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A Power Users Look at Linux on the Mac
An anonymous reader writes "Even though most Linux users have treated Linux as an operating system for their x86 white boxes, Linux runs equally well on PowerPC machines. This article looks at Linux on the PowerPC and the appealing range of PPC machines produced by Apple, where the option of using Linux is of great value to many users."
...will they sell me one without charging me for the MacOS?
If I buy a Mac then I'm paying for the OS and the brand. Is there another, cheaper, source for the hardware?
*BSD vs Linux may not matter if you can compile source for your applications. But not if you've (or your school) purchased libraries, licenses, or pre-compiled applications for Linux, then BSD might not be an option.
Turns out that cute girl's A|X t-shirt didn't mean AIX. Who would've thought?!
One thing that is certain: If you use a Mac, you have no exotic hardware and drivers should work quite well. Thousands of users have the same harware configuration as you. Therefore you can get the most out of the hardware - if you want to use linux on a mac - I think MacOSX is quite a nice Operating System, especially for desktop use.
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
Everyone talks about user-friendliness issues that prevent Linux from becoming desktop-worthy. Wouldn't Apple be the best platform to introduce this on? Not due to technical merit, but simply because ease-of-use is a major selling point to Apple? If people want to make a truly slam-bang intuitive GUI for Linux, code it for PPC and worry about porting it later. Hell, Apple themselves could sponsor such a project and use it as a way to garner themselves more Mac sales. "Look, the most intuitive Linux distro out there runs best on a Mac!" Maybe end-users wouldn't get it right away, but sysadmins and such types would, and there's always the "My friend knows computers, and..." factor to be considered. They'll hear about it soon enough (remember when the Internet was a geek-exclusive playground?).
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... in Europe. Seriously, compare the prices at the current exchange rates, especially for Powerbooks (but do remember to substract the VAT, which is included in most European Apple stores). Apple sells it's stuff for hundreds of dollars more in Europe. Same goes for many brand stuff electronics and PCs. But with PCs, at least you can buy separate components, which are usually not much more expensive than in the US.
If so, then that would be a real good reason to replace OS/X with it.
This is my sig.
Mac OS X is so much more refined than Linux, and actually has a huge amount of produtivity software. So why should anyone in their right mind want to run Linux on a Mac, unless (s)he is a masochist?
Simply put: I don't like OS X. Its not because I think Linux is superior; OS X just doesn't go with my personal preferences. I realize you excluded that option from your question but I feel that most people who run linux on Macs do so becasue they prefer linux. Hence my machine at work has only Yellow Dog on it (this also has the side affect of keeping everyone else away from that machine :)).
:)
Oh, and as someone responsible for patching all of those OS X boxes let me say that the machines are only as secure as the patches you apply to them. If you don't patch the OS X machines, or the linux machines, or the windows machines, they're going to be vulnerable. I'd say at the moment I've applied as many patches to the Linux machine as security updates to the OS X machines. The windows machines (two of them) are currently unpluged in a corner so I feel they're pretty safe at the moment.
That second hierarchy actually comes from NeXTSTEP, where it was called /NextApplications, /NextLibrary, /NextDeveloper, etc. Mac OS 9 did not have a particular imposition of hierarchy in the same way that UNIX might; applications can live just about anywhere.
Secondly there's a very conscious and IMHO good reason to farm off the NeXTish stuff into a different hierarchy - that is that it's a different system. All of the files in /etc, /usr, /var etc. are in the same places that you would expect to find them on any UNIX. Looking for the run control scripts? They're in /etc/rc*.
The OPENSTEP-derived APIs, the Aqua GUI, Cocoa applications etc. are orthogonal to UNIX. They just happen to be running on a UNIX system (unless you're using Yellow Box for Windows NT). Keeping them in their own hierarchies so that they don't intrude on or get confused with UNIX stuff is a good idea.
There is an anti-case-study: GNUstep does indeed put all of its files into the UNIX hierarchy, but it still partitions them into separate subdirectories, namely /usr/GNUstep and ~/GNUstep. Again, because it's orthogonal to the underlying UNIX system, it tries to keep out of its way.
I have a All in One G3, 250mhz G3 w/768 mb of ram.
OS X runs OK on it but Yellow Dog, in addition to providing a modern browser for the platform, etc., just flat flies on the machine.
Resize a window on an old machine running OS X and you will know the pain of having a kick ass OS that is unusable in normal circumstances.
Linux provides older macs with a modern OS without the bloat.
As for hardware support, at least using YDL, the volume control on the old AIO is functional while on OS X it is broken.
YDL also fits nicely on my 1Ghz G4 flat panel imac although it does not provide any additional functionality that is not already available through OS X.
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If Apple could come up with a reasonably priced Mac, I'd get one, just for experiment sake. It might just make another high-tech toy to play with.
My problem is pretty much what you describe: I already have monitors, and damn better ones than what's in iMacs, so that rules those out. And I simply don't need a laptop at all, so that rules out iBooks and PowerBooks. And the G5, well, let's just say I'm not going to pay twice the price of an Athlon 64 (not counting the yearly Apple tax on MacOS upgrades) just to get Apple's logo and a funny blue desktop theme.
But just to be nasty, I don't think Apple has that much of a reason to lower prices. Their hardware _is_ underperforming, and you can know that when benchmarks start pitting a dual CPU G5 against a single CPU P4. (And start putting ridiculously expensive and unneeded gizmos in the P4, like the most expensive professional Open GL card, to hike the price up the Mac's. The Mac compared, of course, having a much cheaper ATI 9800 in it. Well, guess if it ends up just as fast, might as well try to hide that a PC equivalent is half the price.) As a replacement for the previous benchmarks which needed to cripple the PC's compiler to look competitive.
Getting in the price race for commodity hardware still isn't going to sell much more boxes than they already do. Once you catter to that market, we're talking bang per buck. Apple desktops don't have the bang, and can't match Dell's buck, so I really can't see them selling gazillions of boxes in that market.
Plus, to be even nastier, without the "I'm an elitist snob and look how much I can afford to pay for a modern art computer case" factor, they might actually sell _less_ boxes. Noone got fanboys for selling commodities yet.
The same goes for the UI and apps. Apple doesn't want to be yet another X11 box. First because that just begs comparing it to a PC running the exact same X11 and the exact same software on X11. Second, it just begs comparing the cost of just downloading the latest XFree86, versus paying the yearly Apple tax on MacOS. And third, see above. Being another X11 box doesn't have that nice "I'm a snob with an expensive kitsch for a GUI" touch.
So I really can't see them getting in a pissing contest with Dell, price-wise. It's just not economically feasible.
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