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Flirting With Mac OS X
An anonymous reader wrote to us with an article on Byte from Moshe Bar about flirting with using OS X. Taco and I are both strongly considering beginning to use OS X as a primary laptops - anyone else looking at doing this? And anyone from Apple that can get me a good price on super TiBooks? *grin*
As an example, look at this very standard series of commands, used to install Perl 5.8 on my system:
/usr/local/
[macosx:~] cd
[macosx:~] sudo mkdir src
[macosx:~] curl -O ftp://ftp.cpan.org/pub/CPAN/src/perl-5.8.0.tar.gz
[macosx:~] tar zxvf perl-5.8.0.tar.gz
[macosx:~] cd perl-5.8.0
[macosx:~] make distclean
[macosx:~] make
[macosx:~] make test
[macosx:~] sudo make install
You couldn't tell this was Mac OS X if I hadn't told you, right?
Hell no! I mean, just because the name of the damn OS is in the prompt; I would NEVER tell it was Mac OS X!
I thought about this for a while, but the keyboards that come on Mac laptops leave A LOT to be desired. shallow keys, half-height arrow keys, etc.
And don't get me started on Trackpads v. Trackpoints. If Apple had Trackpoints (the little nipple between G, B, and H on your keyboard) I think i could overlook the keyboard.
And one button mice... We all know that is not enough.
Sure, I can get an external keyboard & mouse, and I would if i were *given* a powerbook, but to me, that's just like having a Mac desktop, because it would never leave my desk. But, if were to *buy* a Mac, it would have to be a desktop, where I can replace the peripherals with something I like.
The point: they should try to make a few more people happy. I would have switched long ago if they had a full size laptop keyboard (every key full size) and a three button trackpoint pointer. I want a Mac in a Thinkpad case.
my two cents on the "Switch" campaign.
10 months ago I used Linux and Windows at home exclusively but wanted a laptop for taking stuff to work and writing on the train.
None of the Windows laptops cut it with battery life or displays so I looked at the iBook. I plumped for the 600Mhz DVD Rom drive beast. It's since been with me to Singapore - great for watching DVDs, work most days, bed for writing, downstairs infront of the TV for emailing, the kitchen for recipes. (I got the airport card as well - nothing to break off so I don't feel scared using wireless networking while actually moving!)
I use nothing but OS X on the beast (Up the RAM to at least 384Mb) and it's great. Proper terminal window to connect to my personal servers, MS RDP client for configuring Works' Windows 2000 boxes. Internal modem for connecting to other networks, Bluetooth for connecting whilst on the train. Best of all IT JUST WORKS.
I've definately reached the point where I no longer want to have all my machines as play toys - the iBook is a workhorse and just keeps on slogging. It'd without a doubt the best PC I've bought so far.
My Name's Matthew Thompson and I'm a system administrator and freelance journalist.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
I have had a tiBook for 1.5 years now and I have tried using OSX from time to time. I can't say that I find it very appealing, but I am probably to used to Linux (I use KDE, Gnome and simpler WMs on several computers). I just couldn't get OSX to feel right. Every configuration (other than those meant to be done by "normal" users) is a pain (well NIS, NFS and automount is).E.g. I could not convice the network setup that my domain has no .xxx at the end and WiFi didn't work at first, either.
Even with the rootless X11 it's not much better and switching to X11 only doesn't make sense. In my view the only advantage over Linux is the DVD player, which is not Linux fault.
As nice as OSX may be for Mac users and newbies as a long time Linux user I have to say it is just to proprietary and constricting for me to use.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
And it's not like that OS X has figured out how to eliminate user confusion, as you will find out when you try to talk computer novices through installations or system configuration over the phone. Yes, even OS X has lots of GUI tarpits: the printer system, AirPort configuration, and network configuration are pretty bad.
But when it comes down to it, I just don't see much difference between Gnome, KDE, OS X, and Windows. All of them let you move files around in roughly the same way, all of them associate files with applications, all of them have lots of dialog boxes with buttons and little rectangles to type into, etc. And all of them run roughly comparable sets of applications. What more do you want?
Kernel Programming Mach Overview
I'd switch to OSX today if it ran on my hardware.
But, looking at laptop prices, the Macs aren't that much more expensive than Dell. However, looking at the specs you do get a lot less MHz for the same money. But are those figures really comparable (like...erm..comparing Apples to Oranges..whahaherm)??. Seriously; can anyone comment on the price/performance for Apple laptops vs (Dell,Compaq,Sony}?
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
For example, he may think he was editing /etc/hosts, but reality is somewhat different. He may copy files with "cp" and discover that some important bits didn't make it. Cocoa looks really nice and descriptive (and I really like Objective-C's named arguments and object model), but it also has its dark sides, for example in the areas of resource management, error handling, and type safety. He'll also discover that there are two different kinds of path names that don't quite mesh and three different sets of APIs, no single one of which gives him complete access to the machine. Carbon and Cocoa applications take different key bindings and handle text differently. A "ps" and some graphics benchmarks will show him that Aqua really has a very hefty footprint and isn't all that speedy. He'll also discover that the Apple file systems (HFS+, UFS) are not all that great compared to what he can get on Linux (ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, ...).
