Slashdot Mirror
Return of the Mac
Ben Gutierrez writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay on the Return of the Mac which begins with: 'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.' Tim O'Reilly said some similar things in Watching Alpha Geeks . From the article: "My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get."
If I could afford one...
No sig for the moment.
That said... BSD is dy^H^Hthriving.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since around 1993 I've been messing with Unix. SCO, Slackware (1.0-ish), RedHat (pre 4.0...on Sparc!), Caldera, Irix, SunOS, etc.... both in userland, on the desktop, on my own servers, and a professional sysadmin.
I've got a mac now. The first of my life, from someone who wasn't ever a mac guy (and was probably more 'anti-mac' than most.) My g/f has one too -- more than once I was like 'just open a terminal and do....'
The fact that she doesn't need to know what the terminal.app is? That's the best part..... I get what I need, she gets what she needs.
In other news, open source fanatics dislike Microsoft.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
It is true.
Slashdot is a Mac advocacy site!
I usually hate it when people say this, but it's true!!! Oh, the horror.
Get your Unix fortune now!
...as this is the first time I read slashdot on my new Mac Mini.
TACO FUCKS PIGS
Fuck Taco in the ass with a big rubber dick!
I would switch if games didn't come out until a year after the PC version does.
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
This was said in the early 90's, the mid 90's, the late 90's, the early 2000's and now again. Till Apple has 5% of the market it's rather pointless. Never the less, till they open the OS to the rest of the planet, it's going to be just where it is. And by open the OS, I mean the WHOLE OS, not something I can get from FreeBSD...
It's UNIX-based! What hacker doesn't want something that uses UNIX. Besides... Linux is sooooooo 90s.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
The Mac fashion hits the geek crowd!
Last year's Usenix conference was full of Powerbooks. Most of the top dogs in the industry. That prompted me to buy a PowerMac. It's the best computing decision I've ever made.
What's your point? I don't like Dell laptops... IBM sold their laptop division to some no-name, can't be yet trusted for quality company over seas... what's that leave us? Yes, Powerbooks... they're great hardware... I'm not a Mac lover... but I have had to work on PPC hardware, and I do like the power it has over similiar x86 based laptops... and OSX is a nice unix environment with a pretty shell... now if the powerbooks still had OS9 on them, there would be no way I would buy one...
That's the seller, an OS that's stable and powerful, on hardware that's powerful... Less to do with it being Apple, more to do with being better than Dell and HP and the rest of the crap out there.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
well that accounts for 0.0000001% of the worlds population, whooo revolution, in your face Amiga !!!
Self-righteous Apple fanboys in one corner.
Foaming-at-the-mouth Linux zealots in another.
This could get ugly, folks. I'm sure the *BSD crowd would chime in too, except that a judge recently orderd the feeding tube to be removed.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
at least at my university, it seems as if apple have changed their image. No longer for graphic designers - it's for people who wanna 'get stuff done' with their computers
Also, their laptops are pretty much class dominant, and compare favourably on price with the high-end thinkpads in the powerbook range.
Business Voyeur
But it's true - all my friends form Unix/Linux years who can afford it buy Macs. Especially Powerbooks.
I have an iBook, and love it, however I run Linux on it, Gentoo before, Ubuntu currently. All funcitions are supported, it's a perfect match in my opinion. Ppl that gripe "why would you run Linux instead of OSX, OSX is BSD!" just don't understand the diff, and that's fine, OSX is a fine OS for most, but for me Linux is the only way to go to have complete freedom.
bo
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
How pathetic. No comments?
These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They are not both, but are they either? But seriously, this does strike me as some apologistic appeal to authority.
O_o
ha! troll'd!
I'm sure we'll see a sharp decline in the number of ingenious hacks out there as these developers spend their days holding shift and watching expose in slow motion.
Maybe they are just tired of x86 and Mac is a good way to get a good power pc based computer.
That statement would defintely hold more water if they actually had numbers from five years ago to compare to. Even though their site didn't exist five years ago, maybe check out a similar site that DID exist way back then...
Get a girlfriend. Girls like Macs. Borrow girlfriends computer when you need to test your code on a Mac.
Oh that's why "all the best hackers" are buying Macs. They've finally resigned themselves to never having a girlfriend.
Boring article really...
My favorite part of his essay:
"If you want to know what ordinary people will be doing with computers in ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good university. Whatever they're doing, you'll be doing."
Seriously, this guy lives in fantasy land. It's been a long long time since universities have done anything that has influence the software industry.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
FEOM
Something tells me that Paul Graham and his friends are getting close to their fiftieth birthday and have lots of money to spare... They are probably already feeling their age which explains why they can't be bothered with systems that require more tinkering.
I welcome our Mac overlords...
I have worse karma than M$.
As someone who works in operating systems let me just be the first to say no. We're sitting at 92% Linux in a 300 person lab.
Anecdotes do not statistical surveys make. "Everyone I know" indeed.
they heard statiscally their chances of women approaching them goes up 5% when they're using a powerbook.
Then it's a good indication that others will follow.
with the design of OS X and it's grandparent OS, FreeBSD, why wouldn't they switch?
If it can perform almost anything the old OS can perform but with the polish and graphical wizardy apple has shown in OS X, plus with the support of using a now "semi-mainstream" Operation System.
Linux is still a viable option, but seriously.. how often do you hear of people with Macs running linux instead of OS X now? How is support doing for non x86 Linux these days?? Saw it coming
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I'm at university, and I know a lot of computer scientists (particularly of the theoretical sort) and scientists of various other disciplines around here that love OS X. Just like using a functional language like Lisp versus using assembly, using OS X takes some of the responsibility for mundane, largely unnecessary tasks out of your hands and frees you to do the computing work that you need to do.
Sure someone well versed in systems or operating system design would be able to get more out of Linux if they took the time to optimize it, but most "hardcore hackers" I know around here sure don't have that sort of time.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
I haven't seen people making the server switch... only using Macs as fileservers for Mac-heavy networks. I'm not aware of any large businesses using them, nor popular websites outside of Apple.
Obviously there are some clusters of them that make the news all the time. I'm not trying to troll, just wondering if there's a future for Xserve beyond niche markets.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
seems like geeks are dumping linux for mac, while windows retains its marketshare. which makes sense since os x has the one thing linux lacks ... a good desktop.
I find it kind of ironic that while Slashdotters are bashing fast food companies like McDonalds, they're praising what i would call "fast food technology". Yeah, it looks good on the outside and is tasty as shit, but if you look inside it, then both Macs are pretty much the same -- both are turning people into fat and lazy. And they're both effectively killing businesses that don't conform to their agressive monopolistic policies. They're both doing their best to destroy diversity in their respective markets (just like big car companies like GM and Ford have already done). Is this really what hackers want?
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
at this years Networkshop (Academic Network event hosted by JANET) about 50% of the laptops were Apple Powerbooks. Last year there were about 2 powerbooks total. This is a direct effect of 1)OSX now being mature 2) OSX being based on BSD - and more OS tools running on it - and finally 3) being able to 'just work' without spending a large portion of your admin time patching the damn system.
"...and grandmas who were buying Macs..."
Now i know what to ask when Christmas comes around!
"Never trust a computer you can not throw out of a window..."
... the weekly "the Mac is Back" post.
Does this need to be reinforced?
I used to have 3 or 4 computers to be able to do everthing I needed, and now I have "The ONE"
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Dinosaur Jr. Are back! dinosaurjr.com
I noticed this trend (geeks switching to OS X) a few years ago. Most of the alpha geeks at Seattle Wireless were using iBooks around 2002. At that point, I knew Apple had a bright future ahead. Not only have I switched my main computer to a 12" PowerBook, but I also invested in AAPL stock. Now most of my roommates have iPods, more than half have PowerBooks, and the rest want a PowerBook. Many of my friends are switching, and it will be only a matter of time before lots of the general population does as well.
I am not a Mac fanboy by any means but they are awesome machines. I think the O'Reilly article missed the point in his article though. The reason people are switching to macs is that you can do those things like office apps that windows machines are a little more useful for and can run a lot of very powerful Unix apps just by hitting a line command. Of course Macs have their downsides too but there a lot of damn good reasons for the switching in the article.
'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.'
Then why isn't Openstep more popular? Is it that if you have a Mac you don't need it? Or is it because most of the 'switchers' are recent converts, and Openstep will pick up in popularity for their non-Apple systems later?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Maybe all the hackers are just tired of calling their kids because the internet is broken again.
Linux remains the favorite.
The article concentrates on hackers liking the features that Apple adds to the modern Mac, but how many of the programmers and power users jumping ship from Wintel (or WAMD) machines are doing this because of BSD? The main reason I got my Mac Mini was because it is smaller than the Linux server I use right now so it's easier to deal with. I might eventually use it as a Mac client machine rather than as a server once I figure out how to set up my media system, but right now it's just another *nix box to me. Apple really did the right thing by loading OSX with a ton of developer tools and allowing the community to do much of their work for them.
--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
> It's not enough to make it "open." It has to be open and good.
Its simply just good at being better than everything else.
At Higher Education conferences like the ones that eduCause and Internet2 host, the amount of Mac laptops has gone from around 20% to 60-70% in recent years. I switched after using a Thinkpad with Linux for years. The fact that it can be put to sleep and wake up properly (something that seemingly nobody can get working reliably under Linux), and can easily work with projectors without editing a configuration file sealed the deal for me.
Damn one button mouse though, I wish Apple would just give up on that.
Finkployd
> Last year's Usenix conference was full of Powerbooks.
This is an example of Principle of Similarity and Principle of Social Proof including "The Number of Sources" Effect.
> Most of the top dogs in the industry.
This is an example of influence using authority, including High Status
> That prompted me to buy a PowerMac.
Aha! The requested target action!
> It's the best computing decision I've ever made.
Principle of Consistency
p.s., I'm not mocking you. I just noticed a bunch of statements that match the midterm I have Thursday night. Thus, this post counts as "studying"
p.p.s., I love my PowerBook
p.p.p.s., Please note, reading the above post qualifies you to place out of a graduate level Consumer Behavior marketing class.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The hardware is beautiful. It's well thought out, well laid out, lasts forever (battery wise and durability) and *gets girls to come over to your table look at it*. The alternative, at least for laptops, is IBM... at twice the price.
Now they even have a working scroll implimentation (which was a crippling omission, my NEC had a scroll stub for ~3 years before Apple thought of something).
And yes, your brand new very pretty computer will work well with Linux just fine, so there seems to be little downside at all*.
*Apart from lack of 3D card support, and for some reason Apple use crappy propriatery 802.11g cards with no Linux drivers. Mystifying.
Beep beep.
I just switched back to Mac after a 9 year hiatus. They really are sweet machines.
So these guys are already maclovers, driven away from their favourite platform by the suckyness and unsecure future of System 7,8 and 9. Now, with OSX actually making the Mac a rather nice, geek- and user-friendly system, they return to the system they've been pining for ever since they left "home". Not surprising.
Lemon curry???
It's official: Mac zealots will do anything to silence any criticism of their little darling.
Thank You Apple for bringing Power within reach of the common man!
All the glory of UNIX (esp. bash) with *MODERN HARDWARE* support (after 4 years, my netmd still won't work, and after 6 months, neither will my m-audio sound card).
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
- DVI video (no VGA)...didn't PC folks always mock Macs for having non-standard video ports?
- no floppy drive...ditto
- monitor that rotates into "portrait" mode...instant flashback to old Mac "PageMaker" displays (with SCSI monitor cables!)
- all-black look (NextStation, anyone?)
- borderless form-fitting keyboard (IIgs!)
- nary a PS/2 port
- LCD-only monitor option
Now, I'm not saying that any of these things are new to Dell/Wintel, or that Apple necessarily invented them. But they are all attributes which were at one time commonly associated with Apple, and they're now part of our default corporate Dell configuration.It's a weird world.
(Disclaimer: I have Windows & OS-X boxen at home.)
I bought an iBook to try out OS X, "cos I can always put Linux on it if I don't like it".
Needless to say, 18 months later I'm still running OS X and I'm actually getting stuff done, not recompiling the kernel, trying in vain to get my modem working, or trying to get some source code to compile which I just pulled in from SourceForge CVS.
Talking about the hardware, Macs are what everyone would desire from a computer (especially laptops). Instant start up with "Sleep" function , battery that lasts at least 3 hours, a really good warranty, latest technology available (firewire, bt, 11g, etc.), and the list goes on..
and then there is the software part: Mac Os X is great both for hackers and for novice users, that is to say that you don't need to spend time to learn how to do "desktop stuff" and you can concentrate on the "dirt work".
Thank you Steve
i got a powerbook because of 2 reasons. I needed a laptop and osx is based somewhat on BSD. I have the terminal where all my familiar utils live ( I'm an engineer and use linux at work) and a nice interface for all the gui inclined applications plus it's stable,fast, and secure. Since then, I have bought an airport express to stream music to my sterio and an ipod mini (my car got broken into and my radio stolen so instead of replacing it i just got an ipod). It never ceases to amaze me how apple products JustWork(tm) with each other. I'm fighting the urge to buy a mac mini and complete my transformation to apple fanboydem.
:shrug: they shouldn't make such good products then maybe i wouldn't buy them.
I suppose i'm apple's wet dream of a customer
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
"You know what this is.
Yo' bitch chose me."
http://imdb.com/title/tt0070350/
Did anyone else notice that Robert Morris is a principal with Y Combinator ?
Interesting, to say the least.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
I was at CodeCon this year and almost everybody had Mac laptops.
However, I disagree that this portends a wave of Mac specific software. Hackers are using these computers to write cross platform software that will run on the whole range of free Unix systems, the BSDs, and Linux. They're not writing in Objective C or putting in Mac specific code, because they know that limits their audience to the few percent who have Macs.
They get the benefit of a good looking, easy to use development platform while developing code that can run anywhere (except Windows). It's the best of both worlds.
This is true for me as well. The only thing keeping me from switching to Mac or Linux are the games. It's really kind of depressing that those platforms don't have better support, and even if they did I'd still want backwards compatibilty for all the titles I still play from the 486-era and up.
I would actually pay money for an OS that had the compatibiliy of Windows but let me do what I wanted with it.
"'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs."
"All the best..." originally switched from their respective platforms to Linux. Now that Linux is popular (with all that, that brings), they're switching to Macs (or you could say that indirectly they're switching to BSD). Kind of validates the BSD philosophy.
