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Take a Mac User to Lunch
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."
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Up until OS X was released I used Linux (on my G3 and on various intel boxes) nearly exclusivly. OS X (after its quirks were mostly worked out), for me, is acting just like a Unix system. I control most things from its terminal. I run XDarwin and use blackbox as my primary control when I am writing code. I use the standard Aqua interface when I'm just being a bum and surfing. Its a web server, file server and just about any other kind of server I can get running.
So now my time is spent working with both OS X/BSD and Linux and im loving every minute of it. Im forced to use Win 2K at work - but hells if I am ever gonna buy a windows box of my own.
OK - the point: (I knew I was getting there) OS X is a great way to get people to migrate into a Unix world. The Apple servers are selling well, and its adding a great deal of Unix exposure...
OSX is the proof that all those people screaming that Linux on Joe Average's desktop is impossible are wrong.
If you can do is with bsd you can do it with linux as well.. (well.. for this particular case that is).
It IS possible... the question is : will it ever happen ? And secondly... do 'we' want it?
It isn't about destroying Microsoft! Think about it; we destroy Microsoft and replace them with Apple. Another closed system! Why is that of any benefit to us, as users and developers? All we will have done is swapped the "Microsoft Tax" and all that comes with it, for an "Apple Tax", and the same all over again (See .mac Say no more).
If you're just using Linux, or BSD or whatever, just because you want to destroy Microsoft, many you should re-evalute your belief system. Free Software is about having freedom; the freedom to use your software as you see fit, and the freedom to modify that software to fit your needs. Its not about destroying commericalism, simply because you think they have too much money.
Yes, Microsoft have too much control over the industry, but thats only because the industry has allowed itself to be lead by the nose by them. It is true that Free software provides an alternative to that, and get out clause if you will, and yes, that may altimutly lead to the reduction of Microsoft. That would simply be a secondary, a side effect, if you will.
So yes, take a Macintosh user out to lunch; and then try to get them to understand the issues surrounding the use of Free software.
I see a small percentage of Xserve's making it into shops that already have Unix servers or a substantial base of Mac workstations. I don't see Apple making much headway into 100% Windows shops run by MCSE's.
People that have/allow Unix or Linux boxes in thier shops generally are more open to a wide range of technologies and have a good understanding of them.
MCSE's - oy vey. I've seen Macs running on their own separate networks because "they can't do Windows networking" or "Macs can't do DHCP" or "Macs can't ". Hell, there probably isn't a Mac user out there that hasn't heard "I hate Macs". Then you ask if they've ever used one and you get "No." Basically, if they don't know whether or not a Mac can do something or not, it's assumed they can't.
Unix sysadmins seem more open to other technology and generally better knowing how things like networks really function. MCSE's, on the other hand, know what button to push when happens and if that doesn't work, reboot. They don't really have a deep understanding of the underlying technology and generally don't keep up with computing trends. They know how to run a Windows network and "what else do I need to know, thank you" attitude.
Because of MCSE's, I just don't see Apple making inroads into the corporate server room anytime soon.
Besides a hammer of course. :-)
Is to offer Mac OS X on the PC platform. If I could get that quality of a system on my computer, I would instantly switch over. I think a lot of other people would as well. Considering how user friendly, and quality of an interface it is.
Mac could be the OS Monopoly if it only started to port its stuff to the PC Platforms.
~ kjrose
if you are satisfied with your computer then the ads are not targeted to you. the people apple is trying to get are people who are not satisfied with thier pc's and may be willing to try something different. Not everyone is running windows xp. Many of the things said in the ads may ring true to the many people out there still running win98 or winme...
Point is, earlier this year - after reading a bunch or articles about how great the new Mac OS is - I decided to go check the Mac out. Let me just say, I was very impressed. I recently replaced my Linux development box with a TiBook. The Aqua user interface is incredibly intuitive, easy on the eyes, and has support for many things that a desktop linux system just doesn't, IMHO.
Anyway, I still use Linux boxes for our servers but I have found the Mac to be the best development environment I've ever used. The UI might take a few days to get comfortable with (coming from the KDE/Gnome or Windows platform), but once you use it for bit, you really start to appreciate it's consistency and beauty.
That said, my interest has been peaked by the new Xserve. Like I said, I do a lot of Java development and the JVM implementation on OS X is nothing short of amazing. Java Swing apps look native and don't feel over-bloated and the speed and efficiency of the JVM for non-UI tasks is also astounding.
