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Nerds Switching from Apple to Ubuntu?
Mindpicnic writes "The recent switch of two lifelong Mac nerds to Ubuntu hasn't escaped Tim O'Reilly's radar. He cites Jason Kottke: 'If I were Apple, I'd be worried about this. Two lifelong Mac fans are switching away from Macs to PCs running Ubuntu Linux: first it was Mark Pilgrim and now Cory Doctorow. Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.'"
Mac nerds? Are they the same sort of people as Windows hackers and Linux gamers?
I am one of these switchers as well. I am a gamer and developer, and had been a long term Apple user. But high cost of Apple and not a whole lot of support finally got to me. I recently ordered a LinuxCertified LC2440N laptop pre-loaded with Ubuntu. I have to say, I was blown away with this change - it really felt like an "upgrade". My previous experience (about two years ago) with Linux was not that good. But Ubuntu seems to have changed all of this. Ubuntu (and the laptop) came fully working - with all the applications I needed, wireless etc. Plus the Ubuntu user forums are probably the best I have seen. I am not surprised about this switch at all.
Third Post
Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this. Or not. Jeepers. Someone out to FUD Apple this week, or something?
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Right here... But I think it's disgusting IMHO. Although I am a fan of MAC especially when OS X came around... Anyways....
Cory Doctorow has switched to Ubuntu GNU/Linux?
Not PROMINENT INTERNET BLOGGER Cory Doctorow!
NOT PROMINENT BLOGGER CORY DOCTOROW!
Tell me when the nerds shut down Apple, Inc. That's news.
blarg.
Apple must've been happy that lots of geeks/nerds/whatever switched to Apple and were singing its praises, but you must remember that the Mac was never a geek machine and did great and had terrific fan following -- in fact most geeks stayed away from the classic Mac because of the lack of a command line, stdin and stdout.
Lots of geeks discovered the joys of Apple hardware with OSX because, well, it was based off Darwin-- but make no mistake, Apple won't even miss these guys-- they have their own rabid contingent who won't switch no matter what. They want the computing analogue of the guys who buy BMWs.
Also, Mark Pilgrim is running Ubuntu on an Apple machine, so Apple is still getting his money. Cory Doctorcow OTOH has switched to a Lenovo (IIRC).
Go somewhere random
Ubuntu? Try Knoppix !
I think Firefox might have had some effect in waking people up to Free Software.
Try telling the average computer user that .mp3's, aac's, or any other proprietary media format won't play out of the box and see how they react. Citing two ubernerds as a omen for a forthcoming shift by mac users to linux involves a certain disconnect from reality.
Their reasons for switching are proprietary file formats and DRM. The main issue with proprietary file formats is the iTunes library file, which has an XML file that mirrors it. Apple uses some proprietary formats, but is that any worse than an open format no one has heard of that has no support or documentation. Apple supports most of the important file formats. No one has to deal with the DRM. In Linux, you can't use anything with it.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Actually I am only 27 but I feel old since my first two computers had chips developed near the time of my birth. I started out on an Apple IIe. Then went to an 8088. I used Winblows PC's until Mandrake 9, then moved to Slack 10 and now run FC5. Side by side with my Slack 10 box was an OS X eMac which I have to say I loved. Now all this Unbutu Linux talk intrigues me and I might slap a copy on my old beater box and play around with it.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
* What should happen is that the app's window comes into the foreground; what does happen is that the 2nd Finder window comes into the foreground
This story should be modded -1 for WHO GIVES A FLYING SHIT and/or WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
In other news, this nerd switched from Levis to Bugle Boy jeans today, story about the demis of Levis at 10.
"Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.'"
Yup. Just look at how they "smelled" Y2K (or MS) before it was too late.
I love Ubuntu; in fact, I use it exclusively on my PC, and have for over a year now. And while it'd be nice to see Ubuntu take over the OS market, I don't think TWO FUCKING PEOPLE switching over from OS X means it's going to happen any time soon.
I have been using Ubuntu for about a year and have now, after purchasing a MacBook, switched to OS X. And I'm quite happy with it so far. I guess Apple's customer base is changing at the moment -- as Macs become more popular with the my-ipod-needs-a-companion crowd, Apple might lose some of its earlier users. That said it _would_ be a smart move by Apple to listen to people like Mark Pilgrim and be more transparent with regard to file formats.
