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MacOSX Vs BeOS ShootOut
Jolie writes: "After Palm purchased Be's assets, the future of BeOS became uncertain and a lot of users have left the platform. One of these users was Scot Hacker, mostly known for his 'BeOS Bible' book among other things. Scot tried to stick to Windows, then to Linux but he ended up with MacOSX. He has written a long and detailed article comparing, from the user's point of view, his beloved BeOS to his new favorite, MacOSX."
I could have sworn that I heard that BeOS was going to be given away, or something along those lines. Is this true? Does anybody have a download link or two?
With a little more polish (multi-user, better networking) it coulda been a contender. You can still get it at http://free.be.com, the free version. I think that Palm should open-source it; because it has some nice features (multi-thread apps, REALLY nice interface). Alas, it seems it is doomed.
Everything is mainstream now.
As if it weren't enough that we had Windows vs. Linux, and PS2 vs. XBox, now we have something else to penis wave about.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
This is old news, i could have sworn i read a post about this at another .com. Oh well, Personally i like OS X, but i think that it is so much more then Be ever aspired to um "Be". Of coarse Apples market was the same as BeOS content and multimedia creation.
For those who don't like to click all day long- Here
One of these users was Scot Hacker
I'm just jealous of that name.. are you sure thats not a psuedonym?
air and light and time and space
That's like organizing a fight between an opossum and a ferret.
Maybe if osX was to go multi-platform, then I'd care... But, as it is, the whole argument of BEOS vs osX is pointless, as no-one who doesn't own a mac can use osX and BEOS is all but dead (Please palm prove me wrong!)...
...this is getting out of hand
More and more I am in that operating system the more and more I like it. One of major things I have been able to do is connect my nomad and my digital and both hardware was found and I was able to play with my photos and mp3s. Long live steve jobs he is doing a great job
You've got to try better than that. Such an obivous alias. ;)
From the article:
Bio-diversity is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of open source software. It is what will keep Linux thriving no matter how depressed the tech industry gets (unlike Be), but it is also that which practically guarantees that the Linux experience will never feel internally consistent.
That last sentence was the one that intrigued me - is "internal consistency" something that people really look for in an OS? Speaking for myself (somebody who spends 90% of their time at the CLI) I've never really had a complaint in the "internal consistency" department - in fact, I've always liked the fact that Linux has kind of a TMTOWTDI feel - I can set my desktop up completely differently than the guy in the next WorkCube and be productive as hell.
Maybe "internal consistency" is something that a mass-marketed OS might want, but for the legions of DIY'ers out there, is this something to be worried about in an open-source OS?
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
I loved BeOS, too. It was a great operating system, ahead of it's time. BeOS beats both Windows and the classic MacOS, by far.
Unfortunately, BeOS is for all intents and purposes dead. Nothing me or you can do will change that. That's why I'm going to put my money on MacOSX every time. We all know the advantages of OSX--I mean, it's certainly the first time anyone has combined user-friendliness and good-design with the power of Unix (and a real Unix, at that).
So, sad is I am to say it, this article is sort of irrelevant. Sure, I'll keep BeOS around as a toy. But for serious work, OSX is my new OS of choice.
--
I support a US first strike
thud thud thud, his site gets slashdotted
"Wait, what am I saying? Beos was a horrible web server."
The story of how a BeOS refugee (and not just everyone, but the author of the 'BeOS Bible' book) lost faith in the future of computing, resigned himself to Windows but found himself bored silly, tore out half his hair at the helm of a Linux box, then rediscovered the joy of computing in MacOSX. Scot Hacker will describe his personal adventures with today's operating systems after he was set out to find an alternative to his beloved (but with no apparent future) BeOS.
Out of the Frying Pan...
Most users of Mac OS X come to it evolutionarily -- they've been using Macs for years, enduring the slings and arrows of Win32 and *nix users who complained that Mac OS had terrible memory management, an antiquated flavor of multitasking known as "cooperative" (which was usually anything but), and a slow file system. To rub salt into wounds, Mac OS opponents have historically loved complaining that the Mac was saddled with ill-conceived evolutionary sink-holes like the single-button mouse and the coup de grace, a total absence of anything resembling a command line.
I know all the snarly, bitter epithets that have been hurled at Mac OS because I used to be a Mac-hater. I admit it. At cocktail parties and in columns for other publications, I have publicly declared my dislike for the Macintosh and all things Mac OS (though I've always been honest about how much I appreciated the velvety feel of the Mac GUI).
The Germans have a word for this sort of self-indulgent vitriol: Schadenfreude -- a handy word which translates loosely as "taking pleasure in the misery of others." For many Windows and Linux users, it's not enough to simply refrain from using Mac OS -- you have to slander it before a large audience to really drive your point home.
Okay, so I indulged in a little Schadenfreude against the holy Mac universe from time to time, pissing off thousands. I'm not proud. But neither am I a bad person. I've just always wanted the most from my computer, and it always seemed like the Mac offered very little of the best, and a whole lot of the worst. But recently I've seen the light, and am here to make amends for my blasphemy. I hereby publicly apologize for my past life as a Mac-hater. Not only that, but thanks to OS X, I'm now a bona fide Mac OS lover. Bygones.
It's worth pointing out that I never criticized the Mac as a typical Windows- or Linux-loving Mac-hater. I was a BeOS-loving Mac hater. For, although I disliked the Mac, I harbored plenty of distaste for Windows and Linux as well.
In the mid-90s, I discovered BeOS and fell in love. Here, for the first time, I found a truly fast and efficient OS, designed from a clean slate to meet the needs of the future of computing, incorporating a raft of modern technologies and design concepts, and which also had a Unix command-line. At last, I had found the grace of the Mac and the power of Unix in one place (many years before the Mac got around to delivering same). I began to write professionally about BeOS. I created the BeOS Tip Server, and wrote The BeOS Bible. BeOS really was the promised land of operating systems, as far as I was concerned, and it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world saw the light. Or so I thought.
If you're not familiar with all the technology that made BeOS great, I'm not going to re-hash all of that here. For a quick summary, read BeOS: The 10,000-Foot View. In fact, if you're not familiar with BeOS, I'll consider that piece required reading for this one.
Needless to say, not everything went as planned for Be, and by the late 90s the BeOS movement was no longer on the upswing. Be wasn't getting the market buy-in they had hoped for, and the VC well was running dry. When Be announced they were going to focus on delivering an OS for Internet Appliances, most of us saw the writing on the wall. App developers and users began to pull out of the platform, and talk changed from what it was going to be like when half the world was running BeOS to how in hell we were going to keep the platform alive.
After the "focus shift," the BeOS scene became dreary. Rather than mounting a revolution, BeOS users were reduced to begging for crumbs, resorting to work-arounds for all the unfinished bits in the OS, trading pirated copies of the never-released replacement network stack that had been in development at Be prior to the shift, and watching as more and more unsupported hardware emerged on the landscape.
I decided it was time to move on and re-join the world of the living. After a five-year hiatus, I went back to Windows (Win2K). For a while, it was fun. Windows had become much better in the years since I had last used it, and the abundance of software was almost overwhelming. I had become so accustomed to making do with limited software options that I had forgotten what it was like to be able to do basically anything I wanted with my computer.