The pure java application that I am currently working on runs faster on my TiBook than on the Linux server on which I am also testing it. The process overhead and cpu usage for completing the same tasks are relatively lower on the Mac meaning I can run many more processes at once on the Mac. This is leading me to the conclusion that getting my hands on an Xserve might not be a bad idea before I go ahead and deploy on a Linux box.
I think everyone else should take a serious look at the Xserve as well.
Anyone wanna take me to lunch?
Jonas
Donate free food here
a standard windowing system
X11? A "standard windowing system"? Bahahahaha - oh, stop it, please, you're killing me...
X11 is the single biggest problem with "other Unixes", and I can well believe that other Unix vendors are going to follow Apple's lead here - X11 is often held up as a sacred cow which must always be retained, but the fact is that coming up with a better windowing model isn't hard (yes, including remote display). 5 years from now, vendors like Sun are going to look at the success Apple has had as a Unix vendor who didn't ship X11 and decide to do something similar (NeWS anyone?).
If you have other open standards that need to be followed, what are they? POSIX? IPv6? pthreads? All this kind of stuff is in Mac OS X already through Darwin, and more will be coming as they get better at working with the FreeBSD folks (it'll be an interesting question what kind of distinction there will be beween Darwin and FreeBSD in 5 years: Apple's goal is obviously to get closer to lots of neat open source code, and *BSD people are getting lots of neat tricks back from Apple).
I have been using Linux for well over 3 years. Until I started my first job back in june, I had gone a full year without using winshit for anything of any importance. I just recently switched to debian, and while the install was a bitch, I appreciate the "cold truth" approach of it.
... 105879 files and directories currently installed.) .../nethack-gnome_3.4.0-3.0woody1_i386.deb) ... ...
My next computer will either be a Mac or a Sun system. How much hardware is Linux compatible with? Does it use all 128 bits of the processor, or just the first 32?
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? Has forte for Java been ported to it?
Most importantly: Does it have an automated package installer like apt-get?
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
nethack-gnome
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 790kB of archives. After unpacking 1831kB will be used.
Get:1 ftp://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main nethack-gnome 3.4.0-3.0woody1 [790kB]
Fetched 790kB in 28s (27.5kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package nethack-gnome.
(Reading database
Unpacking nethack-gnome (from
Setting up nethack-gnome (3.4.0-3.0woody1)
flame#
If I could have that and M$ Word, nothing could stop me! lol. The Abiword, KWord, and OpenOffice people need to get some sort of grammar check in their projects. I am setting up an winshit NT system in bochs just to run Word. BTW, Ximian Evolution is SO much better than Outlook.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I'm trying like all hell to get an XServe in here. I probably pimp that puppy three times a day but to no avail. It's just not that simple.
One thing you have to take into account is that the 100% Windows shops are not a new thing and have been around long enough to become very closed in their thinking. Where I work we have four people involved in IT support for a total of 300 users. Out of those four people three of them have Macs at home and use them. One, myself, actually brought a Mac from home to use at work. The problem in our case isn't about trying to get the machine considered by the IT folks. It goes higher than that.
The PHB's are the ones who have been listening to our predecessors and marketing sluts for years and who have had this "standardize on Windows" drivel pounded into their heads. Hell it's the only reason I even HAVE my MCSE. Because someone higher up than myself decided I needed one to be effective at my job.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Apple started out with the Apple I. It only sold to hobbyists, a small market. Apple learned.
They quickly moved on to the Apple II on the 6052. That grew the company sereval times. Apple learned.
The less said about the Apple III hardware the better. There were lots of manufacturing problems. Apple learned.
Then came the Lisa. There were lots of marketing problems. Apple learned.
The Mac started as a cute, slightly runky-dink 680x0 machine. They tossed out compatibility. Cost them their entire existing software base. Apple learned.
The original Mac lap-top was an embarrassment. Apple learned.
Then Apple became the leading manufacturer of RISC machines in the world when they went to the 60x hardware architecture. This was accomplished without repeating the previous mistakes. (What Apple learned was purely internal politics that time.)
NeXT failed as a hardware manufacturer but it had great software. It was the NeXTStep... Jobs came back and Apple learned.
Apple did the iMac because Apple had learned: Ugly, beige is boring "office-ware."
Apple did the PowerPC, the colored iBook, the Titanium and the white iBook because Apple had learned.
Apple did the sexy, "fold-out completely open" towers because Apple had learned: Hard to maintain is, uh, hard to maintain.
Apple went to OS X. It could even attempt this because it had SUCCESSFULLY migrated CPU hardware platforms before. It had SUCCESSFULLY migrated form factors (Mac, desk-top, towers, laptop.)
