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Confessions of a Mac OS X User
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an interesting commentary on OSDir.com about one Mac OS X user's guilt over using it instead of Linux on his laptop, and how he's been burned by the dreaded iBook logic board problems so much that it underlines the tyranny of hardware vendor lock-in: it's not that Mac OS X isn't F/OSS, but that it only runs on Apple hardware. It also raises the obvious question: have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?"
have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?
You'll have to ask my ex-wife; she took the Mac.
Trolling is a art,
iDidn't do it.
I don't know what is up with this guy. His logic board gets fried, so he says that he can't stand hardware lock-in. It seems like just a rant, and doesn't really make sense. if he didn't like the hardware, he should have just sold the iBook on Ebay, instead of just keeping it. Running Linux won't fix the logic board, and he will be back to having the same problems that he had with his Dell(No Linux Compatibility with Linksys Wireless card.)
It's pretty far down on the things I feel guilty about. I'm a middle-class white American male, you insensitive clod!
Sometimes I feel guilty about useless navel-gazing, as should anyone who bases computer usage on guilt. Good God, use it or don't, and stop whining about it!
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
tap. tap. tap. ......
click. click. click.
mmm......
no.
What, are you crazy?
I would so much rather run this than just about any Linux distro out there. Mainly because I can guarantee my vendor is available on the phone when I need them to troubleshoot any of the funky ass things servers tend to do.
And no, you can't come to my site or have a look at my logs because it's secure, just tell me what error code -16246 means in your software, ok, thanks, bye.
Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
I fell guilty about using Windows XP.... opps, sorry wrong subject.
-B
No, I haven't.
I think Linux has a loooong way to go as a desktop OS. The word from LinuxWorld was "It's not quite there yet.." which means that other people feel the same way.
Mac OS X just works. It has applications that I need to get along. I like having some games. I like having stuff like iSync & iTunes. Yes, I know there's Linux apps, but I like how everything works *together* and isn't an ugly kludge. See, at work, I need to get *work* done.. I don't have time to futz around with Xconfig.
I have never ever felt guilty about using Mac OS X instead of Linux on my Apple hardware.
Linux goes on the *x86* hardware anyway.
What a silly article.
I seriously doubt the average OS X user would feel even the least bit guilty. Hell, the average user doesn't even know what Linux is or that fact that OS X is unix-based. Most OSX users don't contribute to the open source community anyway, they're too busy using iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, iExcellentPackagedSoftware to feel guilty.
Sometimes I feel guilty about doing some work, while I am trying to read Slashdot.
>> have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?
Hell no. I only ever use Linux for servers.
Using any of the window managers that ship with Linux makes me love my OS X box even more.
And hardware lockin is a double-edged sword. If the hardware is of poor quality is is indeed a problem but I have never had an issue with any of the Apple hardware I have owned that I couldn't get fixed by an Apple tech in a few days.
Can't say that for some of the x86 beige box machines I've owned that I've had Linux on.
Linux is not on par with mac os x as a desktop system. Maybe someday, but not yet. In this instance you get what you payfor. My webserver is linux and that works fine-- no way would I pay for mac to run my domain, its just to expensive. I love linux but I will only use it where it is the best solution.
Just like programming: java, perl, c++ depends on the solution I need to solve.
Jonathan
Guilt implies that you've done something wrong. So why would I feel guilty about using a certain OS? This is really getting out of hand. If you feel guilty about using OS X instead of Linux you need professional help.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Now this is personal opinion, and I am sure I am inviting plenty of flames, so... here goes.
I don't think anyone should feel ashamed for not using linux as their desktop. Fact of the matter is, any OS claiming to be linux is just a mess of free software utilities and applications, on a unixy type setup.
While there have been a few noble attempts at actually building an OS from the linux kernel, it ends up being no more then repackaging the same crap in a more "shiny" way.
The linux kernel is a good base for an OS. Until something other then a Unix clone is made from it, I will stand tall to the fact that I wont use it for my desktop.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Every once in a while I feel a twinge of guilt over using an OS (Mac OS X) that, while based on an open-source foundation, isn't truly free the way Linux is. I believe strongly in the F/OSS model and would love to see it take over the software world, so shouldn't I be doing my part?
And then I look at the current state of the Linux desktop: it's pretty much caught up to Windows, but it's got a long way to go before it matches the Mac. I switched from M$ to Apple when I realized how much Windows sucked in comparison to the MacOS, and I've never really regretted that decision, so why would I want to take a step backwards? At the end of the day, I'm a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Use what works, not what someone else tells you that you should use because it's morally superior (Linux) or what everyone else is using (Windows).
Right here, right now, OS X lets me get my work done faster, more efficiently, and more enjoyably than any other OS. If that changes, maybe my choice of OS will too. It hasn't happened yet, and honestly I don't expect that it will any time soon.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
About using a superior desktop product?
Sorry, I feel no guilt in using the right tool for the right job.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
If you're feeling "guilty" about using a particular OS over another one, you need to ask yourself what you're using the OS in question for in the first place. Because it suites your needs or because it
If you buy something like a Mac and then feel guilty about using OSX on it, geez man, it's time to get a lithium prescription unless you really feel like running Linux on it would give you something that OSX can't, other than any perceived or actual ethical/theological dogma.
Don't feel guilty. In fact, you should go by the unspoken Apple mantra that those of us who use OS X are better than everyone else.
This post is more right because it was posted from OS X.
One thing that annoys me is that there is no way the user can service (replace or remove) the hard disks.
My ibook has suffered 2 motherboard failures, and the machine would not even boot in firewire mode. I wished I could just remove the disk, and send the laptop for service (the service people don't need to see my files!)
The laptops I owned previously (IBM and dell) both allowed me to remove the disk.
I've never used an Apple product in my life. I have looked at OSX a few times but find it very unintuitive and I don't much care for beeing locked into ONE vendor for both software and hardware, pluss the fact that anything branded Apple is as expensive as a minor nuclear device.
