Bill Joy on Linux and Mac OS X

(rfm)2 writes "In a Wired interview, Bill Joy mentions he just got a new dual 2GHz G5 Power Mac with 8 GB RAM and half a terabyte of internal disk. He is clearly underwhelmed by Linux: 'Re-implementing what I designed in 1979 is not interesting to me personally. For kids who are 20 years younger than me, Linux is a great way to cut your teeth. It's a cultural phenomenon and a business phenomenon. Mac OS X is a rock-solid system that's beautifully designed. I much prefer it to Linux.'"

Comments

In a sense, he's right

[rkabir]

After all, Mac OS has got solid user oriented UI... We're working on that with linux - but we've got years to go before it's set for the home user -> linux trounces for business of course :-D oh, and fp!

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Confessed Geek]

If I hear one more person saying how wonderful the Mac UI is i'm going to puke. My wife picked up KDE's newest desktop faster than OSx's. MAC hasn't done any worthwhile innovation on the desktop since they ripped of Unix's X, (Which MS quickly ripped off for Win95). Flashy eye candy does not make for an intuitive effective User interface.

Have you tried the newest KDE3? Best UI i've ever used. Beats XP AND OS X. And I don't have to pay 100+ every few years to keep the "privelege" of using it.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

He prefers Mac OSX,

But he's using Linux to build his Meda Wall.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Media Access Control never innovates, it's not designed to. It's a hardware address for networking. Are you sure you aren't a moron? I'm not sure you aren't.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[mrpuffypants]

You don't have to keep paying just to be able to use it. Jaguar works great today just like it did the day before Panther came out. If you don't want to pay for an upgrade that improves the performance of your OS in remarkable ways then more power to you; Jag will keep working!

Re:In a sense, he's right

[somethinghollow]

If I hear one more person saying how wonderful the Mac UI is i'm going to puke.

The Mac UI is WONDERFUL! I make love to it, AND enjoy it!

Come on. Puke! Puke! Puke like you drank a liter of vodka.

Did it work?

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Spyky]

Well certainly you have your opinion, and others have theirs.

I have the exact opposite opinion, I've been using KDE (on SuSE) as my desktop for over 3 years now. I've been very pleased at the evolution of KDE over the years. But I have to be realistic, it is still not as clean or consistent as OS X, or to a lesser extend, Windows. There are many aspects of system maintenance and configuration that are still far behind on a linux machine. The user interface has much improved in recent years, however, I still find many of the standard K apps to be inferior to their counterparts on other operating systems.

I recently (2 months ago) purchased my first ever Mac. It is now my primary machine, and I'm not looking back at all. I use the machine for all of the tasks I used my linux machine for, and more.

I agree that eye candy does not a user interface make, however, consistency in UI elements, and accessibility of configuration options *does*. And in those areas, KDE and Linux in general still falls short.

For what it is worth, I do keep my Linux box around, although I use it much less frequently. I also was quick to delete all Microsoft software off of my new Mac (Internet Explorer and Outlook).

I'm not particularly upset at having to pay $100 a year for the privilege of using such a high-quality operating system. As a software developer, I believe in paying for software I use, so I pay for SuSE updates every year or so anyway.

-Spyky

Re:In a sense, he's right

[falcon5768]

my SE 30 runs OS 6 perfectly fine, dont know what all this fuss about upgrading every freaking year is about, You dont want to upgrade??? you dont HAVE to upgrade

Re:In a sense, he's right

[lullabud]

i have to say i feel the same way. i like the way KDE is coming along, but it really isn't as responsive, consistent, and clean looking (ie: tearing) as OS X. i still have a few linux boxes around, but only one of them still runs x. i think the alt-right-click and shift-right-click, and other tricks like that definitely give KDE some advantages over other UI's, but OS X is my fav, and it has only broken on me once, during a system update i might add... another thing i'd like to say about the user experience on the mac is that launchbar is INCREDIBLE, and is by far the best navigation tool i've ever used, hands down, no questions asked, period. if the old OSS guys made something like launchbar for KDE they'd be doing everybody a big favor, and getting innumerable brownie points.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

I also was quick to delete all Microsoft software off of my new Mac (Internet Explorer and Outlook).

Good man!

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Noodlenose]

Puke like you drank a liter of vodka.

Now, why would you do that?

Fecking children having access to dad's computer again. Sigh.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

"""
If I hear one more person saying how wonderful the Mac UI is i'm going to puke.
"""

Oh dear C.G., you have to remember that some people, and higher primates, never evolved beyond the single mouse button...

Maybe your fingers aren't fused together like a flipper, and you can actually use 3 buttons, but that's _just you_.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I'm sure every KDE developer follows a set of user interface guidelines, right?

Re:In a sense, he's right

[larry bagina]

MAC hasn't done any worthwhile innovation on the desktop since they ripped of Unix's X, (Which MS quickly ripped off for Win95).

Hint: The first Mac was released in 1984, which means the Mac OS GUI was in development before then. The Lisa (1983) had a mac-like GUI as well, and it's well established that they were based off the Xerox/PARC work. MIT athena wasn't started until 1984, and wasn't publicly available until 1986. X Windows itself didn't even feature a GUI - toolkits like Athena, Motif, GTK, QT, etc are needed if you want UI features like buttons, menus, etc.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[kolombangara]

Using and advocating KDE is like bragging that diving and swimming in the the 3 foot kiddie pool is better than the adult side of the pool-simply based on your lack of ability.

To say MAC ripped off X is the most ignorant statement I've heard. Oh, wait, calling OSX flashy eye candy beats that.

Tell us-exactly what part is the eye candy? What part is like X?

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you said MAC makes me think you have never used one.

What OS X did your wife use? Public Beta? There is reams of innovation for the desktop in Panther, Expose and the multiple users combined is all I need.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Um dude. Duh. they both have analog clocks, which they stole from windows. Geez.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple users? I take it you're referring to Panther's fast user switching, which is not innovation: even Apple admit that they got the idea from Windows XP, of all places, and Unix has had comparable functionality (su) for decades.

Expose is very good, though, I'll grant you that.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

"it is still not as clean or consistent as OS X, or to a lesser extend, Windows"

that wording sounds like you mean that windows has a cleaner more consistent UI than OS X. if so, that's a bold statement. most people don't feel that way. windows is still very rough around the edges, even in XP, IMHO.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[DavidRavenMoon]

MAC hasn't done any worthwhile innovation on the desktop since they ripped of Unix's X, (Which MS quickly ripped off for Win95)

First off, it's Apple, not MAC, second it's "Mac" not "MAC" and thirdly, Win95's GUI is a rip off of NeXTSTEP. Plus I'm quite sure the Apple LISA and Mac were around before X Window

;)

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Next year, when a serious security flaw is found in Panther, but it corresponds to Apple's release of Ridgecat (or whatever) and Apple doesn't release a patch for Panther, you might be more interested in upgrading.

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Tuross]

Puke like you drank a liter of vodka.

Now, why would you do that?

What, drink vodka, or puke after only 1 litre?

Re:In a sense, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Now, why would you do that?

> What, drink vodka, or puke after only 1 litre?

Well, that guy in Russia died in that drinking contest last week, he only drank 1.5 liters.

It said that Russian vodka drinkers typically drink 15 liters per *year* and that's the highest level in the world, so you can see how bad a liter in an hour is.

But the article didn't say whether the guy puked before he died!

Missing the point ...

[OzPixel]

What he was doing in 1979 was academic work, and the source code was available. In the years since then, Unix has been locked away by various companies (e.g. SCO). Linux isn't about making the best user experience, it's about a return to making improvements based on freely shared knowledge.

David.

Re:Missing the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. BSD yesterday, BSD today, BSD tomorrow.

Re:Missing the point ...

[alangmead]

Until the the Net1 release, the Berkeley code was intermingled with Bell Labs code, considered a derived work, and needed the purchase of an AT&T license. Your "BSD yesterday" corresponds to about BSD 4.4-lite, from 1994.

See Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix From AT&T-Owned to Freely Redistributable for details.

In a way OzPixel's post got it wrong too. People in the academic environment got the freedoms of liberal distribution, but people outside of the university environment who were interested in learning about or using these technologies were out of luck. Linux expanded to a wider audience than BSD was capable of reaching.

Re:Missing the point ...

[Otter]

Linux isn't about making the best user experience, it's about a return to making improvements based on freely shared knowledge.

That's the point of GNU/Hurd certainly, but my impression is that most of the Linux world aspires to something beyond reimplementing late-70's Unix. Certainly most parts of the larger "Linux" world -- KDE, XFree, Apache, GNOME -- aspire to more than that. Certainly IBM isn't running ads saying "Linux -- it's just like before Bill joy wrote vi!"

The AC has a valid point, too.

Re:Missing the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux expanded to a wider audience than BSD was capable of reaching.

Yeah - and there went the neighbourhood...

Re:Missing the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's about a return to making improvements based on freely shared knowledge

It is? Oh! Then I got it all wrong.

I thought it was about slashdotters being able to grab an OS for free.

Re:Missing the point ...

[xtermin8]

You have a strange code-centric take on the history here. There basically were NO people, outside the university environment, who were interested in the technologies! Computing was still very exotic, and home and hobbyist computers were an entirely different animal from *nix machines. The power and price of hardware available to the public was much more important than any licencing schemes, which a lot of the "hackers" of the time would ignore anyways.

Re:Missing the point ...

[xtermin8]

I think the poster was talking in more abstract terms than you credit him for. A. Tennenbaum's minix would have made Linux redundent, except for the free source code and its philosophy. *nix OS technology was far behind the Lisp Machines and even Vax! A. Tennenbaum, who published 'minix' criticized linux very early on because of its "backward" monolithic kernel. Beyond networking and user interface enhancements, Linux really isn't really much other than a reimplementation of pre-PC Unix. Its just that Unix+ free source was that good!

Re:Missing the point ...

[The Herbaliser]

He says its an interesting business and cultural phenomenon, just not interesting technologically, so while you seem to think he's missing the point, you're actually pretty much agreeing with him.

Re:Missing the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No he is not missing the point. The core Unix systems have always been owned by companies, Bell, AT&T, Novell, SCO et al. Academic work created alternatives for sure, such as BSD (notice the 'B' for Berkley) and Linux, which Linus created for school. To summrize, Unix has always been locked away in a company.

Furthermore - Linux is not about sharing knowlegde - if is was it would be published in books and magazines and not contain source code but theories and thoughts about algorithms. Linux is about making great software, and part of great software is user experiance. Low learning curves, intuitive feel/design are part (but certianly not all) of making good software.

Re:Missing the point ...

[ozzmosis]

Actually he wasn't missing the point. He said

I don't need to see the source code. I just want a system that works.

and Mac works for him, linux works for other people.

Re:Missing the point ...

[alangmead]

You have a point that hardware advances have played a significant role. The idea of free redistribution of an operating system wasn't very useful until the user could afford a machine that ran a useful operating system. When a home user's machine only had a system monitor and program loader, the idea of an OS is unfathomable.

I don't think I buy the argument that no one outside of a university environment would have any interest in operating systems. Having a fascination to learn and explore is one thing. Having the kind of nature to flourish in a university environment is another. (Its great when the fall into place in the same person at the same time, real life can occasionally seem a bit messier.) I know people whose interest in computers started by getting the opportunity to use machines from their fathers work. I also know people who dated or avoided breaking up with their girlfriends just so they could get or maintain access to a University's or business' machines.

UI Guidelines for Linux?

[G4from128k]

What made Apple successful (if you can call it that) a strong set of UI guidelines that everyone is supposed to follow. Thus there are two key questions:
1. Does the Linux community have a set of UI guidelines?
2. Do Linux app developers follow them?