If I had +10 Troll, I'd use it.
This argument is a bunch of crap. The Mac Mini is a Mac. $499 isn't going to break the bank. How many of you have blown way more than that on x86 parts alone? You can pick up an older G3 on eBay for next to nothing these days.
Who the hell marked this as "Insightful?" You turkey!
But, as enjoyable as those debates are, I just want to make a point about one thing Graham said:
I think this is only very slightly true, or maybe it depends on your definition of "ordinary". To me, "ordinary" implies "total newbie." Not to mean that in a negative way, it's just how it is.Most people in this world don't care quite as much about computers and tech as much as we do (gasp! - sacrilege!). Sad but true.
So honestly, I can't see the vast majority of "ordinary people" wanting to learn any of the things that people like /.ers would enjoy, like programming for instance.
Your average Joe is *not* going to be a stylin' C++ wizard in 10 years. He's going to be using fancier machines than we're using now, of course, but he's going to want to have stuff that works without knowing HOW or WHY it works. That's how it's always been, and I can't see that changing.
I predict that the eventual slowing down and then stopping of the ipod's dominance will result in less mac users again... this feminine industrial design/ipod thing will run its course and then I think we will see the users migrating less.
I bet you also voted for whoever your favorite actor told you to.
Sheep. Baaaaaaa! B-a-a-a-a!
I work at a development house that makes network security products. Three years ago there were a couple people with powerbooks running OS X. Today it is about half of the company. Last week a senior developer was talking to me about our latest hire. He's an experienced, professional coder. It had taken him a week to get the thinkpad we gave him up and running the Linux distro of his choice and configured to work with all our servers and testbeds. Thats 40-60 hours of work gone. How many powerbooks could we have bought him with a corresponding amount of cash. He was considering mandating powerbooks for all new hires unless they had a good reason to use something else.
OS X is making some huge inroads into the computer security field. It has certainly gained a huge amount of penetration here in just 3 years. Even some of the the managers have switched after looking over a developer's shoulder for a bit. You'd never guess Apple had a 5% market share from a walk around this office.
Everyones starting to use Macs. They're the next cool thing. And they're so much easier to use! In a few years, Apple will own the personal computer market.
You can pick just about any year in the last 20 and somebody somewhere was making this observation.
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
Ive been thinking about "switching", but when I looked at what replacing my current hardware with *like* hardware, I was horrified. A laptop configured like my current laptop was about $3200 (I paid 1500$ for mine). Desktops were more humane but still out there. I guess I cant afford yuppie-shic :)
Also, apple seems increasingly like Microsoft, with the anticompetitve behaviour (suing journalists for instance). It seems to me Apple wants to be the next Microsoft, the cluetrain hasn't made enough stops at Apple yet (read the cluetrain manifesto). Im not jumping ship on Linux for a more restrictive enviornment. I want OGG on an ipod :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
And a rocket car!
He's not one of those turkeys that rushed out to buy a Sidekick II just because "Paris Hilton has one."
:P
Or is s/he? Hrm...
Hey OP, got a Sidekick II?
Odds are you already own a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The keyboard and mouse are USB, and the monitor output requires a $20 dongle. The machine itself is $499, and the dongle kicks the price up over $500, but it's still close.
That of course assumes you're retiring some computer recent enough to have a USB keyboard and mouse, a computer which is still probably usable for most purposes. So it may take another two or three years before it's time for a new computer for you. At that time you can get a brand-new keyboard and brand-new mouse and brand-new monitor, or you can increase the Wife Acceptance Factor by claiming you're saving a few hundred bucks by reusing the old pieces.
Monitors in particular haven't improved much lately. You probably even have a CRT sitting around gathering dust. Unless you have a particular sensitivity, remember that people used CRTs for years without too many ill effects. LCD screens were a luxury until really recently.
Lu3e. This can lead was after a long and committtes while the project
Return of the Mack http://www.anysonglyrics.com/lyrics/m/markmorrison /returnofthemack.htm
"If you want to know what ordinary people will be doing with computers in ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good university. Whatever they're doing, you'll be doing." Uh huh. The last time I checked my mom wasn't running a linux box.
I love my PowerBook. I bought it about 3 weeks ago and it's awesome. I was a staunch Gentoo user, and I still have a fondness of it. But, I got sick of having to spend a lot of time making things work. Can't say how long it took to get dual display to work right in KDE (and I still never figured out the blank virtual terminals I got due to the nvidia driver! grrrr) Things just work in Mac, and I haven't sacrificed any usability. The prompt works great. My profs are all switched from Linux to Mac OSX, and I will recommend to everyone I know to do the same. Hackers or beginners alike. It's an awesome OS. Can't wait for Tiger! Grr.
.. because there aren't any good GAMES!
Just what I have been saying on Slashdot for years:
Macs Rule, PC's Suk.
So, I was a die hard Windows user, been that way since 3.0 (3.11 and 2k were my favorite releases), but 18 months ago I switched to Linux (first SuSE and more recently FC3). And now I'm thinking of a PowerBook.
Leaving Windows wasn't a problem, but sticking with Linux is. Sure it's very fast on my machine, and I have all the familiar Unix tools from the GNU chain, but so much doesn't work right. Linux on the desktop is close to a joke. I've tried both GNOME and KDE and neither is bug free (cf. Win2K which was very, very stable), and there are so many hardware incompatibilities that it's a pain.
Ultimately, I want to support F/OSS, but I may have to switch because it's a productivity drain for me to discover that gnome-panel has crashed something and now Evolution can't open the File dialog. Ugh. Or figure out why gaim's icon disappears in the tray some of the time, or have gdesklets eat the CPU for no apparent reason, or...
John.
I can get an on-site service contract for IBM gear here no problem but Apple (Siemens) will only show up if you're within 100 miles of ~ 10 major US cities.
That's a deal breaker for local businesses, even those who use Mac desktops.
Too bad - Tiger Server is nearly what I turn Linux boxes into but you have to run your business on hardware you can support.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Please note that the Mac Mini isn't really usuable at the $499 price point. A bump to 512mb is required and I don't think I would own one without a superdrive.
Powerbooks are very pricey. Worse the superdrive is a $150.00 option on most of them which further increases the pricing.
The key issue is relevance. People will have a hard time swallowing the price of any MAC when they can see a similar looking and peforming machine running windows for a lot less; in some cases half.
I priced a 15" powerbook recently with a superdrive and the cost was over $2100.00. While the OS is technically superior to Windows that does not excuse the cost. I am curious which major manufacturer actually makes the powerbooks.
On a side note instead of a mac mini I would recommend a iMac to people new to the mac experience. The all in one, comes with all needed items, is a much better option.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Nope.
Daily Apple Love-in.
Paul's a little late coming to the Mac table. The trend of 'hackers' moving towards Macs/Powerbooks was very evident a couple of years ago at OSCON 2003 where it seemed that almost half of the attendents had Powerbooks.
the choice of the uninformed. "gimme my IBM back!" "no... i enjoy your suffering and you need to learn to support apples" -the next day- "hey , i figured out how to make this thing useful. i'm installing linux on it." "no! that's not why you have it! you're supposed to learn to support them!" "i did. i just couldn't figure out how to make it a useful business appliance... until now." seriously, this has been the worst computing experience of my life. i've never had a more useless laptop. the list of things i hate goes on and on. and then "based on BSD" lie isn't nearly enough to convince me to switch. especially since it's "based on BSD" like windows XP is "based on DOS." these last three months have actually made me appreciate windows more... which is sad, since i haven't owned a windows machine in years. the apple nuts will no doubt flame me for this, but that's ok. i think differently than you do... or maybe it's just that i think at all.
PowerPC + BSD + a decent GUI for web browsing (read: OS X)?
Shit I'd love to have one. I'm just not willing to cough up the $2k entry price.
No thanks, I'll stick with my sub $500 pc that does everything I need it to.
Apparently the engineering group at Mirapoint (http://www.mirapoint.com) has switched to Powerbooks. 3 out of 7 of in my systems engineering group have Powerbooks, including this one. The others are interested but are hoarding cash.
If we can get ActiveX controls implicated on some Terrorist Watch List, I'd have much much less use for Windows at work. If I can kick my gaming addictions, I could lose Windows completely.
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
"Seriously, this guy lives in fantasy land. It's been a long long time since universities have done anything that has influence the software industry."
Seriously it's been a long time since the software industry listened to academia...and it shows.
Along with Apple.
yeah. right.
Lisp is dead.
The computer section at Barnes and Noble is dead.
And Apple's making a big comeback?
Is to have Paul Graham say that "Hackers prefer "
Where I work, we have one hard core Mac user. He convinced 6 people to try out Mac's. It was a mix of mini-Mac's and powerbooks, and only one kept it more than a month before taking it back. Personnally, I haven't tried one out yet as running Linux with Fluxbox as the WM just rocks, plus the whole OSS ( GPL ) philosophy is something I don't want to compromise on ( assuming I would be running OS X, and not Linux on the Mac ).
These guys ( and gal ) are all security engineers with CISSP/etc certs whose job is to protect the company's assets ( which are 90% digital, billions a year ), so I would say they're pretty l337, too.
Anyhow, I didn't want there to be some rosy picture of everyone switching to Mac's when that is not the case I think it is a strong trend just like Java applets, dot coms, and other fads once were, but how long will it last?
On the other hand, I haven't seen anyone who was unhappy with their iPod or miniPod.
I can't afford a sig!
You are joking, right? Perhaps he was a little off in suggesting that universities are trend-setters, but your comment is far more uninformed.
Clearly you're not aware that many of the technologies that you take for granted originate in CS research. For example, the work that Larry Page and Sergey Brin did at Stanford gave us Google. . I'm realibly informed that they have some influence in the industry these days, no?
Three years ago I bought a Powerbook, my main environment before then was Debian on a desktop (running KDE). Although I certainly enjoyed my mac, and it did get the job done, in the end the incredible lag in hardware (in portable systems) has led me back to Linux.
The sad thing is that three years later, my powerbook (G4 800) isn't really all that much slower than the top of the line powerbooks today. On the other hand, for half the price I bought a new laptop that is as thin, runs a resolution that blows away my old mac and is at least 3-5 times faster. (HP NC8230)
Linux on the desktop has come a long way since I left, and I must admit I'm thoroughly enjoying Gnome, especially hacking away on the new, very excellent Mono apps now coming out. (F-Spot even at it's young age beats iPhoto in my book)
I'm really flabbergasted at just how good the desktop now is on Linux. One huge contributing factor to that is Firefox, three years ago all we had was an aging Netscape that was horrid. Thunderbird also fills the roll for a great e-mail client. Good old emacs is my editor of choice (with a dab of Eclipse running at warp speed compared to my powerbook) and having the source for my photo viewer makes life so much better.
In short, my predicting is that the pendulum is going to swing the other way again, Mac portable hardware is no longer cutting edge by any regard, and the Linux desktop is now fantastic.
I can honestly say I'm not missing Mac OS X one bit.
-Nic
The Smart use *nix
The elite use a Mac!
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I've been a Windows user for as long as I can remember, but I recently switched to a Powerbook. I'm currently a Graduate student working on my Masters of Computer Science and my thesis advisor had a powerbook. He got me really excited, and I started noticing that the majority of faculty in our CS department have macs as well.
After making the switch, I couldn't be happier. I'll never go back.
yeah, like the MIT compsci people want to to eat the Berkeley dog food when they have their own exokernel project?. Just cos' the powerPC is more power efficient don't mean you get more bang per buck than an x86 arch, only more bang per watt.
Soundproofing Acoustics noise
...hackers everywhere heard muttering
"It's a UNIX system; I know this..."
When you think about it, Macs really are the BMW of computers. They're classy, expensive, reliable, have good resale value, and are bought for unappreciative kids with rich parents. Some people will hate on you for owning one, but they're really just jealous.
This trend may finally give Apple an opening in the business world. A very common objection to using Macs in the workplace is "We only know how to support PCs." By "subverting" the techies themselves, they are influencing the people the decision-makers will consult for the next upgrade cycle. It may still be true that nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft/IBM/etc, but at least Apple will be considered a real possibility now.
I'd love to get a new Mac, but then I go to the store and check out the prices.
Holy mother of god, there's no way I would plop down $1500 for a powermac when I could get an equivilant PC for 2/3 of the price (With decent components).
Why the heck are Apple's so expensive?
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Thank you slashdot for posting every single paul graham essay as he posts it each week. I thought you might miss one and I was worried. I cannot get by without my "true hackers do this" or "a hacker should do that" from the oracle that is Paul Graham, creator of the Yahoo Store, truely the most ingenious invention of the past century.
A quick trip over to http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore/ shows a 17" PB loaded with
1GB DDR333 SDRAM - 2 SO-DIMMs
100GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400rpm
8x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
AirPort Extreme Card
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
AppleCare Protection Plan for PowerBook
1.67GHz PowerPC G4
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (128MB DDR)
17-inch TFT Display
Model include scrolling trackpad capability, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rates, Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS), two USB 2.0 ports, Mini-DVI-to-VGA or DVI-to-VGA adapter, and 56K modem (v.92).
Subtotal $3,198.00
This what you got for $1,500?
Nahh ... they're talking about POWERBOOKS here: the Mini is still for grannies, designers and other "undesirables"
/me jealous
Heh -
isn't so much the Linux to Mac switch. That's not a very big jump, especially with OSX being Unix-based.
The big thing is the Windows to Mac switchers and, more importantly, the role that the iPod plays in influencing that switch.
Windows users who buy an iPod to use on their Windows machines end up getting a slight taste of what it's like to use a Mac. iTunes is presented in the OSX GUI style, and the iPod itself is a fine example of Apple's signature simplistic beauty.
Once their curiosity has been raised and they see the almost cult-like enthusiasm that Mac users have for Apple and its products (and you know it's true), they start looking at Macs to see what all the fuss is about.
Then, after playing with one in their local CompUSA, they're hooked like a heroin junkie. (but I mean that in the nicest way.)
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
What amazes me most is how short of a time it took for OS X to get put together. Most everyone agrees that the first release was more of a public beta, but even X.0 was an amazingly mature product for something completely new that had been started mere years earlier. I heard a report that as many as 10,000 engineers had worked on OS X at some point in the course of its development years.
I'm sure it didn't hurt to have NextStep to build off of.
There are no better bang-for-the-buck PC alternatives, although there are PCs with less-expensive hardware.
It must be the easier to use one button mouse.
