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Linux Promises, Apple Delivers
Anonymous Mac OS X Coward writes "This is a pretty strong article talking about Apple's delivery of *nix to the common man, something Linux has been touting for a while.
It has good points, like apple actually tries to make the OS user friendly while linux sees this as a side project." Valid points. I need to get a copy of OSX. I'm really curious if it truly can be the common persons *nix. Sure looks like it could be, but I still don't know.
I find Linux amazingly easy-to-use (And UNIX in general, except for things like CDE, but that is another story). I can get done what I need to get done. I can find out what I need to find out about everything. I know exactly what the programs running on my computer do, how they are run, and how they interact, so I can fix problems when they come up rather than just shrug. I love my command line, and shell scripting, and script languages, and can do amazingly complex tasks fairly easily with them.
My window manager is configured to be fairly fast, so that I can use my keyboard to get around easily and accomplish other tasks easily. Selecting copies to the clipboard, middle-click pastes. All these things make me powerful on my computer.
This all took me a while to learn, however.
MacOS (and also Windows) fall under ``easy-to-learn''. They do not have as many of the flexible, powerful tools available to them. They really don't care about that, they want people to be able to do easy tasks without having to sit down and understand things. Things are hidden from the user as much as possible; many times it is impossible to do tasks that are trivial under a UNIX machine.
``easy-to-learn'' systems are important in a world where people don't want to have to figure out how things work in order to play solitaire or download email viruses^W^W porn^H^H^H^H games and emails from friends. To this end, I think that Linux is fairly easy-to-learn from a user perspective, though adminisration is still rough. But even administration has become much more ``easy-to-learn.'' And userland is getting better almost weekly.
On the contrary, MacOS (until maybe OSX, I will believe it when I see it) and Windows have not become, for me, any more easy-to-use. They are easier to learn, but still not as easy-to-use.
Please don't stick me in front of a computer that isn't easy-to-use. I just can't take it. I need to be productive in front of a computer, if you take the productivity away from me it is terribly frustrating.
Rant over.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
- 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?"
RedHat should be expecting users with no security knowledge to be installing RH on systems connected directly to the net and configuring the default desktop install for such. One could possibly claim that RedHat was being criminally negligent (same for any other distro (and that's not just Linux, either: Solaris, Windows, Mac too) that does similar). Arguments to the effect that it inconveniences a sysadmin on an internal network are bogus as the admin should bloody well know what he is doing. Not only that, he can set up one machine and then clone it.
If you're going to flame me for this, choose your flames carefully, I am a RedHat user (mind you, only 20% now, but untill last December, 100%). I know from 4 years use (and a rooting:/)just how fubared RedHat's default install is.
Don't be too suprised if in the not too distant future slack OS distributers start seeing security related law suits. I won't.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
You are missing the point. A unix is difficult to use (bear with me) but very powerful and flexible. It is the best option for a hacker, one who works with the computer itself, and has to have as much access and as much control as possible to do his job (programming, adminning, etc.)
For the rest of the world, the opposite is better. An OS that is very easy to use but somewhat limited in what it can do by itself. To them, a computer is a tool for doing something else. They don't care about all the options they have for the computer itself, they just want it to do what it has to do to get out of their way and let them get stuff done.
If someone made the equivalent of a game console that ran only Photoshop, they would own the content creation world.
uh, no. Never. Not even for a single quarter.
IBM dominated, for a brief period, "PC compatibles". But at the time the pc had not been cloned, apple still had *staggering* market share, radio shack was significant (but dwindling), and *plenty* of 8 bit machines and prorprietary machines. Aple held on to at least 10% even into the mid 90's.
however, the point that things change quickly is true--the os, wp, and spreadsheet monopolies are "contestable" monolies, and ms got them by contesting them from the predecessors--os from cpm, wp from wordperfect who in turn took it from wordstar, and excel from lotus.
I don't know what the dominant wp and spreadsheet will be 10 years from now, but history says it won't be word and excel (though they mihgt be somethign else from ms).
hawk
I think you will be disappointed in the performance of OS X on an iMac.
OS X relies a lot on AltiVec, which is only found in G4s, which is *not* available in any system for $900.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
We will not wait. We will dual-boot to classic for those functions until the patch is ready. It's not THAT big of a deal.
For all the other stuff, no crashing is a big change compared to what we Mac OS users are used to.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
128MB SDRAM - 1 DIMM
iMac 600MHz
40GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-RW Drive
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K internal modem
Two USB ports
Two FireWire ports
VGA video mirroring
Harman Kardon speakers
Apple Pro Keyboard
Apple Pro Mouse
Here's one of my BIG complaints about Apple. Can I get the same iMac 600MHz, let's see, I don't need the 56k internal modem, I have DSL, I don't need VGA video mirroring, don't need the fancy speakers, dont need their crappy 1 button mouse, I'd like to have a 4 button model Kensington instead. Don't need the CD-RW, I'd like to use the external SCSI one I already have. hm. let's see, that's roughly what, like $500? minus the cost of the 4 button, $450. So can I get this model for $1050? fuck no. I have to buy all this useless garbage I don't need. I couldn't even leverage the SCSI CD-RW anyway, because of the extreme irony of a Mac without external SCSI connectors.
PC's for all their faults, give you this kind of flexibility. Yes, you have that flexibility with the more expensive G4 models, but then, you're adding another $1000 to the price tag, so what's the point?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yes, but Apple wants MS to keep writing IE and Office for Mac, so you can bet, DOJ or no, that OpenStep for Windows NT will never see the light of day.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Funny you mention that driver upgrade, because the latest thing going through the Mac tech community is this problem upgrading the NVidia driver on Macs, there's sort of a catch 22 that requires you to write an Apple Script to get the firmware update to work, so you can install the driver (or something like that).
In other words; on a Mac, you must learn to become a programmer to do something as basic as update a driver. (in this case). I find the irony sweet to the taste.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What's really great is, a lot of great BSD stuff has been ported. . .
bash, Gimp, XFree86, Samba, Apache.
As far as critical apps goes, I'd say OS X is close on Linux's tail, and it currently runs pretty much all Classic Mac software already, and most critical desktop stuff, mail, web, office, has already been carbonized. There's not a lot left (other than Photoshop, which, ironically, was supposedly one of the first apps that was carbonized. What's up with THAT, I wonder?)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I'm not trying to FUD or Troll,
I was greatly underwhelmed by the performance of OS X on my 300MHz G3 Beige. And I've seen it on a Dual 533 G4. Barely useable in the classic Mac GUI interaction way. (command line was snappy though).
I know a lot of that was unoptomized slowness of the PB that will be cleared up in the release, but there's a LOT of fancy schmancy eye candy in Aqua, that works very well on a G4, but slows things way down on a G3. Trust me, you won't be happy with this thing on an iMac.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Retail prices is what I'm paying. Moreso with Apple's obnoxious markups. (have you priced their RAM upgrades lately?)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Well, I havent' tried the final, and I will next week, and I may actually eat some crow on this point, considering what others are saying. I just wonder if people's perceptions are colored by exuberance at having a new OS. I mean, nobody complained about PB performance until 2 weeks after it was released. The first two weeks people were just drooling at it or bitching about the dock (goddamn dock!).
On the other hand, if I believed MacOSRumors, I'd be running a Dual 1 GHz G5 monitorless iMac with a holographic display, and it would run Windows apps in RedBox.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
you have to buy a Mac from APple, you don't have to buy a PC from Dell or Compaq. There's zillions of vendors from which you can get zillions of configurations, pick and choose components, and avoid being nickel-and-dimed to death.
No, I don't bolt together my systems. I buy Macs, I prefer that - and I like many aspects of their product, but I sure wish some other aspects were a bit more flexible and open. I'm sure a lot of Mac people feel the same (but see it as a trade off vs. all the cons of buying a PC).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
GNUSTEP?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That's nice, but let's get the stats right. Everything up to System 6.x (1987) ran on everything which had been released at that time.
System 7.0 (1991) was the first System to require 2 megs of RAM (this effectively eliminates only the mac 128 and 512, unless you do significant upgrading to the 512). This lasted through 7.5.5, although 2 megs was probably not nearly enough for a real install of 7.5.x.
System 7.6 (1996) was the first System to eliminate 68000s (most old Macs), 68020s (MacII), and 68030s which were not 32-bit clean (SE/30, etc.). I believe the RAM requirement went up to 8 megs of physical memory here, too.
MacOS 8.0 (1997) eliminated all non-PPC or 68040 Macs. This meant the oldest Mac MacOS 8 could run on was a Quadra 700, which came out in October 1991. So this is about a 6 year spread of Macs at the most at this point. I believe it also upped RAM requirements to 16 megs.
MacOS 8.5 (1998) was a big one, the first to require a PowerMac of any kind. The FIRST PowerMac was March of 1994, but lets not forget that Apple was still making 68040 Macs until April 1995. RAM requirement is now 32 megs, I think. So Apple is now down to a 3.5-4.5 year spread for what hardware their most current software will run on. Fortunately, until 3/24/2001 (unless you count MacOS X Server or the public beta), the requirements have not gone up at all. 9.1 still runs on 7 year old Macs.
MacOS X (2001) requires a G3/G4. The *first* G3 was November, 1997. So basically, if you're machine is over 3.5 years old, you're out. This is not impressive. I find it unbelievable that Apple can ship a product which does not run on any hardware which was shipping a the time when they shipped the second beta (Rhapsody b2 in 1997) of the product. I guess I don't care that much, though, since I already ordered my copy. :P
Still, I think Apple's doing better than Microsoft did with Windows 95, which shipped in August 1995 and didn't [really] run on a 386.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
Check out this page for the full range of Macs that will run OS X.
It goes back as far as the original "Bondi Blue" iMac and the first G3 desktops. My fruity 333Mhz iMac will just need a RAM upgrade, which it sorely needed anyhow.
People keep saying "but in some cases those services are needed". I say, so what. It is a lot easier to turn them on than to turn them off. This is because it is obvious when you need to turn them on (something you want to do does not work), and it is obvious when you succeed in doing it (that thing you want starts working).
They should ship with everything off.
Facts? FACTS?!?
Get out! Get out! Get out! If someone makes baseless statements about a company they obviously know nothing about, you should never contradict them with the truth. That's just bad manners.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
Perhaps I don't understand ... Is there a look-and-feel difference between BSD and Linux? If you mean command line options, I wouldn't consider that a look or a feel. If you mean X, then I'm curious -- how can you tell whether you're running BSD or Linux while running X?
Umm... OS X's kernel is based on NeXT's kernel, which is based on Mach. The userland stuff is based on BSD. Dunno how GNUists care one way or the other about kernel design (unless you're talking Hurd, which is neither BSD nor Mach)
Perhaps you're just trolling -- in which case, phfffllllbbblllt!
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
No point, if they can't read the computer in their own language. Apple (and Microsoft, incidentally) are the leaders in I18N support for their OSes. I believe Solaris is also in the top. Linux has some decent support, but nowhere near the level of Apple and MS.
Would you use an OS if it gave you prompts in Swahilli? Even if it was free (and Free)?
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Did you read my post? You're agreeing with me -- thanks for the supporting anecdote.
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
I didn't make myself clear, I suppose. Either that, or you're intentionally misreading me to score one-upsmanship points. Either way, I'll clarify with smaller words.
Porting OS X to x86 hardware gains Apple nothing, except availability on cheap hardware. This minor advantage is not something Apple is willing to spend millions (perhaps billions) on achieving. As an occassional Apple user (digital video and Photoshop, mainly), I'd prefer Apple to spend that money on advancing their PPC technology.
(Okay, eMachines use ATI processors. s/eMachines/random generic computer/ if it makes you feel better.)
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Geez, is this still hanging around? Look, Windows users aren't using Windows because it's got an x86 architecture. This is a myth promulgated over and over again by well-meaning people who think Apple needs their advice.
If you ask your standard Windows user what processor he has, you'll get either a misguided or flat-out wrong answer ("It's a Pentium!" Okay, Sparky, what version of Pentium? II, III, IV? Wait, it's not a Pentium, it's an Athlon!) All they know for sure is that they run Windows.
