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More Switching Stories
serendigital writes "Unix guru Simon Cozens wrote about his "conversion" story in the UK Unix User Group Newsletter. He touts: OroborosX and XDarwin. This gives you a rootless X server and Aqua-like window manager. He also seems to like the libraries: the NeXT approach of separating libraries off into their own subdirectories and separating out library versions makes for a much tidier filesystem arrangement than simply bundling everything in /usr/lib. One of the more controversial "differences" in OSX." And on the other side of the switch, there's Wil Wheaton does Mandrake.
Stop spreading FUD already :)
Wrong, on Darwin, NeXT STeP, OpenStep and Mac OS X, the /usr/lib/dyld (which is like /lib/ld.so) can find the libraries if there are in /System/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, /Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, ~/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, and /Network/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX (not in that order though), so the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (actually DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on Darwin/Mac OSX) does not need to be touched at all.
read dyld(1) and ld(1) for more information on how this is done.
I hightly recommend that the KDE/Gnome guys get together and make a Linux "open" command, so we don't have to parse all their files just to figure out what a double-clicked file means. Even Windows does this (they call it "start") but for some reason the Linux guys, despite such familiarity with the command line, have not come up with this.
There is a stupid problem on Apple which is why you cannot just type the name of the program. All clickable applications are in ".app" directories, with the exectuable and support files all in one directory. This is a good idea but the implementation sucks:
First of all, if there are no support files they should allow a single exectuable rather than a .app directory, this is how Windows and KDE/Gnome handle files, on OS/X a compiled executable cannot be double-clicked from the finder, which is stupid. It also makes it a pain to write portable programs that can be run from the command line.
Second they should get rid of the ".app" suffix so that they don't have to special-case a "hide suffix" operation in the finder. If you rename any directory .app it screws up, this is probably a bad idea. They should also fix it so that exec can run these, right now to run such a command from the shell you have to type command.app/command to run the executable inside it. Again, pretty stoopid.
Ok... normally I use SuSE Linux with Gnome for everything. But we do schools and schools do MACs so here I am with OS-X on my (messy) desk. Right next to me is my LCD monitor which can show me my Linux GUI or my Windows GUI. I can compare all of them with little effort.
What do I like about OS-X?
1. I like the size and convenience of the iBook. It has Unix on it and that makes it useful for me to carry to clients' sites and check out their network. Normally I carry a Linux laptop for this but the P-120 laptop (my wife's old machine) is too slow for a useful GUI.
2. I like the GUI. Heck, I was laying in bed the other night playing games on this thing and it was damn fun. (Well, fun for me, my wife was annoyed at the bleeps and whistles... sheesh.)
3, I like that it's Unix... BSD rocks (although I generally prefer Linux).
What do I not like???
1. Yeah, the mouse. One button. I like to surf using new windows for links and then close 'em down to go back for more links. A single-button mouse doesn't do this and it's a pain in the butt to carry a mouse with me.
2. One desktop. Damn! How can I work with only one desktop? On my Linux box I have 4 desktops; one for email/calendar (Ximian Evolution), one for web browsers, and two for misc apps I pull up (Open Office, GAIM, etc.). How anyone can do useful work without having multiple desktops (accessible with alt-F keys) is beyond me. Is there a way to do this on the MAC. I dunno yet.
3. The keyboard on this iBook bounces... some letters in words appear twice in a row. This annoys me. Although, to be frank, it might be just my untrained fingers on a new keyboard.
Generally, however, I like the iBook and I like OS-X. I would recommend this product to any client as long as the apps they need are available. But I'm not switching yet.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Like many of the die hards in my office, I thought OS X was an improvment over Mac OS, but I stuck by my linux installation as my primary work station for quite some time. A couple of weeks ago- with the release of 10.2, I decided I would switch over on an experimental basis. With OroborOSX and XDarwin, as well as the Mac OS X developer tools, I'm pretty much sold at this point.
I now have a workstation that runs most (if not all) of the Unix ish apps I need to do my work, as well as the propritary applications I used to have to switch to windows for.
Sure, I still have three boxes on my desk (Linux WS, Mac g4 desktop, and cheesy little windows laptop) but I'm increasing using ONLY the OS X system. I'm pretty much sold - as are most of the other's on the engineering/it team I work with.
'course at home - I still run linux - but I don't need MS Office as much there. I'm still sold on Linux as a platform, all but a very few server installations I'm working with at this point are linux, and I'm not about to get rid of it all together - but the next machine I'll buy will be a tiBook (though if you're listening apple, we need a damed two button mouse)
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
The KDE equivalent of the open command is kfmclient. Unfortunately, it takes URLs as arguments, not filenames or urls with no protocol prefix. Here's a little script called 'k' that wraps kfmclient with a more friendly interface.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.