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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.
Mandrake has been very good to me. I have helped many people i know move from windows to linux and Mandrake is about twice as easy as anything else i have found. With the latest version 9.0 its even better and i would advise checking it out. As much as people like to flame Mandrake for not being a "hardcore" distro i say i dont care. It is distro's like Mandrake that bring in new people and it was what i used to switch over.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I got Mandrake 8.1 and inserted the cd. The Installation mode fucked up, I had to install in 640x480x16@56, Which really sux0red. CD 5 Didn't work, so i had to download off the net, It was ransacked with unacceptable bugs. I had to download thousands of patches and had to read a $hit load of doucmentation to get linux to behave, I even had to switch to windows to fix problems
So i switched to suse 8, no bugs, fast clean and modern. No bugs, its fast and its YAST installer works properly. I would not go back to Mandrake.
SUSE
Suse / Switch.
Im Anonymous Coward, and im a Troll At slashdot.
Most users don't care whether you're running FreeBSD or Linux underneath. What they see is the shell and the GUI.
I like many of the features but I've only got x86 hardware or an alpha. When does apple get wise and port to other hardware and kick M$ where it hurts...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I've never liked Apples and Macs, which is suprising since the first programming I did was on an Apply IIc at school. Oh, how the children gathered 'round. Yes, I was actually popular in that class because I was a geek. Most the activity periods of the year were spent with me coding and the rest of the class watching in amazement at my 'Im' game and other programs. And all with just a single 5.25 to last the year.
Anyway, then I move to Macs in art class, and use a mouse. A horrid thing of a mouse with one button. I'm sorry, but I can never get used to that. I can't even stand 2 and I'm about to opt for a 12 button. Yeah, you heard me right.
I admit, OS X is a nice idea. But the problem is that the hardcores like their flexability. its nice to have choices. Those that Mac OS X does no so easily offer. Port the latest Linux with UML support to OS X, and then maybe I'll give it a try. Hmm.. damn thats a good idea. Just run the X server on OS X and there you go. Well? Hop to it Maciphyles!
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
And, incidentally, no, I don't find it a problem having only one mouse button.
;)
:)
Well, now we know he's been paid off.
Seriously, the more I hear about OSX, the more interested I get in trying it out. Who knows - my next PC might be a Mac
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
You don't have permission to access to this document on this server.
Apache Server at wilwheaton.net
Wrong button Ensign Crusher! :)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Too bad google just cuts off the results as close to 100k as it can get. It find results in batches and tries to get as close to 100k within the limits of the batches of results it gets.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Putting libraries in their own subdirectories make look tidier, but it means you're going to have a huge LD_LIBRARY_PATH, unless every application has the path to its particular library compiled in. I hate to think about the lookup times on that.
Presumably they have symlinks to /usr/lib to avoid this? If so, the whole idea of putting them in separate directories is redundant.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
And, incidentally, no, I don't find it a problem having only one mouse button
There you have it folks, you don't need 2 buttons to get stuff done.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Stuff like this makes me wonder what some of the names of 24th century operating systems.
Microsoft apparently gets more powerful over the years, and decides to name it and all the companies it acquires "The Federation." Galaxy Class Starships run Windows 2.35k Service Pack 4.
(FYI: Klingons run Linux 3.5.7 kernel. Not much work has been done on it since the 22nd century, where the kernel dev team finally went bonkers and decided to started growing ridges on their heads. The penguin has been replaced by a Targ, and every year there is a festival which commemorates the burning of plush penguins).
This is the true reason Wesley left. He got tired of all the Computer Lockouts and Copyright protection. So he travels back in time to try and push Mandrake, changing the course of history into something that looks more like Firefly.
Oh God, all this acid is making my head hurt. I'll stop now.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I need details! My biggest problem with OSX is that running a SSH session with epic/Third Eye looks awful in the Terminal! I've searched the web for answers, to no avail. Help!
hum... the G4s are now at dual 1.25ghz
osx IS unix, its not jsut a few unix applications, its all unix applications
of course you can boot without the gui, its just a few processes, just dont have them start up! and that weird microkernal is mach, its been around for a while and presents an intersting way of doing things, but still presents the same interface to YOU as the end user, you can use standard POSIX calls just like on any unix, and they are native.
why do i have to hate computers to love apple? im typing this on a tibook, and it is the best engineered laptop i have ever used. apples hardware may not be the fastest, but in usablity and reliablity it kicks ass.
Stop spreading FUD already :)
Um, I'm no Mac fanatic or anything, but a quick look at http://www.apple.com/ lists dual 1.25 GHz G4s for sale. Not to mention, of course, that hertz isn't the best way of measuring CPU power; I'm sure you know that Athlon CPUs at the same GHz rating as Intel CPUs tend to be significantly faster, right? Well, G4s have more power per clock cycle than Athlons do.
Also, could you back up your statement that it's worse than Win2k in terms of overhead? You may be able to boot into a command line-only environment in Win2k, but it's virtually useless, and gives you about as much functionality as DOS 2.0.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Apple's hardware is expensive.
;) While it is true that I could run Linux on my shiny new powerbook, I can also continue to do so on my shiny Thinkpad, which is just as solidly built.
It is understandable that they have to be a bit higher priced to support development costs, as their market is smaller, however the fact that I can buy a very capable product, often for half the cost of its mac counterpart is always the first problem I run across when considering the switch.
OSX is not free.
As much as Apple likes to tout their new position as open source loving folk, the fact remains that they will be charging for this OS. While I do not disagree with this business model, it feels as though Apple has taken a lot more than they have given back.
OSX is amusing.
Unfortunately, I think that after a few months with it I would long for a nice X server with WindowMaker. (more NeXT than OSX anyway
Steve Jobs scares me.
He does.
of a Sparc
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Whoopdeedo. Unless you can run them at faster speeds than 1.25 GHz, it doesn't matter. G4s trail the pack.