I think Mac needs to be solely focused on 'switchers' (Windows to Mac) and getting major "Windows only" programs working under the most efficient and stable method running natively on Intel chipsets allows. Microsoft is tripping over themselves right now and Apple is positioned to capitalize if they move quickly and compete on price (and number of standard mouse buttons :)
Wow! 2 users switch from Mac to Linux. I bet Apple are shitting themselves.
so Ubuntu is expected to KILL them?!!?
-pyrrho
I've already seen several comments saying that this is no big deal, obviously thinking that these people only 'recently' switched to Macs. But that isn't the case.
Mark Pilgrim has been a Mac user since 1983. Cory Doctorow since 1984. These people have lived and breathed Macs - and they're now giving up on them, and not just for a whim, but in very well-thought out and carefully explained reasons. You might not agree with them, but at the least do them to justice of reading and considering their thoughts and not dismissing them out of hand.
(And for example Tim Bray is another long-standing Mac using visionary who's recognized that open data is more important than all the very good reasons why staying with a Mac is the easier choice.)
I installed ubuntu on a PC a couple of months ago. It took me about a day to get the graphics system to work on the machine (X11 - text was fine). And by work, I mean "display at all." I never got the res out of it that I wanted. And once I had some graphics up, I tried to do anything else, and was misserable.
.8 and .9 days; I stuck with NeXTSTEP. I revisited back in the late 90's; I stuck with OpenStep. I revisited it around 2000, when MacOS was very much in transition; I stuck with OpenStep and/on Windows. (though my servers were FreeBSD during the 90's and early oughts') And now I've taken a look in '06; I'm still going to stick with OSX (which is now my server).
I cut my teeth on linux back in the
It's not there yet. Everything I do on *nix other than OSX feels like pulling teeth. I'll continue to use this expensive OS ($600 machines and $100 OS upgrades every 2 years) for some time, I guess. And while I do, I'll continue to submit bugs and toss a line or 2 of code at various Open Source code/systems I use.
I have stuff to do, and I don't care to muss with the kernel and video drivers. If you don't have stuff to do, or you DO want to muss with kernels/vid drivers - go for some flavor if linux.
Do not click unless... well, you know...
Recently, I've made the opposite migration (from Ubuntu to Mac OS X). Now, while I love Ubuntu, and continue to use it on my desktop, I must say that Mac OS X has a lot going for it. There's nothing really wrong with the platform inherently. However, given the particular people in question, Ubuntu seems better suited for their needs than OS X does. Furthermore, with the latest release, things are quite easy to use on most hardware sold for Windows. Of course, the reason I removed Ubuntu from my MacBook is because I'm familiar with GRUB, which doesn't work on EFI. Perhaps I'll dual-boot the MacBook again when they've had time to work out that particular issue. I'd like to have an Ubuntu environment on here that isn't emulated over Parallels, too.
So honestly, between Ubuntu and OS X, to me, it's an even trade, based on what one needs. If you're doing heavy programming, Ubuntu is the place to be. However, if you're looking for a simple user-oriented Unix-like system, Mac OS X is just fine.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Switching Back to Desktop Linux, by chromatic, the technical editor of the O'Reilly Network.
As a long-time Macophile, I played with Linux for years and was never completely happy with it until recently (read: until I installed Ubuntu). I've always had a Mac around as a back-up, but for the last several months, I find myself using it less and less, and getting frustrated with it more and more. The final straw was when I couldn't get the FreeNX client to work on it so I could use Linux on my nice, big flatscreen iMac. Now the only thing standing between me and putting Ubuntu on the iMac is a lack of free time.
On an off-topic note, it appears to be my Mac background that makes me like Gnome. KDE feels too much like Windows. Cue flames!
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Apple must be doing something right!
Seriously, that guy's as much of a techie as my great aunt Maude. He wouldn't know tech if it bit him in the face. See Open Cola for example.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Unbu** Ubu**?%#@? How can I pronounce that ? Ubuntu.com ??.. so they even have their own domain.. lets see if they own trademark for it... oh!
UBUNTU (LIVE) Owner (APPLICANT) Canonical Limited COMPANY ISLE OF MAN
wow!, so some dude create offshore Isle Of Man company to cover this shaggy "operation" or maybe this is genuine effort, fuck, they own commercial federal US trademark!!!! thats insulting man, considering this should be as "free" as in beer, "open source" right?..no one does anything for free at the end of the day...
check out the website... oh yeah, typical loser website... wow, they even surrendered their source code... omg [[ sudden idea came ]] I COULD CREATE MY OWN distro with a smarter name, create corporation and go public to harbor some capital from dumb venture capitalists.. hell yeah, like those monkeys at SCOX LNUX RHAT did. Anyway, I feel sorry this is not publicly traded so could have shorted this pig for major gain.