The reason why the MacOS is so nice and tight is because they control the hardware and the software. Throw in a different architecture (especially one with a funny endian-ness), and now you've exponentially increased your support costs, with little benefit.
x86 hardware has price going for it, and that's all. And you only get that price advantage when you're buying cheap shit. You want a decent video card? It costs. What comes in your $500 eMachines is usually a piece of crap. What's in the $800 iMac isn't top of the line, but at least it's made by ATI and not Wang Chungs House o' Video Procs.
Repeat after me -- Windows users use Windows because they think its the best. If they sit down at at Mac, they'll think it's screwed up.
(I'm talking generalities here -- there are exceptions, but only exceptions. The general rule is still true.)
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Will Mac OS X become popular if it's being run on x86 hardware? I posit to you that it wouldn't make a difference. As proof, I offer BeOS as an example.
BeOS is created, amid quite a bit of hype. It runs on proprietary Be hardware. They sell a handful of 'em, so they port to Apple hardware (in, I believe, an attempt to get bought by Apple. I'm willing to bet that if you looked at Gassee's exit strategy on his business plan, that's what you'll find) They still can't sell many copies, though they sell more than before. They port to x86 hardware, and they sell a few more copies. But, regardless of quality and power and availability on x86 hardware, Be can't make many in-roads. Now Be has re-invented itself again as an "Internet Appliance" OS, trying another tact. Not only was Be unable to uproot Microsoft, they couldn't even survive as a co-existing OS.
OS X on x86 would sell a few copies, but not enough to make it worthwhile, because OS X is not Windows.
Techno-elitist? I don't have a computer newer than 5 years old. Some elitist. Don't assume you know me, Sparky.
I'll use smaller words, since the point whizzed a good 3 or 4 feet over your head.
In porting Mac OS X to x86 hardware, Apple gains cheap hardware, and that's all. There is no particularly important technical reason for Apple to do so. Why spend a minimum of 2 years and millions (perhaps billions) of dollars to gain a handful of users?
Apple hardware, regardless of what you think, is not that expensive. It's more expensive than Turbo Bob's House o' Chips box, but on par with a Dell or IBM, which, after all, is Apple's peer group.
Neither will your mother say "Because I blindly follow other people, baa baa baaaa", but that doesn't make it less true.
If they use Windows for Word, they think Windows is the best OS to run Word on, though I find the Mac version superior myself. If they use it for Quake, it's because they think it's best for Quake (which happens to be true). If it's because it came with the computer, if they didn't think Windows was best, they'd install Linux, right?
Microsoft has spent billions of dollars convincing people that Windows is the best. They spend untold millions more in t-shirts and pens at trade shows to make IT managers think favorably of them. They spend even more in staff to put the thumbscrews to computer manufacturers to make sure they ship boxes with Windows on 'em (barring that, MS at least gets the money).
I don't blame people for equating computers with Windows, but neither do I delude myself into thinking that people care one way or the other.
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
At my work we're having to rewrite large portions of out (windows) code because of its lack of remote administration. If it were unix, it wouldn't be an issue. SSH in and go.
Yes, you can set up ssh on Windows, but the OS still isn't set up as nicely to be able to manage your system from the console.
Also, scripting the command-line is DEAD SIMPLE!
I often run the following command:
cdrecord -v -dev=0,0,0 -speed=10 -blank=fast && cdrecord -v -dev=0,0,0 -speed=10 -eject yourISOhere.iso
I walk away, I come back 15 minutes later and I've just done something that can't be easily duplicated by most existing GUI cdr software.
GUIs are great. I used a GUI burning tool under Linux almost exclusively until I read the man page. The great thing with Unix is that most of the GUI tools are written on top of console-based tools, and it uses flat files almost exclusively. This gives me ease of use when I want it, but power and flexibility when I need it.
Both have their place.
This poster is neither an OS X fan or Linux supporter. he is just in the line of "who rules, who suxx". And it is interesting to see /. going on it. Does this means that we finally get some peace from the Linux Hyper "Cry-Lowd" command?
.NET initiative. Maybe that thing is real cool, real effective and real good. OS/2 is also one of the best OSes ever made you know?
I wonder when Linux Torvalds, Alan Cox or anyone on the top Linux development promised to make it "easy-for-the-masses". If anyone cared at least to read interviews, then he knows that Linus position is crystal clear - develop the server side. However he doesn't mess with anyone who wants to make it "user-friendly". Well there are several distros trying to do it and its THEIR right to do it, and let's hope they get successful on this. But it's the distros, stupid...
Now it is amazing to see that someone comes up with the eternaly promised OS X and suddenly we, the Linux community, are not only "failing" in some nebulous promess. No. We are failing because an OS that till now didn't make the highway looks much better than Linux. I can't say it's worse or better. Because I have never seen it, and also because this OS is much more overhyped than any
Besides we take this articleand what we see?
"When the Linux hype hit its height about a year ago, there were predictions that it was going to take market share from every operating system out there, including from the Mac but especially from Windows."
Ok that's cool, that's real great... Well I know that we are after MS. And we do are after MS. And we are going to hunt Redmonds birdies as far as we can. But that's an historical problem made of tons of people who were dropped out of the MS boat and found refuge on Linux world.
There were also risks that we could take some Sun or BSD piece of the market but really that was not in our plans to take over the world... However "including the Mac"??? Who knows Mac users, perfectly understands that these are the ones in the end of the line. A Mac user will more probably to turn to Windows and barely will ever risk to enter our world. Because, apart of the good looking desktops "a-la Mac", everything else is a Mac user worst nightmare.
Then you've obviously not spent much time working with NeXTSTEP. As I'm sure many other people here will point out (or have already), NeXT was very user friendly, and yet very powerful.
[My mother] neither wants nor needs most of the benefits that it provides
She doesn't need true multitasking? She doesn't need a computer that crashes the instant a single program goes Tango Uniform? She doesn't need a system that makes it simple to send a fax, from any application, by simply clicking a single button on the Print Panel?
Truthfully, we can all benefit from the power of a UNIX system. Just think of all the problems in DOS--er, Windows. Can your mother benefit from losing those problems, while gaining ease-of-use? That's what it's all about.
My biggest problem, with both the Linux community and (especially) the Windows consumer community at large, is that it doesn't need to be like this. Computers can be powerful and easy at the same time. I know, I was there. Truly computer-illiterate secretaries who'd been using IBM Selectrics for 30 years were comfortable, and very productive, with NeXTSTEP. As were three-star generals and other high-level bueraucrats. Any OS that can provide a usable system to those two kinds of users deserves a gold medal.
The point is: It can be better. NeXT knew that. I wish that the Linux community would truly recognize that, as well. And as long as Steve doesn't screw the company into the ground like did at Apple before, and NeXT after, we could be looking at a true renaissance in personal computing.
I hate it when these sensationalist bastards over-hype something they don't even understand, then rip it down when it doesn't live up to the hype. Just read this lousy little piece-of-crap editoral linked here. Just who decided that Linux was going to take over the desktop, and hyped that claim? Oh, that's right-- the self-serving journalists and clueless industry pundits. And now that Linux has failed to take over the desktop, they get to gloat about it. WTF?!
Look, you bastards, just because some hackers work on GNOME or KDE, doesn't mean all of us even want to turn Linux into a desktop OS. Some of us appreciate it for its virtues, like complete control by the administrator (yes, administrator), stability, and transparency, and also appreciate other operating systems for their easy-for-clueless-Joe-User qualities. We're not all behind the 'castrated-Linux' desktop idea you so firmly latched onto last year, alright?!
Gah! I can't stand smug bastard pundits like this Reynolds guy, especially when they're only smugly ripping down a strawman.
The biggest traditional feature of MacOS has been the fact that it was tied very close to the hardware. (In fact for years, Apple didn't offically even admit that "The Macintosh" had an OS.)
Unfortunately, the designers took this to heart and didn't build enough abstraction layers into the operating system. Thus whenever they want to add support for new hardware, even just a new motherboard design, it by necessity meant a new code path. And guess what, the older path will eventually get dropped or forgotten.
Apple has been well aware of this problem since the era of clones and CHRP. However, the proposed fix was the Copland OS which never shipped. So hardware independance was just another goat sacraficed at the alter of Apple's R+D fuckups.
OS X should solve this problem of hardware abstraction and could potentially provide a lot more backcompatiblity in the future, if Apple wants it too. Note how it supposedly (unofficially) supports machines like the 8500, which I think were only officially supported during the Rhapsody beta period some years ago.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Well, the legacy of Apple is being user friendly. Look at applesoft Basic. You could teach it to children and they could actually write viable programs. Then the Macintosh. One mouse button. Icons. A (somewhat) intuitive file structure. All this when PCs were still command line as a standard. Can they make *Nix user friendly? Perhaps. Will OSX be friendly out of the box? Probably not, at least not for a standard end user. I think they can do it, but it will still take a little while, maybe in two or three years they will have it truly userfriendly.
You say you want a revolution....
Am I an Apple user? Nope, but I will be. I've got a new iMac sitting on my desk and my copy of OS X is on the way.
And just like all Macs before it, no one will write any software for OS X.
When was the last time you checked out what software was available for Macs? 1995?
http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/index.htm l
http://www.versiontracker.com/
And if you want a computing environment that's as tough to learn how to use as it is to learn how to fly, hey, your kink is ok, but it's not necessary.
Incorrect. OS X can take advantage of AltiVec for some things, but doesn't need it. Ditto for a few (very few, so far) applications.
Uh, nothing personal, but why should I trust you over the folks -- and I don't mean just Apple, who might be tempted to exaggerate -- who've said that OS X works just fine on a G3?
By the way, thanks Neil.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
MacOS (and also Windows) fall under ``easy-to-learn''. They do not have as many of the flexible, powerful tools available to them. They really don't care about that, they want people to be able to do easy tasks without having to sit down and understand things. Things are hidden from the user as much as possible; many times it is impossible to do tasks that are trivial under a UNIX machine.
Your have much to learn. If you think MacOS or Windows lack powerful tools, then you haven't used them enough. So you like grep? You can do regex searches on MacOS and Windows. Like writing shell scripts? You will not find a better shell scripting language than AppleScript. Perl floats your boat? Perl works excellently on MacOS (not just X, 7 thru 9) and Windows. Want to repartition your hard drive? Trivial. All of the great, powerful tools and commands you love about Unix have MacOS and Windows equivalents. You just have to learn how to use them -- just like Unix.
Don't assume, just because you don't know about something, that it does not exist.
Furthermore, a GUI allows you to trivially perform complex operations that would be very difficult on a command line. It cuts both ways. Think how easy a GUI makes it to select and open, copy, or delete a large number of files with no easily identifiable pattern in their names.
If it were available for PC's.
Greetings Joergen
I just find it so darned cute to see an OS with 4% of the desktop market get into a pissing contest with an OS with 1% of the desktop market over which one serves "the common man" the best.
Cheers,
What is up with the Lear Jet designers??? Can't they make the damn things easier for the average person to fly?
I suspect that NASA considers the multi-million dollar upgrade of User Interface to the space shuttles to be worth their while.
Could the pilots fly them before? Of course.
Is it safer, easier, faster and more reliable to fly with the new integrated graphic displays (as opposed to ten thousand switches and blinking lights)? You bet your ass.
Funny how NASA, the armed forces (along with the FAA and every airline and manufacturer) have realized that having a few context-sensitive graphical multipage displays makes it less likely for operator error to occur than the old "make everything a switch and blinking light" method of design.
The difference is, when people mess up at the control of a plane, people die. Unfortunately, the same isn't true of most computer systems, so there's been little incentive to fix glaring usability errors that every single user runs across. If every time you missplelled something at a command prompt someone died, I have a feeling lots of Unix folks would reconsider the usefulness of well-designed user interfaces...
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The ability to pipeline commands is something that currently can only be had at the command line; I have seen a couple of discussions on /. about possibly extending this concept to a GUI, but as of now, it hasn't been done.
/etc/fstab. All of which offer little guidance and great ease to screw up your system.
Applescript works well. Probably even moreso in OSX.