But the fun was short-lived. Within weeks, I became bored. Sure, Windows got the job done, and the cornucopia of software was definitely worth exploring, but the user experience was monotonous. All function and no form. I felt like I was working in a clip-art factory. I missed the love affair aspect of using BeOS. And while Win2K was far better than the Win95/98 crap I had used in a previous life, the politics of using Windows had become too much for me to bear. My intimate involvement with BeOS had given me a too-close glimpse of the depths of Microsoft's business practices. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just rolled over and capitulated to that which bothered me so deeply. Something about using Windows made me feel hypocritical and slutty. Between the boring user experience and the politics, I knew I needed to find my way back to more exciting, less noxious territory.
- Scot Hacker
It's like comparing SUVs to cars to trucks. They're all different, suited to different people's needs.
(A brief example, I'm sure everyone knows each individual point already)
Windows is for the everyday user, who doesn't mind a few crashes here and there if it means all their favorite software will run on it and the whole thing can be as user friendly as possible.
Unix is usefull for those who know what they are doing, and is usually considered faster and more reliable, and is in general more suited to business and (especially) software development.
MacOS combines the two, with a GUI similar to windows (suprise!) and more support for games and home use software, but with a Unix kernel and better reliability. I don't use them much myself, but I hear that mac's are the best choice for multimedia development (graphics especially, but they also seem to have some of the best music editing apps)
I myself prefer Windows for home use (it's all about the games) and Unix (solaris8 to be specific) for work development.
Why compare any of them in general though when they're all suited to different applications?
-Space for rent
damn this get frustrating... at least news.gnome.org works now, but theres nothing new.
dude, you are SOoo funny, where do you come up w/ this stuff?
# of jobs programming for BeOS: 0
# of jobs programming for Mac OSX: 0
I Heart Sorting Networks
Since I returned to the Mac in 97 and was using it for web work I got used to typing in the extensions to file names. I never thought this was a big deal having done it ion Windows a lot. When OSX came out and the metadata controversy reared its head I was unsure what the rancor was about.
After reading this article I can now understand why some people want a different system than that used in OSX. In some ways OSX takes a step backward by getting rid of the resource fork. On the other hand, it acknowledges the fact that to be compatible in a heterogeneous network you have to accomodate Windows and UNIX. The system Scot mentions that was used in Be sounds very intriguing. The fact that MS is moving to a database structure for their file system is also interesting.
While I would love the ability to use attributes in files like Be did, Apple doesn't have the luxury of starting from-the-ground-up. Still this was THE feature (aside from performance) that I wish OSX had. Would make Sherlock much better. Scot seemed to find some of this functionality in iTunes. Wish it was in the Finder.
Scot Hacker seems like the ideal OS X user. Unlike hard-core Mac users, like most of the OS X audience, he doesn't have Mac desktop environment that's tweaked exactly the way he wants and his hands don't automatically issue Finder commands. He's extremely at home at the command-line and can tap the power of the Unix underneath but still appreciates an elegant, consistent GUI. (Unlike desktop Linux fans, who consider middle-button text pasting that may or may not work between apps from different toolkits to be perfectly satisfactory integration.) And, as he said, when you're coming from Be, it doesn't take a lot of software to look like a vast cornucopia of available apps.
The one thing that surprises me is that the speed didn't bother him more. The biggest thing BeOS had going for it, besides that file system, was blazing, silky-smooth speed, whereas all the OS X systems I've seen dragged their butts. (Admittedly, I haven't used 10.1.) He did have a really fast box, though.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I'm using Windows 2000 server right now. This is the caption, to the left under the c:\WINNT\system32 folder: What else needs to be said is left to you.
IF YOU SUPPORT FREE SPEECH THEN DON'T MODERATE!
A lot of you are here to talk about free speech, yet /. does not support it!
Moderation
Bans
Lameness filters
AND, the BITCHSLAP!
Those tools are CENSORSHIP! Please fight the slasdot bastards and get rid of this crap.
FUCK CENSORSHIP
Scott's essay says: I don't mind AppleScript. I wish the system were open to other languages
Actually, the system is open to other languages, although I don't know how many of them have OS X ports. MacOS uses Open Scripting Architecture, which means that pretty much any scripting language can operate your Mac, given an appropriate OSAX plugin.
I've toyed with the ones for JavaScript, Perl, and Python, but decided to stick with AppleScript since I already know (some of) the syntax.
Ok. There's ~20 some posts here, and already the site is Slashdotted. Which is too bad, because I was interested in reading the article. So instead of commenting on it, I guess I'll have to settle for commenting on Slashdot's lack of caching.
In the FAQ, Taco says that he doesn't want to cache because the website might update it's data, and then Slashdot's cache would be out of date. Well, sure, valid: I would rather have up-to-date data than out-of-date data. But I would also have out-of-date data compared to no data. If you offer the original link and a cache link, at least I get a choice. As it is now, no choice.
Of course, what happens now is that someone will find a mirror or a Google cache and post it (eventually). So the end result is that the Slashdot community still gets out-of-date information, but they get it later than they would normally.
There. Had my say.
I mean this guy always manages to become an extremely experienced user of a doomed OS.
IIRC, Beos4 was a "viral/trojan" edition because it actually ran "under" windows' file system as an image.
I don't recall if v5 did the same thing in the personal version.
Funny, isn't it? The first (and only, I think) trojan that ran under windows and did not do any damage and actually helped get back the speed that windows took away!
If only they could have made it an outlook attachment and mailed it to all the other users in Outlook's address book this whole monopoly thing with Microsoft would have never come to pass....well, at least until the user rebooted.
(sigh)
V5 was nice and fast, but the semi-broken drivers that made version 4 so nice kinda killed off any chance BeOS ever had (excluding the bootloader issue, that is).
I mean, c'mon, dropping legacy support was *a good thing* but to slit your own throat and *not have drivers* work from a previous os that did not, supposedly, have "legacy issue to begin with?"
Oye.
Random thought: Beos -- OSX, One click-patent -- License one click patent, Be -- Apple, Dumb -- and dumber....notice a trend here?
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Find a function, apart from f(x) = c*exp(x) for some c, such that f'''(x) = f(x).
miguel de icaza gave him these ideas
The Personal Edition of BeOS, given away for free, can be turned into a full installation very easily. Check betips.net for details.
I'm the stranger...posting to
If Be would have focused on making Be the "NT Workstation" of the Linux world they might have made it. Face it, Be was a great desktop operating system and Linux has already proven itself as a viable server operating system. If it blended together nicely with Linux (on the backend) it could have became the niche that could have brought Linux and Be to the forefront in the business world.
Maybe Palm will still make this happen. Likely not. It could very well happen if Be was released under an open source licence though!
...than clicking on a slashdotted link is clicking on a link that works, getting 3 or 4 pages in and interested, THEN having the site get slashdotted....
yeah it sure is the best. How come you never realised that Apple.com switched to Mac OS X for sometime and then switched back to Solaris?