I just bought a MBP core duo. The new parallels sw is a VMclone and makes it easy to run other OS's. So, you get the stability of OS X and put MrBill in a sandbox. Also you can run your beloved Ubuntu if the need is there.
But wait... I must be missing something and better sell it, run for the hills and buy something else!
Hedley
Not really, since I'm still using Ubuntu on other laptop (and in Parallelson OSX for testing) and will always be using it as the main server deployment platform. There's simply nothing better than apt + Ubuntu! I was just in the market for a new laptop and the Macbook Pro has been nothing but phenomenal. The Xorg guys should catch up to the Quartz graphics in a couple of months and hopefully GNOME/etc will start incorporating the new GL based capabilities creatively and productively.. cuz the OSX desktop experience is the one to beat!!
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
The last time I tried I still had to deal with the command line to get my goddam wireless network card to work. You can take care of some simple things in Gnome or KDE (knoppix uses KDE, right?) but chances are you'll still be fucking around in the shell prompt bullshit. I know distros like Ubuntu are all ultra-easy to install but as long as I still need to use the command line to take care of the critical components of the OS I will avoid linux like the plague. I don't memorize commands, I don't sit around and fucking memorize the goddam options and I know that GREP is candy but I don't give a shit. It's 2006. Fuck command line interfaces. I don't need mega control over my OS. I load it up, I watch porn, I shut it off.
Overpriced hardware (Apple) is just as bad as overpriced software (Microsoft).
One the other had, you can't loose running Free software on Industry Standard (i.e., cheap) hardware. Makes perfect sense, unless you want to make Steve Jobs another $850M.
Since when have nerds been a "canary in a coal mine" for any kind of technology? Nerds that I know have been into : laserdisk, betamax, etc. Nerds have been into Linux for a long time, and it still hasn't taken off. I'd say that what nerds choose in terms of consuming is generally the exact opposite of what the general public does.
27 installs of Kubuntu in the past 12 months, the ovewhelming majority of them senior citizens.
Only 4 new boxes, the rest where computers that were less than 4 years and had problems with one onboard graphics card.
Im not Linux genius but my sample size is bigger that yours, so I win.
I just switched from Linux to MacOS. So it's actually only +1 switch to Linux.
Actually I've been running Linux for over a decade and will be triple booting windows/macos/linux. The lack of a core package manager in MacOS, Apple's poor cousin attitude about open source, and my familiarity with Linux are going to prevent more than casual use of OS X. And I have to tell you I'm struck by how complicated OS X is, with the bizarre keystrokes to get everyday things done.
What I find funny in all this is people switching from MacOS to Gnome. Sorry, Gnome is as frustratingly bad as Windows or MacOS in dumbing things down. Any OS that hides the terminal (shell), which a lot of people use, in "utilities" is pretty much the same. I'd have a lot more understanding for these people if they'd switched to a closer to the metal window manager.
Both of these guys switched because they decided that open file formats are their top priority. Neither switched for any of the things most users care about. (It's also worth noting that most of the file formats Apple uses are industry-standard, like PNG, vCard, and PDF. It's a handful of things like the iPhoto library database and iCal's weird calendar files that seem to bug these guys.) Yes, the opinions of the techno-elite are important and Apple should take their concerns to heart. But this has nothing to do with Apple's pursuit of the larger computing market. Unless these guys start recommending Ubuntu (or some other Linux) over Apple to non-techies, it doesn't hurt Apple's sales.
I ran linux at home for over 6 years. On desktops and laptops.
First, linux requires so much configuration on laptops. Neither debian nor ubuntu could support acpi (aka SLEEP) on my laptop. CD-ROM support was annoying as I switched from kernel 2.4-2.6. I had to recompile the kernel so many times and I could never get acpi to work (not even dell supported it, just some hacker in france that never replied to my email bug report). Other annoying things: getting vpn through a windows PPTP server will take you a long as time.
Linux is a great thing for a desktop though, the hardware is pretty standard and theres less things to worry about.
Linux is best for a server, and best for a beginning sysadmin to run at home to learn more about the operating system that is run at work.
And while I will probably buy a macbook for my next computer, I hope to have the resources to also get a windows vista to play around with.
I really like desktop machines that just work in most cases. I've been running windows xp on my dell laptop for a few months now, and while its not ideal, at least i get easy vpn access, the ability to turn off zeroconf to get my intel wifi card working,although i do miss being able to simply edit my crontab to give me a streaming radio alarm clock that goes off at different times during the week.