Adding a new hard drive? Forget about it
You did read what you wrote, right? It involved fdisk, mkfs, and adding a mount point to
Windows and mac -- attatch hard drive (equally hard/easy on any system these days), when GUI comes up, click on new drive and select "format" from the OS context menu. Yes, you could accidentally format the wrong drive, but thats about the only pitfall. Of course it would be much easier to format the wrong drive with your method, seeing as how most people wouldn't know the difference between hda3 and hdg4 if their life depended on it.
Please note that this operation should require no knowledge of emacs, editing configuration files, mount points, cylinders, heads, or sectors, or logical block addressing, nor the internal OS loader designations for devices or number of partitions and order of drives.
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
A shiny happy tool is NOT going to save the end user when it comes to formating a new drive. You will either have to give the user the power to shoot themselves in the foot or castrate them.
Um, this means what? Of course, yes, every OS has to have the capability to format the drive. That's exactly what i said, you have to do that for any system, as well as physically installing it.
The difference is, that on *nix, you're presented with no USEFUL information on which drive is your new one unless you understand how disk partitions are allocated and tracked on that paticular system.
on Mac and Windows, the system will boot, say "hey, there's a new drive", and ask "do you want to format your new drive?" or when you go to save data on the drive it will say "hey, this is a new drive that isn't formatted, would you like to format it now so that you can save data on it?".
I assume you do all your taxes by reading all of the actual tax statues, rather than the wussy little step-by-step brochure that comes with the forms. After all, "anyone" should be able to read, fully understand, and remember with perfect recall all of the million different rules.
How can you expect to function in society if you don't know the difference between a 503(c) corporation and a 503(b)? You must just be too stupid or lazy to not know, so we're sure not going to make it easier by summarizing the differences that apply to 95%+ of the tax filers.
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
If you can get reliable market share numbers for some "major Linux Distros", I'd gladly take this as a bet.
By the end of the year, Apple will likely have shipped more *NIX than any company except Sun.
Besides, what counts is boxes IN USE. People who get RedHat to dink around but don't use it shouldn't count.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
What part of "Mac-OS-X ready" did you understand mister know-it-all? That 800 dollar imac aint gonna run MacOSX worth a shit, and apple knows it. that's why it aint mac-os-X ready.
Funny, isn't it, that Apple is labeling all iMacs released as "Mac OS X ready." I guess you know more than Apple does.
Your turn, troll-boy.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
If you want to consider used, how much does a 1997-era iMac cost today?
And speaking of third world, I take it that your mythical third-world resident with the spare time to dink around with Linux speaks English. Of course, Apple will be releasing the Hindi version of Mac OS X this summer. Arabic should be out soon, too. Japanese is shipping on March 24th, and Chinese is probably not too far behind. (Yes, I know Japan isn't third-world. But the Kanjii input methods are not going to be dissimilar to the Pinyin input methods. In short, the support for Chinese is probably there.) When's the Hindi (or Arabic or Chinese) version of Linux coming out? Granted, only about 40 or 50 percent of the world's population speaks those languages, so maybe they aren't "third-world" enough for you. Or are you only considering the multi-lingual poor people around the world?
Thought so.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I didn't see any code, any specs, any anything, other than some vague wishes. Apple will have a Unix release in Hindi between June and September, 2001 (my guess is July, at MacWorld Expo NY). When will indlinux.org have their release ready?
Mac OS X will run on an iMac 233, which costs around $250-$300 on eBay. Granted this is still very expensive for poor people, but the cost of the hardware is going to be a problem, whether it's Linux or not. If you're going to have a Graphical UI, you're going to pay for more powerful hardware.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
And how are multi-lingual applications handled? Take a look at the OS X system for i18n, and you'll probably be impressed.
This is the sort of pissing contest an Apple cheerleader simply can't win. Linux can be whatever an particular culture wants it to be.
If that particular culture has the skills to do the hacking, sure. But the cost in time is far greater than if it came from someone else, already localized.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Mac OS X uses text files (formatted as XML) underneath it all. There is just a pretty face on top. I know it's hard for Linux bigots to understand this, but most people see a computer as a means to an end, not as the end. Spending time tweaking properties in emacs is not worth it; clicking a radio button in a nice UI is far better.
And for the 0.0001% of the time where you need to hack the files directly, guess what? They're there! No registry hell to deal with.
It'd be nice if you actually knew something about what you were criticizing. But that would probably disqualify you from posting on /.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
What part of $800 didn't you understand? You can go right now to any of a dozen places on the web, and they will ship you an $800 iMac. It will run OS X just fine if you don't want to run Mac OS 9 apps. If you do want to run OS 9 apps, spend an additional $20 and buy 64 MB of RAM. This summer, when Apple plans to pre-install OS X, I'm sure that all iMacs, even the $800 ones, will ship with 128MB of RAM.
Heck, go hog-wild and spend $80 and buy 256MB of RAM. Then you can run Virtual PC for OS X when it ships this summer. That'll add an additional $99 onto the price.
And, troll-boy, please price out a comparable PC to that $800 iMac. Just try to tell me there will be more than $50 difference in the price. If you're able to buy a computer, you can afford $50 to get something better.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
"Did you see the new G4 cube? It's a thing of beauty!"
"Yeah, well, so's Cindy Margolis, but you can't run Quicken on her."
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Recently, we've been reading lots of articles and opinions on what path and "business plan" we should take, or Linux will never make it and "we'll lose". There were articles linked from Slashdot, and a friend of mine also commented recently that we "need to simplify Linux or else nobody will use it".
So, I'd rather just answer him cynically "yes, Linux is losing, and soon gonna be erradicated, and we're so damn scared of losing the market", while the reality speaks for itself.
The desktop developers don't ignore the UI. KDE and GNOME do attempt running UI research and usability tests just like the big guys, but they're always doing it for the hack value, not cause we owe something to someone and want to win hordes of users.
The idea is to hack and have fun, not to market our "Linux" thing. We don't owe it to anymore.
And from all of that, the only correct response is number four. After all, it's what Free Software is all about. Or Open Source, whichever (RMS won't lynch me, he can't find me!). So, instead of complaining about Apple, why doesn't everyone run out and start hacking on GNUstep? Heck, Apple has even open sourced CoreFoundation, which is the C framework their new version of Cocoa (OpenStep) is based on.
Of course, I'm going to go work on my Mac OS X machine, but competition is good :)
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
Do you even KNOW what a PPC processor is? It is no great leap to go from 68k to PPC.. their cores are very similar, as are the compilers.
Not only that, but porting a WELL DESIGNED OS is not a terribly difficult task. Just because Microsoft is incapable of doing it doesn't make Apple that wonderful.
I can't be bothered to go through the effort of learning to properly fly a jet aircraft. Why don't they make airplanes easier to fly? I would love for my mentally challenged cousin (he has an I.Q. of 47) to feel the exhilaration of flying, but IT'S JUST TOO HARD!
What is up with the Lear Jet designers??? Can't they make the damn things easier for the average person to fly?
But this is just the point; what you say isn't true. Remember, I just bought a Thinkpad (you snipped that out of your reply), so I *know* how much a decent quality notebook with a large screen costs. For almost exactly the same amount of money as I spent on an IBM Thinkpad A21m, I could have bought a Powerbook G4. Now, OS 9 isn't exactly my cup of tea, but that's okay: I could download Linux for it today, or shell out for Mac OS X. Problem solved. As far as speed goes, I am dead certain I could buy notebooks that are actually faster, but not for very much less, at least if we hold the design of the thing constant. Which is why I pointed out the importance of seeing one of these in person. Until you do, you would probably shrug over it just like me. Now, I have no doubt that some PC maker could duplicate the Powerbook G4 essentially feature for feature, but nobody has done this...yet.
Babar
I think the problem here is that you personally do not want any iMac at any price. The point of the iMac is that it's an ultra-quiet luggable one-piece solution with cheap wireless networking, USB-only peripherals, and a firewire hookup for your digital camera. If you want to plug in all kinds of other stuff and swap components until you get exactly what you want, you want one of the G4 models.
Similarly, if you want a relatively inexpensive one-piece (no dongles) and indestructible notebook, you might want an iBook. Otherwise, you don't.
But if you don't want an iBook, you probably *do* want a Powerbook G4. I honestly haven't yet met anybody who didn't. In all seriousness, I think this is the one Mac that has many Windows people caught with their mouths wide open. I'll confess that I didn't get the point of this machine until I saw one up close and personal, and then cursed the fact that I'd went and bought a (very, very nice) ThinkPad. :-(
The big problem with Apple wasn't the current iMac configuration per se, but the fact that they didn't offer an iMac with a built-in CD-RW at any price a year ago, when they could have and should have done so.
Babar
I will be purchasing a new fancy powermac and OS-X later this year. Why? Simple.
1) I hate windows
2) I like Unix, for things unix is good at. It appeases the geek in me.
3) I like macs; they appease the 'I don't wanna fuck around with my computer when I want to run photoshop' guy in me.
4) Apple makes funky hardware.
Plus.. the lower-level components are open-source (please let's not argue about terms; fact is, I can mess with it)
I'm not claming it's the best unix in the world, but I've been told by some friends who I adminned unix with a while back that it's quite solid. I like the desktop. one thing unix is lacking is a user-friendly desktop for those who want it. kde is neat. gnome is neat... both have good points, but neither really fits the bill.
What apple has done looks to bee a good fusion of the most flexible back-end on earth (unix) and the most consistant desktop on earth (MacOS). Great.
We could debate the fine points of windows, all the unices & linux distros, and MacOS... but this is the reality. Unless apple blows it, or unless it's a big letdown out of the gates... this could be really cool.
yes, I just had the deja vu feeling of getting a soundcard working in linux. In Beos and MS Windows it just works. It's a soundblaster 64, what's the fucking problem?
/dev audio devices in such a way that ordinary users (i.e. non root) can also enjoy sound. The only thing is, it took me two full days to get to the last part due to a gross lack of feedback as to what was actually going wrong. That is user unfriendly. That is linux. Some distributions handle this sort of thing much better these days but the bottom line is that most Linux distributions require you to do this type of fiddling to get the most trivial tasks done. Want the wheel on your mouse to work? Oh just change this and that obscure line in an even more obscure text file. Oh you want readable fonts in konqueror (ironically even the KDE website is unreadable without any tweaking)? Here's the enormously tedious procedure to get truetype fonts working.
:). But to ordinary users who just expect their mp3 player to play their mp3 when they click play this is annoying.
It turns out I have to fiddle a bit with the module settings, run red-hats sndconfig utility and since I'm on Debian, manually chmod the
Now don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy this kind of fiddling and was able to resolve all of the above issues (the reason I'm running Debian
Now you can say what you want about apple but the fact remains that while the UNIX community was talking about making UNIX user friendly, Apple got it done. I'm almost sorry I don't own a mac so I can't play with MacOS X.
Jilles
This issue is brought up every time there is an Apple related story on Slashdot.
Most x86 hardware sucks. It is cheap (in both senses) and not standardized. Bolting together a box from lowest bidder OEM parts is not computer engineering. There is a ton of legacy crap that has to be supported by the operating system. Much of it is buggy. For anyone selling and supporting an operating system, this is a bottomless pit of development and support costs.
I own and use both Macs and x86 PCs. Much of the attraction of the Mac is due to the fact that real engineering went into the design and integration of the hardware and software. This wouldn't be possible if Mac OS X was ported to some random Intel box.
They point here is that we nerds treat the interface as an after-thought. We need to grasp this fundamental truth: The Interface *is* the Computer!
Windows' success shows how even a lame-assed imitation of a good interface will work. We need to do better -- better than KDE has done, better than Gnome is so far, and god knows, better than Windows. There are too many details! Too much technical knowledge required! We can do so much better.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
When I installed OS X Public Beta on my older Mac, I suddenly found myself using my Linux box a lot less. The things I love Linux for, being able to setup reliable servers, the command line, Unix programs, standard development tools (after I installed them separately), and eager users with lots of info and ideas - were all there. At the same time Mac OS X has something that Linux lacks, a beautiful, smooth, consistant user interface. Mac OS X is really a pleasure to use. For me, it's the best of both worlds.
Of course, Mac OS X is not free.
If a bunch of wankers from across the globe can make an OS that supports so much stuff (two bunches, if you include Linux as well as BSD) certainly Apple can do something similar.