Look at the Newton. Carefully. With time-lines, feature-lists, internal structures and compared with what else was out there and what spun off.
Apple has survived more changes, flops, failures, created more products that are a delight to use, been imitated by more companies regardless of industry, than almost any other company I can think of BECAUSE it DOESN'T listen to its customers UNTIL they start saying "No We don't buy it." (*)
It will soon have shiped more BSD/Darwin (OpenSource) RISC (G3/G4[/G5 soon?]) boxes than the sum total of Unix/Linux boxen out there.
This is a GOOD THING.
Will Apple grow to dominate the desk top?
Get a grip. It doesn't even want to go there.
That may be where the money WAS but growth is flat, the competition is outrageous, Linux is already there, its darn near (as in beer,) carving out its own space and has an enormous developper base.
The OS wars are OVER. Unix is going to win hands down.
Linux runs on EVERYTHING!
Unix is used for every serious, mission critical system.
OS X is locking up the creative market place.
Windows has NEVER migrated to ANY other platform than the x86. Its not for want of trying. They have already failed at it.
The new PC chip architectures (Intel/HPs & AMDs) are already Linux playgrounds. The chip makers are tired of the x86 architecture and want to get on to the next stage. But windows is holding them back.
Windows is extremely vulnerable to security breaches and even more vulnerable to the processing requirements of biometric security data.
The changes M$ themselves are fostering (DRM, and securing their sieve-like OS) are going to be their undoing. Entire countries are rebelling at having to get on and stay on the upgrade tread-mill. The day Linux becomes "good enough" (and OpenOffice is almost there,) M$ sales will start a downward curve faster than the supporting economy.
Remember. Desktop machines are OVERHEAD. Reducing overhead is how M$ got to be where it is today. Its how Linux will get to where its going. Its been happening time and time again. (Read "The Innovator's Dilemma.")
*) That is one thing Jobs and Linus share: The ability to say, "Lets do this because its cool (least I think so!)" And then tweak, fiddle and put in the hours fixing things until they damn well work. If they don't... "Well lets see what we can learn from this."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Her: "It so cute!"
Me: "Yeah, but you're used to Linux, and I'm not sure if you'd like a Mac."
Her: "I know, but it's so cute!"
Me: "But you only get one mouse button!"
Her: "It's just too darn cute!"
The iMac commercial where the guy sticks out his tongue and the machine ejects its CD tray clinched the deal - we were bound to get an Apple. Last weekend we finally decided to make a short roadtrip (120 miles to the local dealer) to get her new machine.
I have to admit, Apple did it right. Samba was easy to set up (I haven't bothered with NFS yet, but it's supposed to be equally slick) so she has access to her old Linux home directory, her old email, the MP3/Ogg directory, etc. The interface is just plain beautiful, and I was quite happy to open that terminal window and start playing with sudo. Last night, she just downloaded and installed software by herself for the first time ever ("Hey, that was pretty easy!"), which was something that she was never really interested in on Debian.
Would I personally switch to Mac OS X? Probably not - I'm a big Free Software advocate. Still, her little iMac is the nicest-looking Unix workstation I've ever seen, my wife loves it and its ease of operation, and it took less time to integrate into our LAN than it's taking me to type this. I'm impressed. Congratulations, Apple. You made a Unix workstation that non-geeks can fall in love with.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Now that we can include the mac community in the community of 'unix users', suddenly, the percentage at my workplace jumped.
Instead of having a huge percentage of windows users, then a small minority of Mac, Linux, Solaris, and Bsd variants, we decided to 'consolodate' the statistics into "windows users" and "unix users". IT seems fair, because XP, 2000, NT and so on all count as 'windows'.
Now, we have a significant user base that is using unix, so we get more of the system administrator budget for it!
I didn't mention the old ``just install the hard drive in the Mac'' trick for the precise reason you mentioned: it's a ``geek'' answer, not an ``average user'' answer. That doesn't mean it's not a legitimate (and, in most cases, most elegant) answer. Just means I didn't want to sound like I was telling people that they have to mess around inside their computers just to use their old files.
;-)
And I mostly agree with your sentiment that Apple isn't trying to get people to replace new PCs with new Macs... but I'm not 100% sure. If you look at the ads carefully, the theme is mostly the same, and it reads like country music: My PC done me wrong, so I use a Mac now. They talk about blue screens of death, lost papers, and horrible little machines. All true, of course.
I think Apple's trying to pick the low-hanging fruit, but in a slightly different way than they ever have before. With the Switchers campaign, Apple's actively going after PC owners who are already fed up with their computers and who are looking for a way out.