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Help my mini cause: My journal
Comercial tools like Adobe CS, MS Office (OOo is good, but PHBs want the real thing if you use it for work) iTunes and iPod officially supported...Ubuntu is great but it isnt going to get a lot of total conversions, it will be co-used if at all by Mac users...
Isn't it really a matter of time before companies such as Adobe recognize that creating a distribution or partnering, and developing a single application port is more cost effective than a Mac and Windows app? I'm a Mac user and a designer, and have to say that the state of the Mac isn't all that great. Linux is ultimately going to move up scale.
The other aspect of this discussion is tools. Increasingly, they are web based. Aren't we really witnessing the beginning of the end for the all-purpose OS? Most of what I do is not related to an OS. I use tools and communicate. How this is accomplished matters little.
Also, most application interfaces suck beyond comprehension. Adobe's various interfaces don't sync between applications. Others, such as Maya, are so radically different from the underlying OS that it is essentially like running a different OS. So why not create one?
Untill Ubuntu has good media production apps for music and video it won't tak over Apple's core market of creative professionals. The open-source apps have come a long way but they are still not competition for most sound and video suites (and apple owns two of the best, final cut and logic audio).
However for everything else, ubuntu is serious competition.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
I'll try it in Parallels first, which I paid $30 for just to be able to do this exact thing....
/. reading fest on a 'working-from-home' day like today.
Then after finding out that I'm not missing anything (does Ubuntu have thousands of Games I'm not aware of, hundreds of Pro quality apps, tens of document formats unique to it???)... I'll turn off Parallels and go back to using my Mac w/ OS X.
Now OTOH if I was a poor developer who really needed a good development system w/ a free OS on relatively cheap hardware, well I'd probably be all up in Ubuntu's @SS looking for heaven or some x86 compatible version of it.
As it is, I already make a ton of money and can afford a sweet MBP w/ 30in. HD display to dock it with for doing real work... with added bonus of mobility to Diedrich's free Wi-Fi to get Iced Coffee for a good
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I fail to see how ubuntu is revolutionary in the desktop linux area. I mean, there are several good distributions, remarkably the latest SuSe, but also Mandriva and Fedora, that are well suited for desktop users. I mean I've installed mandriva in several new machines in my job and 90% of users, the ones that click in the blue E to "use the internet", the yellow flash to listen to music, the 2 green dummies to access MSN and the paper with an "W" to use the word processor can't tell the difference.(My mon included) Of cource, as long as those icons are familiar, in usual places and there's solitaire under Programs > Games.
In related news, a number of Slashdot readers have recently switched to DIGG.
Really, how is this news? I know it's a slow news day, but really.......Couldn't we talk about that asteroid that came really close to the Earth instead?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Ubuntu has a nice gui for setting up your wireless nic. Very simple to use.
So Ubuntu 6 got all the great buzz, so I grabbed a copy and installed it on a spare Windows box I had.
Gee, I think, this looks pretty good. Finally some attention to nice graphic detail. A good installer. Software install that includes "blessed" prebuilt exes.
But then the rough edges showed up again.
First... this is an nForce2 machine with built-in video, and the default config refused to let me select a screen-res larger than 1024x768. I know, the nerds out there are saying "just edit your x config file", right? OK, but here's the thing:
(1) that's an INEXCUSABLY STUPID AND LAZY way to design operating system software
(2) it's too easy to screw up your x config file and break x (and by "too easy" I mean "remotely possible")
Second... I discovered that the oh-so-lovely disk partitioner has the added feature that on some systems (including mine) it borks the MBR of the resized Windows partition in such a way that Windows will refuse to boot. Even after uninstalling Ubuntu. And even after applying various fixes via UBCD and friends. (Right now this system is sitting disconnected under my desk because I refuse to reinstall Ubuntu, but reinstalling Windows is a horrible half-day affair on its own...)
Look, I know I'm gonna get flamed and burn karma for this, but the whole point is that for a system that I want to use mainly for surfing the web and playing games, it has to Just Work.
Not "mostly work with some crap I have to hand edit", it has to be freakin' bulletproof against a stupid user who neither knows nor cares that "sudo gedit foo" is required for some otherwise-seemingly-trivial configuration options.
No, this is not an apology for Windows, whose install and configuration is a nightmare of its own, but when you're the underdog, you can't just play catch-up, and you can't make boneheaded mistakes like those listed above.
Knoppix? Try Kanotix!