CoS has nothing to do with John Travolta. It's the Cult of Steve.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
You actually can buy an iMac for $900. You still don't get a LOT for your money, but that's actually not bad.
Still... Compare the $1200 machine. I think my points are still valid.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Therein lies one of the problems with the article: if Apple is catering to recording studios and graphics houses, how is this possibly a 'machine for the rest of us'?
My Mac Classic. That was a machine for the rest of us. Turn it on and go.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
No, the above comment was not flamebait. But it was an exaggeration.
For about $1200, you can get a wicked fast x86 machine, nice big (huge?) hard drive, 17" monitor, enough RAM, and even a decent 3d-video card.
Can you even buy an iMac for that much? Assuming you can, you have to live with: slower proc (yes, G4 faster at equivalent proc speeds, but at the $1200 price I mentioned, you should be able to get a 900 mHz x86. The iMac has what, a 450 or so? The extra cycles on the x86 are making up for the inherent problems in the processor). You also get: no expandability, a dinky screen, smaller drive(s). etc.
The reason I dropped the Mac after about twelve years of allegiance was the impossibility of buying high speed hardware. I just don't make enough money.
So, moderators, look at the comment, and see hyperbole. Not a troll.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I can't stand how Apple keeps on insisting that they have to do everything in house and everything proprietary... instead of using cheap, standard parts
they keep on using proprietary things like
ATA
PCI and AGP
USB
IEEE 1394
PC-100 and 133 RAM
15 pin VGA ports
1/8" audio Jacks
1000/100/10bT or 100/10bT Ethernet on every machine
PCMCIA, S-Video, and VGA outputs on thier laptops
Jeezz.. if they ever got a clue, *maybe* I could upgrade a Mac with a good gaming video card, cheap RAM, cheap IDE hard drives, use my regular PC monitor, use a cheap USB scanner, speakers and networking gear.. much less there's no way to install Windows or Linux on their computers
fuckin Apple.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
... and it's fine. It's even running on an old IDE drive that I put in (not UDMA66).. no problems at all.
the build I am using is pre-release and has debugging code in the widgets and UI and I have heard from people that have already recieved the gold master that it's quite quicker.
such claims are sorta silly... oh well, at least nobody can accuse you of being a karma-whore
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
Yes and No,
You are not accounting for the quality of hardware vs your garage trick.
You are also not accounting for the fact that with that hardware you can run Mac OS9.1, OSX, Linux (PPC) , Windows*, OSX Server, etc.
Frankly I would spend the $800 on the iMac and then convert the machine you where using previous to a linux server which you can then get the best of both worlds.
I have done that myself (just bought a G4 last week after playing with OSX on my wifes iBook for about a month...). I have my dual processor PIII 800 (Running Debian) sitting next to my G4 running OSX.
I can always reboot into windows 2000 on my pc if I -HAVE- to play a latest and greatest game.
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
goto http://www.darwinfo.org
lots of ports of UNIX based packages, not BSD applications. (not many successful LINUX only applications... with exception of the kernel.)
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
I just installed OSX, it's got BSD plastered all over the installation process.
they have given back to the community as well. You can download the Darwin/BSD kernel and run it on PC hardware.
They give credit where credit is due. They use the BSD story is part of their pitch on why it's so damn stable.
Geez...
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
Simple enough...
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
I have.. I have been working with it for a while now.
I could give a rats ass about accomplishments or who supports what type of backwards compatible code... I need to write java apps. I need to use XWin apps. I need to read Excel spreadsheets and edit Word documents. I enjoy using a constistant and clever interface. I enjoy having commercially supported drivers. I enjoy STILL BEING ABLE TO CO EXISTS WITH MY LINUX MACHINE AS A SERVER. I ENJOY BEING ABLE TO RUN X-WINDOWS APPS AS I NEED THEM FROM MY LINUX SERVER.
I don't give up anything. I get the best of both worlds. I can hack on my G4, play with my DV cam and listen to MP3's while hacking Java code on JBuilder and all with a mac interface.
If you have little experience in setting up a heterogenious environment there are plenty of howto's out there that will help. Because OSX comes with native NFS and has plenty of Samba and other unix native applications ported already, you shouldn't have to hard of time a dealing with your phobia of a well supported consumer directed linux.
By christmas time this year I promise that there will be more games, business applications, etc. that will allow me to function and co-habitate with Windows BORG users yet retain my Unix-independance without compromising colaboration and cohabitation.
I have sent documents converted to Office format from StarOffice to work collegues and was embarrased by their reactions.
Like lesbians, don't know em till you try em.
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
First of all, the Mac's not really all the closed. I mean, IDE, SCSI, PCI -- it's not like the days of the Mac 512 where you needed an extra long torx driver, pony clamp and special processor clip on to anything which wasn't provided as an external port.
Macs are indeed much easier to manage than Linux x86 boxes, but it isn't just the number of possibile hardware combinations. There was the avoidance of legacy x86 hardware problems, for one thing, but more importanly simple configuration was deliberately given a higher priority than the lowest possible price.
Historically, Macs have had a rich supply of external connectors like SCSI and ADB, and now fire wire. It isn't just the availability of an external port, its the relatively high level nature of the interface. Generally devices for the mac are more expensive but have more smarts built in so there's less tweaking. Adding an USB serial port or parallel port is simply going to be easier than installing and configuring an ISA card.
If you compared apples (lowercase a) to apples, it would be possible to get Linux to install things like hard disks just as easily. For example connecting a firewire hard disk. Even better consider Linux PCMCIA support -- which is here now. You just plug just about anything in and it works. This I think is related again to the nature of the device's interface, which allows cards to be handled in an abstract way by the operating system.
On the other hand with Linux you can modify its behavior so that it recognizes that a webgear aviator card is the same thing as a raytheon Ray Link card.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I've always wondered about these attempts to deliver linux to the common man. What i've always found appealing about the unix design is that it doesn't dumb things down in an attempt to be more 'user friendly'. The command line is a beautiful thing, but it doesn't mean my mother should be exposed to it. Personally, i've always seen true user friendliness as a sacrifice to power. I would rather have a high learning curve but more power than an OS that's easy to use, but offers me less power.
In short, marketing UNIX to my mother would be a mistake. She neither wants nor needs most of the benefits that it provides. She has a hard enough time using Windows. I see no problem in having different operating systems aimed at different audiences, rather than having one OS that tries to do everything. Why exactly does linux *want* world domination? The entire UNIX philosophy is that it's better to have things be the best at what they do, rather than trying to do everything.
ObHolyWarFodder: I suspect that emacs users may disagree with this. =P
hot foreign sheep.
Please. Yeah, that's the most expensive box you can buy from Apple right now. Note that you can buy a DUAL CPU box for $2500 (533Mhz G4's). Yeah, you can build an intel box for less, but it's nice to see a Unix vendor :-) ship a VERY nice dual CPU box for that amount. Note also that you can buy a bitchin' cool laptop for $2600.
OK, enough commercial. Sorry.
Seriously, there's lots of point to it; it's not always obvious from America, where most people react to the mere idea of other languages with a face like someone farted.
Comparing, for example, getting web broswers and a simple text editor to work for Chinese, Mac is the easiest, Unix has decent support for some editors and whatnot, but probably the most people are doing it on PC on pirated software.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
" It would be my best guess that Apple still had to write device drivers for MOST existing hardware. I haven't been keeping up on all the details lately, but it seems very reasonable to assume. "
Apple has tight control of the hardware so they don't have to support umpteen video cards just a handful.
"but since my first day I've gained a LOT of respect for their NT and 2000 OSes. I still prefer a Macintosh for home use, Windows NT/2000 for work, and *nix for geeking out. "
In that case you can chuck all of them out the window. MacOSX gives you the ease of use of a mac, with the power of Unix. You can geek out all you want and your mom can cruise the net. There is no real need for w2K anymore (unless of course you are vendor locked in. If that's the case you have my sympathies).
War is necrophilia.
"Windows users aren't using Windows because it's got an x86 architecture."
No, they're using it because it's the most popular. And what better way to get your operating system into the hands of the populace, than by porting it to *popular* hardware?
"The reason why the MacOS is so nice and tight is because they control the hardware and the software."
You forgot "...and expensive". Sure Mr. Techo-Elitist, perhaps you can afford to pay a premium to get "blessed" hardware from Apple. But most users don't *care* if their hardware was designed elegantly or not. They look at value. They don't want to have to pay a premium for a whole new machine every year just because brilliant Apple engineers thought, in their professional engineering opinion that it would be more elegant to obsolete a piece of hardware or software. <soup-nazi>NO UPGRADE FOR YOU!</soup-nazi>
"x86 hardware has price going for it, and that's all."
And in this case, by all, you must mean *everything*. Why isn't everybody driving Mercedes and BMWs, instead of Ford Tauruses and Chevy Caveliers? They're better designed right?
"Windows users use Windows because they think its the best"
Windows users use Windows because they don't know any better, don't care, or are too lazy to change something they've already grown accustomed to. If I ask my mother why she uses Windows I will guarantee you the words "Because it's best" will not come out of her mouth (more like "Because it runs Word". Or "Because it runs game XYZ". Or "Because it came with the computer").
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Apple's first UNIX, A/UX, could have been everything that NeXTSTEP was, but that was in the days when Apple had a very strong set of blinders on.
A/UX was a Sys V implementation, and it ran NeWS (aka display postscript) back in 1987.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Too easy? Nah. Well, most users stil consider Windows, linux, and even Mac HARD! When people hear shell or DOS, they immediatly think "too hard, ask the company tech admin for help."
My grandmother won't touch linux or even a mac unless I help her set it up for her. Apple did a great job here, powerful enough for me, easy enough for my mother.
Wrong. Mac OS X Server (released two years ago) was basically NeXTStep 5.0 (not that that's bad), but Apple has made huge improvements for Mac OS X. There's a new vector imaging model (Quartz), the Carbon API to let existing Mac apps run natively in X with minimal changes, a full JDK 1.3 environment, a rewritten Finder, kickass development tools (included free), and the spiffy Aqua effects that you may laugh it, but that will sell Macs. And I'm probably leaving out a bunch of stuff.
Last, it may be useful to remind everyone out there that Apple has achieved this so-colled user-friendliness by hiding as much as it could the Unix tools: their flexibility and their powers are buried as deep as can be.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Because:
a) If you made a clone Macintosh, Apple would immediately modify their next OS release/service pack so it couldn't run on the clone machine.
b) The market for Macs isn't exactly huge right now. Its not like the entry-level iMac is hugely expensive, either. Good luck breaking into a tiny market with one dominant manufacturer who isn't afraid of tying you up in frivolous lawsuits to deny you entry.
c) Apple will refuse to license their OS to you. You'd have to ship the machines running Darwin, LinuxPPC or no OS at all. Not the best recipe for a good 'out-of-the-box experience'.
All of these reasons relate to the fact that Apple have a monopoly on the Macintosh platform - understandably, they did invent the thing. They have had it threatened before, and won't be giving it up any time soon.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
If things can be made so much better and more useful on a closed hardware system, as you claim, that seems to be a pretty strong argument in favour of closed hardware systems.
LinuxPPC supports the exact same machines as MacOS X, and I haven't heard it's anywhere near MacOS X in these aspects.
Of course Linux can be made that easy to install and configure. The point of the article is that it hasn't. That's the promise vs deliver thing.
Personally, i've always seen true user friendliness as a sacrifice to power. I would rather have a high learning curve but more power than an OS that's easy to use, but offers me less power.
If done right, user friendly design increases the power of a system. You can spend less effort remembering, learning and figuring out how to do things, and more on actually doing them.
And there is no need at all to take away features to get there. You just have to do them right.
I can't really blame you for your observation though. Most of what's done in the name of user friendliness is pathetically misguided.
Er, you're running Debian, known to be a distribution aimed at enthusiasts; yet you're complaining that it took some fiddling to get the sound card working.