What I saw will also be dogmatic and anecdotal, as it is being drawn from my own life.
Comparing Macs to Windows is not SUVs to cars and trucks. It is not about different, or suited to different needs, though one can very clearly make that distinction.
It's *almost* like talking about luxury vehicles though, as noxious as car analogies are. You pay for the Mac experience, where the Windows world spans the whole gamut of econoboxes to SUV.
I'm going to leave out Linux and Unix for simplicity and because with Mac OS X you get BSD 'for free' since it's built atop it.
For the average (not the specific individuals), a Mac is drop in compatible with a PC, about the same way that an AMD Athlon is compatible with the Intel P4.
Macs have less quantity software, but it is not without the entire spectrum (except, perhaps, maybe only in the short term, for VB virii)
What Windows has is the ability to transform nearly any machine into a Window's platform device. Think borg, think virus. A 486? A P2? A P3? A Duron? A MP P4? You can install Windows. It's not perfect, it's not seamless, it's not graceful, but it works. That seems to be the catchphrase that is Windows.
The Mac is arguably more tightly bound to it's hardware. It *is* seamless, graceful, and clean. Perhaps it wasn't like that in the past, but right now, and for the next few iterations, OS X is going to be hand tailored for the hardware and the hardware is going to be hand tailored for the OS.
If you prefer the simplicty of a single setup, like I do, you can get one Mac PowerBook G4 for home use (video, graphics, games, movies, etc) and for work (BSD, bash, gcc, etc).
GPL Deconstructed
It works just fine for me now.
And, for the record, the two main beos projects by lost souls are BlueOS and OpenBeOS.
I didn't say it was the best, I said it was the best "new" operating system to come in a while. I wouldn't run a webserver on it either.
Why the hell does everyone want to start a flame war.
I had already read the story, because I saw it on benews. It's long, but it's 100% true. When Java / .Net are used for desktop applications BeOS and other OSes might have a chance again
Assumption is the mother of all fuckups
He said: "Because the Quartz display engine is vector-based, it's possible to do things like providing sliders that adjust the size of the photo-quality icons from miniscule to immense with no dithering."
That bitmap-resampling that you see in the Dock isn't a simple dither, but it has nothing to do with vector drawing, either.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
New BeOS software appears consistently at http://www.bebits.com/
Also, a quite large group of people are working in OpenBeOS http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/ and after it matches functionality of BeOS5, it will be further extended. Development is early, but you can't help but take notice at the healthy amount of activity (I keep my eye on the project).
FREE SPEECH includes the right not to listen to someone(Like You). If you had some guy screeming(Like You) out side your house about the UFOs and /. being out to get him. You to would A:Call the police B: Put some ear plugs into your ears. C: Shoot him dead. But I don't think you would stay up all night listening to him. Because after all he is a person(Much Like You) and Free Speech only works one way.
Your Post proves why we need a moderation system.Plus Slashdot won't Delete your post unless it infinges on other peoples rights.
I hope I have cleared this up for you.
"Freeware just isn't a part of the OS X culture, and shareware apps cost about 50% more on average than equivalent BeOS shareware apps."
There's plenty of Mac OS X freeware and shareware available, particularly for developers. You can find it at www.stepwise.com/softrak.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Darwin, the NeXT-like BSD/mach core of MacOS X, runs on Intel kit. It's foreseeable that this may eventually provide a compatibility engine that will permit Mac software developers to port to the cheaper kit. On the other hand, I can't think what strategy Apple would be able to adopt to compete in the large, competitive hardware market that this would create, except by making its GUI interface a major selling point. That would be feasible if Microsoft continued to bite the hands that feed it (which, on previous showings I suppose, is always possible).
Actually, this doesn't sound like such a crazy idea. A friend was trying to impress me with the one of these Titanium book thingies the other day, but all I could think about was how much nicer it would be if I could run the same lovely Mac software on kit at a price point that *I* chose.
[nostradamus mode off]
I have nothing but admiration for Apple's recent moves--successfully leveraging the large open source developer base has given the company a lot of credibility, completing the revamp that started with the iMac. I would never spend any money on Apple hardware (it's far too expensive in my country), but they've got the makings of a great cross-platform OS.
Jeeze dude - you could at least QUOTE the friggin article you are replying to because for those that browse above 0 (the majority i would think) your parent post won't appear and it is rather hard to figure out wtf you are talking about...
Yeah, this is a meta comment. So mod it +/- 0, not -1, not +1, and please remain calm.
Sorry Scot but I'm not going to spend big bucks for an entirely new computer that doesn't run PC apps, is slower and goes backwards as far as file systems is concerned. If I'm missing something in linux and BeOS I can always reboot to Windows. Sure there's virtual pc but it doesn't work for games and you pay more to make your computer slower. I might consider a mac if it came with a card with an athlon or pentium so that I can run PC apps natively but again this costs serious money!
---
No doubt. I just fired that little flame off in a fit of rage. That's my real UserID, I've been a /. regular since the beginning. I like what Rob and the /. editors are trying to accomplish and sometimes just get frustrated by those who seek only to destroy the forum. Sure, the editors make mistakes, but I honestly think they act in good faith. Oh well -- I've got plenty of karma to kill. :) --M
No troll. They're running Mac OS X.
m od e_w=on&site=www.apple.com&submit=Examine
Lame troll.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=on&
Bitterman
The group management is part of OSX-Server.
"Pull the plug on a BeOS box and it boots back up in 15 seconds with no loss of data."
I don't believe that this is true - journaling makes sure that the disk is in a known good state (i.e. the filesystem structures are consistent), but does not make sure that there was no dataloss. You may lose data, but you'll know it - you avoid situations where you lost data, but the filesystem thinks it's there.
simply click on the link he provides in his user info
/. remind me of those assholes who ... risk everyone elses life to take the lead.
You can click on my link to check my user info. The only problem is that I am a damned liar, as are many loyal Slashdot readers.
You provide NO intellectual discourse, simply diversion from the topic at hand.
Let's try a little Gedankenexperiment. Imagine you were in a room full of idiots who were holding a fierce debate over whether Adolf Hitler had better taste in shoes than the Pope. If you shouted "Hey look, a bird!" and they all stopped arguing and looked up, which one of you was engaging in intellectual discourse? You or the mob?
The trolls on
You know the only problem with your analogy? It's fucking weak. An attempt to make us look bad by comparing us with people who do real damage of any sort, let alone people who endanger the lives of others, is proof enough that we should keep doing exactly what we're doing. Anyone who would make such a ridiculously fallacious argument is a person who is immensely entertaining to provoke.
I offer you a piece of advice that I've given to many a bleary-eyed MUD player right before they flunked out of life: "It's not real. It's just a game [weblog]. There are no real consequences here. Now go outside".
Now click it and like it.
This is an excellent point. Most of the time you just want to get things done. You dont' feel like configuring yet another, and completely different format text file or modify some hybrid bash/perl script just to get things running. Sometimes it's fun to get your hands dirty, but most of the time it isn't.