Don't get me wrong: I think it's great that Apple is using a UNIX base, and I think they have done a great job with migrating from OS 9 to OS X. There are some really great programs on that platform. And I think there are quite a number of things Linux would do very well to copy from OS X. But the suggestion that OS X is the heavenly integration of UNIX and GUI that the world has strikes me as not realistic.
You should check out fink.
Excerpt form the start page:
"The Fink project wants to bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to Darwin and Mac OS X. We modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X ("port" it) and make it available for download as a coherent distribution. Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management. You can choose whether you want to download precompiled binary packages or build everything from source."
I guess that`s pretty much what you are thinking about.
How many times does this have to be pointed out for OS X newbies? There is an open-source, community-driven package manager for the Unix underpinnings of OS X: It's called Fink. It's a port of the Debian tools, including apt. It currently has 1452 packages at various levels of stability, including many of the major applications required for development. It works very, very well, from a command line or via happy little Aqua app called Fink Commander. If you do use Fink, use the CVS tree: the maintainers are very conservative about adding apps to the stable tree, so most of the interesting action is in unstable.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Really? I just bought a Dell Latitude x200 last night... for my brother-in-law who isn't interested in "switching".
I did some shopping around first - and I just simply couldn't find a laptop as nice as the Mac titanium laptop... light, thin, big screen, built-in DVD. The Latitude was the closest I could find for the money.
But unlike the Mac, the Latitude has no built-in-DVD and a much smaller display. The performance of the Dell by no mean screams over the Mac (The Dell is a 800mhz P3... not even a P4).
And the price of the Dell with the DVD/CD-RW and the other basics isn't any better than the Mac price. Really.
For a laptop, I like thin & light... I don't want to lug around a big thing on business trips. Unless the market changes radically in the next month, my next laptop purchase will be a Mac. For the first time.
But the Mac... Mail.app filters my junk mail very efficiently. Chimera does tabbed browsing almost as well as Galeon. iCal is young but already extremely cool, letting me keep track of my schedule and tasks. Terminal.app's ANSI colors suck, but it's a good emulator otherwise. Oh, and Fink and XDarwin let me sudo apt-get install gimp and almost anything else I could do on my Linux box.
Oh, yeah, and I can run Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
I've switched, and I can't see going back.
A few of my co-workers are getting these machines, but I would prefer to stick with Linux, partly because I don't want to learn the quirks of yet another operating system.
But another big part is (*gasp*)... freedom. I don't get the source to everything in OS X. I can't easily modify anything, recompile, and reap the benefits of my change. I'm not a free software bigot that feels free software is the best thing in every situation (I do, after all, work on proprietary software every day).
Plus, what do I use each day? fvwm. xterm. Emacs. Mozilla. gcc. Perl. Ruby. That's really it. OS X really doesn't give me anything over what I currently use, the hardware is closed, the OS is closed, and it's expensive.
I also don't care about pretty. Come look at my desktop if you don't believe me. My Emacs doesn't even have scrollbars or the cute little toolbar. I got rid of that stuff ages ago in the name of screen real estate.
OS X doesn't make sense for me, but I can understand why it makes sense for others since it probably runs the apps they want to run.
But for me, I'll stick with Linux. But when they bring that little fishtank screen saver up on their OS X machine, I'll agree that it looks pretty damn sweet!
- Slashdot editors switch to Mac laptops
- They discover OmniWeb, which underlines misspelled words in textarea boxes as you type
- Slashdot readers suddenly begin complaining that the editors have "forgotten" how to spell "properly."
Seriously, I would wait on buying a TiBook if I were you. Apple crippled the processors in every model after the first generation. An 800-mhz TiBook with 32 megs of video ram may outperform a 500-mhz TiBook (8 megs vram, which makes a difference OS X) on most tasks, but the 500-mhz TiBook from January 2001 still encodes MP3s faster than the latest models. There's something fundamentally wrong with that. I would wait until Apple can produce a laptop that soundly outperforms its Jan 2001 model.Regarding wireless cards:
The Apple Airport Card has an antenna which runs within the inside of the laptop. In the iBook, the antenna runs up the sides of the screen frame. In the Powerbook, it runs along both sides of the palmrest. In the Thinkpad, there is no internal antenna- the card simply juts out the side.
Antennae make a difference, and Apple engineering did pretty nicely when they incorporated the antennna in the whole product line, desktops included. It's hard to fault this good technical design advantage.
Regarding DVD Playback:
For a long time now, on Windows and on Mac, people have defeated region limitations, either by flashing the DVD drive with new firmware, or by using other software. It's pretty common. Of course, commerical skipping is still an annoyance.
Sticking a frozen dinner in the microwave is easier than cooking dinner yourself, too. I can cook, so my food tastes better.
It's difficult to understand the emphasis on packaging systems. It seems, sadly, to be the most important factor differentiating one Linux distribution from another. Aren't they just necessary bandages to patch over the lack of adherence to standard libraries and file systems?
I've used RPM's, apt-get, Slack's tgz's, Gentoo's portage and FreeBSD's ports. They all are great if you work only within the packaging system. Start installing outside the packaging system and, sooner or later, something will break.