...by running a dual boot laptop : XP (becuase I still get things in MS format) and Linux (becuase I LIKE linux). and I know I cant be the only one out there doing that, can I ?
Xserve shipments soar 119 percent
And on the storage side:
Oracle endorses, uses Xserve RAID (2)
And I can only speak for ourselves, but we're using Xserves in our datacenter, but not for serving Macs or Mac heavy networks: just as general purpose UNIX servers, with very nice administrative capabilities.
Nobody has mentioned fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net). They are a "Linux" distribution to run on top of OS X. I quoted "Linux" because they have almost everything but the kernel (it uses the OS X kernel). Fink was the reason I decided it was time to use OS X as a Free/OPen source friendly laptop. None of the two authors even mentioned it!
Fink uses a packaging system similar to Debian, and it includes most of the apps people use under Linux. Many of them require X11, which is now distributed with OS X 10.3
It's probably one of the few ways of getting a major brand notebook without paying the Windows tax.
if graham's logic had any truth to it. microsoft would never have existed. no self respecting hacker used windows, he sure never mentioned it, but there is an amazing amount of software for it, and software sells hardware right?
Only rabid Linux advocacy is okay? Look, OS X is a great UNIX system with the best GUI most people have ever used. What's wrong with pushing it as a functional alternative to Microsoft along with Linux? We never see "Slashdot is a Linux advocacy site!" complaints in Linux articles. What, you thought Linux would be the only good alternative geek OS forever?
"These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get."
Since when have "OS hackers" risen to the top of the computing food chain? I bet they don't even use assembly language.
"This could get ugly, folks. I'm sure the *BSD crowd would chime in too, except that a judge recently orderd the feeding tube to be remove"
Tacky. Hopefully we all will get as much merriment from your death.
Ten years ago that was just getting popular in business, too.
I think the hardcore OS-loyalty is coming to an end. It's comparable to adolescence. First, the computer industry and those who used the products it produced were "immature" about certain things. It was nothing more than simple brand loyalty (except in this case the brands were operating systems and varying hardware set-ups). Now, as the computing community grows up (we all know the first major computing generation, and most of the people reading this article are Generation-X) their aged attitudes are reflected in what they buy. The old days of fighting about what's better in forums are getting old to most people. I think the time has about come where people are going to find what they like and use it, Mac, Linux, Winblows, etc. So, it shouldn't be surprising that people are going to switch to Mac. Slowly but surely the compatibility barriers are breaking like a contemporary Berlin Wall. And soon Mac, Linux, and Winblows people are going to live in the same metaphorical computing Germany. Two things: 1. There were a lot of analogies in that, I'm sorry. 2. While spell checking, I learned that Microsoft Word will not let you add Winblows to its dictionary. I'm sure there's a technical reason why, I don't care, let me have my fun.
I was saving up money to get a G5 iMac, when it suddonly struck me that even though i still was a couple of hundred short of being able to buy a iMac i could get:
3.2 P4(800FSB)
1 GB Ram
Geforce5900FX
x16 DVD-R
A pretty cool ALU case
TWO 19" viewsonic TFT screens, with way faster update speeds than the apple screen.
Everything in the machine is faster/better than the elements inside the Apple, the screens are larger. And it was a good deal cheaper than the iMac would have been.
If Apple wan't my business, all they have to do is make a model with a sane price/performance ratio.
After just settling with Apple Records over copyright/trademark infringement, Apple now announces a newer, more powerful computer for those needing more than the Mac-mini has to offer:
The Big Mac.
McDonald's has no comment, but says they'll be in touch...
Apple laptops are definately some of the best out there. Cool, silent, long battery, great wireless range, solid construction, lightweight. The PPC architecture has some efficiency advantages over the eternally backwards compatible x86. Unless you want to run Windows, there really isn't any advantage to most x86 laptops (other than maybe a slightly cheaper price tag). While I like OS X, the hardware is more important to me than what OS is on it.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
mac zealots are sooooooo funny.
They wouldn't buy, they'd build their own. Ready-made boxes are for wimps. Real men (and women) custom build their machines. After some very bad experiences with my first two machines, I started to build. I can tell I'm never buying a computer built by someone else, call it a mom-and-pop beige box shop, or a brand name. And yes, that includes Apple too.
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
Is there any way slashdot would share the percentage breakdown of hits by OS like he does at the end of the article?
They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get.
That's great for OS hackers, but what about us hardware hackers on a budget? The only thing keeping me from switching to OS X is that it only works on PPC, and there's relatively no custom aftermarket for that. If you could buy your own PPC parts and build your own kit, then buy OS X for it, I'd switch in a heartbeat. What I wouldn't give for a dual G5 nForce4 mobo... Granted, nothing compares to the coolness of Apple hardware, yet even that isn't enough make me give up the joys of building my own kit, and with a limited budget that precludes me from buying both a Mac and a custom rig, I'll always go with the latter.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Better translation: "I saw top industry people using Powerbooks. Since these are knowledgable people, I checked one out to see what the fuss was about, liked it, and got one."
You do realize that probably the majority of Slashdot readers here who use Linux also first tried it because other, much cooler people were raving about it? I first tried Red Hat 5 because I was told about this cool operating system that never crashed and was the "latest thing."
Those are products not technologies. Do you think that the latest Intel hardware doesn't use a RISC core that University researchers came up with the original idea for, that MS Windows isn't based on GUI ideas that came out of Xerox PARC (a research lab)? Heck, even the spreadsheet was invented by Dan Bricklin (of Harvard Business) and Bob Frankston (who has a Masters from MIT, also a research lab). Sigh. The technology was there before, you're just citing the knockoffs.
heh, like LISP and smalltalk (and emacs), for example?
Yeah, so some of it catches on, some doesn't. What else is new? This guy is just shilling for Apple.
Macs are nice, but overpriced. If they get popular enough, soon someone (Dell? Sony? IBM?) will copy the concept, but sell it *much* cheaper. Might take a few years.
in computer science house, one of the clubs i'm in at RIT, the number of mac laptop users has skyrocketed in the past few years. it's probably even the most common laptop in the club now. i've seen similar trends across the CS department, but not nearly as high as this club in particular.
- tristan
I got tired of the hype and high prices.
With Linux, I got pure software freedom and lower prices.
I noticed that more people are switching for Apple to Linux these days.
The beauty of OS X, though, is that not only are the NeXTStep APIs there, but you can also develop X Windows apps, Python, PERL, Lisp, Java, C, C++... what can't you do? Heck, if you had to, thanks to the Mono folks, you can even do C#. All that with easy administration, no viri ( yet! ), a solid *nix security model, great *nix compatablity and a solid foundation of user apps. It's a real computer geek's wet dream, and nobody should be shocked to see lots of programmers ( given the choice ) picking Apple machines as their primary development box.
The anti-Apple trolls are out in full force in this article, and getting modded up for it.
It's trickle-down effect. If the top industry players are using them, universities are using them (remember how most people used UNIX in college and so tried out Linux as a result?), and the media industry is using them, then chances are that everyone else will take a look to see what the fuss is about.
All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.
Good for you. All the best hackers I know are building their own machines and downloading Linux for free.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
The OS X is great, but he could have had all that in 1988 on NeXT.
(Let's not forget A/UX -- I mean for historical humorous reasons.) I always thought is was a tragedy of history that Jobs and his big ego was forced out of Apple in 1985. We could have been at this point of evolution 10 years ago, had he never had to start a separate company.
Amiga, Next, Mac 9, Mac OS X, I still have them all; they all have some nice features. Plus linux on alpha. Today I'm using Solaris 10 on an UltraSparc. (If Windows sucked, at least it would be good for something.)
No need for herd behaviour, they're just machines.
I like Macs. I dislike the Mac fanclub. And I dislike the idea of giving up control of my hardware to one company. I would hate to see everyone jump on the Mac bandwagon(in terms of running something like Linux on it), only to get locked out when/if it becomes a threat. Ask the people who ran Umax or Power Computing what it feels like.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Hi,
We had far too many problems keeping Windows machines happy around the house, so I did the following three-step program:
1. Installed lots of F/OSS solutions under Windows.
2. Converted my family to use these new tools.
3. Switched to Linux and OSX using the same tools.
The Linux installs (Ubuntu, etc.) use OpenOffice just fine, but we have a couple of Mac OSX machines (for the iTunes app, mostly.) On these machines, we use NeoOffice/J, which is a very nice port of OpenOffice into a native Mac application.
It works very well, no complaints from anyone. I use the spreadsheet frequently, and I've used their presentation software quite a bit too.
Well worth checking out.
http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php
Best wishes,
-greg
Please enlighten me on this:
1.Can i from a mac conncet in an easy way to Windows (mean both "map up a drive" and thru "terminal server like software")?
2.If i run iphoto and itunes can i have the actual songs/pictures on server running windows or linux?
Thanks
AC
The worst thing about OS 9 (and earlier) was system extensions. In theory, they provided some great functionality as a type of OS plugin. In practice, they were a pain in the ass, and led to most of the instabilities of OS 9 (and earlier). At least this was my experience.
My bread and butter is video, and to run FCP under 8.6 or 9, I had to run with a very trim extension set. If I wanted to do anything else, I had to reboot the machine with a different set of extensions. Major PITA.
Once you took the time to do all the tweaking, OS 9 could be pretty good if you were doing one thing at a time. It was what it was. However, I really don't want to go back. For it's shortcomings (which I find few and far between, YMMV), it is miles ahead of OS 9.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
One reason Apple is more streamlined than Windows is that it refuses to keep backwards compatability. I'm wondering where all those switching will be when Apple gets up to OS12 or 13.
They can switch. I'll stick with *nix and free updates, and save myself $140 every other year in upgrade costs.
Yes, mac laptops are more expensive than their pc counterparts.
...yes, geeks want power and function, but even they want stuff that looks good.
Yes, pc's still get some things before macs (java 1.5 for example).
But you know what, here's a little unscientific anecdotal evidence.
April 2004, my networking class at Purdue:
Some kid walks in with a new toshiba laptop, opens it up, and follows the notes online while the professor talks, no big deal.
A few days later I do the same thing, only with the new G4 iBook I'd be waiting on for a few weeks. I seriously have a small crowd sitting around me going "holy crap, what is that? is that a mac? wow, it's so cool"
ce n'est pas un Sig.
The rest of us, those who use and contribute to stuff-that-works, can happily coexist: My servers all run Linux, of course; but the boxes I use hands on every day run OS X, of course...
you had me at #!
Linux - Student at University of Helsinki
Not to mention that most people latched onto Linux because they had used UNIX in college and liked it.
Dang, I really don't get the appeal of OSX...I've got into dumb arguments here on why the dock doesn't "work for me" (odd blend of "shortcuts" and "tasks"...long story.)
But mostly...I dunno, most of my interesting work I do on a server command line. All I need is a decent text editor, some misc tools, and a web browser, everything else is almost inconsequential, and I find Windows UI to be surprisingly well designed, if not very innovative.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Are you saying the PC, MS Windows and MS Office were around before the internet, and Unix?
Well at least you haven't been modded insightful (yet).
The way moderation has been lately, I'd half expect you to be at +5 by now.
Four weeks, Twenty papers, that's two dollars
"And open and good is what Macs are again, finally."
Uh, the author really needs to rethink this.
Apple (Macs) are anything but open. Yeah, go ahead, start spouting off about Darwin and such. And when you get done, try to remember that little Aqua thingy that any Mac app needs to use to "look cool". Try to remember that everything in that laptop (it's a laptop, *Book is a trademark. Kleenex, tissue, same diff) is tied to Apple in one form or another. Not to mention you can't buy the things from anyone other than Apple.
I'm not saying these are bad things, one could say that this one vendor approach is a strength, allowing all Apple hardware (within reason) to present one set of interfaces for software to use. I could see that. But open? No.
Anything is possible given time and money.
The great grandparent post already mentioned Linux. My cross-eyed reading style missed it in the shuffle.
Knock my ass down to Redundant Town.
Dude, if you want a unix that Just Works with a desktop that doesn't suck a golfball through a garden hose, your next hardware purchase needs to be a mac.
:P
And if OS X burns your ass, you can always install freenix on it.
When OS X came, everyone in the Linux/BSD camp said "Cool, the best and smartest thing to do for a vendor - take OSS and build and polish it around your plattform." And everyone said they'd wait until OS X has lost it's glitches and matured. This has happend with Panther. That's why everyone who needs to get 'computer stuff done' with zero hassle and no hardware compatibility problems is flocking towards Apples OS X. Including me.
... Now if you excuse me, I gotta get going and try out frame skimming on Blender with my new Griffin Powermate I just got for my iBook today. :-)
x86 Linux is gaining ground here in germany. Corporations are pondering the alternatives to MS left, right and center, while just the other day a guy at Saturn, a german mass market electronics chain, told me that the mac mini is selling like hot cakes with iMacs going away in its wake and that they'll stock up seriously on mac games within the next few weeks because of that. They currently have two mac compliant games in stock and plan to have 30 in stock by the end of next month!
It's as I've said earler: Linux from below, OS X from above. We have some interesting times ahead of us in IT.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Maybe you can sell your wife the same way I did. She hated how our old windows box slowed to a crawl frequently due to malware, adware, etc. I'm sure I could have kept up on all the service patches and updates and adware programs and virus protectors, but screw it. My mac works. Always. With no complaints and no effort on my part.
By the way. Virus protectors are as bad as the viruses themselves. Does any body else complain about these pieces of crap?
Jack
and about as interesting as the return of bell bottom pants. (though not as interesting as the return of the mini-skirt).
Paul Graham seems to be greatly concerned with fashion, viz his previous "all my hacker friends hate Java and love Python".
It's great to see that people can be as vacuous about technology as they can be about clothing.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
I was there when the Mac was introduced (we got to see a pre-release model). I was using it on-and-off during the 90's. It's not even worth disputing Graham's confused and erroneous ramblings point-by-point. Maybe Graham's view is warped by his Lisp view of things: the Macintosh has been a long-term haven for Lisp hackers, both because MCL was pretty good and because Lisp hackers didn't have much of an alternative when all the other commercial choices tanked.
But one point is important, and that's Graham's promotion of OSX as BSD-based and open. Graham is a long-term Lisp hacker, and until Lisp became commercially worthless, all good Lisp implementations were proprietary and commercial. Graham apparently hasn't cared about platforms being open in the past, and he has been part of a crowd that has been railing against UNIX/C for twenty years. When he promotes OSX because it has BSD underpinnings and is supposedly "open", I think he is just catering to the crowd and reiterating things people want to hear; he doesn't really care whether they are true as long as they promote his currently favorite pet platform.