And I know I'll get flamed for this one, but I still think having just one dominant desktop environment is the way to go. People will say things such as "choice is good" and you can run the other desktops apps, but it's still no the same. It's a duplication of effort and can be confusing for new users. Joe Sixpack newbie who picks up a copy of redhat and doesn't know if he should choose GNOME or KDE.
Who peed in your coffee this morning? It's a joke, dude, relax.
When will they ever learn? Don't those numbnuts at Apple know that this is the #1 most annoying and stupid thing about the OS, and has been since - oh, I dunno, 1987?
sulli
RTFJ.
I'm an old school Unix user, and I will forever believe [forever] that users who say "command line is great, but for normal work, you want an integrated experience" --
these users do not really know what the hell they're doing in front of a command line interface. They may think they've mastered the shell of Unix or Linux, but they haven't --
because once you have, you will never really have a use for anything else -- the beauty of the shell is that all things and all functions are subsumed below it in consistent fashion, in one magnificent world-view, and all things no matter how complex become possible with a single, well-constructed command, almost like magic.
Some of my fellow Linux or Unix users will understand what I am talking about here -- using the command-line interface is not, as this author says, like carrying around a heavy toolbelt all day when none is needed. Instead, once one has truly mastered the CLI, one is like a Jedi master -- all acts are balanced, rapid, skilled, both intricate and simple at the same time -- and all things are possible and as simple as one another. I can get more work done in ten minutes with my CLI -- including editing video streams and audio streams! -- than most users can get done in days using GUI-only tools.
Of course, OSX and BeOS both have a CLI -- but neither is very useful because much of the rest of the system and the set of standard tools is gutted or malformed in peculiar OSX and BeOS ways. Users of BeOS and OSX think they are getting a CLI, but it's as though they've been trained only by Obi-Wan and never by Yoda -- the real essence of the system is muddied and lost and the benefits are never realized -- or worse -- they are driven from the concept of a CLI unduly.
That is my belief: that users who claim to want a desktop in which CLI use is normally avoided really don't understand and haven't yet mastered the CLI -- because once you have, anything else feels like a straightjacket.
MHO
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
It's called a cluster. Netcraft has nicely provided an explanation of this for people without the benifit of a clue.
Hippies smell.
The FreeBSD review!
To refute the author's claim you quote another source...written by the same guy.
Good going, brainiac.
Microsoft's Mac Business Unit
Intuit
Adobe
Macromedia
Qualcomm
Ok, sure: all those companies actually employ people to write Mac OS X software. How many are hiring? I can't seem to find any on the job boards. And in fact, a search on monster.com for "mac os x" for every job category and every location yields just 17 jobs. Nationwide. A similar search for "windows" in just the "computer software" category yields 1,075 results. A search for "Linux" in the same category returns 246 listings. Solaris has 301 jobs, AIX has 115, and BSD has 8 (although a BSD search for all categories returns 37 listings).
Anyway, I get your point. But the trouble is that there just aren't that many jobs for Mac OS X programmers now. And I can guarantee you that your chances of getting a programming job at Qualcomm are like from slim to none. I recently found out that two very competent and capable engineers were cut in yet another popularity contest. And in any case, most people are going to be buying commodity hardware and running Win32 software. So the jobs are going to follow that...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Apple versus BeOS...? Isn't this a bit like reading some long-winded article about how many ways a guy with terminal cancer can beat up on a corpse?
first BeOS, and now OSX. both seem to be cut from basically the same "us against the world" mentality.
been there, done that...(once).
Errr... Apple runs OS X Server on apple.com, has been since 2000. See below:
& mo de_w=on&site=www.apple.com
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off
I just downloaded Free BeOS on my Windows ME machine (don't worry I plan on installing Linux over christmas!) and when I tried to open it I got an interesting message which was basically BeOS does not run under windows, it runs under DOS, now ME doesn't support DOS but the program still gives instructions on how to run it out of DOS. With my machine I also have a free upgrade coupon to windows XP (hey I'm not actually giving them money and I don't think ANYTHING can be worse than ME), than something occurred to me, wasn't one of the changes with XP an elimination of DOS. Could this dumping of DOS also been an attempt to kill BeOS (and any other OS's who worked by running off of Dos instead of making the user get a new partition) or was it just a happy coincidence for Redmond?
I stole this Sig
I bought BeOS 4.5 and Scot Hacker's Bible, years ago. He convinced me then that BeOS was one of the greatest OSs that could have been. BeOS had more potential than Linux could ever dream of. (sacrilege, I know)
I have been very interested in Mac OS X since I first heard about it. I've been drooling over Mac Hardware since I first saw the G4 Towers and their translucent shells. Scot Hacker has a way of cementing a person's desire for something. I simply must have a Mac.
I'm beginning to think that if Scot Hacker began to extoll the virtues of lobotomy or the life of a eunuch I would fall in line. He's like the Pied Bloody Piper
-
It would be interesting if someone compared OS X to Linux with KDE2 or Gnome.
Also, I've heard really bad things about OS X security. "Friendliness" of a Mac combined with the power of UNIX. What else can a cracker ask for?
So if MacOS is velvety, what adjective would be appropriate for comparing the Win32 GUI?
(ObTroll: Nappy?)
I can see the fnords!
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/home/osnews/web/connect.php on line 2
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Could not connect to the Database
One thing that drives me nuts in Linux is that the dam file system is case sensitive.
Can someone tell me WHY a file system needs to be case sensitive from the user's point of view?
Here: http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/beos_osx/
As well as misunderstanding resource forks, he also repeats the misconception that Mac OS "creator codes" are some kind of nefarious control mechanism that takes over your documents against your wishes and which you can never ever change.
He then goes on to propose a "preferred-application" metadata type that allows individual users to specify which applications they prefer to open a document with on a file-by-file basis. He proposes the OS use this preferred application, if it is available, but fall back on standard applications if the preferred one is not available.
The problem is that this is exactly how creator codes work, and is what they are for. His mock-up of a wonderous "application file type selector" is similar to the Quicktime translator dialog that has been available for about 10 years.
"Tech workers spend all day, every day dwelling within the environments provided by their operating systems. After a while, that environment needs to begin to feel like home."
Amen. I love the environment I set up with my iBook, Airport, and OS X.
I sleep with my iBook.
I'm just jealous of that name.. are you sure thats not a psuedonym?
My father's name is Thomas D. Hacker.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Maybe if he dropped that much serious coin on his Linux/BeOS system he would have had an honest comparisson. Reading the article I could hear the cash register cha-chinging like mad. He must have spent at least 4000 dollars on his system. That's about 10 times what I pay for my scrounged-together systems, and I doubt Scot gets 10 times the enjoyment for his money.
the article is too darn long. so here is my opinion based on what timothy/jolie wrote.
apples and oranges
-xtc
Two words "Linux Ready" I'm pretty sure that the current OEM License doesn't prohibit leaving empty space on the hard drive, or shipping a CD with the system that includes another OS. If I could find a site that had the infamous OEM Licence on it I could be certain. Worst case scenario they would have to ship the Linux CD seperately. Those OEMs that provide Linux-only models could overnight add a 'linux ready' option to thier windows PCs. A modified linux CD that installed linux in one click setup correctly for that model of PC could be shipped either seperatly or if the license allows with the PC itself.
