be killing OS9 and sticking LinuxPPC on there in its place, however now that I've been playing with the machine and have become a little more familiar with the way it works and how to actually move around in the OS, I've actually started to enjoy using it. I now use my G4 a lot more than any of my other computers. My linux client and server boxes are now sitting almost dormant with lights flashing mournfully at the lack of attention. Half my windows boxes are fighting off the spiders and other bugs that are looking to build a nest inside the PSU.
On all my linux boxes, I have run the Aqua Enlightenment and GTK themes for a long time now. I love the way it looks. The E theme even has some pretty cool functionality that I enjoy and is easily accessible. Problem is, it doesn't run Mac or Windows software easily, getting things like MSOffice to run (which I need for work) is a mission and a half unless I install VMWARE and Win(whatever).
I definitely intend to install OSX on my Mac when its released publically. I can't be bothered paying for the public beta this close to the release of the OS (2 months isn't a lot of time). I want the Aqua GUI and I want to be able to run things like Apache, Samba, MySQL, ProFTPd and the other apps that I use on my linux boxes and that will allow me to more easily share my files and documents with the whole network without AppleShare crap being loaded onto the NT computers.
I never intend to replace my Linux boxes, and I can't realistically get rid of all my Windows boxes either (Unless someone knows of a way I can access an NT/2K VPN network from Linux or MacOS). At the same time however, I have no intention of putting Linux on my Mac given that MacOSX is this close to final release and will essentially allow me to do with my G4 all the things that putting Linux on it would've allowed me to do.
Do I think that Linux in general is going to be threatened by MacOSX? No. Do I think that the LinuxPPC project is going to be threatened by MacOSX? Marginally. Techies that want a free OS are still going to live and die by LinuxPPC, but those of us (like myself) that want the GUI, want the tailored performance and want the functionality that Linux offers while at the same time being supported 100% by a major company like Apple would've been just as likely to buy OSX anyway.
 
I don't think the Linux community has anything serious to worry about. I do not intend to lessen my support for the platform simply because MacOS X is being released. All PC's that I do buy have Linux installed on them unless they have a specific purpose that Linux cannot do for me. I'll keep my games for Mac and Windows, do my network administration, database hosting, Intranet hosting and just my general whatever else in Linux. Unfortunately, until the novelty of a machine as damn fast as my G4 wears off, I'll be spending a lot of my time playing with my Mac. You cannot imagine how fast it is to render a graphic now or how much more fun it is putting together web pages in an environment that while still familiar is just that much newer and different to keep my attention that little bit longer. Oh, and Quake and Unreal Tournament on my G4 both run so much faster at higher resolutions than they do on my P3 (Windows or Linux versions)
 
 
Blessed Be
Korgan
I think OS X could be a kind of "gateway OS" for some Mac users. They will see the power that they have at their fingertips, and want to experiment. It may lead to "stronger things" like Linux or one of the BSD's.
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
As long as Mac OS X doesn't run on Intel, I'm not switching from Linux. There is no way in hell I'm buying a toy computer from apple when I can build my own on PC hardware for half the price. And I'll stick with NeXTSTEP whenever I want to use the coolest OS ever made.
-- http://z80.org - all opinions, all the time --
MacOSX:
only runs on Macs
costs money
As you put it so well... "Duh!"
--jrd
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
'Cause no *nix nor Mac OSX will ever threaten Window's hegemony over the x86 desktop market (and last I checked that's the dominant market - as in 90% of home computers). People will continue to use Windows because it's what they're used to. Even if they try Linux, they don't really have the attention span to harness it's power by learning how to pipe etc.
As for a server platform, I have to plead ignorance as I have no clue what OS X's strengths/weakness's are in terms of stability and security. I don't really see how it could threaten Sun Unix however.
I have an SB live and it worked right off the bat for my distro (Mandrake).
As for X Windows, unfortunately it doesn't alias it's fonts (or whatever) so as a result all X font appears as if it came from the Atari 5200. If you're a developer, spending 4+ hours looking at that crap can make blood come out of you eye sockets (sarcasm).
If Apple can get enough developer interest in MacOS X to ensure the same level of application support that MacOS 8 and 9 have, then it will have more mainstream consumer apps than Linux or any other Unix. It won't be anywhere near the number that Windows has.
each approach has its pitfalls. nautilus is rather unproven, and while it continues to improve, it is not the equal of the mac interface; however, its freeness should ensure that it doesn't stagnate, and while 1.0 will be, in my professional opinion, "OK", by the time we hit, say, 3.0, it should really kick ass.
the other consideration for me is integration. those screenshots of sugar-sweet friendly mac applications alongside green-on-black terminals are rather jarring, along with the directories with capitalized names (horrors!) that apple used. whether that is any more than an aesthetic boundary is not for me to analyze. nautilus, however, is pretty impressively consistent with its UNIX heritage - the UI team has done a good job making UNIX concepts jive with beginner-friendly UI ones.
may the best interface win! (but given my open-source leanings, we know which that'll be.) PS - my use of "we" stems from the fact that i am an eazel employee. (form an orderly line, please... chizor will not sign body parts...)
... and gets away with it!% 3y3 h4x0r j00
This varies from machine to machine. The stuff you install, how do you stress the OS, etc.
For example, my W2K system at work crashes at least once every 3 days, and sometimes more, however the guy in the next cubicle has far more uptime, and the PCs are nearly identical, mostly with the same installed software.
~
~
~
~
:wq
For a moment let's consider what Linux 'is all about.' The major purpose behind people using it, right now - in my experience - is not a hatred of Microsoft (I hope!) but rather the idea that things can be done better.
Now let's propose that OS X does come along, and frankly waxes the floor with Linux. It's based on BSD, has a central source repository, a team of dedicated developers skilled in UI concerns, and is easy for new users. What if, in one fell swoop, Apple creates a new operating system that is stable, beautiful and easy all in one go?
If OS X really is what it's cracked up to be, wouldn't lamenting Linux's demise be comparable to whining about the phasing out of VHS for DVD's? (CSS concerns aside)
As of right now, Linux has a few major strong points in its favor. Linux is Free Software. Darwin may be an attempt at free, but it isn't Free as defined by the FSF. People will probably have to pay for OS X in its glory, even though Darwin can be downloaded freely.
OS X may be the Next Big Thing (more likely than "Ginger"!) but that may or may not be bad for Linux. Even if it is bad for Linux, it might be better for the end user. Don't forget that the end user ultimately is the victor in any battle like this - it's not us geeks. We can fend for ourselves, so to speak, in dangerous terrain. The End User is who we're fighting for, right? That's what I'll tell my kids, at least.
Leroy?
:-)
Lard?
Looniebin?
snip "and work predictably, have consistant interfaces and procedures?"
See, that's just it. Why does it all have to "look" exactly the same? Work the same way, sure, be as reliable certainly.
snip "I think its name starts with an L or something..."
Well that's the point of the article. Someone asking if OS X might be a threat to linux. My contention is no, it isn't, and I was giving my own personal reasons why I wouldn't give up my Mandrake, Slack, etc. for OS X, spiffy as it is.
Just putting in my own worthless 2 cents.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Well.. yes, I mean shell :-)
I use bash most of the time, but *shrug* I'm a compulsive tinkerer. Sometimes I use zch just for heck of it. It's not so much that I prefer one over the other, it's that I can. Like those guys who abused all those candy bunnies. I mean, why? Because they can. Because we can. Why do I care about being able to change shells and interfaces? Because I can. *shrug* I know, I know, kind of a lame reason to some people but for me it's a biggie.
So, you _are_ getting more options on shell in OS X, then, and GUI? I had only seen zch as an option and didn't know there would be more, and everything I've seen so far suggested that the interface was only going to be the (more or less) what Apple gives you.
See... here is another thing about Apple (not knocking them, just making a suggestion) which can be a strike: they don't know how to market to the right audience.
If they are really into OS X being a hit, advertise stuff like that. Show people using zch or bash or anything else. If you can alter the gui drastically, show it, toot your horn, say "Yeah, you propeller headed git, you can do it all!"
anhoo...
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahaaa!!
See.. that is the attitude that kept me from learning anything about *nix for so long. "You don't think/do things/look/have the right white collar education/whatever the way I do. You don't deserve to learn!" Hey, I like to tinker. Besides, I don't mean ship with it, I mean at least have that as an option to add, which from what I have read so far the command line will be on OS X, but very little mention was made regarding which shell would be used. All I'm saying is I want more options to add later if I want to, and that thus far OS X would not get me to choose IT over Linux, and listed a few reasons why. If You, in Your Vast Superiority, do not need nor want that as a choice... more power to you.
Pfff right back at you, man, and a few fun finger gestures in your general direction.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
"Who has an attitude here ?"
:-)
You ya snooty faced git (all insults and commentary said with tongue placed firmly in cheek). I never said I was brilliant or well educated, simply that I love to tinker and that's why I prefer Linux. Never said I was a geek, either. I'm more "Walt the Janitor" of the technology world.
"Moron,"!? I resemble that comment!
"I merely pointed how ridiculous it was to diss OS-X lack of freedom, while OS-X will offer as much freedom in the choice of shells as any decent unix-derived system."
Hmm... I am the one who needs to learn to read? As I recall, and when I read the first line of the second paragraph of what I wrote, it reads "Please forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't Apple not going to allow you to use whatever configuration of GUI or shell that you want? " Meaning, for those slow learners *ahem* that if I am wrong I do beg pardon, but Apple has not generally allowed it's users total control over the OS. Granted, neither has MS, but with Win* I can at least replace the Explorer interface if I want. Yes, the replacements tend to be buggy at best, but it can be done. Yes, ResEdit is a hell of a lot of fun, and you can do lots of spiffy things with it, but not nearly to the extent of Linux, which was why I "jumped ship". OS X may prove more customizable, but then again if Apple contiues the way it has in the past, it may not.
What can I say? I'm shallow and easilly wooed by shiny objects, cool looking wharf bars, and kernel tinkering.
"while OS-X will offer as much freedom in the choice of shells as any decent unix-derived system."
But will they? That was one of my (read that part: my) reasons for prefering Linux over OS X. And I agree that I am making an assumption that Apple will limit what you can do to the system, but that assumption is based on past operating systems and habbits. I'm not and didn't diss OS X, but the subject of the article was "Will OS X replace Linux". I simply (and it would seem poorly) expressed one reason why I wouldn't switch.
Oh... and your mother was a hampster, and your father smelled of elderberries
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
MacOS X uses a mach kernel that was first ported to the PPC for .... mkLinux! I know that for certain, because some of the boot message I added a few years ago still appears when I boot MacOS X in verbose mode. It has evolved a lot, true, but it's still a mach microkernel.
So, there is no technical reason one can't run MacOS X and linux (in it's mk form) at the same time, like I could run two instance of mklinux on the same microkernel all those years ago.
Let's use that mKernel for something useful!
Not a chance.
Seen any ads (ever) touting professional usability testing as a reason to buy a Mac or Windows or Solaris? I haven't. I used to sell Macs (and PCs...and the NeXT -- the original OSX machine) with Businessland while I was in college. Not _once_ did I ever have 'professional usability testing' arise as a consideration -- or as a passing comment. And I was selling to the corporate IT departmenmts of national banks, etc. NO ONE CARES!
I mean, come on, Mr. Usability himself worked for Sun -- well known for ease of use, right?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
(The lameness filter doesn't like my post.)
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
That is the question. And the ability to successfully answer it is a big reason for Linux's popularity -- the OS that came into being because a CompSci student wanted to learn about his Intel 386.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
> display(postscript, PDF)
No display postscript in there any more.
Quartz, the new apple graphics system, is PDF based.
>OSX PB is time limited, but you get to refund it's price vs. the OSX release price.
Really!? Cool. There goes my last reason *not* to get the preview release. Thanks for letting that be known.
>it is a shame they are using the Mach kernel.
Eh? What would you prefer? A BSD kernel?
Personally, I wish that OS X was more like NeXTStep, and less like OS 9. I can see why they would want to make the transition easy, but jesus, Mac OS has had so many ideas piled on top of each other for the past 16 years that I would like to see an almost pure NeXT desktop on my Mac. Pure, simple, and uncluttered NeXT-ness.
I like the Dock. It makes it far easier than the classic application switcher to quickly see what you're running (all you need is a quick glance), and is also better than the Windows task bar, as the Dock icons take up less space than the text names in Windows.
That's my rant. Mac OS X is something that Mac fans have been waiting for for the better part of 5 years.
i think that the drive behind linux is the essence of linux. a free os that's very customizable. if MS decided to release windows millenium for free and open-sourced it, you would still have the problem of the big-bad conglomerate trying to extend it's reach and squash any competitor. people will switch over and use mac os x, but it's not going to be something of a noticable magnitude.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
That's the only place it is a threat to linux -- powerPC-based linux. Anyone with a powerPC (meaning a mac usually) and a small budget will throw OS X on there before linuxPPC.
I know dudes who used a little unix in school, liked it, use macs most of the time, and can't wait to get unix in their macs, with all dem little daemons.
Neeha! If MS keeps making their surprisingly non-bloated software for the mac, and games appear on the mac? I can be a non-MS-os household! Just gotta keep that Office more than anything else for compatibility these days--i would live fine without their OS too, except for games.
Sorry, i digress...
--
"I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers." __ IBM Chairman, 1943 __
If this is not a war cry story I don't know what is!
I guess I should put my 2 cents in...
...
BSD
Nuff Said
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
Resedit bloody rocks!
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
Additionally, as I get more and more into programming, I can rest assured that anything I write to run on a Unix box will run unchanged under OSX.
Pretty much the only thing that I'll feel bad about is the freedom issue, but I don't really mind unfree software that doesn't suck.
MyopicProwls
MyopicProwls
My homepage
It's been announced that MacOS X will cost $129.
Sometime in June, new mac purchases will come with OSX preinstalled.
It was announced by Steve Jobs on Tuesday Jan 9th around 1:30p EST (give or take) at the MacWorld SF keynote.
You can also see the price at http://www.apple.com/macosx/ in the right column, labeled "MacWorld SF 2001"
Cube $1499
G4 $1699
That's not $2500+
One other thing stands in the way--if Apple starts developing for x86, Microsoft will axe Office and IE for the Mac and do its darndest to put Apple out of business...
almost everything from DOS 6 is available from MS for d/l for the Win95/98 systems that didn't have it... they mostly work too. but i'm just nitpicking =)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Any why are we forgetting Debian?
I'd like to see your grandma install Debian. There's currently a trade-off between ease of installation by GNU/Linux newbies (Debian is reported to be a bitch to install) and support for architectures (Red Hat and Mandrake, two relatively easy distros, do not support PPC AFAIK).
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
- Photoshop => GIMP (except prepress)
- Office => OpenOffice
- Cakewalk => Jazzware
- 3D Studio =gt; Blender
I couldn't find SAW or ACID with the illegal Google search engine; care to enlighten me as to what these are?Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
But then with OSX, install Virtual PC ... Windows
I don't know about you, but I'd rather not play Q3A/UT/FPS of the month at 3 frames per second.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Mac OS X runs only on Apple G3/G4 hardware, which is very well-put-together, and requires 128 MB or more of physical RAM. A machine with a free copy of Mac OS X can be had for USD $799. This is only expensive when compared to the fact that Linux runs well in console mode on a $200 486 box.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
- Even though the source code for the Darwin kernel and POSIX layer, the rest of Mac OS (Quartz/Carbon/Cocoa) is still very proprietary.
- Even Darwin may not qualify under the Open Source definition.
Mac OS X Aqua vs. Bill Gates: The GameLike Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Who would run Gnome or KDE when they can have Aqua
People who also want to play games. We are in the phase of the gaming market when the most heavily marketed games are on the x86 PC because that's the largest audience; the new consoles (specifically Sony PS2) do not have a foothold. It was similar in the Doom/Duke/Quake days just before the PSX and N64 came out.
The parts of Mac OS X that run on top of the Darwin kernel are only available as binaries for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers. I haven't seen a CPU that can code-morph into both an x86 (for games) and a PowerPC (for Mac OS X).
Mac OS X Aqua vs. Bill Gates: The GameLike Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Compiling software is for when you want to customize software
Or when you have to customize software to run on your architecture. Binary packages are generally provided for a couple distributions of x86 Linux, not PowerPC Linux systems such as linuxppc and Yellow Dog (forget Debian for a moment).
--I'm a Barbie girl. You can be one too: just install Mac OS X.
Dr. Mario clone for PC based on Mac OS X's Aqua theme
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Seriously, what on earth do you mean when you say Unix?
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. (The official legal form of trademarks is in all caps, no matter what ESR's Jargon File says.)
What this means is that an operating system is a UNIX® system if
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Any questions?
--Mac OS X: The Game (for Linux and DOS)
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
x86 PC doesn't mean a damned thing games wise unless it's x86 running a Win-32 derivative.
An x86-based machine can dual-boot between Wintendo (that's all it's good for) and a Real OS such as *BSD or GNU/Linux. PowerPC-based machines cannot dual-boot to Wintendo.
Linux people know the workarounds. Casual user does not.
By "casual user" do you mean the sheeple[?] who inhabit AOL? In that case, give them GNU/Linux, X, GNOME, an SNES emulator, and a pirated game library, and they'll be happy.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I have been using OS X on my machine since september. It is nice and all I like the BSD subsystem. But I also have SuSE installed on another partition. The extra money is worth the hardware nice stuff! Plus you can get an old mac fairly cheaply, like $300 for an old imac on ebay. But to tell the truth I am going to build an x86 box to run linux on I don't want my desktop machine to be a server, then I get more cranks done for dnetc! Go Team Slashdot!
Then upgrade. My 7600 run OS X PB, it has an XLR8 G3/300 upgrade. Heh, under MacOS 9, it outruns my K6-2/333 under Win98.
I'd run Linux on my PeeCee, but like most shite commodity hardware, it only runs a small fraction of what its supposed to. Six Linuxes failed, including the Mandrake that was compiled for K6-2. It doesn't run BeOS, either. I guess it's that crap IBM-PC design at the heart of commodity hardware. You get what you pay for.
I have run LinuxPPC on my 7600. Who'd a-thunk it? A Mac with greater OS flexibility than a PeeCee!
-Todd
I did some price comparisons between the 733 MHz G4 and a similarly spec'd system on Dell.com. (I did take inot account flops as opposed to clock cycles) If you include the gigabit network card, the Firewire ports, and all the other features that comes standard with the Apple product, the Dell system comes out $200 more. Also, this does NOT include a DVD-R drive nor the authoring software that is included as standard issue with the G4. If you are just looking for a system to email and surf with, the G4 is a bit too hardware for that. Stormasaurus Rex
You don't have to quit from the file menu. Command+Q will quit any active program you are running. Command+Option+Escape brings up the list of running programs and allows you to choose which to force quit.
Next hardware used to run on Intel hardware. Do you seriously think they would make as strategic an error as removing that capability? Absurd. It may require some optimization to get up to speed on Intel or AMD, but won't run? Not likely.
IF everyone can buy Macs then Linux/BSD/Etc. would have something to consider. I'd love to get my hands on one but I've got a house full x86 boxes.
Being a Mac guy to start with (hey, I was raised that way, don't hold it against me. blame my parents), I'm definantly gonna run MacOSX over any Linux version out there, *as soon as I get the hardware to run it*. If OSX were not so close to done, I would dualboot Yellerdog and 9.1, but hey. I only gotta wait till March. I think the hardware's the key. How many companies are gonna spend the money to overhaul all their hardware to bring it up to Mac OSX spec? Linux runs on anything, as it's designed to. Mac OSX runs on G3s and G4s with 128 MB of Ram, as it's designed to. Again, how many companies are gonna go and buy G3s or G4s (which cost more than your average PC, I mean....Maxed out G4 - $15,000...maxed out PC - ~$8,000. Thats a big freakin difference) just to switch to Mac OSX? How many CONSUMERS will? Sure, some might, but not enough to give Linux any trouble. Most of the people I've talked to say that they might get a Mac to try it out again, because of OS X, but not that they'd stop using other OSs.
I don't think OSX is gonna do anything but pique intrest in Linux, and vise versa. "Oh, you've always run Linux, but you like Macs for some reason? Try OS X. Close enough." "Oh, you like OS X, but you want to use PC parts? Try Linux with X. Close enough."
What? You want a sig?
It may not be growing as quickly as x86, but it's happening. I got a VERY long time mac user to almost totally switch over to linux on ppc. (very strange, I might add)... linux + PPC may not be the best for the desktop, but the FP preformance of PPC is hard to beat..
hrmmm Alpha....drool
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
And vice versa - lest I forget to mention Mac On Linux.
./configure will detect MacOSX and/or Darwin and build whatever it is across platforms for the applications.
It will take some time to grok Apple's artistic expression done to the BSD base (things like Netinfo that takes over, well, everything for net administration, and their driver, module, and filesystem templates).
They need things like ext2 to be ported, but eventually both sides should talk to each other (except for the apple proprietary stuff...)
Eventually,
Or a linux compatibility box will be created (which should consume an order of magnitude less resources than Classic).
And, conversely, if enough is documented and hacked, a BSD box for Linux might be doable (loading modules from the BSD side) and we might get Aqua coming up after the console screen with a Penguin on it.
For all the worry about forking and competetion, and the BSD v.s. Linux religious wars, neat things tend to be backported, so I see things converging instead of one killing the other. Actually I see things cooperating. Both OSX and Linux will get more neat things on each than if OSX were closed or not a UNIX derivative.
I dunno - IMHO Linux is far better than SCO OpenServer 5, which I believe is a "real unix".
From the Mac perspective, the Linux camp seems to be made up of three factions:
1. The HardCore OpenSource Group--People who believe all software should be free and for whom their OS is a political statement. OSX will obviously do nothing for this bunch.
2. The MyUnix Crowd--People who want to see power zen of Unix on the desktop because it's what they know and love, but who aren't bought in to the hardcore opensource dogma. OSX has the potential to siphon off a sizable percentage of this group as OSX takes the evolution of Unix into the desktop market in an instantaneous and mainstream way, and they find that a pretty exciting opportunity, maybe even where they want to be.
3. The SoftCore OpenSource bunch--These are the people who want to like and use Linux because it is cool and because it's anti-MicroSoft and it isn't that weenie MacOS. But the reality for these users is that Linux is not really convenient or practical for them, yet, and for much of what they really do on they are actually Windozers or Macheads, though they wear the Linux badge. You know who these people are if I do. It's quite possible that MacOSX could attract a large portion of this group also.
You can buy just the case and mobo, without the rest of the computer? Since when? From where?
myselfmusic
Wow. You really are an idiot, aren't you? You sound like your spouting off stuff that other people have told you is cool, but you don't really know what they mean. They don't know, because they are doing the same thing. It's all one chain.
The picture is one of the most ignorant thing I've ever seen. What confusion? What impurities? Can you back up ANYTHING you say? Of course not, that's why you post anonymously.
You truly are a coward.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
Finally someone with sense. Of course Jobs won't go near PC's. Too much hardware to support. And most importantly: too dangerous to piss off Gates. Microsoft software and money is what keeps Apple alive. Also, Apple makes it's money selling hardware, not software. (How many Mac people you know are using Claris instead of MS Office??) Switching Apple Inc. into a software-income based business is like starting a new proprietary OS/PC hardware company, like Be did (and BeOS = business disaster. No income. No users. No prospects beyond future hardware no one knows is going to buy, but this is clearly beyond the topic here) Why don't more of you Linux groupies stop ranting about your wishful thinking and think economics for a minute?