>>>>>>>
It should be configured automatically in *every* distro enthusiast or not. I see no reason to make a distinction here. You autoconfig it, and provide the ability for the user to modify the settings. That way the regular user (or the enthusiast who doesn't give a flying fuck about his sound card's IRQs) can just use it, and the user who wants to micromange can change the settings. It doesn't decrease the power of the system, just makes it more polished. Hacked together (I'm not saying Debian is) and unpolished!=powerful. Polished and well put together!=not-powerful. An enthusiast likes using his computer and fiddling with it. However, I know few enthusiasts who want to fiddle just to get trival things like sound to work. *Real* enthusiasts want to get in and tweek code, make their system better, do something useful. *Real* enthusiasts don't like complexity for complexity's sake.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
BeOS runs on Intel too, and it has hte simplest installation known to man. Sure it doesn't support as much HW as Linux, but its installation complexity isn't proporitonal to its hardware support. Linux just does a lot of things wrong from the install/configuration standpoint. First, there is no standard method of adding hardware and drivers. Kudzu-like programs mitigate some of this, but they constrain the user into using a very specific software set. Second, the OS doesn't automatically autoconfigure anything. I'm not saying the user shouldn't be able to do it, I'm saying the user shouldn't HAVE to do it. Third, it manages resources all funny. Every other OS I've ever used can assign IRQs and DMAs and memory ranges without problems, but with Linux, I have to know these details to configure my sound card. Unlike OS-X, there are not standard methods of doing configuration files on Linux. Each one is different. It doesn't take much to create a standard method for something like this. All you need to do is provide a standard method accessible from the system API. Most developers will just use the built-in services, and not bother to hack their own config format. This way, all files that can use the standard format (XML) do use the standard format. Forth, documentation is lacking. I love the UNIX concept of man pages, why doesn't Linux do this anymore? In Linux documentation is split between man pages, info pages, README's, and web-sites. I think Linux should live up to its UNIX heritage and unify its documentation. Man is probably too limited, but the numerous schemes based on XML seem promising. (BTW, include it standard in every distro. Why did man pages become so universal? Because the OS had out-of-box support for them!) I could go on, but I have a feeling I'm repeating myself...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I believe most Macs ship with the ROM on the harddrive. Besides, who cars about ROM size?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Doh! That's almost the definition of proprietory! You have to buy hardware from them and only them. I, for one, hate the fact taht you have to buy Macs premade. If I haven't built it myself, I don't want it under my desk.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Not yet, but give me six months to finish it ;)
Seriously though I meant the box. I built every computer in my house, and I find that the big name guys just don't pack in the proper parts.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
That's bullshit. I spent more time "engineering" my computer than any Dell (or Apple) lacky spent throwing a system together.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Even Linux From Source. The Linux kernel should have a unified way of handling and configuring hardware, and there should be a standard userspace tool to configure and manage hardware. (Kinda like how kernel-level networking is configured through the userspace program ifconfig.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
So... You designed your own motherboards and chipsets, wrote your ROM bios code, spec-ed out your capicitors and diodes, pressed your own sheetmetal cases, injection molded your own case-skins, wrote your own firewire spec, then implemented the CMOS for it, and then wrote the drivers for it, designed and built the wireless antennas for your PC, and drafted your own bus specs and implementations?
;), Klipsch 4.1 speakers, 80GB RAID array (4 drives!) and a Sound Blaster Live! card. A Mac user, on the other hand, would have to shell out $3500 for a 733MHz G4 (benchmarks put a $500 Mhz G4 at about the speed of an Athlon 750. I doubt a 733 will clear an Athlon 1.1, much less a 1.3) with a third the RAM, 60GB-non RAID drive, Apple "Pro" speakers, and a no-name sound chip. By the time you bring this anemic thing up to PC standard, the price balloons to well over $5000. PPC seems to be a good platform. Motorola and IBM are getting their act together and releasing 1GHz G4s, which should beat with the fastest x86 chips. The platform has always been easy to use, and with the upcoming DDR-SDRAM chipsets, will be on a speed-parity with the x86 platform. Despite it all, Apple is killing it by keeping it closed.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Who cares? In the PC industry, the people who do these jobs do it as well (or better) than Apple does it. The only reason that the PC's aren't as high-quality as Macs is because of the limitations in the architecture, not bad build quality.
You can create a PC as well as any 'lacky' who throws parts together. You may chose better or worse parts than
any lacky, but when you buy Apple, you buy all of the above, and if you don't want to pay for that, then you
can't get a PPC system.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A) I don't WANT a PPC system.
B) Apple is stupid for doing all this itself. It hems the customer into using whatever Apple feels they should use, and drives up cost. Build quality isn't drastically improved (I'm 99% sure that an Open PPC system would be just as high quality as the closed Apple system. Besides, the old Apple clones were just as good as real Apples) and the industry hates you for it. Companys hate Intel for sucking it all in and doing their own chipsets, motherboards, CPUs, and graphics cards, and (if Apple becomes big enough to matter) people will hate Apple for the same reasons.
Now I don't contest that a PC you build is stable or reliable; it cannot be denied that a multi-million dollar corp can build crap PCs too.
>>>>>>>>>>>
The PC I built I just as high quality as any Apple machine. With plug & play (and BeOS) adding hardware is just as easy as with an Apple machine. Its cheaper, more powerful, and more well-supported (in terms of replacement hardware). And I'm not too sure of how much Apple cares about product quality. This is the same company that for years shipped systems with graphics cards two generations out of date, system busses two bins too slow, OSs two bits short of stable, and sound hardware that couldn't compete with my kazoo. With $3500 (or less!), I could easily build a 1.33Ghz Athlon PC with 1GB RAM, A GeForce3 (or ATI's upcoming, BeOS supported, Radeon II
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Who cares? The people who buy the PCs care that they get something well designed. This applies as equally to
;)
Macs as to PCs, to cars. It means more to some than to others, but quality is what people pay for!
>>>>>>>>
I didn't mean who cares about quality, I meant who cares that Apple does it all themselves? People do care about quality, but doing everything in one company does not necessarily bring that quality.
And thus the real question; are you actually acknowledging that Macs are higher quality than PCs?
>>>>>>>>
Depends on what you're talking about. If you're talking build quality and hardware quality, then no, PCs are just as high quality (or more so, depending on the vendor) as Macs. If you're talking about the quality of the architecture, then yes, Macs are more high quality because they don't have to deal with the vargacies of the PC architecture. This doesn't effect stability or reliability, but effects the platform's ease of use.
Still, if the PC has problems because of limitations in the architecture, that's still a problem. Why is it that
Compaq or Dell have not 'engineered' their own solution to overcome these limitations? Macs use the same
AGP and PCI busses, memory busses, USB, Firewire, ATA drive specs, video connectors, etc, so it's possible.
Why is it none of the PC manufacturers have done it yet?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have no idea what you're talking about do you? Sure they use the same hardware, but Macs don't have to deal with software and hardware that assumes there are 16 IRQs with IRQ2 as a cascade. Apple doesn't have to deal with software that expects a sound blaster to be at a particular port address with a particular IRQ and with software that assumes IRQ 5 is the ATA interface. Mac designers don't have to bother with the ISA bus or with a limited number of DMA channels. Mac designers don't have to treat the first meg of memory with great reverence and maek sure that DMA-able memory is under 16MBs so the ISA cards can do DMA. PC hardware manufacturers *can't* fix these issues, there is just too much software that depends on these issues.
Why the heck is Apple stupid? HP uses it's own motherboard (not a stock one from Tyan, MSI, or Intel), though it probably relies on chipsets from Intel or something.
>>>>>>>>>>
Hah! I don't know about HP, but I know that Dell's "engineered" motherboards are simply modified Intel ones. And Compaq used to make their own motherboards, but everybody hated them so they switched to stock ones. As for chipsets, only one company makes its own chipsets, and that is Micron, who uses their own chipsets in their workstations and servers.
By doing this Apple can provide it's own feature set at
the advantage of everyone else.
>>>>>>>>>
Yea, but they also tie users to their motherboards. As I said, everybody hated Compaq's LPX motherboards because their riser cards and cases were proprietory. Everyone also hates Dell's motherboards and power supplies because the power connectors are specific to Dell's motherboards.
Apple was one of the earliest adopters of USB, because it could build it into the system instead of waiting for Intel or Tyan to design the motherboards with USB support.
>>>>>>>>
But does Apple let other companys make Apple compatible chipsets? AMD made their own chipset as well to add features for the K7 platform, but allowed other companys to take over the K7 chipset market as the platform matured. I don't see Apple allowing VIA to make Apple chipsets.
It's called innovation, and it's called leading the pack. They can either wait for someone else to do it, and bundle it, or they can do it themselves!
>>>>>>>>>>>
That's fine. But even after other companies support it, they continue to lock them out. That's called monopolizing the platform!
You're 99% sure? I'm pretty sure than in an Open PPC system, you'd get identical results as today's open PC
system.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The 99% sure is because, like IBM and their OpenPPC system, somebody might fuck up.
Crap devices with crap drivers and crap systems.
>>>>>>>
It's called a Mac. Crap graphics cards, crap OS, crap hardware.
Don't tell me they don't exist!
>>>>>>>>>
I'm not saying they don't exit because they do. At least with PC's, however, you have the option of not buying crap hardware! Besides, there is crap hardware and crap drivers on every platform, even Apple's. The only advantage the Apple platform has is that it doesn't inherit the limitations of the IBM PC. An OpenPPC platform would inherit these limitations either, and would be better than an Apple system because it was open.
Apple may be the cream of the crop in such a market
>>>>>>
In the crap hardware market? Seriously though, until recently, Apple was the king of crap hardware. Rage II+ graphics chips, Crystal sound chips, too little RAM, 50MHz system busses, the list goes on. Even now that Apple has good hardware (GeForce3's, DDR-SDRAM, etc) its only because manufacturers from the PC industry decided to include Apple in their plans. And they still can't get a decent set of bundled speakers!
but tell me how Apple gets an advantage in an Open system? Apple gets no advantage,
>>>>>>>>>>
That's a good thing for the consumer.
and the users gets one advantage: The ability to choose their own motherboard (that's it! Everything else in a Mac is already standard!)
>>>>>>>>>
No, they get the ability to build their own system. With that comes the ability not know to choose your motherboard, but choose alternate chipsets, mix-and-match parts, and have access to cheaper hardware. Right now, if I buy an Apple, I would have to throw away the entire sound system and replace it with a Live! and a set of Klipschs. I'd have to lose the on board ATA card and install at ATA RAID array. Why bother? With the PC, I can go to a manufacturer that offers these standard (or build my own) and not pay for parts that I don't want.
And do you seriously think there would be a company that build a better motherboard than Apple? If they do,
they should *already* be building better motherboards than Apple today!
>>>>>>>>>>
Yes. Where'd you get the idea that Apple builds the best motherboards in the world? They don't, and because of the closed nature of the Apple platform, nobody is allowed toc compete with them.
Okay, so now we get to the meat of your argument. That the platform is being killed by a non open standard.
>>>>>>>
Actually, I think Apple is bouncing back. I just think a lot more people would use it if they got to have control over their system. I know I would (once the quad 1Ghz G4 mobo's come out, of course
Well, 2 things.
Apple *is* the standard.
>>>>>>>>>>
What? Clarify what you mean.
Anyone (Dell, Compaq, etc) can release their own PPC systems if they wanted, but they would need an OS.
Apple, as a business, need not 'give' their OS to a competitor. Think about it.
>>>>>>>>>>>
They could not build a PPC system that would run MacOS. Besides, Apple could sue them. Do you think Dell could clone the Playstation hardware without Sony sueing their asses off? Hell no! I think you need to read up on the definition of "closed platform." Besides, Apple forcing people to buy hardware by withholding their OS is worse than MS's tactics!
Apple sells what it sells, and people buy it. It suits their needs, despite the comparison you bring up. It's stable enough, full featured enough, fast enough, powerful enough.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Ohhh. It's enough. If enough were enough, then mediocrity would be celebrated, not spat upon.
If they weren't, people wouldn't buy Apple. They would buy Compaq, or Dell, or like yourself, build their own
system.
>>>>>>>>>>
People (statistically) DON'T buy Apples.
