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Take a Mac User to Lunch

Posted by pudge on from the any-place-that-has-good-steak-is-good-for-me dept.

A Slashdot reader writes "LinuxWorld is running a story explaining how Mac OS X may help break down the walls for non-Windows operating systems, including Linux."

7 of 477 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Switch? by sirinek · · Score: 5, Informative

    I disagree. Switching to Mac would be painless for almost all users. This has nothing to do with anyone who runs Linux.

    For the *average user*:

    You can still read and write your Microsoft Office documents.

    You can still play your MP3 files.

    You can still go to all the same websites with your Internet Explorer.

    Those three things alone make it easy for the average user to switch from Windows to Mac.

    siri

  2. Re:they are mostly right by zapfie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Have you sat down and spent some time with OS X? There is a lot of quality Mac-only software out there. Plus the fact that it now has UNIX underpinnings means there's a whole lot of native UNIX software for it too (you can run OS X and X at the same time). Mac OS X provides a true UNIX environment with an excellent development platform and graphical shell. It is also arguably the best user interface for a desktop. That plus the vast amount of quality Mac-only software gives plenty of reason to switch. For the record, I use a Mac at work, and a PC running Debian and XP at home. I am very tempted to buy a Mac as my next computer.

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    slashdot!=valid HTML
  3. Re:Question by foobar104 · · Score: 3, Informative

    When the article says apples sells more "Unix" boxes than dell or hp does that not count linux boxes too ? Is this a misleading statistic

    First of all, as lots of Slashdotters love to point out, Linux isn't UNIX. It's a UNIX-like operating system. Mac OS X, on the other hand, is UNIX all the way to the bone.

    But more importantly, it's not a misleading statistic unless you choose to interpret it as such. Apple says they ship more computers with UNIX than any other vendor. (I haven't checked the facts here; I'm giving Apple the benefit of the doubt that this is true on its face.) Hardly anybody, in the grand scheme of things, ships computers with Linux on them. People buy computers with Windows on them and then add Linux, or remove Windows and install Linux. So those can't be counted as computers shipped with UNIX for at least two reasons.

    Apple may or may not be correct; I think it's pretty darned likely that they did some homework before making such a bold statement, so I'm going to assume that they're correct. They're definitely not trying to be misleading.

  4. Re:In the server market? by foobar104 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You should check out Mac OS X Server sometime. It has really exceptional interfaces for managing things like the web server software; the UIs are a lot better than Microsoft's management UI from Windows 2000, and unlike IIS, OS X Server has pure Apache under the hood. You can either use the graphical manager (you will want to, once you see it) or the same command-line tools and config files you're accustomed to.

    That's just one example. You really should check it out.

  5. Re:open source ? by frankie · · Score: 5, Informative

    what part of osx is open source ?

    This part is open source.

    if it's open source then why isn't it free ?

    It is free.

  6. Re:open source ? by Halo1 · · Score: 3, Informative
    No, it's not useless without the Apple GUI etc. You can perfectly run XFree86 on Darwin and use it like any other BSD variant that way, although the hardware support on the 80x86 front is rather limited. You can also run most "awesome linux software" on it (through a simple recompile or by getting binary packages from fink).

    Because in the past, anyone who wanted to work on Darwin had to supply his patches to Apple, the ISC (Internet Software Consortium) and Apple together founded OpenDarwin.org to improve the way Darwin can develop as a stand-alone OS. The reason is that it's now a lot easier to get commit access. Apple engineers still work together with the general public to guide the project and interesting patches will be merged in Apple's Darwin distribution as well (and yes, reversely, Apple's changes are also merged in the OpenDarwin tree).

    Jonas

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  7. Re:But for advanced UNIX users? by Noofus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Can I run OS X software through X? Does XDarwin support gnome? Is the kernel source available, or do I have to wait for apple to support my hardware?

    You can run XDarwin (X server) through Aqua. You can run it rooted or rootless. So you can, if you wish, have X apps and Mac OS X apps running side by side on the desktop. Yes you can run Gnome through it (I dont, but it does work). The kernel (the important part) is exactly as it came from BSD - and thus under the BSD license. It is open, and I have seen non-apple drivers for many devices.

    Most importantly: Does it have an automated package installer like apt-get?


    Yes, in fact there is...its called fink (find it on sourceforge) and uses the same commands you know and love (dselect, apt-get, etc.)

    My personal Linux machines were Debian - so I appreciate your want for the simple-yet-still-raw feel that it has. You can get that to some degree.

    I Love being able to run MS Word, Powerpoint and multiple vim, ssh etc sessions on the same screen.
    Or just hitting an icon and bumping out of the Mac feel altogether and run rooted in Blackbox.

    Ximian Evolution is SO much better than Outlook.

    Hell I still use pine cause its better than outlook :)