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Mac OS X 10.3 vs. Linux

M.Broil writes "This is a nice and fairly complete 'first look' at Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), but author Chris Gulker, who I happen to know was an Apple PR guy years ago, spends a lot of time comparing the Mac 'Panther' release to Linux, which he seems to use most of the time these days. He obviously likes a lot about Panther, but he doesn't think many Linux users will switch to it, and that a lot of 'Classic' Mac OS users may not want to move to it, either."

8 of 659 comments (clear)

  1. what about all 3 major OS's by narkotix · · Score: 4, Informative

    I came across this article a while ago
    its not up to date but its a pretty good comparison

    --
    We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
    1. Re:what about all 3 major OS's by rufo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, Panther has built in DVD+RW support. So it now supports it at the system level also, and many of Apple's DVD burners shipped in the past year or two have been dual mode DVD+/-RW drives.

      Just thought I would point it out. :)

      --
      My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
  2. Mac User since 9 by bbtom · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've used Mac since 9, and upgraded to X at around 10.1. Before that I used 95, and attempted Linux (but my shitty old computer didn't want to play - damn CD-Rom drives of that time).

    I love 10.1 (and hopefully 10.3 once I can find 70 to drop for the students edition) - I can do 'boring' stuff on it, like run Word or Powerpoint. I can do arty / photographic things on there (Photoshop), and also run Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl to develop websites.

    In addition thanks to Fink I can use debian style package management tools with ease. Damn good OS.

    --
    catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
  3. Re:My opinion by hype7 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Also there are THOUSANDS more apps for linux, in Debian there are 13000(!) different packages, offering a ploethera of software, The new GIMP with a easy GUI and CMYK support, the Fast OpenOffice 1.1, the sleek totem movie player, plus much much more. Not to mention you can run more with Wine, or MacOnLinux if you use a Gx processor.


    It is usually possible to tell there's something wrong with a post when someone starts ranting and raving about GIMP. Yep, it's free, and no, it's no patch on Photoshop. In fact, GraphicConverter is in many ways better than GIMP.

    Great, you've got 13 000 packages (and I hope you've tried them all, too!) - but no Photoshop? How about, say, Final Cut Pro? Hmm, I feel like a game of Diablo. Oh, what's that? You can only run it in emulation?

    The point is, it comes down to quality, not quantity. Professionals use professional tools, not some I'm-a-CS-graduate-and-know-how-to-program-stuff. I'm willing to assert that a majority of the 13000 pkgs are under 500k. They're probably really neat, you'd probably download them and stick them in your utilities folder and they'd never get seen again.


    Mac OS X on the other hand has broken binary compatibillity,


    1. It has the honour of being the first OS to do this, I suppose?
    2. Can't make omelette without cracking a few eggs etc. GCC 3.3 broke shit. Get over it.

    fries Firewird disks

    well, it'd also be the first OS to have hardware incompatibilities with one single type of chip. FFS buddy, nobody has not killed something somewhere along the way.

    Costs $129 per point release, where linux is just a simple click of the "dist upgrade" button.

    Yeah, and with every point release adds more features than Linux gets in a full digit release.


    I am a apple zealot, but I don't like their OS,


    that, my dear friend, is a complete contradiction in terms. Apple's hardware is shiny, but their OS utterly dominates everything else out there in the desktop stakes. that's what makes apple zealots. It's also the reason so many people continually pine for OS X on Intel. The hardware's kinda cool, but the software kicks hind tit.


    their OS has gone down hill ever since Mac OS 8. I have ran Linux on them ever since, and after trying MacOS Jaguar and Panther, I'm glad to use Linux.


    "Down hill". Hmm, I can think of all the /. editors, John Carmack, Tim O'Reilly, that cool Indian dude with the number 3 supercomputer in the world, the ars technica editors... guess what? they all think you're wrong!

    Linux certainly has it's place in areas where organisations can develop a full system, but where you want to go out and buy something and have it all work, intuitively, and stable-y, and without spyware, and without MS groping your HD, you go buy a mac. Simple.

    -- james
  4. Recommend Mac's to novices? by malsdavis · · Score: 4, Informative

    I played around with a Mac OS X computer (one of the cool looking 'lamp' ones) in PCworld the other day and was extremely impressed.

    Personally I will stick to Linux because I like it but I think for a lot of novice computer uses currently using Windows because 'theres no other choice', I think should consider switching to Mac OS X.

    I had always sort of them as being extremely expensive but the ones in the shop (which sells both Windows and Mac computers) were about the same price as the Windows ones.

    The major problem is that as the sales guy explained to me, people don't realise a 800mhz G4 is far better than say a 1.5Ghz Pentium however when people see the 800mhz mac costing more than the 1.4 ghz PC they obviously go for the PC.

    Kind of reminds me of the old saying that if it wasn't for Apple's pathetic marketing practises they would be the dominant software company of today (whether that is good or bad I don't know).

    However, I think that for novice users who arn't quite ready to use Linux as a desktop (in its current form), then they should be recommended a Mac as they are atleast half way there and all competition is good for the computer industry, better than everyone dominated by one large monopoly anyway.

  5. Re:Switching... by SlamMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    But you can do all of that! Off the whole "OSX is BSD, but prettier" angle, all you have to do is load up ">console" mode at login, and fire up an XWindow manager. Poof, looks and works just like linux.

    Given, OSX's Aqua has cleaner better solutions than that, IE, GIMP runs fine under the X11, or you can pay $$25 and get an Aqua'd version from Open OS X. As for virtual vesktops, there's a host of 3rd party apps for it, but make sure you give Expose a try first. Greatest thing since slice bread.

    --
    Mod point free since 2001
  6. killing loginwindow usually resolves GUI problems by teridon · · Score: 4, Informative

    The majority of user-level processes are started by loginwindow or children of loginwindow, so killing it kills everything except the OS itself. This also returns you to the login window. In effect, this is the same as killing X11 when it locks up.

    --
    I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
  7. Re:MacOS by diamondsw · · Score: 4, Informative

    This won't get modded up, but I would disagree when it comes to OS X. With OS X, easy stuff is easy (via Aqua). Intermediate stuff can actually be hard, as you make the transition from Aqua to the UNIX layers. Integrating the two can be mildly tricky. However, once over that hump, I'd say that very integration makes impossible stuff possible (think integration of the command line and all it offers with GUI desktop programs and AppleScript). I'm too new to get modded. :)

    --
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