If the answer to either question is "no" then Linux is not likely to take over the desktops of average (= your grandma) users.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Arkham]

1. Does the Linux community have a set of UI guidelines?
2. Do Linux app developers follow them?


1) I suspect there are UI guidelines for KDE and Gnome, but not a unifying standard. The KDE/Gnome difference is part of the problem when you're looking for UI consistency.
2) No, but the same can be said of Windows developers. Microsoft has a standard, but people don't seem to follow it with any consistency.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows developers might not follow the UI guidelines as well as Apple developers but the MS folks sure have Linux beat.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[larry bagina]

Linux is a kernel. It doesn't have a UI. Maybe you're thinking of X-Windows, or KDE, or GNOME. None of those are linux-specific, however.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Llywelyn]

You do realize you just make linux that much less appealing to end users on desktop systems every time you and your kin start with this bullshit?

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

1 : yes , GNOME has the HIG : http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/

2 : Yes, Gnome developers and others not core applications are now in a very intensive use of the HIG
all the core gnome applications use it _now_ (gnome 2.2/2.4), all not core applications are in use or in implementation of them (gnumeric is now hig, gimp is in work, abiword is mostly hig, evolution 2 will be, gaim is,and so on )

openoffice 2 will use the gnome HIG

it's not joke. it's very now, in suse 8.x and upper, mandrake 9 and upper, Redhat 8/9 and fedora now. and other recent distribution (end 2002/ begin 2003, mostly)

of course, it has many works to do , many application to "hig", but it"s a really concern of many opensources developpers now. many speak about in their development, many "mature project" think about

in the same time, KDE is striving to inform developpers to follow some official guidelines to do "good" kde applications.

so, is linux is likely to take over the desktop of average (my grandma don't use computer at all and only watch tv for informations) users ? yes, because many developpers and industrial player WANT that , and there are still some Huge Work to do. but it grows well.

I recommand people to read some website like http://www.gnomedesktop.org or http://dot.kde.org to know that two community, and see (sometimes) presentation of new project or improvment of old project.

I also remind that two community can HELP MAC OSX
KDE applications could be use with GPL edition of QT for osx
and fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net) help to install some gtk/gnome applications which can useful and nice to use with osx X11.app.

linux is not about reinventing "unix"
it was done years ago

it's about a FREEDOM and OPEN COMPLETE OPERATING SYSTEM and DESKTOP Environment

linux is the KERNEL
GNU/Linux is the OS
GNOME is the desktop environment (for bsd, irix, aix, solaris and other)

all is VERY much more powerful and re-conceived from technologies of 1979.

to think it's now only re-inventation of the old good unix, is completely nonsense

or maybe, he has only a Vi and some shells on a poor lonely 2.2 linux kernel ?

very strange.

in the same time : OSX is a GOOD os. not so free, but very mature.

and HO, it mostly re-imaginated many unix concept too
the kernel is MACH, not so old good "unix"

the whole os fondation is BSD, so unix, but complete rewrite (and free of at&t copyright ) of the so good old unix
the userland high level API is COCOA, re-implementation of OPENSTEP, completely NOT unix, NOT xlib, NOT xtoolkit

the whole user interface is AQUA : a re-imagination of the nextstep interface.

in plain short : Mac OSX is _NOT_ the plain old unix no more than linux

in some part it's bsd, some mach, some gnu, some next, some new apple additions

to criticize linux to simply reinvent "unix" is also criticize OSX.

thanks to read me. I use daily linux, OSX and freebsd (at work and for my own need) , to chidlishly criticize one or all of them (with some dumb comment about the old unix) is a plain insult to ALL.

and please, I urge you to think about the fact a FREE(freedom) and the need to access sourcecode is also a goal which worth to write an OS. even if already good os are available.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[adamy]

No, he is right. Because KDE, Gnome, et Alles run on BSD and Solaris as well.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[WatertonMan]

The real issue isn't whether they have UI guidelines but how often people follow them. Within the Gnome developers and KDE developers there is a core that try to adhere to standards. I think that overall Gnome is doing a little better here. Rumors for their next edition suggest they've been paying a lot of attention to interface. For a long time it seemed like both Gnome and KDE were simply following the Microsoft path. By and large though I think the main Gnome apps and the main KDE apps follow standards. (We can debate the standards they chose to promote of course - just as we can for Apple and its views on brushed metal)

Overall I'd judge both Gnome and KDE as about as good as Apple in this regard, although I prefer the Apple way of doing things. I also think Apple clearly hides the guts of Unix better than either Gnome or KDE do. (Try setting up internet sharing for instance)

The problem is 3rd parties. We have the big apps like OpenOffice which in effect have their own windowing model and standards. There are a few other big apps like this. Then there are all the smaller applications. Few, in my opinion, pay much attention to UI. Part of this is the basic utilitarian and pragmatic view that Linux users have.

Compare this though to the Mac where both developers and users fixate on UI. They are vocal about their complaints and won't use applications with poor interfaces unless they have to. Further they truly dislike inconsistent interfaces. (I think that's what most of the griping about brushed metal reduces to)

Now if Linux had that mindset in their community I think Linux would be far better off. (Even including all the excesses it brings in the Mac community) The fact of the matter is that most significant users in Linux are willing to put up with a lot of crap most people won't. This is echoed in most of their tools which are anything but easy to configure - even for standard situations.

So there are two problems in my mind. A significant number of non-standard inconsistent UIs for applications and a general willingness to put up with this UI wise.

Apple's not perfect. We've all griped at various inconsistencies in Apple products. (The toolbar button in the Panther Finder along with selection color in the same are two great examples) But overall Apple hides the guts far better than any Linux distro I've used. It also requires the user to do far less. Heavens, even using package systems on Linux (or even Fink on OSX) are not trivial. Compare this to how most applications run on OSX. A lot less hassel.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not bullshit, just because you and your kin have a hard time with the concept and terminology. Perhaps if everyone stopped refering to the OS as Linux, perhaps this would be less confusing.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there are some who will say that the OS is just the kernel, so I wouldn't start that discussion.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[BoomerSooner]

Linux is also a name for a distribution. For example, Red Hat Linux (instead of Red Hat GNU Tools/Linux). Hence the RMS anger management courses now available at MIT.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[spitzak]

"guidelines" are not the reason OS/X works better. It works better because the graphics system itself is better.

Linux would be a lot better if all the morons who keep asking for "guidelines" and "unification" would stop doing the "fun" stuff and write code to draw anti-aliased shapes or write low-level interface code so that it is easy to create a window and draw into it and get events.

You can write a Mac program that violates every UI "guideline" you want and it will still be easier to write and easier to use.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize you just make linux that much less appealing to end users on desktop systems every time you and your kin start with this bullshit?

No, he's just whoring karma for another round of trolling. Think of it as part of the ecosystem.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Llywelyn]

It isn't a matter of right or wrong, it isn't a matter of being technically accurate, its a matter of not jumping on people for this kind of mistake, because they are going to make it, repeatedly.

You want to sell people on the idea of "Linux on a Desktop?"

Its less of a mouthful than "Linux with GNU tools, a UFS file system, the KDE window manager, and the bash shell running on a Desktop Computer"

Which is technically more accurate and more complete, covers the four principle components of a unix operating system, and is completely unintelligible to my mother.

If you want people to start adopting it, let them think of it as "linux on the desktop." When they say it needs a set of UI guidelines that people follow, just nod and recognize /what they are saying/ (which is dead on accurate in this case) rather than telling them that their terminology is wrong.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[smittyoneeach]

its a matter of not jumping on people for this kind of mistake, because they are going to make it, repeatedly.
True, true. It's called a learning curve.
On the one hand, things like mount, case-sensitivity, and granular permissions are very sensible.
Having cut teeth in a c:\DontCareAboutPermissions.exe world, these ideas took a little while to get the mind around.
I was trying to explain why I was downloading ACE to mom (who is really pretty technically competent), but the discussion couldn't get past the crayon level. The details Just Didn't Matter.
Linux for folks like mom comes in the form of Knoppix: 'Here, boot this'.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[cpeterso]

Instead of creating loose guidelines, they should architect their KDE/GNOME application frameworks so they enforce a consistent UI experience. The frameworks should make writing HIG-conforming apps easier than writing a non-HIG-conforming apps.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[LittleBigLui]

they should architect their KDE/GNOME application frameworks so they enforce a consistent UI experience.

Yeah, and they should enforce bug-free, secure coding, too. </rant>

Seriously, i doubt you can programmatically ENFORCE consistent UI experience except for the most trivial problems.

Gtk+ even failed to provide a decent file selector dialog until recently, so there's still room for improvement, but usability is influenced by a great many factors that cannot be controlled by the framework (menu layout, wording, metaphors, ...).

Of course, where it is POSSIBLE to do so, the "good" way of doing things should be the easiest, too, but sometimes you have to violate consistency with the rest of the system to achieve better usability for your application, so being able to use the "not-so-good" way (consistency-wise) is an absolute necessity.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[tres]

Linux is no longer just a kernel.

Linux is a movement.

No matter how inconvenient it may be, many have fought long and hard over the last few years to make Linux a movement.

So larry, although you may technically be correct, that's not what mom needs to hear. Userland might as well be Disneyland; Linux is the flagship of the movement. Bean counting doesn't help Linux.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

What made Apple successful (if you can call it that)

1. They're a Fortune 500 company.

2. They have five times the market share you have.

I'd call that successful. (And I'd call some Linux users pathetic.)

Where would Linux get UI guidelines anyway? They certainly can't hire the real badass designers. They have no money.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[jpop32]

2) No, but the same can be said of Windows developers. Microsoft has a standard, but people don't seem to follow it with any consistency.

I beg to differ. The only applications on Windows I fail to grasp at a glance are almost exclusively ported over from other (unix/linux) platforms. Windows application in general have a very consistent look and feel, mostly because there is only a single set of widgets (controls/dialogs/toolbars) used by all of them.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Noodlenose]

Yeah, and they should enforce bug-free, secure coding, too.

That's why I use OpenBSD .

Doesn't get much safer than that, maybe apart from an Abacus chained to your belt.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[LittleBigLui]

While i regard OpenBSD as a very secure system, i highly doubt that the OpenBSD software somehow enforces security and bug-freedom in programs written to run on it. (Thats what the sarcastic remark was all about, demanding that a software environment enforces something that it has no way of evaluating.)

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Mr. Show]

I beg to differ. The only applications on Windows I fail to grasp at a glance are almost exclusively ported over from other (unix/linux) platforms. Windows application in general have a very consistent look and feel, mostly because there is only a single set of widgets (controls/dialogs/toolbars) used by all of them.

The opposite is true. Microsoft's own tools don't help you follow those guidelines, which they do publish, and even Microsoft doesn't follow them. First, you can see that Microsoft distributes their own custom widget toolset for their major products, like Office and Visual Studio .NET. To easily see this, open a project in Visual Studio .NET on Windows XP with one of their colored themes enabled. Notice that the scrollbar in the Solution Explorer or Class View on the right is a standard, skinned scrollbar, while the one in the editor window is an old-style Windows 2000 grey scrollbar. Someone is using custom drawing code there. Notice that in Office XP and VS.NET, the toolbars and menus are different than the standard operating system ones other applications pick up by default. In Office 2003, the menus and toolbars have again been changed to an ugly pastel blue, which again is in contrast to the rest of the OS.

The Microsoft development tools don't help you to write conforming UIs for their own platform, as they should. Creating buttons in VB, for example, does not make them a standard size; you must drag a box on the screen to be whatever size you want. Spacing between controls is not enforced, or even suggested, in VS C++ or VB. This leads to the well-known problem of options screens that are tremendously cluttered, with spacing between controls limited, group boxes are singleton controls, unclear relationship between options, and so forth. Furthermore, Microsoft pursues its tabbed-based options screen in Office, options screens with categories in a left tree-view in VS, and third parties to fend for themselves. In addition, MS now puts options screens under Tools->Options, while some developers put it under View->Options or View->Preferences (which MS used to do), and Netscape still uses the ancient Edit->Preferences. MS does not give developers a hint by, say, creating a default Options menu item under the Tools menu when you create a desktop application.