The platform you speak of is easy to use *because* of everything you point out. That Apple does it's own
hardware and software and drivers
>>>>>>>
You contradict yourself. If Apple does everything themselves (they don't, NVIDIA writes the drivers, Crystal writes the drivers, Adaptec writes the drivers, etc) how can most of the hardware on an Apple be standard? Apple uses mostly PC hardware, but makes their own motherboards and chipsets, and doesn't allow anyone to clone them. The only thing that makes Mac's easier to use (besides the OS, which isn't relevant in this discussion) is the fact that Apple isn't stradled with a two decade old architecture. That's IT. If Dell and Compaq etc all were allowed to make their own versions of the Mac, the Mac would be no less easy to use.
because they have their own OS
>>>>>>>
There OS is easy to use. I'll give you that.
You can't get that *anywhere* else because no one else does it. Microsoft will soon, when they release their XBox, and then you'll have *all* the same arguments against them as you do against Apple!
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, both the XBox and the Mac have crappy OSs, so their is one comparison. Still, you're making what we in the psychology world call a "fundmental attribution error." You're attributing the Mac's ease of use to the fact that Apple builds it, not to the quality of the architecture. If the PC didn't have all these IRQs and DMAs and all, then you could still buy chipsets from all over the place, graphics cards from all over the place, etc, and still have a system that's as easy to use as a Mac. (If you buy good hardware, but again, crappy hardware is universal.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
>enough to have a 1996-era Mac
The only people I know who still use five YEAR old computers, Macintosh or otherwise, are people like myself who can't bear to throw away an obsolete, but otherwise functional box.
They put Linux on them, and stick them in a closet to route mail, IP masq, or serve files.
Hardly the pursuit of your "Average" user, who'll bitch, moan and complain to tech support if word on windoze 2k doesn't load and open a file in under twenty seconds, if they can't load some flash or shockwave webpage 'cause their computer's too slow, or if their quake framerate drops below 60fps.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
I want to play my favorite games on my platform of Choice, be it whether Windows, Linux, or BeOS.
Without games, an desktop OS will never reach mass popularity.
I agree with the article. Linux does take a long time to setup -- I don't have 3 days to read man pages and HOWTO's just to setup a desktop (For firewalls and servers, I *will* take the time for that.) I use Win2K at home, because it is "good enough" for development, quick to setup, and gaming.
Under windows it is painless to upgrade your driver to a newer version. i.e. nVidia 6.31 to 6.50, etc.
Does anyone have a link to that article where it showed that Window's strengths were Linux's weaknesses, and Linux's strengths were Window's weaknesses.
As Linux becomes more user-friendly, consistent, and easier to use, that is good thing for everyone.
That's right, I said that as far as anyone but a hardcore geek can tell windows is without cost!
Unless you build your own computer from parts it comes with an operating system. The common man doesn't build his own computer from parts. Hell, there's a lot of geeky sorts that don't do that. Granted, there are a few places where you can get a bare system, but they don't cost $150 less than the same system with Windows already installed.
The simple fact is that Linux will not be accessable to the common man until you can go to Best Buy and get the $500 reasonably modern computer with Linux preinstalled. This is what Apple is now doing. In a few months you will be able to go to a store and for less than $1000 take home a complete, modern computer with Unix preinstalled. There is so such Linux based product, so Linux is not avaliable to the common man.
Maybe this means that there's money to be made in that area. Perhaps people would buy the $1k Linux box if someone were selling and supporting it. If you think that this could be profitable, let me know. I'll take investments and give it a try.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
barnyfoo, give up. I am writing this on a 333 Mhz iMac with 92Mb RAM. On this machine, which is a couple of generations slower than the 400Mhz iMac that is now the bottom of the line (66Mz system bus vs 100Mhz, better video chip, etc...). I am running MacOS X Public Beta very comfortably and will be doing so with the Final version in two days. There is no reason to claim that the low-end iMac is not "MacOS X-ready". As others have already pointed out, if you don't have legacy apps then it is completely ready. If you do need more ram, then it is not expensive, and a 3 minute install (including reading the directions).
What part of "Mac-OS-X ready" did you understand mister know-it-all? That 800 dollar imac aint gonna run MacOSX worth a shit, and apple knows it. that's why it aint mac-os-X ready.
As I've pointed out in other threads. MacOS X has to be the most top-heavy "Unix" ever. Display-PDF? No wonder you need a 600Mhz G4 with Super Velocity Engine. Aqua? barf.
Somewhere along the line, wasn't this supposed to be an argument about 3rd world pricing structure? You completely turned my argument around to try to say that Apple's are cheap and therefor I was "wrong, so there".
/supposed/ to be about bring a "Unix desktop to the masses"... well I must conclude that linux is doing a far better job of that than Apple. Maybe you dont get out of your up-scale high-rent offices too much..
What part of my 3rd world availability did you not agree with? That you cant find a used pc+cheapo monitor for around $200?
This article is
Really. I haven't used a mac since the g3 came out, but I recall one thing that used to impress my PC friends was I had a Zip disk which had a "universal" system which I could plug into any mac EVER MADE at the time and boot to. It had all my disk utilities, file recovery tools, etc.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I've used all previous versions of Mac OS X from OpenStep through Rhapsody, the DPs and PB, and I got the Release Canditate the other day.
Yes, installation, configuration and the interface in general is infinitely more usable than for any other *NIX out there. Fair enough, it's not as tweakable as Gnome for example, but it just works!
On the other hand, it's still fairly far away from Mac OS 9, despite the flashy surface. The days of happily creating folders all over the place is gone. I guess Mac support people will get their hands full as soon as "normal" users get their paws on it :) I'm just about to switch over to using it as my primary OS (from Win2K), despite the rough edges. Who else?
And yes, I just willingly gave up the opportunity of 1st post...
.technomancer
.technomancer
OS X looks great, but spare me this guy's crap
.technomancer
.technomancer
Maybe instead of criticizing Mac OSX, the linux community should learn from it. Apple is a company that really understands the needs and desires of desktop users (apart from their desire to have cheap machines with lots of compatible peripherals). OSX is graphical unix designed from the ground up. Given, with more than a little help from next. Study what mac users appreciate about the UI. Look at how mac programmers, the best application GUI programmers on the planet, design their apps. See the consistency from one app to the next. Take a look at how the Application Bundle system gives users an easy and clean way to install stuff without blowing other stuff away. Apple does things well that Microsoft does very poorly. If you want to beat Microsoft, learn from Apple.
Except that the BSD base apple used deliveres a BETTER linux product than linux does.
Duke of URL shows FreeBSD runs Linux version of quake faster than linux does.
FreeBSD's FTP install/Package/ports adminning methodology is now a 'feature' of many linux distros.
And the testimonials of yahoo! and others show how well FreeBSD works.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Far be it from me to point out that since you're posting on /., this means you don't know anything about what you're criticizing. :)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I agree. The PPC architecture is nice, I'd love to have one, but there are so many disadvantages to a single source market.
If Apple opened up their specs so that all those dinkum ROC chaps could start producing compatible parts, and somebody like Dell or IBM could start assembling licensed clones for a small cut... then Apple could get the costs down and the sales back up. It would cut their profit margin, but what's the point in big margins when your volume is dying?
The alternative, for Apple, would be porting OSX (NOT just Darwin) to x86. But opening the hardware would be a lot better, imhop. I'd rather have cheap compatible ppc components than Apple on x86... *shudder* ever use Solaris/x86?
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The unspoken assumption in your post is that having more commercial applications available is a huge benefit that should be chased. Why?
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
There was no need for a command line; but NeXT's mistake was in letting us old Unix farts and punks try to market the system. Ultimately, the system became schizophrenic, and never found a target audience.
Apple has gone the other way; taken a platform known for its user-friendliness and insinuated NEXTSTEP onto it. That schizophrenia is still there, but it will be embraced by the Mac platform audience, and then find its Unix power niche, in an inversion from NeXT's 1980's tactics.
Disclaimer: I was a NeXT marketer in '89. Pity me.
The cheapest iMac is $800. It will run OS X, if you want to upgrade the ram to 128 megs, itll run you about $900. Just because the computer YOU would buy from apple costs $3000, doesnt mean they all do. i would assume people from third world countries would tend to buy the cheaper model.
I have, and I love RAM prices lately. But that's beside the point: the requirements for OS X are steep.
OS X requires you to throw all these resources at it, and I'll bet it will still be a bit sluggish. And I really want to see how it performs on the first iMac computers. (I'll bet that Linux running GNOME would be snappy-fast on even the very first iMacs.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I'm sorry, but his stupidity was always there.
The very first thing he did, at NeXT, was spend an absurd amount of money for a logo. The first NeXT computer was a cube, 12"x12"x12" -- why? No technical reason; Jobs insisted it had to be a cube and it had to be that size. The first cube shipped with no floppy drive and no hard disk; instead it had an MO drive, media cost $50 each. In those days people actually used floppy drives to send things to each other; Jobs figured they didn't need to, or else he figured they wouldn't mind using $50 MO disks to ship a $10 shareware program, or else (my choice) Jobs just wasn't thinking. And while you could run from the MO it made things slow. The worst sin: Jobs found out at Apple that if you try to sell a computer called the Lisa for $10,000 that it doesn't work; at NeXT he tried to sell the cube for $10,000 and it didn't work.
The first NeXT box that actually got some traction was the "pizza box". It had a hard disk, it had a floppy disk, and if I recall correctly it was much less than $10,000.
In other words, the NeXT computers as conceived by Jobs were flops, and the worst features were the ones Jobs insisted upon. (Not unlike the Mac situation: the original Mac, as conceived by Jobs, was a totally closed box completely controlled by Apple; the Mac didn't become really successful until the Mac II shipped, with expandability, color, hard drives, etc.)
I don't think Steve Jobs is a genius. I give him some credit, because Apple seems to be doing okay at the moment and he seems to have had a lot to do with that. But looking at his history, he has done much more that was stupid than brilliant.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I don't think KDE is going to dry up and blow away, either. I think both GNOME and KDE will be around forever; this isn't an anti-KDE troll.
GNOME can be made to run on anything: Linux, BSD, commercial UNIX, even Windows. It has lower system requirements than OS X; you can install GNOME and all the KDE libraries and run any GNOME or KDE application, and it will still run in less than 128MB of RAM. The former Mac developers at Eazel are working to make a GNOME environment every bit as slick and polished as an Apple environment. The only thing we need are more apps, and we are getting them.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
True, but NeXT really wanted to sell to business people in general. Lack of floppies was one barrier that kept businesses from buying NeXT, and it was just dumb.
Do you really think NeXT sat down and said: "Our business plan is to sell only to people who have live Ethernet connections to the Internet"? At the time, that would have been dramatically dumb.
Some original cube models did ship with a SCSI hard disk in addition to the MO drive.
True, but that was extra cost. Tech-savvy people buying NeXT computers would spring for the hard drive.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
My point was that there never would be any $10 shareware programs if the only way you could distribute them was on $50 MO disks. The Internet was not then what it is today, and companies like Public Brand software who distributed shareware, did the distributing on floppies.
Note that Sun boxes were selling like hotcakes at the time.
Let's see, about the time the NeXT started selling, Sun would have been shipping the SPARCstation 1, which was several times faster than the 68000-family workstations it competed against while not being very expensive. Sounds like a recipe for success to me.
Guess what? NO FLOPPY!
Are you sure? The SPARCstation 1 had a floppy; see this web page. The floppy was on the side, where it wasn't obvious, but it was there.
But never mind all that. NeXT may have shipped the first cube with no floppy drive, but they added one later and from then on, as long as they made computers, the computers had a floppy disk drive.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The best thing I read was an attack on OS X making older machines obsolete. Their arguement? You can install Windows 95 on a machine going all the way back to around '92. Well, people attacking Apple neglect to remember that that is Microsoft's 5.5 year OLD operating system. Windows 2000 officially requires a Pentium processor, and that's only because it was supposed to ship in '97-'98. Realistically, you only run it on a P6 generation machine, or a few K6 generation machines if you are masochistic like I am.
Carbon will be the dominant environment for developing Macintosh applications for 3-5 years. That will run on OS 9.1 and OS X. In fact, I don't know if they've backported Carbon to OS 8.x, but I'd expect them to. The 8.1 supports back to the 68040 chip?
Either way, Apple has a much better history of supporting old machines. Yes, Linux does, but only because the modular Linux approach makes that easy. You can run the newer kernel on old machines, as the kernel is a small part of the system. Try to run modern programs on it.