It's the best Debian rip-off out there.
Linux and Mac are, in many ways, complete opposites. I'm surprised that people would switch between them.
The Linux desktop (Ubuntu in this case) is free. It is flexible and is appealling technically and politically, but is quite rough and not ready for the average consumer. It is particularly strong in corporate, third world, and limited use, environments.
OS X is the opposite. It is high margin, high sytle, and slick. It is perfect for the brand-concious, reasonably wealthy, consumer who wants everything to work together easily.
Did not detect my video card OR my monitor, set my monitor's refresh rate to 800x600@60hz.
OUCH.
Aside from that, I am fairly impressed, things work rather well. But, umm, for end user stuff?
Well I have my grandmother using it, after I set it up and locked it down. It doesn't seem to have the same sort of set it and forget it auto-update feature that SuSE does though, which is one feature I really like in software, the ability to shove it on someone's machine and not have to worry much about applying security updates.
Oh, also it is running Gnome. Now while I am fine with Gnome, I know 5 other linux users, 1 of whom uses Gnome, the other of whom find Gnome to be fugly. Gnome does have its bits of general retardation *COUGH*filechooser*COUGH* but then again, what Linux desktop environment doesn't...
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Right, because what nerds endorse are always a true indicator of how well a product will do.
Let's face it, until more major applications are ported to run on Linux (Creative Suite, Office, etc.), people won't switch just because nerds tell them they should. Apps like GIMP, OpenOffice, etc. certainly help, but neither is a true replacement for the apps they are supposed to replace. Joe Blow Digital Camera user won't use GIMP if a) he's never heard of it, b) can't find books at his local bookstore telling him how he can implement a workflow for his digital images, and c) is not familiar with it. There is still enough of a difference between the UIs of the various applications that most users won't care to switch, no matter what they're currently using (Windows, Linux, Mac...). And most pros would likely continue to use what they're using now just out of familiarity (the same is likely true of most users). Why do you think so many people still use Windows despite its long list of issues?
Call this a troll if you want, but I fail to understand how two nerds (even prominent ones that nobody outside of the OSS crowd has ever heard of) switching from Mac to Linux is supposed to make Apple worried that the rest of the Mac user base will soon follow suit. I think they have more to worry about with Mac users switching (back) to Windows than to any flavour of Linux.
I am not sure what your problem is with well funded offshore corporations. The founder of Ubuntu is quite wealthy and experienced with both Linux and with internet businesses. Canonical Limited is owned by Mark Shuttleworth, who was the founder of Thawte (which was purchased by VeriSign). Shuttleworth was also the first citizen of an African country to be in space (Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission). Shuttleworth was a Debian developer in the 1990s and in 2004 he funded the development of Ubuntu.
There are indications that Canonical Limited is positioning Ubuntu to compete with Red Hat in the enterprise Linux arena. This could be interesting because the Canonical Limited site states "[Ubuntu] will always be free of charge; Canonical will never charge licence fees for Ubuntu or any component thereof.", the Ubuntu site says a similar thing.
So I would have liked a new Power mac (or even a mini), but the well was dry. So I grabbed Debian and never looked back. The only real difference now is the Gamecube has been promoted to full-time gaming platform.
Personally, I don't think Apple has anything to worry about -- my wife could no more manage an Ubuntu installation than she could her old windows machine. Apple is very proprietary, true, but their stuff works and it looks nice. I just wish they'd get rid of the yearly OSX tax.
I used to drink Pepsi but buy store brands because it's cheaper! Maybe Pepsi Co. should start being worried!
Mac zealots are going to ridicule this, but I'd like to know what they think OS X has that Ubuntu doesn't. As far as I can tell, Ubuntu's UI is faster, its Spotlight-equivalent is faster, it looks at least as nice as OS X, and it comes with tons of nice software preinstalled and for free.
(The title is a direct translation of the french expression "une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps", though I have a gut feeling there is a better equivalent in english.)
Apple should be scared of Ubuntu, SuSE & co? Yeah, right.
Linux and/or the BSDs still cannot replace the commercial OSes like MacOS or Window$, despite getting closer and closer to being truly usable by mere mortals. There are still issues at the OS/DE level (printing, multimedia, etc.), and there are still gaping holes at the app level.
It does not matter how cheap the platform is, if it cannot do what the user wants it to, it is useless to him/her. For example, there are still video and audio processing window$ apps that have no Free equivalents. Furthermore, despite all the advances made with OOo, KOffice and such, there are still no Free word processors that can slurp in my curriculum vitae and not die (it is currently an MS/Word 97 document that makes heavy use of tables for formatting).