Contrast this with the Mac platform. The free development tools they distribute set up applications by default with all the standard options in their standard places. Options screens are standard (with a small number of violators, notably Microsoft, here and there), toolbars are standard, etc. The Interface Builder tool, which is a WYSIWYG application for building application screens and dialog windows, similar to that embedded within VS, brings up guides to help with control placement and spacing, and the culture of the development community is very much focused on UI consistency and usability, which, despite what you say, is not true of other platforms, which includes Microsoft. The only thing MS developers seem to agree on is the necessity of overly-cluttered toolbars filled with indistinguishable tiny little 24x24 icons, the majority of which are never used by most users.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Example(s) of NOT following the Apple guidelines:

Haxial

I *like* the apps these guys make, but I hate the fact that they refuse to work within the HI/GUI guidelines. The apps by these people are:

1) Good, but
2) NOT intuitive in use
3) Inconsistant with the rest of my MacOS X GUI and
4) The fact that they REFUSE to make the Apps Mac-like on the Mac means I will never purchase their apps, even though I have reason to use them sometimes.

BTW, I love the terminal in OS X, I use it daily for a ton of tasks. I find the way that Apple has blended my un*x and MacOS experience seamlessly to be incredible. I now get more work done on my un*x box, than I ever did before, and additionally, I get to look at my pretty Mac instead of an old beige box.. :)

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still plenty of inconsistencies. Control-V for paste vs Control-insert. Or applications that provide their own widgets (iTunes, winamp, windowsmedia player 9, etc).

It is still far more consistent than X windows shit, though.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Alan Partridge]

You're right.

Consistently crap.

Still, at the rate at which OSX is adopting Windows' UI conventions and disfunctions, you won't be able to tell the difference in 2 years time anyway...

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Unregistered]

1. Does the Linux community have a set of UI guidelines?

Yes, lots. That's the problem. The KDE and GNOME projects have been working to have compatable UI guidelines, though so that should solve this problem.

2. Do Linux app developers follow them?

Sometimes. I'd say OSS follows a UI guideline as well as windows apps usually do.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[adamy]

While I try not to get drawn into Pedantic discussions like this one, some times I can't resist.

KDE and Gnome are not aprt of Linux. They run on top of Linux.

There are many, many, many ways to put together a Linux distribution.I think Beos is a good example of that. Use the Linux OS an build a better UI layer on top of it.

It would be more accurate to say that you are Running KDE or Gnome as your system if you are complaining about Desktop applications. Or the distributions. I tell people I run Debian. I've Run Redhat. Yes, Linux is the Marketing term for all this, but it is misleading.

One thing that RMS has right is that Linux is only one part of the whole equasion. While he may want the Moniker Gnu for the whole system, other people want their efforts acknowledged as well.

I guess the points I'm trying to make in this rant is that these systems are complex, heterogeneous systems put togehter to solve a particular set of Problems. OSX is a single, monolithic system. Of course things like UI standards are going to be easer to enforce in a single corporation.

To say Linux should have have better UI standards is a nonsequitor. It would make more sense to say XFree86 should have better UI standards, but still it is a non sequitor. It would certainly make sense to say that Open Source GUI applications should follow better UI standards, but: Who is going to set these standards and how are they going to evolve? Do we smack down the innovative UI designer because he's strayed from the Norm?

Look at Blender. I find the UI frustrating because I have never learned it before. But the people who use it all the time say they find it very easy to work with. Same deal with the Gimp, although I have now used it enough that I "See where they were coming from" when they designed the UI.

OK, I'm done ranting. For now

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[ron_ivi]

"Look at Blender. I find the UI frustrating because I have never learned it before."

Many of the special-purpose and/or high-end packages have "interesting" interfaces that deviate from Windows/Gnome/Mac/whatever. Consider other 3d programs like Maya, or the higher-end video editing programs like Pinnacle Edition and you get some very wierd (at first) UIs. Use them for a while, and you realize that what was wierd at first becomes _very_ efficient for the special purpose the tool is trying to address.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[ProfKyne]

Note too that Apple has at times violated its own HIG.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but sorry, Safari has been updated quite a bit since May. Sorry.

Which is to say, the version you are using an example of UI-inconsistency is (was) a BETA product at the time of the comparison. Again, sorry. Sorry.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[be-fan]

If you take a look at the KDE framework, it does enforce a level of UI consistency. Everything is standardized, from configurable toolbars to button sizes, standard layout managers, etc. KDE apps in general are written at a higher level of abstraction than, say, Win32 apps.

The lack of polish in KDE comes not from things looking different, but some poor layout and menu choices on the part of apps. The framework can't do anything about people putting 14 items in a context menu. This is the aspect the KDE people are working on right now, and 3.2 is a major improvement on this. Now that the bulk of the core technology has been built (KDE's architecture won't be fundementally changed in 4.x) its this sort of polish work that will be done.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[JamieF]

AutoCAD is another good example, as is (arguably) emacs/vi. There's a difference between good usability for a novice, and good usability for experts. Remember that usability is usually measured in terms of how long it takes a user to accomplish a task - if that user has been trained in an application's UI and understands the underlying domain model that the UI is representing to them, that can still be a good UI even when grandma can't figure the dangblasted thing out. If you spend all day every day at work in the same application, losing 60% of your screen real estate to GUI widgets that let you modify a tiny postage stamp-sized pane of actual content is not acceptable. Clearly there are also UIs that just plain suck, or are different just because the developer felt like being a unique and special individual, but don't lump those together with the UIs that deliberately make experts happy at the expense of newbie usability.

Re:UI Guidelines for Linux?

[Gizzmonic]

Mod this man down all you want, he's right. Apple stopped caring about the Human Interface Guidelines when Jobs took over. Now Jobs "ego driven design" has produced such UI missteps as Quicktime 4 and the waste of space called the Dock.

Mac OS X's GUI also seems to go through some pretty significant changes with every iteration...there doesn't seem to be any underlying framework the choices made.

Expose is a great though, don't get me wrong. I feel Mac OS X is "the worst OS around, after all the other ones" to paraphrase Mr. Churchill..

ya.. well

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a big fan of OSX.

but; give me a dual 2ghz system, gb of ram, and a half tb or storage, and I'll love whatever it runs. I'd take DOS on a system like that.

Re:ya.. well

[lullabud]

personally, i'd take DOS off a system like that.

Re:ya.. well

[Jesrad]

Yes, God forbid he tried running Linux on the G5, I guess.

8Gb RAM?

[oberondarksoul]

Does 'overkill' mean nothing to these people?

Re:8Gb RAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be overkill, it could be furthest edge computing.

After all, when I had 256MB RAM in my new 1992 Quadra I was told it was overkill, a complete waste of money, and I'd never fully use a tenth that amount.

It paid for itself within months, though.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[Pegasus]

Oh, just try running OS X on 8gig box vs. 256mb or so one ... The difference in responsivness is tremendous. Remember that ram is an order of magnitude faster than hard disk.
I would love to have that amount of memory for KDE desktop, but unfortunately i only have a gig and a half and am therefore 'forced' to use xfce :)

Such is computing for the impatient ...

Re:8Gb RAM?

[MoneyT]

Not really. 8GB of RAM would be great for doing things like running applications and such in. Load the whole app into memory and never have to touch disk except to write out a file or read one in.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[nelsonal]

To quote a true master of such things, "So, the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough RAM. Bill Gates currently has over 743 billion 'megs' of RAM, and he still routinely feels the need to stuff a zucchini in his underwear."
I just wonder how long it will be until that is a small amount of RAM. It's currently a large storage array, but even I can remember when computers with 1 Gig of storage were reserved for profitable purposes only.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your memory about memory is a little distorted. The most any Quadra could take is 128MB, and that's in an 840AV, a machine that wasn't released until 1994

Re:8Gb RAM?

[questamor]

Many quadras could do more than 128MB, including the Quadra 605 at 132mb, Quadra 650 and 800 at 136MB, and Quadras 900 and 950 at 256MB each.

840AVs were discontinued in 1994. They were released mid 1993.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[Josh Booth]

You must be running Windows Longhorn.

No, but seriously, my computer (Linux 2.6.0-test5) rarely touches the swapfile. I have 256 MB of ram and right now I've got Netscape (3 tabs) and Open Office running on Enlightenment and not a bit of swapspace is used. Admittedly, I don't run too many apps anyway while you are probably running something else.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[lylonius]

and sometimes even 5 orders of magnitude:
ram access time is ~100ns
disk access time is ~10ms (10,000,000 ns)

Re:8Gb RAM?

[MoneyT]

Actualy, I'm recalling the old days of Mac Classic where if you had a program that you wanted to run faster and you had the memory, you could make a ram disk and copy the program into the ram disk and run it from there. It worked pretty well, though I rarely come across I program that I need to run much faster that I could load into ram, but I'm sure someone does.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[Graff]

Oh, just try running OS X on 8gig box vs. 256mb or so one ... The difference in responsivness is tremendous.

After about 512 megs of RAM you don't see much speedup for normal tasks. Large databases and such will improve with gigs of memory but for normal home and office use 256 is absolute minimum, 384 is the minimum preferred and 512 is plenty.

I currently have 1.5 gigs of RAM just because it was cheap and I occasionally do some larger tasks, but I almost never use it all. I've had this machine up for days and running all sorts of programs and compiling projects and right now I have 600 megs of RAM inactive and 560 megs free. Basically I'm only using 340 megs of RAM or so at this moment (4 or 5 user processes running)

Re:8Gb RAM?

[kzadot]

Well 8Gb is only 1GB, so no. I dont think thats overkill.

By the way memory is usually measured in Gibibytes, not Gigabits.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[andrewleung]

i guess not all of us have read the 256MB to 8GB RAM G5 test results...

some interesting results. diminishing returns after 1.5GB of RAM. (which is a good choice now)

i wish they had more video coding tests... especially for higher res....

Re:8Gb RAM?

[Graff]

i guess not all of us have read the 256MB to 8GB RAM G5 test results...

Actually that's about what I'd expect for a program like Photoshop and large files. Photoshop is not a typical home or small office application, it has much higher system and memory demands. If you notice what I said was:

After about 512 megs of RAM you don't see much speedup for normal tasks. Large databases and such will improve with gigs of memory but for normal home and office use 256 is absolute minimum, 384 is the minimum preferred and 512 is plenty.

When using programs such as Safari and Microsoft Office you are not likely to see much improvement with large amounts of memory. On the other hand someone who is a programmer, digital artist, filmmaker, database programmer, etc. is more likely to be doing the types of activities that can benefit from large amounts of RAM. With those people a couple of gigs of RAM is a good thing indeed.

Re:8Gb RAM?

[damiam]

With 8GB of RAM you could load your root partition as a ramdisk. It'd take a while to start up, but afterward you'd have your entire OS, major applications, and documents preloaded into memory. That'd be pretty fucking sweet.

painful to say

[schapman]

as much as it pains me to say this... linux needs to drift much more to the windows/MacOS way of doing things... point and drool works for the majority of the people out there. If u need a windows driver... click on it and it goes (most of the time :P )... I think Linux has the foundation to be the ultimate OS if there is an easy setup and configuration, along with the power to drop to the command line and change anything. I recently had a chance to try out the new MacOS, and was very impressed... if I could have a windowing system like that, with all the configuration abilities of linux... the world would be a happier place for me. as it is now.. the only reason i run windows now is because im a hard core gamer.. and too many games use DirectX(in my opinion, one of the greatest things MSoft has ever made (and free :P) ), but if i could game on linux and have the ease of use for others in my household that windows provides... I'd make the full switch no prob.

Re:painful to say

[MoneyT]

er... what exactly are you doing in the terminal that I can't do on my OS X box without the GUI?