------
sigs are a total waste of bandwith, especially when the signal-to-noise ratio is lower than 1:10.
- We have an OS from a company with a firm foot hold in the desktop market to keep M$ honest.
- It's still *nix underneath so you can run all your perl and shell scripts if you want.
- It should be easy to port Linux apps over to it including GNOME & KDE
- It's robust and stable OS and joe user really deserves that.
- It's not avaiable for x86 platform so poses no immediate threat to linux.
- Getting people used to using something besides Windows opens them up to other possiblities.
- Hopefully this will raise the bar for GNOME & KDE developers to build something better than the mess they have now.
- Other good things I can't think of...
MacOS-X is something we should be hopping succeeds- subsolar
It's funny that you should use NeXT as your comparison. I cut my computing teeth on Mac and then NeXT (at Allegheny College...the only college in America that had a whole campus NeXT network). Other than the hardware being slow (even for 1994), it was a great OS. I almost cried (tears of joy) when I saw Mac OS X. I love Linux too, and I am glad to see NeXT...errr, I mean OS X, but I think that both will still hold their own. Why? Not everybody can afford to plop down the loot for a new iMac, iBook, PowerBook or Cube so Mac OS X won't take off like Linux did. Remember, one of the big things about Linux that made it take off (when other UNIX variants didn't is that it ran on hardware that many users already have and can easily afford. But, I do know this. When I get the money for a new machine, it will be a Mac...with OS X...and Linux, side by side, making awesome music together. The key word in that last sentence is together.
the deacon...that's all you need to know for now
The point is Linux may lose potential users as well as current users on all platforms.
The key question OS X brings to the table is this: "Will people looking for a Microsoft alternative now turn to OS X rather than a Free OS?"
It all goes back to the debate on whether we, as a community, want Linux accepted by the mainstream and whether that mainstream will accept us.
==========foo fighter==========
Do not mistake understanding for realization,
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
This is an insane question but if ther is a such thing as the Linux Penguin then will there be a such thinng as an an apple APPLE? Or BSD demon?! If I had to choose from one of those I would choose the demon. Why? Because its the devil babey! yeah!
Leave me alone, I'm drunk.
Nope. But I sure could see myself switching from Windows 2000. I work in a heterogenous networked environment at a research lab: 2 SGIs, 10-15 Windows desktops, and a shitload of Linux workstations and servers. There's no point trying to replace the Windows machines with Linux- most people either prefer the graphics/desktop (they still program on Unix) or need the apps; I use Linux on my desktop but I have to use another machine any time I want to get non-programming/non-Gimp work done.
Windows 2000 ain't bad. But it ain't Unix either. OS X is beautifully conceived and executed for the most part. I'd much rather use it than Windows, if the applications to make it worthwhile are released soon enough- and it'd work great on my desktop too, with a nice Aqua-aware X server. An OS with that advanced a GUI, with lots of mainstream programs, that still plays nice with other Unix-based OSes? Heaven.
I was just wondering...
What IS the directory structure of MacOS 10?
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
If you use a Mac for a period of time you get used to using the Apple key with various combinations. I use Windows in the Office along with everyone else, I can't help but laugh when I see people (who haven't been on a Mac) do select all, copy and then paste when using the second mouse button, they actually think this is time saving because they don't have to use the main menus and are using the second button. This takes so much longer than doing Ctrl A, C and V. If you want to complain about the Apple mouse complain that it doesn't have a scroll wheel, as the cursor keys are on the right side of the keyboard. All the main commands are at the left hand of the keyboard near the Apple/Ctrl Key ie Q, W, A, S, Z, X, C and V.
It's based on Unix meaning that stuff like the kernel and other services have all been taken from Unix. What the guys at Apple have done is just provide a front-end to it and modified the base system so that it runs better on macs. Essentially what they've done is provide an interface to cryptic unix
Does anyone ever remember when Steve Jobs re-entered apple and stopped the cloning. He publicly called cos. that made Mac Clones "leeches". So as long as Apple keeps it's hardware standards proprietary, and as long as Mister Jobs is there, Mac OS X is never going to make the Open Source Community scratch it's neck
I will probably be leaving my Yellow Dog partition on my 8500 AV, however my new machine will be running MacOS X, and probably no Linux partition. I have already gone from dual booting Slackware/Win98SE on my PC to FreeBSD/Win98SE. In all likelyhood when I order G4, probably next month, my main platform will be X. My roomate on the other hand will still be running Slack on the file/web/mail server here and my best guess is that if Slack is still being developed in 20 years he will still be running it on his server. However, he will probably also be using MacOS X as his main OS of choice for desktop/day-to-day things.
Personally I really like xml based config files
If you want better numbers for Linux using Mac owners talk to the guys at Linux PPC, Yellow Dog Linux, etc they should be able to give you better numbers than 3.5. BTW I prefer Linux on Mac hardware, esp the old beige G3s. They are incredibly stable as far as desktop hardware goes, and pretty over clockable to boot. Tho the B&W G3s are insanely clockable, I have seen a 350 pushing 500Mhz, without a proc fan!!!
And then a wise young person took ESR aside and explained to him the difference between owning software and licensing it.
Incidentally, nobody controls software unless they developed it themselves and retained unfettered rights in it. Otherwise, concessions have to be made. Even a source code escrow is conditioned on rather narrow triggering events.
It is Linux, but it is LinuxPPC. Apple did miss the boat on this one.
SunOS 5.x (Solaris 2...) is SysV derived. It's a real pain to have to remember 'ps -ef' on the one remaining solaris box I administer.
Until it will run on all my fucking x86 boxes that I got to hand-pick all the fucking hardware in because it met my fucking budget and fucking desires then, the fucking answer is fuck no.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Get over it man, nobody gives a shit about your pissing contest. I run a BSD box and a linux box side by side and I don't feel the need to run around butting heads with other users to re-affirm myself.
- Toby
I see it rather like a good option for those mac lovers who are buying new computers, but from what I heard, It won't be (performance wise) good on older macs. I don't see linux as threaten, even if it's released x86.
It comes down to support of the users, I mean, I wouldn't really shift to Linux even OS X is available because I like the way I do things in Linux. Besides I don't want too much fancy GUIs, it just hogs performance =) Just my opinions and not intended to bash anyone.
I have an SB live and it worked right off the bat for my distro (Mandrake).
Maybe I should try Mandrake sometime. This kind of confirms what I was saying. I've tried a shitload of different distros (RH 5.something, RH 6.0, RH 6.2, SuSE 6.4, Turbolinux 6.04, Slackware 7) and it gets irritating not having it work. I am certainly not dumping on any of you who do enjoy doing this stuff, it's just not my thing, but I don't want to have to patch and recompile the kernel. I don't care enough to learn it.
iRooster, the Mac OS X a
Yes: Aqua on Linux. No: another port of gnome.
Look, just add BSD-binary compatability to Linux, and run Aqua. Maybe it'll need some creative layer fool Aqua, like maybe a simulated Apple-ish BIOS, but details details...
Why worry about making X, kde, gnome etc etc all perdy for the luser desktop on linux? Give them Aqua! (with a licence? do we need a licence to run it?)
Why are you worried about OS-X on x86 anyhoo? They won't release it - Apple Hardware won't let them; it'll cut WAAY into Apple Hardware sales. Why buy an expensive G4 when you can build an el-cheapo K6-III, or Duron, or celery with an ATI Rage (same gcard as the G4s) and run OS-X for x86 on that?
Feel that power? That's mah MOUSING FINGER
MacOS X users will not be flocking just because it's a UNIX. Take a look at Apple's older A/UX effort which was based on 4.3 BSD. It grew few followers, mainly among universities.
Ultimately, Linux's user community will have a lot to contribute as its users will want to experiment with the new OS's feature set and make their applications portable.
Why is it always "this vs. that"? Who cares if somone makes a better *nix for the desktop. Linux sucks as a home pc (not as a home workstation used by us technically minded folks) unless used in instances like the ThinkNIC machine. MacOS has had some tough times, but this could be a great *nix based OS that typical home users could enjoy. Linux on the server, OS X for the home, where does windows fit in? :)
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
aside from all this the REAL reason apple wont port to x86 is that it would lose the tight hardware software integration that helps make it easy to use and mantain. This integration is jobs main focus at the moment and i doubt he'd throw it away for a 51% stake in microsoft (nor would i want him to)
--aiee
I'm not so sure your right about the PPC linux community. First off, it may be small compared to the intel linux community but it is the second largest linux hardware platform. NeXT, (pun intended) Most of the Linux-PPC community are mac folks to some extent, excepting the small number of IBM PPC users. I would guess that 90% or better will run MacOSX in either a dual boot environment or on another machine. Whether MacOSX succeeds or not is entirely dependent on the Mac community and developer acceptance...Linux will have very little effect. Linux is still too complicated to use/administer for the vast majority of folks. As for MacOSX cutting into the linux market, I have trotted quite a few of my linux pals through my office for a "test run" (at their request) since installing MacOSX PB. NetInfo and ProjectBuilder are usually big hits. Last week one of those guys bought an iBook to dual boot SuSE/MacOSX. The sample size is small and the results are inconclusive....but dont assume that linux users, even intel fans, will ignore MacOSX.
Damn nice sig!
I can understand that Mac OS X might be used by larger companies that can afford the high end Macintosh computers. I can't. So I run Linux on a 686, which by the way I put together for under $300.
So until I can put together a good Mac for under $500 make mine Linux! (Cheesy ass old make mine marvel slogan)
"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten."
-- George Carlin
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
More Apple Bad, Linux Good BS. Look, there is room in the market for ALL OS's. Each one has its own market it caters to, Apple's is just getting a little bigger.
Slashdot, where Apple is evil, Linux is beatified, and JonKatz can make ANY topic boring as hell.
News for nerds my ass.
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Why do you think it would threaten Linux? It's not like Linux costs money. People will get used to XF86 and lots of other things that make it easy to transition to Linux later. Mac has always been for people who don't like to tinker, and when they DO tinker alot, it will be easy for them to move on to Linux.
With all the apple info on slashdot lately I thought some of you geeks would want to be more 'in the know' about mac stuff.
Macsurfer kicks ass.
-//vm
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
Mac OS X is supposed to be a user-friendly desktop OS. If anything I'd say it competes with BeOS, not Linux. Linux is supposed to be an open and free community project. OS X is not.
But what if it does win some ground for Linux? That's a good thing, isn't it? At least it's a solid technical effort, unlike some other mainstream OSes we used to toy with. It's derived from BSD UNIX, which despite everything is a largely open, well-documented, well-understood, and absurdly stable platform. I'd rejoice if OS X were to succeed, even if it meant some loss in Linux market share.
-John
My first Unix box was a NeXTcube: I had it up and running in minutes, and when I had to install a fresh copy of the OS onto a new hard drive, the job went quickly--GUI'd point 'n click installation throughout; I loved that!
My first Linux install was Red Hat 5.2; This did not go so smoothly! I had to partition the hard drive, but I didn't know why, or how big the partitions should be and worse, my GUI didn't work the way it was supposed to, so I had to:- Somehow determine that I needed a newer version of X for my video card
- Figure out which software was to blame
- Find out how to set up a dialup connection to my ISP
- Learn to browse the web with lynx
- Learn to ftp with ncftp
- Learn to upgrade my software with rpm (at least I was spared having to compile from source)
All that just to have a nice GUI like the Red Hat manual said I should! Lucky I already had some familiarity with the Unix shell or I'd really have been lost.Closed systems like the Mac or NeXT cost more, and the hardware may seem a bit stale at times, but when everyone's computer is about the same, software updates, maintenance and troubleshooting are really easy. Now give it all a stylish look and you've got a premium product that'll please a lot of folks who think a shell is something you find on the beach--and want to keep it that way ;-)
I love my Red Hat 7 but then again, I've already paid my dues...
I've got a Dual G4, and I prefer running Linux on it. I't's got OS/X, Apple decided to hanve a nonstandard filesystem layout for one. For two, it's not as robust, I know how to crash OS/x
But where can you get a copy of A/UX _now_? I'd like to give it a whirl, especially on one of the older Macs I have access to.
Actually, on almost every new Mac I have seen, the OS is already installed on the HD. You don't have the option to click a 'no, I don't agree' button. But yes, in a sense, the 'OS tax' will continue. When the hardware manufacturer makes the OS too, it doesn't really matter which 'authorized reseller' you buy the box from, it will come with the manufacturer's OS on it.
i generally agree, but I just have one thing to add.... although Coca-Cola does not threaten water, you do not have to install a Coca-Cola vending machine in your house to drink it, or reboot your plumbing system in order to access one or the other. in other words, changing operating systems from windows to linux is a pretty big leap, one that people that see the advantages of linux make. switching from linux to OS X is not very likely, because previous users of linux are very happy(in general). switching from windows to OS X? it's possible. but i think that if you have enough incentive to abandon microsoft, OS X will not be your first choice. but i could be wrong. OS's are evolving, and it's all about survival of the fittest (excluding unnatural advantages provided by some specific companies who i won't mention.)
AFAIK, there is no deal with Apple. I also highly doubt they have one.
Insignia made SoftWindows, RealPC, and another of the older PC emulation programs. Connectix won that battle though.
I think the status quo will generally be maintained, honestly. Mac users will continue to use Macs as they always have, and so also for the Linux efficianados (sp?). (Non-techies tend to stick to what they know, but then again so do most techies once they've found a favorite.) Linux does however have the edge on embedded technology. Maybe I've just missed all the embedded Mac OS postings, but it seems that Linux's continued forays into the world of embedded chips will keep its edge in that realm. This adds an overall Linux prevalence to the market, which can only aid its exposure and futher development. My prediction? Linux by 10 in regulation play.
Try emacs-NT and the Cygwin's GNU ports. It's almost like having a unix box.
Linus would slap this moron below until he's unconscious.
OS X has NOTHING to do with Linux! NOTHING!!! If you consider OS X as a replacement for your Linux box, you must be either completely missing the point of using Linux, or you're some kind of a dumb ass script kiddie.
Linux spells F-R-E-E-D-O-M. Linux is Linux because it's OPEN SOURCE!!! That simple! Linux is not the best OS. It's the OPEN SOURCE OS that has more developers working on it than any other OS. Linux is JUST A KERNEL! You can't talk shit that your X apps are not consistent. Linux doesn't even know or care that an X server exists. Imagine the disaster if it did! Linux is modular. Linux can be modified by anybody to fit their needs. The Playstation 2 development system is running Linux. That's because SONY tailored the kernel to fit their exact needs!
OS X and any other closed source OS cannot offer any of the above. If you're using a computer because clicking on pretty icons and moving semi-translucent windows around floats your boat, that so be it! But you cannot say that Linux is not a competent OS because applications that run on it are not consistent. With market OS's, you are forced into using them exactly the way they were supposed to be used. You are bound by their rules. On top of that, you are willingly putting $$$ that you worked hard for into the pockets of big shots like Gates and Jobs for crap OS's that you are not even sure they are not backdoor-ed. It's exactly like buying a car, and the hood is soldered shut, with no way to get to the engine. How can you even trust something like that? Do you REALLY trust someone whose only purpose on this planet is to make tons of money???
As a final remark, Linux and MacOS own the SAME percentage of the desktop market share. Funny, isn't it? You know... since Linux sucks and all...
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$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
www.ridiculopathy.com
How long ago was it I had to put one of these idiots down? About a day? A 3-button mouse costs $30. OS X supports it, Linux supports it. Buy a f----g mouse! And Mac owners are meant to be stupid!
It's been agreed that OS X won't take users from Linux unless there were to be an x86 version, which isn't likely. It would be interesting to see Apple release MacOS X Server for Intel, though - pricing hasn't been fixed but it's likely to be comfortably out of reach of most users.
The important thing is to win companies away from NT. If Apple continue to expand their server software so that the GUI configuration is as comprehensive as NT's Administrative Tools (whilst being based on open-source technologies) then Apple would earn some serious respect.
Apple doing Intel has always been the biggest gamble in the computer industry, but the next two years are the best opportunity they'll have.
Chris
Why on earth would you use windoze for quake 3 arena?
I have linux and windows 2000 - I use windoze when I have to deal with some pesky legacy file format such as an exquisitely formated ms word doc -
for everything else, I use Linux.
I have to say, with a voodoo3 and the 2.4 kernel, Linux kicks some major q3a booty...
Hmm, I made this argument in the last thread about this, and I got beat down for saying it. I personally agree with you.
If a new virus threatens the world, would you ask Steve Jobs or your sysadmin to close the hole?
The difference between OpenStep and MacOS X is the targeted market: OpenStep is for enterprise, MacOS X for home users.
And the times are different. UNIX is no longer something only for the big computers.
Just wanted to note that the most expensive part of a notebook is the display. 2 inches larger costs about $1000 more (AFAIK).
Bang. There's no Yes/No message box in MacOS.
From the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines:
It's much more work to get a gtk app to be AHIG-compilant.At the moment, no. Simply because MacOSX requires an Apple Machine. If someone is buying a new machine, they might think about it, but if they are simply upgrading their OS, most people will be sticking with their Intel hardware.
Of course there are always rumors of copies of MacOSX running on Intel hardware (after all, NeXT, it's grandpa, worked on Intel), most conspiracy specialists would tell you that the instant that Apple tries to release a Intel MacOSX Microsoft would pull support for Microsoft Office (not even mentioning the canabilizing effects for their own hardware market).
But all of this get said every time there is a mention of OSX, it's hardly a new topic. So why the Slashdot article?
Why did Apple take down the http://ppclinux.apple.com page we were all so proud of them for a few months ago?
Cuz they're asking themselves this same damn question, and they've decided to make it harder for Mac owners to continue to use Linux.
I want Linux on all of the machines I use, whether they're PPC or x86 or StrongARM or Crusoe. I want to understand the OS I use in its totality. Also: Never depend on a single company for anything you need.
Haven't we learned anything with Microsoft over the last twenty years? Doesn't Apple's charging for beta software smack of M$ BS?
There are noises that M$ are looking to kill off or restructure the volume discounts to corporates
What noises are you talking about? They have restructured the licensing model for new products to be a per CPU license (and maybe some old products, too). However, on volume discounts, I assume you are talking about the enterprise/select agreements, which will remain. Come on, do you really think a company with the business sense of MS is going to alienate their customers like that? I don't think so.
They have announced plans to kill off the 95/98/Me line, to try to move the world ultimately towards Whistler. Thing is, many PCs have been sold with Windoze on board in the last three years almost as home appliances. How will these users react to being told that the PC which (sorta) functions as they expect, will need an OS upgrade, and they will have to pay for it ?
Who is going to tell these users that they need an upgrade? MS won't have to. Those machines will be naturally phased out of use, just like win 3.1 has been. The fact that the 9x line of windows is not being continued does not mean that it can not still be used. MS will still have support for it. When a new linux kernel is released, do you say "Darn, now I MUST upgrade ALL my linux machines."? I don't think so.
You know, I hear (read) many linux people complain about MS spreading FUD about linux, but SOME linux people do the same about MS.
this is a left handed sig
This opens the door for a machine which consumers (and corporates) can buy off the shelf which is easy(ish) to use. Like an iMac or a G4, for instance.......
First, corporate customers look for easy to MANAGE systems, not easy to USE systems. Systems management is where the money savings can be found. Licensing costs are fairly static, they don't change much. Management costs can be reduced greatly with a good mgmt tool. The availability and quality of desktop mgmt tools for linux and MAC are not as good/available/supportable as those available for win32.
Second, a win32 machine is already easy to use in corporate eyes because that is the OS that most users know how to use. That is just the way it is.
this is a left handed sig
This sounds as a great idea except your are assuming that OS X is simply a user interface. Granted Aqua is the thing everybody has been raving about, but the truth, is, a usual, under the hood.
Bundles are only one part of OS X, the other parts are the IO Kit (new driver architecture), Quartz (Display PDF) and the whole Next framework.
I can think of a few reasons. A.) Macs are expensive B.) Mac OS X costs money
Perhaps its a good thing. Neophytes may learn enough unix from OSX (for big bux) to install Linux on an old Intel box (for next to nothing). In the end everybody could win. The larger the unix base, the more likely linux will move into business. M$ has lowered peoples' expectations of what an OS should be to the point it is silly. I think public exposure to unix in any form is good for linux. It will hopefully give people the confidence to realize they can live without windows.
The only thing between me and never going back to Linux right now is the fact that under linux, I can do the ./configure-make-make-test-make-install thing and get my software.
Though some packages are on the road (Apache compiled quite nicely, even though 1.3.12 had no idea what the platform was.), I don't think most are. MySQL and Lynx, for example. Sigh.
But contrast the ease of system administration and installation, and it's no contest. Mac OS X PB is sheer joy.
(wasn't this discussed earlier last week?)
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
You're a Counter Strike student?
Which school!?!?!
Personally, I think Apple hardware is outstanding, on the level of Silicon Graphics and Sun proeprietary computers. I really dislike the x86 platform, mainly due to its incompatibilities and "you never get the same thing twice" when building many systems out of the supposedly same components. I've owned name brand PC's, clone PC's, many SGI's and a few Mac's and I must say the SGI's and Mac's are the easiest to configure, replace components and look the coolest. Name-brand PC's come next, as they usually have some sort of quality control and clones coming last--just pieced together junk. Sure some combinations are better then others with clones, but I'd really rather not have the hassles (I've got enough with software on any platform).
Hopefully, in the technical/science fields, graphic arts (specifically servers/render farm and high-end workstations), as well as the home techie will get a hold of Mac OS X. There's a lot of power to be utilized with very little effort.
I think home users will resist for as long as possible. Until you cannot buy a Mac without OS X, people will hang on to OS 8 and 9. These OS's run their apps fine--you can check your e-mail just as effectively on 9 as you can on X. Even being shielded from the unix portion with the GUI, it still will be easier to run and fix problems OS 9. Problems will be more complicated and often will require getting to the command line to resolve. As I know now with Windows XX and Mac users, they just won't do it.
Personally, I hope OS X takes over the Mac desktop. The single-tasking feel and the pausing of the whole system when pressing the mouse button is really behind the times. In my experience, Win95 multitasks better then OS 9 does. I don't even try anymore to multitask programs that can't be stopped when not in focus. YMMV. All Mac users should benefit from the new GUI, multiple processors, and advanced networking services. The GUI hasn't been majorly updated in years. I realize that's a feature, but it's showing age. FAST networking services--BSD rips on OS X, another peeve of mine on older systems. As Apple is rumored to be planning more MP systems after OS X ships, you could really have a stable system on MP that's faster then just about anything else. (especially NT on MP)
All in all, I think it's a great move on Apple's part, but I don't think it will affect anything outside Apples current sphere of interest.
http://www.invisik.com
Unless OS X will run on x86 or Macs become much more popular, It can not be a serious competitor to Linux, since Linux's main competitor in the desktop is Windows. Linux typically stays on x86 for desktop users, and a large-scale competition between the two is not likely - yet.
Perhaps they could start by spending some of that USD4,000,000,000 in cash on better advertising?
that's a lot of electricity to put through jeff goldblum, don't you think?