-Kevin
I use click and hold. I rarely need to access a contextual menue. Since I always have one hand on the key board, the keyboard shortcuts work better.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Since Apple's "Switch" campaign has been underway, there have been three different market analyses to claim that Apple's market share is even lower than it had been before. Giga Information Group says that Apple sunk to a new low of a mere 2.6 percent market share, while RedSheriff and OneState.com put it even lower, at 2.2 and 1.43 percent, respectively.
Apple, those Switch commercials are quaint, especially with the quirky music and all, but it's your own users that you're portraying as idiots. Your rejection by the marketplace reflects this. Better come up with a new ad campaign before those numbers drop to zero...
Wil linked this screenshot of GNOME, as an example of what the desktop in Mandrake looks like.
;-)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can see Alan Cox's fuzzy head over on the 'Projects' icon.. and prolific Linux hero or not, I can't see Mandrake coming with an Alan Cox icon.
mogorific carpentry experiments
open -a "Microsoft Word"
'nuff said.open -a "Adobe Photoshop 7.0"
Not that I don't support the development of open, Free alternatives, but when you want to use two of the most common and powerful commercial programs out there, tapping those commands into the Terminal does come in handy..
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
Everyone who isn't a trained actor looks like an idiot when a camera is trained on them. That's the point. Real, goofy, quirky, neurotic, normal people, not paid actors.
Actually, the kernel is XNU. It's a hybrid mix of Mach with some BSD stuff that would normally be in userspace kicked down into kernel space to get rid of the Mach message passing overhead. XNU isnt a Microkernel or a Monolithic kernel. It's somewhere in between. Also, the drivers are done with something called IOKit, which is a nice safe abstration
A pure Mach microkernel (GNU Hurd) is really slow and that server paradigm just isnt practical right now. Maybe later.
Darwin has the XNU kernel with a lot of the BSD stuff sitting around. The only thing that's not cool with Darwin is the netinfo databse. It's NeXTish, but could stand to be replaced.
With two processors and an OS that natively supports multiple processors? Some how I doubt it.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
WTF? Are you stupid or something? Fastest G4 speed is currently dual 1.25 Ghz. OS X is UNIX my friend, take a quick run down to Apple's web site and actualy do some research before you spout bull shit.
ANd why is it that so many "geeks" thing the "hard to use" == better?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
First, loved your TV show :-)
re: terminal, ssh, etc.:
Did you set up termcap correctly? Email me privately if you need some help with this.
-Mark
1. The G4 is up to 1.25 Ghz and only comes in dual configurations.
2. Darwin is not the same kernel as was used in NeXT. NeXT was the 2.5 mach microkernel and BSDLite 3.2. Mac OS X is mach 3.1, FreeBSD 4.4, plus a few things from NetBSD.
3. Mac OS X does not use display postscript. It uses Quartz, which is derived from the pdf compositing engine and OpenGL.
4. The Darwin subsystem is a full Unix-like system, complete with X Windows, etc. Its as much Unix as Linux is. It even runs on x86 hardware.
5. You can boot without a GUI and manage a Mac OS X machine headless.
6. In what ways is the mach microkernel "weird"?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Wil. Not because he switched to linux, but because his story included a pointer to pr0n. Get your head in the game, Apple, you're losing serious points here!
--Jim
Apple needs to move to two butons. The idea that one button is "easier" is stupid. (Ok, I know yu didn't say it was. I'm just on my soapbox.) Have you ever seen little kid working a playstation control? If a five year old can do it so can my mother.
As for moving to a USB mouse, I have an iBook. Connecting it to a mouse doesn't work for me because I normally use it from my couch. If Steve can swallow his pride and take money from msft then he can admit he was wrong about the one button mouse.
Vanguard
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
That was hilarious!
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
The two packages mentioned in the article, fink and OroborosX, turn OSX into the slickest X client on the planet, IMO. It's a huge step forward for operating systems, and a worthy inspiration for OpenSource. The posts above doubting it's UNIXness or comparing it to CygWin are wrong. This _is_ UNIX. Bash, python, ruby, development tools, all just under a slick UI.
That said, it's not perfect. Apples design ethos can get in the way (one button mouse!!,five fingers!!) Package management is confusing. Things are in weird places. That slick UI is the only look you get, etc. But I still think that any UNIX geex who give it a try will be hooked.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
For games, MS Word, and some other stuff, I run Windows.
For app development, I use Linux.
I use both for e-mail and browsing.
Both are good to me, very steady (no crash in either O/S).
No problem. Why switching, where you can have both ?
Weird, we don't quite get the same numbers.
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
Weird microkernel? Mach? It's older than NT.
NeXT stuff under the hood? You mean the assorted UNIX libraries that provide the GUI and such? How's that different from KDE or CDE?
DPS hasn't been used since 1999 or so. The only thing that makes it UNIX is that it runs some UNIX commands? How is anything else more UNIX? Linux is less UNIX than Mac OS X if you want to be a pedantic jerk, really.
Hate computers? I love computers. Switch from Linux? I did. I want to have apps. I want to have a UI that doesn't make me depressed just thinking about it. I don't want to have to deal with the PC hardware every day. I switched and I couldn't be happier.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
-Kevin
I thought Microsoft has a vested interest in Apple ... could somebody please tell me I'm wrong or right?
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
So it looks like a big mess, here it is:
:). If your a normal user and want to use it as a desktop os, then it's pretty decent. I use Windows, Linux, and OS X server (client also but rarely)... all for different tasks.
:). I'd replace Linux with windows already if it were not for the better interface + number of desktop apps of windows that i already use.
I've extensively used OS X 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2, servers and clients. If your truly serious about business you'll realize that optimizing and customising these systems are a big pain. With non standard everything... Also it's not actually BSD, but based on it somewhat.