Re:painful to say

[larry bagina]

Far better than the OSX solution IMHO, where the machine cannot be used without the GUI

Sure it can. You might not ssh in and use Microsoft Office X, but I can't ssh into my linux box and use KOffice from the command-line either. But I do ssh into my G5 for remote sysadmin activities, same as I used to do with my NeXT slab (well, it was telnet back then).

Re:painful to say

[schapman]

bit of rambling on that post... what i meant, is I like the ease of use of MacOS and windows.. but dont like the restrictions WINDOWS places on me (should have said that.. sorry). I've only had a brief chance to play w/ MacOS X... and its very... veryy.. verryyy nice :P friend of mine bought a new G4 laptop (w/ the big-ass display)... note though: watch where u put your hands.. apparently theres a sweet spot on the button, where if u press (like if u hold it with one hand, your palm tends to rest there) you can screw up the RAM... he had his shut off a couple times.. and not start. Took it in and they said he had bad RAM. a strange flaw, with an otherwise gorgeous laptop.

Re:painful to say

[Anonymous Coward]

but I can't ssh into my linux box and use KOffice from the command-line either

two words: remote x windows session

Re:painful to say

[Anonymous Coward]

...in which case you're using the GUI. Anyhow, XWindows runs under MacOS X, so it's not a comparative advantage for linux/unix.

Re:painful to say

[seann]

a few words:
gtk for console, etc.

Re:painful to say

[Anonymous Coward]

> two words: remote x windows session

You can't count. Just a heads up.

Re:painful to say

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't heard of base .5!

You've got to love the times we live in, where no one can ever, ever be wrong for any reason!

Re:painful to say

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Linux has the foundation to be the ultimate OS

Dream on, loser.

Slightly Egotistical

[nathanh]

Re-implementing what I designed in 1979 is not interesting to me personally.

And if Linux was entirely about re-implementing what Bill Joy designed in 1979, then he might have a point.

But the things Bill Joy designed and partially wrote back in the 1970s are functionally inferior to features found in modern Linux.

Sure, Linux and BSD share similar APIs, but it is more than a little deceptive to claim that BSD and Linux are the same design. Internally they're completely different.

This is like a 100 year old Mr Ford looking at a modern V8 EFI car with independent suspension and AWD and ABS and saying "pfft, it's not very interesting, I designed all this back in the early 1900s". It shows a complete lack of comprehension regarding the modern state-of-the-art.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[moosesocks]

Oh. Yes. 15 years ago, the manpage for 'ls' wasn't 15 pages long.

And yes, ls is availible to me on every OSX Mac in the world. However, almost no mac users use it on a daily basis. There's a reason for this.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[nathanh]

And yes, ls is availible to me on every OSX Mac in the world. However, almost no mac users use it on a daily basis. There's a reason for this.

Uhh, yes... so what's your point?

Are you trying to say that because Linux has ls, just like BSD in 1979, and just like MacOSX today, that Linux is inferior, but MacOSX isn't inferior?

Or are you saying that because Linux users use ls, and Mac users don't, that Linux is inferior to MacOSX? Or inferior to BSD? Does MacOSX become inferior if I choose to use ls?

Or are you saying that because the modern ls manpage is 15 pages long, it is inferior to the 1979 version of ls? Or inferior to the MacOSX ls?

Please enlighten us with your wisdom.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[zpok]

Well let me run with this a bit.

All this inferior-superior stuff is what you're looking for. Not me, and I doubt parent poster had any of that in mind.

Most people are looking for an experience. If you dig compiling, recompiling and using x systems on top of each other, not allowing for drag and drop between them, can't set your monitor resolution without turning your machine inside out, don't have the luxury of font management, printing, etc etc. then Linux is for you!

If you're not the adventurous type, not a programmer and don't enjoy beating your own system (see above), maybe OS X is really what you're looking for.

I don't mean to bash Linux here, but you all should stop pretending Linux is easy. It's not. It's wonderful, who would have thought it, but it's not for those a lot of Linux adepts deem "dumb" - even if they might one day give you a heart transplant.

Let me put it real simple: Linux is not for people who are not into Linux. And Mac OS X - even Windows (the horror) are systems for people who basically don't give a fuck. If I had done what mr Sun has done, I would not build a computer from spare parts and program drivers to get my linux box talking with my other stuff, I'd go out and buy a monster machine running OS X - if I were him.

So put all that superior-inferior crap where the sun doesn't shine (forgot where that was, somewhere between Lancre and Badass). That most certainly was not the point.

Hope you enjoyed my rant, Cheers!

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[Anonymous Coward]

Werd, dude, werd. You hit the nail on the motherfucking head.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[nathanh]

Most people are looking for an experience. If you dig compiling, recompiling and using x systems on top of each other, not allowing for drag and drop between them, can't set your monitor resolution without turning your machine inside out, don't have the luxury of font management, printing, etc etc. then Linux is for you!

I don't know what system you're using, but your experience is not the same as mine.

I haven't compiled anything in years. I did all that back in 1993. These days I just click on the update tool. Why would I want to recompile things? I think you're confusing Linux with BSD.

I drag and drop all the time. My file manager (Nautilus) is completely drag and drop. I drag and drop into my music player (RhythmBox). I drag and drop into the CD burning software. I drag and drop into the word processor (OpenOffice). I drag and drop from my picture editor (also OpenOffice) into the word processor. No hassle.

Changing monitor resolution? I click on the icon that looks like a monitor in the panel and choose the new resolution from the list there. Works great. It's called the GNOME RandR Applet.

Font management? I click on Desktop Preferences then click on Fonts. That's it. Adding new fonts is as simple as dragging and dropping the font into my fonts folder. This baffles you?

Printing? I'm using GNOME CUPS and it's as easy as could be. Click New Printer and choose my model of printer from the list. That's it. I can administer the printer and manage the queues entirely in a graphical interface. Yes, drag and drop works.

Sounds like your experience with Linux is the same as Bill Joy's, but is based on Linux from 1993. Maybe you should update your knowledge before attempting another rant.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[zpok]

Sounds like your experience with Linux is the same as Bill Joy's, but is based on Linux from 1993. Maybe you should update your knowledge before attempting another rant

Oh, I don't know about that. Most linux users would happily agree if I weren't mentioning OS X in the same post.

You may have got yourself a perfect system and may be fully capable to maintain it. That's really really cool (no sarcasm), but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to duplicate that.

Drag and drop: I'm sure you understood me right: most Linux people use different file managers that don't allow drag and drop between them. But maybe I was vague. Anyway, drag and drop in a program is not impressive. It's system wide drag and drop, between programs, programs and the system etc. Not some programs yes, others no, depending on more rules than you want to hold inside your head. Printing, monitor resolution, file manager: the beauty of linux is you can build yourself a nice frankenstein monster and make it rock solid. But the level of commitment and knowledge this requires is totally beyond most people and you are here talking about your system as if that experience comes out of the box.

Do tell me what box that is. But be fair and describe the install process a bit. If it doesn't include lots of separate installs, tweaking and meddling in the occult (config files) I might be tempted...

Here, read a bit of this, and all the comments. Then realize that most things said are way over the head of people who as I put it aren't into Linux. http://www.linuxworld.com/story/37872.htm

I do enjoy a good rant. Today is a good day!

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[moosesocks]

I'm not saying that ls is inferior on any one operating system. (To my knowledge, I thought that ls was the same on most modern unixes)

What i'm saying is that Mac users don't need to use an overly-complex, antiquated mechanism to display a list of files in a directory. The finder does that for them. I don't want to have to properly format my syntax so that my files are sorted by size in an ascending order.

Joy's main argument is that modern unix-geeks have been unable to devise something better than what he came up with in 1979. And it's true. The only significant addition to the 'standard' the 'base' of unix accepted by the community today is X Windows - no matter what you may say, everything else is functionally the same as it was 30 years ago. Hell... unix continues to use the TTY acronym 25 years after the demise of the teletype machine.

So. Thirty years later we have unix. And we have X. Wow. that's a lot to be proud of...

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[merdark]

Actually, it's more like looking at a kit-car. Sure, it beats the original ford cars no problem. But since then ford has now got *automatic*, *awd*, etc etc.

That kit-car is now just getting awd, independent suspension, etc. But some of it is donated by the big companies, and it still doesn't have automatic or any sort of standards since anyone can put it together differently and sell it to you.

Linux is just not interesting. Nothing in Linux is at all new or different. All the big unix features it's getting are already around and have been for some time. So it's not *interesting*.

It may be functional, effecient, even well designed. But it just isn't new and interesting.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[falcon5768]

The world as I see it.

Linux/Unix = Geeks who REALLY know their shit, use Unix at work (or wish they could but cant thanks to managment) and who generallly want a system that doesnt have microsofts taint on it, but also dont want to spend the money to buy a mac, would rather use a x86 chip, and/or like having full control of their system.

Mac OS X = either upgrading (or new) users who a) love the simplicity and style and dont mind shelling out 2-3 hundred extra to get the "Apple" lifestyle (and dont say there isnt a lifestyle cause I used to WORK for Apple as a campus rep, I know there is a lifestyle, they actually have us bill it as a lifestyle and as a part of your life, not a appliance, hence showing people rocking out with a iPod, or people editing home movies when really who edits home movies?)

b) former apple user who wants to play with BSD and Unix, but doesnt want to have a dedicated machine (or partition) to do it so would rather have a machine that yes can work with unix programs and have all the benifits of a unix machine, but also has the nice comfortable mac gui that for all its strength and weaknesses is the reason why we bought a Macintosh when a Windows PC could work just as well.

And Windows a) People who saw price and really didnt care as long as it was cheap and did what they needed to do.

b) Came from the buisness world and used to use Windows 3.1 / 95 so feel comfortable with it, even if they have problems with it

c) Learned it in school because the school bought PC's instead of Macs (so they feel comfortable with it even if they have problems

d) gamers

All of which (except gamers for the most part but I know a few who do it as well) treat their systems like a tool, it breaks fix it, too much to fix it, buy a new one. Or they hate the system they are using but refuse to buy a different machine or load a different OS cause they dont want to either relearn, or they have grown up learning everything is inferior to Windows.

If you think about it, how many Linux or Mac users do you see running old systems compaired to Windows users, you might be surprise to find a LOT of them, cause we treat our computers with much more respect than a typical user would, maybe for different reasons some might have spent a lot of money on it, some might have spent a lot of time on it, and some just generally love their computer, but compaired to a windows user All my mac and linux friends have at least 2 or 3 if not more boxes at home (I personally have 5 macs from a SE 30 on up to my iBook 900mhz, and one old leading edge with a 486DX2 which replaced the 386sx that was in it all working perfectly) why my Windows using friends have one or two (maybe a laptop and a tower) sometimes they have a third (like my roomate) most times they tossed their old one and replaced it with a new one.

OK yes that was long, YES I cant spell (never have and I dont give a fuck either I have better things to do than proof a board posting) but thats how I have always viewed things.

course Im biased cause Im a mac user and all my friends have picked on me through school cause of it, but when it comes down to their systems, I can name every part, have overclocked 2 systems by desoldering jumpers on a board, and tailored my OS to how I like it and what I want installed since OS 7, and half my friends dont even know what a CPU is and TOOK computer classes in school with me where our teacher showed them what a CPU looks like. Im only 5 years out of highschool (finishing up college) thats not a lot of time and to have forgotten something so important to what you use... K I'm done..

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[bmorton]

So put all that superior-inferior crap where the sun doesn't shine (forgot where that was, somewhere between Lancre and Badass). That most certainly was not the point.

A person who can so elegantly include a Discworld reference in a discussion about Linux vs. Mac OS X should be listened to.

-B

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[YouHaveSnail]

Most people are looking for an experience.