--saint----
...because many of the people who use Linux want something that they can go into the guts of, break, repair, and patch to their hearts' content. I personally want to build something that can let me put a non-unix style OS on the Linux kernel, something that doesn't need something as complex as the rc structure and will be easier to implement for basic changes, but still run applications and GUIs and stuff in userland. Don't get me wrong, OSX looks like it could be a nice option for someone who wants a stable desktop and is backed by a company that wants to be renowned for its GUI, but I'm not ready to abandon a nice, stable, free product until I'm either 1) required to meet some company's requirements at the workplace, 2) interested in tinkering with this new OS, or 3) independently wealthy and not requiring to skrimp and save to keep my computers going.
Linux's best attribute in my opinion is its currently fairly large amount of hardware support, especially for being Open. I don't see the other UNIces supporting nearly as much brand new technology nearly as fast (I know BSD people, new X.1 and X.2 versions add support in the middle, so don't get all flaming here), and I'm closer to being able to just pick up something at the store and having it work. Also, there is a large number of software projects that I can work with, some Open, some freeware binary only, and since I've already got these operating, I'm not inclined to change. I'm happy with where I am. Besides, I like having more than one mouse button... *grin*
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Well, the "Darwin Core" of the OS was ported to the x86 platform (I'd say Intel, except they're not even doing the best on their own instruction set anymore), and since it's all BSD based it should not be hard at all for more to be ported. In talking with an engineer friend of mine, he said that he didn't see how it would have been much work to port a BSD core to the intel architecture when it was already there in other forms. Maybe the whole OS will be along those lines.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Unlike many of you, I do not think that Linux will hit the mainstream hard, and wipe out windows. But there is a certain segment of the population that are "power-users." Ultimately they may consider Linux an option at one time. Mac OS doesn't really supply the power to many of this segment of users (mainly thinking of no command line, etc), but it does appeal to people who like guis, etc. I ultimately don't think the two are the same group, and therefore, won't hurt Linux all the much, however I don't think the Mac-evangelist will just have more to brag about to their windows/unix friends.
Cheers.
The Cocoa API allows for apps to be written specifically for the terminal, or should I say the Cocoa development environment does.
Normal Cocoa apps use objective C or Java for any and all program code, whereas the interface is built with what is known as Interface Builder...creating the interface is cake...and besides accessing interface elements in your program (the nib interface resources are C anyway) no ties to the interface really exist.
Apple has kept as little to the OS as necessary....then again don't expect games to ported the same way as an Apple app like Mail persay.
You are right about Carbon apps though...they will be not be ported to Linux...unless sayyyy.....the Carbon Compatability layer is ported to Linux first....not "that much" difference between OS X and Linux at the Core...and thats all that really matters.
So get started!;)
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
Actually thats a horrible idea, and if you've been following the history of Aqua you'd note that any attempts to even copy its look have been met with cease and desists.
The Aqua API and Quartz is what will differentiate OS X from the other OS's. The reverse is true though...as I explained in an earlier post, it is feasible for Apple to create a WIN32 compatability layer in the same way they created Carbon...actually more easily. No reason to create a Linux Compatibility layer, at least for them...but if they were to opensource Carbon, that would be another story.
(If you want to hear more about that look back to my OS X rant...its in this list somewhere...lol)
Apple is not a company that can stand to opensource all of its technology, especially when it depends on hardware sales to keep itself afloat. The proprietary software ties it to the proprietary hardware and this is why Apple will never really compete with Linux directly...Linux was never meant to be what OS X is...and it shows.
OS X Server 2.0 brings us to another question however: How many people will move to an OS where the Server itself is cake to manage and deal with the proprietary hardware issues to do so? Windows 2K seems to be the only OS in trouble here.http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
Something very few people take note of is the compatibility layer that Apple has in Carbon.
..."Apple loves the dough, more than you know..."
;)
Do you realize that Apple has with what seems to be very little effort, created a compatibility "layer" that allows for Legacy Mac OS apps to be modified so slightly that many times a rewrite of 3-10% of code is all that's required to run on a mach kernel based multi-tasking protective memory BSD core system...two systems totally separate and unrelated to one another....I mean NT and RedHat are more alike...lol ( which is where my next point become relevant);)
A WIN32 compatibility layer on a system running a BSD based PPC OS is very possible, in fact probable....and when I say compatibility layer, I don't mean MOS or WOL, I mean apps that run within Mac OS X. All you'd need to do "technically" is recompile your code with a PPC compiler. They'd have the Mac OS GUI ( well it would have the widgets but the placement is another story) and behave no differently that other apps...even better than Legacy apps, because legacy apps do run in a MOL type emulation environment. ( shaddapp about WINE, its in here...somewhere:))
The difference between Carbon and this WIN32 layer would be, Apple shouldn't need near the amount of modification of WIN32 apps that Carbonizing legacy apps requires.
Legacy apps ( Mac OS 9 on down) are inherently unstable, due to the fact that they run in a variably segmented memory scheme, unprotected, with events such as menu-display and mouse clicks that can actually halt the function of the entire computer. WIN32 is inherently a multitasking and protected memory based API and I'm willing to bet that this can be leveraged within the compatibility layer to make appearance (relation of interactive objects to one another eg. buttons and menu's) pretty much the only concern at compile time...even that could be taken care of with the ease of Cocoa's Interface Builder.
The port to x86 is so unlikely as to be unbelievable, but can you imagine where all it would take is the use of a PPC compiler on your code to utilize WIN32 apps in OS X? That's where the money is and that's exactly what Apple will be planning in the future...a way to actually allow to keep its hardware and "share" apps with WIN32.
Although WINE could be a good source for Apple to look for Microsoft free-code, I doubt they will go the way that many have proposed, or joked I should say, when speaking about leveraging WINE and BOCHS to create an emulation environment that runs at nearly 80% of the speed of a similarly clocked PC....bull. WINE still requires modification and is made for x86 hardware...x86 emulation would make running WIN32 apps look like your Grandmother trying to do a goofy footed double - fakie ollie nose grind on her pinky while juggling her false teeth, depends diaper, and 20/200 coke bottle glasses...well with games at least. That's an area where Apple really needs the help ( Besides that Apple has something else to think about... next paragraph:)).
Apple will more likely look to Microsoft for support of such a project. To do otherwise would be to seek the wrath of the single largest Monopoly (big-m) on the planet and its also their best chance of getting it right, or wrong, depending on how you look at it. Licensing between Apple and Microsoft allows for Microsoft products to continue to come to the Mac...although who needs their apps really...lol...and Microsoft's sales to not be cannibalized by such a project...too much:) Hey I don't want Micro. trying to do something to the API every time they "feel" like it...although they already do:)(Apple is already tipsy with Micro. products, why not get drunk!)
Think about developers as well...those that would normally shy away from making Mac versions of their software can now do so extremely easily...so easily as to make cost a moot point.
For those that say Carbon is a temporary solution before moving to Cocoa, I say "Money talks and BS walks". Repeat after me
I'm sure this has been said before, just not in all these words;)...Threatening Linux...ummm...duhhhh
Note: I am not an Apple employee nor am I friends with any Apple employees. In fact by writing this speculation that I call a post, I will most likely never work at Apple as I have always intended and never have any friends.
--Yes, I know I'm the only one still using Mac OS X PB.
--I am Meta Luna!!
--HTML : How to Meet Ladies...yeah, you wish.
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
Maybe OS X client is not meant to complete with Linux, whereas OS X Server 2.0 is....more-so W2K Server I'd think though;)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/
See a preview here...
http://wildtofu.com/resources/osx/osxs2-preview.ph p
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
OS X is -REAL- unix, being based on BSD... 'tain't more REAL than that. Chas2K.01
I think that OS X and Linux can be (and should be) complements rather than substitutes. If Apple were smart and possessed forward-looking business acumen (something they have not seemed to exhibit thus far), they would embrace the strength of the *nix and open source community and figure out how it could help their bottom line and market share. There are cadres of *nix open source developers and open source applications out there could undoubtedly be leveraged by Apple if they were smart enough to figure out how to do it.
-- My choice of computing platform is a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom.
But will your real-world folks be skilled enough to provide management with brilliant ideas like the "brown ring of quality"?
What percentage of the gross consumer marketplace do the Geeks of which you all speak so highly (and, admittedly, I am one) make up? I'd reckon it's a pretty small number. Therefore, what geeks might want (customisable GUI, etc.) is pretty irrelevant because the majority of the marketplace wouldn't exactly be won over by the ability to change their user interface. MacOS X gives developers everything that Linux gives them. Developers who need to port X applications can install Xtools, an X window server that lives alongside Aqua and makes X applications integrate seemlessly, or soon they'll be able to use Xdarwin (or perhaps, Xaqua), an XFree86 open-source X server that will do the same thing for free. There is the full GNU toolset, ProjectBuilder (which, with Cocoa, whips the ass of everything I've used on Linux to date.) Once Apple address the problem with incompatibilities due to the lack of the widely-used libdl (which ought to be addressed in a forthcoming release of gnu libtool) we'll all be laughing. You'll be able to run most any open-source you want on MacOS X. Of course, many of the criticisms Apple takes are criticisms based on the Public Beta. It's got quite a few flaws, and Apple are probably wondering whether released OS X PB did them more harm than good. MacOS X on Intel, if such a thing were to come to fruition, would be a serious, serious contender. All those corporates who are rolling out Linux on their general office machines would likely die to move to OS X Intel (or rather, X86) because of the astronomically huge sys-admin benefits MacOS X has. NetInfo management allows for a centralised repository of networking, user and group information which is second-to-none. The MacOS interface team has years of experience in making productive UIs. Aqua perhaps has a little too much colour for some tastes, but that doesn't detract from it's usability. Anyone can make fancy coloured buttons if they want, so it's pretty ill-reasoned to say that MacOS X is just a candy-coloured pile of doo. Quite the contrary can be said for anyone who uses it. The Linux community might get somewhere if they dump X11 and use something more lightweight. Gnome and KDE over-hyped, and are consistently chasing MacOS and Windows in terms of functionality. When it comes to everyday work (development, office work, graphics, audio) I can easily lose a Linux user on any configuration of Athlon/Intel just because of the Mac's more fluid user experience. As for Servers, that's comparing Apples to Oranges (pun intended =), but in a sense it's not, and the arguments against MacOS X as a server are seriously flawed. MacOS X is based on a core unit, Darwin, that is basically a slightly modified combination of FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and it can keep up there with the big boys when it comes to your server work. We have Darwin on a dual-processor G4 here serving up QuickTime streams by the hundred and it can handle the load over the Built-In Gigabit ethernet with ease (lets see that in your $700 PC!) What hampers Apple's wide-spread acceptance is a cheap CPU box to sell to the masses. Doubt you'll see that, though.
-- There are three kinds of mathematicians: those who can add and those who can't.
When Apple open sources it I will be interested, but, until then I am not interested. I don't think I am alone in feeling this way, so, I see no threat.
Does anyone think that the release of Mac OS X will threaten Linux?
I love the wording, "threaten Linux". Do yourselves a favor and ditch the partisan/platform mentality in favor of pragmatism. I used to be a die-hard Mac developer way back when, but now run a Linux server for my mail and web serving, Windows 98 for my game playing and accounting needs, and a Macintosh Powerbook as my "every day" workstation.
Platform agnosticism has allowed me to get the best of all worlds. Why in the hell would I want to fight through X Windows just to get a crippled desktop system up and runnings? Why in the hell would I suffer through the hell of running my web server off a MacOS 9 machine that'll crash every day?
I think it's fantastic that I have so many solutions available to all of my geeky needs. If Mac OS X "threatens" Linux, and Linux doesn't respond to that threat, then oh well, so goes the dodo. If Linux meets the Mac OS X challenge with innovations of its own, then so much the better for all of us. Competition is a good thing, a thing to be encouraged - not feared.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Why? you ask, think about it, already developers write software for the mac but not linux. all it would take for a linux port is a simple recompile for the most part. That may be why apple created OS X, so development will continue as the *nix community grew and apple shrinking more and more everyday.
Or I could be totaly wrong, OS X may be propritary enofe to make porting inpossible ( we all know how much apple likes an open platform)
Macromedia plans on supporting OSX to a webdeveloper this is the ultimate platform develope and test code all at the same time IE is being ported as well as MS Office. It's linux except with _usefull_ apps.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2001/2/ns-20270.html
I used to love slashdot, but every day it seems more and more completely stupid questions get posted. There are many many more intelligent questions out there than "Is Linux going to survive","Does sony want to lose money by fully supporting cd-rs", or "Has anyone been able to hack a chia pet". C'mon people, everyone tries to be so smart here yet the same dumb questions continue to get asked. If you like Linux then who cares about the OSX. If you like Coke then who cares about Pepsi. Just Please spare the rest of us. And Moderators...You guys need to start doing your job and filter out the garbage. But...While I'm asking is Microsoft PoopStick Server going to be a threat to Sun RefriedBeans Server? -peel
When I was at macworld I was able to see the dock on the side of the screen, as the guy demoing os X to me was a nice guy, it can be done in one command see http://www.macslash.com for a picture. You will be able to do every fucking thing you want to a mac running mac os X, the guy told me that if you wanted to you could even implement a journaled file system if you have the spare time. He also told me about so people that had gotten X11 running on it with a boot manager so that you could choose what gui to use. That sounds like you can do alot. Also by messing with some XML files you can change the enitre look of the os back to the uber goth NeXt step look.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Nope, but with os x coming out, it isnt going to be needed for the mac os anymore....
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Actually it should fit in to a unix/linux enviroment just fine. Mac os X will have apache, ssh, telnet, and smb built in ready to turn on with a check box. It should be just as easy (if not easier)to put an os X box into a network with windows machines as it would be if it was a linux(pick a flavor) machine.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Boy you do not deserve to run a Unix-derived system !
Who said that Apple has to ship 3 gazillions shells for you to have a choice. They will probably ship tcsh and zsh by default. But then what stops you from installing your own ?
Let's see: su, vi /etc/shells (or the equivalent) will do just fine. Because you can too. Pfff
The guy makes an unfounded/uninformed criticism of OS X based on the "fact" (among others) that Apple won't let him choose his shell.
If he wants to stick to Linux because he does not know how to install a new shell in a BSD derivative, then his technical comments won't elicit much respect from me.
Others commented about GUI customizations. Why do you even mention shell ? To me "shell" = "sh/bash/bsh/ksh/zsh/csh/tcsh/..". And Apple will not limit your choice here.
Personnaly I'll try to stick to zsh in my OS X environment. I like bash features but zsh is at least as good and I like BSD.
I've reading replies and comments that linux is not so well-going on desktop based systems. True or not, I think we are missing the main point here. Mac OSX is using a unix based environment because it was a solid core. All the rest is their job.
They think they'll do a better user interface, so what's wrong? The desktop appareance is just a detail, good to catch on the feeling of the average/low user. The core, the stability, that's what matters.
Who cares if linux loses users, if they still remain on unix? We should not fight against each other (linux/unix issues), because as long as people will stick on unixes we'll have better programs and better stability.
Computer aren't supposed only to look nice, they must be first of all reliable.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
nope... it's going on all apple machines starting in june or whenever.
help out.
OS X will not threaten Linux until it runs on x86 boxes--that much is obvious. But until that day, we in the Linux community should keep a close eye on X--we have much to learn from Apple and they from us. I just got back from Macworld where I saw how very simple it was to install OS X (a 12 minute brainless procedure). This alone is something we should look at. I've installed various flavors of Linux on some 20-25 machines and each has had it's own set of special problems.Obviously Apple has the advantage of creating the whole tamale, but man was that install appealing. They had a woman from the crowd in control and someone came up with the TCP info for an airport base station connected to a T1 line. They had it connected and surfing wirelessly in about 5 minutes flat. I kid you not. I also saw a version of X Windows running GIMP side by side with an OS X version of Filemaker. Additionally I got to peek at alpha OS X versions of MS Office and Photoshop (screenshots only of Photoshop). Did I mention Maya?! Maya on OS X is spectacular. These apps won't be out for a few months, but I was amazed to see them running on an OS with a fully functional terminal and backwards support for OS 9 legacy apps. And of course Apple will bundle their consumer apps (iMovie, iTunes, Appleworks, and (soon) iDVD). This is all hot stuff. Imagine you are a school admin and you want to host a website using Apache. Under OS X this takes all of 2 minutes. It is literally a click of a button. When I saw this I was blown away. Should we run away and give up. No of course not. We should keep pushing for easier installs, better apps, and more consistent HI. Apple will not be able to break out of the PowerPC niche for at least the rest of this year, and this gives us time to make Linux better for the day when OS X is released for x86 with a Windows Red Box (seems absolutely obvious that this will happen eventually). If we have not made Linux better and easier to use when that day comes, we should indeed be worried, because OS X is the real deal. When admins realize that they can save countless dollars on IT support, run their heavy duty Unix apps, and still have access to consumer stuff like MS Office on a machine that an idot can use, people will be running to OS X. Maybe I got caught in that famous reality distortion field but I know that I went to Macworld out of pure curiosity and have come home with a pending order for one of those shiny new powerbooks. I can't wait to see if I can get it running as a triple boot OS 9, OS X, LinuxPPC system. I know that installing OS 9 and the X beta won't be a problem. My guess is LinuxPPC will be slightly more problematic. Wish me luck.
MacOS-X does not run XFree86 by default - you have to fiddle with the system a bit so for "ordinary users" it is no where near as good as linux as they are unlikey to want to remove the Aqua GUI.
By shakey, I think he meant 'crappy', not 'unstable'. The installations I've toyed with were very unpleasant from an end-user perspective. The response time could be measured in seconds. StarOffice should get an icon or a menu entry somewhere, after installation. Devices are incredibly difficult to set up. To me, Linux is the proverbial dog riding the bicycle, interesting because it exists, not that it's particularly good (ON THE DESKTOP). BeOS, on the other hand, is rather like the Heart of Gold, still idling in the garage.
There are a number of folxen at Be, Inc. that support the Free Software movement. Indeed, OpenTracker and another site provide the source for the main portions of BeOS, the Tracker and Deskbar.
While improvements have made it back to the source tree at Be, it has amounted to at most a few weeks of work. It's not like BeOS is bug-ridden. It's probably been rewritten 6 times by now. The coming BeOS upgrade is not hyped, not even real in the minds of some people, but it will be a complete desktop solution, with greatly improved connectivity and stunning OpenGL performance.
On the other hand, the true promise of BeOS is becoming apparent in the form of apps like Inferno (image editor that allows for any of the painting tools to be replaced), PersonalStudio from Adamation (DV Editing for $49), and even a Japanese DV app that no one in the U.S. knows how to use, yet.
Be, Inc. is really starting to kick ass in new markets in all sorts of places. Rather than fostering animosity between Gnu/Linux/BSD etc users and the very Amiga-scene-like BeOS crowd, I'd like to see more multi-platform releases. Neverwinter Nights (?) is going to be the first multi-platform game, if it's delivered, making up somewhat for the disappointing yanking of Black and White out of our clutches.
Anyway, I'm going to pricewatch for an external modem. BeOS full-time, here I come.
Get my free Hitchhiker's Guide Tribute Novella:
The point is that you have a usable version of Unix for consumers, and the underpinning and do-dads for all the techies. It's a dream come true. I use it, love it, and can say with certainty that I still don't know why people use Linux. Do you actually like it? It's a powerful OS but it leaves a lot to be desired for UI ... ahem... none.
> The only reason Linux might tread on OS X's toes is that Linux can be used as a power-user's desktop operating system. But in my opinion, that is not its forte - and shouldn't be its focus.
Actually, the strength of OS X is that it doesn't have to trade off power for sleek UI. There is no focus... just power.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Assume that new user is getting a computer and is considering trying Linux, but isn't sure about it. Getting a Macintosh based on Linux would probably make a good jumping off point for that, and once you've got some of the more complex concepts down, Linux for PPC could be installed. All told, I'd rather have a Mac/Linux dual boot system than a Win/Linux dual boot system.
the consensus among Macheads is that you should probably get the dual G4/533 for $2,500 instead of the G4/733 for $3,500 unless you need the DVD burner - the cheaper system will be faster under X.
Unless you are doing work that heavily uses Altivec. the 733Mhz machine is using the PowerPC 7450 which from what I have heard dramatically improves Altivec performance so that the 733 will handily beat a dual processor 533 Mhz on Altivec instructions. Of course you are paying more too - But with the "superdrive," and considering the competing burners up to this point, it's been compared to buying a good DVD burner and getting the computer for free.
Her decision may not be rational or based on the facts but for her purposes it turns out to have been the correct choice. A Mac is the best solution for Photo manipulation work for a few reasons.
1) First off it is what all the other people doing the same thing and related things are using and she won't have to worry about any cross-platform compatibility issues when she sends her files off to be printed or used by a designer, etc. etc. etc.
2) For the same reason there are more applications for what she wants to do on the Mac than on Unix or even on Windoze. The apps that Windoze does have were all developed on the Mac first and ported to windoze. To be fair Windoze may be close to parity in graphics apps but I think that the Mac still has a very slight edge.
3) Apple is constantly abused for using Photoshop as a "misleading" benchmark that shows them in an unfairly favorable light - well that is what she is using so Apples unfair benchmarks will be the most accurate guide to the performance she could expect between different platforms.
4) Colorsync - Windoze just doesn't have real system wide color management. Linux hasn't even thought about it, but it is very important to someone doing color work. And it looks like Colorsyc will be getting even better as OS X moves forward.
5) Intangibles & details - Graphic artists are the target market for Macs and lots of the little details that Apple is so obsessive about are targetted at them as well. As Apple considers the little details they constantly keep in mind that graphic artists are their bread and butter. When they forget we remind them: "dammit those colored widgets in OSX are screwing up my color perception" "Oh sorry, we'll change that" Do you think Micro$oft would have made a change like that too please your friend? No, of course not. The result is that "without really being able to tell you why" most artists just prefer the Mac - It's not just great industrial design (though that is part of it) it is because a lot of that design had your friend in mind.
I suppose the real question is "if it's undergone professional usability testing, what professionals tested it who didn't kick and scream about the single-mouse-button issue?" These "professionals" obviously don't have the same ideas I do.
ARGGH!! Why do people insist on pointless bitching about the single-mouse-button "issue". Those professional UI designers designed a UI that did not *require* a second mouse button. I have never felt the need for a second mouse button and am frustrated by them when I use a PeeCee. The usablity testing suggests that if the OS doesn't require extra mouse buttons to compensate for poor UI decisions then a single button is easier and better.
I understand that once people have become accustomed to using two or three button mice they want to continue using them. If you want to use the Mac with a multi-button mouse just buy one. The OS works very nicely with them. But please don't force me to change what I prefer and have grown accustomed to. I can't stand using two button mice, I don't see the point, I'm not used to it, "why doesn't the contextual menu come up when I hold the button down, Oh damn, I'm supposed to push the 'other' button" I'm just not used to it - I just don't like it. And when I need to modify mouse behavior in a variety of ways is two or three mouse buttons really enough? It hasn't been my experience that a second or even third mouse button on a PeeCee is a satisfactory replacement for the various modifications of mouse behaviour you get with the shift, control, option and command keys. That would be the equivelant of 4 mouse buttons and in image manipulation, drawing and design programs I need all of them and I don't think they would fit in a usable way on my Wacom stylus.
The graphical chaos you mention was pretty much the case in the early days of GUI program development on Windows or the Mac too, and quite a few klinkers are still being produced for both platforms.
I have to disagree about the graphical chaos during the early days of the Mac. The Mac had a standardized gui and consistancy between apps from the very beginning. They had the advantage of using a GUI from the start and almost all of the software developed used the Apple User Interface Standards.