If your gonna use a mac YDL is better imo
Windows: I've used it for a long time and it happens to be a excellent desktop O/S. It on ibm's Open PC Architecture (and has been since the 80s) so there's a lot of cheap and powerful hardware. Downside is that it is harder to use because of the shear amount of stuff for it.
Linux (RH 7.1 with a lot of RPM upgrades): I use this as a hobby/side business for a server of mine. Runs very well, Duron 1 ghz, 1 gig of ram. Hardware/software cost is a real issue here and nothing can compare. My hobby includes a site that get's over 600,000 pageviews daily
OS X Server: I run several of these for and educational institution (happens to be a rich school district). They've always been using macs and there was no way around it. I mainly run two webservers an apache (with PHP, MySQL) and a webstar (with Lasso, Filemaker). When configuring apache and bind, I had to use the terminal for everthing as Apples interface didn't include much to control apache and nothing for bind.
Hmmm... Pie...
Searched the web for h.
Results 1 - 10 of about 137,000,000. Search took 0.09 seconds.
Are you sure about that?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Why is it with all these people who when asked why they won't use a Mac, they tout the oh so old "I can't stand the one button mouse" line. Hello?!?!? McFly? Add a multi button one! It's funny how all these uber geeks will proudly show you the greatest modification the've made to their Intel systems, but when confroned with the problem of changing the mouse on a Mac system, the concept is beyond them.
If you want more accurate numbers of who has what percentage of the market, then you should check out this article. Jack Campbell spent about 30 hours and about a week's worth of research to gather his numbers. Definitely worth a look. Even includes Linux, AS400, and mainframe OS and application numbers. At the end of the article he also includes the hardware numbers per manufacturer over the last 20 years for those people wanting to know those numbers. I will not tell you the results, you should read the article for yourself.
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!
Who in their right mind would buy it ? If Apple levels the field they CAN ONLY GAIN. I figure you guys are right though corporate politics being what they are...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need , not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.
Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.
Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.
There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.
Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 12 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)
Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.
I had Suse and Mandrake and Redhat all installed on the same machine at various times. Suse was, by far, the slowest/worst of them all. So, I guess everyone should listen to me now instead because I've just given unrefutable evidence, just like the poster, I'm replying to, right? :)
Seriously, Suse used to really suck bad on the hardware here - yeah, maybe it was bad hardware, but Mandrake/Redhat (hell even Caldera) all worked better than the Suse we had. Perhaps newer ones are better, but I couldn't even get Suse fans to admit (when they saw it) that it was bad, even though it was demonstrably bad.
creation science book
"Of course, there are a few warts. It took me a long time to make the Terminal's ANSI capabilities behave."
He said that he got it fixed. I would love to fix mine. It drives me crazy. Anyone know how?
The above is not worth reading.
Since it sounds like Wesley Crusher, I mean Wil Wheaton, likes Mandrake, how about some Wesley Crusher, I mean Wil Wheaton games and utilities for Mandrake? He could provide his voice to whoever decided to code the stuff.
Here are some fictional examples I'd like to see:
1. Star Trek Dodgeball
2. TURN YOUR TEARS INTO BEERS : How to shed crocodile tears over plastic toys bearing your likeness, and tell stories about your used goods for extra cash on eBay.
3. MILK THE FORMER FAME : How to make an effective whine blog : the fans will buy into your propoganda based upon your former celebrity status.
4. King Wesley Desktop : Others may mock the next generation character, but with the KWD (King Wesley Desktop), every time you use your system you will be greeted with Wesley Crusher dressed in robes and crowned, holding a autographed Next Generation lunchbox. Wait, there's more! 15% of every purchase goes towards the: Why Is Spot Under The Bed? foundation. Help truly discover the reason Data and Geordie were peeking at each other underneath a bed all alone. The cat was surely a hologram, but sssssh! Results will be kept private.
5. The Next Generation Interactive! Reality Show. Watch as Wesley Crusher gets tossed out from his companions' group like Brainy from the Smurfs. Just like in the smurfs, it happens every episode!
We are the latest division of Apple's marketing department.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Switch?
I think the whole "Switch" thing is a brilliant ploy! Microsoft knows that Linux is not an OS that it can stop using its old methods. Linux is hitting Microsoft hard in the Server market. Now, with technologies like Mozilla and OpenOffice.org, Microsoft sees the possibility of seeing the same thing happen on the desktop. How do they stop it?
Enter Microsoft's token desktop competitor, Apple! Apple has been useful to Microsoft in the past to show the world that they aren't a monopoly, they have competition. In fact, when Apple was in danger of dying completely, Microsoft pumps $150 million into Apple to save it. Also, they continue to port applications to the Mac, even though on the surface, why would you want to port software to your "competitors" platform? Simple, the Mac has always had less that 15% of the desktop market, and, since its closed hardware, that isn't going to change.
So how does this relate to Linux? Perhaps Microsoft saw a useful purpose in the technologies of Apple and NeXT. Help Apple build a new Mac OS that is based on UNIX with a GUI that would attract the best and brightest of the Open Source/Linux community away from improved the Linux desktop! So far, it seems to be working, as the "switch" articles keep coming. Sure, Microsoft loses a small number of Windows users as well to this platform, but, Microsoft knows it can easily take out Apple using its tried and true methods.
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
>Jack Campbell spent about 30 hours and about a
>week's worth of research to gather his numbers.
He doesn't detail how he arrived at his numbers, which to me ruins any credibility in them.
>Even includes Linux, AS400, and mainframe OS and
>application numbers.
And ignores Netware, OpenVMS, MPE/IX, OS/2, DOS, System/36, and numerous others.
It would be easy to say these are all legacy platforms, but it doesn't change the fact that there is a signifigant installed base of each. The last numbers published by IDC (in 1998) reported an installed base of 10 *million*. Even System/36 still has a signifigant userbase, despite being superceded by OS/400 in the early 1990's.
>At the end of the article he also includes the
>hardware numbers per manufacturer over the last
>20 years for those people wanting to know those
>numbers. I will not tell you the results, you
>should read the article for yourself.