I hear what you're saying, but I think in fact that most people are _not_ looking for "an experience," at least not in front of their computers. Most people are looking to get some work done with less pain than they had doing things however they did them before. Most people want a solution that works for them, that they don't have to put together or optimize or spend a lot of time understanding.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[Anonymous Coward]

I taught myself to program when I was 6. I independently discovered context-free grammars when I was 16. Today I design some very sophisticated software analysis tools.

I use Mac OS X because I get a lot more done without the OS getting in the way. I started out with Slackware and I have modified the Kernel. The issue is not Linux=smart, Mac OS X=dumb. The truth is Linux=human inefficiency, Mac OS=human efficiency.

In the end Mac OS X + Fink is the friendliest Linux distro ever!

-- pi

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[ColMustard]

"Printing? I'm using GNOME CUPS and it's as easy as could be. Click New Printer and choose my model of printer from the list...."

Being very picky, but that's not as easy as it could be. With Rendezvous, we don't have to know what the type and model of the printer is anymore. Actually, we didn't have to know that stuff with AppleTalk, either. Plug it in, it works.

Really, very minor detail.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[Juanvaldes]

And a Linux user will have KDE or Gnome to display there files just like a OS X user will with finder. There is just as much need to use ls on linux as on OS X.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[C_nemo]

Im not the grandparent poster, as the nick so clearly states, but i think i can ansver alot of your questions.

As a linux and mac user i know drag'n'drop the proper way. The mac way, that is. It's amazing, you can drag'n'drop everything everywhere, drag a url to the desktop -> web link, drag marked text to the desktop -> textClipping which you can read later, drag a folder icon from the titlebar to the Terminal.app -> path on the command line. Linux is nowhere near the userfiendlyness of OSX in any way.

As for the Linux install he described, it sounds just like an average install of Gnome 2.4, which you can get onto a fully working system (Fedora Core 1) with just pointing and clicking in the installer. I would say it takes next to no brains to get Fedora onto my system, it auto detected my GeforceFX, TV-tuner card, LCD monitor, USB mouse, CD-Burner... you get the general idea.

The features he described are there as deafult, in the preferences menu there is a button for "screen resolution", i think that one is fairly obvious. The "font" button is also pretty self explainatory, click "details" and you get an option to open your font folder, just drag'n'drop fonts there.

I just tested drag'n'drop between Nautilus (filemanger for gnome) and konqueror (file manager for KDE) picked up a file and dragged it from my home dir in konqueror and to the Desktop folder in nautilus, and it actually worked (I was pretty amazed, actually). Then i tried darag''n'drop from Nautilus to K3B (a cd burning application for KDE), lo behold! it also worked (I'm was even more amazed).

If you dont stray from the Gnome/KDE path i would say you where in for a pretty smooth ride. And i dont think novice user would have the brains to end up in enlightenment or fluxbox by mistake.

Fedora Core 1 also comes with RHN notification in the "system-tray" by default so clicking this will easily set you up for system update the friendly way. yum (apt like tool for RPM from yellowdog linux) also comes preinstalled and preconfigured so keeping the sytem updated can also be done by doing "yum update" as root.

The only issue I have with fedora is the lack of Mp3 support and video player. This lead me to the only separate install apart from the main distribution, i installed apt-get for Fedora Core from freshrpm.net and installed Mp3 supprt for xmms and mplayer with two commands.

I cannot comment on printing at the moment (I dont have one) but i've had a obscure Canon printer/fax machine/copy machine thing up and running on another box with Suse 8.2 and Ximina desktop2, it took me about 10 minutes (5 minutes to determine ip adress and queue name on the damn thing)

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[zpok]

OK, well well...

This actually sounds amazing. I'm going to look for this and try it out for myself. :-)

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is best breakdown I have ever heard about the Desktop Wars.

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[thebagel]

And wine doesn't work on the default kernel. That's a pain. It's not terribly fun to help somebody get a windows-replacement working when they can't use their old windows apps...

Re:Slightly Egotistical

[the_womble]

Why the hell is this crap modded insightful? Take it point by point:

compiling, recompiling

I have been using Linux for two years. Number of timees I have compiled anything: zero

can't set your monitor resolution

Heres how I do it: go to Mandrake Control Centre, a few more mouse clicks, and its done.

font management

What can you not do in Linux exactly?

printing

I do it by clicking print from the file menu of what ever app I am using. I never had to configure anything as the Mandrake installer correctly recognised the printer

I think your point is that if you try a really old Linux distro, or one aimed at hackers then its difficult to use

All high and mighty

[n3bulous]

"They took systems designed for isolated desktop systems and put them on the Net without thinking about evildoers" - BJ

I haven't really followed Joy's career and what he's created, but if you look at everything on the net, TCP/IP, SMTP, et. al., they were initially dependent on unfounded trust. Once the masses got ahold of it, the evildoers expoited that trust.

For years, Sun shipped systems that were completely insecure right out of the box (blank root password, every inetd service enabled, etc...) It wasn't until the mid-90s that Sun started to do anything about it.

Granted, MS should have known better seeing as they were so late to the party, but Linux systems were no different until enough bitching occurred to make someone change the defaults.

What was that about not knowing your history?

Re:All high and mighty

[cpeterso]

plus the article says "Introduced by Bill Joy and a team of Sun engineers in 1995, Java was hailed for its ability to run software applications on any platform." This urban myth has got to stop. Bill Joy did not create Java. James Gosling created Java.

(slightly ot...)

[Ayanami Rei]

And it's weird, because ls isn't really that useful anyway. It doesn't actually "list" files that match a pattern, the shell does that for you.

ls just prints out information about the files.
It's only when you turn on recursion that it starts to make more sense, but even then, you could just get a lot of stuff that scrolls all the way up that you don't want to wade through.

For that kind of thing, a graphical interface is ideal.

"find" and -printf are TONS more useful in that respect.
It's gotten to the point that I hardly ever use ls anymore, just shell completetion and "echo".

Re:(slightly ot...)

[Golias]

Real Linux/Unix geeks almost never "wade through" text output. We pipe the output to a grep command.

The article might have been better titled...

[thelenm]

Bill Joy on Linux, Mac OS X, and George W. Bush. Yeesh, I didn't expect so much of it to be a political rant. Then again, it's Bill Joy, maybe I should have. :-)

Re:The article might have been better titled...

[overunderunderdone]

Yeesh, I didn't expect so much of it to be a political rant. Then again, it's Bill Joy, maybe I should have. :-)

Sometimes very smart people that are very good in one sphere of knowledge make the mistake of thinking that their expertise extends to ALL spheres of knowledge. So you see actors & musicians, and in this case computer programmers, that think they have brilliant political insights. Bill Joy is entitled to his opinion and is entitled to voice it in any forum he cares to - but I don't see any reason to assume that it is any more insightful than yours or mine. His opinions on computer science on the other hand are something we should be listen to with a great deal of respect.

Yeah, but...

[anothy]

Well, Bill, you may be right, but just keep in mind that re-implementing what ken and dennis designed before you probably didn't impress them so much, either.
seriously, he's spot on here. there's lots of good things about linux, but few of them are technical. OS X is doing real new stuff.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Crazy Eight]

What is OS X doing that is new?

Re:Yeah, but...

[nathanh]

OS X is doing real new stuff.

I'd honestly like to know what this "real new stuff" in MacOSX is.

The kernel is BSD. That's the 1979 technology that Bill Joy was so quick to dismiss.

The display system is Display PDF. That's not exactly a gigantic leap from Display Postscript in the late 1980s.

The desktop interface is traditional Mac (the menubar at the top) from 1984 with the addition of a panel at the bottom. The panel concept is mid 1980s.

MacOSX is fundamentally minor tweaks on proven technology and proven interface design, using a proven operating system that's older than the Mac itself. I don't see why anybody thinks MacOSX is cutting edge.

That said, I think MacOSX is a sexy interface, the PowerBooks are great value for money, and the entire package is extremely slick. But I'm always baffled when people say shiny buttons demonstrate technological leadership. It's just shiny buttons! The technology in MacOSX is really ancient.

Re:Yeah, but...

[IM6100]

So you're saying that Ken T. and Dennis R. designed the vi editor, and Bill Joy came along and just re-implemented it again?

Re:Yeah, but...

[lullabud]

if there is an implied "that doesn't have anything to do with the UI" at the end of your comment, then maybe not a whole lot... tell me you've seen something like expose in another OS. so, there's one new thing...

Re:Yeah, but...

[Graff]

MacOSX is fundamentally minor tweaks on proven technology and proven interface design, using a proven operating system that's older than the Mac itself. I don't see why anybody thinks MacOSX is cutting edge.

Mac OS X is cutting edge for the simple fact that it is the first OS to combine all of these proven technologies (and many more) into a package that just works and is slick to boot. Individually these technologies are nothing new but combined they represent the cutting edge of OS design.

One nitpick: the kernel is Mach (well, Mach-based), the BSD tools are layered on top of that (along with GNU, NextStep, and much more)

Re:Yeah, but...

[Drakino]

Ok, the tech behind OS X isn't all new. So what. The reason I can understand his comments is because I made the switch to OS X recently. Why? Well, is is easy to install and run. Thus, less time I spend on tinkering with the box and the more time I spend getting actual things done. The advantage OS X holds for me over every other OS is that if I do want to get geeky and play with the Unix underside, I can. But at any time return to that productive enviornment.

If Linux was as easy to get installed, and was a bit more universal in how things work, I would consider switching to it. But for now, it takes me a minimum of 2 hours of interactive work to install (due to 5 billion packages), and countless hours after that getting things set up.

On a Mac, I pop in the install disk, answer much fewer questions, get in and customize a few things, and drag and drop install a few apps. I can get my Powerbook back up and running the way I had it in about 3 hours total. That includes my commonly used folders, interface changes, etc...

Simplicity, but with power underneath. This is the way to go.

Linux has power, but no simplicity.

Windows has simplicity but no power.

Re:Yeah, but...

[dimator]

It's just shiny buttons!

Ya, but they're realllly pretty!!

Re:Yeah, but...

[MoneyT]

It's cutting edge because it's the only system of it's kind. There is no other system that is all at once so powerful and so easy, so new and yet so old

Re:Yeah, but...

[LizardKing]

Mac OS X is cutting edge for the simple fact that it is the first OS to combine all of these proven technologies (and many more) into a package that just works and is slick to boot.

Actually SunOS with the SunView windowing system predated Mac OS X while providing all the features the previous poster described. Mac OS X itself is of course little more than NeXTSTEP with a facelift to take advantage of more powerful hardware. That's why GNUStep still generates some interest - it's no longer seeking to clone a dead operating system.

Chris

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

With Aqua they invented the world's hugest icons.
I believe they were i cahoots with 19" monitor manufacturers.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Same can be said about cars: 4 wheels and stearing wheel have been "the standard" about 100 years.

Yet I'd say that new BMW's have "real new stuff" over T-model Ford.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...The display system is Display PDF. That's not exactly a gigantic leap from Display Postscript in the late 1980s..."

Ah, but for one thing the hardware acceleration now makes such a display truly usable. The technology is only as good as its implementation. Sure, there are some old concepts in OS X, but they're wrapped in a package that finally makes them shine. Microsoft won't have display compositing this good before Avalon, which will arrive with Longhorn in 2005 or 2006.

Shiny buttons don't demonstrate technological leadership, but combine them with the other technologies pulled into OS X, old or new, and you've got something hot. Meanwhile, from the Redmond camp we get a new Playskool color theme and nag balloons insisting that what we really, truly want is a Passport account.

You've heard the phrase "death of a thousand cuts," perhaps? OS X is the success of a thousand tweaks on a solid foundation. That's innovative enough for me.

Re:Yeah, but...

[gutter]

IOKit - super fast & easy object oriented driver development

System wide XML configuration (except for things like apache and samba that have their own configuration files)

Cocoa - Comprehensive well designed object oriented development API. That's not so new, as it is an extension of the OpenStep APIs, but still something that has yet to be equalled anywhere else.