There are more klinkers being produced now for the mac now than there was then. The apps and the gui have gotten more complex and every acid tripping UI 'artist' (read: Kai Krauss or the UI team for QuickTime) thinks that the standards that made everything so easy and consistant are just so passe and don't give the users a chance to appreciate their artistic flair which we all know is more important than mere usablity.
They are not the same thing are they? Apples and Oranges I would think. However Linux and MacOs share some traits I've noticed: -Users of both OS's are usually much more familiar with there systems then Windows users (yes there are plenty of windows users that know there systems fine, I'm talking average users). -Users of both OS's are usually use much more of there systems capabilities. -Users of both OS's are more balanced (ok, I made this one up!) I think there might be some bleed over between the two, however I think a more likely course would be for more windows users to consider MacOs. I sure am looking forward to OSX, 'course that titanium Powerbook's got me going. But, I'll still continue to use my Linux workstation at work for most of my admin tasks.
I'll be using Mac OS X for my PowerBook and all my new Macs (server or otherwise). I'll continue using LinuxPPC for all my older PowerMacs, possibly moving to OpenBSD. I'll continue using OpenBSD for all my 68k Macs. I'll be using Linux, BeOS, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD for any Intel or AMD boxes I pick up, if any. Some boxes will dual or triple boot. Why not?
Windows only gets to take a poke at me through VirtualPC.
-B...
The advantages of Mac OS X are not likely to be of significance to PC based Linux users. So assuming that we are talking about people who run LinuxPPC or YellowDog on their Macs, there are some good reasons to switch. 1) Mac OS X will be able to run almost any software available for Linux. [you get to run lots of great free software- gcc, apache, you name it.] 2) Fundamentally, it has most of the power of linux with a GUI that is going to be supported by a fairly large chunk of commercial developers. [you get to run lots of great commercial software] Think of how many times you run across QuickTime in Linux and you're hosed. No problem with OSX. 3) Performance wise, it's going to be a good UN*X variant, and everyone familiar and happy with the power of Un*X will be able to work in it just fine. 4) X windows sucks. It is no great feat for Apple to come up with an alternative that people prefer to use (or even to code to - though GTK mitigates the problem). It may seem bizarre given how often this argument has been used against the Mac, but the essence of the argument to use OS X over Linux is that you can run a lot more software on OS X. While that can certainly be said of Windows, it also means that you have to inherit the pain of the windows OS. OS X will for most purposes be un*x. Darwin notwithstanding, the reason to stay with Linux is that it is FREE and truly open source. For this reason, I think that many people will stay with Linux, but I suspect that a lot of cross pollination may occur. What Apple intended to do with Darwin (IMHO) is offer an appeal to Linux users by only maintaining a proprietary stranglehold on the gui.
"Perfect numbers like perfect men are rare." -Descartes
yes Jobs stole the quote...he stole it from Pablo Picasso...
One thing I really like in X-windows is the standardized clipboard actions assigned to each of the 3 buttons. I really wished MacOS would adopt this paradigm and drop one-button mice for good. Of course, this means redesigning their brand-new optical mouse into a 3-button model too.
--
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
Hardware prices.... mmmmm.... As I just checked into the laptops I would have to say that they are actually comparably priced. A nice iBook with a G3 400 ish processor (which actually is faster than a 400 x86 due to the CALCULATIONS/sec) with 128 Mb of RAM etc. will cost around $1500. An HP Laptop with aprox. the same stats, costs about the same, as do compaqs and IBMs.... Expensive hardeware; maybe in the past but do some resaerch and I think you'll be suprised!
--------------------------------- Born Again Bourne Again Believer: New Life, GNU/Linux Be Free!
Hear Hear!!! Here
--------------------------------- Born Again Bourne Again Believer: New Life, GNU/Linux Be Free!
Comparing Cola to water is stupid...This is more of a Coke to Pepsi challenge and with the base of OS X on BSD it is becoming harder and harder to taste the two apart without seeing the "better refreshing taste" of an OS that has been "factory" produced in nice cans as opposed to homebrewed stuff in recycled plastic bottles with the old junky labels still partially on (dual installs much?) (uh-oh here come the flames!)
--------------------------------- Born Again Bourne Again Believer: New Life, GNU/Linux Be Free!
What can be stored on a floppy can be important, and useful. Personally I'm a believer in quality (as in code) than quantity, however I won't deny the limited space on a floppy. I think all Macs should come with a floppy drive compatible to use a supper disk.
OS X is only capable of converting a narrow class of Linux users, specifically those that: 1. Use (or are willing to buy ) a Mac with a G3 or G4 chip that has a built-in vector operation unit. (any of the new pretty looking Macs) 2. Is willing to pay $129 for all that OS X offers over Linux 3. Is willing to upgrade the amount of RAM to run the system, if necessary. 4. Can put up with OS X's current lack of support for many peripherals. Whatever LinuxPPC, MkLinux, Debian PPC, etc. users that are lost to OS X will be well made up for by the exposure that UNIX systems will get to consumer class users. If there's anything that Mac-heads are secretly jealous of, it is the amount of applications that can be run by x86 PC's. OS X will open the door to a large portion of these applications to consumer users through XFree86, and hopefully someday, WINE. /\
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Just curious and a bit off topic (not sure if it's been mentioned yet)... Does this mean that some people will find a way to get MS Office to run on Linux? I mean, MS is porting it to OS X which is BSD... Hmm.
maybe im trolling, but does this matter?
is Linux used because it is popular?
if it takes away from Linux usage, so be it, Linux will survive and prosper
Not completely certain about Windows 2000, but am occasionally running Windows ME, and am in no way impressed.
First of all, there is NO DOS at all. Of course, most personal users not heavily interested in computers (ie, people who use computers, but aren't bothered about things like performance or speed. eg, my parents) dont need DOS, but when trying to partition my drive so to install RedHat, it's kind of hard without having dos. My TV card won't work with it, and every time I try to use the actual TV function, the whole damn thing just freezes, needing a restart. It seems as if M$ have just taken Win98 and made it "easier" and less useful.
So don't even think about believing that Linux has forced improvement of Windows. IMHO it is worse than ever.
Complaints aside, surely it's not that heard to believe that some people just prefer using Linux (or anything else) as their main OS.
Anyway, the Mac OS X is good, but everything has some things good about it, and just because it can do some of the tasks of Linux doesn't make it better (only more expensive than Linux)
Why yes, all my base are belong to you.
How did you guess?
People are getting to worked up. You must remember that Linux, Mac OS, Windows, Intel, Alpha, AMD, Solaris, and Sparc are just tools to do a job. The question is the tool good enough to do the job and that depends on the job. Like taking a bunch of iMacs removing the hard drive to reduce cost and then having the boot off a server is an ideal application for a school where the OS is easy to use and the teachers don?t have to have a degree in computer science. Another idea is at the mall I saw a internet kiosk it was a keyboard mouse and a nice flat screen monitor it had a striped down GNOME interface that didn?t let you do much besides get on the web it was secure it couldn?t be compromised easily like a windows system could have been and finally lets get to windows if it is behind a firewall you can do some neat internal corporate network stuff with it. Like little AvtiveX controls to make time sheets that connect directly to the supervisor?s spreadsheet. It?s all about the tools and the job that has to be done. Linux cant die its too much like Apple there are too many damn hippies living on openness, community, and just plain coolness of Mac. But one thing you don?t here is the phrase "Windows community" or anything similar.
I really dont see whats wrong with them using it. We all need to realize that it doesnt matter who uses what, just what WE want to use. Linux is wonderful for techies like us, but its shit for the majority.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Second of all, "Jews are talented, smart, and hence successful". IF you say this, than you could also say "Jews are cheap and have big noses".
You should only hate people for who they are, not what they are. And if you are going to rebute a comment such as this, make sure you don't follow the same trend as the moron that you are arguing with.
The main reason that Mac OSX will not be a threat to linux is the fact that (unless I am mistaken)Mac OS X will only run on Macintosh Hardware, which is not quite as cost-efficient as the standard hardware that runs linux. Hence, large companies will recognize that using linux, they can save their company much more money than if they equipped their offices with all new computers running OS X. On a final note, I believe that it is much easier to procure aid in the case of a problem among the linux community, and a new operating system might not be as kind to people with problems. Oh well there go my two cents... could someone please return them before I go broke?
This tastes like granma! By george, you're right! it DOES taste like granma! We'll take a box of it!
In all reality x86 processors have a rather dominant market share. Unless apple does something rather drastic, it's going to stay that way. I've personally always been fond of pc's and I definitely like the ability to replace parts whenever I want(though they're taking that out of a lot of the prebuilt machines these days). Whether Apple's new operating system turns out to be a good OS or not doesn't really matter if no one buys the hardware. That is the real edge for linux you can put it on the machine you already have. Well that and there's a much larger community at work making sure things work properly and adding support to it. In the end what will determine the success of this OS is the success of the computers it runs on, and that future doesn't look terribly promising.
Last time I checked Mac OS X only ran on Macs. While the number of Mac owners running Linux is surely on the rise, most perople running Linux run it on PCs. I doubt these people will be switching in great numbers (why get all new hardware to run a similar OS?).
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
Because:
... it can even run GNOME! why are we not shaking in our boots? stop worrying (or start worrying) because Free operating systems are here to stay.
#1. Its tied to expensive hardware.(for now)
#2. Its property of Apple Inc.
#3. Its GUI is *VERY* closed. fairly unthemeable. geeks dont like that.
#4. Its an Apple (tm).
I mean, Solaris x86 can run all those things too but we dont see many people switching to Solaris from FreeBSD... Hell, Sun is funding the port of FreeBSD to UltraSparc.
And Windows2000
I like meat helmets.
In the short term there is no way. Sure the Mac faithful will go to OS X (no choice, really). I think they'll be very happy with it. Linux users, well I can't see it here's why.
Some religious reasons, Darwin is open source, but nothing else. A lot of people will find that quite unacceptable.
Buy a Mac AND he OS just to "try" - that's a big leap of faith. I suggest for most of leap too far.
Okay so where are the apps? Sure this is a short term problem, but for the moment there is little to choose between Linux and Mac OS X in terms of number of "user" apps (I'm not talking geekware here). This is getting better on Linux - probably most users could be quite happy, if they but knew it. Mac OS X is the poor relation here - classic is very poor compared to the rest of OS X.
Now in the longer term - well maybe. Mac OS X is wonderful to write for. Mac OS X is a single target. (Now, does this run under Suse - nope, but I does work on RedHat...) The user environment is to die for. Sure you have to buy a Mac, but all systems get replaced eventually.
However, there is still the religious objection (and let's get over it, there is no way Apple CAN open it up - afterall why would you need to buy a Mac?) and Linux often gets used in places where Mac OS X offers less. Servers perhaps, Mac OS X and Linux aren't so different here (okay Mac OS X has NetInfo). Of course Linux isn't standing still, and will continue to evolve in unpredictable ways.
Perhaps Linux's "ace in the hold" is GNUstep, this project aims to port the OpenStep API to Linux (and others). OpenStep is what Cocoa is based on. This would once finished) allow Mac OS X programs to be ported to Linux more easily - so maybe Linux can gain from large adoption of Mac OS X.
Me? Oh I'm convinced I used (developed for) the NeXT, I've got a Mac and love the new system.
I don't think Apple's new release is a threat for more than LinuxPPC right now, BUT there is talks of Apple ditching the PPC platform in favor of X86. I saw this in macweek online. I would not take much(swapping mach kernels) to get this to happen. If it does linux and XBSD is going to get some serious competition. My 2 cents, and remember Darwin already runs on Intel. This is not by accident.......
I'm running OS X right now, and I can tell you it's a great system. Everything about the system is really nice at the core, having at least a decade of refinement. The _only_ thing that prevents OS X from dominating the marketplace is Job's unwillingness to make it run on Intel-based hardware. It's confirmed that Darwin runs fine on Intel machines, but the main problem that Jobs has is that Apple is primarily a hardware company.
Nothing is better than God. Chicken is better than nothing. Chicken is better than God.
No, Mac OS X will not be free. Should start on the shelves at about $129. It also will most likely be installed on all new systems excluding the iMac. As for the registration of each copy of the OS? Only silly Windoze users would think that. All of the installers for MacOS have not needed Serial numbers or Product Identification Keys. As a matter of fact, Mac OS 7.5.5 is free and runs on ALL Macintosh computers. Just to answer some of your questions.
The Box said it required Windows 2000 or better
So I bought a Macinstosh
No f'n shite! I got a PII at work running at 400-some MHz, yet my G3 300 MHz Mac just toasts my work machine. Same RAM, similar HD, yet I wait a whole bunch longer on the Windows machine hitting the right mouse button then on my Mac (Kensington Mouseworks to emulate the right button).
Just trying to type this post I had 3 freezes from HDD activity! I'm glad all my extra MHz (4th freeze, pos) is going to rendering text on the screen.
Real life vs. market hype.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
"And since the God Intel rules all, we shall bend over and just..."
You get the idea.
Just wondering if this guy works for Intel or anything.
20 years ago- "This will be a computer for families" "Yeah right, it's not a mainframe"
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
"Volume constraints mean that you can buy an x86 workstation that will wipe the floor in almost every performance category excepting Altivec-optimised routines since SSE2 isn't widely supported) with the fastest Mac system available for the same price or less"
Yup, my 286 just kills my G4! Kills, I tells ya! Ok, enough sarcasm. But seriously, PPC/Apple performance more or less wipes Wintel performance in all real life tests and/or ancedotes. Now WinAmd is a bit better, but I think I'm the first to even mention AMD, so blah!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
If "Open Hardware" is defined as "Any platform for which no single component is available only from one vendor", the only current platform that meets this criteria are x86 boxes. (OSes, CPUs, BIOS/mobos, RAM, drives, etc, available from multiple sources/vendors). Since you can't build an OS/X box without buying stuff from Apple, it doesn't run on "Open Hardware". (You might be able to make a PPC box that means the "Open Hardware" definition, but I don't believe it could run OS/X)
I can't support any OS that doesn't run on "Open Hardware". Linux runs on virtually everything. OS/X is just another example of Apple insisting that all primary hardware must be bought from them. If you take Apple's position to it's logical conclusion there should be only ONE computer company. This is somewhat like the old (pre 90s) IBM attitude, except that Apple has not been successful enough to wind up in anti-trust court.
Why do people insist on pointless bitching, btw, about KDE and Gnome generally sucking?
Because not all of us are willing to invest countless nights until the machine works. I recall Suse 6.3 asking me what RAM-DAC would be on my S3-graphics adapter shortly before I reformatted (guess why). (The old P1-133 is now an NT4-server.) Then I remember those 6 or 7 hours it took to get ISDN running at a different machine - with the help of someone who uses Linux all the time. No, thanks.
In short: if you want it to simply run and to do so quickly and easily, and if you're not experienced already - don't use Linux, wait until it's managable and more user-friendly.
Microsoft-Software may not be tested before it ships, but from my experience I'd say Linux is not even completely written when it ships. You finish it yourself, editing tons of .rc-files etc.
So what does Gome / KDE lack? Controlpanel? Decent printing? Working drag & drop / copy & paste? OK, it's been a while since I looked at Linux, but at that time it was a pain in the ... you get the idea.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't fully understand the deep inner workings of OSes, but it seems to me that someone could just come along and modify Mach/Darwin to work on another PPC system, and then the Aqua UI, which is propritary, would still run on top of it.
Jason Haas of LinuxPPC hinted at an open standard for PPC motherboards in a recent /. article. What is to stop IBM from producing cheap PPC motherboards with fast G3 and G4(without Altivec, which is Motorola exclusive) processors.
It seems to me that this might once again open the doors for cloners, without Apple having to support each individual hardware setup. You can get your own customized version of Mach/Darwin for your hardware, and if you want it, for $130, you can get a professionally crafted UI, and the ability to run large ammounts of existing Mac software.
This seems like a much better cloning setup than Apple had before. Cloners would not have to wait for Apple to support new hardware, and Apple would not have to bear the development costs for many different varieties of PPC hardware. People can opt for the cheaper clone hardware that may be more difficult to set up, or go for the more costly, fully integrated setups from Apple (like the iMac, which is a great machine for the casual user).
Am I out of my skull?
--
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
The generalizations I made in my post are based on my experience. I have met a lot of Jewish people in my life and I truly believe that Jews in general are talented, smart, hard-working and determined. They are successful in many aspects of life. You may ask 'Are they special?' Probably, they are. In my opinion, success is what Jews are hated for.
I cannot possibly say that they are cheap or have big noses.
I think I know why people like you hate Jews - out of envy towards them. Jews are talented, smart, and hence successful. They do not waste their time on posting such garbage.
Many great points have been made in regards to who the target market is. OS X is targeting MAC users who want the power of UNIX. If users want UNIX they run a big work horse like Solaris..etc, if they want to run UNIX on an x86 they most likely go for Linux,BSD,etc. and now if they have a mac or mac server then can get all the thrills of UNIX with out even switching hardware. This actually means great things for not only Linux but UNIX too. Not only would it be great to pull more server to Linux away from the evil monster, im not going to mention any names Ill just refer to them as MS . Whether someone is running Linux, BSD, OSX, or Solaris, its a big step for UNIX users all over and not too mention a peice of Market share away from the "darkside" of OSs *cough* windows *cough*. Linux is not for everybody, which is alosy why we have many forms of UNIX not too mention even sub breeds of Linux. I think OS X will be a big step into getting a UNIX based environment onto the desktop of home users (non-techies) and end users. As more people fall in love with UNIX over windows it makes it even more appealing for them to also want to install Linux onto their home x86 systems.
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
MacOS has been $99 for as long as I can remember. At least for 8.0 > 9.1.
Look on outpost.com or something like that. It's all there.
All your base are belong to us! You are on the way to destruction!
What do 90% of Windows users do with 90% of their time? Office, of course! When Office for MacOS X is released, I'll probably abandon Windows. I'll probably devote less time to using Linux because it will be rather pointless for me to continue using it when I can do everything I need to do with a Mac. If someone gets Office for MacOS X to run on Linux, I might switch to Linux exclusively. (In my experience, WINE,etc. don't work well enough to be the solution.) Here is the link.
For a silly question this has really turned up some of the most interesting answers that I have seen for a while.
Perhaps you could give a coherent answer?
I didn't pay for my operating system either
Other than that, I found it difficult to understand what your comment actually meant.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
I wasn't entirely serious about picking up behavior from Slashdot ;)
I didn't pay for my operating system either
You're right about the pointless bitching. I picked up the habit reading people here complain about how Windows is unreliable and buggy. I don't use KDE or Gnome, nor do I know enough about UI design, to make constructive criticism. All I know is that it feels horrid to me, the user.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
That's great! It's really what Gnome and KDE have been missing for the past few years.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
MCSE helps close this gap, at least in the Windows world, by giving everyone a basic understanding of the architecture.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
I still think Gnome and KDE lag far behind the Windows and Mac desktops. And the Mac desktop is - at last - going to leapfrog the Windows desktop in terms of stability and prettiness.
Mind you, Mac hardware is still awfully expensive for what it is, so unless Apple are going to port Mac OS X onto PCs there may still be some ray of hope.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
A situation that's unlikely to change until there's some form of Linux certification. Businesses aren't run on the vaporware hopes of hackers.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
This is absurd. Why is /. replaying the same storyline day after day about the snake eating its tail even when they aren't even from the same species.
The verdict from developers and the press is completely out on the impact of OS X and for a UNIX advocacy site to be prematurely suggesting the demise of LinuxPPC through its reportage is shameful.
Slashdot needs a better editorial review before it kills the community which it is trying to serve.
Get a grip guys clickthroughs aren't everything.
-- steadistone.com
You would think so, but a quick check of Apple's website about OSX apps says otherwise. Check it out, if you're skeptical. http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/index.htm l
-says a mac user looking hard at linux
Isnt this the same question people ask about the amiga? When it comes to stablity and usefulness, linux will still be around, hell maybe this is what linux needs to stay powerful but in the background. I liked linux better when it was daddys little secret
Sorry to correct you, but the free MacOS stopped with 7.5.5. Not a stable OS, but Free. From then on the OS versions cost about 129$, also the MacOS X version. which is okay for a good stable OS, and you don't have to register each copy. At least, that is what happened with the beta. Everyone interested in OS X could use mine, and now 5 macs working with it.
Even after 3 years of iMacs, 5 years of internet booming, 2 years of CD_RW and ZIP's, people are craving for a floppy! You cannot put ANYTHING on a floppy these days, moron!! Not even a Word document which is a bit thicker than one sheet. get a life, get a new computer
it needs proprietary, expensive hardware its not open source expensive vs free same functionality (at best) If i want a BSD kernel i'll install *BSD, thank you very much - and if people are looking for eye-candy, fuck of to M$ I know my choice. ivo
I have been using OSX beta on my G4 for a few months. I also run Linux/PPC on it. Linux runs much better, and the aqua interface of OSX sucks once you get beyond the eye candy. I will keep both linux and OSX on my G4 even after the final release of OSX.
"A UNIX-based OS that XFree86, the GIMP, Apache, etc. run on, and is easy to use and maintain for a beginner" When the Linux/Open Source craze started, it seemed like it was going to eradicate the corporate OSs, now it seems more likely Open Source will infect them and take them over. Chris Nappi
as a die hard macintosh user, and a beginning linux user, i can safely say that OS X will have it's place, and linux will have it's place. I am currently running a linux build on a power mac 6100/60, something i could never do with OS X. OS X is promising to those of use who have been with the mac platform for years, as it will breath new life into the platform, and revitalize, but it certainly won't take the place of unices already in place.
"Real Geeks use text editors"
NeXT failed due to price and poor marketing. With hardware that had a price tag of $5000-$10000, it was never going to be a consumer success. Despite this failure, cocoa is an excellent API, and NeXTStep and excellent OS (just like Be ;) )
Apple stands a better chance of making this work for them now where companies like NeXT and Be failed for the following reasons: numbers and marketing. Apple may not have as many users as, say, MS does. However a 5,000,000 machine base does speak to companies, and people *will* develop programs with mass appeal on it.
NeXT didn't fail because the technology was bad - NeXT failed because of losing on the business end. Of course, Apple can blow this one as well, but I think they have a better chance right now than NeXT ever had.
"They have it, we want it. Mac OS X on the Intel platform." as they say at http://www.osxonintel.com.
Wanna have OS X on your intelbox? Go to OS X on Intel .com and sign a petition that some day will be sent to Apple. They already have some 23000 signatures and the numbers is growing all the time :)
I'm a Mac user my self, but I think PC users should be given a chance too.
Personally, I think this is great. I've used Linux for 8 years now. Competition is good for a marketplace and Microsoft certainly doesn't offer any competition.
I just thought it might be nice to point out ESR's articles on this matter (that is why the Linux community is so successful compared to proprietary software).
I believe, IMHO, that Linux can only grow from this new challenge.
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PHP, it kicks ASP!
oh wait.
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Windows NT is not a server OS, because it requires decent hardware, a fair ammount of RAM, and has an ugly GUI.
I'd say there's no question that Windows NT competes with Linux. Maybe not in your minds - using Windows as a server is unthinkable - but look what percentage of Web sites is being served by IIS. A PowerMac G3 might seem like a ridiculous hardware requirement to you, but if you're setting up a new machine and buying new hardware anyway, Mac OS X can certainly run on an $800 iMac; would you buy something cheaper to run WinNT?
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
In other words, the current situation is heavily monopolised and doesn't represent a market in any normal sense. _Any_ additional player getting a larger share legitimises the very concept of 'additional player'.