I know I'm going to be flamed by the 1337 Apple zealots but i couldn't care less.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
I've been a medium-level Linux sys admin for a number of years. But I'm also a web designer, and recently I decided that I needed to get a notebook. The decision to go with an iBook was almost a no-brainer: I wanted professional applications instead of almost-professional, and I didn't want to worry about incompatibilities, libraries, GNOME buggering itself, etc. And it has been marvelous. Now that I've replaced my linux box with a dedicated DSL router, I hardly ever turn it on.
Overall, perhaps I do feel a bit guilty. I wish Sodipodi, The Gimp, and Bluefish were more stable and competitive with FreeHand, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver. And while I've used all of those applications to do some advanced things, it is simply easier and faster for me to use my Macromedia apps. Sure they cost me a few (student) dollars, but they've been worth every penny. (and yes, I started with MacGIMP, which at least is better than WinGIMP).
But the best part is that I've stopped screwing around on the computer, thus freeing me up for other more important life activites (wife, for instance).
I think that he is going to try to load Linux on his Power Book. That's a followup story I'd like to see! I don't know if it is possiable, but he seemed to have trouble getting an wireless card running....
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Ask RMS that question... but bring a pillow.
True story.
I only tried a Mac (Powerbook) less than a week ago. I used to own one of the early macs in the mid 80s that I loved but I felt frustrated by proprietary cuteness. I find Mac today has even more of the wonderful aesthetic appeal and is *much* more open thanks to the unix basis and the work of many. So I consider it the best of all worlds for my laptop needs. I love Linux and have owned several linux desktops and laptops. But the Powerbook is the first computer that has put a big grin on my face every time I use it in many a year. Guilt? Over happy computing?
So do I, but I keep findig places where Linux has the advantage. OS X is a kick-ass server and desktop OS, but Linux is really great for obscure shit, like making that ancient LPT photographic printer into a network printer, or packet-sniffing the network to figure out where all the traffic's coming from.
/dev/hda. Of course there's a bit more to it than that if you actually want it to happen quickly, but if you know your fundamentals it's no hassle.
Hell, I run 200 Macs, but I use Linux boot-CDs to image the ones from the pre-firewire days. It's just easier to have a respawning pair of 'netcat' processes listening on the server than fiddling with open-firmware or netrestore. I just boot the mac with the linux CD, netcat the file down and dd it to
Do I feel guilty about not using Linux? Sometimes, I feel bad for not using Linux on my x86 box here, but I need to run a windows app to track tickets on it. I feel bad for not running a few Linux boxes for the kids to toy with on campus, but if they show an inclination to geekiness I'll be showing them the way to OSS anyway.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
A couple years back my uncle wore some lousy Apple t-shirt when he was fixing his car. He got more sh*t from random people than yankees fan in boston.
Ever since then my uncle gets extremely embarrassed when he mentions he's a mac user. He just doesn't know what to expect next.
Why would iFeel guilty about using OSX? I'm a new PowerBook owner and iFeel having a nice UNIX/BSD/Whatever core under my iHood is a feature. Linux is, as many have stated, not ready for mass desktop usage (though iDisagree, with the latest KDE builds...) so running OSX gives me a system my iFriends, my iMother, my iCoworkers, etc. are more comfortable using while it is secure, powerful, and pretty. That review of BSD yesterday said just that, "Greater server, but the desktop is lacking." OSX gives us Aqua, which solves the desktop problem.
Now, some people will say that using OSX and Apple hardware brainwashes people into supporting Apple blindly. That is not the case. iLove Apple. They have never done anything that iDislike and iHave never noticed any kind of subliminal messages. iLove Apple. iPlan to upgrade and iPlan to stick with this company. iCal tells me to...
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
...he just did not do a good job of making the point.
His main point is that if this happened to you on a PC, you could easily go to another vendor and run the same software on different hardware. Your Dell died and you think it's not going to recover? Drop the drive (or dd, or rsync, or whatever) into an IBM and you're basically good to go.
Because Apple does not let you run OS X on any other hardware, you are completely dependent on them for making your software work. If you get used to a certain environment and certain applications but then the hardware fails, you're screwed.
Not so with anything on the x86 platform. It may not be easy, but linux, Windows, and others can be moved to different hardware from different vendors pretty easily.
In other words, using Apple's software is _both_ software and hardware lock-in, and he hates it.
I thought the guilt thing was silly, tho. Use what works best for you; I find it takes hours more a month to maintain my stupid linux box (often just because it's x86) than my powerbook, even though I do much more crap to the powerbook. I'm certainly not going to feel guilty for just using my computer, instead of maintaining it.
...why would I feel guilty. I can do almost anything I can do with Linux with the additional benefit of apps like iTunes. I've never had a problem using closed source software, I just have a problem with crappy closed source software.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
Why is vender lock in for Apple ok when it's considered bad for anyone else?
I'm guessing you're a troll, but the reason I look favorably upon Apple is that they contribute back to the open source community (KHTML) and give exposure to many open source projects (Mozilla).
True story.
I've used a number of operating systems over the years and while Linux is where I spend more of my time anymore I can't see any reason to feel guilty over using something else if it did the job better and that includes keeping me entertained, which Linux does better than anything else. Who needs games when I've got prism54 drivers to get working?
Seriously though, if you feel guilt for the OS of your choice on top of already being a fucking nerd, you're a fucking loser and you need to never, ever touch a computer again. I haven't even read the article but just the thought of guilt setting in over this shit...? Please, email me your address so I can take a 2x4 to all your hardware and then to you.
Explain yourself.
Apple uses OSS as the foundation of Mac OS X. Apple uses open standards where it is possible in all aspects of the operating system and their applications. Apple even uses an open processor platform instead of IA-64 or IA-32.
I don't know of anyoen that says this. Monocultures are bad. Interoperability is good.
As far as Netflix Fanatic is concerned, Cricket still works for Apple. What does that tell you?
mbbac
"When in fact Apple is more closed source and proprietary than both of them combined"
???
How can you be "more closed source and proprietary"? I'd love you hear your explanation, including specifics where MS products are "more" open source and less proprietary.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
So, if you have important "work to do" why would you not have a hot backup machine ready and waiting at all times? For years I've set myself up so any one of my machines could get hit by a sledge hammer and I'd be back up and running within the time it took me to get to my other system and restore some files off a CD. Doesn't everyone do something similar?