How about some more hardware numbers... The total number of Macintoshes ever produced is 54 million, of which only 17 million are capable of running MacOS X.
On the other hand, the PC industry is pumping out somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 million units A QUARTER. That's 120 million units a year. And that is only the Intel compatible machines.
Somehow the figure of 275 million installed machines is starting to sound a little low, isn't it?
And, to put that into further perspective, Apple is selling about 800k units per quarter. Respectable? Yes. Enough to put them in the top five manufacturers? Yes. But it is still only 3% of the total market.
Please note that I am not expressing an opinion about the value of the Macintosh platform, nor its long term viability. I just dislike people who present unsubstantiated statistics as facts, and that's what Mr. Campbell apears to be.
Matt
On a TiBook myself, and I mostly agree with you. This thing is nice, but far from perfect. Roughly following your points, first those you list as positive:
Now the ones you listed as bad:
One more thing you didn't mention but needs to be said... Free Software! Yes, the OS isn't Free, which is sad, but it's quite a bit closer than the Windows box I still had to keep on before, and it's a hell of a lot easier to port *nix applications to. Which is good for the user, and good for Free Software too, more ports and more eyeballs.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part.
No, it is either clearly false (see below) or non-falsifiable blather. Apple has engaged in substantial marketing specifically directed toward the Unix Market, for example by running Apple print ads directed to the Unix Market, complete with "/dev/null" unix jargon.
Reasonable people may differ with our anonymous coward about whether discounting his 1990 suggestion constitutes ignoring the entire Unix market, or whether he simply has an overblown view of the representattive constituency of his own design choices as compared to those of others.
I have worked Unix, Mac, Windows and other OS and development environments for decades, and don't find myself using the control key all that much more in any one as opposed to another, so I don't see this as a peculiarly Unix-centric issue. Even so, despite doing a massive amount of Unix and terminal work day by day on my prime ax, an Apple Powerbook, and having a zillion desktop and other machines around from which to pick, I just don't experience his pains. (I suppose I find the virtue of my wireless flexibility to walk around my world more significant to me than the slight trick of learning my fingers around a keyboard.)
1. when you do ldconfig, a cache (/etc/ld.so.cache)is created that keeps all the info about the libraries installed on your computer.
2. apt-get takes care of dependency tracking for me. up2date and urpmi for rpm based systems also do this for you.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
How much is apple paying you guys?
I mean, story after story about positive reactions to an advertising campaign.
WTF?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Since when is a Gui "entertaining"? I mean, I realize that little animations and stuff for scrolling around on the dock (or whatever) might be fun for the first five minutes, I would certainly hope that apple users are brainwashed enough to pay $130 for that...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There are several versions of the Apple Unix-centric print ads available on-line.
One good reason would be because with the new Macs you can do all of that, with the possible exception of games depending on which ones you play, on one machine, without rebooting. Which is nice, particularly if that one machine is a TiBook you can take with you wherever you go.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
But under the surface, OS X also has some pretty big issues. It is quite schizophrenic about APIs: the BSD, Carbon, and Cocoa APIs really aren't all that well integrated. There are half a dozen different kinds of executables, with entirely different behaviors. Many applications see a Mac file system, others see a UNIX file system. OSA scripting doesn't work for the majority of applications. And Carbon applications ignore Cocoa preferences. Some devices are accessible through BSD-like APIs, others are only available through Carbon, some have Cocoa wrappers.
And the crown jewel of OS X, the GUI, is also a bit iffy under the covers. Quartz is an enormous resource hog and rather sluggish. The Cocoa API requires lots of manual storage management and manual layout management. Objective-C is getting rather long in the tooth and will not take the world by storm anymore (it was a nice idea in 1985, now we have better systems). In terms of usability, OS X is better than Windows, but it is still far from "intuitive" (all current GUIs, including Apple's, commit some grave sins), as you will quickly find out if you try to explain how to use it over the phone to non-computer users.
I like my Macs (and am typing from a Mac right now). But they are not replacements for UNIX workstations or Linux machines--they are replacements for Windows desktop machines. And Apple has their work cut out for them. Let's hope they'll clean up some of the mess under the covers. I think the more open source software they can use, the better for them. In the medium term, they might even be well advised to drop Quartz and Objective-C and adopt technologies more widely used in the open source world--I think Apple won't be able to keep up with Gnome, KDE, Ximian, and other efforts like that.
The biggest advantage of Mac OS X are probably still the hardware/software integration, brand, distribution channels, and surrounding infrastructure. Those, rather than amazing technical differences, are what make the Mac a good choice for many non-technical users.
But you're not? Let me see if I can pull some samples out of your post (and just this post never mind your rant)
and all of that just from a short post. So now tell me who's a fucking elitist bastard? People might actualy listen to you if you came accross as an intelligent, reasonable and thoughtful individual instead of a Bill Gates loving 13 year old with nothing better to do than look at porn all day.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Why not just use a two button mouse. Obviously, people don't have problems with it. Obvioulsly hitting 'control-click' or 'click+hold+for+one+second' is more difficult/annoying then just using another finger. It's like they're trying to prove a point.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Wether or not they are 'supposed' to look like idiots dosn't change the fact that they do, and that people don't want to be 'like' an idiot wether they are or not.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm afraid you're incorrect. Check out http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb. cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=001514
"My 1.25 is on a truck coming out of Sacramento. Estimated delivery is on Sept. 21."
"I recieved an e-mail confirming mine was shipped yesterday."
I see the irony: The major lack in OS X is actually X.
1) Look up irony before you use it next time. It's pronounced "OS Ten" not "OS Ecks", so the irony is pretty much lost there.
2) The lack of X is why I like using the newest MacOS.
I ran linux on a desktop at home for two years. I went back to windows because the experience was so horrible. I then switched over to the Macintosh line because I was tired of constantly upgrading my machine. I converted the PC to a BSD box that runs only on the command line. Life is good.