Happened to me every time. You can try to prevent this by tracking and recording where all the files go, plus their versioning info. But, if you're going to do that, why bother with a packaging system?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I've had a mixed bag of an experience. I'm very used to right clicking items for properties/context-sensitive menus, and the "click-and-hold" drives me insane. That few tenths of a second is just enough to interrupt the flow of using the trackpad, and I use a two button mouse whenever possible.
The click-and-hold also makes the dock less than useful for navigating around the apps if you have multiple windows/instances open and are looking for the familiar "taskbar" approach. I also find the jumping icons instead of a simple flash to grab my attention annoying. I have a couple other beefs about the interface, but nothing I can't deal with. Navigation between apps is icky, and that was my point.
I use the powerbook (funny how we don't call it a laptop) in a variety of places and have a serious beef with the "Location" feature for networking. When I switch to a known area, and switch the location, it seems if chance plays heavily into whether the net connections are used. It's very unreliable, but I seem to have found the majiic sequence necessary to get it to work most times.
That all said, I'm pretty happy with the rest. The apps that make up OSX, such as the DVD player, iPhoto, and iTunes are well thought out, and I wish they were available for other platforms. Third party software has helped with things like PocketPC support, and apps I'm used to with other OS's.
I use Office X (thank you Microsoft, for not allowing me to upgrade cross-platform and fucking me for some more $, thank god for tax writeoffs) so I can use Entourage, Word, Excel, and PPoint as office apps, and I prefer the OSX versions to their windoze counterparts. This lets me fit into the environments of most of the companies I work with. StarOffice/OpenOffice is ok, but I prefer to use the Office Suite when I can.
Finally, I have mysql, apache, and a bunch of mods installed so I can do app development/screwing around without the need for another box or rebooting/using an emulator when I want to use. It's also really nice to have a console/term window on an environment designed for use by regular folk.
The hardware itself is mostly great - beautiful screen, three types of networking, firewire, usb, and the combo drive, and battery life kicks ass. The gripes I have are its size and weight (it's a little too big for my tastes, I was spoiled with the X21), the trackpad could have been designed a little better and including scrolling capabilities would have been nice, and a hd light would have been welcome as I sit and wait for stuff to launch, wondering if it's doing anything.
All in all, I'm happy with the switch to the Ti as my laptop. I don't think I'd use it to replace my desktop, as I still can't play CS and a bunch of other games on it, but for a all-in-one travelling companion it's very hard to beat. I'm happy I made the switch.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
then why can't I put OSX on my IBM clone
Well, you can and you can't. OS X is coded and compiled for PPC processors not x86, so going out and buying a copy and installing it on your x86 PC is out. You can however get the underlying OS Darwin, it is free for the download, there is even a port to x86. The problem here is, first Darwin does not come with the pretty OS X GUI, it is command prompt only, you must get the Darwin port of X Windows for a GUI and second, the x86 port of Darwin supports a very narrow band of hardware. If you are considering this, goto the Darwin site and read the hardware compatibility list and build your system accordingly, otherwise you will be very disappointed.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
You'd be surprised. The 12.1" iBook is a pretty good bargain for a small laptop. I'll use Canadian prices for comparison, since that's what I have to deal with myself.
Most Windows-based slim laptops are actually quite expensive. The closest I've really found to the iBook is Sony's Superslim Pro, which is a full $300 more than the iBook 700 - and it's debatable whether the Sony is faster. CPU arguments aside, the iBook has dedicated video (a Mobility Radeon); the Sony has a chipset with shared video memory, and I can tell you from personal experience that nothing kills video performance like needing to use system memory.
What's more amusing is that the Toshiba Portegé 2000 is actually a popular laptop, but it's $900 more than the same iBook 700... and it's not only slower, it doesn't even come with a docking station. You're paying for chic alone, and really the iBook does a better job of that.
I won't deny that Apple is expensive, but they can make a convincing case in the portable world. I'm looking to replace my clunky Toshiba with an iBook, but heck - if I weren't in university, I'd probably be considering a Powerbook!
There were other reasons why I wasn't ultimately satisified with OSX (pre Jaguar...I never did see Jaguar), so see my journal on the subject for more info.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I had OSX on my G3 300 Powerbook. I sold it to someone in California. Then I sold one of my mountain bikes. It looks like I'm selling my PC as well. Why?
:)
So I can buy me a sweet Dual-G4. Sure, I'll only be able to buy the bottom model, but dual 867s is more than enough for me to do my daily grind on. OSX on the Powerbook sold me. I loved it so much, but I'll admit that it was occasionally a bit laggy. It was excellent for being a remote terminal when I had headless machines around me. I only half switched before, because of the cost. I've decided now that I'm sick of fighting with my machines. The cost of my time is now more than worth the money I'm going to spend. I'm sick of trying to get things like Gnome 2.x to compile (took me a week because of some Xft problems) and then discovering that Gnome 2.x is possibly the worst user interface that I've ever had to beat my head against. I know where I stand with OSX. I start up the computer, it works. I do my work on it, that's all. Add Space.app into the mix, and I've got multiple desktops, and the world is a glorious place.
So Hi. I'm Jan Sacharuk, and I'm a games programmer.
You're obviously reading much more into my earlier reply than I actually wrote.
Moshe Bar isn't a Mac user- he's a linux user. Accusing him of being as stupid as a Mac user is inaccurate and ill-deserved. He chose his words poorly, and you, like many others, understood that he ties wireless performance to the OS.