I've heard no hardware crap out stories so far about Apple, but what they DO need to make their offering rock solid is on-site support contracts like Dell has - where a person comes to you, bearing a replacement part. I've used this three times in two years, it's been great.
On the other side of the story, comitting to OSX (or any Apple product, or Microsoft product) is comitting to Vendor Lock In.
So stop your whining about "guilt" you little troll boy and use OSS and an more open hardware platform, and then contribute something to the community other than these stupid articles.
Guilty? Nah... I have the opposite problem.
Not since realizing that you get what you pay for.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Apple as a company is not an angel. But its not a monoply and is leverging open source an contributing back to the open source community. As a rule Apple shuns DRM (digital rights management).
But OS-X has at its core DARWIN which is an open source version of BSD which apple puts out. The parts of the OS that isn't opensource is the graphics layer above OS and a few other bits (hfs+ the file system is not open either I think.).
They've given back web browser code, updates to GCC etc. etc.. So all told they're not bad guys.
I knew a student of "indigenous oppression" in colonial Africa who claimed that tribal chiefs with the authority to oppress maybe 250 people, living in grand, dirt-floor huts with four times the dirt-floor-space of their oppressed serfs, were in the same league as European empires.
Maybe they wished they were in the same league as England or France, but they weren't. Wake me up when Apple has >50 percent market share and its piddly little evil deeds take on the coercive power of M$. Then I'll be all outraged. Until then I will sit, not very oppressed and quite happy, at my Powerbook.
(I only replied to the M$ aspect---SCO is not really worth whining about unless you get too close when they're sucked down the toilet)
What I have never understood about certain segments of the open source community is why Apple gets such a big pass. The average slashdrone will rant endlessly (and probably rightly so) about the evils of SCO and Microsoft. When in fact Apple is more closed source and proprietary than both of them combined and talk about how cool Apple is and if only the world were a better place we would all use Mac's. Any model that fails to give you control of the hardware and software that you pay for is a bad one. Apple locks down both, a claim that is not applicable to either Microsoft or SCO. The open source community should get out of bed with Apple before we get another SCO situation on our hands. To those who say Apple would never do something like SCO look here.
/. long enough. ;) Apple is the underdog and a competitor to Microsoft, so it has to be good. That said, I think they also gain points in many geeks' eyes due to the fact that OSX is built upon BSD, which is itself embraced by the slashdot community. It's also really the first *nix OS with true mainstream application support. Or at least as much as Mac OS ever had, but most importantly it has Microsoft Office support (no matter your opinion, it's still the standard) Photoshop support, and probably a bunch of other graphical production apps I've never heard of but are pretty important to a lot of other people. So, even though they are extremly closed source and proprietary, they still provide geeks with an appealing alternative to Microsoft, not to mention the occasional cool, innovative, overpriced gadget.
You clearly havne't been visiting
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Its nowhere near the same, this guy developed a product while employed at Apple and sold it on the side. In the case of apple employee's working on open source projects liek fire this wsn't an issue because they were begun before the employee's tenure at apple.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Guilt. Linux. OS X. Sounds like a religious post to me.
Guilty about what? Being productive with a choice that empowers you more than another? That seems plain silly (to even pose the question).
/., but um, I like to run lots of retail software under Windows, e.g., games. And no, I'm not interested in WineX or WINE thanks. I'm cool with Mozilla, OpenOffice, RedHat's BlueCurve desktop but if it doesn't cut the mustard, I'll quickly go elsewhere.
I have a Windows XP desktop and a LINUX desktop and they appear as one large desktop thanks to x2vnc.
Yeah this may be
-M
PS: This thread presupposes desktops... if you're talking about backend systems, I'm *NIX all the way.
When in fact Apple is more closed source and proprietary than both of them combined
But Apple does do good things. For example, there are at least two or three Apple people working full time on GCC, including integrating various things Apple has done locally back into the main tree. I hear they have roughly the same thing going on with BSD and probably some of the other OSS stuff they use. Self interest? Of course, if it's in the main tree they don't have to deal with re-integrating it each time they want to pick up a new upstream release. But when was the last time you saw MS or SCO or (insert supposedly evil company) do something like that?
Any model that fails to give you control of the hardware and software that you pay for is a bad one.
You only have full control of the hardware when you build it yourself, from stock parts. If you buy your boxen from Apple or Dell or IBM or whoever, you should pretty much expect some degree of hardware lock-in. That's the way it goes, especially with laptops. Deal.
The puritans are running amok outside of reality again.
How exactly is OS X more closed than Windows? More GPL'd software gets ported to OS X than Windows. Quite a bit of OS X is Open Source, in that anyone can view the code - as opposed to Windows and/or Solaris. If the hardware is so proprietary, then why do 15" PowerBooks have DVI-out, USB 2.0, Firewire, DDR SDRAM, and industry-standard 2.5" hard drives, and more? Also, SCO doesn't make hardware.
How is something so blatantly WRONG modded up as interesting? Since when was utter ignorance at all interesting?
Need I go on with how Apple differs from Microsoft and SCO?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Guilty? What an odd question. Correction...What a meaningless question
"Have I felt the *need* to use Linux instead of OS X?" Not even once. Heck, ever since I got a 12"PB to replace the Sony laptop that I had been carting around for 2 years, I don't even feel the need to use Win2K. OS X just works, which allows me to get work done, instead of twiddling/tweaking/patching.
Well, to be completely truthful, I did fire up the old VAIO the other day so that I could get on XBConnect and play some Halo on the ol' XBox.
But other than that, I've been OS (se)X-ing it, 24x7.
---anactofgod---
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
LOL, how very true. But just think, every /. reader would read the same ten articles (9 of which are +1 Funny -- but not really), skip the rest be bored for the rest of their lunch/evening and maybe do something else. It'd be the fall of /., therefore it will never happen.
./LookLikeImWorking.sh... [yells]COMING!!!... ok, there... [answers door]"
Anyway, to remain slightly on topic... While I've never used OSX, I would think that someone who agonizes over what OS their using has more to worry about than just computer stuff. I can see it now, "Ooooh, I love OS Y, but I really should be using X. Gosh, the joy I get from using Y is almost eclipsed by the agony of neglecting my beloved X. Is this guilt normal? Maybe I should go see Dr. Petres... Shh! Did someone knock? Quickly, quickly! Reboot, select Linux...