The more OSX out there, the more plausible the concept of 'well I have an x86 already, how about I run Linux?'. The more Linux out there, the more plausible the concept of 'if I'm already not running Windows maybe I want something real slick'. Sort of a mutual feedback thing.
It's not very useful, and it's not what anyone *means* when they say linux, but "GNU/Linux" is a technically correct label for the linux kernel and the GNU utilities.
On the other hand, when we say "Linux," we usually mean either
a) the kernel, or
b) the kernel, and the usual collection of things from a gaggle of different sources (X, bsd, sendmail, perl, and a gaggle of others including GNU).
Oh, and it's the bsd utilities, of which GNU has an implementation, that
we're in love with, not the GNU versions themselves. Many of us prefer the non-GNU versions (and particularly the real documentation instead of that wretched info system . .
hawk
This has been one of my back-burner issues that I've just never gotten around to. (Among other things, it's easier to just install FreeBSD :). Are there instructions around for this somewhere?
hawk, who thinks the -- from the -- options should be violently thrust through those who inflict them upon us, and wants the man pages for mkdir and rmdir to reflect that the lenght of their names is a long-standing bug
Of course Apple's preference will differ. See, you don't spend any ca$h money on software, and are probably going to keep running on x86 anyway. Any software you write you are going to insist on open sourcing, and you're going to write it for other programmers, not artists and secretaries. And when I say artists, I don't mean web page geeks running GIMP, I mean people who spent 6 years at Fine Art school and think that computers are either at best a necessary evil, or of no more importance than an easel and a paintbrush, like many of the Mac users I know.
From a commercial perspective, you don't exist to them.
Which is why serious software users get escrow licenses from their vendors, and have done so for decades.
There is a chance for OSX to have some impact on the number of Linux users, or number of potential users. It depends on the location - is it going to be a place who thinks "Why buy that when I can download something for free to do the same thing?" - they'll go with Linux. Or is it going to be a place that thinks "Why try to put some free stuff together, when I can buy it from a bigname company and get their backing?" - they'll go with OSX.
Does OSX run on Intel? If not, then it'll be even less of an impact, as I don't see people buying G4's to put Linux on them (I'd like to, but we're talking about large volumes). If it does run on Intel, then MS has more to fear than Linux people would because the Mac people would be able to directly steal machines away from MS.
Any way you slice it, people who want to use Linux will not change. People who want to use Mac's will not change. People who want to use Windows will not change. There will be a minor handful who are in limbo about what they want to use, or have no say in what they use.
Oh yeah - Coke also makes water - Dasani.
I believe by installer he was talking about the "RedHat installer" or "debian installer" etc...not the install program you can use for installing your apps (ie. InstallShield).
While Windows may have some nasty library dependincies like you mentioned, I don't recall the last time I had a problem under Windows with library problems.
With Linux apps I pull down, everything seems to want every other library out there it can think of to be installed to run/compile. And those libraries that are required in turn want some other libraries.
While this problem may be true for Windows, a great job has been done to hide that.
Linux - I wanna install GIMP. IIRC, I need GTK+, GLIB, ImLib, LibJPEG, LibGIF, LibTIFF, LibPNG, and a lot more. And if I just downloaded an RPM of Gimp, I need to make sure I have all of those, and the correct versions. And if I grabbed the source, which is awsome to do, then I have to have all the development versions built.
Windows - I wanna install Photoshop. I check the options I want and click Next and I'm done. I don't know or care what it needed.
Yes, the "everyone shove stuff in \system32 is scary, but this is a desktop machine, not a server.
It's already out. http://www.opensource.apple.com/
You can download darwin there, and it'll run on x86. But I was running Rhapsody, their Crossplatform environment beta on a x86 machine over a year ago. I still have the CD. I assume that Rhapsody eventually became OS X, and they just cut x86 support.
Joseph Elwell.
Apple/Mac will always have their niche ... but the reason Microsoft and Linux exist is because of cheap x86 hardware. And as far as I can tell [cue up your Beatles CD] it's getting cheaper all the time.
RFC2119
Suddenly, you have an OS that does everything Linux does and can even run Linux binaries (thanks to BSD Linux-binary compatibilty)
Actually, MOSX *would* run LinuxPPC binaries if it actually used the ELF ABI (application binary interface), which is not the case.
MOSX runs Mach-O (I *hate* this name), XCOFF and PEF (itself an extension of XCOFF) binaries.
Mind you, someone could write an ELF loader and use that to load LinuxPPC binaries--something that could easilly be added to Darwin. I actually have such code (for which I claim no credits).
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
I can't count how many times I've been asked something like this now. Nor can I count how many times I've said this:
;-)
Linux is not going away.
LinuxPPC isn't going away, either.
Linux ON PowerPC definitely isn't going away.
Take your typical Mac user. They probably got the machine because it was easier for them to use and manage than a Windows box. They may do things like use PageMaker, Photoshop, Kid Pix, or play some games. Surf the net. This is the typical Mac user to me.
When they're done with their Mac, they shut it down, and go into a different room, where they watch what their TiVo just recorded. They don't know it, but they're using Linux. On a PowerPC.
The TiVo is my favorite example of how Linux is slowly, quietly infiltrating our lives, but not being noticed. Most people don't know the TiVo is running Linux/PPC. But it is! OS X coming out will not make the TiVo go away.
Then there's the traditional Linux/PPC markets. OS X will share some of those. OS X runs really well on the G4. But what if you have a lab with 20 Power Mac 9500s? You can't install OS X on them. But you can install LinuxPPC. Buy one CD, install 20 times. You won't be charged 20 times for that.
Use the Beowulf software on the Extras CD, make them a cluster. Will Beowulf be included with OS X? I doubt it.
Just because OS X is coming, Linux is not leaving. And whenever OS X actually does ship, I'll send Steve Jobs a telegram. Maybe it'll say "C:\\ONGRTLNS."
Haaz: Co-founder, LinuxPPC Inc., making Linux for PowerPC since 1996.
-- haaz.
(This is the second time this has been on Slashdot. Let's make it the last. :)
;-)
Everyone is saying "Will OS X make Linux go away?" No one is asking "How can Linux and OS X help each other?"
Look at what's happening. UNIX is taking over the PowerPC OS market. AIX, Linux, and Mac OS X are all UNIX-based. Windows NT for PPC stopped being made years ago. That leaves "classic" OS X, and proprietary embedded systems. And you can count SoftWindows, I guess.
OS X and Linux/PPC are both UNIX-based systems running on the same processor. We should take advantage of that, not bemoan the potential fate of Linux.
Not going away,
Haaz: Co-founder, LinuxPPC Inc., making Linux for PowerPC since 1996.
-- haaz.
Thanks, but I read it first on slashdot :-)
Yes. A modern BSD kernel rather then the Mach microkernel with the monolithic BSD single server on top of it. Which is a pretty damm old BSD kernel (older then FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD and BSD/OS -- not older then the kernels, but older then them!). It is nice that there is a new layer of things to let the FreeBSD device drivers to slip in without too much trubble though.
A modern Linux kernel would probbably be better then the mach kernel, but I don't have enough Linux experiance to say for sure.
It's not that there is anything stunningly wrong with Mach, just that it has seen way less work over the last 8 years then any of the BSDs (and they started at about the same place), or Linux (which Mach started out ahead of).
That is, of corse, assuming that the WINE hooks, or SCO hooks, or other other OS hooks are enough to cram Classic into a BSD or Linux.
If you ditched the NextStep menus and went with Mac style ones that would be pretty decent. But this is a lot better for getting older Mac users not to be intensly upset about OSX.
The dock isn't bad, but I miss the quick-bar, and I only used OS9 for a week! (Prior to that I has used whatever MacOS came before the first color Mac!).
I've been waiting for someone to do a "drool proof Unix" for a lot longer then five years. I'm supprised it is Apple, and pleased too. (I can't count NeXT because I never had admin on one, and can't say how drool proof that part was -- at least if it was actually first I'm only delaying it's credit to recognise it now as OSX...)
Where to start?
OSX PB is time limited, but you get to refund it's price vs. the OSX release price. Not the worlds best deal, but not a total rip off.
All the older apps I rand under OSX ran just fine (it started up "Classic" which is almost certonally a modifyed OS 9). In fact other people have reported running 68000 programs like MacDraw 0.8 under Classic. Oh, and for anyone who has never seen it run to start an old app "under Classic" you put the mouse over it and click twice (or click on a document associated with it), if "Classic" isn't running it starts automatically (but slowly), then your old app starts, and you are thrown into a world of the past (the old nice task switcher is back and all). You can click on your new apps to get back. Not the best thing in the world, but pretty easy.
I have seen an app that didn't work right under Classic. Apple's own iMovie got a bad aspect ratio and was gennerally unplesent. I hope it is fixed for the release (in twoish months). Hell I hope there is a new public beta next week and iMovie works under it!
Of corse it takes a lot from old systems. It is NeXT after all. And better off for it. mostly. It is a shame they are using the Mach kernel. The network stack needs work. I have to down/up the ethernet every once in a while to keep it running. Sometimes I have to flush the arp cache. I hope that gets fixed in the release too.
Still under OS9 the mac crashed three times or more a day. Under OSX in three weeks I have had one panic. A few application crashes (actually a lot if you count some of the repetable ones I tracked down, but I was looking for the source of the crash). Zero hangs. Zero failure to un-sleep (it is on a laptop). Two or three "system getting slower and slower because the window system and/or finder looks like it is leaking memory" where logging out and in again made things "all better".
Not the kind of quality I would hope for in a Unix desktop, but far far far better then the old Mac OS, or Windows. And I can allways hope it gets better in the release.
Name 10 people in your direct vicinity that use Windows wissler right now. Tell me that hunk of crap won't be mainstream within six months of release.
I fully expect Apple to be the biggest Unix seller by volume (not dollars!) when OSX gets bundled with all new Macs ("this summer"). Is that mainstream? Well Apple has a pretty low desktop share, and OSX will take a while to help it. It'll sure be mainstream for video editing systems though, and people who shoot comercials digitally, and some other markets. It'll sure deserve the mainstream more then Windows. And until Linux/FreeBSD/whatever gets a nice candy coated shell that my mom can use, it'll deserve the mainstream more then the other Unix systems as well.
Be done with DAVE (if by that you mean, as I suspect is the case, Thursby Software's DAVE) for people using it as an SMB server, that is. For people using DAVE as a client, you'd need to have something like the smbfs for FreeBSD ported to MacOS X. (I don't know how hard it is to port a FreeBSD file system to the MacOS X kernel; I'm assuming here that it'd be easier than porting the Linux smbfs.)
Yes, certainly, but you are wasting a lot less of it by not taking over the whole screen, which is what the current X solutions do.
This will allow any X program to run on the Mac (and will probably allow remote X applications to appear in windows on the Aqua screen, too).
Even with this, I would expect ported toolkits to produce faster and more reliable code.
I don't see OS X as a "threat" to Linux. Either the poster is trolling for responses, trying to turn UNIX against UNIX, or generally hasn't thought this through.
.dll's I know...)
Apple went to BSD for one major reason: to keep the Mac RELEVENT. Apple was under pressure to go next-gen in their OS. It *could* have been the NT kernel... they gave it serious consideration. Rumor was Bill threw one of his famous tantrums when Apple dissed him for the BSD kernel.
BSD does not require Apple to give back code to the community -- yet Apple does exactly this with Apache and others. This allows Apple to transition to "semi-free" OS status, while they make whatever plans they have for the future. This tells me Steve Jobs "gets it", even if he doesn't do what WE would want him to do, like make a damn QuickTime for Linux client. Thanks to AVIPLAY, the Microsoft Media stuff is one of the best multimedia technologies on Linux (yeah, it's just wine thunking evil MS
Apple at this point gets to ride the coattails of the free software revolution. I say more power to 'em... Linux is not that polished yet, and even when it's close, the hardware still needs to be managable also.
SO... had OS X been out 18 months ago when I had my Mac, I may have not dug into Linux quite as much.
Now tho, when I look at the new Macs, I think "what GREAT LinuxPPC boxes they would make... NO fans!!".
"Good artists borrow, Great artists steal.."
;)
If anything nice UI/system wise with OSX, OSS OSes and GUIs will simply steal them and make them part of the coollective. I _like_ the enlargement of the *nix ecosphere, and I think it'll be a suitable kick in the ass to competing GUI environments to get them to interoperate and improve..
(Jobs stole that quote BTW
Your Working Boy,
Huh? What makes you say that? Based on the massive and incredible innovation going on now in GNU/Linux?
If you ignore the under-the-hood changes that the kernel hackers have been working on that make the Linux kernel so nice and fast (which may or may not be innovative -- I'm not enough of a propellerhead to know), the past 9 or so years of GNU/Linux development has been catchup to the current state of Unix in general (here I'm thinking Solaris, HP/UX, IRIX).
Netatalk and Samba are great, but what are they? Reverse engineering of protocols ages old.
Gnome? KDE? Very nice toolkits for building apps -- almost as good as Openstep, which is what -- 9 years old itself? And not nearly as easy to learn and use as Hypercard (15 years old now?)
StarOffice, Applix -- WYSIWYG document editing is 1984 technology, man. The Gimp? Photoshop, late '80s.
Apache? Well, now you're talking -- the Free Software/Open Source poster child sets the standard for fast, reliable web serving -- but Linux hackers didn't make Apache. Apache hackers did. For Unix in general, not Linux.
Linux is great, no doubt -- though I'm a BSD guy myself -- but it's not innovative, but derivative. That's not a slam -- MS got to where it is today by being a company that excels in making derivative products. It's hard to be innovative when you're still trying to get the basics down (remember Malda on "Geeks in Space" gushing over antialiased fonts in X? Crikey, it's been around for YEARS on the Mac...)
Your primary argument (i.e., Linux will always be around) is absolutely true. My difference in opinion is that Linux hackers will be the cauldron from which will spring the Next Big Thing.
(Please notice that I do not think that collaborative programming, "Open Source programming", is the fault nor a bad thing. The method by which Linux is derived is not the issue, just the fact that Linux is still in the catch-up phase)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
... and this is why you're just now getting anti-aliased fonts in X. And why half of your programs will support it, and half won't.
It's an engineering trade-off. You get flexibility and freedom, you lose concurrency with the state-of-the-art.
(when I state-of-the-art, I mean things like Quicktime/RealPlayer/IE 5.5 not loadable kernel modules)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
I also just bought a Dual-G4/450 box, after aeons (i.e. a couple of Major versions) of running Linux on Intel hardware, and I absolutely love it. I'd have to say that OS-X on G4's is pretty much a must-have for any serious geek. The hardware is wonderful, the SMP support on OS-X is far beyond Linux 2.2 (I haven't tried 2.4 SMP, so I can't comment there), and as the previous poster points out, OSX is *beautiful*.
...
That said, I also intend to get myself another Linux box at some point to do things like CPU-work and as a disk-server. Apple hardware is both too expensive and too pretty to be something you stick in a closet. I actually would say that I see OSX *helping* linux in the long run, because it gives UNIX a port-of-entry to the desktop world. Eventually, I see it as being both desirable and trivial to use Linux boxes as server and cpu-farms for large Apple installations. MS has announced that Office will be ported to OSX, as will Alias|Wavefronts Maya, my favorite program of all time. The apps will be there, and there's no good reason Linux can't be the NFS/WWW/Whatever server for them.
And, while I respect the work of the GNOME folk (sorry, KDE still makes me shudder), they are very far behind the Aqua desktop, and will be for quite some time. The combination of the OpenStep dev environment with the Apple UI engineers has created a work of beauty, IMHO, and having things like live Quicktime video feeds sitting behind tcsh just makes me smile every time.
In summary, I'd think that any UNIX-lover out there should welcome the arrival of a very advanced UNIX environment (open-source of a kind, no less) with a very advanced GUI environment on top. This only bodes well for UNIX in general
"Images are incapable of repose." - Bachelard
I suppose the real question is "if it's undergone professional usability testing, what professionals tested it who didn't kick and scream about the single-mouse-button issue?" These "professionals" obviously don't have the same ideas I do. *grin* I honestly don't care one way or the other which OS pummels Windoze. I just want at least one of them to do it. Why do people insist on pointless bitching, btw, about KDE and Gnome generally sucking? Why not instead suggest improvements in a non-flamebait way? Instead of saying "Well for one thing you could catch up with Windows!" why not explain what the !@#$ you actually mean? Are you complaining that Gnome and KDE don't look exactly like Windows? Are you complaining that they don't have a "Start" button (I know they have their own equivalents -- I mean the word "Start" which apparently some people can't live without :)? Do you dislike the way the window manager behaves? Choice is a wonderful thing, particularly when it goes beyond picking a theme.
Of course, you could change window managers. Or try configuring the window manager. Or switch to the other environment (KDE -> Gnome or Gnome -> to KDE). Or you could just ditch both and run Enlightenment standalone (hehehe), where you can literally alter how everything looks (or whether it even appears) and how everything behaves.
The Mac is built on some wonderful hardware. Expensive, but wonderful stuff. But bloody hell, can we PLEASE get past this one-button fixation? Sure, you can stick on a different mouse, but what do you do with a notebook? I'm not about to whip out an external mouse on a bus ride :)
Read my stuff.
Eazel also has professional usability testers. In fact, just last week Andy Hertzfield gave a presentation of Nautilus to a room full of user interface experts at a BayCHI meeting because Eazel is trying to hire more usability experts.
Eazel is trying to make the Gnome inerface to Linux seriously cool and seriously usable. I hope they give Apple some competition because MacOS X still seems to need it.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Hogwash. I'm with Linux partly because I like Linux, but mainly because it's free. And both the "free beer" and "free speech" issues matter to me alot. Apple has shown some willingness to head towards both kinds of free, but an equally clear unwillingness to go all the way, and you still have to buy their ugly, overpriced hardware.
And I realize the "ugly" part is just my personal opinion and, plainly, others see that differently.
But don't think that means that OS X isn't something to be reckoned with -- and learned from.
That OS X can be learned from is a valid point, and a good one at that. That OS X or any Apple product is "something to be reckoned with" is just nonsense. Apple was a force to be reckoned with once and only once, and despite their abortive comeback attempt, their internal culture makes it impossible for them to gain more than a small fraction of the market no matter how good their products are or aren't. IBM has a similar permanent blind spot in its marketing department.
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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
In essence, if you want a Unix-style desktop environment, why wouldn't you stick with Linux or xBSD, rather than trying to graft one on top of an environment that's obviously been built to have the Mac front end on it?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
> khttpd is just a toy for static content. Tux holds the world's record for fastest SPECWEB performance.
I would be interested in seeing SPECWEB results for Cheetah, which runs atop the MIT exokernel. It's amazing what you can do when you run the whole webserver on the bare metal.
God, I love being downrated by all these penguinistas. -2, Not Party Line. Might even be fair if it weren't for the fact that the same abuse directed at Microsoft gets modded up.
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
(Walks up to the podium, large briefcase in hand)
(Opens the briefcase, pulls out a sheaf of papers and transparency slides.)
(Erases what's on the whiteboard, and flips a flipchart to a fresh page.)
(Clears his throat, steps up to the microphone)
MacOS does not run on Intel.
(Walks away)
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Didn't anybody see this article posted on Slashdot several weeks ago? It basically concludes that if a user switched to LinuxPPC because OS 9 lacked a feature, and MacOS X now includes that feature, it's quite likely that they will switch back. And yes, OS X is a very significant threat to LinuxPPC.
It is hard not to get hooked on the design of the G4 - even opening the box is an experience, courtesy of Master Showman Steve Jobs.
Using a Mac fixes the most serious long-standing problems with Linux:
* You have mainstream applications - X-native versions of Word, Photoshop, Illustrator, professional video editing software, etc, etc are all coming.
* It's a thing of beauty. Nobody can accuse X of being an aesthetic delight; even the Enlightenment window manager doesn't help as much as I would have hoped.
The main disadvantages are a reliance on pricey hardware and the lack of an open source GUI environment. But if you're more interested in getting work done than tampering with the GUI, that's fine. And if you consider that normally you would have to buy a Windows system and a Linux machine to do development, and with MacOS X you can ditch Windows entirely and run everything off one box, well, net-net you're probably spending about the same. And the hardware is really, really nice.
So I would say yes, MacOS X does threaten the Linux market share. Granted, not to a great extent, since most people don't want to pay for Apple hardware. But I hardly ever use my Linux machine at home anymore; I've switched to my shiny new Apple dual G4/450 under MacOS X, and I'm happy as a clam so far.
D
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Go to http://store.apple.com and select cheapest possible system, then load it up with memory and disk on your own.
:-(.
I thought of doing that for my dual G4/450, but rumours of lousy Apple Store service stopped me, so I bought the standard package from a local store.
Unfortunately, I belive you can no longer upgrade cheapest possible to the highest end processor - they are reserving the 733mhz for the high-end systems
For MacOS X, the consensus among Macheads is that you should probably get the dual G4/533 for $2,500 instead of the G4/733 for $3,500 unless you need the DVD burner - the cheaper system will be faster under X.
D
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Even Microsoft is having trouble getting some vendors to write drivers and applications for anything other than Windows 9X/ME.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I tried Linux a while back, but it was too much hassle at the time, so I grudgingly went back to Windoze. Been meaning to give another go at it now that various folks have been working on making it less of a hassle, but haven't gotten around to it.
Now I've been reading up on Macs and especially MacOS X. A slick GUI on top of a *nix core looks real good to me, and what the hell, it's time for new hardware, anyway.
I dunno how common people like me are, but I bet I'm not unique.
And my point was that all this too will be availabe to OS X users as well. Java wiull be FULLY integrated into the OS, or so I hear. GNUStep will probabley run there as well as the variety of other tool kits.
If you have ever used PowerBuilder or VC, you'd see why noone could have been successful doing something like this on UNIX. People who use UNIX tend to want 'fast' & quick and clean and neither of these tools worked that way. VC requires about 128 Meg of RAM to operate 'okay'. Powerbuilder does okay with 32.
I'm not knocking Linux, I like it and use it every day. But I think that OS X actually presents a threat to M$ more than Linux. All the UNIX programs would be easy to port to OS X rather than Windows, especially if they are POSIX compliant. Personally I am looking forward to checking out OS X. For me, someone who does not want to care about all the underpinnings of an OS, but wants the stability I have only seen in UNIX liks OS's (i.e. not windows), this may be a third option. And so what if it cost 3 grand. Many people spend that on top of the line PC's.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Yellowbox/Openstep). How is it that a former OS that basically failed (mostly due to Steve Jobs, no fault of the OS) being reincarnated as MacOS X and having basically the same development tools as before is a "find"?
In terms of market acceptance, Nextstep and openstep failed. In terms of delivering an excellent product, both the OS and the development tools/framework were quite successful. Small software shops did some pretty amazing things thanks to the productivity allowed to them by the platform.
I expect the same thing to happen here -- the market will probably overlook some of the incredible tools available. But that doesn't make Cocoa any less excellent.
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Tweet, tweet.
Um, how exactly is this *offtopic*? This is talking about a reason not to switch to OS X from Linux -- namely that darwin hasn't found its way into most autoconfiguration schemes, and so you can't easily compile things for it.
OS X and Linux and their relative merits really should be part of the threads here, right?
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Tweet, tweet.
