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Mac OS X Switcher Stories
spid writes "Tim O'Reilly posted an interesting article about people switching from other OSes (Mac OS, Windows, Linux) to Mac OS X. The resounding consensus is that most folks appreciate how, compared to these other OSes, Mac OS X 'just works.' O'Reilly also makes an interesting point that UNIX/Linux users, rather than Windows users, would be the best target niche for Apple's 'switch' campaign."
Apple, does in fact, advertise to Linux users. Inside the cover of New Scientist, 29 June 2002 (AU edition) there is a double page advertisement entitled: "Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null."
A copy of this ad can be seen here.
They really are targeting OS X at the scientific Unix crowd, even Linux, as the ad says: "'After two-and-a-half years of Linux, I've finally found joy in a UNIX operating system. And I found it when I purchased a Macintosh - the first one I've ever owned.' - John Hummel Jr., The Gamers' Press"
While I can see them winning business off expensive Unix hardware, I wonder how effective they will be in targetting linux users.
www.fearthecow.net
how many times does this idea need to be brought up, and then quickly shot down because it will never happen?
1. apple makes their money selling hardware. they will lose all that revenue if people can just use a walmart $400 pc.
2. apple is a systems company, using the fact that they develop both the hardware and the software as an advantage to them. how many times do you hear the words *it just works* when it comes to apple computers? that's a big selling point for the bulk of the population who don't like to tinker with hardware.
3. yet another architecture change? i think not. moving from 68K to ppc went well, it took some time but it was a success. os9 to os10 is going well, most apps are there and the open source/hobby coder population is booming. so to go from ppc to x86 after moving to a new OS, the big software companies are just going to say no. that's suicide.
4. ibm's new power4 desktop chip is further evidence that apple is going to stay ppc. this chip has 160 vector ops (altivec has 162), that's another big indicator.
i can't see apple going x86 in the future.
"The menu bar. I hate, loathe, and despise the way OS X always puts the menu bar at the top of the screen."
The menu bar is at the top of the screen for a reason, Fitts's Law which says that the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. Menu bar items are in essence inch-wide but mile-high targets, so you can zip your mouse to the top of the screen as fast as you like and you won't miss the target (the desired item on the menubar). In contrast, menubars attached to windows present far smaller targets. You are just very used to Windows-style menubars.
"I tried to do an su. Wrong password. (My account has admin privs anyway; I shouldn't need to do an su at all.)"
OS X has three privilege levels, not two: superuser (root), admin, and regular user. Admin privs are partway between user privs and full root privs; the idea is that you can run with some of the same privileges as root (i.e. privileges to install software for all users), without the problems of running as root full time. That's why you needed to do an su.
The Mozilla folder should have had you UID, not someone else's. That OS X's problem. Obviously you forgot your root password. That is *your* problem.
If you're an ADC member, you'll get Jaguar (and every other system software release) free.
ADC Student membership costs $100/year. If you're a student, it makes more sense to get ADC membership than to buy Jaguar.
You will say apt-get and I'll say hallelujah, its a great thing, but why cant i just install the freaking app where I want it too, and delete it by trashing it. rpm --erase??? Who would think of that?
Oh please no! Not appfolders again! Appfolders have so many disadvantages it's not even funny. They are far, far, far too simple for even most apps, which is why there is not one, not even two but three different ways of installing software on the Mac: Drag'n'drop, Apple Installer, 3rd party installers (ie Wise). Appfolders don't meet many developers requirements. Some more disadvantages:
In short, appfolders seem like a good idea, but actually aren't.
The sad part is, most of what macosx has done could and still can be done on linux. Make a restricted distribution. Share earnings with app developers.
I don't understand this. What's a restricted distro? And last time I checked, SuSE and RedHat did actually pay their developers.
root should only be a single user mode thing. Like gentoo, make init scripts dependent on whats running and whats not. Simplify the runlevels to single-user, and multi-user. Reduce hardware complexity by certifying systems based on linux friendly manufacturers. run daemons not as root.
Huh? What? Even MacOS supports multi users not as root. Only 2 runlevels? Why???? It's not like the average user will even care. Why reduce flexibility for no increase in usability? Certifying systems? Sorry, this is the real world, a lot of people have systems that were modern once, then they upgraded, or that were built to order, or that they bought from the shop down the street and so on. The answer is to make Linux hardware support perfect - not to reduce user choice!
Get rid of the start, or hat, or whatever menu. Get rid of the XP like icons(see redhat8 beta). Give gtk a default look which dosent look like grey shit. Use a tasteful muted color scheme. Make sure pcmcia and usb and firewire just work on plug in. Use hotplug and devfs like mandrake do. Get rid of one million etc config files and use gconf and alchemist like redhat do. Simplify the gnome2.0 desktop
Wow. A lot more suggestions. Why get rid of the start menu? 95% of the world are used to it. You can always use Gnome, or E, or WindowMaker if you don't want one. The new RedHat null icons are hardly XP style, I've seen them. If you mean cartoony, well switch themes! There are plenty available. Yes, the GTK default theme is ugly, but changing that took me 1 minute on gnome 2. The theme files are tiny! Simplify Gnome 2? How simply do you want, it's about as simple as you can get. They need to add more features, which will mean more complexity! FYI GConf is just a front end to a load of XML config files ;) Devfs support is not yet 100% bug free, so not all distros use it yet - it's coming, be patient.
The rest of the ideas aren pretty good, but they are hardly necessary for a slick desktop. Unified mimetyping between shell and nautilus? Yeah, it's a cool idea, but hardly critical. You want to see them? Well, you know what'd I'd say ...