Lowmag.net
I am on a tiBook (800)...
Things I like:
1. Unix unix unix. I am a programmer/admin for a bunch of unix boxes and 99% of my web applications etc. I am able to develop w/out any problems right on my laptop.
2. Good Java support. Finally.
3. Fast. I have heard complaints from other people, but my tiBook seems to run fine. It feels like it runs 2x faster than my G4 tower (466) and doesn't feel like a workstation when it's doc'd to my monitor and usb keyboard/mouse.
4. Da chit just works. I honestly don't have to monkey around with anything. I don't install hacks and wacks to make my windows different shapped or themed. I install the updates, trival as windows update really. I have IDEA and JEdit installed and they work great. The new iChat is pretty cool, different than GAIM which I have been pretty used to until now. But, I don't feel like I have to really monkey with anything to get things working.
5. Feeling of integration. I find myself using a lot of the same things, so not a huge deal. Mozilla & my two java apps (IDEA and JEdit) seem to sorta throw me once in a while, but for the most part
Dislikes.
1. Expensive. If I wasn't a moderatly well paid professional , it would of been impossible to afford it. ($3200 is a lot of money to me at least).
2. My model gets pretty hot. Almost freaks me out to where I am going to go buy a little caddy for the laptop and a small fan to keep it cool. I worry about it ruining the screen with the lid closed while using it as a desk-side workstation. My java apps tend to run a bit hot.
3. No Infrared.
4. Sometimes mediocre 802.11b reception, probably due to the titanium case.
5. Slows noticably if disk-io is sky-high. Though, my brother who has an iBook said that putting disk-intensive apps on a fire-wire drive run fantastic. Probably the small form-factor of a laptop hard disk. I remember having the same issue with my Sony Viao.
Overall I would say that is the best laptop I have ever purchased and I don't regret buying it. I figure even if Apple tanks 4 years from now, I will get my 2 year life cycle out of the unit with another 2 years on top of that for my wife or kids to use.
It's the first laptop I have ever owned that I find myself using as my primary workstation for development.
Cheers
In classic, it was possible to use ResEdit to remap your keyboard however you want. I suggest you check www.macosxapps.com someone may have a solution for you.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
you can change just about EVERYTHING in ut2k3, it is so incredibly geared toward the mod community that i am personally amazed. i was doubtful of anyone embracing modders as much as q3 and halflife had, but apparently the ut2k3 boys are.
why any mod wouldn't just start with tenebrae though is lost on me. anyone deving for urban terror should switch now!
oh yeah, and this:
And, incidentally, no, I don't find it a problem having only one mouse button.
is just plain crap, and a good optical usb mous with 2 buttons and a scroll wheel are ~$30 so that's ONE rebate i would want from mac before *i* switch.
Oh yeah, and i want pj64 to work like it does in XP, too...
rhy
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Do NOT install MetamorphX or other theme-switching utilities with 10.2 I installed the BeOS MetamorphX theme on OSX, and it caused the OS to become unbootable! It would get to the login screen where I'd choose between users, then it would get snagged.
h tm l
Fortunately, there was this nice option in Install CD to install over the current OSX, but keep the users files and preferences. Nice, but still a pain in the ass.
The desire for alternate themes shows the deficiencies in OSX's current theme. OSX's Aqua effects make it look like a two-dollar whroe. I personally preferred the OLD OS 9 appearance much more; I also like the std. BeOS appearance and the NeXT appearance much better. A GUI is supposed to help me get things done quicker, not impress me or get in my way.
Apple has dropped the ball in a number of UI areas in OSX, though overall its an improvement.
1. No labels on dock icons unless you move mouse over them. Dock icons should be labelled with labels to the left/right if the dock is on the right/left side of the screen; if its ont he bottom, the labels should be tilted.
2. No separation of the grouping of running applications from favorites on the dock. All running applications should be in the same place on the dock, not mixed in with your favorites.
3. Lack of serious configurability. This has always been a problem with Mac. Jobs, get your head out of your ass. Everyone is different; different people will want it set up different ways. I find these Aqua-effects and transition effects, as well as animations, to be completely useless. I want instantaneous responses. Here in the real world, people want to get work done, not be distracted and annoyed by genie or scaling effects.
4. Ability to view folder as pop-up has been lost. That was a good feature w/c Apple got rid of.
5. Old Mac menu dismantled. The old mac menu with an application pull-down menu where you could list *all* of your applications and with a menu where you could list *all* of your control panel items is gone. Replaced by a new and inferior Apple menu. Jobs, the dock is great, but its more suitable as a complement for the desktop, not a complete replacement for the Apple menu.
6. Loss of old applications switcher menu.
7. Loss of ability to label different folders/files different colors. Another good feature thrown out the window for god-knows-why.
8. In the dock, if you place a folder there, you can only navigate 5 sublevels deep. You should be able to navigate the entire hard drive through a folder menu bought up from the dock.
9. Option clicking on a folder should allow you to navigate from that folder via a menu.
10. When is Apple going to realize that tabbed windowing is superior to other styles of maximization? Tabbed windows, as are used in Mozilla, effectively allow all windows to be maximized, but still allow you to see the other apps running.
12. Window management. Arranging windows in ANY OS by Apple is a bitch. You have to manually drag the windows to be a certain size. Hey, Apple, ever heard of tile horizontally/vertically or cascade? Give us predefined ways to arrange windows.
13. When is Apple going to give us the ability to make the universal menu at the top of hte screen hide-away? And when are they going to give us a universal tool-bar to go along with the universal menu? Why does every instance of Finder need its own tool-bar?
I have more suggestions for Apple and anyone else making a GUI here
http://home.rochester.rr.com/tweak/WM-features.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
OS X gives you both, without requiring you to have 2 computers or to reboot into a different OS if you have 1 computer with dual-boot.
Shame on Google.