Whether Graham is disingenuous or merely confused, it's important to be clear about OSX. While parts of OSX are "open" and Apple is smart enough to reuse useful open source software (they just don't have the resources to do everything themselves), crucial parts of OSX are not open, among them the GUI, the graphics subsystem, and the toolkits. Apple has been quite clear about the fact that they view these parts as the value proposition of their platform, and they have been defending it.
Use OSX if you like, but don't try to pretend that it's an "open" choice.
I was totally serious, I bought the x86 machine I was speaking of and saved about $350 on a machine that has more horsepower and generally is better in everyway execpt power consumption.
Aren't I allowed to feel they're to pricey compared to the alternatives or ?
I'm the first to admit that I've lusted after Mac laptops since the day were introduced. I've even owned one. One of the things that I wonder about is Apple's stance on DRM. Seems like everyday I read something about Apple putting more restrictions on things like iTunes. So, my question is, where do folks draw the line?
Most PC users don't care about style, they care about price/performance.
Most users don't know any better. They've been raised by Wintel to believe that all computers are big, beige towers that are hard to use. They've been told they need 2ghz and a GB of RAM just to check their e-mail and send pictures.
Went from OS X server on a crotchety old blue G3 (upgraded to a g4/500 w/ a gig of ram) and a pile of firewire hard drives to debian on a cheapass x86 box with a 1tb SATA RAID. The box runs netatalk 2 and doesn't need to do anything else. Works perfectly.... and the PC and drives (with a stupid amount of ram, gigeth, etc) cost less than a base XServe.
I've been using macs daily since '98, and with the move to OS X, file sharing went from ACLs to unix permissions and suddenly there was no essential difference between using linux and using macos to the end user.... Since X came out and netatalk got useable, I've never had a compelling reason to use OS X on the server - but then, a server is (ime) a thing you set up once, lock up, and leave sitting in a rack until hardware dies. It probably helps that I'm a lot more comfortable with debian on the command line- it's easier to update and maintain a debian system without having to be at the box, in my experience.
But my job has no call for Serious Computers. So, YMMV.
Linus doesn't like Mach, he says it is inheritly slower than "his" kernel. I think he is probably right, but not by an amount that really matters. Apple has been focusing on "micro-locking" critical sections in Mach for Tiger (and I assume even more for the next rev). This trend started as FreeBSD 5 tried to catch up with Linux 2.6, enough though the FreeBSD 5 kernel is unrelated to Mach. Why are they doing this? They are preparing for the day when there will be n cores, for n = 4, 6, 8... I remember an statement (was it Minsky?) that an n-way multiprocessor sysstem has performance of order n/log n. This does not have to be true in the future, and even if it is - we still win.
Also Apple has IOKit and "prebinding" which remove the need to keep multiple old copies of the *nix libraries for every binary you don't want to rebuild with every new release, and every device driver as well. Even Windows has this to some extent, this was an esssential feature for the non-hacker to use MacOS X, and damn nice convenience for hackers, too!
I love Linux. I love the Mac.
.net architecture and I love to do hobby programming.
I'm however using windows almost exclusively. Why is that? Well, I've invested heavily in learning the
I program for 8 hours at work, then I go home and program another 4 hours, and I want those 4 hours to be productive, I also want those 4 hours to help me be more productive at work.
If I used Java for work, I would probably have a Mac or run Linux at home.
PS. Yes, I know about mono.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Sorry, I don't want to be staggering around chasing after my alarm clock...!
If he's unhappy with his purchase he should have just returned it instead of trying to convince the rest of us that it was such a great idea.
You're kidding, right?
The level of Mac advocacy on Slashdot is out of control, and, in many instances, borders on fanaticism. This is a serious problem. I have seen perfectly balanced posts get modded down because they might have parts in them that could be construed as having something negative to say about Apple. This is unacceptable. If the Slashdot community cannot look passed their own biases to recognize a valid argument, then they are no better than those whom they despise, and, indeed, are at risk of becoming despicable themselves.
Was Henrik Wann Jensen's masters project at the Technical University of Denmark.
I think the excitement will grow with the release of Tiger and then shift over to Longhorn after Microsoft dumps billions of ad dollars onto the world market.
Of course if Longhorn is a turd...
True Linux hackers eat their dog's food.
UNIX proper (the API, the shell, the commands) is only 1% of "Linux" these days. The rest is provided by infrastructures of KDE and Gnome.
Which is good, because UNIX, as much respected and constantly hyped in the community as it is, must go, because it is obsolete (and has been for quite a while). Creating BeOS was a move in the right direction, but BeOS is only a desktop OS; there is a need in a modern, efficient and well-organized server infrastructure as well. Longhorn, with its object-orientation and a database-like file system is Microsoft's answer to that need; OSS community has to have an answer of its own; and UNIX is not an answer.
You can all think for yourselves! You don't have to buy a Mac just because some the techie friends of a friend of guy-you-don't-know did !
Weigh the relative costs of the hardware against the relative benefits it will get you. And then go and buy open-standard, off-the-shelf, PCs and the parts for it.
Or at least do the easily-led-cultist thing properly, and become a Scientologist...
Hardly! Apple laptops are notorious for quality control problems and just plain breaking. Maybe this is because people like them enough to carry them around everywhere...
Anyway, until they come out with a ruggedised laptop with a scroll nipple and two buttons on the trackpad I'm sticking with linux-on-x86.
I can't believe - well actually I can - that this kind of FANBOY BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA is published here. FUCK YOU! This is the most ridiculous story I've seen in 5 years.
Well, that's about all I wanted to say. Anyone else have something on their mind?
Hey, if Linux Torvalds thinks that a mac is good enough for him, its definitely good enough for me.
From the Puget Sound Computer User:
AMD Sempron 2200
ASRock K7S41GX
40GB 7200rpm HD
256 MB DDR 3200 Ram
52x CDROM
1.44 Floppy
6 USB 2.0 ports
32 MB Shared Video
Built-in 10/100 NIC
On-board sound
1 AGP 4x/ 3 PCI / 1 AMR
350W ATX Case.
$255
Next page 19" monitor for $80.
How do you right click a mac??? OOOH, WAIT! You don't...
(as I sit here with my 5 button mouse, worshiping its functionality.)
PLUS, hackers might like a mac, but for the Engineers of the world Macs are best used for paper weights. I can't think of a single engineering specific program for a mac. If anything, the engineering software is moving or adding functionality to Linux.
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
I'm sure the Apple guys are perfectly happy as they've got the money off me all the same... rather than seeing it go out the country to some nameless beige box shifters...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Or maybe you don't remember the good deals given to college students to get/use Windows Machines at their Universities just a few years ago. Mac and Windows were fighting for mind share back then too. But now with OSX, and its power, and the ipod many students are going to Apple nowadays.
yep, just wait till you try copying a 17MB file on that thing for your freelance gig, the AMD system is at least 10/60 of a second faster. All depends what he needs that machine for doesn't it. What's the software like on that AMD machine?
They want the xterms to look pretty while they're logging in to the Linux box across the room. ;-)
(Just so everyone's aware: just kidding... mostly.)
Where the hell did this "Mac = Freedom & Liberation" movement come from? You people are slaves and you don't even know it.
I'd put up a good fight for Linux, but you masochistic mac fundamentalists are truly insane. Next we'll have Mac suicide-bombers going after random buildings up in Redmond. Seriously, get a grip people.
Anonymous-Cowarding doubtless in admission that this is a troll.
I run OSX 10.3 on a 366mhz G3 iBook with 192mb of RAM, it's fine for wordprocessing, surfing, and multimedia use and isn't any slower than Windows XP on a Pentium-2 366.. which most people would agree is a workable pairing.
10.1 and 10.2 were slow on G3s. 10.3 is fine. As a Windows-refugee I'm still puzzled by an OS that gets faster on older hardware with every release...
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Some number of years ago I bought an iMac for my parents to use to surf the web, do some simple word processing, scan in photos of the kids and make picture CDs. Recently she wanted to upgrade her printer. The printer driver only supported os 9.1 or os X. Since the box was running 9.0 it was time to upgrade. I tried to find a copy of 9.1 figuring it would be more likely to be compatible with the older iMac. Unable to find it I got a copy of osX. That's when the trouble started. Seems the old iMac required a firm ware upgrade. But if you follow the install instruction for os X you don't find this out until the os X installer comes up and says you need a firm ware upgrade. The exact phrase is exit the installer and upgrade your firm ware. The problem is after that the installer won't exit. The Finder won't find and holding the power switch in wont turn it off. So after a while I pulled the plug. Then the iMac wouldn't boot. It wouldn't even eject the now stuck CD. After calling Tech support and going through about 5 dudes, several days and lots and lots of power ups holding down the mouse, holding down this set of keys and that, I got nothing. One techi had me open the case and press a firmware short out button which was supposed to reset the firmware. Nothing. I paid a premium for that iMac in terms of price/performance expecting it would work better or be less of a hassle in the long run. But that was not the case. The help desk guys kept telling me that my power supply or switch must have gone out just when the os X installer was trying to exit or that my firm ware was corrupted just at that moment. They were less than helpful. I eventually took the thing apart, pulled the stuck cd out and returned os X. Fortunately Fry's took it back even though it was obviously opened. So, I then further disassembled the machine with an 8 pound sledge hammer. That was fun. Now my mom has a PC from Dell. much less costly than buying a mac. $400 and it came with a monitor. You can't by a mac for that. No sense buying a 'better' box if it's not any 'better'. No more apple products here. ______________________________________ There are 10 kinds of people, Those who know binary and those who don't.
There's a better way. And I think the marketing types at Apple should pester some of their techies to make it happen.
I want to install a new program on my work computer (running WinXP Pro) that will track every program I run for two weeks or so. At the end of that period it should report to me how much of what I ran is available under Mac OS X.
I've written more details (same from google cache) on this, but some key points are that it can show alternatives even if the same program exists (e.g. Office), it must be open source, it must be honest about the mac capabilities (e.g. "program X will work for most users, but may not be compatible with a corporate server environment because of blah blah").
Of course, this might work to convince people to switch to a linux desktop as well, but the linux desktop has bigger issues to cover than just application compatibility.
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
Another Apple story ( 2nd today ) why ... we all know that MacOSx is some sort of BSD...
We all know they are cool.
We know they are pricey
We all want one.
Besides this is one man's view of the world. And then if you ask somebody else he will say that another type of gadget is cool and great.
I did not expect this from you, very dissapointed.
I'm sure www.apple.com/games will surprise you pleasantly
I'm so pleasantly surprised that I'm laughing my ass off. Sorry dude, but Macs are as far behind in games as they ever were. And, as for that site, the big graphic on the front-page with "Edutainment" plastered across it isn't helping their image.
One thing I love about Apple is the way it's packaged. It's like nothing else I have ever seen. Everything is so neat, color coordinated. I swear I feel like I am on 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' when I open a new Apple box - whatever it may be. However the reality of this is that I do not see people buying more macs. I see them buying IPODS, and airport express with i-tunes, I see them buying music at the imusic store, but not the Macs. Hey I wish Apple all the best! It shows an American company can make a product as solid as the Toyota and as pretty as a Mercedes! However this essay is not exactly something I can agree with.
I hardly ever disagree with Paul Graham, but this time I think he's forgotten one important fact. Apple has a monopolistic stranglehold on the Mac. The PC beat the Mac because it was an open system. As long as Apple follows the philosophy that only they can profit from the Mac it will remain a niche platform. No matter how good it is.
Way back when, being alpha geek was a big deal.
Now it's an interchangeable part: Some guy
in India can do his job for 1/10 the pay.
Actually, it is rather blind. I suppose opinions might differ on whether it is foolish or not. When not taken to an extreme, it is only being blind in certain areas as opposed to all areas.
Everyone is always pushing mac from a "windows switch". There is unfortunatley not enough Linux switch and power user switch websites. Going to websites explaining the diffrences from going from windows to mac always makes me feel like a dumbass. If anyone is aware of some good sites for powerusers I would appreciate a reply. I have however found a website with excellent applications for Unix/Linux/Power Users switching to the mac.
your academic and corporate environments.
They are raking it in doing their own stuff for their own reasons and doing such a great job of it that everything and everybody else looks, well, a little green at the gills in comparison.
Tha fact that it works for you and what you need is entirely imaterial to Jobs.
Now if only Gates would cotton on to the fact that Apple's starting to eat his lunch by NOT even trying to compete with Microsoft but by putting out by putting out great stuff that's really usable.
I'm sure that "How Apple Won The War By Not Fighting It" will make great reading in my dotage.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Serious question... I've been on the fence about macs for the last year or so, but I pretty much only purchase laptops and it seems to me this is the one place where the one button argument actually holds up.
Does anyone who uses a powerbook/ibook constantly find that this isn't irritating? Or is it just that with the design of the OS you don't notice, so then what if you have it booting linux? For that matter... if your plans are to boot linux anyway, are you being silly with the Powerbook/iBook purchase?
Honestly curious, in the market for a new laptop in the next couple of months and am either going Powerbook or Thinkpad, but have no experience with the Powerbooks.
Only if you define "pleasantly" as last year's games.
Look, I love my Mac; my family owns 5 new ones between us, but the game selection is poor.
We play stuff on our PS2 and XBox, so it doesn't matter.
Bravo my friend. You're braver than I am that's for sure, but I admire your courage.
I bought my ibook G3 on September 17, 2002 when I was working at the VLT...my reasoning was simple, with BSD, I could compile and run all my science software as well as run Apache and MySQL for web application development on hardware that was predictible...I was too old to fiddle with all the configuration crap everyone else at the VLT was going through just to get linux up on their Dell naotebooks.
So, I can say without a doubt, the software environment I am working with on my ibook is the best I have ever seen and I won't go back to anything else...BUT!!!
It hurts to pioneer!
So far my ibook has been through 2 logic boards, and on "good" friday, the third one died. Very annoying Mr. Jobs. And, as a frontline geek, I am a little distressed to see that the recall for the flawed itital batch of ibooks expired on March 18th!
I will take it in anyway and scream until it is fixed.
I don't work at the VLT any more, but I am told that ibook G4's and powerbooks now outnumber the Dell machines...scientists are switching too.
A G4 with a 167mhz FSB is not a POWER anything.