I've been considering getting a PowerBook to replace my current Linux laptop. I'm held back by the fact that many of the security related tools are developed on Linux.
As far a hardware lock in is concerned, there is a degree of hardware lock in for all laptops. Apple uses the same SO DIMMS and hard drives as PC laptops, though I haven't tried to get a non Airport miniPCI board to work in an Apple. Now on the desktop side there is a lot of commodity hardware for PCs.
The real argument isn't hardware replacements, it's competition. Apple makes it's money on the hardware. It's why the OS is for their hardware, and as a technincal side benefit, gives them control over how the hardware and the OS interact. I don't think Apple could reasonably port OS X to the PC for business reasons. Right now, if you want to run OS X on a laptop, guess who you have to buy from? It's simple economic, only made slightly more complicated by the fact that the PC laptop market exists. You can think of it (simplisticly) as two different markets, a low compition market i.e. PC vs Apple, and a high compition market i.e. the PC laptop market. While Apple has to pay some attention to the PC laptop market, it is not bound to any individual vendor as a direct compeditor. If OS X was released for the PC, Apple could no longer take that stance.
Spyder
how could I feel guilty about OS X? ok, it's gross that icons wiggle and pop up when you click them, that the iBook itself looks like a jelly bean, and that sometimes the running iChat man makes me laugh...but some of us like computers to seem happy :). (why else do you think emoticons were invented?)
Unspoken?? We generally say it loud and clear!
I personally would not want to see Apple in Microsoft's position, because I think Jobs would quite possibly be worse for the computing world, but they're playing nice right now. Comparing them to M$ and SCO is just stupid.
The vast majority of the stuff they do now is based on open protocols, and a lot of times these are protocols developed at Apple and then released. Rendezvous is probably the best example; this is something that computers users desperately need (yes, you too, even if you don't know it) and Apple's actually given us some hope we'll see it.
No, Aqua itself isn't open, but the Unix underpinnings are, and Apple does everything they can to give advancements back. Safari is based on an OSS rendering engine, and they've contributed back to that project quite a bit. They used an open (if not common) format for their audio (sorry, does Ogg have DRM? No? Then Apple can't use it).
As to the link you provided, that's totally unrelated. The guy is employed as a software developer at Apple. All employers have non-compete agreements with their employees, and all employers are somewhat harsh about employees doing things at home that are related to what they do at work. I'm currently under the thumb of a contract in which I'm modifying my own GPL'd code for the company but I can't rerelease the code. Incredibly stupid and annoying, but incredibly standard. And, of course, totally unrelated to this topic or to SCO.
As to control of the hardware and software, I guess it depends on your definition of "control". I can't think of any senses in which Apple has control of either my hardware or software. I can install whatever I want on my Macs, and it will only take <1 second to get through the BIOS, as opposed to the shite x86 boxes and their shite BIOS. I have control of the software too, in the sense that I've upgraded the crap out of OS X and strangely Apple hasn't seemed to mind. What do you mean by "control"?
I wake up in the middle of the night crying.. knowing that i use photoshop, dreamweaver, office and many other wonderfull programs on my unix box. I feel horrible that my favorite OS is supported by hardware manufacturers and works seamlessly with windows PCs but i dont have all the issues of a windows user..
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
First of all Apple actually contributes to OSS projects even though they generally stay away from GPLed code and don't have to contribute their changes.
They've made many documented improvements to KHTML, gcc, the *BSDs, and others. They've also made the entire underlying operating system available as OSS.
Can you even come close to saying anything like that about Microsoft and SCO? Those two companies are the ones who testify in from of congress that OSS is unconstitutional and will destroy the US economy.
Apple also doesn't lock down their hardware, and it's totally possible to run other OSes on Macs. Their is one proprietary part that is required to run Mac OS, but if you don't want to run Mac OS it's not a problem.
Ever heard of OpenFirmware? It's an open standard that Apple, Sun and others use instead of the antiquated BIOSes found in PCs. What do MS and Intel want to replace the BIOS with? A locked down firmware that will implement DRM for media and software and possibly even OSes at the most basic hardware level. That's open?
Apple uses standard components and has opened up many of their hardware innovations like FireWire.
In other words: you're nuts.
Your freedom of speech doesn't equate to my having to listen, agree and silently acquiesce--especially when you are plainly biased and just plain wrong.
The irony is that its the zealots (whatever banner they ride under) that are the first to accuse everyone who doesn't agree with them of zealotry.
Listen up, buddy, it's a fricking tool. Get over yourself and find something worthwhile to fight for. It's a shame that hordes of idiots--who don't even have a vested interest in it--flame and whine until you drown out all relevant and reasonable discussion of what makes one tool the right one for a particular task.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
I frankly don't feel guilt using Windows XP(TM) over Linux, let alone OSX. Whatever tool fits the job (or job description), which in the workplace is a combo of XP/2000, IPSO and Solaris. I think people need to keep this in perspective. Do you enjoy using Linux/XP/OSX/a Comodore 64, etc? Does it fit your personal/professional needs? Can you use it? Sorry but guilt over choice of OS is a little hard for me to grok (and I was raised Catholic).
You would feel guilty, as I do sometimes, because you have principles which you would like to uphold 100% of the time, those principles being a commitment to freedom(as in speech) and against contributing to an increase in non-free softwares userbase. Having principles make you feel dirty sometimes, as when you are forced into a pragmatic decision such as getting a mac because you don't have enough ability to get Linux/BSD/WhateverFreeOS running well, for example.
I would *love* to use Linux but I can't even get XDarwin and MacGimp to run on my powerbook. So yes, I do feel guilty sometimes. Is it aan overwhelming, mind numbing guilt? No, but it is there.
A blog about stuff.
OS X gives me a nice solid UNIX with a much nicer interface and better vendor support (both software and hardware). Thank You Very Much.