/. Microsoft could well be reading it and sending the legal staff to draft up a New OEM license as we speak. However, I doubt that even Microsoft could win a court battle about leaving a hard drive partially unformatted as a user option. The trade secret status process should also delay things long enough that an OEM could start shipping systems with the 'linux ready' option before Microsoft could act, and could then SUE Microsoft for damages ala the Dr. DOS case.
Of course since this is posted to
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
He should try Win XP. I've used every MS OS since Dos, every linux OS under the sun since redhat 4.x and windows XP is by far the best. It has yet to crash on me. Something I cannot say of any OS I have every used on a daily basis. It has now replaced my linux desktop. I still run a few linux servers, and am not going to replace them any time soon. Oh well no one here will listen, but for what its worth those are the comments from a long time linux user.
Hey, man, I wanna have your children ;-)
Ok, sure: all those companies actually employ people to write Mac OS X software. How many are hiring? I can't seem to find any on the job boards. And in fact, a search [monster.com] on monster.com for "mac os x" for every job category and every location yields just 17 jobs. Nationwide. A similar search for "windows" [monster.com] in just the "computer software" category yields 1,075 results. A search for "Linux" [monster.com] in the same category returns 246 listings. Solaris [monster.com] has 301 jobs, AIX [monster.com] has 115, and BSD [monster.com] has 8 (although a BSD search for all categories [monster.com] returns 37 listings).
First off, monster.com does not represent the job market. I'm sure a lot of companies hire without going through monster or similar boards.
Secondly, with the economy the way it is, companies just aren't hiring people period. I don't care what segment of the market you are in, new jobs are disappearing.
Third, given the above, there are still positions out there. For instance the company I work for was looking for OSX programmers up until about a month ago. The positions required BSD kernel experience, and we recently filled those positions with contract programmers. AFAIK, the jobs were not posted on any job board.
Finally, here is a link that showed up in the top 10 in a Google search for 'mac os x job" http://www.jobmart.com/JobOpenings. There are a few jobs listed here for OSX development (granted two are in Sweden, but they are still jobs).
They may be harder to find, and there may be less of them, but OS X jobs (outside of Apple) do exist.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2833 255,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02
The original idea when Apple went with NeXT was that Apple would ship essentially OPENSTEP/Mach for PowerPC. The early Rhapsody Developer Previews were essentially that, and were available pretty quickly. Apple had to dust off the old NeXT PowerPC port and bring it up to speed and port it to Mac hardware, as it was originally written for the NeXT RISC Workstation that never shipped (I've seen a prototype of the m88k version, but I haven't the PPC version).
The problem with that strategy was that the major ISV's balked at the idea of porting to OPENSTEP API's. They saw it as a lot of time and expense for a platform that might not last out the year. It would not have required a total re-write as some people have suggested, but certainly it would have been a major effort. (I would personally argue that going the Carbon route was also painful and going the Cocoa route would have resulting in a better product). Plus, these ISV's would have to then maintain separate ports for Mac OS X and Mac OS X, and they weren't willing to do that - many of them had already cut out ports to anything but Windows and Mac, and were probably considering dropping the Mac anyways.
So the Rhaspody strategy was abandoned, Steve Jobs took over, Apple re-invested in the traditional Mac OS and got some good releases out the door. They also came up with Carbon, which is a re-tooled Mac Toolbox API that sits native inside of Mac OS X. In doing so, they also re-wrote the graphics layer, removing Display Postscript and replaced it with brand new code called Quartz which is based on PDF. That means re-writing the window manager as well so that it supports simultaneous display of Quicktime, OpenGL, Java2D, QuickDraw, and so on including using underlying hardware support. They also re-wrote the DriverKit layer, replacing it with IOKit which is embedded C++ based and has much broader support. The print system was replaced, the Workspace Manager was tossed and the Finder was re-written in Carbon (IMHO one of the worst parts of the current Mac OS X). Lots and lots of utilities were re-written, the BSD layer was upgraded from BSD 4.3, the kernel was moved from Mach 2.0++ (2.5 and some 3.0 extensions) to Mach 3.0++. The Classic layer was also added so that it can mingle with native apps, Java was added, Mail.app was re-written, and so on and so on. There was a lot of work put into this operating system since OPENSTEP 4.2 for Mach, which basically remained stagnant for years.
In the meantime, Rhapsody did essentially ship as Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999. It was basically OPENSTEP 5.5/5.6 with a menu layout that was Mac OS Classic-ish but pretty much everything else was straight from OPENSTEP/Mach.
So... any operating system that Apple might have chosen at the time would have had to go through the wringer in order to get it to support Apple's technologies and what Apple perceives as what their customers require. It would have taken a long time, and BeOS would have been a worst choice in terms of both adapting the technology and the personnel. I think that going with BeOS and C++ would have led back to the Copland and Taligent quicksand pit. As for personnel, if Steve Jobs didn't come back to lead Apple, I'm not sure Apple would have had this resurgence.
There is a team of open source developers working to recreate BeOS functionality/API/interface using a modern Linux backend. The result would be a platform that would run BeOS and Linux apps side by side. Very cool. Interview here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=215
BeOS died when Be and Metrowerks were incapable of delivering a decent compiler for BeOS/ppc and tying the object format to PEF (so that using other tools was nearly impossible without major hacking). After years of struggling with an absolutely horrendous/unusable toolchain, most of the early adopters (read: 3rd party developers) gave up because it simply wasn't worth the pain.
It wasn't until the 2nd or 3rd developer release of BeOS/x86 that Be finally admitted how bad it was and switched to gcc (and even then, only for x86). By that time, most of the early folks who had generated the initial excitement and pledged support for BeOS had left. [I remember going to the first developer's conference and sitting next to folks from Lexmark (which was then just recently spun from IBM), Wolfram, and others. Funny how those 'big/important' names disappeared a year or so down the road.]
Unix is the do-it-yourself kit car, assembled by anything from the enthusiast in his garage, to the formula one team. High performance, no frills, enthusiasts only.
Mac's are yer luxury european cars. A nice audi, or a sporty beemer. Quality, but at a price.
Windows, is a detroit piece of shit. A million pointless accessories that break off if you touch them.
If you ask me, the world needs a cheap reliable japanese car^H^H^HOS.
Well, I agree...ultimately, you can't effectively compete against Windows if you want to make money. They own developers -- hardware people ONLY write drivers for Windows...same for software developers. Yea, they make drivers for other OS' too, but those come out second, and they are usually second rate. Same with software. I'm not an advocate of Windows -- this is just a consequent fact of the fact that MS is an illegal monopoly. Solution? Break the company up into a million pieces, open source their software, and prevent anyone with the name Bill Gates from owning a business.
;-). This is an ideal we should aspire to b/c it produces more knowledgeable users, and keeps them more informed and more empowered. These OS' also happen to have great power/functionality, as well as enoromous customizability. So, summing it up, Linux and BSD are all about giving the USER CHOICE. They also happen to have some very good code, as well as stability/security, and *decent* performance in typical day-to-day desktop uses, as well as great performance for networking.