Its a nice computer, but hardly enough to make you switch from a Pismo from 5 years ago.
Apple, instead of "Think Different", how about "Try Harder".
three one-year-old PCs used for the price of one new, a low-end KVM, load up XP Pro, Knoppix, BSD, and go to town having techie fun experimenting away. Why feed Jobs' ego and wallet just so I can pretend I think different(ly)?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
"There are developers out there who are better than I am"
i.e. "most of the them"
And before one of you zealots labels this as "flamebait" please recognize that just because I disagree with you does not mean I am trying to start a war, I just think don't agree with all this Apple advocacy.
So all the Hardcore OS hackers are switching to macs. That wil be great for Apples bottom line considering these guys are like .00001% of computer users.
This article is completely retarded too. Much respect to Apple, but Zonk's mother should be punched in the kidneys for even birthing the demi-god who posted this rubbage.
The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.
You get exactly what you pay for with the Mac, which is a better computer for the majority of us.
You do get more hardware bang for the buck with a "consumer" PC, but not in the software area. The software that ships with even a Mini is easily worth more then that PC's CPU, Mobo, Memory and vid card combined, considering there is absolutely no equivelent on the PC side at all. The Mini, IMac, or any modern OSX Mac can do more out of the box then all consumer PCs on the market.
I have two consumer PCs similar to the one you described and one workstation PC and their overall value are no where near even my 2 year old 1GHz TI book. I use my PCs as a "cheap" rendering solutions and occasional games, but other then that, because I have XP Pro installed on them they are "very poor" computers when compared to any of my Macintoshes.
As for better elements that all depends on who you are buying your parts from. First of all a G5 outclasses a P4, it may not be as fast for 32-bit operations, but its only PC equivilent is an Opteron. And if you know anything about PC's an Opteron costs way more then a P4. This is also true for the mobo it requires. So your're not comparing equivilent systems. The iMacs components are closer to a workstation in some areas. Basically the Mac uses higher grade components which cost more. The G5 towers are true worksations, if you're wondering why their price is even higher.
Another thing, Apple is the "only" computer company on that planet that can offer true "software/hardware intgration." This area is key, it is the main reason why there are no OSX viruses or Spyware. PCs do not have that luxary and until it happens (Which will be a very long time.) they will never be as good as even a Mini for general use. It's a trade off. Buying the OS seperate from the PC components may be fun (At least for me, it's a hobby.) But everything is disconnecting, everybody has their own software utility and cheeseball interface, which sometimes leads to problems.
And a rule of thumb, never buy any ugprades from Apple, because that area is expensive. The same is true for most retail comps. Only buy the base unit from them, then add the Memory or larger HD yourself.
If you're only in for gaming, then stick with a consumer PC, (They are the best choice for this.) but when you become interested in all other areas, or would simply like a better computer then buy a OSX Mac. I strongly recommend a MIni as a starter. There is nothing wrong with owning both platforms. They coexist nicely now days.
Think about it this way. If the PC you described were a Camaro, then the iMac would be a Lexus. The Lexus isn't nescarly faster and does costs more, but it's certainly a better, more reliable car, with a nicer interior and is worth its asking price. When I see a Camaro, I think "cheap."
how many of these geeks run their mac with a fullscreen console?
strip away aqua and the rest of the gui and what you have is a modified openbsd running on powerpc.
someone hand me that yellowdog or mandrake install cd and a powerpc computer...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Isnt that a bit of a broad statement? When I mod kernel code, Im usually running the OS Im coding for. So if you're implying running, for instance, linux on the powerbook to write your kernel code, why pay the apple tax? Is the hardware that much better than another high grade laptop (or desktop) that usually cost significantly less?
I like the apple concept and its useability, but I personally write alot of driver code and dont see how I can do this from a different OS easily.
Is the cost of an apple upgrade really worth it when all you're going to do is run Linux? Is the hardware that much better?
You're right that emulators are one of the mac's few gaming strengths.
Nice thing about that is that the mini totally blows x-box hacking out of the water. The emulators for it are *really nice.* The hardware's more capable. There's no need to futz with modchips or the mechwarrior hack. It's smaller, quieter, and supports firewire harddrives.
So if you are heavily into emulators, it's the last "console" you need to buy for a long, long time.
I use a little 2 button logitech travel thingy on my Powerbook. When I'm too lazy to pull it out, then I'll used the dreaded touch pad and the "Control-Key" as my second mouse button. I can use it, but all touch-pads cause pain in my wrists with extended use.
Even if Apple does get around to shipping a 2-button mouse, which I heard rumors of, I'll still stick with my Logitech mice. I have a MX1000 on my DP 2.5 and MX700 on my DP1.25. Two of the best mouses made to date an I have access to every button. And I wouldn't use my Touch-Pad more even if it had 2 buttons.
Revenge of the Mac?
...the rest of the story.
(cue old geezer music)
If Macs float your boat then more power to you but realize that for some of us Macs just make us cringe.
A good part of that is what you are most used to, you're more comfortable with and more efficient on. Now, if you'll just have a sip of this koolaid, and step on this nice bus that will take you to the Apple re-education center. . .
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I look forward to your in-depth discussion of how Soviet Communism is superior to Capitalist Democracy.
- Crow T. Trollbot
Now it seems to be a "true geek" you have to have a laptop
I like how much laptops have advanced, but I still find that they don't give you that feeling that you get when you build it yourself
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Please name one other company that sues their fan sites.
# I have news for you, the labels want and demand DRM.
So so why does apple threaten to use the anti cirumenvention part the DMCA against real if real goes ahead with their harmony project thats allows ipod owners to play real media files? Sure sounds like using DMCA and DRM to hold a lock on a market. I don't think labels would care if ipods ran real media files, nor do i think customers would mind the abililty to run real media files on their ipods and would actually prefer a choice in their online store selection. And choice is the keyword, apple doesn't want their customers to have a choice.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Then I will be switching to a Powerbook. The PC get delegated to strict gaming duty after that and nothing more.
Heck, it's even attractive to those of us whose background in C is more of the "int" variety.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
....when there CVS was dying. They havent given back to the BSD crowd and Theo will never buy an Apple again. Im stearing clear.
9 30286)
(I posted about this earlier but I thought it was relevant. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=142345&cid=11
is the Kiss of Death. It happened to NeXT Computers and Jobs knows what it means to have a platform highjacked by all knowing God's of Computing.
Jobs will not tolerate Guru's and there won't be any free Powerbooks to get the *Cool Factor* built off them either.
So, does your Dell or eMachine come with:
:)
* iMovie
* iDVD
* iTunes
* Garageband (equivalent software on Windows might be Cakewalk Home Studio, which sells for about a hundred)
A webserver, PHP interpreter, Perl interpreter, and any other UNIX software you can think of
* An e-mail app that doesn't suck?
* A secure browser?
* And much more?
Oh, okay. Cya.
My iMac 450MHz is named "style-over-substance" and my mini is named "appeal-to-pity".
Note also that due to network effects, users of a platform have an incentive to find more users for it. If articles like this can convince people that cool things will happen because more hackers will use the platform, this may become self-fulfilling.
And yes, my main Linux box is named "bandwagon", so I'm quite aware that a lot of the behavior of Linux fanboys can be explained this way as well.
PS: Apple's episodes of "we must control the platform" (exemplified by the original Torx-screwed-shut Mac, disappearance of the iMac mezzanine slot, slapping of OS X rethemers, etc) make them a strange long-term commitment for Real Hackers, as opposed to just the digerati.
Gaming is the only real reason to stay away from Macs
I played game a lot on my previous PCs. So much so that one reason for me recently getting my first Mac, albeit a minor one, was that, I thought that since the Mac has so few games written for it that I won't be able to find games to play on it. Therefore I wouldn't be playing computer games as much as I would be on a PC. I needed to curtail the time I was spending gamin on my computer.
Wrong!
It turns out that more and more games are being written for Macs. Like Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Talk about stealing my life away. And on a Mac too!
Rich
However, my powerbook purchase brought the joy of computing back into my life. I frequently read the comments of those who decry the overpriced Mac when compared to constructing your own box (which I used to do - and I still believe that a Mac is equivalently priced with Dell/Gateway/IBM hardware, when all things are factored in properly) and while true on one level, it misses the mark on the total picture. That is depending on your interests and usage desires:
Life got a lot simpler when I replaced my wife's Win XP box with an iMac. No more weekly degunk sessions, antivirus, malware consternation and constant admonitions for her to be vigilant about keeping her machine clean were necessary. And she took to it like a charm -- things were unfamiliar (and still sometimes she stumbles on a Win -> Mac how-to-do question) but she is enthralled with it now and spends more time on email/web browsing than she ever did on the Win box. The iLife/iPod deal is just gravy and really we've experienced firsthand on how much more hassle-free life became after the Mac switch.
So, I'm not swayed by saving a couple hundred dollars. Just like I wouldn't buy a Kia or a Yugo, I'm not going to opt for a bargain basement PC over a quality machine like a Mac. No, it's not perfect and presents its own set of flaws, but at this juncture, it seems to be the product of greater quality for me.
AZspot
Most of the conferences I attend involve UN environmental and development programs, but even at those, I'm seeing a lot more Apple notebooks than I did six months ago.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I was saying to my sister that Apple's integration between the file system (HFS) and the command line wasn't all that good (eg. if you cp mv files with resource forks, the resource forks don't get brought across). I understand this is to be fixed in Tiger, but it's annoying that it isn't done in the current and third revision of OSX. She's talked to a number of people at Apple and their take on it is that it's a surprise to Apple that all the Unix geeks are actually taking to OSX. A pleasant surprise for them, but still a surprise.
Actually, I think he's been promoted to Major.
I know what you are saying about Linux being a joke on the desktop. I've switched from nasty RPM based distros to gentoo to Mepis Linux. Mepis is a debian variant, and it JUST WORKS!
I really enjoy the simplicty and freedom (yes, as in beer) of Mepis. Anyway, I would recommend it to anyone. Even my 13 year old sister runs it. Even one of my college friends who is a humanities major has no problem with it. Just my $0.02
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
Amusingly, Morgan Stanley has already predicted that Apple share will rise to 5% of the market this year. It was even posted on Slashdot.
So, how's that foot taste?
Apple (what the entire article and this thread is about)- 2 guys in a garage.
Microsoft (the giant everyone loves to hate) college dropouts.
I'm sure Apple relates more to this story than your examples.
You made my point. Disposable products with no upgrade path. Lets take the games market(second only to movies in popularity), running a popular game like sims2 or world of warcraft on 2 year old hardware is not going to be fun. Luckily on the pc side,you can buy a $65 new video card. Which is a lot cheaper than shelling out $500.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
That's because your kid brother is probably American (and overweight). Well, I ain't. /. is in that language (OTOH, Americans are such dick heads that they never learn to speak *one* foreign language properly - and Spanish doesn't count).
So fuck you, you are an asshole! This is the internet dude, there's a world. We just write in English, because
I've seen the BOFH columns in The Register for awhile, and never had a clue what it meant. I figured out the "from hell" part, but "BO"? Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been confused by that column. None of the columns ever seem to explain the acronym, but I did eventually find it.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
The hardware lock in is also my problem with Macs. You are just limited to this specific hardware.
Moreover if you buy Mac hardware you have to live without Windows, which is often not possible. There are a lot of situations where I just need some software that's only available for windows. There's no way to e.g. install vmware, or repartition your harddisk and install Windows XP. This can be a huge drawback.
I tend to use a dekstop PC, I don't use a laptop. Mac desktops are not easily upgradeable, therefore a noname PC is still the far cheaper and flexible solution.
I think the Mac has it's niches, but the reason why it's not more widespread is similar like Linux: missing software and hardware lock in.
I had 8 macs before I was force to switch to PC. Back then, there were things Macs could do that PCs could not....Now, that is not the case. PCs can do and do well everything the Mac can do.
Pet Peev....
I like Win/Linux ability to do FULL screen and switch between full screens. The MAC desktop does not go full screen when you click on the maximize button. It only fills part of it, page size.
I also DON'T like iPhoto. It gets bogged when you get too many photos. Uses clugy db and you need to export pics for other uses.....
OS-X is NOT all that........
When I purchased my notebook, I paid over $1400. I could have purchased a PowerBook for $1500.
However,
- The 12" PowerBook has a low-resolution screen. XGA doesn't cut it for me. My notebook is SXGA+, which gives me almost twice as much working space.
- I run Linux. Yeah, OS X is nice, but it's still a commercial OS. I could run Linux on a Mac, but, what's the point? Why not get a cheaper PC?
- Quality is not an issue. The CL-56 I own is a solid, well-built notebook. I got a 3-year warranty standard, 24/7 service/support, and a very-nice shipping policy. All of this is *included* in the price of the notebook.
- My notebook has a 7200rpm HDD. It's quite a bit nippier than the 4200rpm drives used in the low-end PowerBook.
- Unlike the Powerbook keyboards, the modifier keys aren't shifted to make room for FN.
- Battery life with my current notebook is *excellent*. I don't know if the Powerbooks get 5 hours, but my notebook certainly does.
- Pentium-M is fast. Really fast. My 1.7GHz CPU is both fast and cool.
- My notebook has Mobility Radeon 9700 128M graphics, which aren't available on the 12" PowerBook.
Basically, I could have paid a lot more and purchased a 15" PowerBook, or I could have accepted a slower GPU, slower HDD, smaller & lower resolution display, and a much slower processor.
If OSX were a factor, maybe the Mac would be worth it. But a cool aluminum case isn't worth the tradeoffs I'd have to make.
* Apple makes hardware that looks good, but (generally) sucks. Goes right back to the Apple ][. If they can finally build reasonable hardware -- good on them. The Apple ][ suxored (software floppies?!?), the Mac suxored (only 128KB ?!?) the Mac II suxored (unshielded cables, unshielded power supplies. Mac OS suxored (compared with Unix, compared with Smalltalk). Apple gave us exploding laptops! (major suxor!). Am I to believe that they can produce quality now?
* Apple software is "servicable", but not brilliant. It is closed, and generally refuses to interoperate (remember, this is the company that gave us the 'cr' delimiter, and resource forks)
* Apple needs the fanboy/grrl base. Without that they would have been so dead...