Besides, Apple's laptops are Really Nice and I haven't yet had anything like the same number of little annoying problems that I've had with both Windows and Linux on laptops. (This may well be related to generally superior hardware than you find from PC vendors who are engaged in cutthroat competition, but whatever.)
I actually bought our household's first Mac for my wife because I got rather tired of reinstalling Windows (and all her apps) for her every 3 months when it puked all over itself. I wanted something that wouldn't require a lot of admin effort on my part, but that was still easy enough to use and with enough software that she wouldn't pull her hair out.
It worked, although there were some teething pains as we both learned to use it and dug up the applications she needed.
I ended up liking her laptop so much that when it came time to replace my Linux laptop I went with a Mac for myself too. The silly things work well.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
I'm getting myself an IBook. :-)
I'm not gonna ditch Panter, since I have some stuff to do in Flash. Other than that I'll stick with OSS and use Java. After all, the Java integration in MacOSX is phenomenal. I'm looking forward to just firing up JEdit without skinning and all and have it not look like someone did doo-doo on my screen but instead really cool with native AA fonts and all that stuff. Jippeee!
It might be that I install Debian PPC on a different Partition though. Probably sometime later.
Apart from MacOSX being proprietary Apple did just the right thing, imho: Use a refernce grade OS with solid OSS support as base and design a high end GUI around it. To me OSX and Linux aren't that far apart. I used it the other day and it even has ZShell installed! OSS *nix goodness with Apple Eyecandy and high end design tools and Java run natively. Just how cool is that? No, I probably won't feel guilty.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
That sounds like a testament to Dell's ability to piss people off.
There are already many Linux distributions dedicated/ported to Apple's hardware. Especially there are many Linux installation reports on Apple PowerBooks and iBooks.
Maybe we've reached the point where we're no longer able to simply take or leave an OS on its own merits. I use Linux most of the time because it's cheap, stable, and I like the KDE desktop. At work, I use Windows for proprietary applications unavailable elsewhere. I also have a cool older iBook running OS X that has taken years of rough treatment without causing me much offense. I'll buy a G5 soon to run Photoshop.
It's all a question of the right tools for the job at hand. Operating systems aren't a religion. There's no need to feel guilty using one or the other. No divine laws are transgressed.
That being said, I think the Open Source movement is highly worthwhile. It provides the means to quality computing for those who might not be able to afford proprietary software, and it certainly keeps Microsoft, Sun, and Apple honest. Well -- mostly honest, in the case of at least one of those companies.
I'm grateful to all those who have freely contributed code to the stuff I use. Power to the People.
But guilty for using OS X? How silly. Mac users should probably feel good about contributing to the diversity of the commercial software industry.
They should probably also feel good about an OS that works right out of the box, and which supports some quality retail software. Not to mention the time they save without the hassle of resolving dependencies, looking up hardware compatability, or the forever tweaking many of us actually enjoy with Linux.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I can't RTFA because the site is /.ed at the moment. In my experience Mac OS X provides just enough aggravation for me as a Linux user that I do feel guilty using it. Not guilty because I am betraying Linux or any related ideal, but guilty because I am betraying myself--giving up speed convenience and usability every time I watch the dreaded spinning beach ball of death, or wait for OS X to switch between windows. Expose is a neat hack, but it is no match for multiple desktops and sloppy focus (don't even bother pitching Codetek VirtualDesktop because it is totally inadequate in speed and usability--including the beta code for sloppy focus). Trying to fill out web forms with just the keyboard is impossible (and yes I know about "full keyboard access" a complete misrepresentation since it doesn't work as expected on even Apple applications). The major saving grace of OSX is that Launchbar exists for it.
I own a G4 iBook; the reason I own one is because Apple replaced my G3 iBook after I suffered 3 failed logic boards over the past year. The place where I get my warranty done said that in December they were involved in 5 G3 iBook replacements with Apple. Now, I'm happy that Apple replaced my system with a new model, and I hope that the problems that so many experienced with the last generation of iBooks have been resolved, but going back to OS X is painful after using exclusively GNOME 2.4 for the past month or so. I had consdiered selling the G4 on eBay and getting an x86 system. I didn't because none of them can offer the battery life available on Apple hardware without being Centrino linux-lockout. At least Debian runs well on Apple hardware.
Regardless, I'm in the middle of finking GNOME 2.4 onto Darwin so I can get some work done. I don't fault Apple so much as the rest of the industry for designing ugly, heavy, low-battery-life, windows-centered behemoths.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
http://silicon.wack.us/sdmirror/article434.html
Natural-Selection Be
ok I call your ass on the carpet. tell me ONE thing that OSX can do that linux cant.
Easy: Open a complex Microsoft Office document and not lose any layout settings because of conversion issues...
Well that's one. Let me give you a few others:
-Real world page layout (quarkxpress, indesign)
-Photoshop (CMYK) editing
-Real time video editing/post production work of HD streams across ANY IEEE1394 video device.
-Wake up from sleep in less than a second
-Connectivity to a Microsoft Exchange Server
-Actually play Warcraft 3 (and sign up for the worlds of warcraft beta test!) (and no, buying WineX and dealing with the emulation layer isn't good enough)
I can go on and on (like professional MIDI software for musicians) but I just remembered you asked for one thing "OSX can do that linux cant."
Now sure, I can't run it on my Lego Mindstorm, but I think the stuff I listed is a little more important. and with my hardware accelerated X11 server, I can do alot of the stuff that you linux guys can do too.
This joke is so not funny anymore.
It all depends on whether the particular mod laughed or not really.
Under the right circumstances slipping on a banana peel is still funny.
As the 2000 year old man once noted:
"Tragedy is when I bang my thumb. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die."
It's all in your perspective. IAIYP in the modern way of phrasing things.
When dealing with the sort of humor that is based on language and spelling the appreciation of a certain cleverness is part of the humor response, so if you've seen something over and over again it loses something. On the other hand one can take a completely tired old pun in a new situation, give it a little twist, and it will be funny, at least in part, because the joke was already tired.
In this case the author of the joke didn't just put an "i" in front of everything and say "see, funny, huh?" He constructed a very simple sentence that used the "i" in a grammatically correct way and apropo to the subject.
I got a mild giggle out of it.
SCO sue me.