Ok, that said...let me talk about the features of an OS that are important...I'll take it from the lowest level to the highest.
1. Functionality -- how much stuff your OS can do...i.e., how many operations/manipulations of data, ways to do things, etc.
2. Performance -- when something is operating, how long does it take? How long is load time? Boot time? What about the memory footprint in RAM?
3. Size -- how large is it? Smaller for the same functionality is better. Obviously, smaller progs tend to load and run faster, so this ties into performance.
4. Stability -- this one's pretty obvious. Does it crash or doesn't it? How often does it crash, and how difficult or easy is it to crash it.
5. Security -- related but distinct from stability. How secure can an OS keep your files? i.e., encryptions, permissions, access levels, file sharing, etc.
6. User interface -- this one's composed of several categories. Its not just ease of use, as some Macphiles would have you believe. Ease of use is important. It should also be pretty, so long as the prettyness contributes to making it easier to use & understand (anything beyond that is wasteful). But furthermore, it should allow you to get things done fast. Power features, shortcuts, etc. This is where having a command line and being able to do everything from a keyboard comes in handy. Max OSX may be easy to use, but many tasks are repetitive, and people don't want to constantly have to use the mouse.
7. Compatability -- How much software/hardware/user support does your OS have? This is where M$ gets to kick everyone else in the nuts until their eyes pop out of their head.
8. Of course, their is availability. This is where Linux gets to kick everyone else in the nuts until their eyes pop out. Having something freely available and such that any can see the code is a great benefit. BeOS doesn't get hit as hard, b/c it has a limited version available free of cost (though no source code). M$ doesn't get hit at all -- no fault in their operating system hinders them or costs them money.
Linux and BSD (yes, I know these are DIFFERENT...don't go nuts). These OS' have a great concept behind them -- that the source code should be available for all to see and analyze, and modify on. This also happens to make them free
On to the great Satan, Microsoft Windows. This is an OS which is a prime example of mediocracy and slovenlyness. Most things are OK, some are terrible. MS is all about standards -- that's why its so successful. More simply put, MS is about "popularity". Every hardware vendor makes makes drivers for MS and every software company makes software for MS. As long as this continues, and no other OS' get this kind of support, MS will invariably dominate. The main reason ppl don't switch from MS is because: (1) They've spend hundreds of dollars on Windows games like Descent and Tomb Raider, and don't want to waste that; (2) They have lots of MS software, and don't want to waste that; (3) They want to be able to get all the latest, greatest, and best hardware, which they can always do with MS.
Now, onto the Max OSX. Its all about ease of use. Very easy to use (though annoying not having a right click, and little keyboard menu support). Though easy to use, it is slow -- things open slow, and getting things done is slow, b/c EVERYTHING has to be done with the mouse, or almost so. Very poor performance. Its BSD-core, so good security and stability, if you configure it so. Not too much functionality -- by this, I mean, you can't customize it to your choosing. Very little User control. Apple RAMS their UI down your throat and you better like it or else (cause if you don't, and try to offer programs for modifying MaxOSX's appearance/features on the net, Apple will sue you).
Now, onto three of my favorite proof-of-point OS' in terms of performance: BeOS, Amiga SDK, and QNX. Let me summarize the specialties of each before I treat them all as one cummulative OS. BeOS -- very fast, great for graphics, great file system, fast load-time, boot time, etc. Amiga SDK -- same story as BeOS, but crossplatform and offers interestingly fast VP Assembly code, w/c is crossplatform. Apparently, code runs at near-native speeds once loaded; also, progs written in VP Assembly (w/c is like Java in cross-platformedness) load faster, b/c there is "less" stuff to load from the hard drive, and more CPU transformation (dynamic compilation) of code...CPU much faster than HD, so as far as loading, better to load less and have to "dynamically compile" it than to have to load larger thing to start w/ but not transform it. QNX -- prime example of minimalism: truely, an Orwellian OS in terms of efficiency. No unneeded junk. Now, let me summarize the advantages of these OS: namely, performance performance performance. They boot up quicker than Windows, UNIX, or MacOSX (though QNX is a "UNIX"). Programs load faster on them, tasks are performed faster, and their memory footprint is smaller.
So, what is it the USER really needs?
(1) An OS w/ the PERFORMANCE of BeOS/Amiga/QNX. Fast boot time, fast run time, fast load time, small memory footprint. This comes down to fine tuning and revolutionary thinking in terms of file-systems, algorithms, etc etc. You also need cross-platform code like VP Assembly, w/c can run faster than native code, and w/c can load faster due to less "information" on the HD, w/c needs to be transformed into binary code by the CPU dynamically.
(2) An OS w/ the POWER, FUNCTIONALITY, and CUSTOMIZABILITY of the UNIXs. In Linux/BSD/IRIX/etc, you have enormous power. Everything is customizable. You can customize your browser to selectively ignore certain images on web-sites, etc. Vast array of commands to perform repetitive tasks quickly (such as replacing all instances of ": " in a file with a TAB.
(3) An OS with the EASE OF USE of MacOSX. "Prettyness" is a secondary concern. Prettyness is only something they add to it to make it look better to OEMs. The main concern is to make the interface very intuitive, as well as quick to use. MacOSX tends to be very intuitive, but not very quick to use...you have to drag your mouse to do everything.
(4) An OS with the SOFTWARE SUPPORT, HARDWARE SUPPORT, and general INTERCOMPATABILITY as Windows. As said before, all software companies support Windows, as do all Hardware companies. For software, solutions like Wine may easy to pain for games who already have hundreds of games. But for Hardware? You need to sell companies on that, or make the drivers yourself. How do you sell companies on it? Well, you convince them that b/c your OS is so mean and lean, their product will perform v. fast on it, w/c makes it look good...this only tends to work for gaming and 3D developing software companies, though. But for other companies, doesn't quite have the same effect -- so you have to make it yourself, until your OS becomes popular enough.
What apps, outside of games and 3D progs, do you need? Well, I'll tell you what progs I usually use every day. (1) E-mail prog; (2) Internet browser; (3) Word-processor; (4) Spreadsheet; (5) Database; (6) Drawing/graphics program; (7) Media-viewing program (something that can play ALL kinds of sounds, show ALL kinds of images, and play ALL kinds of videos); (8) Encoders; (9) FileSharing prog; (10) Antivirus; (11) Various scientific utilities. This comes to 11 -- ELEVEN -- programs that I use regularly.
Is itr really that hard for people to come up with 11 GOOD programs which accomidate people's everyday needs? I wouldn't think so.
So, hows all this to be accomplished? Well, I think we start out with the IDEA behind Linux/BSD: you need a free and openly available source code. This gives uers control, and insures a project is immortalized. Maybe you even start out with the BSD or Linux OS?
But, I think thats too difficult. Like BeOS, we need to start from scratch. Our aspirations need to be towards excellence and nothing less. Linux' file system -- while more efficient than Windows and MacOSX -- simply could not be worked to be made as efficient as BeOS'. Granted, Linux has a lot of good things -- OpenSource, and many many useful commands. We shouldn't abandon any of the many many UNIX commands. But we should abandon the Linux file system...in fact, we should abandon all file systems.