Yes, there are a lot of others, like you. But I'm not one of them. Then again, I'm the exception because I know what I'm doing with Linux. Trouble is, not everyone does; certainly not the unwashed masses (e.g. office workers). Windows has become ubiquitous. Some people don't even know that they are running one of a choice of operating systems. Sure, it crashes every now and then. But that's mostly if you leave it on 24x7, and most office workers and home users don't.
Linux does have a lot of things to change to make it even viable where Windows reins. And geeks are unlikely to use those tools (I know I won't), so it will be hard for us to make things like that. I shun the GUI in favor of the CLI myself. My main worry, though, is that someone will come along and solve this for Linux, and it will get popular, but that they will do this in a way that breaks its usability for the geeks (we'll have our own version, of course). For example, they might change the format of configuration storage so that their new tools are the only way to configure and that would be bad. But it is the mentality. Where it all goes remains to be seen. But all the points are valid; Linux, today, isn't what the masses are prepared to handle.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As long as I have my command line and my text editor, I have no system administration problem. Of course that only means there will not be a total shift to OS X on that basis. But I can also say I won't use whatever KDE or Gnome come up with for system administration, either. The big reason is I already have most of it scripted to automatically get the information from the sources I want it to get it from. What KDE, Gnome, and Eazel could do for the masses, though, is shield them from having to worry about becoming a system administrator for their desktop. But I can't see myself administering 100 remote servers in diverse locations with those tools.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"You are in a maze of twisty messages all alike."
Suddenly, you are confronted by a greasy Troll, screaming enthusiastically, if a bit incoherently, about Natalie Portman pouring hot grits down someones pants, and wielding a large, tranluscent blue computer mouse with only one button.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Just a note on one of those. In KDE 2.x it is as simple as browsing smb:\\ to do samba work. I think you can cross that one off your list. Every single smb app before this time has had you set up a million options before even browsing. apluase for the kde team.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I mean, really.. what exactly is that supposed to mean?
Threatening what.. it userbase? Linux isn't a company who can have it's profits taken away by a competing OS.
Threatening development? Most true good development under linux easily ports to or from other unices... unix is unix....
Threatening... a bunch of linux startup profits? Who cares... linux exists solely because people want it to exist, and for no other reason... linux will only die out when people no longer find great reason to use it..
It always struck me as odd how people like to contrast linux -vs- windows like it a competition.. or linux -vs- other unices.. it not a competition... it just linux doing it's thing, because that's what it's users want.
Whats to stop M$ from releasing W2K for the G4 the following quarter?
That's worth a laugh or two. NT used to run on PPC, Alpha and MIPS R4x00. Used to. All these platforms were dropped for financial reasons (no sales), but now there are some serious technical chalenges to port them back. Don't think that MS could do it in a quarter, or even a year. How is 64bit Win2000 coming? How about Win2k for Itanium?
MS Office really is the trump card. Perhaps the recent announcement was a sign that Apple has indicated to MS that it will not release OSX on intel for some time.
look, an iMac comes with a 350mhz g3 with 64megs of ram. on pricewatch, you can get a 1ghz pIII system, complete, with twice as much RAM for $804. And please don't tell me that clock for clock a g3 (g3, not g4) is three times as fast as a pIII. For $1499 I could get a 1ghz micron PC. The iBook looks like a god damn toliet seat, so I won't even get into that... and as for comparing anything to a sony on price, well, they are a company that dosn't even pretend to charge more money based on their brand name.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Bit dubious.
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
I don't think "most linux boxes" is a valid count. Years ago I was arguing the toss over making linux a desktop OS and, in particular, letting hordes of wailing newbies loose at it and the degenerate GUI-dependence that'll ensue.
As far as I'm concerned, "most linux boxes" is a concept from that arena, and they can all go to pot.
Datapoint: of my 4 main linux boxes, 1 dual-boots into the dark side of the Force, and that's all. And with better support for the Psion 5mx in the open-source world, I'd be 100% M$loth-Free.
MacOS on PPC won't let you do that, of course; but then we're not talking MacOS here, we're talking MacOS-X or Linux/PPC. If you can run MOL, you can run MacOS 9 on linux, you can run the Windoze emulator in MOL, you can run windoze on your powerbook. That's the theory, anyway: why I've not done it is plain simple, I can't be arsed and don't have any need, but don't let that stop you.
~Tim
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~Tim
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Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Agreed. People using Linux are typically computer enthusiasts who want to work under the hood, or they are using it for business purposes. Or it's embedded in their VCR and they don't even know they're using it. OS X is targeted to the general computer user.
That being said, I do think some of the computer hobbyist types are going to be attracted to OS X. I remember drooling over the Next Cube (objective C, nextstep, display postscript) way back then, but couldn't afford one as a poor college student. Now OS X envy has me in firmly its clutches. Quartz looks very cool (though I admit I haven't seen the API) and it's a major factor for me, as much as I hate programming X. On the other hand, I loved using Interviews and hope Berlin gets some momentum and eventually replaces X Windows.
While Apple does support a lot more hardware than it did just a couple of years ago, it does not compare to what they would face in the PC market. Apple would have to be willing to sacrifice their PPC sales, enter a market where they will not control the hardware nor exclusively profit from it, and invest additional resources to support the new platform.
If Apple's previous dealing with the Mac clone companies are any example we will never see OS X for the x86.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Huh? SunOS (up through 4.x at least) was pretty strictly BSD-derived (e.g. 'ps auxww; shutdown -now'), although I believe System V style utilities were an installable option (under /usr/5bin). Whenever Sun pulled the Solaris name-change (SunOS 5.x = Solaris 2.x) is when they went to full System V (SVID) & POSIX compliance (e.g. 'ps -ef; shutdown -g0 -y -i6') although binaries under /usr/ucb retain the BSD semantics.
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
While Windows may have some nasty library dependincies like you mentioned, I don't recall the last time I had a problem under Windows with library problems.
As a user or a developer?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Insofar as MacOS X for x86 goes, I can't even consider it, because while it may exist somewhere in the catacombs beneath the Cupertino campus, There's no way it'll get out alive with Steve Jobs around. Good idea, bad idea... it's tragically irrelevant. With Steve at the helm, it's the way things are. Mac users have had to deal with Steve so often that we're almost jaded to the neat toys (very neat - why hadn't someone thought of the auto-xover ethernet before?) and resigned to the debatable decisions and brushed-steel interfaces.
I don't know that I'd call Macs expensive and slow (considering what you get), but I sort of agree with you.
You see, I've watched the BSDs since before I first installed Slackware from a big pile of floppy disks years ago. I -wanted- to use the BSDs, but I couldn't. At the time, I had a proprietary CD-ROM drive that's still not supported by anything but linux, and I was using IDE, which the BSDs didn't yet support. I used that machine until I got my 486 with a parallel-port zip drive that linux supported, but the BSDs didn't. Now, I'm running a dual-processor machine that only linux can use effectively.
Linux's real market is in getting more use out of existing hardware. With OSX, you're buying hardware to support the OS. With Linux, you're getting an OS for free that runs on whatever hardware you already have. I can buy a new Super-GX-Pro-64-Turbo-Mega graphics card, and if it's not supported yet, it will be next month. I can also pull my old 386sx out of the closet, and it'll be supported too. Nobody but Linux can do that.
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Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
...from Steve Jobs to spell serious trouble for Linux:
"Release Mac OS X for x86"
The Mach kernel is very cross-platform, and Apple already has Mac OS X running on x86 in their labs. Only minor tweaking and testing and the Word Of Jobs stand between it and shipping.
Will it happen? Depends on whether Motorola can deliver on faster CPUs. If not, Apple has no choice.
When Apple can justify the loss it will ensue by not selling some hardware versus the gain it will generate by further hardware market penetration, they will release an X86 version. It's simple business sense.
It's a little more complex than that. Apple is about the entire experience, not just individual parts of it. Jobs has said this time and time again. This is beyond business, this is what they do. Case in point: if some generic video card doesn't work on OSX86, it's Apple fault. This kind of thing doesn't mesh well with the brand.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
i say this alot to all my friends: use the OS/hardware combo that works the best for you.
being a CS student, i have to use a UNIX variant so i use linux most of the time, but windows 2000 for quake 3 team arena. and when it comes to doing a video for my housemates band, we jump over to our mac for iMovie.
i do think that OS X will threaten linux as well as *BSD, even as far as giving windows a run for it's money.
there is room for everyone and we NEED variety, god knows that using one system all the time is boring, and i don't really think that you can survive only knowing one system nowadays.
this is just my experience, family use macs, housemates use windows, CS crew use linux, gotta know them all.
peace
I've thought about what MacOS X could mean... a user-friendly UNIX.
But... the real threat is that MacOS X for Intel could turn Apple into a software company more akin to a linux distro vendor.
I don't think Apple can stall MacOS X for Intel for too long, and I belive that Apple even planned to provide a transition to Intel architecture.
Question is: what could MacOS X on Intel have to offer that users can't already get with Linux? Quicktime?!? A Window manager? An API?
The poster talks as if Linux already *has* the desktop. It doesn't. If Mac OS X is actually a better desktop system, so be it. This is supposed to be a meritocracy, right? Why do we have to fight OS X? Sure, we can borrow ideas from it if and where it is better...but if Linux is technically the wrong solution, why do you assume we need to push it? I don't like Apple as a company, but I applaud their work with OS X, BSD, and Open Source.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Mmm, well, I don't think SunOS can really be marked up as a BSD success, Solaris really isn't BSD (I lived through a SunOS to Solaris changeover). NeXT is a bit of a BeOS - nice idea, works well, but not adopted. BSD/OS I don't know - what is it?
I hope that OS-X *is* successful: it'll stop all the `What's the point of *BSD?' questions and the sourgrapes about Linux's success from the *BSD crowd.
Linux has had massive amounts of media attention dumped upon it in the last 18-24 months and is available for use on cheap-ass PCs that most companies were about to throw out.
Apple is still perceived as a dead or dying maker of overpriced, underperforming goofy-looking hardware which only works with a one-button, hockey-puck mouse. (Note that none of this is actually true...well, anymore.)
I love using Mac OS X, and I would enjoy seeing it deployed as widely as possible at work and in schools, but Apple has a very long and painful road ahead of it if it means to suck marketshare away from Linux, especially in businesses. Perhaps they could start by spending some of that USD4,000,000,000 in cash on better advertising?
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I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
If anything it's the other way around - by making their OS compatible with *NIX apps, it means that if the *NIX apps gain enough popularity on MacOS X, theres nothing to tie the user to the Mac platform, except for the excellence of Apple's hardware and OS.
This is exactly as it should be, and the availability of Linux on the Mac hasn't exactly hampered it's growth in the x86 market
I fail to see how the availability of another OS/hardware platform threatens Linux's existence one iota.
Arguably better OSes/hardware have been available for years, in the form of systems from SGI, Sun, Compaq, Microsoft, Apple, Amiga, Be and the rest.
MacOS X looks like a hundred bucks, and it should perform well on the expensive Apple systems that it will ship with. However, all that eye candy and custom engineering comes at the cost of performance and hefty support requirements for Apple.
Volume constraints mean that you can buy an x86 workstation that will wipe the floor in almost every performance category (excepting Altivec-optimised routines since SSE2 isn't widely supported) with the fastest Mac system available for the same price or less.
However, not everyone wants a huge, ugly beige space heater with a spaghetti tangle of wire hanging out the back that sounds like a 747 taking off every time its fired up on their desktop.
MacOS X is simply consumer NeXT, and time will tell if it will achieve any better success than the old-skool developer version.
And frankly, if its a better system in every way then Linux deserves to lose market share in favour of MacOS X, until it can compete effectively with it.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
The only reason for using Windows is playing (3D) games
>>>>>>>>>>
What planet *are* you living on? I suppose all the Photoshop, SAW, Cakewalk, ACID, 3D Studio, Office, etc, all have their own fully functional, OSS counterparts. In terms of apps, Linux only competes in the server market and light-weight home user market.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I like Linux because it runs on a computer I own. Like many ./ users, I run Pentium x86 system. Windows on one drive, Linux on the other. Linux is very convenient for me, because I can slowly replace my Windows applications with similar Linux Applications, WITHOUT replacing this big metal box on my desk.
I mean, those Apple Cubes are pretty & all; but I don't want to plunk down > $1000 for a new Box, simply because I like the OS.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
BTW, on what do you base your assumption that current apple hardware is "second rate" other than processor speed?
Processor performance and memory subsystem performance. Before last week, buying an Apple meant PC100 and off-die half-speed L2 cache. The move to PC133 might be ok, if it didn't signal that Macs won't have DDR for at least a year and, judging by their past behavior, probably longer.
While we're at it, Apple has constantly been behind the times in I/O standards (ever since they abandoned SCSI that is) as well: late to PCI, late to AGP, late to AGP4x, late to ATA/33, late to ATA/66 and currently late to ATA/100. These things actually don't matter nearly as much as the first two, but as they form the only part of the hardware performance equation that's missing I thought it's worth pointing out that Apple's constantly behind the times here too.
Finally, beyond all the stuff mentioned above--which is stuff you can't/couldn't get on a Mac--there's all the hardware insufficiencies of the Mac Apple will try to sell you. Just 6 months ago if you bought a Mac it meant no removable media, and a barely usable mouse and keyboard. It still means no floppy and a very cool but not very useful mouse. Until a week ago it meant no CD-R.
Also until this week it meant shelling out mucho $$ for a computer with a laughably inferior video card--which is arguably the most important component in a consumer PC today. Even now the best Mac you can get comes with a cut-rate budget video card--albeit a decent one--and Apple would have you pay as much as $2200 for a computer to get even that! Of course, it's probably fine that the Mac remains 6 months to a year behind in 3D capabilities, as the top-of-the-line games (with the sole exception of Quake3) come out on Mac 6 months to a year late anyways.
So let's review: the Mac platform is generally about a year behind PC platform mainstream in terms of processor performance (yes that's performance, not clock speed), memory subsystem, and video performance. Indeed this is not much of a new trend (although processor performance has fallen further and further behind the last couple years), as the Mac has been approximately a year behind in adopting most mainstream PC standards.
The only cases in which Apple can be accused of having "innovative hardware" are in fact cases of innovative marketing: just like "Airport" (i.e. IEEE 802.11) cards, which appeared for PC notebooks at exactly the same time they were launched and trumpeted as "only on the Mac", the "all new only on the Mac Superdrives" (i.e. DVD-R drives) will be available for PC exactly the same day they are available for Mac. Yes, Apple may do a good service in picking neat new hardware standards to showcase and bring to the masses, but Mac hardware doesn't offer anything a PC can't match for less money, and never has.
(A possible exception is if you use the G4 or G4+ for the applications it was actually designed and intended for--i.e. embedded signal processing. And yes, the majority of Motorola's G4 revenue comes from embedded systems, not Apple, which is *why* they designed an embedded processor not a PC CPU. What, don't tell me you actually thought AltiVec was so useful for mainstream PC apps that it's worth almost doubling the size of the CPU die and cutting peak frequency by 30%!?)
"Dell's 14.1" screens are 1400x1050 by way of comparison.) "
e o/ati_radeon_32mb/ ) is offered as an option in cubes. It is also optional on all G4s, IIRC. They should offer the 64mb variants of both cards, as well as all other models and cards from other manufacturers, but I think Apple's relationship to nVidia is quite new and will take a little ramp up time, as well as their relationship to other vendors. Hopefully OSX's BSD underpinnings will make driver development a little easier and help expand the Mac hardware possibilities.
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't offer the possiblity of higher resolution on their 15.2" display, but have you ever used a laptop display at 1280x960 or 1400x1050? Unless you have a magnifying glass handy, all I can say is 'why'?
"The fact that the Sony's puny 12.1" screen has the same vertical resolution as Apple's brings the matter of LCD quality a lot closer than "15.2 vs. 12.1" would seem to indicate"
In theory, i'd agree. In practice, no way. See above.
"a real video card isn't even an *option* on any iMac model, nor on the Cube)."
No option on the iMac, but then it's a stripper model. iMac users will probably be doing some light gaming, but I don't see 3d rendering in their daily activities. I'm pretty sure the Radeon (last I checked it performed respectably in tests (both 2d and 3d) and was considered a "real" competitive 3d video card -- a quote from the Sharky Extreme review: "Despite no longer boasting the fastest 3D on the market, the RADEON should not be scoffed at. Its superior video acceleration, crisp 2D quality, and an aggressively competitive price further add to a sweet slice of 3D gaming pie. " -- see here the aforementioned review: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/vid
just my blog and pix
Don't get me wrong -- i agree with a lot of what you say. It's not hard to see that most Macs are overpriced for what they're offering under the hood. You could make the same argument for most "luxury items".
"Even if there were a good way to compare performance across the two platforms" pretty much kills the idea of straight performance comparisons. There are plenty more reasons but i'm sure we don't have to elaborate on that.
It's not really fair to compare street pricing of a PC notebook to retail pricing of a yet unreleased product. Try it again when the PB has been out for a month or two (though by my guess it will take a while for the price to drop).
Also, as another poster pointed out, LCDs are very expensive, so the 12.1" vs 15.2" difference is not a small one in manufacturing costs, nor is usability (at least in my experience using notebook screens). Unfortunately, it seems there are very few 1" thick full featured, full screen laptops running around to compare the PB to. With the advent of the mobile Duron (you were complaining about Intel cornering the market) that might start to change.
BTW, the current video card in all but the base G4s is a 32mb GeForce2 w/ an optional Radeon.
PS. I use a P3 at work and an Athlon at home, in case you were wondering.
just my blog and pix
Yes, but the PB monitor is only close the same size in viewable area, not in aspect ratio. It is a very wide monitor -- probably the equivalent of a 17" monitor (usually the viewable area of a desktop is at most 1.2" smaller than the advertised size, which would make the viewable on your 17" around 15.8") -- but also a very shallow monitor (more like a 15" desktop, which I'd normally run at 1024x768). It's because of this lack of vertical size that the vertical resolution lacks, why I wouldn't begrudge them too much, and why i'd say that the resolution they give it is just fine.
just my blog and pix
"Apple has constantly been behind the times in I/O standards"
What? First to *use* USB (not just put it on the board). First to use Firewire. Using 32bit Nubus when PCs where using ISA slots. Yes, in some ways they're late, but in others they're way ahead.
The "laughably inferior video card" may be so for FPS, but actually performs quite well for graphic artists. Makes me wonder why they specced it.
BTW, the only decent 802.11 system out there that can hold a candle to the AirPort system is the Lucent Orinoco system, which is slightly more expensive and a lot harder to set up.
"Mac has been approximately a year behind in adopting most mainstream PC standards"
How many makers right now are putting out machines with DDR RAM? Last I checked, not many. Sure they're ramping up, but Apple would be stupid (and possibly insane) to be on the top of the curve for every trend. Their machines would be even more overpriced and they could end up with a Rambus/Intel fiasco on their hands if they made the wrong choice. Better to let someone like Intel make that mistake and fight the battles worth fighting (i.e the ones pretty much won already like USB, firewire)
One final word re: price/performance -- find a notebook that can compete in that area with the new powerbook. Good luck.
just my blog and pix
"Apple *will* somehow have to address the price performance issue if they want to gouge market share out of others. But they can keep their core advantages (enumerated above) and keep their core customre base, maybe even grow a little. "
Witness the Powerbook G4. A lot of people think it's a loss leader...
just my blog and pix
With the pixel-by-pixel antics of xlib, even by fully porting the API to aqua, you'll be wasting most of the potential of display PDF.
-bugg
Who said anything about using X instead of aqua?
I would guess that ports of GTK+, Qt, and perhaps other toolkits (Motif maybe?) are not far behind. Then, you have them all running on aqua. And that's sweet.
-bugg
or reboot your plumbing system in order to access one or the other. in other words, changing operating systems from windows to linux is a pretty big leap
Ever used VMware? I use it daily to run Linux and BSD on top of Windows 2000. Great product (althought it would give a newbie the impression that Linux requires windows to run...)
Mark Duell
You don't have to register it, and there are no serial numbers. You start the box, answer a few questions that are used to create an account for you, supply your Internet settings (or create a new Earthlink account if you don't have an ISP already) and start using it.
Mac OS X will be included with every mac, including the $799 iMac, so it's not exactly expensive. Windows 2000 is $200 or $300 by itself. It's not free like Linux, but not everybody has the time to dedicate to Linux, or can get their work done with Linux applications.
Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? Do you get how big the Mac platform is? Most of the art and music and movies you enjoy daily are made by people who use Macs. Something like 25 million users. Apple has 4 billion dollars in the bank, and this is their first unprofitable quarter in over three years. Compaq has had three or four unprofitable quarters since then.
... you just sound like an idiot. You are saying that the sky is green.
I mean
...it was pretty much asked right here on /. like 2 days ago, if not yesterday.
No, I'm pretty confident people won't decide to stop supporting Linux. I know I have no plans to do so, and I know there are at least a few thousand people out there who share the same feeling, and that's all it takes. Unlike corporate owned and controlled products, all it takes is one person to make sure Linux doesn't go away. The rate of development might decline a bit ;) but it will still be there.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
Sun is NOT funding FreeBSD to any sun4x architecture. The FreeBSD/SPARC port was started in 97 by Jason Evans, who, at the time worked for Sun MicroElectronics (SME). SME had approached the FreeBSD core offering monetary compensation for FreeBSD on sun4u's. The core team turned down this offer with jkh saying that SME's offer was not of major interest since to be of long term use of FreeBSD, such a proposal would need to include support for a number of years from someone internal to Sun. Eventually Jason Evans left Sun and the port remained largely untouched since October 10, 1998. The core team's response was reasonable at the time. Now if Sun came with an identical offer today, you bet that gorilla vagina thats grafted on your right hand they'd pounce on it now. David O'Brien and some others have been tinkering with it since early 2000 though.
As of late, Jason Evans has been working on the KSE project
To throw in a bit of dramatic irony, while the FreeBSD/SPARC port was in its ragnarok, Sun signed that deal with Red Hat :|
Meandering abit offtopic but oh well...
The most important thing to have is open specifications for file formats - the basis for what most of us do with a computer.
For example so apple can't force you to use MacOS* in order to see quicktime movies, or so M$ can't force you to run Win*/Office* to read word docs.
This inevitabily leads to better software because companies can't reply on your dependance, you could use the adobe quicktime player if you wanted so if apple wants to keep their customers they have to improve their software to compete, not prevent competition in order to compete.
-------------------------
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Maybe since I use multiple Unix(-like) operating systems, (linux, *BSD, solaris, irix), and use GNU tools on most of them, I don't think of those GNU tools as Linux. They are NOT linux, they just share the same license. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's GNU, not linux, that lives on if people give up on the linux kernel.
don't even bother; it's not worth it. one of them will just come back with some stupid "mom & pop" store quote for a Pentium III (or a Dell, now that i've said it :) and then add a little statement passing off Altivec as a "toy" that only Photoshop people care about.
most people here don't think that ease of use, fewer driver conflicts, quality hardware, Altivec, pleasant design, great software like iMovie or the ability to just get work down without fucking around with the computer to be worth a premium. that's fine, to each their own. for the rest of us, there's a G4 with MacOS X.
and as a note about the speed difference between x86 and PowerPC: i love playing around with my Linux box, and i use Windows at work. but it boggles my mind how much faster i get work done on my Mac compared to my Linux box, or my Windows laptop at work, and how much less time i spend trying to fix crashes, conflicts or doing troubleshooting.
so this is what i wonder: if i get work done faster on my Mac than i do on any other machine (due to the reasons i've outlined above), what difference does the benchmarked speed matter? if i'm getting my work done faster, doesn't that mean it's a faster machine? it means enough to me to keep using my Mac, and i've come to realize that for what i do, there's absolutely no other machine that comes close.