Alex
Have you ever seen a Windows user on a Mac? I'm going to tell you a little story from my college days. I worked for my school's lab for a little bit. One night I was overseeing the Mac lab that we had. Aparantly the power in the building that had all the PC labs went out and so all students who didn't have a computer came to the Mac lab to try to finish the papers they had been working on. Well lets just say things weren't pretty. I believe the comments I heard the most, and remember this was a Christian university (I know Christian's are all hypocrits, etc. etc.), "I hate this fucking thing!", "How does it fucking work?", "This fucking piece of shit sucks!" That is what happens when you get Windows users on a Mac. They don't know it and they hate it. You might be able to say that a new user might be able to use it easier but most of those ingrained in the Windows way will not like the Mac.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Mine runs OS X PB just fine. I realize it's still the beta, but it runs much more smoothly, in my opinion, than OS 9 did.
And yes, this IS on a 64MB machine.
Please check your facts.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
For instance, remember when they switched over to the PowerPC from the Motorola 68XXX series of chips? I do. I had a mac with a 68XXX in it, and then a PowerPC computer. For a while I had the two running concurrently. Both could run the software even though they were different chips.
System stability. Having used a Mac since the Finder 4 days (dual floppies rule!), I've always been impressed with the stability of the system software. Crashes of a system have never proven fatal for me, and I have crashed many a mac. I wish I could say the same for the PCs I've had (windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000).
I think Apple's new OS X looks great. And Apple knows it can't ingore the existing apps for the older system, and is providing support for those apps (as long as the apps didn't break any "no nos"). My experience so far with running OS X prereleases is very very favoriable. You can access Unix command, but most of it is hidden by default. The hardcore Unix guy can easily tweak everything to their heart's content. The average user will notice a few changes but will benefit from Multitasking (FINALLY!), memory protection, etc. Hopefully NO MORE frozen macs.
The only complaint with OS X is that my Midi programs don't run...:-(
--
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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How many residents of third-world contries can afford $150.00 for their OS?
After having used OS X PB (none of the nice new developer builds. sigh.) extensively on my year-old iMac (400MHz G3, 512MB RAM), I can't trust you. It's been plenty fast for me, even in Classic. Although I would doubtless consider certain things suboptimal, as expected in a beta, barely useable would have to be FUD, troll or exaggeration. The *other* possibility, I suppose, would be misconfiguration. With the beta, if you didn't instlall it on a freshly formatted partition, performance suffered very visibly. Also, if you are hacking around, following tips posted in forums, etc. and not familiar with NeXT and BSD, it certainly is possible to hose your setup... I guess this is true of any OS though.
ymmv-
pétard
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The issue here was processor speed, not paging. He was complaining that on slower processors that don't support AltiVec, it's too slow. FWIW, it worked fine when the box only had 128 as well... the extra RAM did (of course) have performance implications, but not on the eye candy the poster was complaining about.
pétard
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One of my coworkers, running the OS/X public beta on an older PowerBook, was able to trivally get Kerberos IV and arla (an open-source AFS client, which requires a kernel module to work) running on his machine. The thing is pretty much pure BSD, under the GUI.
Not just companies, but free developers, too. You want everyone using your OS so that there will be more people writing apps and fixing bugs for it.
I love how "Linux promised to bring *nix to the common user's desktop." What the hell does that mean? Why do people keep treating linux like it's a corporation? If you were going to define this mythical Linux, I guess the most obvious answer would be that it is the community of developers and other contributors. And when has this community as a whole promised anything? A large part of it doesn't even care about desktop environments. Apple is a coordinated company that can force developers to work on what they want done. I don't even know why I'm writing this, everyone here knows it. I'm going back to ign to read about the gameboy advance...
My other
Ever tried dragging and dropping text and images between programs? Works in windows and macos, but linux seems to lack it totally.
Talking of which, cut/copy/paste is fundamentally flawed. You've still got to work out how to use a 3rd mouse button when most people only have 2-button mice. And it's VERY inconsistent between programs.
Instaling software. Windows: run setup.exe, click YES where appropriate, and then open the start menu - same in BeOS, and I guess it's pretty similar on a Mac. But in linux, even with the use of RPMs etc, it's still a pain in the ass. I download an RPM, switch to root, install it...it tells me i'm missing dependencies, so I download them, install them. Then i install the original package...WELL DONE package installed...now where the hell is it? Rarely do RPMs add themselves to the gnome/kde menu, set up file associations, set up context menus etc...all that vital stuff is left for the user to work out.
The X-server sucks, face it. If I had my way I'd format all the harddrives over at XFree86 so they have to start the piece of crap from scratch and THIS TIME DO IT PROPERLY!
Dreadful error response...even things like Dr.Konqui in Mandrake don't do a thing. In my Mandrake 7.2 installation, there are some programs I try and run in the menu that just don't WORK! I click on their icon...harddrive whirs for a seccond...and nothing happens. I don't get any error, i don't get a box saying "Sorry, application such-and-such is missing library such-and-such." If I want to know that, I'd have to run it from the console. Now what's a user with no unix background meant to think when stuff like that happens? Quite simply they'll think this linux thing is crap.
Someone needs to totally start from scratch...throw away all the paradigms, get rid of X, stop doing the the current distribution method where you get to choose from about 500 packages, invent a binary-install system for new software. Basically do to the Linux kernel what Apple have done with BSD...then we'll have a REAL hot OS.
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
Yes too easy. Most users don't matter, the majority, often clueless, don't define an Operating system intended for a user population that should know what they are doing. MacOS made their business on an OS for people who don't have to know what they are doing, Microsoft has tried to do the same with a more unstable product, and Linux (and the BSDs) are Operating Systems for and by the competant. Unfortunately, many distributions of Linux are trying to broaden their appeal by making it convenient for newbies to get things running quickly without having to obtain the clue they need to do it properly. By design, Linux does not sacrifice power for ease of usability like MacOS does, however they still battle a lag in features in order to maintain as much stability as possible.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
If you want people working on the same platform as yourself, to enable easier cross-compatabilty--or you simply want your platform to be recognized as a standard, then your interface needs to be user-friendly before it will win acceptance.
If the goal of the linux community is simpoly to build thousands of individualized and specialized systems, then great. forget the user interface. However, for your technoligical improvements to have any effect on tech outside that world, the user friendlyness has got to be upped...
tcd004
Stockphotos
Perhaps stupid is a bit over the top, but the fact is that the common man can't set the clock on his VCR.
The reason is, that the common man doesn't read the manual. If you read the manual nothing is all that hard to use. The same thing apply to *nix, you just have to read a little more.
When the common man can use his VCR, he can use *nix
I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you.
> If I want to configure my printer to work with RedHat 7, I:
> Su to root.
> Start up printtool
> Click the Add button
> Choose the printer make/model
> Check the "Fix Stair-stepping text" button
> Click OK.
> Choose the "Lpd | Restart lpd" menu option
And that's (way) too hard for the average user. I had an original NeXT. Here's what you did to add a printer:
1) Plug printer into printer port
and that's it. To add a hard drive, it was harder:
1) Plug hard drive into SCSI port
2) Turn hard drive on
3) Wait for OS to format hard drive
Admittedly they got away with the printer install because the hardware was a closed platform. Nevertheless, that's the ease of use the average user needs. And it's what Linux needs to do. No "fix stair-stepping". No "su root". Nothing. Nada. Plug it in, turn it on, and it works.
Yes, CmdrTaco, this is unfair. It is 19h50 in europe. Just when european have to leave work, you post such a trollish article ? This is unfair for us, europeean trolls. (Btw, Cmdr, is it because you learn that Mac
OS X supports 2 buttons that you are okay to try it ?)
Lastly, Mac OS X is not sweet because it brings unix to the masses, but because it bring a real object oriented system to the desktop.
NeXT promised, Apple delivers.
I started to develop for NeXTstep in 1991. The moto was "NeXT have ten years of advance". I didn't expected it to be that true.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
1/ OpenSTEP capitalisation was OpenStep (the spec) or OPENSTEP (the OS)
2/ OPENSTEP relied heavily on DPS. DPS was licensed from Adobe. The story says that Adobe refused to extend license.
3/ The silver bullet was not OPENSTEP, but the YellowBox (aka OPENSTEP/Enterprise, aka OpenStep for Windows NT, a way to run OpenStep applications under NT)
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Mandrake Linux is easy to use. You have to use the command line about as much as you do in Windows. The lack of apps is the problem, and is a much harder one to solve.
Linux hackers have not been doing GUIs since 1984 either. If they had the source code to all these wonderful ideas, perhaps they could do what Apple has done, but they have had to reinvent the wheel, and as far as KDE goes I think they're doing a great job.
OS X on x86 would have the same problems as Linux - not all the drivers, the apps or the games would be available - e.g. pigs would divebomb Redmond en-masse before Microsoft ported Office to a competitor that had any chance of taking market share away from Windows. Running a PPC binary on x86 wouldn't cut it in terms of speed.
On Mandrake 7.2, fire up DrakConf and then select Printer configuration. Add a printer queue and then select your printer model.
For the harddrive, click on Hardware Configuration, select your disk drive and click Run Configuration Tool. Partition your drive and format the partitions. God that's tough. Windows requires the use of fdisk to partition stuff, unless you want to fork out for Partition Magic.
It is still cryptic for your average Joe and Sally
So is Windows, and I will continue believing this fact until I go six months without someone asking me to get their system to do something that the ever-so intuitive OS makes confusing. Mandrake 7.2 is just as 'intuitive', except it also allows me to login remotely and sort stuff out for people, doesn't crash in lots of different obscure ways and has a log file to make debugging easier. I don't know about MacOS because I can't afford a Mac and neither can most of the people I know.
My mum refuses to have anything to do with computers, and I don't blame her in many ways :)
When the Mandrake desktop opens up you have an icon saying 'Browse the web', an icon saying 'Connect to the Internet' and a button saying Mail. So by your logic, Mandrake is just as easy to use as OS X.
The thing about installing devices is that you generally have to have an idea of what you're doing. That's why, when my dad bought a new graphics card and hard drive it was me who installed them for him, because he was nervous about doing something he hadn't done before and preferred to let me do it. Neither OS X, Windows or Linux is going to change this, and I don't doubt that there are many, many people like my dad. I also think that my dad will have no trouble with Mandrake 8 when it comes out, apart from playing games obviously, since all his hardware is supported and he's sick to death of Windows. The upside of that being that if he does have any problems unrelated to internet access, then I can connect to his machine and fix it without him having to wait until the next time I'm there.
I agree with you about DrakConf, in that it should have a more 'generic' name, but then a tinkerer with computers will click on this icon anyway, just to see what it does.
I went from "competant" Unix (Solaris) User, where the machine was maintained by someone else, to "Administrator" when I bought a PC and installed Red Hat a few years back. Plugged it right into my office ethernet (University campus, so fairly open to the world).
Didn't know half of what Ports were open until I was owned by some kiddie (via Sendmail). Took me ten minutes to put on wrappers (after the complete wipe/rebuild, naturally) when I knew, but why the hell wasn't it like that to begin with?? Would have taken the same ten minutes for anyone who wanted those services to turn them on... I'm not shirking my own responsibility, but I think Red Hat made a mistake.
Apple has done a very good job in their GUI's.
;)
No one can deny that.
However, their OS's needed work.
I mean, a 450 MHz processor dedicated to one thing at a time?
It needed to be gutted.
However, like many GNU purists, I think their decision to go with BSD over Mach is pretty short-sighted.
And, like many Linux purists, I would prefer the more fun, more chaotic environment of a less-mature, more malleable OS.
Besides, I prefer the look and feel of Linux on a Mac versus BSD
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Explain to me please, how I install Win2K on my laptop that does not have a CDROM drive.
I don't have a CDROM drive in my laptop becuase I don't want to carry it around, I don't want it eating battery life and I don't want to pay for it either.
To install Linux I made a floppy boot disk that recognised the PCMCIA ethernet card, and pulled redhat 6.2 over the network.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
"It should be configured automatically in *every* distro enthusiast or not.
"
Even Linux From Source ?