I'm not sure if Apple and the GNU/Linux community are as compatible as you might think, for the following reasons:
But I imagine that the Apple and free software community will get along for the most part, mostly because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They both share specifc goals in common including:
However, there is a very large risk with the free software community getting too friendly with Apple and Co. Nobody wants to see one monopoly simply replaced with another. And if Apple managed this position, their monopoly would be much stronger. With the control over the hardware as they do, they'd have no one to publish specifications of the hardware.
In other words, if Apple was in Microsoft's position right now, a free software rebellion couldn't happen. GNU/Linux would simply not exist.
First of all, Apple has every reason to package their own GUI in lieu of X-Windows. For one thing, X-Windows ain't all that great. It's the de facto GUI for most Unices, but that doesn't make it the best choice. Aqua, on the other hand, makes use of technology we should all have been using years ago (Display Postscript), tweaks it (Display PDF), and throws in a lot of stuff that will serve as the springboard for future applications. Aqua is better technically than X-Windows in most every way. IMHO, if it wasn't for the inherent networkability of X-Windows, it would be long dead.
Well, DUH! They are a for profit company. It is their raison d'etre to provide incentive for customers to use Apple products. But you are wrong with your last assertion. There are plenty of alternatives. And Apple makes it easy for you to interoperate. There is hardly anything closed about OS X (aside from the source for Aqua). Open standards abound (those coming in 10.2 emphasized): USB, Firewire, 802.11, ZeroConf, CUPS, NFS, NIS (I have this working), SSH, Apache, etc, etc...
I have personally set up iMacs in a Sun/Solaris lab. They mount /export/home from a Solaris server via NFS and obtain user info from the Solaris NIS server.
The point is, even if Macs were less interoperable - they would still be worth using. There is something uNF! about having an ssh window open on an Apache compile, watching XMMS play a tune, running Ethereal to sniff out problems with your network and laying out a poster in Adobe InDesign (with help from Illustrator and Photoshop) right next to it. I have done this. It has made me a firm believer that OS X is the happy marriage of Unix and a friendly desktop OS.
There is nothing wrong with Linux. But I like OS X a lot more.
There are an awful lot of corporations that order $5000 Proliant and PowerEdge systems running Windows for file and print. The XServe fills that market nicely for less monsy. Apparently you are one of the many legions of people who believe Apple owes it to them to market a box specifically at them.
Apple suffers no such obligation and those of us who do happen to fit their target are happy to use their stuff. When I have my IT hat on, I'll recommend Windows, Linux, or Mac depending on whether it's the best tool for that particular job. The number of jobs for which Mac is the best tool just happens to be expanding lately.
one of them out of the closet we've locked them in. They do serve a nice function, the building blueprints look good but that about it, and we have to listen to them attempt to convert people constantly if we let them roam freely :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
From an engineering and business perspective this is important for whacking Apple upside the head with a cluestick when they need it.
Case in point, Steve Jobs doesn't think tape drivers are important. Enough Darwin contributors disagree that there's going to end up being a generalized tape driver for OS X.
In Classic Mac OS land, this never would have happened.
Unfortunately, for all its good points, the Mac is a proprietary platform. I see a lot of confusion about this in these forums. People say things like, it's based on Darwin which is open source, so OSX must be an open platform. Wrong. There is a simple test to see if a platform is open or not, namely, can make my own version and then sell it. With a Windows PC, you can get partially there, as you can build your own PC and sell it, but you can't do that for the OS. A Windows PC is semi-open.
Could I make my own Mac? No, I could not, as the hardware is closed. Nobody but Apple may make Macs, or even computers that look like Macs, as the "brand" is one of their most valuable assets. OK, so let's say I tried to clone OS X. Could I? No, I could not. I would get as far as downloading and customising Darwin, and then .... oh, whoops. It seems the rest of OS X is not open. I couldn't even recreate the artwork without getting sued. Yes, I know you can compile Linux apps on MacOS, but you can do that on Windows too. I don't see people telling me to take Windows users out for lunch.
So the Mac is proprietary. It dismays me to see people supporting such a platform. We've all, every one of us, learnt the hard way what happens when a company gets control of an important platform. Are people really willing to throw away not only openness of the OS, but also the hardware, merely to get a colour co-ordinated desktop? And for those who believe the 3 platforms could exist in peaceful cooperation, I have bad news: proprietary platforms have a tendancy to get a tight grip, as people get locked into them. Mac apps cannot be easily ported to Linux for instance - the flow is one way only.
In short: has nobody learnt anything from Microsoft? Do we really have to learn the same painful lessons twice, once from Gates, and once from Jobs?