Its actually really easy:
/usr/bin/smbspool /usr/libexec/cups/backend/smb
1) ln -s
2) reboot
3) setup the printer normally
It's becoming tempting to get a Mac, but I still wouldn't want to have one as my only computer.
Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
Demonstrably false. I am a UNIX user and programmer from fairly far back. I use an Apple iBook exclusively when I'm away from home, and at home I use a Power Mac G4 with essentially the same keyboard layout. You, sir, are just being lazy.
Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users!
This is also demonstrably false.
Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead.
In other words, "Because I am too lazy or too stubborn to accept the fact that the control key on a Mac keyboard is in a different place than I'm accustomed to, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead."
Apple's certainly not going to go out of their way to cater to customers who do nothing but whine about trivialities.
Woohoo, gimme two servings!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You make no sense. You say that you cannot remap the control key on a powerbook, and then refer to software that does exactly that. You then berate Apple for catering to their traditional customers. What company in their right mind would not cater to their traditional customer base? Let me just say that you come off as a tad paranoid about Apple ignoring UNIX folk, and oddly obsessed on the placement of a modifier key (especially one you know you can change the mapping of via software). Apple has a few markets they are working on entering, especially Hi Ed, and Scientific that are UNIX strongholds, and from what I can tell they are working on strengthening them. Not including a three button mouse, and leaving the keyboard unchanged from it's layout of the past fifteen years does not mean that Apple is ignoring all customers who are UNIX sorts.
BTW - on a PowerBook is is a lot easier to work with a single button and use mod keys for the other two keys. I have now done it for years and find that I actually prefer the single button approach to my two-button ThinkPad. It works better with my thumb placement. My fingers of my left hand are always over the modifier keys on the PowerBook anyway, since that's where my hand rests - it works perfectly.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
Actually, no, it's just control + button. I'm not familiar with any command + button combinations, or any other keyboard-mouse combos. Again, I'm talking about the core OS software here, not apps, because Maya breaks all the fucking rules.
I believe that is what "IBM" called it. It may have not been completely true then. But it does make sense now and it is IBM's fault we have these damn machines no matter how you look at it.
:).
Compaq couldn't have reversed engineered IBM's BIOS unless IBM created it in the first place
Hmmm... Pie...
You can get virtual PC; which is designed to allow you to run XP apps. Anyway there really isn't a comparison. Apple is thrilled when people buy Macs to run Yellow Dog or some other OS (those guys are authorized dealers). Microsoft doesn't make money on hardware.
FWIW, we do prepublishing, and we're trying to make the jump from Word to Quark.
Word is so badly programmed that it has cost us tons of money due to document corruption. When this problem came out in '98/99, there was officially support with our purchased product. However Word support went to the extent of saying "what you are seeing on the screen is not what is happening, Word functions properly, and no don't send us the files for autopsy."
Quark at least is stable, as of Ver. 4.05 (which we use). When there *is* document corruption, you can either (a) select all, copy, open a clean document, paste, save as (b) delete all pages. Ask the program to regenerate pages. That's it. Corruption is not permanent there.
We do this on Mac, but Word has similar problems on the PC, and according to reports I read later versions than ours also have those problems. So we're jumping ship.
What with no support, a real cost 10x that of professional programs, and all, I would not be sorry to see Mac lose Office support. Very quickly, our authors would also make the jump, and there would be no question as to whether it was a better choice.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
In the words of the band Three Dead Trools in a Baggie....
Sounds to me like the real point of this post is to prove once and for all that Three Dead Trools in a Baggie is the worst band in the world.
Good work.
I think you were just trolling but since you didn't post AC I'll reply.
Also, OS X about as close to UNIX as Cygwin running on top of Win98 is.
I'm compiling things like Gnome on OSX virtually nothing complicated compiles on Cygwin.
They still have a bunch of NeXT stuff under the hood (Darwin)
First off Next was a Unix. Darwin is primarily Mach/BSD there is nothing particularly Nextish at the Darwin level the real Next influence is at the Cocoa level.
and do most things the NeXT way (display postscript, etc).
And how does this not make it a Unix. One of Unixes core ideas is that the Gui isn't the OS.
The only thing that makes it "unix" is the fact that it runs some unix commands. But you can make DOS run unix commands, so that's not really a good argument.
In what sense is BSD a Unix that OSX isn't?
I would be very skeptical of using something like Darwin/OS X on an industrial-class machine.
Meaning what? Apple doesn't really sell Enterprise level apps; and frankly I'm skeptical of Unix in general for hard core reliability and security VMS, Z-OS, I-OS... are where I would go for that sort of stuff.
It's worse than Win2K in terms of overhead (can you even boot without a GUI?),
Yes you hit command-S in startup and boot to single user mode (init 1). What happens in this mode is defined by your rc.d scripts.
and runs a weird microkernel.
Mach is weird?
Yes, it makes a good desktop. If you hate computers and love the Apple way of doing things, this is the OS for you. If you switch from Linux to OS X, you probably shouldn't have been using Linux in the first place.
And why is that?
That's really, really impressive. Almost every sentence in your post was wrong! The only one that you got right was, "Yes, it makes a good desktop." You obviously put a lot of effort into this post, and I respect that. I laugh at it, but at the same time I respect it.
If I can keep a 24 processor Sun busy for an hour, I can probably figure out how to keep a PC busy, eh?
Dude,
while (1) {
fork();
}
doesn't count.
1. The G4 is up to 1.25 Ghz and only comes in dual configurations.
Mostly true, but technically false. The Apple Store for educators will still sell you a 900 MHz single-processor Quicksilver system, if you're a teacher or a student. If I recall, the price is about $1,200, but that's totally from memory, so don't bitch at me if I got it wrong.
What do you think?
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.
Shame that the wilWheaton does Mandrake was mixed with the Switcher story as it seems to have again brought out the worst in people.