KFG
More like Mac NOSeX...
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
This is just ideology run amuck. Programmers and engineers need to eat too. We can't all work for free.
Wake up. Free and Open have little to do with money or salaries or commercial interests. It has to do with rights, freedoms, security, and doing the smart thing for your own company and your clients.
My company runs Linux on all desktops (yes, we're small and nerdy so we can do this) and production servers (just good business, here). We pay money for our operating systems, just like we would to MS or Apple. We happen to pay RedHat and SuSE for our operating systems. We get fantastic support (so far). We make (small) profits here, and we're able to pay our programmers. The RedHat and SuSE people get paid, so they're okay too. Our products save our clients money, so they're doing just well also. What the hell is the problem? Yes, we release nearly all of our own products Open Source, under the GPL. And it doesn't prevent us from charging money to people for them.
If my company goes under, our clients have a lot of piece of mind that the latest source is available to them. Lately, there have even been 3rd party consultants who have taken our source and added features that we simply don't have time for (or disagree with), and they're able to make a living (partially, at least; I'm not sure) at that. Yee ha. There is no lack of money in Free and Open if that's what your goal is.
Dammit, Free and Open are not about money.
I used a Linux desktop for three years (1999-2002), and it was a good three years. I never looked back to my Win*** days with fondness, and I felt smug whenever my co-workers got viruses I didn't. Of course, I also had a list of niggling gripes a mile long, not the least of which was my inability to find any usable applications where VERSION >= 1.0.
Switching to Mac OS X (first on my wife's iBook, then on my own TiBook) fixed all my gripes and only gave me a few new things to gripe about. Then, I noticed something amazing... I wasn't spending 10 hours/week fiddling with my system, updating packages, tweaking WM preferences, and searching endlessly for a GUI text editor as usable as BBEdit or UltraEdit.
Plus, it has vi! and Apache! and MySQL! and ImageMagick! and!!!1! I really haven't made it past the glow of using a system that JUST. PLAIN. WORKS. Perhaps Apple will do something really tyrannical (*cough* DRM *cough*) that will make me regret the switch, but for now I'm too happy to care.
~chris, who has to get back to his day job writing Open Source software (for servers)
Read the full text my book Perl for the Web
i spent an entire year preaching Linux to all my friends but i have to admit that all the way i've been having tons of problems with it... USB devices were not working, attempts to switch keyboard layouts gave me XFree86 errors, trying to do accounting with Gnucash was a lunacy, and could XMMS be ANY UGLIER? Then i tried installing XD2 from Ximian (which I still consider the best "graphical shell" for Linux) and that just broke *everything* on my laptop... On that day i just got so mad i walked down the street and got a powerbook G4...
so, back to the guilt thing.... yes, i do feel guilty - probably because i kind of showed myself as a hypocrite - preaching linux to others then getting an Apple machine. i think the key with Linux happiness is to recognize whether it's APPROPRIATE for what you do. if you need email, web browsers and a shell then Linux IS perfeect... but if you try to use it the way i did (USB, Music, several business applications, multimedia), then you better know how to recompile things yourself (i don't).
Nope. I feel smug, just like the rest of my cult... err... community
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
When I boot up my Mac OS
It's always with a sense of shame
I've always been the one to blame
Linux is what I long to do
But everything I really choose
Has one thing in common, too
Chorus:
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a sin
Every app I've ever run
Everything I ever do
Every game I've ever played
Everywhere site I'm going to
It's a sin
And Slashdot taught me how to be
A Linux God, and very l337
They didn't quite succeed
Linux is what I long to do
But everything I really choose
Has one thing in common, too
(Chorus)
Linus, forgive me, I tried not to do it
Burned a Knoppix CD, then I ignored it
Whatever you taught me, it didn't compile
Linus, you got me a brand new OS
But I still don't understand
So I boot up my Mac OS
Forever with a sense of shame
And I'm the one to blame
Linux is what I long to do
But everything I really choose
Has one thing in common, too
(Chorus)
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
The big advantage in my view is that I feel better and work better when my screen's an aesthetic delight than otherwise.
So I'm delighted with all my Macs - I switched almost totally away from Linux and Irix, my previous systems, and in terms of computing environment, I couldn't be happier. The Mac isn't perfect, but it's as close to a hassle-free computing environment as I can get.
And that's worth its weight in gold, at least for me.
Just out of curiosity, could you give a few examples of things you can't do from the command line? I'll bet there actually are ways around it that you haven't heard.
D
What editor did RMS use to write the first emacs?
All's true that is mistrusted
"have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?"
Why anyone would feel "guilty" is beyond me. There is nothing wrong with using closed source software, provided you are willing to accept the pros and cons of such a decision. (Also, if I wasn't using Mac OS X, I would be using NetBSD. The open source world is larger than the Linux kernel.)
As for the hardware, all laptops users are pretty much dependent upon the vendor for help, as every vendor pretty much custom enginneers their laptops. (It's too bad that laptop components have never become standardized the way desktop parts have. It would be nice to be able to build a laptop.)
closed source?
remember that buffer overflow problem on OS X not too long ago? someone was able to look at the source code and had a fix within hours. You think that will ever happen with a closed source and proprietary OS like MS Windows?
Actually Apple has always been good and they weren't always the underdog to Microsoft. Go back 25 years and they were both shoestring operations but Apple was bigger than Microsoft.
Apple has always been good because they are a combined hardware/software company with geniuses on the payroll (eg, Raskin, Burcell, and Wozniak). What Apple does is Real Computing. Microsoft is a software company that rips off ideas from others, then rewrites history to pretend that Microsoft did it first. There's no honour in what Microsoft does. It's kinda lame.
Apple-critics like to say that Apple ripped off the GUI from Xerox. But it's not true. Xerox had basic ideas like windows and mice. Apple had to create dozens of new concepts for the GUIs used on the Lisa and the Macintosh. It's fairer to say that Xerox started something and Apple finished it. That's another big point in Apple's favour.