Oh, maybe if you are a uber-geek you can get the software to do more or less what you want it to do, but I am now at the age where I don't have the patience for it. I just want stuff to work, now. Despite futzing with *nix & VMS since the '80s, I still can't get some programmes to work right... We are no longer in the '80s, general standards have evolved. Even over-the-hill nerds like me just want stuff to work *right now* and not have to spend half a day to get printing to work.
My point? If I want to geek out, that what the free Unices are for. To get things done right away, I'll use a Mac (or an M$ box).
Eventually, Free Software will let me do what I want it to do. But not right now. So Apple does not have to fear the Free Software camp for now.
... you'd now be on my Friends list.
(Actually, my Ubuntu test recognized my no-name wireless card out of the box... very impressive. When it recognizes my video and audio out of the box too... with up to date drivers... then we'll talk.)
Timing is everything.
These guys would have been smart to wait and see OS 10.5.
First, what's the appeal of Linux?
Bash?
Postgres?
Apple's got it.
Second,
Moving to Uban...
they miss out on the Apple apps.
Garage Band?
Really well integrated IPhoto and IMovie and IDVD?
Virus Free?
With Linux running in a window?
Some people aren't good at analyzing a situation.
Honestly, my opinions on Apple have changed recently. I switched from being a Mac hater to a diehard whilst in college studying graphic design and audio production. IMO, OSX is still the best OS for out and out productivity, and is and will remain the professional standard for audio production. This, however doesn't excuse their sorry, sorry testing of their own hardware. I bought an Intel mini just over 3 months ago, and just took it in to Apple for repairs for the THIRD TIME. Yesterday morning, it just wouldn't boot. I understand that sometimes a machine just slips through the cracks, but it's harder to forgive them after reading about all the drama with the macbook/ macbook pro line. If Apple is really concerned about people switching to Ubuntu, they need to look at two factors: 1) Unless they're totally brainwashed, which some Mac geeks definitely are, people won't stand for paying premium prices for sub-standard machines. I have a revision 2 imac that STILL WORKS after almost a decade, but my intel mini that's less than 4 months old has needed three repairs thus far. 2) Apple is in a position to draw in new users with their lower end to middle lines, namely, the mini, macbook, and imac... and yet they seem to be dropping the ball on hardware. If I didn't know that making music on my current machine was so very nice, I'd have sold the damned thing on eBay and spent the money building a Linux machine too, and running Windows sound apps via WINE. The average computer user would NEVER stand for some BS like this.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
I've switched from Ubuntu to Apple. I look back every so often and think to myself, "Well, I'm glad I don't have to do /that/ anymore." Ubuntu is a great distro, and if you don't have the money to invest in the "Apple Experience", it is probably the best you can put on a PC. I will be installing Ubuntu on a webhost sometime soon, and I know I will be impressed. Although, when it comes to complete production desktops Apple they may monopolize your desktop on OS X but at least things always "just work."
I haven't given up on Open Source, though. I could leave Gaim behind, so I found Adium. Inkscape and Gimp were already waiting for me. I couldn't have been happer when I switched.
In 2000, Mandrake was already "ready for the desktop user". Except for the drivers. And the ten different installs of equally useless kodometer + godometer + lodometer + xodometer. And the lack of a useable media player (hint to developers: having to go to /usr/tmp/mnt/whatever to just play an mp3 sucks). And no off-the-box jvm. And no games except tuxracer (off course, no accel off-the-box for a generic nvidia adapter). I could go on forever.
I just love linux as a web server, as a scripting environment, but it's just too unpolished and heavyweight for desktop use.
his reasons for changing have everything to do with his stance on DRM/Copyrights and little to do with Mac os x vs 'nix so using him as a figurehead for the Geek who said No! is a bit misleading.
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While I'd dispute some of Pilgrim's reasons, I think a few OS X defectors to Linux is going to be a good thing. Their expectations will help improve Linux, and competition from Linux will help drive Apple forward.
What's evident to me is that over the years a lot of people have used Macs, not because they preferred MacOS, but simply because it was the politically correct choice - it was Not Microsoft, it was 'the alternative', it was the cooler option. I am reminded of a lot of friends of mine who were into old Sixties garage music for years, but as soon as it became widely popular, got into other things. It is just part of who they are.
As well as being the canary in the mineshaft, you can also see these people as weathervanes - they get out just as things start to get too popular for their liking - and of course fairly often turn against the things they loved (Nirvana after Sub-Pop - you've got to be kidding).