I use Mac OS X and I'm happy with it. I have access to Linux and *BSD and Windows on new hardware but I just prefer running OSX on my 2 year old Powerbook. I don't CARE what you run and that's a GOOD thing. What is nice is that I'm on UNIX. If you're running Mandrake or SuSe or Debian then you're on UNIX too. It's a cliche but we've all got bigger fish to fry.
As for the commercial == Bad? Pardon? I suppose software engineers live on handouts? Pay someone to do it right. Make it open source so people can tell you what's wrong with it.
Actually, you can remap caps lock to control using ucontrol in OS X. There's a linux patch to do the equivalent as noted in the post you linked to. It was based on the stuff from ucontrol (called icontrol back then).
I used that patch in Linux and ucontrol in OS X for almost a year without too many big problems. Occasionally you'd have to hit caps lock (ctrl) when coming back from sleep. Nothing too big.
Now are you going to stop your whining?
Ditto. Linux has two big problems to fix before it becomes a viable consumer desktop competitor to Windows and OX X The first is X: Byzantine, fragile, clunky, old, and (usually) ugly. Worst of all are the fonts.
The second problem is Linux's Unix and Gnu underpinnings. You need to hide the Unix plumbing and the Gnu software's...well, Gnu-i-ness.
With OS X, Apple has fixed the second problem while eliminating the first.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
For all your programming geeks out there, do yourself a huge favor and give OS X a try. Let go of your ego and ideology just for a few days, and give Apple a chance and be prepared to be blown away.
...
/Developer/Documentation/Apple Help/Apple Help Indexing Tool.app
.net which costs upto $2.5k.
I have been programming on Windows and Unix (Sun Solaris, HP/UX, etc) for over a decade, and I can tell you that nothing is remotely comparable to OS X.
OK, we all know that the best commercial products form MS, Adobe, Macromedia are all availabe on OS X; we also know that Apple also gives you the best-of-breed digital hub software (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iCal, iSync, Mail, Preview, AppleWorks, Address Book, NetInfo, NetWork Utility, etc) for free which are not available on any other platform; and of course, if you are a Unix Weenie, you will love bash, tcsh, zsh, vi, pico, emacs, perl, python, ruby, apatch, mysql, postgresql, gcc, gmake, cvs, tcl/tk,
But what's really the best about OS X is the free and powerful programming tools:
lrwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 64 Sep 1 17:17 Apple Help Indexing Tool.app ->
drwxr-xr-x 7 root admin 238 May 20 10:52 AppleScript Studio
drwxrwxr-x 8 root admin 272 Aug 30 22:14 Extras
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 FileMerge.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 IORegistryExplorer.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 IconComposer.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 1 17:17 Interface Builder.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 JavaBrowser.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 MRJAppBuilder.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 MallocDebug.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 ObjectAlloc.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 OpenGL Info.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 OpenGL Profiler.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 OpenGL Shader Builder.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 PEFViewer.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 PackageMaker.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 Pixie.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 Project Builder.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 Property List Editor.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 Quartz Debug.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 Sampler.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 Thread Viewer.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 30 22:14 icns Browser.app
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 14260 Sep 18 22:28 BuildStrings
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 28552 Sep 18 22:30 CpMac
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 111292 Sep 18 22:30 DeRez
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 14020 Sep 18 22:30 GetFileInfo
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 77720 Sep 18 22:30 MergePef
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 28516 Sep 18 22:30 MvMac
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 19256 Sep 18 22:30 ResMerger
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 116468 Sep 18 22:30 Rez
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 14248 Sep 18 22:29 RezWack
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 18452 Sep 18 22:30 SetFile
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 18928 Sep 18 22:30 SplitForks
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 18468 Sep 18 22:28 UnRezWack
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 172004 Sep 18 22:30 WSMakeStubs
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 15052 Jul 14 21:31 agvtool
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 1160 Jul 14 21:31 cvs-unwrap
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 967 Jul 14 21:31 cvs-wrap
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 3012 Jul 14 21:31 cvswrappers
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 9764 Sep 18 22:29 lnresolve
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 22736 Sep 18 22:31 pbhelpindexer
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 18336 Sep 18 22:30 pbprojectdump
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 23932 Sep 18 22:28 pbxcp
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 47732 Sep 18 22:28 pbxhmapdump
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 112700 Sep 18 22:29 sdp
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root admin 11132 Jul 14 10:19 uninstall-devtools.pl
These are the best tools I have ever seen on any platform, better than anything on a $15k Sun workstation or MS Visual Studio
Take Project Builder for instance, it comes with a very sophiscated IDE with a built-in class browser and wonderful text editor, and each projects can manages many targets with different build styles, source files in C/C++, Objective C/C++, Java, AppleScript, and resources like icons, images, sound, xml, html, plain text, etc.
Interface Builder together with AppKit and FoundationKit frameworks is the only GUI tool that I have ever seen or heard that makes it possible to write functional software with a sleek UI with virtually zero user code.
These are the reasons that OmniGroup can produce a browser with a team of 1.5 programmars which is better than MS IE that takes dozens of engineers. Yes, OS X is that good, and you are living in the dark age of computing if you haven't seen it.
>> the problem is that the hardcores like their flexability (sic)
Apple doesn't care about selling to "the hardcores"". No one does; there's no money in it.
The Mac is a consumer and business platform. Judging it by "hardcore" standards is missing the point.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Being right or wrong in your argument is *HIGHLY* debateable. A lot of your "facts" were out dated. And no, even if you are right, it is not ok to be a rude asshole. Period.
You don't get respect of people by being a jack ass, and likewise, you wouldn't listen to someone being a jackass. People who treat other with respect and dignity and refrain from posting with such offensive intent are the people that actualy get listened to on slashdot. Why else would you post anonomously? Because you're afraid of loosing respect by using your real name. You know that by posting AC, people can't tag you specificaly as a freak and just have your posts automaticaly moderated down to below their threshhold.