* Apple may be using an "open" core, but they won't open up the GUI for cross compatibility. I want to run Apple applications on my Sparc Solaris 9 box (at least the GUI), or from my Redhat box, or my AIX boxes, or my HPUX (well, you get the idea -- I have a few more different systems in the lab as well). But I can't. I could use the Apple as my desktop machine, but it won't play with my preferred keyboard and mouse (Lexmark Model M). Come on, open up the GUI client, guys!
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Quoth
> I need good Unix/X compatibility for when I
> deal with the big iron.
You have got an SNA adapter for a Mac? Or a Virtual Z/OS system
Green with envy
Sony build excellent laptops that are as well-designed as mac's. They also have excellent linux support.
Oh come on now, they're only about 1.5 times the price of a generic PC based laptop
From your pricing ranges, you're probably American. That explains you being a dick head. Do you know how much a MiniMac cost abroad? Far more than just 1.5 times a PC, because there are import taxes and conversion rates to be dealt with.
So, you know, use the fact that you come from a richer nation and get a fucking perspective on things. Go read some...newspaper (NY Times is alright).
All this means that, no, the MiniMac won't take over the world, when it actually costs (e.g., Brazil) almost the triple of a simple PC. This is the MiniMac. A G5 PowerPC is 10 X more expensive than a PC.
I'm currently writing most of my programs in perl. So, naturally, i'm going to stick to *nix and so i'm planning to buy a small 12" iBook.
The two questions i currently have are:
*) Can i get a decent multi-bash console on OSX like the KDE Konsole application or do i have to roll my own?
*) Is there any way to hook up an old PS/2 keyboard, cause i don't want to give up my trusted IBM completly?
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
Sorry, I can't help but think the Mac is overhyped. I'd definitely get a Mac laptop though.
If you want cheap stuff, shop around. The refurbs at the apple store are a great deal.
eMac 1GHz/ 256MB/ 40GB/ NO CD-ROM/ NO MODEM - Apple Certified
Original price: $649.00
Your price: $529.00
That's a mac WITH A MONITOR for $530. yeah, you need more memory. Life is tough. The emac is still a fantastic deal if you don't already have a screen.
JR
mac books are cheap unix books that really work, the main reasons for not using GUI don't hurt as on linux/xfree (amazing design, but not always useful on notebooks) and it's not far away from a system one could work on.
most unix world applications run without problems and year after year, the need of running a windows x86 app decreased to special cases.
i'd buy a mac mini so my girlfriend allows me to place it in the living room - and a powerbook to have a robust unix environment. but it won't replace my linux desktop.
I just thought that this might be a good moment to write in stating that I'm typing all of this on a Powerbook. :D
I started off on PCs back in 1989, fighting my way through DOS and Win2.11 and Win3.0. Then I switched to Macs in prepress until I left IT entirely for a few years. During that time I worked occasionally on Win95. Later I did a multimedia course that required Macs even though everybody was saying at the time that Apple was dead and even our school was considering switching to WinNT. The next few jobs I had were all based on WinNT, Win2k and WinXP, but, after having gotten a free old Powerbook from a dead dotcom and using OSX on it, I was sold.
Since then I've bought two more Powerbooks and I am incredibly happy with this decision. My Windows machine hardly ever gets used anymore.
I know it's in sharp contrast to all you happy shiny people but I'd like mine to resemble my *nix or is it *nux desktop. Colors probably chocolate or more appropriately coffee; the less primary the better; don't have to wait for U2 to have one made.
Any skinners out there?
Suing them and yzDock? What was the point of either of those lawsuits except to prove that Jobs is a bigger jerk than Gates even?
I've never been a Mac guy. But I recently bought a Mac Mini and I must say, I'm extremely satisfied with it. OS/X is so much better than any other desktop/workstation operating system, that I'm now surprised I consented to use anything else for so long.
I think Apple has a good chance of retaking the 10% market share they traditionally held before their implosion a few years back. Many of my geek friends are "switching" to Mac.
There's no way to e.g. install vmware, or repartition your harddisk and install Windows XP.
Sure there is, it's called VirtualPC.
Mac desktops are not easily upgradeable, therefore a noname PC is still the far cheaper and flexible solution.
If you're a hobbyist and you like to tinker with hardware and tweak performance then you have a point. But I think most people use computers for software, most of which can be compiled quite easily on any major architecture. My 400Mhz G4 I got in 2000 is still plenty fast enough for all the work I do (including Raytracer development). I have no need to upgrade anything, but eventually when G5s get fast enough and cheap enough I will probably pick one up and get all my major upgrades at once.
cut out the apple worship, taco!
"Don't call it a come back, I've been here for years!"
Steve Jobs said knock you out!
I'm sorry you had so much trouble with SuSE and FC3. I tried Mandrake and FC3 and Ubuntu before settling on "plain" Debian testing. I used Windows for years until a few months ago. I knew I'd switch to Linux someday, but didn't realize it would happen so soon. I couldn't be happier. GNOME works wonderfully for me, and so does KDE. I can't recall the last crash that wasn't caused by a 3D game failing to get its sound device that was already used by another program, neither of which are made for ALSA (though I solved that in 15 minutes by looking at a log file and checking a forum post).
/usr/share/doc/packagename.
I recommend you try Ubuntu or Mepis or Kanotix, and if those don't do it for you, try Debian itself. RC3 of the Sarge installer was just released; download the netinst ISO and give it a try. On a decent connection, you'll have it installed and up-to-date in less than two hours. For the most part, with apt, everything just works, and if you need to configure something manually, you can find the info you need in the man page or
Sure, if I could afford a PowerBook, I'd probably get one too. Though, the single-button touchpad doesn't encourage me, so I would seriously consider a good IBM laptop (while they're still good) that has good Linux support.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Convergence at its best, eh?
Everything else you can download for FREE! Cygwin anyone? FireFox???
What is your point exactly?
Blar.
What crack are you smoking?
Mac desktops are simple to upgrade, since the Blue and White G3, right up to the current generation Powermac.
G3 and G4 Powermacs had a little handle on the top of one side that released a latch. The side was hinged at the bottom and opened out easily with the logic board fixed to it. The hard drives (standard IDE btw) were connected with a perfectly sized IDE cable with a planned path (no cable mayhem inside the case). You didn't have to disconnect any cables to open the case up.
In its open state, you could power it on and use it normally (just watch that CPU load since the heatsinks were cooled by a large, slow fan that was mounted in the case and was thus nowhere near the heatsinks when the thing was open.
This design made adding RAM a snap (standard DIMMs btw), or adding new hard drives (four bays in the Sawtooth models) or changing the optical drive, or putting in a PCI card (standard PCI slots btw). It was like having the logic board out on the desk, not cramped away in an awkward case.
I know not all PCs are badly designed, but my experience has ranged from "a bastard to work on" to "annoying to work on" with PCs (both desktops, towers and laptops).
The Macs I have worked on (and that's several generations from the 9600 onwards are a peach to deal with. So well planned out.
Even iBooks and Powerbooks are simple to work on compared to the PC laptops I've had to take apart.
Plus, since Macs now use (and have used for many, many years) standard PC parts with exception of the logic board, CPU and graphics card (can use a PC GPU, but you need to flash it with a Mac ROM) you can pick the parts up as if you were buying for a PC - same hard drives, RAM, optical drives, mice, tablets, scanners, printers, network cards, monitors etc.
This ain't the coolest thing to say on Slashdot. I'm a classic .asp and budding .net developer. How is a Mac mini going to help me?
Answer, it won't.
Wow, that C in Psych 101 is really serving you well. Oddly enough, you're completely wrong. That's what you get for armchair psychiatry with someone you never met, retard.
1) I link to goatse simply *because* it's so hackneyed. Profile has a place for homepage, I didn't have one, so I'm making the joke that it's my asshole up there. You missed the point.
2) I found slashdot from google. So I guess you're right, if you count Page and Brin as my friends. But the assholes won't return my calls, so I don't know how that affects your theory.
3) I don't have an idol. What, you think we trolls have some sort of guild system? Now *that*'s fucked up.
4) I'm independent because I'm independent. I troll because I like fucking with tools like you. I don't confuse the two. No, trolling doesn't make me independent. You're right, though, that would be sad.
5) Sign your fucking posts you coward, so I can put you on my friends list. ;)
Maybe this will mean less evangelizing. I have no problem with other people using Macs, but I am sick of people telling me that I should use a Mac. If I wanted one, I would get one. I can make decisions for myself!
Back in the day, you remember, hot grits, john katz and such, Macs were derided by the slashdot crowd quite a bit. Nice to see that apple is getting the respect it deserves. I'm not saying that pre OS X was the best OS around, but the wintel crowd were such assholes to the Mac crowd. of course, those who knew better weren't assholes. Thanks Steve Jobs, for rescuing a great company, and giving it the direction it needed. It is a great day in apple land again.
I mean, it's not going to take over, it's not going to evict microsft, it's not going to obsolte any of the other *bsd or linux distributions, but from an old hacker's point of view, OS X is cool.
Every old hacker I know who's tried it out (at least since 10.2) has stuck with it. I know there are exceptions out there, and people who just plain don't like OSX, but it definately qualifies in my book.
I had similar worries. However, over the last two years, I've found that they were unfounded. For starters, except for the processor and motherboard, it's all the same hardware. PCI cards, USB2, Firewire, DDR RAM etc. Moreover, if you're considering a laptop or the mini, the PC equivalent is no less proprietary.
I'm now on my second Apple laptop and they are more compatible with each other than any two PC laptops. For example, my Apple AC adaptors are interchangeable. That is, my G3 iBook adapter works with the new PowerBook and vice-versa. Try that with a new IBM and one from two years ago. I use the same laptop case, the same laptop stand and the same peripherals. (The peripherals also work beautifully with my Linux desktop.)
However, more important that hardware lock-in is software lock-in. This one is up to you. See, despite the commercial options, on OSX I tend to use all of the Open Source apps I used in Linux. I use Firefox, Thunderbird, NeoOffice/J, VLC, Eclipse, X11 etc.
As mentioned, hardware lock-in is a complete non-issue, as I can (and do) move easily back and forth between Linux and Windows. I use OSX on my main home machine because it works so well with all of my HW and SW. Let me tell you, Audacity on OSX is much nicer to use and look at than Audacity in Linux. (BTW, is there any explanation as to why wxGTK is still using GTK 1.x? It's 2005!)
As long as the apps that you use are available on more than one platform, your data is safe regardless of your current system. Stick to Open Source and open standards like the OASIS format and you can use whatever computer and OS fits your current needs.
Wow, way to discredit yourself with a falsehood right off the bat, Paul.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Carbon was an important part of getting OSX accepted. It was also a reason for delaying its release.
Carbon is a compatibility layer that made it easy to port old Mac programs to the new OS. Considering MacOS 9 is utterly nothing like MacOS X, it was the difference between many App developers updating their programs or just abandoning Apple and going Windows.
It was a transitional thing. Important for the early stages, but now the OS is mature it matters alot less. Like PS2's being able to play PSOne games.
2 blatantly uninformed and borderline trolling posts and you still managed to hang on to your 1 score. Maybe you should post how it took you 7 hours to tranfer 14MB on a Mac.
s/rapport/report/
:p
:D
happy?
In my "defence", the Danish(which is my native language) word for report is rapport. Also, i dont really proof read my slashot messages so i you can't stand to read a few misspells here and there you should not read any of my comments
it does it well, cheaply, quickly and is vendor-independant.
there are more ports that work on vanilla freebsd than the bsd that apple gives you.
I am free to use any notebook, desktop or larger system I want - even non x86 systems.
I agree that apple hardware is cool. but its still a single-vendor solution and that is something I find unacceptable.
apple is better than wintel - sure. but apple isn't always 'better' than linux or freebsd on x86; its just easier for some and sexier in its UI.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
PCs, MS Windows, and MS Office aren't technologies; they're products.
And the technology underlying those products (bitmapped displays, MMUs, TCP/IP networks, etc,etc) all became popular in CS departments and research labs long before they moved out into the rest of the world and ended up into consumer products from MS.
There are two quite viable solutions here:
Somewhat unrelatedly, we control a really complicated physics experiment using custom FPGA hardware, homebrew C++ code, and native Win32 for the GUI. We also use a few open source programs and libraries. Every once in a while Windows XP misbehaves, but it's not a major timesink. We're not OS hackers, but we are power users in our own way. I suspect any other OS would cause even more trouble. Horses for courses. PS: What's with people saying Thinkpads cost twice as much as PowerBooks? Last I checked the Thinkpad is a slightly better deal spec for spec.
I absolutely agree. In my database systems theory and programming class there are 12 people in the class. 5 people routinely bring laptops to class. That list is 1 Dell, 2 iBooks, and 2 Powerbooks. There is a whole unofficial Mac "club" it seems in my CS dept. Myself, I own one of the iBooks. I am among those people who had always hated Macs before OS X. Then once OS X came out I became of the camp "Not bad, but if you want to do anything useful, with useful software, Windows or *nix is where it's at." Another negative I had always seen of the Mac is that you couldnt configure it as you could with Windows (registry, disable services, et c etc). I realize now that OS X is just as customizable, if not more That being said I received a G4 800mhz , 640 mb, 40 gig, Airport extreme iBook for 400 bucks so I couldn't turn it down. Now I feel myself hating to use my PC (top of the line everything, bought a few months ago). I fear I spent tons of money on the wrong hardware/software. The PC is now delegated to my server/game machine. The best browser I've ever used is on the mac (Camino - www.caminobrowser.org) as well as the best instant messaging program (Adium - Adiumx.com) If only mac gaming was better I would never touch a PC again - except to fix them and get paid ;-)
NeXTSTEP was for the real men then and OS X is now.
