How Mac OS X is Changing the Mac Community

rgraham writes "Derrick Story (O'Reilly Network editor) has written a follow-up article to The New Mac User, titled The Changing Mac Community. He makes some interesting observations about how Mac OS X's Unix underpinnings have greatly 'broadened the landscape' of the Mac community beyond that of typical artists to now include hardcore Unix users and the like." I personally believe this is the single most important component to Apple's continued success for the near future.

Comments

UNIX is a big reason for my switch.

[EnVisiCrypt]

For the last 8-10 years, I was a wintel user. I used Windows 3.1 - 2000 for it's ease of use as well as the presence of my web development language of choice (ASP).

I'd tried Linux, but I found it too unwieldy for everyday use. Too many hassles with hardware support, etc. I love the idea, I just couldn't get used to the trouble of routine maintenance.

Over the past 3 or so years, I've been using *nix systems more and more for web development (PHP, PERL), and I've enjoyed them more thoroughly than Windows. The flexibility of the CLI, the wide availability of development tools as well as the stability has made it particularly attractive. The only problem? I also do design work.

GIMP is a wonderful program, but it's just not robust enough for full time graphics production. For that, Photoshop is where it's at. And until now, the only options were the stuffy, static, and generally untweakable MacOS, or the generally unstable, unpleasant, and ugly Win9x dynasty.

Enter Mac OS X. My first experience with OS X was at an Apple store near my home. I fell in love with the interface. But an interface does not a good OS make. While playing around, I noticed there was a lot more to tweak and configure, and lo there was a CLI. I popped "VI" into the prompt, and there it was. Pine, check. Apache, check. Everything I knew and loved about the *NIX's was there. Within a week, I had bought a spanking new dual g4 and I couldn't be happier.

I have to use a Wintel box at work and it's sheer hell. I couldn't be happier about switching to OS X.

What is it about Saturday?

[rjamestaylor]

I, too, bought my first Mac on Saturday: a Titanium G4 550 (couldn't quite bring myself to pay for the true top-end...). Immediately I was dissapointed because, upon booting the Ti, OS9 came up. OS9 looks like a kludge with widgets everywhere, thus betraying it's age and drifting from the roots of simplicity; to me, of course. However, I was happy to find the way to switch to OS X and did so. I have no need for OS9 - I have no loved OS9 apps that I must use. Soon I will remove OS9 from my system (as soon as I determine there really is nothing interesting for me there).

Booting OS X...wow. Slick, solid, clean, clear. D*mn this is nice. After getting my bearings for an hour or so I looked around my room and began cleaning it up -- something my wife has always requested unsucessfully. Perhaps the clutter that is Windows and KDE/Gnome acclimated me to clutter? Whatever the reason, I'm affected by the slickness of the hardware, software and combination of the two of my PowerBook Ti running OS X.

Until now I've run my life and work off a Toshiba 2805 with RedHat 7.2 and Win4Lin for Win98SE client-side testing. Frequently I'd need to spend time directly in the Windows world (Win4Lin is great as a temporary testing environment but when I'm doing serious client-side development and need to depend on IE, native is the best). Switching between Windows and Linux (running KDE 2 as my desktop; hate Gnome) I couldn't help but notice how unpolished the GUI on Linux is compared to Windows. Windows, for all it's other problems (and they are legion) feels substantial as a desktop. Linux felt tenuous - I can't explain exactly why, that was just my sense. Perhaps it was switching between GTK+ and KDE based apps...and straight X apps... OS X is totally different. Awesome.

My next step (heehee) after getting online was to seek out the Mac Community. Right away I realized there are two camps: bewildered, disaffected Mac loyalists who are resisting the new Mac Way and eye-opened, gaga Unix/Linux geeks overwhelmed with the marvellous marriage of UNIX and GUI that is OS X. Of course, some are happier than others, but I just ignore the heretics (kidding). My I'm bookmarking the OS X-specific web sites and ignoring OS9-oriented sites. There's nothing for me in OS 9. OS X has everything I need:

• UNIX
• gnu tools (thanks to fink)
• clean interface
• iDVD for watching movies with the wife
• iMovie for EASILY creating movies of the kids for their grandparents.
• Virtual PC for testing client-side stuff with Windows IE
• coolness

I'll be participating in the Mac community - the Mac OS X community, that is. I think I'll start by getting that Learning Cocoa book...yeah, that's my NeXTSTEP...