Also you should never ever make assumptions. I am not typing this nor my previous message from an apple since my iBook had a bad run in with a pudle of water and a power cord. I know plenty about PCs and Macs and it is my opinion that the mac is a better computer overall. That doesn't mean I don't use a PC.
As for your busy work, I could care less. You have no idea what work on a computer is. I know this because there is no way any self respecting adult with computer knowledge would post like you do.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Speak for yourself. I'm a unix user, have been since 1987. I use macs, too. My control key on my Dell keyboard is in the lower left corner, and I touchtype on a Dvorak layout. That said, my primary beef with the laptops I have played with is the touchpad mouse. I can't stand them. If I buy an apple laptop, I'm getting a nice usb mouse to make it usable for me.
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens." - Schiller
Are you saying that Mac users are in some way more ignorant than users of other systems of the fact that programmers are needed, or that Mac users are more ignorant of programming than other other computer users, or ....?
Are you saying that users need to know about programming to run their systems? Do I need to know how my car engine works to drive?
On the face of it, your comment appears to make little sense.
I'm curious why PC users get so hung up about slight UI differences between Macs and PCs. Whether it's the perennial "I can't live with a one-button mouse" rant, or the guy here who says "I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need , not merely a want," it's like you people are announcing that you have no powers of adaptation whatsoever. Just because you're familiar with the Windows/Linux way of doing things doesn't mean it's the best UI design.
(Incidentally, Apple tested a two-button mouse when designing the Lisa. The test users found it confusing, and their productivity increased dramatically with an interface designed for a one-button mouse.)
I don't know if you've tried it before, but the touchpads on macs are of a higher quality than the ones on PCs. I don't know if it's the material of the manufatuer but the mac touch pads are better than the PC ones.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
What do you want to set up the way you want under OS X that you can't? Have you taken a trip to www.macosxapps.com to see if there is a fix there?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I often read about it but rarely hear anybody talk about it, so the pronunciation doesn't make any change to me. And the few times I have had heard people talk about it, they did not pronounce it OS 10.
The lack of X is why I like using the newest MacOS.
I couldn't disagree more. I find X one of the major strengths of Linux and Unix systems. I don't spend a day without running remote applications with their display on my local computer. And I do so between three different architectures.
An implementation of X doesn't have to take all the bad parts from existing implementations. A major reason I would very much have liked to see Mac OS X with X was that I believed Apple would be able to combine the best parts of X with the best parts of their own design. I don't opponent against Aqua, I just think it should have been implemented on top of X. I would still have found it a good choice even if they had chosen to ship Mac OS X with Aqua as the only windowmanager. To the end user, the interface should have looked exactly the same. But a few additional features would exist:
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I have shown your post to a considerable base (roughly 20 people) of whom I consider knowledgeable in computers. All these people also think I'm a moron for sticking to a mac. Yet in each case, each one of these people described you and your post as fanatical and unrealistic. Many also said that the very fact that you can't go two sentences without swearing and can't seem to pull together the language or intelligence of someone with a highschool diploma destroys all your credability. Also note that your credability goes out the window as soon as you question the ability of a person who uses a mac to do work. I'm also positive that if we were to thow your posts into a slashdot poll, most people would say the same. Aguments are one thing, I can handle being proved wrong (and I have the karma to prove it), being a jerk and an asshole are not excuseable which I assume is why you post AC. My guess is your account is so poorly moderated you post at -1 everytime.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
what about a solution like tightvnc
VNC can be good for some purposes, but it is not a replacement for X. It is actually kind of like X just backwards. (With X it is the programs with windows to display that are the clients connecting to the server. With VNC it is the "screen" wanting to display an image that is the client connecting to the computer with an image.)
One of the drawbacks of VNC is the fact that you don't get access to the single windows of remote applications, your only choice is the entire screen including windowmanager and a set of windows. Another problem is the performance that in my experience is not nearly as good as X.
Xvnc and vncclients for X proves that the two can work together and can do so quite well. But they don't do the same thing.
Finally on the tightvnc webpage I don't see a server for Mac OS X. Is it even possible to implement a VNC server within the Mac OS X design? I don't know, so somebody please enlighten me on this. If the answer is no I simply take that as just another proof that the X design simply is better.
Now don't point me to the Java version, because that is only a client. You can make a VNC client for most graphical systems just like you can implement some kind of X server for most graphical systems. What is interesting is to implement a VNC server that will work together with all graphical programs for Mac OS X, or to have all graphical programs use the X protocol. This is the two options that will allow programs running on Mac OS X to be used remote.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
>Until you realize the percentage of Macs running
>is the same statistic as the percentage of P.C.'s
>in a landfill.
Until you present me with some solid facts backing that up, I'll just as soon believe you pulled that figure out of your ass rather than realizing anything.
Let's assume your correct. So, given Apple's claim that there are 20 million Mac currently in use worldwide. A little quick arithmatic shows us that comes out to 37% of all Macs ever produced running. For simplicity sake, for the PC side, we'll limit it to the 576 million produced since 1998. By your claim, only 37% of those are in a landfill, so that must mean 363 million are still running.
Oh dear, that's probably the answer you wanted to hear. Just for fun, lets plug in the figures that Jack Campbell would have us believe, i.e. that there are 32 million Macs currently in use. Now our figure rises to 59% of the total still being servicable. Ahhh, here we go. That comes out to the figure you're looking for - 236 million PCs in use.
Mind you, we're taking the word of someone who did a WHOLE 30 hours of research over a corporation that had no reason to understate its userbase by 12 million users. And we threw out all PCs manufactured before 1998. And we took your estimate of how many PCs are in landfills at face value, which is a little silly given the time frame we're using, and the fact that amortization of computer hardware happens over three years.
You know, I didn't realize just how much work you zealots did to make up statistics that suit you. I have a new found respect. Really.
Matt
Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of
his followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and
there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
"Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his
commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your
Purpose in Life, anyway?"
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The
Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
-- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
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