- j
You will be able to do every fucking thing you want to a mac running mac os X
you're actually quite right. Apple has never really gone out of their way to keep users from editing things, but they haven't opened it up on purpose either. there's already a lot you can do with the MacOS, and MacOS X looks to be even more cutomizable.
for starters, just about everything is stored in (text based) XML files on the hard disk. there have already been a lot hacks to do all sorts of interesting things (and as you mentioned, getting the old NeXT Step interface back on Cocoa apps is one of the more interesting ones). lots of other functions (like the position of the dock) can be changed using the defaults command from the Terminal.
the more i delve into it, the more i realize that MacOS is actualy quite customizable. Apple hasn't purposefully hidden anything, but they haven't published anything either: but hey, that's part of the fun! :) so while it's never going to be as customizeable as Linux, it's right up there, and i think there could be a lot of great things to hack onto it. Mac developers seem quite resourceful, so i'm really looking forward to the hacks that appear after the final release.
the only problem i can see is that i'll need a second Mac to screw around with. otherwise it'll end up like my Linux box is right now: refusing to boot and giving me nasty kernel messages (gotta get around to fixing that :).
- j
developing (open source) software for it for over two years.
that's great, and i hope to see more open source developers start using MacOS X. i think it's a promising platform to create some really good open source software for a large (desktop user) market. i'm looking forward to developing for MacOS X.
Just recently, I aquired a dual-G4/500MHz machine
that's a very nice machine.
Oh, and I absolutely LOVE the G4 hardware. The instant I openned the case, I thought "Damn, why didn't anyone else think of this!?" You really have to see it to understand, though.
...
G4 hardware is still on the expensive side
these two thoughts are related. i find with Apple hardware you do pay a premium for the "intangibles" (such as that amazing case) and lots of extras (like the gigabit ethernet you have in your machine). the trick is, if those intangibles and extras aren't something you want, then Macs look quite expensive. of course, if they are something you want, then they're right in line. they're definitely not for all people, that's for sure.
- j
And forgive me if ist been pointed out ebfore...
MacOSX is basically FreeBSD udner the hood.
And yes I think its a threat. its what I want. A decent desktop Unix without the weight of X on its shoulders.
There are runors Apple has an Intel port in the labs. Wonder if they'l get rbave enough thsi time to release it. If they did, IMo they could be in a position to be the next big OS company.
Do you really think the market for computers allowinging massive tinkering with the innerworkings of the OS is anywhere near as large as the market for computers that all look and work predictably, have consistant interfaces and procedures? Oh, and there's also that infinately customizable free OS that apple would have to campaign against. I think its name starts with an L or something...
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
But the POINT you ignored was that if they had been improving on the already superior BSD instead of trying to bring underdog Linux up to speed, we would have something MUCH better.
OSX does pose a threat to Linux. But remember, it is tied to Apple's hardware. That alone will limit it's adaptation.
I think Jobs' trump card is OSX for Intel/Athlon. It makes no sense to announce it until a critical mass of native OSX apps hit the market. Then, Apple releases Apple branded Athlon based hardware. They could still make it proprietary by having some special ROM on the motherboard to protect the market and control drivers, etc. I'm sure AMD would be willing to accomodate them.
OSX could end up being a killer OS. The power of UNIX with the ease of the Mac. The only thing that I can see stopping it is if Eazel kicks ass and does it better. Could happen.
Well duh! Unless Apple plans to release MacOSX for the x86 architechture, I don't see what how it's threatening Linux since Linux's growth is not on PPC.
Well then, you're looking at the number of people who are looking at buying new hardware to run non-MS operating systems, and whether they're willing to step entirely away from the Intel-esque world. I still don't see that it's going to be enough people to significantly affect the Linux community, especially the semi-mainstream segment.
As I've said before, mass-market appeal of any given platform is very tightly bound to available applications. It's useless to speculate about who will do what until enough good, solid, competitive apps are available to tempt people away.
Oh, and lest we forget--we're not discussing "OS X vs. a Free OS", it's "OS X vs. Linux (which happens to be a free OS)." Let's keep the rhetoric for the conversations where it has a bearing.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Some of the same people who designed the original MacOS are working on Nautilus. Lest we forget, many people hate Aqua and want the original MacOS interface back.
Burris
Hey Brainchild, you can buy those products for Mac.
But by the time they're finally released on the Mac, many of the products are already passé; it's no longer "hip" to be good at them. For example, is being able to kick ass at Doom still a valuable skill? No, the game of the month is Quake III Team Arena for Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, and Microsoft Windows ME.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can download Darwin for x86. But that won't give you Quartz/Carbon/Cocoa (Mac OS X userland libraries) which are all proprietary binaries for PowerPC machines; good luck finding a machine that can code-morph into both an x86 (for the games on your Windows partition) and a PowerPC (for Mac OS X's userland). -- Dr. Mario game for PC based on Mac OS X's Aqua theme
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
also to all those people who bitch about apple being overpriced, slow blah blah. give it a rest already. if you don't want to buy a mac then don't and don't criticise those who do. whatever computer u buy is a free choice, its not a status thing. having a faster CPU doesn't mean u have a bigger penis.
in short this topic is pointless and smeg
The sad truth is that the vast majority of Linux boxes are dual-boot and/or run wine/vmware (maybe plex86). MacOS on PPC hardware just isn't going to let you natively run those non-portable windoze apps, particularily games.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
So why wouldnt it be posible for Mac OSX to do the same? masses of linux coders brushing up gnome/kde/xfree86/etc to get it upto spec, and maybe even better then Mac OS X.
You've answered your own question. A mass of coders is never going to agree on one widget set, or one file manager, or one configuration framework and database, or one user preference manager, or one way to do anything.
The fundemental advantage Apple has over Linux is Apple's ability to choose the "one true way" -- keep what they like, throw away what they don't like, and pay a bunch of people to implement the boring, tedious, and unrewarding little pieces you need to fill in the gaps and make it all work together. Apple decided that, where possible, they would eliminate choice -- choose one way that works, and then spend the time, effort, and drudgery (i.e., money) to polish it all up.
Apple is hoping to make a successful Unix by getting rid of all the stuff we normal associate with Unix and with Free Software. There's no way that a mess of linux coders are ever going to duplicate that -- there's no incentive for a mass of linux coders to try. When we can't even agree on a widget set (I have open apps right now with Gnome, KDE, Motif, XUL, and Athena widget sets, and I don't even want to think about Java Swing), and most user-land applications really never go beyond the 85% stage, it's pretty clear we're never going to make anything even remotely like MacOS X.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
I'm sure if I poked around it a bit more, I'd find more things to nit-pick, but I think I heard something about a good number of config files moved to XML? If so, that's pretty far away from any of the current *nix's.
Do you generally nit-pick about good things? What do you do about bad things?
It would also be fun to see MacOS X scaled down to the pda's and embedded systems. These are all areas that Linux excels in and has been proven as a good solution.
Wow. You must be using a completely different dictionary, because when I look up the definition of "good solution" and "excel" in my dictionary, Linux doesn't even come close to matching the definition for pda's.
I imagine MacOS X can scale down to PDA's the same way Win CE can -- not by porting the operating system, and the 30 or so system calls provided by the kernel, but instead by porting the rich and featurful API the programmers actually use on top of a new operating system.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
I'm sure if I poked around it a bit more, I'd find more things to nit-pick, but I think I heard something about a good number of config files moved to XML? If so, that's pretty far away from any of the current *nix's.
Do you generally nit-pick about good things? What do you do about bad things?
It would also be fun to see MacOS X scaled down to the pda's and embedded systems. These are all areas that Linux excels in and has been proven as a good solution.
Wow. You must be using a completely different dictionary, because when I look up the definition of "good solution" and "excel" in my dictionary, Linux doesn't even come close to matching the definition for pda's.
I imagine MacOS X can scale down to PDA's the same way Win CE can -- not by porting the operating system, and the 30 or so system calls provided by the kernel, but instead by porting the rich and featurful API the programmers actually use on top of a new operating system.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
> Hmm... Answer a few questions (that together with hardware ids generate a unique profile) and create an internet connection... no data would be sent anywhere, right?
At each boot Mac OS X use ntpdate to sync clock with ftp<some number>.apple.com. I watched that over my FreeBSD firewall. I don't really like this because it set up a precedent... It can be changed, of course, so it is not that bad I think...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
I don't really foresee this as a *major* problem. We're only losing Macs users. ;)
Just kidding guys! Seriously, I don't think it's an overpoweringly major problem. The majority of Linux users now are probably x86 based, and as far as I know, OS X isn't being offered on that platform.
As far as Mac users, naturally the TRUE power users will want Linux, but as for the majority of users, they ALREADY use mainstream OS's, so what's the harm in introducing them to the joys of UNIX? ;)
I think this will actually HELP the open-source movement in general, but may harm Linux in specific a little.
Not to worry, tho, IMO.
Regards,
- Jester
I used to think that I was a MacOS bigot, but I've since changed my tune on that. A couple years back I switched from the MacOS to Windows (initially 95). I hated it. But eventually 98 came out. I began to appreciate it more and more. I've found WinME to be nothing but a dream to use as far as the UI goes. Except for the crashing. Every time I suffer a fatal exception error I feel a distinct urge to fly to redmond and beat the crap out of MSFT's QA engineers. In any case, about 3 months ago I purchased an iBook because I sorely needed a laptop, and I couldn't bear the thought of purchasing another Wintel machine. OS X public beta had come out shortly before and had been getting many rave reviews. I received the machine shortly thereafter in the mail with MacOS 9.04 preinstalled and hated it. Thankfully I got OS X in the mail the next day. I installed it as I related previously. I have never suffered a crash on the machine. It runs Apache, Jakarta-Tomcat, all of my XML tools, the Java Dev. Kit, Office 2001, and Unreal flawlessly. I have discovered that I am not a Mac bigot, but in fact a user interface bigot. I feel that KDE and Gnome (mind you that I am referring to KDE 1.x and Gnome without Eazel) are somewhat lacking in the tasty eye-candy that make a computer friendly to me. Microsoft seems to have finally figured out how to make a computer (relatively) easy to use. Apple has, once again, perfected it. OS X is a beautiful OS. It has a perfect mixture of power user features and beginner hand-holding.
If Linux suffers as a result of OS X's release it will be in its best interest in the end. Linux, as cool as it is (don't get me wrong, I still use it) has many rough edges. These need to be corrected before it will ever appeal to a mass audience. Then again, who is to say that this has ever been the goal of the OSS movement? We all come out better in the end with the release of high-quality software, no matter who has created it. I certainly do not claim to an expert in the field I have been discussing, only someone who has used many different operating systems (MacOS, OS X, Linux flavors, BSD, Win9x, NT 4, Win2k, and the BeOS).
Please do me a favor and not moderate me down if you feel that what I have written only contradicts with your philosophy. Thanks.
iRooster, the Mac OS X a
Companies will not be migrating to OS X or Linux. They will continue to happily use NT and hire dope MCSE's fresh from boot camp.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
This was similar to the LC pizza boxes awhile back. Remove the two screws permentantly and you could open the case with a quick switch pull.
Now if I could only have a slick G4 tower case, with my custom-built Athlon machine inside, and the Apple log scratched out with the word "Fervent" stenciled over it. Dude!
-
-Be a man. Insult me without using an AC.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apple takes on an arguably bigger responsibility than RedHat and the others combined when it puts out the first commercial *nix we've seen in a while.
By commercial I mean, non-at&t, non BSD (not *BSD). They're PRE-INSTALLING unix for home users. Anyone else would have said they were mad, but they've gone and made it usable for grandmothers with no-button mice.
Wasn't making linux usable for grandmothers one of the proposals that gets bounced around every now and again?
Reason why OsX will out do Linux: It's preinstalled and has support of Apple, which ain't small cookies.
Reason why Linux will keep advancing, regardless: it's free/Free and runs on just about any hardware you throw it at, all the while performing useful, if mundane functions. Firewall, router, print server....cheap internet appliance, etc... netatalk....
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
A few of the art guys I work with thought that Mac OS X would spell the end of M$, but I pointed out to them that with M$ you tie yourself to expensive proprietary software, with OS X you tie yourself to overpriced, albeit high quality, hardware.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
That's really not so bad, since it only gets 1/4 of my laptops disk capacity, is not the default OS, and I anyway only need it to edit customer documents during a train ride.
But what really got my attention, was this statement of yours:
Oh And Fuck Netscape, lynx is better...
Man, and that from a graphics designer :>
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Apple has a pretty serious chance to win over a whole slew of developers and users. The only limitation is the price tag. How many people want to pay $2,500+ to buy an Apple when they can get a vanilla home built pc for around $700. Personally as a developer, if I could build my own vanilla Apple system I would obviously write software for what I own. Otherwise I will stick to the cheap and widely available pc.
Arg. Regex hangover. "It seems we're no longer raising children, but breeding consumer pods. Fuck it, let Mattel and
Being facetious, but isn't this why ESR is so pissed off?
It's GNU that we've fallen in love with, that everyone keeps calling Linux, that happens to be so powerful and wonderful.
Emacs, GCC, gmake, etc...
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
I always get the initial stuff confused.
ESR and RMS ^^; Oops.
Yeah, but you get the point of my post, right?
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
MCSEs don't come from boot camp, they come from reboot camp!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I don't view that as an advantage. I like the fact that I can get half a dozen good toolkits for X11. And the X11 architecture is good enough to actually make all that stuff work reasonably well together. Companies like Apple or Microsoft don't even try.
it's pretty clear we're never going to make anything even remotely like MacOS X.
And I'm grateful for that. I'll take the messy, vibrant open source software community over the centrally directed, glitzy, market-research-driven behemoth any time. Your preferences may, of course, differ.
That, rather than technical differences, is why MacOS X is no threat to Linux. And given how stubborn and wrong-headed Apple's policies have been so far, it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.
As for Visual Cafe and Powerbuilder, there have been numerous attempts to build similar tools for UNIX and Linux, and they have failed to catch on. I suspect the reason is that those tools are actually not very effective in comparison to programmatic (scripted or declarative) GUI development.
"A threat to Linux?" Not really a question we should be asking in my opinion. If the OS is good enough to bring other people away from Linux, then it's probably worthwhile. If someone makes something good, just because it's not what you'd like to succeed doesn't make it a problem. Actually, on second thought, in the case of BETA/VHS it sort of did matter, but that doesn't really relate to OS's as far as I'm concerned. I hope you see my point.
Linux and MacOS X are not really the same sort of thing. "Unix-like" is not just an item on a checklist. Linux is very nearly a true Unix (I'll let the pedants debate this one), while MacOS X shares more with NeXTSTEP and OpenSTEP - directory structure, NetInfo, display(postscript, PDF), et cetera. While Linux is a nearly-universal kernel which runs near-flawlessly on many different systems, MacOS X is strictly a workstation for Macs. Linux has no problems running my Sparc 5 and my AMD K6 - nearly all of the services I run on each are source-compatible between the two - and is a proven server operating system. My department deploys no less than 5 Linux servers (Oracle and Apache), and they requre little maintenance - just a rack to live in. OS X is a very smooth desktop operating system, and that is in fact what I use at home and at work. While Linux can be used as a workstation and OS X as a server, for many reasons they are not comparable: cost (free vs. ~$120) hardware many platforms, and from a few megabytes of RAM on a 386 to multiple gigabytes on sun4u One platform - late Moto PPC, and no less than 128Mb RAM goal from single-floppy routers to multiprocessor servers to desktop game and work machines simple, stable, powerful desktop operating system The only reason OS X might tread on Linux's toes is the fact that it does have Unixish services and such. You can run Apache, sshd, proftpd, bind, innd, and other services from MacOS X. But that is not its focus. The only reason Linux might tread on OS X's toes is that Linux can be used as a power-user's desktop operating system. But in my opinion, that is not its forte - and shouldn't be its focus.
Great rant!
I think you overstate things a bit though.
The installer situation on Windows is pretty piss poor too. Microsoft says you're suppose to have an installer/deinstaller that does certain things, but leaves it up to you to manage all those things. It takes a lot of effort and thought to do a good installer, even with a tool like Installshield which does a tremendous amount of the heavy lifting for you. This is one area in OSX that's very intriguing -- packaging up an applications resources in a directory and treating the whole package as an object. This helps users to move applications around with impunity -- one of the best historical features of MacOS.
Windows has exactly the same library dependency issues that Linux has, which is to say if you require a later version of the MFC dlls you'd better install it. It makes me a bit nervous to routinelly install the MFC dlls, since I don't like the prospect of creating regression bugs in other software installed on my users' computers. Installing these dlls in the system directory requires that you have essentially unlimited access to the computer; I don't like this all-or-nothing approach to security.
The graphical chaos you mention was pretty much the case in the early days of GUI program development on Windows or the Mac too, and quite a few klinkers are still being produced for both platforms.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What? First to *use* USB (not just put it on the board).
That's an argument about their choice of peripherals, not about their support of i/o standards. It's marketing, not engineering. (Not that marketing is not important, just a different discussion.)
First to use Firewire. Using 32bit Nubus when PCs where using ISA slots.
Still using Nubus years after the PC had moved to PCI. Indeed, I'd count Nubus along with SCSI--in both cases Apple went with a clearly superior solution early on, but ended up being held back as the mainstream PC standards, driven by the much larger marketplace, managed to improve much faster and yet be much cheaper than what Apple used.
The "laughably inferior video card" may be so for FPS, but actually performs quite well for graphic artists. Makes me wonder why they specced it.
"The Macintosh does not have any decent 3d support, so therefore we can pretend that 3d support is not important." Any $9 graphics card is just fine for 2d, although I seriously doubt that 16 MB and a 230 MHz RAMDAC are really good enough for any serious graphic artists. The simple fact is that the Mac does not do 3d well, and that that is simply pitiful in this day and age. And no, 3d is not just used for games; you may be shocked, but there are actually graphics artists that work in three dimensions too! (They use PCs and Unix workstations.)
BTW, the only decent 802.11 system out there that can hold a candle to the AirPort system is the Lucent Orinoco system, which is slightly more expensive and a lot harder to set up.
I don't know how hard it is to set up, but IIRC for what you admit is only a slightly higher price it has a much greater wireless range.
How many makers right now are putting out machines with DDR RAM? Last I checked, not many. Sure they're ramping up, but Apple would be stupid (and possibly insane) to be on the top of the curve for every trend. Their machines would be even more overpriced and they could end up with a Rambus/Intel fiasco on their hands if they made the wrong choice. Better to let someone like Intel make that mistake and fight the battles worth fighting (i.e the ones pretty much won already like USB, firewire)
As this thread was initially about system *performance* (as opposed to capabilities), let me tell you that DDR is MUCH more "a battle worth fighting" on this metric. But you have a very valid point--indeed, I agree with you completely. The thing is, what you're saying assumes that Apple will be designing and validating its own chipsets, incompatible with the real world, every time they want to add a feature. In such an environment, it is indeed not worth it to come out with a DDR chipset now. Moreover, while it would have been worth it to come out with a PC133 chispet a year ago and a DDR chipset in around 3 months time, the fact that Apple is the one designing and validating every new chipset is the reason these chipsets are always a year behind the times--it's a very complicated process and Apple's engineers are understandably stretched thin to try to replicate the work of dozens of companies in the PC world.
That's the problem with having a vertical monopoly; there's not enough room for differentiated product lines and innovation. In the PC world, there are 2 or 3 major chipset manufacturers competing to come out with the fastest chipsets with the most new features, and another couple players who drop in to keep competition high. There are about a dozen major motherboard manufacturers, who compete to best implement these chipsets with the most features at the lowest price. Because the PC RAM market is so large, you have all the DRAM manufacturers in the world driving chipset innovation as well. Finally, because PCs are used for general purpose tasks and because there's an independent benchmarking industry in the PC marketplace, all these people know that they won't be able to get away with a single toy SIMD benchmark as an overall measure of "performance"--thus they all feel pressure to create components which actually work fast over a wide variety of circumstances. Hence the PC market is moving into 2.1 and 3.2 GB/s FSBs while the Mac is finally hitting 1.1 GB/s. Oh, and while we're on the subject, it turns out I was wrong: you won't be able to buy a G4 with on-die L2 cache until the G4+ is released in March. Only then will the G4 finally be approaching clock-for-clock parity with x86 chips (according to SPECcpu, i.e. a real benchmark suite).
Now, I'm not saying there aren't some important tangible benefits to Apple's vertical monopoly. I just don't think they're worth the drawback: machines which cost twice as much as the equivalent PC did when it was released 9 months ago.
One final word re: price/performance -- find a notebook that can compete in that area with the new powerbook. Good luck.
Here you finally have a point: the new powerbook is very impressive and indeed competitive with PCs in price/performance. One important reason why is that AMD has not yet had a viable notebook CPU for the mainstream and performance ends of the market, so therefore Intel has a monopoly over that segment and thus performance notebooks tend to cost as much as powerbooks. Conversely, Apple has seen itself frozen out of the market it practically invented with the first powerbooks, as the portable market becomes more and more dominated by corporate consumers. Thus you have a reversal of the situation in the desktop PC market: Intel is getting away with monopoly pricing, while Apple is heavily discounting to try to break back into a market they've nearly lost.
Still, no matter how I might try to talk bad about it, there's no doubt the new powerbooks are very competitive. On the other hand, the situation is decidedly *not* as Apple has presented it. Here's what Apple has to say on the matter:
Sony Vaio Z505...........PowerBook G4
12.1-inch display........15.2-inch wide-screen display
Magnesium alloy..........99.5% pure grade CP1 titanium
650MHz Pentium III.......400 MHz PowerPC G4
No optical drive.........Slot-loading DVD-ROM
2 hours battery life.....5 hours battery life
Not wireless ready.......AirPort antenna built-in
1.15 inches thick........1 inch thick
$2549*...................$2599*
(Taken from here.)
Now let's look at what the actual facts on that Sony Z505 really are.
First off, let's take note of the fact that contrary to Apple's blatant misrepresentation, the Z505 with a P3-650 actually costs $2250, not "$2549". But what's $300 among friends? Well, we can use some of that money to buy the Z505 a 6-hour battery, so hahaha on you. The cost is now $2450, or $150 less than the Mac. Also while the powerbook may be a miraculous 3.8 mm thinner than the Z505, the important measure is of course weight; the powerbook, at 5.3 pounds, is 41% heavier than the 3.75 pound Z505--which makes sense, as they really serve different purposes. Indeed, the low weight (and its huge popularity) is the reason the Z505 is so underpowered for its price (for a PC that is), but we'll disregard that for now.
Unfortunately, there's no way to buy the Vaio as unloaded as those powerbooks: in particular, no way to buy it without at least Word 2000. Nor is there any way to purchase Word 2001 with our brand new powerbook at the Apple Store. We could buy it from MS for $400 but that doesn't seem quite fair. Instead we'll upgrade both machines to Office.
Where does that put us now?
Sony Vaio Z505...........PowerBook G4
12.1-inch display........15.2-inch wide-screen display
Magnesium alloy..........99.5% pure grade CP1 titanium
650MHz Pentium III.......400 MHz PowerPC G4
No optical drive.........Slot-loading DVD-ROM
6 hours battery life.....5 hours battery life
Not wireless ready.......AirPort antenna built-in
1.15 inches thick........1 inch thick
12 GB HD.................10 GB HD
3.75 pounds*.............5.3 pounds
$2650....................$3060
*Longer battery adds weight from this original measurement, but I couldn't find out how much.
