Slashdot Mirror


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."

1 of 659 comments (clear)

  1. 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