It needs to be a clean break -- sometimes, a house is so infested by termites that the only solution is to tear it down and build another house. It won't be easy, and it won't come fast. It certainly won't provide a viable solution for many years...but good things come over time. The pyradmids took lifetimes to build (well, one lifetime of a pharoh, many lifetimes of the avg. Egyptian citizen, since they lived shortly). A good opertaing system may take decades to build -- and that's just to get to the core OS.
But, if you want your efforts to be worthwhile, you have to bite the bullet on one thing -- cross compatability. You need to develop on top of a code which can be run unaltered on any platform, now and in the future. That means something like Amiga SDK's VP Assembly. This does mean a performance hit in terms of run-time once somethings open -- generalized code will never run as quick as a finely-optimized piece of Asm. But it will load faster -- as its basically stored as a smaller executable, which is then translated dynamically. So you optimize the "machine" as much as possible to speed up translation and then bite the bullet on that. This is the only way you'll ever have time to really work on some fundamentals of the file-system and OS, w/o falling vastly behind and finding out your OS can't run on the latest CPU.
Then, you take it one step at a time. First, you plan out the entire system...find new revolutionary ways to make code smaller, more efficient...to make the file system quicker, for example. Of course, to give the user maximal customizability, you need to try to make everything modular. This also makes your OS faster down the line, b/c it can call and load only functions w/c are needed.
Then you proceed logically, first building a solid foundation before building atop it. You don't add new an unnecessary features to a program until you've resolved stability/security issues, as well as performance issues; you also focus firstly on improving performance. Chances are, your prog has all the critical features. LimeWire, for example, doesn't need any more features: it needs to be streamlined. Finally, when adding features -- only add needed and useful features. Don't add features just to "impress people" or make it "look cooler". Add features which are really needed.
If you want an example, lets take MS Word. MS Word had all the features it *needed* in Word 98. Now, MS is just adding new features to impress OEMS. What they really should be doing is making the program smaller, making it run and load faster. Furthermore, they don't need to make it any "easier" to use. It had a simple help system, operated by indexes and contents -- that was great. And a decent menuing and button system. Why did they need to add those stupid office assistants? Only justification, promotion. Dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. What Word really needs, from MY experience, is faster load times and faster run-times for operations. It also needs more power-shortcuts. Making legends or equations in MS Word is an excercize in "CTRL +"ing or "CTRL SHFIT +"ing...and that's if your an "expert".
As a final note, let me say that I rarely find programs sorely lacking in features. Most progs have plenty of features -- more than you need, in fact. What I do often find is progs that are bloated, huge, slow, and load slowly.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
> OS X does not have a journaled file system
... takes a second or two to format an 80GB drive.
... it's some kind of node number or something that is unique to that file, and so keeps shortened file names from conflicting. This is one of the top two or three "it's not going to kill me, but I sure wish it wasn't the case" types of things with Mac OS X. All you can say that's positive about it is that Apple is dealing with this issue better than Microsoft did with the similar issue on Windows.
S A/ jsDownload.html
/Library/Components for the whole machine or ~/Library/Components for just yourself), the Mac OS X Script Editor will now have a menu on the bottom left of its window where you can select the language you want to script in. Other languages are available for Mac OS 9 as well.
> (although, to be fair, I have lost power on
> this machine and found that it booted back
> up in a normal time span without appearing
> to do anything special).
Mac OS X runs fsck on each and every boot, but because of the way the HFS+ file system is constructed, running fsck multiple times on an 80GB disk takes only a few seconds, so you don't notice it.
If you check a disk with Mac OS X's Disk Utility, it actually runs fsck, and you'll notice it is done in a blink. Same with formatting disks
> The [long] filenames were truncated with garbage
> characters when viewed in the Finder.
They're not actually random garbage characters
> I don't mind AppleScript. I wish the system
> were open to other languages, but
> AppleScript does a fine job, and is very powerful.
The system is open to other languages. What most people call "AppleScript" is actually called "Open Scripting Architecture (OSA)", and AppleScript is just the default language. You can already get a JavaScript plug-in for Mac OS X.
http://www.latenightsw.com/freeware/JavaScriptO
Once installed (drop it in
The Mac OS X Script menu also launches Perl and shell scripts in addition to OSA scripts.
> This is fairly minor, but it seems that some apps
> remember their window positions when closed
> and some do not. Mail.app and Internet Explorer
> do remember their exact size and position
> between runs, but Terminal and many
> others do not. This is another good candidate
> for consistency in the user experience.
Mac OS X can hosts apps with a number of different heritages, so it's definitely true that there is great inconsitency between apps than there was before. As time goes on this will probably get better, as the "Mac OS X way" emerges completely and developers are all familiar with it to some degree.
I never said that Mac OS X jobs are non-existent, I merely said that they are scarce. So we agree. I also, in a roundabout way, said that perhaps programming jobs in other, more widely distributed operating systems are more available. I used Monster to illustrate my point because: A. it was fastest and I was leaving work at the time of my post and B. Monster, as the largest online job board, probably represents a very large sample of available high-tech jobs. I admit my post wasn't scientifically valid, and it was certainly biased (statistically, I mean), but the point stands: By any measure there are much fewer Mac OS X programming jobs than not.
You've done quite a good job of refuting me, and I hope that any aspiring Mac OS X/BSD programmer sees your post. But I fear that Mac OS X will languish in near obscurity like Be or Amiga or any older Mac OS did. (That's not flamebait, it's fact. MacOS, like BeOS and others before it, has had a very small market share and today represent only a very small percentage of the OS market. Note that Linux -- my personal OS of choice -- is included in this group of "marginal" operating systems.) If you want to be a Mac OS X programmer (for like GUI stuff or some such maybe) then you will have a much harder time finding a job than if you wrote Motif or KDE or MFC apps (again, using GUI programming merely as an example). Again, it's fact. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's true. And I'm guessing it'll be that way for a long time to come, best intentions and (semi) corporate evangelism aside. Mac OS X is still -- like it or not -- a "fringe" OS, same as Linux or BE.
But then we both still have our choice, right? And we have almost as much choice as anyone has ever had? So it's all still good. But then again I don't use BeOS...
(And as a complete aside, I had a thought: What was it that "killed" Be? What was it that made MSFT king of the hill? Why are there fewer Mac OS apps than Win32 (or perhaps even Unix apps)? The answer: Developers. People, hired by other people, that exist only to make applications tailored to a specific operating system. BeOS got bought, and then delevoper mindshare moved to something else. It moved to perhaps Mac OS X. It doesn't matter. The point is that when Be lost its developer support, it lost its viability as an OS. It lost even all hope of being anything but fringe. If Mac OS X doesn't get developer support -- say it only has one app that plays MP3s and also syncs with an iPod -- then what might its fate be? Not good, I think. In fact, I think looking at developer mindshare -- or like compiler sales -- is probably a much better metric for OS penetration than outright OS purchases, at least in terms of lange-range growth. If Mac OS X doesn't have or continue to grow this mind share then what will happen is a very scary thought.)
