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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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
--------------------
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.
True, but Apple has said CD-R and DVD support will be added in an update in a few months. There's no reason to hold up the entire OS because a few features aren't ready yet.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
OS X looks great, but spare me this guy's crap
.technomancer
.technomancer
i know you're trolling, but for the benefit of the rest of the slashdot community who may not be following MacOS X too closely, let me correct you. sure you could look at it as Apple shipping an "incomplete" OS, but i look at it this way:
Apple has touted these features, all of which are still available on thier latest consumer operating system MacOS 9.1. meanwhile they're quietly (only a small press release!) releasing their next-generation operating system, that while free of any major bugs, doesn't have all the bells and whistles of 3rd party applications. the important part? they're bundling the a complete development environment (Project Builder, Interface Builder, GNU utilities + more) with every single copy of OS X!
the features you mention are nice, but they're also not core OS features, they're independant applications. the important part is that they're making it easy for anybody to start developing apps (especially 100% native "Cocoa" apps) for this new operating system!
Jobs has said many times that the OS X release will resemble a bell curve: a small number of applications ported and available at release time, a larger number in the summer, and then tailing off in the Fall while the straglers port their apps.
the major consumer release of OS X is obviously this summer, at Macworld New York. that's the time when many 3rd parties will be shipping their applications, and long after the Apple "killer apps" you've mentioned have been ported (DVD burning, DVD playing and CD-RW burning through iTunes are promised in the next two months). right now it's a chance for developers of all levels (even the casual developer) to start writting applications for OS X with the final and set-in-stone API. that's what this release of OS X is all about, and that's why Apple is doing the right thing by releasing on March 24th. if the "killer apps" you need aren't supported, wait 'til summer!
of course a lot of this "argument" that OS X isn't complete is moot as you can run almost all of your current apps through the "classic" layer anyhow. it's not like you're dead in the water with no way to run any of your existing software!
- j
As a side note, it's interesting that they're bundling all the dev tools with the system at all. When the original mac shipped, it was the first to come with no development environment at all! Even dos had good ol' Q-Basic (or whatever it was) but the mac had nothing until Bill Atkinson sat down and wrote hypercard, which was really a major precursor to the web in some ways.
Now they're saying that the OS for the common man needs these tools as much as the OS for the guru. I know that I was hurt by being a Mac head and not having anything to program on until I saved enough money for a $100 copy of Code Warrior and another $100+ for the documentation and books. Granted, I may not be the average mac user, but the average mac user in my experience loves to create content! They say this themselves and they're proud of it. but by not having the tools to create content for the mac rather than on it they stifled a lot of young programmers. Just think of the amount of early shareware written in Basic for the PC.
Now they're including the dev tools, which is a good thing. It'll encourage aspiring young hackers to sit down with a compiler and learn how the hell their machine works beyond the bells and whistles. They can grab the code for Darwin and look through it to see what's going on under the hood. They can write something in java, or C, or C++, or perl, or just about anything because the tools are there. And do you want to know the reason? Linux.
Open Software zealots screamed about how good open code was, and Apple opened it. Free/Open software types sat down with their free tools and coded a whole mess of software that is flexible enough to actually take on Microsoft in ways that Apple never could have done. Apple is seeing the benefit to empowering the developer, rather than crippling them, and this is why the tools are there. With all the nifty third party apps, they don't really need to include the tools and they could continue on just like before, but they're not.
So, while Linux may have promised the UNIX for the common man (which I think is a load of shit, "Linux" can't promise anything), it does show that you can empower the common man in ways that Apple just did not understand in the slightest before. That's the kind of power that Linux delivers, and Apple can only mimick.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
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.
How many residents of the third world can afford $200 (minimum) for a PC? You do realise most people have never even made a telephone call, don't you? 1 billion people are starving, the next 1 billion people live on under a dollar a day, and it doesn't get much better after that til you reach the smallest 20% or so in the first world. A free operating system doesn't help much when you have to buy hardware as well.
> 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.
How many residents of third world countries can afford a $1500 computer?
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
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.
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
Also:"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.
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)