For a Mac, that's almost the case, since it's pretty rare that you would use anything other than the Apple Airport card for wireless (although for those of us with older powerbooks, or other needs, it is possible to use proxim, cisco, and lucent cards. Users of those cards are not in the majority.)
Moshe Bar's primary language isn't English. You'll forgive this apparent error. I'm pretty certain that he was simply citing the experience and obsvering that the kid with the iBook got signal where he didn't- and that he knows as well as anyone that OS isn't a factor.
As for Fair Use, and Apple, I never claimed that Apple protects fair use. You assigned that to me.
I only suggested that there are ways in which you can do what you want, and Apple won't prevent you from doing them. They don't assist you, but they stay out of your way, which is worth remembering.
Apple protects itself from liability. Shipping a DVD Player application without region management and anti-commercial-skipping would be, as a business decision, suicidal- like asking the MPAA to joust, when you're armed with a dead flower instead of a metal spear.
Haven't they got enough problems, having shipped the iPod, which the RIAA would readily like to outlaw?
Hi
I bought an iBook about two months ago, and below is a review of the machine. I jusst bashed out the review, so my apologies for the poor structure etc.
I am a PhD student, and I wanted a laptop for the following reasons:
1. To write papers and my thesis on, using LaTeX.
2. To watch movies on if I'm travelling to/from meetings and conferences.
3. To surf the web and send/receive email.
4. To edit code. I didn't want to actually run my code on the laptop, becasuse my experiments often take several days to complete on a high-end PC.
5. To 'log in' to my work machine to check if code is running, channge settings, get a file etc. My work machine runs Windows (sigh), so the laptop has to talk to that remotely.
6. To use on the uni's network, and use my 'home' account (in this case a Windows account).
7. To drive projectors, for presentations at conferences.
I'll focus my review on the above, but first I'll talk about the reasons I picked an Apple.
Laptops are expensive. But in my line of work (OK, I'm a student, stop that sniggering at the back...), I need a computer that I can use when I'm running an experiment on my main machine. It helps to be able to write code/papers on a laptop, so I can sit in front of the TV, or at my girlfriend's place, or in a coffee house.
I originally wanted a Dell, so I could install Linux, but there are problems with this:
1. Linux isn't supported by Dell.
2. Drivers for laptops often come out ages after a new laptop has rolled off production (if at all), and their quality varies. So there's no guarantee that Linux will work and be stable on a laptop. I accept that desktops are another matter -- I have RH7.3 on my home Dell desktop running fine.
3. Dell's aren't cheap.
4. I don't really want to have to pay for a MS OS that comes pre-installed if I'll never use it.
A friend told me about a TiBook that his work colleague has and how wonderful it was. I started checking out the apple.com website, and became quite interested in OS X. Then I saw a colleague's iBook. That convinced me. I could do everything i wanted on the iBook. I bought one.
Firstly, the price of the iBook was cheaper than a similarly-specced machine. It's a 700MHz G3 (which I reckon gives similar performance to a 1GHz Celeron) with 256MB of RAM and a 16MB 3D graphics card. The screen is a 12" 1024x768 TFT LCD. I opted for the CD-ROM version, rather than the DVD-CD/RW combo option because of price (I already have a CD/RW on myn desktop, and I'll discuss the DVD/movie watching later). Apple give an educational discount, which means that the machine cost me just under £1200 (UK Pounds) and that included a 3 year warranty (also discounted). At the time, I could have bought an entry-level Dell laptop, without the 3 year warranty, with a similar spec (but perhaps a DVD drive, and definitely a larger screen (well, in terms of inches, the number of pixels would be the same)).
The first iBook arrived dead. It didn't work. The Apple helpline people were friendly and efficient, and ordered me a replacement, which arrived just over a week later. Although this was a bummer, the Apple helpline people sounded amazed that this happened, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that my experience was unusual.
When the second one arrived, I was amazed. The design is flawless. There isn't a laptop (or desktop) in the PC world that is as well designed as the iBook. The screen, although seemingly small, is wonderful. It allows the laptop to be small, but you still get the full 1024x768 pixels at 24bit colour -- because the pixels are smaller than those on a 14" screen at the same 1024x768, text and graphics look much nicer -- I have to look very closely to see the pixels. The screen has a well-designed hinge that has the effect of taking the screen away from you when you open the computer -- not like PC laptops that just have a simple hinge. The ports are nicely arranged. The speakers are adequate. The machine has no fan to cool the processor (Apple select chips properly, instead of doing an intel and designing chips that they can write a big number next to and rely on people's stupidity to buy the 1GHz PC because it will be "faster" than the 700MHz Apple [I used to be a chip designer, so I know what the right thing to do is]).
The battery life is amazing (I keep using that word). I can work for 4 hours on a single charge, listening to music (though not spinning the CD). Sometimes for 5 hours.
When you close the lid, the machine sleeps. When you open it it wakes up, often before the lid is fully open. Because of this (and the excellent reliability of the OS), I have shut down/rebooted less than 10 times since getting the machine. uptime tells me that the machine has been up for 6 days (I have never had the whole OS crash on me). Show me a PC laptop that has been up for 6 days! When the iBook sleeps, a white light snoozes from inside the machine, gently pulsating -- this shows evidence of good design: PC laptops use horrid LEDs chopped into their sides without any thought. This excellent level of design is carried throughout the iBook.