One thing I've always disliked about Apple is (sadly) the Apple community. They're more rabid than Linux fanatics and more clueless to boot. I have listened to various Apple-fanatics defending cooperative multitasking, lack of protected memory, benefits of RAM Doubler, any justification at all for forked filesystems, etc. It always boggles my mind that they can talk about how much more "productive" they are because of 2-second savings in changing focus, but they suddenly go quiet when they have to wait 5 minutes during a reboot because their computer crashed. Thankfully MacOSX has fixed the foundational problems with MacOS.
But leaving the rabid community aside, Apple from the 70s and 80s would have been top of my list of Places I'd Like To Work if I'd been old enough at the time. Even with the downside of Steve Jobs having to be there. Apple does cool stuff. They always have. They still are. They're among the few companies that have kudos in the geek community, even if you didn't particularly like MacOS <= 9 because of the foundational faults in its design.
But Microsoft has always sucked. Bill Gates has always been a dickhead and his company has always been the McDonalds of computing. He might be rich but he has never been cool. There's nothing nifty about Microsoft software. It gets the job done on a budget. That's about the nicest thing you can say about Microsoft.
What? Why would I be using Linux on my laptop? I'm not a masochist.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
You "get what you pay for.." is an insult to all the hardworking OSS coders and the academic ones before them
It's definately an insult to all the KDE programmers who handed Safari to Apple on goddamn platter.
OS X wouldn't exist without open source.
I'm feeling terribly guilty.
..Sigh..
Just remember that it is an individual threshold.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Along those lines I can't say I derive any great satisfaction when one of my posts just gets modded up to +5 and sits there.
The ones that I take pleasure in are the ones that provoke a "mod war," where the post gets moderated a dozen times or so and span the complete range of adverbs.
Then I know I've written something that with some development and editing would turn into a good piece of writting by my own standards.
A standard which places the humorous agent provocateur, such as Twain and Swift, up at the top of the list. (Thoreau might fit into this catagory as well, but his humor is so incredibly dry and philosophically subtle that it often takes some pains to root it out. The sentence "As the time is short I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism.", comes to mind).
KFG
Apple provides a neat little tool named security for this purpose. It allows full access to, and manipulation of, the keychain.
To retrieve my Slashdot password from the keychain, I would do the following:
Note that the first time you use security to access a keychain item, you will receive the standard Confirm Access to Keychain dialog. It would be unwise and unhelpful for this to happen when you are trying to access the keychain remotely via SSH, therefore it would pay to first access the keychain in this manner when you have access to the UI to Always Allow security to access that keychain item.You can buy your processor from Intel or from AMD (and once you buy a motherboard, you're locked into that vendor for your processor upgrades for as long as you own that board). Likewise, for a Mac, you're pretty much buying a processor upgrade from IBM (or from Motorola for G4s). There are intermediaries you can go through from both sides (there are several processor upgrade vendors on the Mac side, believe it or not), but it boils down to Intel or AMD on the one hand or IBM on the other, since they're the ones manufacturing the chips.
Cases, motherboards, and most expansion cards (inasmuch as they're Mac-specific, anyway) are the only items you listed that can be said to be "locked in" on the Mac anymore. There's no special hard drive you need to buy for a Mac, they use DDR RAM, same as most PC motherboards, and the peripherals all use the same USB and Firewire as PC peripherals and are almost always compatible with both if they're compatible with a Mac.
What the difference between the Mac and x86 boils down to for this argument is that Apple sells its boxes as one package, same as its competitors (Dell, HP, Gateway), and there's no convenient route for the hobbyist or expert to take if you want to construct and maintain a machine piecemeal. You'll have as much luck upgrading a Dell piecemeal as you would a Mac - you can swap out most parts, but in general it was designed as one package, not as a box that can conveniently let you swap out motherboards.
Consider, too, that most of the time that I buy a new PC motherboard it's at a point where technologies have changed all around. I'd need a new processor to go with the board, then new RAM (either a new standard like DDR or a faster speed variety to take advantage of the new motherboard). If I really want to keep up, then a new hard drive (a faster ATA standard, or maybe even serial ATA) would be in order, and maybe a new video card to take advantage of a faster AGP port. I could get all that fairly cheaply compared to a whole computer from Apple, Dell, or another complete package vendor, but that comes down to a difference in markets, not different levels of lock-in.
On the whole, I think you have to come up with more than cases and motherboards to declare it evil lock-in. Another respondent mentioned software investment, but as I said there, almost any software purchase on any platform is going to lock you into the OS it's designed to run on. And if you design your software choices so that you can compile them anywhere, then it barely matters where you run 'em, PC or Mac - there's a bit of a price advantage to upgrading a PC piecemeal, but if you're just using the Gimp on KDE and a bunch of other open source tools you'll do just as well buying a Mac to run them then later switching to a PC and running the same things, when you're buying a package computer.
Naked.
I have to agree with the author on a certain point. Though I firmly believe Mac OSX is far superior to Linux when it come to my desktop needs, I feel that the quality of Apple's hardware is suspect. Though I really want to use OSX, I dismay that Apple is only vendor that can offer the computers for it. I feel that their leadership in innovative design has come at a price of quality. I don't know of any statistics about Pwerbook/iBook failures or lifespans but I do know my experiences. My Powerbook died after 3 years of use with failures in DVD player after the 1st year. My boss Titanium Powerbook is a far cry from when it was first bought. The screen is defective and the DVD is dead. His previous notebook had screen failure after 2.5 years. For the money we invest in these notebooks ($3000+). One would expect to have them a little longer. There is a huge price beyond the initial premium one pays just to use Mac OsX.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Knock yourself out you horrible linux user you.
...trying some reverse psychology here, aiming for guilt, revulsion and a subconscious unnatural urge to play with his erm... garageband)
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Apple has done alright here and has extended warranty coverage for iBook owners starting today:
http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/
Not as good as no problems, but I don't think you can expect too much more than this. Can we get back to bitching about 1 button mice now?
Quite frankly, Linux always feels pretty "rough around the edges", and I'm not sure that'll ever really go away. (Some of it is probably inherent when you're talking about an OS developed by anyone, anyplace on the globe, who feels like contributing some code to it.)