I have to say I was bigotted. The wife wanted a mac, so I eventually caved in a bought her one. She's your typical end-user. Just wants to get things done. Her windoze PC's has had trouble with spyware and virii and the 'personal-firewalls' I've attempted to install she cannot fathom. That said, I bought her an ibook and to tell you the truth I was impressed. Firstly the bad, 1) it came with not enough ram (had to bump it to 512) 2) new UI to windoze which I unfortunately have to use on a daily basis (I've learnt to say different, not worse) 3) The thing that kills me most, one stupid button on the laptop instead of 2 or 3 which I am more used to. And a lot of the software it would appear does not implement r-clicking the way I am used to see (2). BUT (and this is where it REALLY shines) 1. Build quality is bloody excellent. 2. Doesn't burn your balls off. 3. Batterytime is great. 4. Ultimately does everything I *NEED* in a laptop with the plusses above which my acer laptop doesn't quite cut. 5. An ibook is really quite affordable, if you don't count sheer-number-crunching ability, which is what you would want to do on a desktop ideally anyway. Okay, it doesn't do everything I *WANT* like have an x86 chip in which I am architecturally a little more familiar with but hey learning to program a G4 may be fun, besides there's always C and objective-C which I am really growing to like. BTW, I have always thought C++ was crap. Objective-C is elegant in a way C++ isn't. Okay you can get it on x86's too, but on a mac it's all there... with lots of extras too. There's also a semi-decent forth/assembler solution www.powermops.org. And lastly you aren't stuck with crappy NT/2000/XP... One could argue, why not get an x86 and dump a unix/linux clone on it. Yes you could. But Apple's already bundled everything you need, it's just bloody convenient. PLUS, let's face it, some of us need to use Office to do our daily work (or photoshop or whatever). Sure there are other solutions out there, but hey, with a mac, you don't have to think too much, you just do. So yes, buying a mac has been an eye-opening experience for an x86 bigot like me. It would seem for now, I do all my gaming on my PS2 and PC My internet surfing on my wife's compromised PC desktop (there's nothing of value on it) My x86 stuff on my (hopefully) secure x86 laptop. My actual work - reports etc (some of us do work on things other than computers!) on my wife's mac - where things just work. My 2 cents anyways, being an ex-bigot I don't expect anyone to share my sentiments, but I would say if you're looking for a new laptop you might want to consider a mac, for all the above reasons.
Weirdly, Linux users have by-and-large standardised on two desktop environments, KDE and GNOME, and they function alike enough for apps to be completely portable between the two. Take, for example, all the people that run Evolution on KDE (there's a lot).
The diversification of desktop environments is not what's stopping companies developing for Linux. As yet there's no viable business need, and the areas where there is enough demand (for example, Office applications) the free software alternatives are good enough to, if not kill, then certainly maim demand for commercial alternatives (witness the death of Corel's Wordperfect for Linux).
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I bought a iBook and lived with it for seven months (three hard drives). I've replaced it with a X-31 Thinkpad running Ubuntu. There were some cool things about OSX, but basically I don't get the hype. Plus OSX is another proprietary OS where you as the end user are locked into and at the mercy of a corporation. Not for me. Freedom is important.
The one company that might have pulled this off just sold their PC hardware division.
Can you suggest any other candidates?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
we don't care about the computers for everyone /. realy wants a mac mini.
nobody on
nobody wants a pink computer with rainbows painted on the DVD burner and iAMaLooser app preinstalled
the same apply to dell computer
I think what we realy wants is build a computer the way we want. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is with PCs. At least with a PC you have the choice of brand for each part of your computer and each software, which make them a lot more free.
All you have to do is strip OSX, put on your favorite uber-performance Linux distro, and you are good to go. Sure, you could build your own high performance box yourself, but buy from Apple if you are time-crunched. You get pretty good hardware, coupled with the best, highest performing software, and no incumberences on what you can do with it.
I missed the first two installments of this slashdot story, i.e., The Fellowship of the GUI, and The Two Kernels. I can't find the links. Can anyone help me?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I upgraded my trusty iBook to a Thinkpad T42p some months ago, a move I don't regret. The screen is higher res, the keyboard is ten times better, the case is more rugged, and the whole thing is a lot faster.
I'm running Linux on it, much as I liked the looks of OSX what I need for my work is xterm, Terminal.app just never felt very responsive.
Sure, I hate X11 and wish someone would develop a Quartz-like GUI for Linux, but my productivity has more than doubled since switching from the iBook. Especially when doing kernel-level work it makes sense for my laptop and the nodes of my test-cluster to have the same CPU.
Anyway, I am usually a couple of years ahead of the curve... I had the Mac before all the useless USENIX-hackers, and I switched back a couple years before they will.
Whatever happened to Mark Morrison anyway?
that's so 1997.
Apple and Sun are the last of the old "Fork till you drop" unix companies. Nothing works that wasn't built by mothercorp (they are like Microsoft in that reguard). Hello Apollo, Zeus, Wang, DEC, Osbourne, Amstrad, Data General, Control Data, Cray Computer, Commodore, Televideo, Unisys, Burroughs, Franklin, Perkin Elmer, Sequent. Open up your arms and embrace Apple, Sun, Microsoft and other historical artifacts of the early mass computing era. The phrase they all share is "If it wasn't built here, then it won't work on ours". They won't be missed, and they will be forgotten.
Ubuntu installed perfectly on mine.
hitting the center of the screen is easy. Hitting any pixel on the screen is easy.
I hate using a mouse now (even an optical with 5 buttons and a scroll wheel:-(), it feels so 90s.
I wish Apple would get with the tablet program already (or once again:-().
The obvious routes Apple is going to take to improve their user base has been thoroughly discussed -- like G5 for powerbooks, and a possible video iPod version. But what gets me excited about Apple is that I get the impression there is something else on the works that is going to blow us all away. I'm hoping that Apple will bring back the Newton, new and improved. It will have to blow Windows Mobile 2003 and Palm OS out of the water -- like Mac OS X did against Windows. If Steve has his way, we'd all be touting the virtues of Apple in every aspect of technology in our lives. Be afraid, be very afraid...errr, rather, wait with bated breath.
Linux at home
We're a small business -- less than 100 employees in all, but we have to run a number of servers, some for customers but most for various different employee functions.
We found that the Macs were great for a couple of things: one, they have hot-swappable IDE (older models) and SATA (newer models) hard drives, which is great for backups... set up a mirrored array and then just pop one of the drives out and pop a blank one in, then carry the first one off-site. Or, in another case, when it's the dedicated backup server, we have four IDE drives in there, each one with a different backup from a different day of the week, and then we pop Saturday's one out once a month so we have a monthly offsite. Dell et al had the same thing with SCSI, which costs twice as much. (This was a couple years back, I'm sure Dell is getting to SATA by this time... right?)
Also, we have a server that we were concerned about going down for more than an hour or so, but it's not a big problem if it's down for an hour. We can't really afford redundant servers for EVERYTHING.
So we got the next best thing: we have it set up on an xServe, but all the software, incloding the OS, is on an external firewire hardware RAID box. The xServe started acting up one day (turned out to be a bad power outlet on the power manager, of all things) and I walked in, unplugged it, carried it into our test lab, plugged it into our iMac, and rebooted. Sha-zaam... the iMac is now the server. And it would have worked with any Mac made in the last, oh, five years or so. Well, any Mac with firewire or USB2 that had 256 megs of RAM or more. If necessary, I could have extracted one of the drives from the FW RAID and put it into any of the Macs that didn't have firewire, in an extra 10 minutes or so.
And that server, from soup to nuts, took less than a day to set up.
There really are some things you can do with the xServes that have significant advantages. Sometimes it's just doing things a little easier... sometimes it's doing things you never even thought of. Like a thoroughly portable server. (Heck, I could take that hard drive down to our colo site, attach it to our backup server down there, switch over the IP address, switch the IP address in our DNS, and we'd be up and running in under an hour, even if our HQ were without connectivity or power for days. Of course, I could do that with our main corporate file server, too, but that's just because we happen to have a machine down at the colo site that is the exact same model.)
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Preinstalled OS X machines may do 3D and wireless out of the box, but they are time sinks in other ways: it takes time to install Fink and all the commercial software you want. On balance, I think neither setup comes out ahead in terms of how much time it takes to set up--you are just spending your time differently.
If you want to save time, buy a Linux laptop with Linux preinstalled. That way, you get all the Linux software and it works out of the box.
The new Macs are beautiful toys, but I will never make a serious investment of time developing or customizing the Mac, because the system as a whole does not provide the potential for learning, user empowerment, and security against obsolescence that are the pillars of open source software.
And I do not understand how so many technically-inclined hackers on this site can abandon those notions for something that "just works". Darwin is just an incomplete part of the Mac OS, and not the component that makes it different from its open-source brethren.
Let me address those points from above:
1. Let's say that I love how the Mac does something in Cocoa--can I look for myself how they did it, and thus become more knowledgable? No, it's closed. So I can just look at the pretty graphics like any other non-technical user. For whatever the warts of X.org, it is open for me to study and fix.
2. Which takes me to this point: I can potentially customize all of the open-source software that I use to suit my needs or whims. Having the freedom to do something--whether it be the modification of software that almost defines my usefulness to society in this age, or the right to privacy--is very important. The increasing ubiquity of software makes the former ability closer in worth to the latter each year.
3. Shall I put countless hours of effort into developing for a system--the Mac--that is completely intertwined with the fortunes of a single company? If Apple fails, I don't want my software to fall with them.
On one hand, there is a strong resistence to Java because of Sun's not-really-open implementation, and on the other a perfect eagerness to -advocate- a closed software system. I have a feeling that it was just the poor quality of Windows that drove these people to open-source OS's, rather than a spanning belief in their own technical worth and in the potential of open-source.
If smart hackers put their blood and sweat into programming for a system that is only available to the few in the first world who can afford a certain brand name, and if this invaluable knowledge becomes lost in future years if Apple becomes a memory, what a disservice to the intellectual vault of the world.
Think Paul Graham is an idiot.
that's why we see so many "get a free iPod" ads, but no "get free Windows XP" ads. Or maybe those are the beta geeks.
I'm posting this from the smoke grey iMac (10.1.5) that we bought for my father-in-law, and believe me, it's a piece of shit. Jaguar might be the bee's knees, but Apple should have to refund every dollar they made on this embarrasment of an OS.
Carry on Mr. Jobs. You have your Windows 95 behind you now.
Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.
Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.
Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.
There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.
Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.
Apple has now lost three opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.
Very well said. The motherboard in my dual Athlon Debian unstable box recently croaked, and we decided that it would be a great time to switch to a Power Mac. In addition to the reasons you mentioned (Unix under the hood, many free *nix apps available, the system Just Working), OS X appealed to me because its application-centric taskbarless interface is nearly ideal for my preferred working style and I'd heard many a good thing about Apple's interface design and the keyboard support found throughout the OS and applications conforming to Apple's HIG. Thus far, I'm very pleased. Getting used to a new GUI of course involves a learning curve that I'm still climbing, but I've only had this thing for a week and I feel quite comfortable with it already. As a whole, working with OS X and HIG-conformant applications just feels smooth and elegant. I enjoyed using XFce4 and Enlightenment on my old box, but applications and the desktop environment generally did not mesh together in the same way that many of them do on OS X.
Besides, I compose music and would like to eventually set up a home studio of sorts. The particular audio software I'm interested in is only available for OS X. GarageBand is a great basic package that came free with the computer. For more sophisticated work, I would want something like Digital Performer, which gets excellent reviews and, in my experience (a digital music lab in college) is reasonably easy to use for a powerful application.
Seeeesh, and for being so behind in games they "make up" for it in price.
Mac: Baldurs Gate 2 - Throne Of Bhaal $29.95 (that is just for the expansion!).
PC: Baldur's Gate II: The Collection $19.99 (includes both the first one and the expansion).
Mac: Call of Duty $49.95.
PC: (same title) $29.99.
Mac: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation $29.95.
PC: (same title) $9.99.
Mac: Command and Conquer Generals $49.95.
PC: (same title) $19.99.
Mac: No One Lives Forever 2 $49.95.
PC: (same title) $9.99.
Mac: XII $29.95.
PC: XII $9.99.
Etc.
Yet another reason I am glad I am not a Mac gamer, and dumped that platform for a PC. Even the stuff that was crap on the PC is way over priced on the Mac side.
OTOH, I sent in my 3 year old iBook (way out of warranty) for a logic board repair (bad video).
Apple had a box delivered the next morning, and I sent the laptop out same day. Two days later it got to Houston, was diagnosed, repaired, and tested. All in the same day. Then it came back in 1 day.
I got the thing back, and the logic board was never replaced. They replaced my LCD and it now works flawlessly. I can't imagine those LCD panels are cheap, but I thank Apple for replacing my SCREEN under a logic board recall. And they lost themselves some money, because my only reason to replace my zippy 600mhz G3 iBook would be hardware failures. Oh yeah, also, they replaced one of the little rubber feet that fell off a few days ago.
Personally I find it odd that the G3 logic board repair coverage would even extend to a 3 year old laptop. I mean it is a laptop, we expect it to fail eventually, in some way, right?
happy camper.
Holy crap that is so sweet.....
Some number months ago I bought a used Dell for my parents to use to surf the web, do some simple word processing, scan in photos of the kids and make picture CDs. Recently she wanted to upgrade her printer. The printer driver only supported Windows 2000 or XP. Since the used box was running WinME it was time to upgrade. I tried to find a copy of 2000 figuring it would be more likely to be compatible with the older Dell. Unable to find it I got a copy of XP. That's when the trouble started. Seems the old Dell required a BIOS upgrade. But if you follow the install instruction for XP you don't find this out until the XP installer crashes after rebooting. The exact phrase is "driver irql not less or equal". The problem is after that the computer won't boot. It wouldn't even eject the now stuck CD. After calling Tech support and going through about 5 dudes, several days and lots and lots of power ups holding down F8, holding down this set of keys and that, I got nothing. One tech i had me open the case and change a little metal clip which was supposed to clear the CMOS. Nothing. I paid $400 for that Dell expecting it would work just as well as anything else out there. But that was not the case. The help desk guys kept telling me that my hard drive or cdrom must have gone out just when the XP installer was trying to exit or that my BIOS was corrupted just at that moment. They were less than helpful. I eventually took the thing apart, pulled the stuck cd out and returned XP. Fortunately Fry's took it back even though it was obviously opened. So, I then further disassembled the machine with an 8 pound sledge hammer. That was fun. Now my mom has an eMac from Apple. much easier than dealing with a PC. $700 and it came with a monitor. You can't pay me to get her another Dell. No sense buying a 'cheaper' box if it's going to cost me more in time. No more Dell products here.
Apple laptops are notorious for quality control problems because people expect more of Apple than they do of other manufacturers. When Apple had the Aluminum 15" white-spot-screen-problem, people screamed bloody murder about it. It's awful! My god, nearly half of the AlBooks had it for the first three months of shipping!
Well, I've seen that problem before. Every single one of our Dell Latitude x200 laptops have gone in for it at least once, and several of them more than once, over the three years that we have had the model. It had something to do with the case design, because the floating white cloud effect was generally in a perfect ring around a spot in the center of the screen that corresponded with the placement of the Dell logo on the back of the screen, plus in a few other apparently-random places.