But the real test is whether I can do all those things I wanted to.
1. To write papers and my thesis on, using LaTeX.
Yes. There is a free LaTeX distribution called TeXShop which is excellent.
2. To watch movies on if I'm travelling to/from meetings and conferences.
Obviously the DVD-equipped models allow movie-watching, but what about my CD only iBook? Well, there is a free movie player called VLC that will play MPEG files, DVDs and VCDs. I can easily rip a DVD to VCD, and then play that.
[Note: I am only ripping DVDs that I own a copy of -- I do not advocate breaking copyright laws. Those in the US may be limited by the DMCA (write to your representatives, people!).]
3. To surf the web and send/receive email.
Yep. The bundled IE5 is a bit crap, but Opera just released their beta of Opera6 for Mac OSX. I am currently using Mozilla for both web (with their mouse gestures plugin!) and mail. It's fine.
4. To edit code. I didn't want to actually run my code on the laptop, becasuse my experiments often take several days to complete on a high-end PC.
A little trickier. I have yet to find a really good text editor under OS X that I like. I use jEdit on the PC (an excellent Java-based text editor), but even though this is available for OS X (and even gets the OS X widgets), it is a little slow. I guess this is a JVM efficiency thing.
I have used Fink to download XEmacs and NEdit for X windows (OS X ships with an X server, and OroborosX is a Window manager that gives your X windows the look and feel of OS X), but I don't really like these. NEdit isn't as powerful as jEdit, and XEmacs is just weird, as a former PC user, but maybe I'll keep trying.
On the code front, OS X ships with Project Builder, an excellent IDE for application development on the Mac, which IMHO is better than MS Visual Studio. Since moving onto the Mac I've gotten back into C/C++ development. It should be easy to write UNIX apps that can then be compiled on Linux and other Unices.
Because OS X is UNIX, there are loads of apps and libraries out there just waiting to go.
5. To 'log in' to my work machine to check if code is running, channge settings, get a file etc. My work machine runs Windows (sigh), so the laptop has to talk to that remotely.
I used to use the Remote Desktop feature of MS's Netmeeting. Now I use VNC and the OS X VNCThing client to access my Windows desktop.
6. To use on the uni's network, and use my 'home' account (in this case a Windows account).
Yep. Easy. I can't print over the uni's network yet, but then I haven't really tried very hard. I understand printing in OS X 10.2 Jaguar is better. I could probably easily print from the command line, but this is a bit 1970's for me.
7. To drive projectors, for presentations at conferences.
Yep. Easy. Plug and go.
There's only the text editor that's the sticking point, but maybe someone will reply to this post with a suggestion.
Other nice things about OS X:
* Aqua. Lovely. It looks wonderful -- the anti-aliasing is much better than in WinXP. Although KDE and GNOME are fine projects, Aqua is much better IMHO.
* Being able to use one spell-checker in every OS X app.
* Built-in speech synthesis -- I can get the iBook to read me stuff on the web as I work on something else.
* Speech recognition -- I can tell the Chess game where I want to move my pieces!
* More than the one button mouse. I sometimes use an optical MS Wheelmouse, and it works fine without needing to install drivers. Left-mouse, right-mouse, and the wheel all work fine (even in many X-windows apps).
* "It just works". It's one of apple's mottos, and they're right. It does just work.
In conclusion, the iBook is the best computer I ever used (and I've used most major computers from the days of 8-bit processors and most major OSs). If Apple keep up their good work, I will never go back to a PC again.
"The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race"---Hans Blix
I am a UNIX guy, that has switched.
I have X11 from the same code base as linux, check out XonX.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx
If you are familur with the debian tools, you should check out fink, I use it everyday. 1400+ packages and growing.
http://fink.sourceforge.net/index.php
The biggest difference between OSX and Linux and the real deal winner for me, No dual booting anymore I have it all in one OS. I can run commercial applications(M$ office, Lotus Notes etc..) and Fonts look really nice (better than Windows and X11R6) inside of aqua as well as having several beutiful fonts provided by Apple, this is something Microsoft has never really cared about.
I think it is the perfect combination and I am becoming on of those Mac freaks i used to not understand.
Did i mention no installation conflicts with hardware!!! I love Debian but this is the hardest part of installing Debian (how do you get that sound blaster working with OSS again......)
Just my $0.02 but I say go for it.
Was a windows user (had tried linux (RH|Mandrake) on a number of occasions but it didn't stick) for about 8 years or so I guess.
:)
...) is often hidden and sometimes not standard (Preferences in apps: cmd + y or cmd + ; or nothing)
Switched in May 2002 to a 667 DVI G4 PowerBook w 512MB RAM and 60GB HDD. I added an airport afterwards. Bought Jagwire.
Good Stuff:
*nix goodness - I'm studying comp sci externally (work full time) and I need a *nix machine for that, I also need a box that I can do the usual PC stuff with (word docs, spreadsheets, etc), the PB is that.