What's missing? Well, the DVD player, for one thing. An external one adds $400 to the Z505's cost, making it just a hair cheaper than the powerbook. The 650 MHz P3 is in reality a good deal faster than the 400 MHz G4, but by using the right programs an argument can be made that the G4 comes close. "AirPort antenna built-in" is a red-herring, since you still need to spend $100 for the AirPort card. I looked it up, and the first place I checked had an Orinoco card for $160. Again, I'm almost positive this card has much better range than AirPort. Eh, let's look it up, shall we? Well, AirPort only goes a measely up to 150 feet. Orinoco goes...let's see...up to 1750 feet. Hmm. Guess the "built-in antenna" isn't working too well, is it??
So what do we end up with? The new powerbook is almost exactly the same price as a similarly configured Z505, except that the Z505 has a tad more HD space, has an extra hour on the battery, and, sorry to say, is the faster machine. Alternatively, you can get the Z505 without a DVD player and save $400.
Meanwhile, the powerbook has a luscious 15.2" screen, while the Z505 is stuck with a 12.1" which, while quite small, at least manages to almost hit the resolution of the powerbook (1024x768 vs. 1152x768). The benefit of giving up the nice screen and the internal DVD is up to 1.55 pounds of heft and of course that extra hour.
In other words, it's arguably a tossup. Of course it's a bad comparison because one is a sub-notebook and the other a full-sizer, but Apple chose it, not me. Still, it's worth noting that the Z505 is perhaps the most overpriced laptop around, so it's not such a surprise that Apple chose it when making a comparison.
Well phew! Aren't we enlightened? Did I pass? (It wasn't that tough, I let Apple "find a notebook that can compete in [price/performance] with the new powerbook" for me!)
Now it's my turn: find a desktop Mac that can compete in (price/1.5)/performance with a similarly equipped desktop PC--and I mean in a wide variety of benchmarks, not just Photoshop and RC5. (Indeed, it would be tough to do that even with Photoshop, assuming one actually used a complete Photoshop benchmark like PSbench.)
Good luck. Unfortunately, there are very few good cross-platform benchmarks to consult; the most well-respected cross-platform benchmark in the world, SPECcpu, shows the G4 in a rather unflattering light--indeed, because of this Motorola hasn't even released official scores for the G4, making it the only current general-purpose CPU family I can think of for which SPEC scores are not available. Oh wait, I lied: there's no SPEC scores for Cyrix chips either. However, there are SPEC scores for the P3, P4, the AMD K7, for Sun's UltraSparc II and III, for IBM's POWER3 chip which is sorta related to the G3 kinda sorta, for the Alpha EV67, and the MIPS R12000 and the HP PA-RISC 8600-just in the past year. The point is, every real chip releases SPEC scores, usually early and often. The best we have for the brand-spanking-new G4+ is an *estimate* for the outdated (in fact retired) SPEC95 suite, and man it's not too pretty. Of course, Motorola can always complain that they don't have a very good Fortran compiler, which is key to a good SPECfp score (their SPECint score sucks too, though); still, this is no one's fault but their own, unless of course they never meant the G4 or G4+ to be a high-performance general-purpose chip (oh that's right, they didn't; they built it for the embedded market).
Other cross-platform benchmarks are invariably much less trustworthy, because they are almost always binary only and are never of the breadth or depth of the SPEC suite. Picking Photoshop, for example, is just plain dumb, as Photoshop is simply better optimized on the Mac than on the PC (alternatively, we could benchmark Word and see which runs it faster). There's a nice collection of published cross-platform Mac vs. x86 results here; it's worth perusing, even though most of these programs make *very* poor overall benchmarks, taken as a whole they at least provide some semblence of a big picture. Needless to say, I think your task will be pretty difficult, even if there were a good way to compare performance across the two platforms.
I once heard ESR say in regards of controlling your business "if you own a piece of software that is crucial to running your business, and you don't control that software, you don't control your business."
- passion
(Damn the karma and full speed ahead!)
Why choose between a mac interface and linux when you can have the best of both worlds? I'm currently in the process of creating a GNOME fork that is based on the Mac OS UI (as opposed to the current GNOME UI layout that is copied from Microsoft). Due to the open source nature of the GNOME project (thanx for the code, helix, er, ximian) I am able to quickly modify Gtk/GNOME apis so that they will produce mac-like interfaces. And when I recompile code that uses gnome-app-helper macros, voila! Instant mac interface. Cancel/No buttons will be on the left where they belong, as will OK/Yes buttons on the right. The "Exit" menu item will now called "Quit". Simple keyboard shortcuts will use the modifier key by the spacebar (alt), instead of the one in outer mongolia (ctrl). The menubar will be at the top of the screen where it belongs. And list goes on and on. So many GNOME apps on Freshmeat, so little time!
It gets even better. GNUstep is, of course, open source. And what does GNUstep have? Bundles! (just like MacOS). Once gnustep's bundle code is added to the mixture, the stupid hassle of dealing with packaging systems will be less stupid and more robust. Goodbye annoying RPM/deb messages and corrupted binary databases, hello fast, easy installs!
Code is power.
- It is unix based - thats essential for me. I can install ssh, use vi, etc, etc.
- It allows me to use most of the apps I already know and love on linux.
- It has a good front end that will run all those commercial apps I've been missing in linux (the whole reason why I have linuxppc & OS9 on my laptop).
- Hardware compatability. Linux-ppc is doing an awesome job, but there is still alot of devices that just wont work or features of the machine that arn't there (like sleep support, firewire, irda, etc).
- Ease of use. OS X is looking like a great interface - the sort of thing I can give my girlfriend and have her happy without asking me a billion questions.
Yes, I will miss linux. But I still wish the project well and look forward to when I can switch back. But when it comes to the uses above, it is still very much in development, and I don't have the time needed to spend working on it (tweaking my installation and helping code) at this time in my life.I "grew up" on Macs, and until 5 years ago had never so much as touched the command line. Now I fully rely on Linux for just about everything, though I do still have Macs and WinPC's around the house and office. And of course, I've had at OS X. And... well... it's nice. But I have to say that the things I have (and I'm sure many others have) grown to really like and love about linux just are never going to be there on the Mac.
For example, I like being able to change just about everything about my OS. I like to spend hours just fscking around (every pun intended) with my GUI and my OS, just to see what will happen. Yes, I have ended up spending a hell of a lot of time re-installing or restoring from backup, but that is what "beater" computers are for. And besides, I've found that to be the best way to learn considering the open hostility and serious condescension I've received when asking questions in online forums.
Please forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't Apple not going to allow you to use whatever configuration of GUI or shell that you want? As I recall that was subject of some conversation and even a story here at Slashdot, and it would strike me as something very UN-Steve Jobs to allow the end user to make drastic changes to his OS. I mean, he is (or at least was) rabidly against allowing anyone to do too much tinkering with his OS and computers in the past.
Anyway, much as I did think OS X was a might peerrrrrrrty, and had lots of fun animations in the way things worked and was zippy etc., and much as I do still really like Apple hardware, OS X isn't going to get me to just chuck out my Linux library.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Let's look at how Big of a Question this is.
1) Take all the Mac users.
2) Get rid of any who aren't currently using Linux, or likely to in the near future in the absence of OS X.
3) Of those who remain, calculate the percentage who are likely to jump ship.
If my numbers are correct, you end up with about 3.5 people.
OK, I know that's a gross exaggeration. The point still remains that there are a tiny tiny number of people actually running Linux on the Mac. OS X isn't going to affect the Linux community as a whole much at all; and it's probably not going to affect the Linux/Mac community much either since they're already going against the grain. They _are_ they techies, the hobbiests, and the tweakers; if they decide to run OS X, they'll figure out a dual boot system to do it on.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
if they get x86 sorted out, how many people are going to want to buy expensive, slow macs instead of an athlon based peecee?
granted, the mac is a much better design (in the guts) but is that enough for people to "go proprietary"?
X86 compatibility, all the chipsets that gpl code runs on, would be a royal pain in the ass to support without looking at a lot of gpl'd code. remember, linux has no problem running on chipsets that were made years ago.
the reality is, if they support PC's, a lot of mac people might jump from their hardware...a lot of linux/bsd people won't pay $120.
in the meantime, linux will continue to improve on all architectures.
on the other hand, if it were priced at something like $30-$40 bucks, without copy protection, i bet there are a lot of linux people (and companies) who would jump for x86, just cuz it's exactly what people want -- an alternative to macs (peecee hardware) running an OS that isn't embarrassing or slimy to use, and is supported by a fairly reputable corporation.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Released the Whistler beta with code in it to prevent you installing an app on more than one PC. I am against software piracy. I am also against anything that makes my life significantly harder in maintaining the banks of otherwise identical M$ boxes I manage in an educational institution
There are noises that M$ are looking to kill off or restructure the volume discounts to corporates
They have announced plans to kill off the 95/98/Me line, to try to move the world ultimately towards Whistler. Thing is, many PCs have been sold with Windoze on board in the last three years almost as home appliances. How will these users react to being told that the PC which (sorta) functions as they expect, will need an OS upgrade, and they will have to pay for it ? This is not corporate world folks, and I bet many don't !
It seems that M$ (or at least, its putative OS corporation) are in the process of trying to rationalise its product line, and maximise profits. In doing so, and being too gung-ho about it, they risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. For corporates, the cost of ownership of M$ will skyrocket. This opens the door for a machine which consumers (and corporates) can buy off the shelf which is easy(ish) to use. Like an iMac or a G4, for instance.......
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
It's important to keep a larger perspective here. More people are using computers every day, but those people have choices to make about what operating system they use. True, there will be people who move from Linux to Mac OS X, but there are still plenty of people who'll go take a shiny new G4 and stick the latest LinuxPPC version on it.
Important to note, however, is that Linux is being used more than ever for servers, in both number and market share. This, IMO, is where Linux excels the best. Mac OS X will run a server on an overly expensive (for what's given) system that just is a GUI overkill for your average e-mail or web server. On the other hand, Linux runs a very slim OS as an e-mail, web, database, DNS, etc. etc. server. While Samba definately isn't perfect or near NT's native implementation of it, it's definately reliable enough now for regular use.
I'll grant those anti-Linux people that Linux isn't perfect for the desktop. I used it for some 11 months, but found too many applications I needed just couldn't run under Linux, and I don't think Wine is really worth trying to run Office through (even though it, as of recently, does run it). However, I'm absolutely astounded by its hardware support, and comparing directly to MacOS X it's unbelievable (running only on the later Macs and their supported accessories is just plain crap for hardware support). I currently run Linux on my laptop (old Pentium 150 Mhz), and my server - they run absolutely beautifully. All of my laptop hardware is supported by Linux, even my old Chips and Tech video card under XFree86 4.0!
Coming back to my original point though, new people are still getting into computers, most taking a newbie OS like MacOS or Windows. But those that are using Windows now are switching to more advanced OSes like Linux, BSD (all flavors), BeOS, etc, as they become comfortable with setting up their systems. Perhaps MacOS X will take a chunk of LinuxPPC users, but I think that Linux is in good position to gain serious market share in the next 3 years.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
One thing I have always liked about Apple is how they do this. Just try finding a free (legal) copy of windows 95, or even win 3.1 or dos for download from microsoft.
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
Well, who cares if it runs Linux apps? They are usually open source anyways, they can be recompiled. What isn't open source, can be bought today for MacOS, and will be available by fall for OS X. On top of this, the personality of Linux (and Windows apps for that matter) don't appeal to Apple's customers. Too hard to use and feel to cludgy.
"A deal with Insignia Solutions to license Virtual PC code and create Red Box (an environment in which Windows apps can run). "
What developer would EVER code for Mac native apps if a Mac could transparently run Windows apps? What does this offer a customer that Windows doesn't offer natively? Apple's customer base is NOT interested in running Window's applications, generally speaking. They are too cludgy. Even MS Office on Mac "feels" better to a MacOS than Office 2k on a PC. Microsoft KNOWS what their Mac using customers want...that's why IE for MacOS had many usability features before it did for PC. Print preview, tabbed searches, easy to manage favorites (much easier than in IE 5.5 on WIndows), you can set it to ask to accept/refuse cookies on a site basis (great when you want to go to nytimes and slashdot, but dont want any other cookies...it REMEMBERS it too)...just to name a few.
Even if these reasons didn't matter, MacOS X won't exist on x86 commody hardware for the two following reasons: 1. OpenFirmware blows BIOS out of the water and 2. IRQ's are a great source of pain. Mac customers don't want to know or see or even deal with anything resembling IRQ's. When I first of IRQ's my first thought was "you gotta be kidding me?"....
Burn Hollywood Burn
The other thing people are missing is that OS X will have something(s) Linux WONT. Quicktime (used exclusively on many sites), IE 5.5 (needed for some sites you debate the good or bad of this), office, and many more windows programs. Linux wont have these. It will basically have all that Linux has plus a whole lot more.
Lastly OS X will ahve cocoa and carbon, which although I have not used, I have heard are way better than QT and gtk/gnome API's. AS well they are making a program that will make GUI creation easier and faster than Visual Cafe or Powerbuilder.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Every time the BSD tcp/ip stack beated the Linux tcp/ip stack, masses of linux geeks threw their weight at the problem until linux came out on top.
:)
The same is now happening with memory management, many times, on the linux kernel mailing list, people refer to 'BSD is faster in this type of operation or load', and people are coding like crazy to make linux the better party.
So why wouldnt it be posible for Mac OSX to do the same? masses of linux coders brushing up gnome/kde/xfree86/etc to get it upto spec, and maybe even better then Mac OS X.
Nothing seems to motivate a linux coder more then 'the other guys were better then you'. So heck, im hoping it will be a good thing
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
While Linux is a nearly-universal kernel which runs near-flawlessly on many different systems, MacOS X is strictly a workstation for Macs. Linux has no problems running my Sparc 5 and my AMD K6 - nearly all of the services I run on each are source-compatible between the two - and is a proven server operating system. My department deploys no less than 5 Linux servers (Oracle and Apache), and they requre little maintenance - just a rack to live in. OS X is a very smooth desktop operating system, and that is in fact what I use at home and at work. While Linux can be used as a workstation and OS X as a server, for many reasons they are not comparable:
The only reason OS X might tread on Linux's toes is the fact that it does have Unixish services and such. You can run Apache, sshd, proftpd, bind, innd, and other services from MacOS X. But that is not its focus.
The only reason Linux might tread on OS X's toes is that Linux can be used as a power-user's desktop operating system. But in my opinion, that is not its forte - and shouldn't be its focus.
so I can make certain that patches I submit as a result of porting utilities to OS X don't break Liunx builds!
Finally, part of the appeal of OS X for me was summed up quite nicely by Linus Torvalds some time ago:
has gotten too easy on Linux!
.sig: file not found
-
-Be a man. Insult me without using an AC.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
You see, when you say ``Linux,'' what do you really mean? You really don't think of your kernel. Really, you don't. You think of all those great tools that help you to get your work done... tools like make and vim and gcc and grip and the gimp and apt and everything else that make you more productive. Things like the window manager that does what you want, and configurability of how your text editor works, and being able to easily remap your keys and such.
If, suddenly, you can get something from Apple that has a BSD underneath, with all the great tools you have grown to love, is it really MacOS that you're loving? No, it's still the things that you love on your computer that you call ``Linux.''
Might MacOS decrease the number of people who run the Linux kernel? Perhaps. Mostly, though, I think it will increase the base of people who have access to all the great tools that we love. In that perspective, what we call ``Linux'' will just have more people added to the ranks.
And, I think, this is what is going to happen to all the computer vendors, especially the UNIX vendors: They will either become like Linux, or they will die. Either you will have all the great tools available to you on your UNIX variant, along with easy (apt-style, perhaps) upgrading and such, or you will see that flavor of UNIX die off. So you might still have a Solaris or IRIX kernel, and maybe even C library, but your installation will become more and more Linux-like. And so, sort of, Linux will achieve Total World Domination. Maybe not the kernel... but the powerful environment, for sure.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
...and I'll say it again, OSX, or any other OS for that matter, represents no "threat" to Linux. Does Coca-Cola "threaten" water? Does the existence of dominos "threaten" my ability to play cards? Of course not. It doesn't matter how popular any OS becomes, because Linux is free, and will always be supported and improved upon by those who love it. It does not rely upon a centralized authority to ensure it's continued survival, ala Windows. As long as one person is running Linux, Linux is alive. The pundits keep talking about Linux as though its a traditional product. It's not. It's not in a race to "beat" anything. We users may hope for eventual supremacy over other OSes, but that is not now, nor has it ever been a primary concern. All the attention from the media, and the involvement of companies like RedHat is great, but it's all peripheral to the central idea that Linux was created, and is maintained by the people who use it. Something better may come along someday, and if it is truly better people will switch. But I can tell you that it will have to be free and open for that to happen. I wish Mac OS well. But I have no concerns whatsoever that there is any potential that it will "threaten" my current OS of choice.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
Just recently, I aquired a dual-G4/500MHz machine and MacOSX beta. I started up the machine (which shipped with OS9 installed), and the first thing it did was crash. Then I installed OSX.
First of all, OSX is *beautiful*. You'd be hard-pressed to pick out an individual pixel on the screen with OSX running. The anti-aliasing is done very well (does not look blurry), and I haven't noticed any slowness in any of the rendering.
The interface isn't extremely different from previous MacOS's (note that I haven't used previous MacOS's much). The menu bar still stays at the top of the screen, and programs still don't quit unless you choose "quit" from the file menu, which bothers me. The rest of the interface is very nice, however. Lots of drag-and-drop, which I like.
I could see myself switching to OSX as soon as it goes mainstream and gets more applications to support it. You can run OS9 programs now, sort of, but it's slow. OSX is stable, though, and POSIX-compliant, which means it beats Windows in my book. And since I really like things that are well-designed and thought out, I like it better than Linux, at least on principle. We'll see about usability.
Oh, and I absolutely LOVE the G4 hardware. The instant I openned the case, I thought "Damn, why didn't anyone else think of this!?" You really have to see it to understand, though.
Over the past few years, Apple has really changed. Basically everything that was wrong about them before has been fixed, and in many cases made *better* then the competition. The only problem remaining is price. G4 hardware is still on the expensive side, though not so much so as I rembered. Also, if you know what you are doing, you can bring the price down by buying just the case and mobo and using standardized parts for everything else (ATA/66 hard drives, PC100 RAM, AGP video (ATI cards), USB keyboard/mouse, etc.).
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MacOS X is going to slaughter Linux on the desktop. But who cares? BeOS slaughtered Linux on the desktop, Windows 2000 slaughterd Linux on the desktop, MacOS 9 slaughtered Linux on the desktep, NeXTStep slaughtered Linux on the desktop, even Windows 3.1 was better than Linux on the desktop.
Linux, as we know it today, it not going going to ever take over the desktop -- not when it doesn't support any of the new media files, not when it doesn't have a decent web browser, not when every distribution comes with (several) piss-poor, incompatible, incomplete control panel utilities, not when it every single program I run seems to have its own widget set, has a different set of fonts, has home-rolled its own ugly alpha blending, and has a different look-n-feel to go with it all.
It will never take over when clicking "install everything" on any distribution means that every passing script kiddie has root on your machine. It will never take over when every single piece of software available requires a certain kernel, a certain C library, a certain set of fonts, a certain version of X, a certain version of Gnome, or any one of the half-dozen Java Runtimes, and each is incompatible with whatever you're running now.
Linux will never take over when every significant program has implemented it's own (somewhat incomplete, and slightly buggy) installer, each incompatible with any method you were using to keep track of where every file on your machine came from.
Linux will never take over when every distribution, every desktop, ever file manager, and even ever program available has its own way of associating files with programs -- It will never take over when telling Gnu Midnight Commander, Netscape, Mozilla, Konquerer, and any other program whether to open PDF files with Ghostview or Adobe Acrobat means configuring each program individually.
Linux is never going to take over the desktop as long as working as a networking client is so piss poor. It will never take over when browsing the network, and attaching to an SMB share, or a Netware share, or an NFS share requires either strong administrator magic, or a user poking around in the shell as root.
Linux is never going to take over the desktop as long as printing is still such an immense pain in the ass -- printing on Linux is about as pitiful as printing from DOS was 15 years ago. The only difference is that DOS programs often made an attempt to work with available printers, while every Linux program demands either a PostScript printer, or a buggy filter manually set up to pretend there's a PostScript printer there.
In short, Linux as we know it essentially has no desktop presence at all. Given the realities of the market, I can't imagine a situation where most current Linux users would consider using a version of Linux that fixed the flaws of Linux that makes it so useless on the desktop. Linux has nothing to worry about from Apple on the Desktop, because Linux isn't on the Desktop anyhow.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
You haven't used OS X, have you? Let's talk.
Well for starters you lose all those lovely ease of use features once you start using X instead of aqua. So there goes that.
The ease of use is *not* totally lost once you start using X. In fact, for many people, I suspect the ease of use associated with the Mac OS isn't really just the cues/navigation abilities in the Finder and widget set -- though those are nice.
No, the real niceness is in the system administration/configuration/installation courtesies. It generally just seems to take less time to learn how to do these, so you get your system out of the way faster to do whatever else it is you wanted to.
OS X follows in this tradition. I installed it, and it worked. Inside 30 minutes. OK, with all the dev tools it inside 45. And oh yes, it's full of all the commandline goodness I've come to expect and love from Linux.
Secondly, you can't run full OS X on x86 platforms - just darwin. So you get an expensive and slow computer from apple that has a candy coated shell. Am I the only one that doesn't see a point?
Apple *will* somehow have to address the price performance issue if they want to gouge market share out of others. But they can keep their core advantages (enumerated above) and keep their core customre base, maybe even grow a little.
BTW, on what do you base your assumption that current apple hardware is "second rate" other than processor speed?
The deal is that since apple customers are cultist followers,
Blah, blah. "I don't understand apple custumors so they must not be rational." Great logic. I expect you to admit also think people like Minkowski and Feynman were loons (pardon my assumption that you don't understand all the theories they published).
But at least they don't have a cpu fan - that's worth an extra $600, right?
Not, as it turns out, in the mass market. But I love laptops for this reason. I hate the noise.
And, as it turns out, one of my hobbies is audio/video production -- a big market for apple. Having a quiet computer really is an asset. But you probably didn't think about that.
If OS-X does anything, it'll simply be to raise the bar for KDE and GNOME - a challenge they will be able to meet.
KDE and GNOME, great as they are, don't get anywhere at solving the underlying system administration problem. Eazel might.
Sorry, but apple has gone the way of the Amiga - thousands of deluded followers and zero relevance.
If by deluded you means that there's not hope of world domination, then your comment has truth. But if you mean that Apple's offerings don't have things worth examining -- even buying -- then you're off your rocker. The Cocoa (formerly Yellowbox/Openstep) development framework by itself is a find. The other benefits I've touted in this post are real and will appeal to people -- even some Linux users.
Mass abandonment of Linux for OS X? Hardly probable. Even if OS X was completely superior and ran on Intel hardware, the ideology of Open Source and sheer stubborn religiousness withing the
*LINUX* community would keep users -- just like the "deluded apple followers" you mention.
But don't think that means that OS X isn't something to be reckoned with -- and learned from.
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Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.