Expose - super fast and intuitive window management.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

> So you're saying that Ken T. and Dennis R. designed the vi editor, and Bill Joy came along
> and just re-implemented it again?

It wouldn't surprise me!

Here's a quote from Eric Schmidt who worked with Joy at Berkeley (printed in "Nerds 2.0"):

"Bill would simply take the UNIX system and rewrite it over the weekend. No human on the planet could do this except for Bill. And you'd come in the following week and say, 'What has Bill changed now?' Every once in a while, he'd decide to do a new release, and he would personally rewrite all of the code in the system including all the applications. Inconceivable today, and amazing at the time."

I personally find this very interesting

[nthomas]

Q: And yet you've been famously cool about Linux.
A: Re-implementing what I designed in 1979 is not interesting to me personally.

[...]

Q: All right, you win. What are you doing for fun these days?
A: I'm figuring out a meditation wall for my apartment in New York. Eight feet high by 12 feet wide, with an array of overlapping rear projectors, each with a tiny Linux box and connected by gigabit Ethernet.

Fascinating.

Linux is 1979 technology and yet runs the projectors for his meditation wall -- built by a Walt Disney Imagineer and the inventor of massively parallel supercomputing.

I should like to ask Mr. Joy why these projectors are not running Mac OS X or even Solaris. Perhaps he owes a greater debt to those kids 20 years his junior than he imagines?

Thomas

Re:I personally find this very interesting

[kendoka]

Guys at that level probably consider the choice of *nix an implementation issue. =)

He may be cool on linux, but he didn't trash it per se, he just said it wasn't interesting to him. Not that I feel an overwhelming urge to defend this guy... but if I had been hacking this stuff out at CSRG 20 years ago I'd probably pass on heavy linux involvement too...

Re:I personally find this very interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this post illustrates that people seem to be manually inserting some sort of sneer to Joy's response about Linux. I don't think he was being snotty, cruel, or dismissive at all.

They asked about Linux and what he thought about it. Don't forget he worked for Sun for a couple of decades after the initial BSD push as well.

What if your entire life revolved around, say, rocket science, and you came up with some great propulsion theories and vehicles during your day. Now, you're not so much into rockets, but about the dangers of space travel, and people ask about your opinion of the new shuttle design. But you've designed shuttles. Really good ones. But life isn't utopian because of it, and you are re-focussing your energy.

What would you say that wouldn't sound all cocky and dismissive?

Not to say most of us here aren't cocky and dismissive at the drop of a hat, anyway...

Re:I personally find this very interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the black smith who invented nails probably wasn't terribly fascinated by the nails made by other blacksmiths or the technology allowing those so inclined to roll their own, despite the fact those may have been holding his house together. In fact I would bet the only people interested in linux boxes as glorified networked video cards and embeded display drivers are the people building video walls.

In other news, architects are no longer wowed by Lincon Logs, and Structural Engineers have stopped playing with Erector sets. I hope you're not to despondent over this news.

Re:I personally find this very interesting

[torpor]

Typical cynical hyper-crtical bullshit.

He's not doing *work* on Linux he's *using* it.

There's a difference, kid. One day you'll learn it.

Re:I personally find this very interesting

[sendai2ci]

God forbid that people use the most appropriate tools for the job.

Give the guy a break

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he's totally right.
Why should he be totally into Linux given his background. And why shouldn't he enjoy OS X on this droolproof hardware?

Give the man a good gui or go whine about something else.

I think Linux *could* one day make a comprehensive home user system - if that were a goal in itself - but I'm pretty sure most linux contributors are not the ones you should ask about the hi/gui guidelines. They don't care.

And as long as that's the situation, it's totally understandable someone prefers OS X for the everyday stuff and Linux for doing rocksolid stupid stuff like meditation walls - as long as he doesn't have to set it up himself.

I can dig linux for servers, since you expect the thing to not give you a head-ache *once you set it up*, but to do this constant maintenance on your main machine without the benefits a windows or os x machine gives you, ffff that takes guts and balls, not for me...

Joy doesn't seem to work the Unix way any more...

[Florian]

...otherwise he wouldn't prefer MacOS X on a G5 to a free Unix clone like Debian GNU/Linux or, to take a derivate of his own work, NetBSD on the same hardware. While OS X provides the more powerful (yet proprietary) GUI application layer, it is IMHO vastly inferior for being used the classical Unix way:

• The Mach+BSD server design is a kludge creating unneccessary bloat, complexity and performance overhead without exploiting any of the potential advantages of a microkernel design like better portability or Hurd-style hack value like filesystems running as daemons in userspace etc.
• In any case, Linux 2.4 and all the more 2.6 should beat, in terms of performance and scalability, the crap out of MacOS X' combination of vintage Mach with vintage BSD and a bloated GUI on top
• Debian and NetBSD don't have compatibility bloat like the "Classic" virtual machine, m68k-CPU-Emulation and "Carbon"-API in MacOS X
• They have much cleaner filesystem layouts than OS X with its inconsistency of Unix directories (/bin, /etc) which are hidden on the GUI level and application folders inherited from NextStep
• They have a more consistent and robust configuration system than MacOS X with its horrible Registry-like "Netinfo" database that replaces some, but not all configuration files in /etc
• They come with a more complete (and especially in Debian's case thanks to GNU) powerful set of classical Unix commandline applications
• For the software which is not installed by default, they have consistent package management while MacOS X has a number of simultaneous/incompatible package managers and databases which don't know each other's dependencies: MacOS X install images, fink, GNU/Darwin, BSD-style pkgs/ports...
• They install programs like vim, mutt, shells etc. with sensible default configurations while I find the commandline userland and MacOS X almost unusable they way it is configured out of the box

For someone who primarily works on the commandline and needs graphical programs only for the occasional web browsing, graphics/pdf and video viewing (for all of which excellent free, X11-based solutions like mozilla-firebird and mplayer do exist), MacOS X offers no advantages over a GNU/Linux or NetBSD system in which all the system- and commandline-level things are done cleaner and better. So it seems Bill Joy doesn't write in vi and work the Unix way anymore, otherwise he would have better things to say about Linux.

I'm only 26, so...

[vivekb]

Who's Bill Joy?

Re:I'm only 26, so...

[saddino]

Why, this guy!

Re:I'm only 26, so...

[Confessed Geek]

Honestly? Now? Nobody important.

Re:I'm only 26, so...

[HuguesT]

He wrote the first `vi'. It's true!

Re:I'm only 26, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point?

Re:I'm only 26, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Joy is someone who works for a company (Sun) who wishes that certain other companies (e.g. IBM) weren't doing so well by espousing Linux.

Or looking at it another way - he works for Sun and he thinks that _Linux_ is "uninteresting". ROFL!

He also thinks that he's the godfather of Java. Now if reimplementing what's been done before is uninteresing - it makes me wonder what K&R ad Stroustrup think of Java?

Re:I'm only 26, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, sir, is that your knee jerking?

Bill Joy no longer works for Sun.

He wasn't trashing Linux in the least. I feel the same way he does : Linux is boring unless you're programming for it. Mac OS X is great for everybody.

sure -- I'd do the same

[desau]

Yeah -- I'd buy a Dual 2Ghz-G5 with 8 Gigs of ram and a half terrabyte of disc if I was making 100 million off stock sales. Hell -- I calculate that price tag to be only a mere $8475 (without displays -- which would add another $2000 per display).

Mr. Joy is missing the point. No one is saying that Mac hardware/software is crap. It's just waay out of the spending range for mere mortals... which is perhaps the biggest reason why Linux is such a "cultural phenomenon and a business phenomenon" -- we don't all have $10,000 to blow on a pretty desktop.

Don't get me wrong -- I think Bill Joy has fully earned his money -- he made some great career and life decisions, now he's enjoying the rewards.. more power to him!

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[Anonymous Coward]

However, if you buy the extra RAM from another supplier, it would be much cheaper.

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course you're just looking to fulfill stereotypes with that comment--after all on your way to calculate the cost of the custom built, every-option-added machine, you must have noticed the iBook, eMac, and PowerMac G4 which all offer a fairly good price/performance ratio.

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[silentmusic]

I'm pretty sure that the Max IIFX cost about $10,000 when it first came out. (And to compare with today's prices you need to factor in inflation.)

Pretty much all typical computer configurations these days seem very cheap for what you get to me. For me Mac versus PC versus whatever isn't a matter of price. It's a matter of deciding what you want.

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ridiculous to say that Macs are out of the spending range for mere mortals. You can get a dual 1.8 Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, Radeon 9600 Mac for under $3000. Anyone with an average salary can afford that. You can buy iMacs (with the screen) for $1300. You can get an eMac for $800.

Sure, you can blow $10,000 on a Mac; but have you priced dual Xeon workstations lately? A Dell equivalent (dual 3.06 Xeon) to Bill Joy's Mac, but with 4 GB (since 8 GB isn't even an option) was about $7700. Subtract $2600 to reduce Bill Joy's Mac to 4GB, and it comes down to about $5900. It doesn't look all that expensive any more, does it? And it still includes the digital audio, Firewire 800, and Airport Extreme over the Dell box.

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[pastafazou]

So, in 1996, when the average computer sold for over $3000, and the average monitor was a 15" for $300, that wasn't waay out of the spending range for mere mortals. Yet 7 years later, Apple prices their high-end tower at $3000, and now suddenly this is waay out of the spending range for mere mortals? BTW, using Kingston's 1GB Kits, you could get 4GB of RAM for an extra $1260.

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[zaroastra]

Anyone with an average salary can afford that.

Well, it depends, if you take average world salary as a base, you'll find it to be lower than 500$ a month.

I would say that about 50% of the world earns way below 250$ a month, 75% below 500$.

(I earn about 2000$ a month, have an engineering degree, and work in an western european country, a mac would be a year savings gone)

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[vonFinkelstien]

G4 iBooks are way cheaper than $10,000.

I'm unemployed (well, underemployed) and could get a G3 iBook a year ago.

tssfulk

Re:sure -- I'd do the same

[Anonymous Coward]

> No one is saying that Mac hardware/software is crap. It's just waay out of the spending range for mere mortals...

If you make over $20k per year, you can afford a Mac.

No, you can't get the top-of-the-line dual G5 with 8GB of RAM, but you must be doing some serious computing if you REALLY need that kind of performance. Somebody must be paying you more than $20k to do it... or did you just want the most powerful toy for under $1000?

Re:Joy doesn't seem to work the Unix way any more.

[EduardoFonseca]

I don't agree. Even geeks (me included) like some "confortable" environments now and then. Thats why I'm migrating all my Linux (Gentoo and Debian boxes) to MacOS X shortly. I can keep doing my OSS work and have a great OS (or UI). I've used FreeBSD (which OS X is based) and I always liked it. The only reason I migrated to Linux was that Linux was more... agile. You surely can work the Unix way on the MacOS X. only prettier :)

Re:All high and mighty yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

the unix boxes were given to people who were expected to administer them to some degree. They were not given to 18 year old daughters as they left for college as a present.

Leaving food out to spoil in Alaska in the winter is not the same as leaving food out to spoil in Texas in the summer, while the actions taken may be very similar the surrounding environment is not and the net result is (not surprisingly) very different.

Anyway, Bill Joy is a helluva guy, and if he doesn't like linux then so be it. It's nice that he has a choice.

-theed

Quadra's could NOT DO 128MB

[Anonymous Coward]

No Quadra could do 128MB AT THE TIME. The maximum size 30 PIN SIMM when a 950 was released was 8MB, and the maximum 72 PIN SIMM was 16MB. There's no way you could squeeze 256MB or even more than 128 into a Quadra until late 1999. Certainly not when the poster was claiming to be able to

Re:Quadra's could NOT DO 128MB

[IM6100]

I have some 16MB 30 pin SIMMs that have a datecode far older than 1999. They are rare, but they exist. I am tempted to plug them into my SE/30 which presently only has 32 MB.