On a personal level I stayed off Mac's through the 80s and 90s precisely because they were the sort of closed restrictive platform these guys have suddenly identified them to be. It wasn't until OS X that I started to change my mind.
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh
I loved iTunes until my iTunes database got corrupted, too.
These two things have never happened to me, and I've been using X since before it went live (exclusively fulltime since 10.1). I'm not sure that he's not the problem and not the mac itself.
[as I] drooled over the beautiful, beautiful hardware, all I could think was how much work it would take to twiddle with the default settings, install third-party software, and hide all the commercial tie-ins so I could pretend I was in control of my own computer.
a) you will NEVER have complete control over your computer. Get used to it. Having the source != knowing, comprehending, and understanding all of it.
b) you are ALWAYS going to twiddle settings, install non-included apps, etc. If you're not doing that, what are you doing with a computer anyway?
c) who are you, again?
bah.
Ubuntu is going to destroy Apple Computers! It's going to take down the great Mac. Beleive it!
Uh... wake up dreamers.
Apple is a solid computer with a long list of great applications. Dont expect Ubuntu to take out Apple when it cant even take out windows.
Its all about the apps...
i use ubuntu for my dev box. i prefer redhat on my servers. on my workstations though... i still use a mac and probably will unless some universe altering event takes place. the main reason: third party. i cant install photoshop in its native environment. i cant install indesign or illustrator. i cant install after effects or final cut. etc etc etc. while linux is great... and i hope to one day see it flourish.. until vendors start catering to the platform, it will -n e v e r- become the a serious contender. and please spare me the 'wine' arguments. yes.. wine is getting better, but its not 100%, and the majority of programs will not work 100%. this is where apple succeeds right now... as the familiarity of programs is there. linux has plenty of alternatives... but unfortunately, those alternatives are sparse, and unknown to the avg consumer, as well as simply NOT being the industry standards. i no longer use fedora redhat as i just got tired of it. tired of hunting for hardware that is supported... tired of trying to find ways around my goals as i didnt have the standards my coworkers needed and used.. and tired of having to write my own wireless drivers and the like. it just wasnt worth it anymore when i could get a mac an be done with it. yes.. i still have to hunt for apple specific hardware when needed... but if its made for a mac... it works. how many made for linux decals to you see plastered on retail boxes? better yet... how many companies actually cater to the platform? in comparison to windows: its embarrassing. so two people switched to *nix... great. does it mean anything more than just that? no. let the flaming begin.
- i have to laugh at all these machinations, 'blogs' (wtf is this X-gen term anyway?), and all about Linux-based OSs, Mac OS X, etc...
- i would have bought into a NeXT cube, but the black-suited, smarmy Yupsters were obnoxious and turned me off...
- instead, i went into BSD 4.1, then X, and then Linux, kernel 1.2.13 with XFree and a fvwm2 desktop...
- and have never looked back...
(this is being written via Firefox 1.5.0.4)
- i stepped off the proprietary software treadmill 13 years ago!
this should be modded way up. The grand-parent appears to be pure advertising.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I use both a Mac and Ubuntu. I have an iBook G4 (soon to be a MacBook) and an iMac Core Duo. My home server is an Athlon system running Ubuntu, and it also serves as a development workstation. I've a decently useful application under Linux, and I work with Linux daily. I've got feet in both worlds.
Ubuntu is hands down the best Linux distro I've ever used. It's definitely moving in the right direction. It has a great packaging system, it's got much more polish than other distros, and it can even be loaded with some decent eye candy. Of all the Linux distros I've used, it's the best by quite a distance.
That being said, Linux just isn't ready for the desktop. It's closer than before, but there are a lot of things necessary to make it work. Apple has a reputation for having things Just Work. Linux has a reptutation for having things work once you've futzed around with the config files, recompiled your kernel, read a few HOWTOs and smashed your head against the wall. Is it getting better? Absolutely. Is it there yet, no?
APT is a wonderful piece of technology. It's great for updating your system, but installing third-party software doesn't always go so smoothly. OS X's app bundles are much easier for the average Joe or Jane to understand. Again, NeXTSTEP had this years ago, but Linux doesn't have this.
XGL is nice. It's still not as nice as Apple's GUI. A lot of what differentiates Apple from the rest is the sense of polish. Technologies like XGL and Cairo rendering provide the right infrastructure - but there isn't a distro that puts them all together in an attractive and polished way.