The Mac with OS X is the polar opposite of this, with a stunningly beautiful GUI and some of the most original GUI-related concepts I've seen on any platform. (Even Gnome and KDE couldn't seem to resist sticking to the Windows-esque concept of some sort of START type button in a corner of the screen with menu windows popping open from it, listing the applications you can launch. OS X bypassed that completely with the "dock" idea.)
If you really are a command-line "power user" in Unix OS's, then yeah, Mac OS X is currently not really for you. The thing is, I suspect relatively few of us really work from the CLI as much as we like to think we do. (I know for example, I have several good friends who are nearly Linux zealots, and they constantly like to point out the powerful things that can be done from the shell prompt. They're quite right, except I still see their machines running X and a window manager most of the time. Unless your system is primarily a server, being remotely accessed but not generally used locally, a GUI is usually more pleasing to the eye, and is the environment people would rather be in. (If nothing else, people like having nice looking pictures as their "wallpaper", instead of staring at a blank screen with white text and a blinking cursor on it.)
I think of Mac OS X as "Unix for the rest of us", sort of how the original Macintosh was supposed to be the "computer for the rest of us".
they constantly like to point out the powerful things that can be done from the shell prompt. They're quite right, except I still see their machines running X and a window manager most of the time.
:)
Just a quick note for you: a CLI and a GUI are not mutually exclusive. The real question is - how many terminal windows are open at once on your friends' GUIs? At an average I'd say I have 5 or 6 terminals open at any one time using linux. And I often have two cygwin terminals open when using Windows.
Of course it's nice to have pretty wallpaper and a few bells and whistles. But they don't get the work done
Here is my semi-complete comparison between OS X and other OSes (namely Windows and Linux):
- Kick-ass junk mail filtering (it uses Bayesian filtering, which is a very smart way to detect junk mail).
- Expose
- Applications use a consistent GUI, unlike Linux (and sometimes even Windows with its ideas like "To shut down, click on 'Start'"). One big difference from Windows and Linux is that most OS X dialog boxes have button text that is written in verbs (such as "Save file" and "Don't save file" instead of "Yes" and "No"). That way you can quickly look at a dialog box and know what to do without even reading the full text. When you have no time at all to get something important done, this truly helps.
- Default application settings often make sense. The amount of settings I need to change to set it up for my liking is minimal.
- For those times when default keyboard combos are crappy (rare), you can use keyboard combo remapping to custom-map menu options to keys (yet another Panther only option*) -- under System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts. Keyboard combo remapping is easier with GNOME, I'll admit, but I have always had trouble with it keeping the changes I make.
- Applications are self-contained, meaning they don't have their files scattered across multiple directories. You could copy your already-installed applications over to another computer and they would work perfectly. Most applications you can just drag into your "Applications" folder/subdirectory and be done with it -- no other step is necessary.
- iPhoto works very, very well with digital cameras. The prints you can order online from Kodak are excellent and easy to order.
- No product activation to worry about.
- Unlike Linux, the thing just works. There is no tinkering required to get the results I want. Unlike Windows, it doesn't crash and behave oddly. I can still get Windows 2000 and XP to crash and act quirky on occasion.
- Attention to detail -- lots of the OS software has intuitive features that make life easier. Try typing the first few letters of a long word (such as "unequivocally") into Mail or any program with a text box, and hit alt-Esc. It comes up with a list that lets you pick the words that start with those first few letters. Also, you can right click in any text box and tell it to "Check Spelling as You Type". Programs will remember this setting and apply it to future emails, web pages, text files, etc.
- FileVault can encrypt your home directory (wait a few versions to use this though, as it's kinda buggy right now). I know that Linux can encrypt its entire filesystem, but is it as simple as clicking a checkbox?
Anyway, the list goes on and on... I remember the first time I read Jamie Zawinski's quote, "Linux is only free if your time has no value", I completely disagreed with it... Although, I realized after a few years that I was only in high school when I was learning Linux back in '96, and my time pretty much had no value back then. Now that I've grown up somewhat, and my time does have more value, I don't really have the time to be tinkering with my computer for six hours a day. You know the process -- trying to get something to work, just so you can then get to work on what you were intending to work on in the first place... That doesn't cut it when you need results quickly.
Anyway, Apple has been great in filling the void for a very well-functioning UNIX laptop system, and I praise them for that.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Well, KDE is a cheesy copy of Windows 2000, and Gnome is ... well, I'm not sure what it is since there are about a billion interfaces to it. Most of the attractive ones look like the designers were a bit too much into Goth, which isn't surprising since Gothic types may be morbid, but at least they're clever.
:-(.
I found it amusing that the Gothic designers would spend hours and hours on beautiful 3D rendering for their almost illegible Gothic fonts, leaving the fonts you actually had to use as unreadable as ever
So you have two type of people working on Gnome/KDE, the types who want to not frighten people by making their system look as much like Windows as humanly possible, and those who do want to frighten people with morbid images! What an unbeatable combination.
(I might sound less bitter if I'd succeeded in getting just one of the Gothic themes to actually work on my Linux PC. I actually like the Gothic types, but I can't resist poking some gentle fun at them).
Anyway, with that setting the stage, you can see how much of a breath of fresh air MacOS X was to me. It's an original interface, that looks lovely and owes debts to nothing save its NeXTian ancestors. The fonts are lovely out of the box; you don't have to install complex X-Windows extensions with elaborate 15 step procedures to make them look ok; you can make 'em look great without any effort whatsoever. You can use great applications like Final Cut Pro and GarageBand, together with Unix stalwarts like emacs and all the command line stuff I know and love.
I don't find MacOS X deficient in command line operation at all. There is emacs (although I wish there was a graphical version that used lovely Cocoa fonts), all my friends tar and ssh and gcc and so on are present and accounted for. It's true that command line administration is a bit obscure, but if you (like me) don't do a lot of administration on your personal computer, that's perfectly fine.
It looks like I echo a lot of MacOS X users, when I note my 10-odd terminal windows and my 10-odd web browser windows. The value of the GUI seems to be primarily in the web browser when I'm doing work. Of course that might be because I develop web sites.
There's definite value in having Unix and Photoshop on the same machine, and that alone makes MacOS X beat Linux and other Unix variants effortlessly.
It's one computer for functions that used to take two or more. Not bad at all.
D