No, really, it just works. The other thing it does is just not work! It basically ignores stuff that it doesn't understand. For example I installed a 3COM nic PC Card in the card slot. It tells you that it's there but there are no drivers for it so you can't do anything with it. I would love to get a *nix driver for an extra NIC if there aren't osx drivers but I'm using multi-homing for now. Point is that it doesn't crash or complain.
MS software - Like it or loath it, MS software is a requirement for some people, I am one of them (yes that's right I don't want to worry about compatibility with open office or apple works).
Stress level - gone way down when using my PB as opposed to my PC at home or work. (I've sold my PC)
Bad Stuff:
One button - personal preference of course but the one button just annoys the hell out of me.
No Drivers - now that is annoying, I want to add an IR port (BT just works thank goodness) but I can't find anywhere that has drivers for any IR on OSX.
Waiting - waiting for new versions of stuff that has been out for a while is just annoying.
UI - some of the GUI is a bit evil (those damn window buttons are too small for my liking). Button combinations for different stuff (shift + opt + cmd +
Mhz - 667 G4 != 2.0Ghz P4m, no marketing (lies perhaps) please, it's just plain wrong. It might be like a 1Ghz PIII if I'm lucky, perhaps a little more but that's it.
Summary:
Overall the performance is excellent. I only have the 667 but it really does run fast enough at the moment. Of course of if you put me infront of a quad 3Ghz+ Hammer I'm sure I'd notice, but I don't care. Battery life rocks, Try playing a whole DVD and then still having 30% battery life (I had 52% left once but I'm ignoring the outlyers). The TiBook is an excellent machine, if you can spare the $$$(^3) of course.
Something intruiging...
I'm happily typing this on a new white iBook 700MHz, rather decked out with a 40GB harddrive and 384MB of RAM. It may not have the raw horsepower of my roommate's Dell Inspiron 8200, but it also weighs a third of that behemoth, has more than twice the battery life, and most day-to-day operations feel faster, and the whole experience is more pleasurable. What do I mean by "pleasurable?" Example: as a longtime Linux user, I prayed for decent antialiasing system-wide (well, except for the terminal). OS X's PostScript-driven graphics layer makes everything look gorgeous, sharp and readable. It's like looking at a printed page, maybe better. And I can keep my terminal and anything under x-font size unantialiased if I so desire. That's pleasurable. It makes the machine I interact with hours a day enjoyable to use. Things just work, by and large. If I want to tinker, I can, but after years of spending hours and hours to get, well, ANYTHING working (somewhat self-inflicted: I used Gentoo, which I still love on the server side along with OpenBSD), it's amazing to just plug in devices and have them work the way they should. I forget who said it, but "Linux is only free if your time is worthless." With college, I don't have the time to tinker endlessly to get a printer working when I've got a paper due. There are tons of open source apps that have either been ported or are being natively developed for OS X. This is a slow transition for the Mac community, however, and you'll still find lots of shareware and commercial programs out there, particularly in the utilities/customization arena. But as someone who's learned to accept that commercial development works for some products and open source for others, I think the OS X community has the right idea in accepting and supporting both. I could go on for hours about how nice it is to have an OS that's actually integrated with its hardware, all the little aesthetic details and polish that Apple throws in, but most readers have heard it all before. I can safely say that as someone who's lived and breathed Linux (with forays into *BSD) for the last six years, I feel utterly satisfied with my switch, and I can reccomend it to anyone looking for a great desktop (or laptop) platform.
The security boffins at Qinetiq in the UK like Mac OS X a _lot_--it's locked down out of the box! Unlike certain unnamed vendors, Apple takes security seriously and is extremely responsive in releasing security updates.
I'm in my mid 30's, have/had MSCE (DOA now :), RHCE, and CNE certificates, multiple degrees in computer science, and just been buried in the computer business for 15+ years. Today I'm the MIS/IT MGR where I work (and partly own :). Anyway...
:). I'm using source code I wrote ten years ago and compiling it on OS X no problem. Take _any_ package out there (ssh, ftp, apache, whatever) and compile/use it -- or just look around ... it's probably already installed. For example the "df/du" commands that ship with OS X stink, go grab the fileutils package, compile, and install.
I remember drooling over the NeXT. Way outside my price range though, but enjoyed working on them with my job at the time at North-Western in IL.
Here at work we grew up on the network originally with DOS, then WFW3.11, 98se, and finally 2K. I skipped 95/98 due to HORRIBLE networking issues. At one point I took a Win98se box home to FORCE myself to completely learn the OS. What a joke! At least my Linux box was moved to the basement and not just re-formatted. The Windows box literally lasted almost 6 months and went flying out the Window one day with too much of the garbage.
I sat there dumb founded. What do I do NOW? I love Linux, but the pissing match between KDE/Gnome, their complex setup/usage and so forth have kept them off my corporate desktops. Did I want to go back to Linux as my main GUI? I did then.
This was six months before OS X beta when I started reading about it. I bought a Cube for myself three months later and used OS 9 for three months. OS 9 was OK, and boy did I have it decked out and functional very quickly.
OS X initially was just OK. Coming from a Unix background it was obviously the right choice. As of 10.2 it's game over (for us
It just works. And works. And works.
I personally now have a PowerMac (gave the Cube to my brother for home use), parents on the iMac, and a Powerbook for roaming (mostly the wife). Corporately I use a Mac daily (bouncing between all the OS' w/ VirtualPC -- 98se, 2K, XP, Linux, etc) as well as many Powerbooks in the field.