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I agree with what he says about it being nice to have a Linux server at home but not using it for the GUI. I use an old SGI for my desktop. With Linux as my desktop, I just find myself having to spend too much time tweaking it. With it tucked out of the way as a server, I can get into the guts of it when I want to but can get things done when I don't. When I come to replace the SGI, I'll be very tempted to go for a Mac.
Mac OS is the go as far as desktop publishing is concerned.
W98SE is the go as far as games & application 'n driver compatibility is concerned.
BeOS is the 'bees knees' as far as music editing is concerned. Hence its the OS for the TASCAM SX-1 Integrated Audio Production Station & IZ Tech's RADAR 24, plus its the OS of choice for Edirol - Roland UA100
QNX is where its at for embedded applications, whether its the 'machine that goes beep' in hospitals or its nuclear reactors.
W2K/XP is/are where its at for the best balance of stability & compatibility for a desktop system
BSD is the server OS
Amiga classic is still consided by many to be the video editing platform. Have you seen the prices a 10 year old towered upraded video toaster goes for campared with a Wintel PC of the same age & new retail price?
Linux is the cheapskate OS for cheapscapes who have hangups about infringing on copyright, & is also the script kiddie OS of choice. Plus is the *nix OS for compatibility.
OS/2 is the bankers OS, being the OS of choice for ATM & counter teller workstations.
While Mac OSX has the potential to displace maybe more than half of the above.
That'l do for now
Now there's a quote just waiting to become a sig!
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
What I'd like to know though is - what phreaking User Interface are you currently deploying that can be licked to shut down/adduser/etc .. and is it "user" friendly *wink, wink*???
I'd bet the tons of porn outlets would pay dearly to have this UI added to their portals.. think of the revenue! The feedback! Oh, wait, feedback would be the revenue stream *blink* :-p
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Has anyone actually seen a BEIA device around? As much as it is sad that BEOS itself is dead.. I think using it for embedded systems is a great idea!!
OS X is built upon the BSD bedrock; you can go download Darwin and install it on x86 or PPC systems. It's a full featured OS in it's own right, excepting that it's missing an X server out of the box. Are you trying to say that Darwin/BSD is somehow not sufficient?
Are you trying to say that OS X somehow removes functionality from Darwin/BSD with the GUI interface?
GPL Deconstructed
"Why Mac users are so complacent about Creator-based launching is beyond me."
.jpg, type "JPEG" files to the application "Preview" since, in essence, "Preview" is a most capable .jpg viewer. However, as a web developer, I work with a lot of JPEG files, most of which are created in Photoshop, my photo editing tool of choice. Whether out of habit or sheer convenience, it's far easier for me to just double click the file in question and have it launch Photoshop (the place where I created it and, presumably intend to work with it) and then open up the file. It's just an easy alternative to File--Open.
As a longtime Mac user I think I might be able to shed some light on this situation. You see, double-clicking on a document's icon has long been the standard "Mac way" of both launching your content creation application as well as opening the file in question, all in one fell swoop. As the Macintosh has long been primarily a content creation platform (design being the most prominent field) it's particularly useful to be able to open up the file in question with the program you have created it in -all just by double-clicking.
Let me explain. For some it might make sense if OS X were to bind all
So, why not have all my JPEGs open up in Photoshop? Well, I have a myriad of unedited digital camera photos on my drive and frankly, Photoshop is quite a cumbersome image viewer. It's just a matter of being able to use the right tool for the job. While both a battering ram and a key are quite capable of opening a locked door, it's knowing which one fits the situation that makes all the difference.
DigiSquid Design.
R4 ran in a partition, not "under windows"
R5 Personal COULD run in a fat32 file, but it didn't "run under windows" at all. Nothing M$ was in memory when BeOS ran. Its not even a trojan, a trojan looks like one thing but delivers a bad payload when you trust it. BeOS just sat in a file so people could run it easier. And "legacy support" and "drivers" are two seperate animals that I don't even want to go into. Don't go commenting about something you tried for 30 seconds and threw away because you had a problem
kesuki wrote:
> "Two words "Linux Ready" I'm pretty sure that the current OEM License doesn't prohibit leaving empty space on the hard drive, or shipping a CD with the system that includes another OS."
Leaving the OS unistalled means you abandon ~80+% of the users. End of story. This is why AOL, Real Networks and all those other companies pay so much money (tens of millions per year) to have their code SHIP INSTALLED on machines: They know the majority of users use what comes on their computers, and that's all.
(And it's a similar argument to why GPL advocates prefer the source code included in a given distribution rather than simply "made available" on a company website.)
mjolnir_ on wrote:
> "BeOS was basically confined to the pre-G3 systems (PowerPC 601, 603, 604) and thus decided to invade the Intel-based PC market."
BeOS worked fine on some G3 systems, and ~all "BeOS-Ready" systems upgraded to G3. If Be decided to remain in that market - and not get swayed away by the promise of pre-installs on major Intel consumer machines - they could still have cut their 'niche in the niche.'
> Your argument is thus a bit like saying that anyone that tries to
> change channels on their television without knowing how to manyally
> rewire the circuitry is missing out on the true power of the machine.
But, of course, you are. The true power of the machine is the ability to receive arbitrary signals. If everyone knew how the guts of TVs worked, and perhaps how to broadcast over (possibly very short) distances, TVs could be hacked to a much greater degree, could be tied in with communication, used with a peer-to-peer network for true community television, et cetera.
Similarly, knowing the true text interface to the computer makes your experience much richer. I try to use the command line as much as possible, but I'm guilty of lazing about in graphical space more than I ought. I'm sure if I hunkered down, I could get pretty proficient in ex, using regular expressions to get work done (I've heard) much faster and more accurately. Instead I laze around in vi. If I could compress my thoughts into chainable text commands, I would indeed be more exposed to the true power of the machine.
The shareware/freeware scene for the Mac is pathetic compared with Windows, Linux & even BeOS
This fellow needs a girlfriend.
wow, shows how long ive been out my little cyber-nitch, damn i need to get back in, been missin it.
last time i checked, BeOS had just come out with their new version of the BeOS for windows, i was sure that would draw a lot of new users to the platform, although i can see why Palm wants it so bad, they need to get a handle on their media capabilities. it's sad to see BeOS go under the corporate hand though, even though i was always more of a Linux man myself.
I have heard great things about MacOS X, especially with a Unix core, open source, and an obviously beautifully smooth desktop environment. haven't had the chance to try it since i dont own a Mac...but it seems worth investigating, might just have to check out this little book.
Man, you're the first person I've met who doesn't seem to think outright that Apple adopting BSD ne NeXTStep is a 'better' thing.
:)
There's a good reason for the 3 GUI APIs, though I only count 2, myself, Carbon and Cocoa, and they aren't GUI APIs, they're APIs. The third, Mac Classic outside of Carbon, only lives in OS 9. Unless you're counting Java and ObjectiveC+ as two different APIs. Likewise, Apple could hardly release and OS without a GUI; the BSD layer was a holdover from NeXT, and one I don't mind at all. Speaking from experience, since I own a OS X machine
GPL Deconstructed