Re:Quadra's could NOT DO 128MB

[Jeremy Erwin]

The Quadra 900 and 950 each had 16 (30 pin) SIMM slots. So, if you had the cash, you could go against Apples recommendations and install 8 meg simms (for 128 MB), or 16 meg simms (for 256 MB). Source

Posterboy for the *nix geek who doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"For someone who primarily works on the commandline and needs graphical programs only for the occasional web browsing, graphics/pdf and video viewing (for all of which excellent free, X11-based solutions like mozilla-firebird and mplayer do exist), MacOS X offers no advantages over a GNU/Linux or NetBSD system in which all the system- and commandline-level things are done cleaner and better."

Heheh. It's precisely this type of attitude about *nix why it's no surprise that Linux just isn't "there" yet. I still find it amusing that it was Apple that brought *nix to the masses.

It's 2003 now. No UI = Not an end user OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux is a kernel. It doesn't have a UI. Maybe you're thinking of X-Windows, or KDE, or GNOME. None of those are linux-specific, however."

And hence, Linux still has a LOOOONNNNGG way to go. This is isn't 1984 folks.

Re:All high and mighty yourself

[n3bulous]

I have no idea how old you are, but circa 1992, security for computers was slowly becoming a quiet issue, let alone the buzz word it has been recently. Right around that time was (one of?) the first big worm (i'm not bothering to research specifics, relying on a blurred memory)

In academia (still circa '92), servers and workstations were not usually behind a firewall for a variety of reasons (primarily money and remote access convenience.) Department budgets for IT were small and usually only had one staff member had more than minimal experience.

Regarding leaving food in the wild, I wonder how many years it took before Man realized he got sick from eating food that was left out too long? It took a few thousand years before bathing was commonly realized as important, let alone brushing his teeth.

Re:Joy doesn't seem to work the Unix way any more.

[IM6100]

If you're going to work 'The Unix way' as you decree, you really don't need more than a VT-100 terminal plugged into serial port A of a SparcStation IPX. No fancy schmancy frambuffer, no nothing fancy. Yeah, a Unix greenscreen console.

Of course, there's no need to use Linux on said IPX. NetBSD is a nice alternative, it's a more unified codebase, etc.

Re:Joy doesn't seem to work the Unix way any more.

[Ffakr]

I'm sorry, but you're kind of 'out of it'

- Classic is not bloat. It's a feature to allow compatability. Classic doesn't introduce overhead to a system unless you NEED to run an old app. I didn't have Classic installed for over a year and never missed it. It's only on my machine now because I did a clean install of panther.
- Carbon API is an equal partner with Cocoa on OS X. It is based (heavily) off of the Classic Mac APIs but it isn't bloat. It's another enviornment that has benefits and disadvantages compared to Cocoa (or standard BSD libraries). The is a reason why the Finder isn't Cocoa.. it works better as a Carbon app.
- "Vintage BSD" is often a lot faster than your vaunted Linux. I know 2.4 and the upcomming 2.6 have made big strides, but the Linux compat in FreeBSD was faster than Linux for a long time, and as far as I know, still occasionally is faster than real linux.
- Linux files systems are anything but clean. Different distros put stuff in different areas, Major apps switch install and config locations between versions. For the most part, you rarely ever need to dig into the filesystem on OS X. Apps go in /Applications, home spaces in /Users, OS X specific System files in /Library and /System. I find the layout quit logical and quit consistent. As for the unix stuff in OS X, it's where you'd guess most of the time. BTW, why should /bin be shown in the GUI when you can't run command line apps from the GUI?
- Netinfo was depreciated in 10.2 and it's pretty much not used in 10.3. Apples moved everything into the BSD files and/or LDAP. Anyway, There really wasn't much in Netinfo. Comparing Netinfo to The Registry is total flamebait and it shows your lack of knowledge.
- consistent package management on Linux??? HAHAHA If I could count all the problems I've had with RPMs..
Fink automatically handles dependencies. The system software updater tracks packages. In general, the software install tools for OS X work fantastic. Package Manager is way better than anything on linux. And don't forget the use of Bundles. It makes a lot of software installs as easy as copying over an icon [which is a directory with all the goodies inside, but looks to the user like an app]
- haha, you consider the Mac OS unusable out of the box, yet you love linux. With so many distributions of Linux, do you really believe you wouldn't have to apply as much configuration to a distro you weren't intimately familiar with?

Give OS X 10.3 a real try and come back with a comparison to Linux. You'll find a quick, responsive machine. A great bundled development environment, best of class bundled apps, and a hardware accellerated X11 right out of the box.

ffakr.

I have to disagree

[pastafazou]

I would say what made Apple successful was the whole ease of use factor. Put the CD in the drive, hold down the "C" key, turn machine on. Machine boots off of CD. Click the install icon, provide a few simple responses and info, and your OS is installed. No "detecting hardware...found something...don't know what it is...do you have a driver for this ? piece of hardware?" that you get with windows, and certainly not like linux installs. Configuring the network has always been straightforward as well, with all the relevant fields in one place, and easily accessible. Appletalk was self configuring, as is the new Rendezvous technology. No BIOS settings to mess around with, and you don't NEED to know the command line aspect of OS X. How many Windows users actually know how to maintain Windows properly (ie msconfig, the registry, etc). With the mac OS, you had the extensions folder before OS X, and the extensions manager made managing extensions easy for even the novices. OS X takes care of it's own maintenance. The whole UI guideline is just an extension of Apple's commitment to delivering highly complicated and advanced technology in an easy to use package. If you want Linux to take over the desktops of the average user, you need to make it easy to use. This means making it like an appliance! You turn it on, you click to check your mail, click to surf the web, click to type a document, click to check your appointments, click to print, and then turn it off. Want to add a (video conferencing camera/scanner/DVD burner/joystick)? Great! Plug it in, pop in the CD, click the icon, and it's installed. Windows has the edge over Linux because it's a giant bag of drivers and installers so that most users can usually install their own peripherals. Linux is more stable, more secure, faster, and cheaper, but it still isn't even remotely easy to use! The average user does not want to have to learn any type of CLI. Period.

Re:I have to disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

"No "detecting hardware...found something...don't know what it is...do you have a driver for this ? piece of hardware?" that you get with windows, and certainly not like linux installs. " I guess having closed/limited hardware makes this a lot easier...

Re:I have to disagree

[Discoflamingo13]

Windows has one advantage over Linux and OS X, and that is the amount of mindshare it currently has in the marketplace. Most everything else can only vaguely be termed a technical advantage - and if you've never spent a day or two in "driver hell", you really don't know just how lame the driver support can be. Also, OS X doesn't have driver problems because Apple has all the drivers set up in advance for the extremely limited subset of all hardware that works with Apple. Linux has driver problems because hardware manufacturers are often loathe to write Linux drivers.

OS X is slick, and the perfect Unix for a home user, and will probably surpass Linux for home desktop use - if Apple ever decides to release it for the x86 architecture. Unless they do that, they've limited their mindshare to people who can afford to buy an Apple. Sure, it's easy to use - but it's also expensive to use. And Apple will pound application developers for not adhering to the UI guideline - as a friendly service to their userbase.

Linux as a movement doesn't much care about being easy to use. It probably never will. Linux wants to "get it done", and it caters to a business/hacker audience. This makes Linux more suitable for an enterprise desktop or a performance-minded shop - nevermind the rest. Maybe someday it could succeed where Apple will probably fail - but I doubt it.

Re:I have to disagree

[gozar]

if Apple ever decides to release it for the x86 architecture. Unless they do that, they've limited their mindshare to people who can afford to buy an Apple. Sure, it's easy to use - but it's also expensive to use.

IMHO, $800 for a 1GHz G4 and 17" monitor is not expensive. Spend another $50 for 256MB of memory from Crucial, and you'll have a machine that will satisfy 90% of home users for the next 5-6 years. Through Apple's loan program it's $19 a month. Five dollars a week... Seventy-two cents a day.

Can you build a cheaper machine? Yes. But how much is your time worth?

Re:I have to disagree

[pyros]

I give up, where do you get a G4 for $800? The online store starts at $1300 for G4s.

Re:I have to disagree

[gozar]

The eMac contains a 1GHz G4.

Re:I have to disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

When my time is spent on myself, it costs me nothing. How much it is worth is pretty irrelevant. I use my computer every day for a myriad of different tasks, and I want it to be as close as possible to ideal for every last one of the tasks. Linux fit the bill perfectly, and I didn't have to pay one penny to anyone to get the software installed (I did LFS).

Bang on!

[Biotech9]

Launchbar is the best little program I've ever had the pleasure of getting used to, I fully intend to pay for it as soon as i get a credit card. Totally kick ass!

Here's the difference:

[EnglishTim]

He doesn't find Linux interesting. Why should he? It's basically a UNIX-alike and he's been working on them for ages.

What he evidently does find interesting is that you can now buy cheap and very small PC hardware and that that opens up all sorts of possibilities. Yeah, so he's using Linux - so what? it's probably the best choice for OS in this situation. That doesn't suddenly make it fascinating.

NOT Linux OR Apple, but Linux AND Apple

[peaceful_bill]

I'm an elementary school teacher, and run an OS X lab with 30 flat panel iMacs and a nice G4 server. We also have a bevy of eMacs and older iMacs in the classroom.

We use the Apple lease program, which let's us (a very small school district in Massachusetts) buy new technology every 3 years.

The thing of it is, last night I bought 3 decent machines from Tiger Direct, and a switch for about $700.00 I'll install RH linux on them, and use them for all sorts of stuff (web server, DNS, DHCP, SQUID, etc...). I currently use an old linux box for SQUID in my lab. problems with it == none !! Now that 10.3 is using LDAP to authenticate, I might fiddle with that in our lab.

As a public institution, I feel we have a fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers (really) and Linux has a place in our schools.

Apple has made Unix available to the masses, but the cost of entry is something to consider. *sigh*

I used to fret about Linux VS OS X and now I say how do they best work together.

oh, and by the way, if anyone has any suggestions for me, listen to this:

98% of my students have computers with internet access at home. Out of those 98%, 95% have windows machines. I have fought like hell to keep Macs in our school, but the onslaught of windows feels almost inevitable (my strategy so far, is to buy as much OS X software as I can, so replacing it with wondows stuff would be prohibitive). What is an effective way to promote the use of elseOS, when "Everyone else is using Windows" ?

Re:NOT Linux OR Apple, but Linux AND Apple

[rjung2k]

What is an effective way to promote the use of elseOS, when "Everyone else is using Windows" ?

I've always preferred shamelessly mocking them every time a headline-grabbing virus or worm or spyware makes the news. "Gee, your network got taken down by SoBig? Too bad; my computer's been running for eight months straight, no firewall, no antivirus stuff, and I've never had any problems..."

wow, you're totally fucking wrong

[Ender Ryan]

If you dig compiling, recompiling and using x systems on top of each other, not allowing for drag and drop between them, can't set your monitor resolution without turning your machine inside out, don't have the luxury of font management, printing, etc etc. then Linux is for you!

Wow, that's a pretty fucking good joke! Hehe. I have all that stuff on Linux, so you are a good joker! Hehe.&lt/vitriolic sarcasm>

Re:wow, you're totally fucking wrong

[zpok]

Two users pointed out that the distro they use is indeed extremely friendly (Gnome).

I am going to have to see this for myself, can't wait.

BTW My own experience indeed is from two years back, but many comments from linux users now say exactly the same things I did. Wasn't joking.

No Joy

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Joy continues to be a supergenius and a complete ass. Keep it up, Bill.

no, your a moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, if you think your display has been showing you PDF graphics for the last 10 years, there's your first huge error.

second, NO ONE has taken any unix distribution and gotten real desktop apps to run on it.

next.. NO you stupid little troll, the interface is as different in panther and system 7 as it is with windows and system 7. look at them. look at the finder, the way the system shows paths, the save dialog boxes LOOK AT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM,

i wish i had terminal and netinfo on my sys7 box.

and why do people say its "change" and cutting edge???
look TO WINDOZE XP.

parent has it right - should be 5.