Interanally we're switching to Mac 100% as the existing equipment is depreciated (4 years) which is a concept Microsoft just does not "get". I thought it was simple accounting... I wish I had an extra 100K laying around so I could by a Mac for everybody _tdoay_.
I will say that my Mac users _never_ call me for help. I endlessly hear from Windows users though... Applications crashing (reboot needed), BSOD _still_ in 2K (though much more rare), configurations mysteriously getting munched, etc.
I have seen the Mac crash. Wow, the last time it happened (the 2nd time, 1st I saw was on BETA) the wife thought world war three had started by my reaction, "WHAT!? NO WAY! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!. I DON'T BELIEVE IT. IS THIS THE END?" -- as she came running upstairs to find out WHAT.
You'd think you didn't have $12 left after buying that damn computer...
I'm using a two button mouse on my Mac right now and it works just fine, out of the box. Hell, it's set up to a KVM switch.
I didn't have to install any software, it just worked.
The instant-on feature of the Powerbook makes it worth something like eight times the money, considering you can get an easy days use out of one battery by only opening the laptop when taking notes. Great for conferences...
I've seen too many people wandering around the office with laptops open because they don't want to wait through the wakeup cycle... if it even wakes!! And of course they are trailing cords because they have to have the thing plugged in most of the time to last a day.
Then you have the great network switching ability, moving between various wireless and wired networks can be done without thought.
Oh, and obligatory reference about the hardware being better quality as others have noted.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can get the source for the basic OS, just not Auqa or Quartz. If you want to alter the Mach or BSD layer, go ahead.
What do I use every day? Mostly Emacs and Mozilla and Java tools. OS X does give me something using those, in that I don't spend as much time configuring or fiddling with the system and therefore get to do more things with Mozilla, Emacs, etc.
I am a great believer in the GPL, and frankly I think OS X is the best possible combination of the Open and Closed worlds right now. When you want things to work they do, and if you want to use Open alternatives they are there and you can work on them. You could run only X programs and ignore Quartz if you liked.
I don't care about pretty but I do care about efficiency, and OS X is the most efficient system I've found. That's why I use OS X.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I also don't work for Sun, I don't work for RedHat either, but do work for Debian. My choice of helping out with linux works for everybody though.
Well, with 10.1.5 I would have probably agreed with you. I bought the iBook based on my desire to try OS X, and really had started to feel a significant amount of buyer's remorse. The video card in my model doesn't support Quartz Extreme, it only has 64M of RAM base (upgraded to 192 with a luckily compatible cheap stick of 128M) and it's the G3 500 Mhz model with none of the extras.
Prior to acquiring Jaguar, I was seriously considering selling the iBook. It just wasn't -fun- or even pleasant to use under a lot of circumstances. It was sluggish, and I knew it was a model at the end of a generation of hardware. Now that I have Jaguar installed, it has a whole new lease on life. The video responsiveness is much improved, in just about all circumstances. It's still no GeForce, but for an ATI Rage, it's clunking along decently.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Keep in mind i wrote all that quite a few months ago. Now with Jaguar, things are even smoother, faster, just works even better.
In more recent developments ...
Where i work, a fairly big corporation, engineers are switching in strides to OS X laptops, usually TiBooks . Even the hard-core "Mac dissers" just can't get over how cool those machines are. I am one of the early adopters here with my ol' 400mhz and only 10GIG hard drive, they're all using later models with faster CPU and brigher screen.
It is simply starting to make less and less sense for professional developers and engineers to be running windows versus OS X, unless you are developing windows software. OS X is just too powerful.
My gf just bought a 700mhz iBook. She loves it. She gets around computers fine but had *never* used a mac before. She adapted just fine: M$ Office for OS X, browsing, emailing. I got her one of those USB microdrives so she brings Office files home from her work desktop PC. She's already playing with iTunes and iPhoto.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Some people like the joy of tinkering with recipes and making their own food. Other people just want to eat something delicious and be waited on, and get on with more important things in life.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
My account of a Linux geek turned Mac
I loved Linux, BSD, Sun, etc. anything with a propper Bash shell. I would hiss at others as they entered the room with there new Windows ME based hardware. I would scower at others with their up-side-down Apple logos and their shinny happy faces. *shudder*
With Mac OS X all of that has changed. Now I'm one of those shiny happy faces. So why did I switch. Simple: "Based on Unix." Yup That's why. When I saw that a nice and functinoal interface that didn't get in the way ontop of a Unix environment I was almost sold.
HardwareThe hardware is very superior. First thing I noticed is compatability. Not once has my machine fretted about hardware. It has been very polite by either supporting my hardware 100% or nicely letting me know that it doesn't know how to talk to the device.
My TiBook came with two USB ports, A Firewire port, A 1000 Kb/s RJ-45 Jack, A monitor port, S-Video port (with Composite Addapter), 56 Kb/s V.90 Modem and a PCMCIA slot. Eveyone I talk to is amased by the slot loading DVD drive.
The keyboard is nice. It's slim and black with white letters. That in my book is cool. However the keys are weak and shallow. And the Control key is in the upmost worst spot it could be. So thanks to the ease of use of USB I use my "Happy Hacker Keyboard" Plus a Logiteck Optical mouse (3 button w/ wheel).