Now, that's 100% of over 40 laptops. But nobody really noticed, because nobody pays attention to any particular model of Dell laptop, but when Apple goofs it's big news. Remember the 5300, which in theory could have caught on fire so they had to recall it? But none of them actually ever caught on fire. Same year, three Dells of a particular model DID catch on fire. Who suffered more from the bad press? Well, which one do you remember?
We never really noticed how bad the white-spot problem was for our x200s either... because we have also replaced all of the hard drives at least once (we've replaced each on average 1.4 times) and about half of the motherboards have gone out... some ethernet problems, some firewire or USB bus power problems, and some Just Not Booting. White spots don't look so important when you have just lost all your data, especially if you are a total yutz who doesn't follow company backup policy.
If you look at Consumer Reports, which IMO is simply the best place to look for non-biased reporting of issues of this type, you'll see that Apple has the lowest rate of 'Repairs and Serious Problems' for both their laptops and their desktops. (16%, for laptops. Toshiba and Sony are both around 17%. Dell is 21%). I'd send you a link, but since CR is customer-funded and not ad-driven, they require you to pay to see their content.
BTW, I can't imagine what we're doing wrong. We're a company of 40-45 people, with a sustained failure rate of more than one laptop a week. That's more than 100% per year. I can't imagine that we are that much harder on them than average, though we do leave them on more than most people probably do, and the people who don't leave them on all night every night are traveling a lot with them. Still, something's strange.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
In my living room, I keep a 17" Desktop Killer from toshiba, and I keep a mac mini attached to the TV, bluetooth everything else.
In my 3 year old son's room, the's an iMac G3, in the computer room, I have 2 mac G4's with Linux, 2 1 Mac G4 with OS X, an Ultrasparc 10, an IRIX, a Windows 2003 Server (with 2 gigs of rams and 2 terabytes of disc), an XP Pro workstation for me and an XP pro workstation for my son.
I have some other machines floating around on the network which I've forgotten about, just stopped using them and their just running up the electric bill, hopefully calculating protien folding equations.
As to the machine at hand, it's just a computer, I like OS X, I like Linux, I like Windows, I like IRIX (a lot, wish I had something better to run it on), I tolerate Solaris (but I need it).
The fact is that the computer is just a tool, unless you're deciding what to give your mama, whether it's a powerbook or a PC notebook makes not difference. The only thing I wish I had was either Visual Studio for OS X or X Code for Windows since I tend to like both environments a great deal.
And try this; go to your local CompUSA and ask for a PC mobo with dual independent 1.2ghz frontside busses and dual processors fast enough to use them. You'll need to go to the Apple part of the store for that.
I work on Macs and PCs and the Macs feel and act like a giant Swiss watch while the PCs feel like crap.
We buy/build plenty of computers in our company, hundreds in the last 10 years, Macs and PCs. With rare exceptions, PC laptops are broken between 8 and 18 months and Mac laptops generally outlast their usefulness (5 years) and we sell them to the staff. The PC laptops are in the dumpster way sooner just by trying to use them. The Mac laptops that broke got knocked off a table, so they're little headless servers now.
Every Mac desktop in our company has outlasted 2.7 PC desktops. The PCs are dumpstered or turned into metal cases ready for new hardware typically within 2-3 years. Some PC cases are on their 3rd life.Practically everything blew up in them from the power supply to the crappy bypass caps on the mobo. The Macs outlast their useful life and they're sold to the staff for $100. We've had exactly four Macs just totally up and die in the last 10 years compared to dozens of PCs. Macs and PCs died in lightning storms but most of the PCs just started flaking out, crashing and eating their faces.
I just removed an old Mac 6100/60 that's been running as a heavily used server since 1994... along with four others as workstations for that server, all still running, and replaced them with Mac Minis. I have a glut of ancient but still operational Macs and just don't have that problem with PCs.
We were getting sick and tired of PC problems and out of 100 or so current computer users, I've seeded 35 new Macs, most of them to the PC users. They bitched and moaned for about two weeks and I haven't heard from them since. Many have discarded their home PC and bought a Mac... and an iPod... and THANKED ME for their new freedom. Really. I'm a freakin' hero.
What happens when you stack a few thousand processors of all different kinds into a room, compare the performance and compare the price tags. I did that comparing the clustered "Supercomputers" measured in November of '03 (http://www.top500.org/lists/2003/11/top5.php) which has the VA Tech room full of 2.0ghz DP G5's at #3 in the supercomputer lineup. Not much has changed since then but if anyone wants to redo this with the current lineup, have at it, but this is basically what people argue about and this many processors kind of averages out what's real:
#1 Earth Simulator, Japan, 35.86 TFlops
5,120 (680 8-way nodes) 500 MHz NEC CPUs
Cost: $350 million
#2 Los Alamos National Laboratory ASCI Q, 13.88 TFlops
12,288 EV-68 1.25-GHz CPUs (3,072 HP AlphaServer SC machines)
Cost: $150 million
#3 Virginia Tech's X, Terascale Computing Facility, 10.28 TFlops
2,200 IBM PowerPC 970 2.0 GHz CPUs (1,100 Apple G5 machines on OS 10.2.7)
Cost: $5.2 million
#4 NCSA Tungsten, 9.819 TFlops
2,900 Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz processors (1,450 Dell PowerEdge 1750 servers on Red Hat Linux)
Cost: one of four NSF TeraGrid clusters totaling $53 million.
#5 MPP2 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 8.633 TFlops
1,960 Itanium 1.5 GHz processors (980 HP Longs Peak nodes, also known as the HP Integrity Server rx2600, on Red Hat Linux)
Cost: $24.5 million
Hmmm...
If they built up the original VA Tech Apple system to cost 10% as much as the Earth Simulator, it would theoretically run twice as fast as the Earth Simulator.
The 2.0ghz DP Apple used at VA Tech has about 75% the speed of the ASCI Q using only 18% as m
Most of the stuff on
Gaming is the only real reason to stay away from Macs.
...isn't everything.
If the games didn't come out a few months after the XBox version.
The days of using a PC for games are just about over. If you want most PC games, get an XBox. If you want a whole lot of different games, get a PS2. If you want really good games, get a Gamecube. Or go crazy and get all three for about the price of a really nice graphics card.
Then get a Mac so you can work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Admittedly not that many games support it quite yet, but if resolution is your key then HDTV support is your answer. XBox has been best with this so far but the next gen consoles should pack quite a good HD wallop.
:-)
That should put the finishing tocuhes on a lot of the PC gaming industry except for ID and Unreal engines which still have some steam left. Oh, that reminds me that Valve will be there too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sidenote: You probably already know, but the person who did the OS X Gnu/Emacs port is also working on a new XEmacs port for OS X that is pretty functional - take a look here.
He also has an interesting OS X programming blog here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My favourite thing to do is open a Quicktime video, select and copy it, then paste it into a new player window and start it playing. See how many windows you can get running before the machine chokes. Preferably a Dual G5 with 30" display :)
THEN play with the Exposé keys.
Learn the keyboard shortcuts and you'll have a dozen or more playing in no time.
-gko
Put in a network that locks out any non-approved computer - you can get clients for Windows, Solaris, and even Linux that let you operate without being locked out. But nothing for the Mac of course.
So you see NO macs where I work. And sometimes you see coworkers leaving because of it. Pretty damn stupid.
I'll bet my hackers can beat up your hackers! :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not only have they made no moves that way, but Darwin (the real kernel) is GPL. So they would have to close of Darwin to outsiders to even start thinking of making a DRM like solutiion.
But Apple has made no indications that they could or would do that. And even if they did Linux would still run on every exisitng system around.
Trusted computer, the real deal, requires custom hardware to really support it. When such hardware starts showing up (or Apple starts talking about it) then it might be time to worry. But so far Apple has been very happy to share its place with OS, including BSD and even Linux. They are smart enough to realize that all of the work that goes on in OS development indirectly helps them so it's never in thier best interest to shut that down.
Furthermore PPC Linux gives companies a nice "backdoor" when using Apple hardware - not the security kind of backdoor but another option in case something did happen to Apple and they stopped OS development.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> That is, my G3 iBook adapter works with the new PowerBook and vice-versa. Try that with a new IBM and one from two years ago.
I'm using the adapter from my 5 year old 600X on my new X40, so what's your point?
Not sure whether Apple fans should crow over this... the more people move to OS X, the more juicy a target it will be.
So what's next - massive Apple hacks?
DocTim
Well, I agree up to a point. OS X is better than any other commercial system, that's true.
However, as someone thoroughly familiar and comfortable with Debian/Linux, I don't feel quite at home in OS X land. It seems navigating my files with the Finder just takes so much effort, I find it very unnatural compared to MC and even Nautilus. Also, the culture of shareware is quite alien, when you know there's a lot of perfectly adequate open source tools. However, I never got used to fink (too fidgety and brittle) or opendarwin (while better, requires compiling everything, and is a bit of a hassle to configure).
So I end up running Debian on my iBook - with the only downside being that my stupid broadcom wireless isn't supported. Aside from that it's the perfect machine for me.
I do sometimes wish for a Debian port for OSX, for all the Apples around here that are being used in OSX. But I'm already grateful for Debian-powerpc.
How is FreeBSD on PowerPC? The web site seems to not have been updated since they got it to boot into single user mode a couple of years ago.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I have been a developer for 13 years now, Linux user /programmer for 6 years, and an OSX user/programmer since it came out.
/proc, there is almost equivalent framework, but it is scattered and each bit of nearly equivalent functionality requires its own API. Once you get past the beauty of the GUI, it has a few really annoying quirks: command-tab switches between applications only and not individual windows (this also raises all windows of an app when it is switched), and there is no standard keyboard shortcut to switch between individual windows in an app. If Aqua and/or its window manager were open source, this would have been fixed long ago.
At first, like most everyone, I was wowed by the GUI. The GUI alone made me want to use it. Now that I have had to heavily use OSX for work (server tasks, and programming) for over two years now, I know Linux is much better in many categories. Yes, OSX is practically perfect for the average user, but for server and/or super efficient code, Linux wins, hands down (the Linux kernel is far superior).
OSX server, though its admin tools have gotten better with each release, hides too much and circumvents many settings. Before version 10.3, it did not have GNU tools at its core. If you've used Linux seriously, you have no idea how dependant on GNU extensions you are until you are thrown into an environment without them (many options are missing and processed incorrectly; try putting options at the end of the command line for utils such as ls, just plain annoying). Because it is a Mach kernel, there is no
On performance, the filesystem and kernel is quite lacking. Either the filesystem or its driver does not support sparse files (files with holes). This slows down the initial creation of large files (only really an issue when using mmap i/o, but I use that often for performance critical apps). Also, I don't know if this is hardware (bus speed, ram bandwidth, hardrive efficiency, etc.) or kernel related, but some applications run 7 times faster on my 1GHz Linux box (with 1/4 the phys. ram) than on the 800 MHz Mac server. Mind you, these are apps I made that follow the Apple guidelines for high performance i/o and mem allocation.
To Apple's credit, GUI programming for an app is awesome, and you can even change the GUI and add functionalty (without even touching the binary). There is a tutorial somewhere on the net on how to add some different preference panels to the sticky notes app, for instance.
To sum up, Linux is a much better and faster kernel, GNU utilities rock, GNU/Linux is much better for a server (if you know how to correctly edit conf files), but OSX is a great choice for the average user and GUI application programmer.
I think 'Hackers & Painters' was a great book, but I do get tired of his intentionally provocative statements like this. It seems like his formula is: "I'm Paul Graham. I'm smart, I've written software for companies, and people listen to me. I have smart friends. Many smart friends, many more than you. My smart friends use product X, so a) everyone who does not use X is stupid, and b) even if you use X you're still not as smart as me or my friends." Lately X=lisp, X=python, and now X=macs. (I'm not sure about python - it's hard to keep up with the Xs.) I'd like to suggest some more Xs: toilet paper, Symbolics machines, and Hipster PDAs.
Fair enough. The IBMs (and Toshibas, and Compaqs, and Dells) I've used have all had different adapters. Good to know that this isn't always the case.
Hai fanboi, you say the word excuse as though someone had done something wrong by not buying an apple... By christ I better not meet you in person shill, I will loosen your teeth. You would sell your children's children for the appeasement of an advertisement. Bah. Two million years of evolution, and this is it. Why do I bother.
Maybe the answer is to simply support both, and have app-specific menus appear and disappear when you activate a "show menu" window decoration, or tap the alt key or something, and just remember the setting. I hate to say "make it a preference", as it's a copout for design, but this really does seem to demand one.
These app-specific menus that you describe at the top of application windows... these are called "toolbars" and many, many applications have had them for ages. Incidentally, they aren't modal and exactly address your concerns. Toolbars are also user customizable (super easy to build with x-code of course).
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Jeez, even grandparent does it:
The mini isn't even a contender - it's $500 price tag gets a more powerful workstation
Not it's. Its.
I'm not going to argue that a G4 would hold it's own against a P4 clocked at 2.4 Ghz
Its. ITS.
bit of a lean towards the G4 given the OS and Apps are built to exploit it's abilities.
Christ, twice in one paragraph. Not "it's." ITS. NO FUCKING APOSTROPHE.
but it's nicer than the Intel solution
See, it's OK here. You contract "it is." IT IS.
the fact that it has it's own memory is a big plus as well.
FUCK!!! You couldn't even finish the sentence without fucking up again! ITS.
Sorry, but all those wrong apostrophes really makes your writing look like shit. I won't even talk about the run-on sentences. Go get a goddamn grammar book, please! God DAMN, it makes me MAD!!
Having said that, I agree with everything you wrote.
Using emulators, they can even out speed the emulation above 100% (if asked to). And all in the same box...
actually he didnot misspell behaviour .. just as with colour.. the english spelling has been around longer than your US centric spelling.
If you want a 64-bit server farm, for example, Xserve is quite competitive vs. Opteron or Itanium.
Similarly, most server farms in enterprises are name brand (IBM, HP or Dell), they're not exactly "next to nothing" in cost...
Finally, Xserve RAID has a price/performance ratio that shames most fibre channel solutions.
-Stu
I recently learnt that command + ` is what you want to switch between individual windows. Now if you started command + tab and then used command + ` it will toggle backwards or the opposite direction to command + tab. Therefore there is that functionality is OS X, its just that with anything it takes time to learn all the hidden tricks and I've been using Mac OS X since the public beta and only heard about this a week ago.