[/me ducks]
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
1)"Apple will become the highest-volume vendor of Unix in the world, and it'll bring all that *Nixy power to folks who don't know a thing about command line terminals".
This is very wrong - one of the most powerful things about *nix is the ability to chain together multiple commands in a pipeline to perform some desired task. This is why most *nix commands are very simple and only accomplish a very limited task. The ability to pipeline commands is something that currently can only be had at the command line; I have seen a couple of discussions on
The article talks about *nixy power at the fingertips of OSX users, but if they don't take the time to learn the command line interface, where is the power in that?
2)"it's nowhere near ready for prime time as a consumer operating system. Ever try to print from Linux or add a new hard drive? Forget it."
I have used a number of different flavors of Linux, and I really don't have a favorite. However, the flavor I've had the most experience with is RedHat. As far as the two tasks here are concerned, the article is mistaken about their complexity. If I want to configure my printer to work with RedHat 7, I:
And that's it! It's not very hard to do - yes, there are other ways to do it, and if you're a hardcore *nix user, you can always go into
Adding a new hard drive? Forget about it - fdisk to create your partitions (disk druid for the people out there that don't like fdisk's arcane commands) and mkfs to format it. Then you mount it - add the mount point to
3) "Mac OS X simply works."
And why is that? Because Apple has a stranglehold on the hardware market for their machines. Sure, it'll work. But you'll pay through the nose to get the box. On the other hand, Linux is free, and Intel hardware is much cheaper than Apple hardware.
On a final note, consider the source of the article: macaddict.com. Need I say more about the bias of the article?
-VoR
Neither the Mac nor Linux hold much more than 5% of the destop. What is there to win between them?
Linux and Mac users represent about the most orthogonal set computer users there is. How can you compare the two?
OSX is not going to turn the tide from Microsoft to Apple. The common man is not going to buy a Mac instead of PC because the Mac runs on a UNIX core. And mac applications aren't going to be much less buggy than they already are; they just won't crash the whole computer as much.
And as for Linux not taking over the world, Christ, where are my flying cars?
Apple on the other hand, is a company trying to sell a product. They know darn well that if their product isn't very easy to use, their existing customer base will leave and they will have a hard time attracting new customers. Apple is scratching their own itch. And it appears they are doing a pretty decent job of it too, though only time will tell for sure.
I'm fairly convinced that user friendly GUI's will only become a priority to parts of the linux community with corporate involvement. Companies care about selling products and they will sell more if their products are easy to use. If IBM is going to sell a lot of machines with linux on it, it is in their interest to make linux as attractive as possible to the widest range of customers possible. Ditto for anyone else. Hackers generally don't and won't care.
You install hardware that's on "Redhat's Hardware Compatibility List", and some works, some is autodetected, others aren't recognizable or usable at all without running config utilities and changing text config files. There is nothing that is excusable about that. If you don't want to install the hardware correctly, don't put it on your compatibility list.
I think a majority of Slashdotters really haven't used a Windows OS since 95, and are therefore shooting them all down. In my mind, Windows 2000 is as much a contender to Linux as Unix itself.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
check your iDisk (from apple's iTools, when you register)
They dropped a fair amount of free or beta software into a folder for you to play with, and on saturday, they'll be giving you more free applications to work with.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
...you might be surprised how many people really don't have an immediate need for those drivers. And the ones who do will just wait for the first round of updates, the same as any sensible WinXX upgrader will do.
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
Also:This is a repost of mine...
"Well it works for me, I don't care about anyone else."
That has to be the most selfish thought I've heard in a long time...
To turn it around;
"Nothing else anyone does matters, so anything they do won't affect or improve my status."
This is obviously false. Someone writes a better USB driver, and all of a sudden your camera stops crashing your PC. Someone tweaks the networking code, and your Quake framerates increase by 3%. I dunno if I'm eloquent enough to get my point across, but being selfishly isolated is a bad thing. Sigh, I wish I could articulate better.
So why is it important to get Unix onto everyones desktop? The same reason it's on yours. If it's useful to you, if it's powerful, if it's flexible, if it's reliable, or affordable or whatever. If it's worth something to you, it's worth it for everyone else!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Hey, that's why I use Linux for my web and file server, Mac for my notebook, and Windows for my game machine!
To each their own strength!
I totally don't disagree with you on this!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Here's what I wonder...
Why do you need Apple's okay to make Mac clones?
Did Compaq petition IBM to make IBM-PC clones?
Do some cleanroom reverse engineering, create a nice, clean desktop system, and you have a Mac clone. It's anyone's guess whether you compete against Apple or help Apple grow the market, but there's your solution!
His need to control the hardware was smart. He doesn't need to bless hardware for clones to exist. All a clone maker needs to do is make sure that it runs the current OS 100%, and provide future functionality to support future OSes.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
So... You designed your own motherboards and chipsets, wrote your ROM bios code, spec-ed out your capicitors and diodes, pressed your own sheetmetal cases, injection molded your own case-skins, wrote your own firewire spec, then implemented the CMOS for it, and then wrote the drivers for it, designed and built the wireless antennas for your PC, and drafted your own bus specs and implementations?
You can create a PC as well as any 'lacky' who throws parts together. You may chose better or worse parts than any lacky, but when you buy Apple, you buy all of the above, and if you don't want to pay for that, then you can't get a PPC system.
Now I don't contest that a PC you build is stable or reliable; it cannot be denied that a multi-million dollar corp can build crap PCs too.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Who cares? In the PC industry, the people who do these jobs (hint, they're called computer engineers) do it as well (or better) than Apple does it. The only reason that the PC's aren't as high-quality as Macs is because of the limitations in the architecture, not bad build quality.
Who cares? The people who buy the PCs care that they get something well designed. This applies as equally to Macs as to PCs, to cars. It means more to some than to others, but quality is what people pay for!
And thus the real question; are you actually acknowledging that Macs are higher quality than PCs?
Still, if the PC has problems because of limitations in the architecture, that's still a problem. Why is it that Compaq or Dell have not 'engineered' their own solution to overcome these limitations? Macs use the same AGP and PCI busses, memory busses, USB, Firewire, ATA drive specs, video connectors, etc, so it's possible. Why is it none of the PC manufacturers have done it yet?
<em>A) I don't WANT a PPC system.</em>
Then why are you even talking about Macs in the first place?
<em> Apple is stupid for doing all this itself. It hems the customer into using whatever Apple feels they should use, and drives up cost. Build quality isn't drastically improved (I'm 99% sure that an Open PPC system would be just as high quality as the closed Apple system. Besides, the old Apple clones were just as good as real Apples) and the industry hates you for it. Companys hate Intel for sucking it all in and doing their own chipsets, motherboards, CPUs, and graphics cards, and (if Apple becomes big enough to matter) people will hate Apple for the same reasons.<em>
Why the heck is Apple stupid? HP uses it's own motherboard (not a stock one from Tyan, MSI, or Intel), though it probably relies on chipsets from Intel or something. By doing this Apple can provide it's own feature set at the advantage of everyone else. Apple was one of the earliest adopters of USB, because it could build it into the system instead of waiting for Intel or Tyan to design the motherboards with USB support. The same with Firewire. Or wireless networking. Or gigabit ethernet. It's called innovation, and it's called leading the pack. They can either wait for someone else to do it, and bundle it, or they can do it themselves!
You're 99% sure? I'm pretty sure than in an Open PPC system, you'd get identical results as today's open PC system. Crap devices with crap drivers and crap systems. Don't tell me they don't exist! Apple may be the cream of the crop in such a market, but tell me how Apple gets an advantage in an Open system? Apple gets no advantage, and the users gets one advantage: The ability to choose their own motherboard (that's it! Everything else in a Mac is already standard!)
And do you seriously think there would be a company that build a better motherboard than Apple? If they do, they should *already* be building better motherboards than Apple today!
<em>The PC I built I just as high quality as any Apple machine</em>
I already gave you that point.
I cannot argue cheaper. I cannot argue more powerful. Both of those qualities are due to the economics of volume in the PC market. Even support is a question of volume. There are less choices for the Apple machines. But there are still video cards, SCSI cards, hard disks, etc, for Macs.
Okay, so now we get to the meat of your argument. That the platform is being killed by a non open standard.
Well, 2 things.
Apple *is* the standard.
Anyone (Dell, Compaq, etc) can release their own PPC systems if they wanted, but they would need an OS. Apple, as a business, need not 'give' their OS to a competitor. Think about it.
Apple sells what it sells, and people buy it. It suits their needs, despite the comparison you bring up. It's stable enough, full featured enough, fast enough, powerful enough.
If they weren't, people wouldn't buy Apple. They would buy Compaq, or Dell, or like yourself, build their own system.
The platform you speak of is easy to use *because* of everything you point out. That Apple does it's own hardware and software and drivers, because they have their own OS, because they roll their own systems. You can't get that *anywhere* else because no one else does it. Microsoft will soon, when they release their XBox, and then you'll have *all* the same arguments against them as you do against Apple!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
"Well it works for me, I don't care about anyone else."
That has to be the most selfish thought I've heard in a long time...
To turn it around;
"Nothing else anyone does matters, so anything they do won't affect or improve my status."
This is obviously false. Someone writes a better USB driver, and all of a sudden your camera stops crashing your PC. Someone tweaks the networking code, and your Quake framerates increase by 3%. I dunno if I'm eloquent enough to get my point across, but being selfishly isolated is a bad thing. Sigh, I wish I could articulate better.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Jobs is going to pop a gasket but nobody told the people at Staples to keep X off of the shelf until Saturday. I walked in and there it was, a pile of 'em. So far, it's really nice. Much more refined and much faster than the Public Beta. Makes all Linux distros look as dowdy as M$ products. Mac people are going to freak though...it's -not- a Mac anymore. The nicest surprise was the inclusion of a CD with the complete developer tools. Off I go to play, too much fun.
OK, OK... $2670 less. You gotta spend another 30 bucks on RAM to be "official."
I hate seeing these slashdotters complain about having to buy Apple's most expensive machine to run their software. It's not like you couldn't quote an equally expensive PC and say the same thing about Linux.
Blue skies... Barthie burgers... girls.
In order to run Classic, you must have a "Classic" OS installed (that would be the OS 9.1 that comes with OSX). Then, when you run Classic, it boots OS 9 "inside" OSX. There really is no "emulation" since OS9 and OSX are both "native" to Mac hardware.
So Apple isn't "throwing in a copy of OS 9.1" because emulation is bad, it's including it because it is a necessary part of Classic.
Or, plug in USB or Firewire cable (whichever the drive uses), turn on drive (works quite well for the market segment the iMac is aimed at).
I know, you meant internal drive, but give me any computer and I'll come up with something you can't do with it that I can do on another.
Because, like Microsoft, Apple cares about getting their software and other accessories into as many hands as possible. To this end, they've spent decades worth of man-hours on usability, testing, usability testing, and even more testing. Since their GUI and applications are written to be sold to people who need them rather to 'scratch an itch', the applications are often, but not always, powerful *and* intuitive.
Apple as a company, however, has fallen into the trap of thinking that it has to control every single aspect of its business to remain sucessfull. Steve has forgotten that (Control != Profit). This means that despite the fact that MacOS X is probably the best user-oriented *nix we'll ever see, it will never gain the kind of marketshare that the major Linux Distros currently occupy.
If only it would run on x86 hardware, Windows users would flock away from the evil empire.
After using a Mac professionally for quite a while, and lusting after all the cool hardware and software, I cannot in good concience, buy Apple products or reccomend them for purchase because of Apple's punitive busines practices.
It's truly sad, because Linux hackers don't get the importance of a usuable, intuitive interace and M$ and its legion of MSDN coders will never get the point of a powerful user-controlled subsytem.
*sigh*.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
As a linux advocate, you have several options: 1) "Oh yeah! Well...er...it can't do [enter a feature here]!" 2) "Yeah, but their [type of computer] costs $[several thousand dollars]!" 3) "Yeah, so? I never cared that Linux made it to the desktop. As long as it's free and available to the masses, it's fine with me." 4) "Let's learn from what Apple has done and make Linux even better! Discuss." 5) "Linux is for 3l33t h4ck3rz!" (excuse me if I did that wrong, for I am not elite nor a hacker)