As for power my machine really kicks but. I got the lower end model at 550 MHz G4 and it's fast. Most of the time I have multiple apps running. Photoshop, Word, iTunes, Mozilla, Terminal (w/ multiple ssh and updatedb at 0000 midnight) and my machine doesn't break a sweat (It's got a fan too)
By far my favorite feature is "sleep mode" all I do is close the lid and the machine suspends itself and a spiffy glowing pulsing LED turns on lighting up the room like a night light. It's that simple. I even had the battery drop out and when I quickly returned it in a panic I found everything was still ok. It is roubust and durable. And it's mad from titanium.
The only two draw backs I saw is the pain on the edges chip off needing a paint job at somepoint. And the price. Apple hardware although superiour is more expensive.
InterfaceSo far OS X is the best desktop for a Unix environment I have ever seen. It out trumps GNOME and KDE and tottaly obliverates Windows. I may loose some geek factor in favor of ease of use but to be honest Terminal is for those geek things. It it intuitive enough for a kid yet powerfull enough for a serious gamer. Allot is already customizable by default. The look and feel can be customized by a third party app. A few of the Enightenmant features I miss. Mainly the middle mouse button paste. The virtual destop is missing too. And most missed is the sloppy focus. But aside for that the interface is easy and doesn't get in my way Like so many others.
In my eyes OS X compares as if it were just another windows manager on a really well made BSD Distribution. If it ever came to Intel it would rule the world but the hardware is why you should by a Mac. In fact you should get it because it will remove some of the extra thought you use to use the machine and put it to better use. Really the interface does a descent job of freeing you from thinking about it as much. But I'll save more propaganda for more qualified reviewers than myself.
pros- Easy to use
- fast
- dependable
- perfect multitasking
- compatability w/ windows networks, Unix, And good hardware compatability.
- Looks uber slick
- This is the Docker pants amung computers
consPlease forgive the poor quality of this review it's my first time. Questions/comments can be addressed in emails or slashdot reply posts.
I am proud to say my Mac is 100% OS X. I have deleted my Virtual PC's so no more windows and Classic (OS 9) has been remove. Fink [sf.net] saved my sanity.
> SELECT * FROM brain_cells WHERE synaptic_rate > 0
0 row returned
Basically, there are three levels of Mac OS now:
/etc and /bin, there are traditional UNIX tools, there's the file system, the Hardware Abstraction Layer and all this stuff is open so that it can be scoured for bugs, and so that this vital software layer that is the spine of the computer can't be held hostage by a single party, or be made deliberately incompatible with other technologies, or run tasks without the user's knowledge. Darwin is also progressive and modern, with XML configuration files, a simplified directory structure, and ZeroConf networking that makes small, industry-standard IP networks configure themselves.
... they are picking the single icon called 'Mozilla' that is in their Applications folder. Whole layers of complexity are just not there to trouble you or to decay as the software installation matures. The Mozilla icon is actually a folder with all of the files and images and whatnot that Mozilla requires, and all you have to do to 'install' it is to place it in the Applications folder, provided your user account has the right to do so. Most apps just come as a single icon on a CD or a Disk Copy image (Macs mount disc images as if they were really on media ... basically, you open a disk image and it is made into a RAM disk and mounted).
Darwin - Core OS
This is the software layer between the hardware and the rest of the software on the computer. Darwin runs on Macs and on some Intel systems. It's not some loose pieces of Mac OS X that fell under a particular license; it's the core OS, the really technical part of the operating system that you interact with from the command line. This would have been the whole operating system before graphical interfaces, but now it's the geeky filling inside the candy coating of Mac OS X. Transparency is really valued in this core part of the Mac OS, and ease-of-use often takes a back seat to maintaining traditions and functionalities that have been proven to work. So, in Darwin, there are folders with names like
Mac OS X - Professional and Consumer Desktop
Darwin for PowerPC plus closed-source software from Apple and other vendors, including a great graphical user interface. The emphasis in this version of Mac OS is ease-of-use, simplicity, and good looks. Huge features of the machine may only be exposed to the GUI in one little easy-to-use widget, enabling the user to understand and harness a lot of technology quickly and easily. Huge simplifications benefit the non-technical or new user: an application and all of its files go in a single folder that is presented to the user as a single icon that they can run, move, rename, or peek inside with the use of a contextual menu. There are hundreds of features, but they're presented to the user in such a simplified and friendly way that you can take it all in very quickly. I just read the instructions today for making Mozilla your default browser, and on Mac OS X it is "Go Apple Menu > System Preferences > Internet > Web > Default Browser, press Choose and select the Mozilla icon in your Applications folder." Figure out what it is on your platform and compare. Note that the user is not picking the browser off a list, whether stock or generated
Mac OS X Server - Media, Web, Workgroup Servers
Mac OS X optimized for server use instead of desktop use. It's particularly suited to serving QuickTime, MPEG-4, and other streaming media. Apache is the Web server, and all the UNIX stuff you'd want is there or can easily be added. The GUI layer has a number of easy-to-use configuration and administration tools. Licensing compared to Windows is very cheap thanks to use of open source software, and there is also no client access license.
pine: people ignorant of newer emailers.