[Anonymous Coward]

what i said up there. he got the article. all you troll-newb hybrids, check it out

Not if you don't know what you are looking for...

[Ayanami Rei]

(why else would you use ls?... because if you did know what you were looking for you'd be using find)

Not the UI

[The Herbaliser]

I didn't get the sense from reading the interview that he was talking about the UI.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think when he says that Linux isn't interesting from a technological standpoint, he's not talking about how easily he can check his email: he's talking about architectural and technological innovation.

There are fundamental differences between the Darwin and Linux kernels that makes Darwin, in my opinion, a more interesting, and "better" design. This has nothing to do with UI.

On a related note: While Bill Joy may or may not be using his computer at home, I don't think it's fair to call him a "home user". I have no doubt that he's quite comfortable on the command-line, and if you read the rest of the interview, you get the sense he's using his G5 for more than just web-browsing.

Re:Not the UI

[Haeleth]

There are fundamental differences between the Darwin and Linux kernels that makes Darwin, in my opinion, a more interesting, and "better" design.

This sounds interesting, but I can't find any direct comparisons of Linux and Darwin on Google, so I'm not certain what you're talking about. Are you referring to the usual monolithic kernel vs microkernel flamew^H^H^H^H^Hdebate? (Darwin is based on Mach, right?) Or do you have other features in mind? Elaboration would be appreciated...

Re:Not the UI

[Anonymous Coward]

He's almost certainly talking about the UI, as Darwin is a huge step to the left technically.

Darwin's kernel is basically BSD with the scheduler and VM layer replaced with Mach. Notably, it is NOT a single monolithic server running under Mach, like mkLinux was. It is actually just a simple monolithic kernel, that happens to use many of the lower level components of a microkernel.

See:
http://www.opendarwin.org/pipermail/hacker s/2003-A pril/000462.html
for a decent discussion.

Re:Not the UI

[be-fan]

The Darwin kernel is pure nastiness. Its a kludge-job that they had to do to get over the fundemental performance issues of Mach without changing anything major in the architecture. So you end up with BSD fused to Mach in a schizo "dual kernel" setup.

Re:Context

[xtermin8]

I suppose if Bill J wasn't asked his opinions about linux a zillion times already, you'd have a point. I think he was probably just trying to steer the interview away from the subject. /.er's should take the comment for what it is, an offhand comment.

THIS THREAD IS FULL OF WINNERS

[Anonymous Coward]

# Debian and NetBSD don't have compatibility bloat like the "Classic" virtual machine, m68k-CPU-Emulation and "Carbon"-API in MacOS X
# They have much cleaner filesystem layouts than OS X with its inconsistency of Unix directories (/bin, /etc) which are hidden on the GUI level and application folders inherited from NextStep

Yeah for when your running one of 50,000 classic mac os applications. yeah if you run everything coco, which is where os x is going, then no, NONE of those systems are used

I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

After "cutting my teeth" with Linux for the last 8 years (from kernel 1.2 & first slackware), I finally got tired of the administration. I learned most of what I wanted to know about unix, and now I just want to use it. OSX to me is the dream system I've been waiting for since I went from Amiga to Unix.

Unfortunately I'm not the ambitious 20-something I was when I started with unix. I don't want to recompile my kernel every week any more. All the linux I run now is imbedded (net integrator box and dreambox satellite recievers), exactly because I want the power without the maintainence. I think OSX is going to become the burnout hacker's choice of desktop OS exactly for that reason. All the power, none of the fuss. The point is that it's a finished OS. My G5 gives me an experience superior to any desktop OS with superior power than the Sun, AIX, and OSF workstations of just a few years ago. And a full unix implementation to boot! I couldn't be more happy.

Granted there a few non-unix annoyances, but for the most part, it is what I waited and worked 8 years for linux to become, today. It amazes me how fast they threw it together and how well it came out. It is definately the best example of a successful non-open-source project coming together I have seen in a long time.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

my god. an anonymous sales droid. that's pathetic. tell apple to give you some real work to do rather than astroturfing. maybe go do a whois and find out who owns the so-called "fan site" ipodrocks.com.

Three guesses.

Re:All high and mighty / Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Every application I write in Java runs across Windows, OS X and Linux, with no problems.

I've used 1.3 and 1.4.

Are you talking about Microsoft's 1.1?

Re: Outlook

[Anonymous Coward]

Which version of Outlook came on your Mac?

THIS is the "new" and exciting bit in OSX!

[mampo]

You don't really know much about OS X.
First, it's a mach kernel that can act like BSD.
Big difference.
And, it's not really the UNIX part that's so interesting.
It's nice to have as a foundation.

The beauty of OSX is its completely object-oriented layers above UNIX.
Written in Objective-C, a decent mixture between plain C and smalltalk, it lets you write VERY dynamic code.

You have services (one program can offer its capabilities to other programs). Say, one program can open and read PNG files. Sudenly all programs can handle them...

Everything is an object, can send/receive messages etc. And objects can be changed at runtime (say, you can modify the GUI of an compiled program, and even add buttons that connect to objects within the code..!!!)

Look at the really small software shops that crack out incredible code (omni, stone etc.). Not possible without these layers and APIs

This is the "new" bit about OSX.

But this was all developed by NeXT in 1989-93.
So it's not THAT new, but being lightyears ahead back then,
it's still an armlength away from all the other OSes right now.

This makes OSX exciting.
And this is exactly the part that is NOT open sourced at Apple ;-)

Cheers, Martin

Re:Slightly Egotistical - Looking for Gnome 2.4

[zpok]

First experience is not really positive.

I think I'm going to keep a journal to report a bit on this.

Still looking for the Gnome 2.4 installer, still trying to make sense of it all. But intrigued as I am, will go on looking.

All ftp sites have a readme saying I should go to dir /latest/stable/ or just /stable/ and none of them have that directory. Weird. None of the links actually go to an installer or a directory with something that says "Here Is Gnome 2.4, Start Here!!!!!".

As for install instructions, ye gods I hope they are kidding. 20+ installs in a fixed order, dependencies and stuff I have to go and find on other sites?

I can't even find the base installer of the system or whatever on their own website!

Oh well, easy...

Bill Joy's problem

[theolein]

While it certainly is interesting discussing the merits of *BSD, Linux and OSX, I don't think that that is what Bill Joy's problem is. While he has definitely been an important visionary in the world of computing, he seems for all the world to be one of those philosophical types who lose the connection to the real world. His big worries about machines running out of control in the future, while perhaps pertinent didn't seem to help Sun's bottom line and I remember an interview with Scott McNealy saying that he would have made some Sun people leave much earlier if he could go back in time. I wonder if he was referring to Bill Joy here?

His comment on Linux is simply demeaning to all the hundreds of thousands of developers who develop for it (and I use Mac OSX!). Linux has become more important than Solaris, HP-UX and AIX, like it or not, Mr Joy, and those (IBM) who saw this coming are now reaping the benefits and those who didn't (Sun) are now struggling to catch up. Mac OS X is hugely successful, precisely because it appeals to all the people that want the OS to just work, but that in no way means that Linux or the BSDs are worse. They are very good at what they do.

Re:Bill Joy's problem

[BlackBolt]

Extremely. Good. Comment.

It's SOOO nice to see a rational post here at Slashdot (my own included)...

Re:Slightly Egotistical - Looking for Gnome 2.4

[C_nemo]

The insane amount of packages have always been my main gripe with Gnome. I usually wait for my main distro to get upgraded, or chose another gnome installation such as Ximian Desktop (RPM) or Dropline Gnome (slackware), which both offer installers to do all the dirty work for you. Ximian Desktop 2 is Gnome 2.2 based(no resolution switching on the fly) but is a _realy_ polished product, but i think you will have to get a RedHat/Fedora distribution to get the drag'n'drop between Gnome/KDE properly (you might not have to, but its all I've tested it with)

I know you have expressed discomfort with configuration files, but if you use an rpm based distro with apt (freshrpms.net) you could add the following to line to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

rpm http://people.ecsc.co.uk/~matt/downloads/apt fedora-1-i386 gnome extras depends

and then do an 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade', you'll find some great gnome 2.4 packages there anyway if you do not use apt

I wish gnome.org could do a ximian like installer for their releases, it would certainly make the new releases more widespred to start with.

Re:Joy doesn't seem to work the Unix way any more.

[Brother Grifter]

I had to take a bite on this, however, ffakr, covered most of what I wanted to troll on.

There is one more thing though...

• The Mach+BSD server design is a kludge creating unneccessary bloat, complexity and performance overhead without exploiting any of the potential advantages of a microkernel design like better portability or Hurd-style hack value like filesystems running as daemons in userspace etc.

MacOSX's kernel is more of a hybrid kernel, than a pure microkernel. There's only a single layer that messages get passed through to communicate with the kernel, and vice-versa. No one has been able to produce a microkernel that has a.) portability and b.) performance. L4 is by the far the best implementation of a microkernel that is somewhat comparable to the speed of a monolithic kernel and retains all the design goals of a true microkernel.

I believe microkernels ultimate goal was to create a portable operating system with a BSD operating system interface. It achieved that slowly, but performance was terrible. Linux has solved this problem, and people don't pay as much lip service to microkernels as they use to.

Microkernels also aren't as small and streamline as you believe. Mach was just as big a monolithic kernel, and to streamline any of its processes, you had to run kernel extensions in kernel space, not user space, nullifying the user-level kernel extensions goal.

Microkernels also inherently will have more overhead than monolithic kernels. They have to buffer and analyze messages that get passed through each layer in the operating system, just like a network architecture does.

Object-oriented frameworks like Java, Cocoa and Carbon, would crawl on a microkernel because of the number of interrupts generated in such systems.

But MacOS X has great Java support. Cocoa is heavilty object oriented, but is a fast API.

This fast/portable/small microkernel-stuff about MacOS X is a myth. It's a hybrid like NT.

That's the problem with the linux zealots....

[Anonymous Coward]

To them it's not a tool. It's a religious lifestyle choice that comes with tabbed browsing.

Re: Outlook

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook Express, I assume. I spent a weekend a while back helping a friend switch to (Apple's) Mail... would you believe they were so dependent on OE that they were loading Classic just to check their email?

Re:Joy doesn't seem to work the Unix way any more.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Netinfo was depreciated in 10.2 and it's pretty much not used in 10.3"

This seems not to be the case. At least, searching ADC for "Netinfo deprecated" turns nothing up.

Netinfo is, however, now a plugin into OpenDirectory, a peer of LDAP and other databases.

I suspect that the 'deprecation' was in reference to accessing Netinfo through Netinfo-specific APIs and tools like nicl or nidump, and that the preferred APIs and tools are now based on OpenDirectory.

Re: Outlook

[Spyky]

I dunno, I deleted it :-)

It'd be pretty cool if Sun bought Apple!

[ron_ivi]

With HP (hpux, pa-risc) and Dec (ultrix/alpha) both apparently going Linux, it'd be pretty cool to see the two last non-Wintel-Linux computer companies join forces.

BSD Kernel?

[Paladeen]

The kernel is BSD

Uhm....nope. MacOS X uses an implementation of the Mach microkernel from Carnegie-Mellon.

It would be even more fun if...

[mkiwi]

The poster had all those specs (previously mentioned) plus 4 ultra320 SCSI Drives in hardware RAID 5 config ^^

I may love my computer even more than he does his!

Anybody have a G5 that can beat both of us?

I guess Apple TCO is less than Linux TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless your admin-time is your hobby-time, a Mac is cheaper.

Quit being cheap

[Blazn5]

Wow 1 hundred dollars a year.. Uprobaly spend more on porno.