Open file formats? There's nothing preventing you from backing up your music to plain old MP3, and your photos are still JPEGS. There's also nothing preventing someone from using non-Apple software. The only DRM you have to use with Apple is the DRM that protects the OS, and that's nowhere near as harmful as Microsoft's WGA malware.
Apple is skyrocketing now because they have the right mix of hardware and software to create a well-polished and functional user experience. The Ubuntu team is doing a great job of moving Ubuntu in the right direction, and each new release makes progress.
What's important to note is that competition makes everyone stronger. Ubuntu is trying to play catch-up with OS X. Apple is using some great open-source technologies. Apple probably isn't worried about a handful of geeks, but if it inspires Apple to be more open and Ubuntu to be more polished we all win.
(As a side note I currently develop for Ubuntu by running it under Parallels on OS X - it it's really quite responsive. The reason why I'm investing so much in Apple hardware is because I can run Windows, Ubuntu, Solaris, or damn near any x86 OS on the same hardware with relative ease. Virtualization is a killer app for Apple right now, and Parallels was worth every cent.)
I was just about to go to OSX but I tried Ubuntu Dapper.. and I was hooked.
Nuff said.
I used Macs before they were good for geek cred, so I'm not too worried.
Ubuntu? Yeah, cool. If that's what works for you, knock yourself out. This is relevant to me, why?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You know, that guy who gives his books away free and still can't get anyone to read them...
(+5, Insightful for a 1-word post? The mods really are on crack today.)
...so that makes up for the other two guys that went from Mac to Linux. We're back to normal, don't panic.
Anyway, I bought my Mac MIni about 18 months ago. A 1.25GHz G4, upgraded it to 1G RAM and added a 160G external hdd. It has crashed 4 times since I bought it (yes I keep count of it). Three times caused by X11, and one time because I accidentally unplugged a mounted USB device during R/W.
I love how the Mac just *works*. Real-life examples:
- I took my 20.1" Benq monitor from my PC and plugged it into my Mac, and when I switched on the monitor my Mini had already configured the monitor with the best resolution and refresh rate. No Start->Settings->Desktop, no drivers, no XF86Config.
- I used to play the piano, so I bought a M-Audio Keystation 49e, a USB-based MIDI keyboard. Plugged it in, and it worked. No drivers, just crank up GarageBand and start jamming.
- I bought a USB joystick so I could play N64 games using an emulator. Plugged it in, wham, instant gameplay. No calibration, no depmod, no lsusb. The joystick was even "Designed for Windows XP".
- Even my W800i phone was plug and play. Slam it in the USB port and copy MP3's or download the latest photos.
Maybe I've been lucky, I don't know. I certainly hope I don't sound as a whiny Mac fanboy, though. I love Linux, I used it constantly from 1996 to 2005 (I even worked as a Linux admin from 1997 to 2001). Hell, I'm not anti-Mickeysoft-boy either, as my day job is developing stuff in C#.Net on Microsoft Windows.
I just love how my Mac took all the fuzz away so I can focus on doing what I want to do.
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.
maybe, but they need to realize that nerds are also very fickle and as soon as the taint of popularity falls on a product the nerds will start leaving it for the next psuedo underground product that is essentially the same thing only not popular.
lose != loose
Considering OS 9 and earlier are completely deprecated, and OS X is only a few years old, just how fucking much of an investment can that possibly be?
That's not meant to detract from your perfectly valid comment, though. This story is not a story. Cory Doctorow? That name sounds familiar, but wtf is that? And I've never even heard the other name.
I'm sure everyone at Apple is terrified... TERRIFIED!!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Both of these guys were long time Mac users. They were old skool.
In the year 2001, Mac OS X came out and a set of new skool users gathered around it. A large amount of users could easily adjust to Mac OS X and automatically became new skool users and forgot about Apple and Mac OS in the old days. But a certain amount of people just could not grow along. These are the sort of whiners that still run Mac OS9 today because they don't like the Dock.
I have found that new skool users stick by Mac OS X and would not even consider another OS. Old skool users OTOH keep complaining that Apple and Mac OS is going down the drain with "only iPods", "DRM", and "they should start making computers again". And of course other "claims" that are more based on nostalgia than proper reasoning.
I'm happy to let those old skool whiners go. And Apple is too.
Enough so that, while I still have Gentoo on my desktops, I run it on my powerbook.
It hasn't, however, hurt Apple - as I fully intend to by a MacBook Pro as my next laptop. Sure it'll still run Linux but Apple will be the one getting the money.
Beep beep.
I'm on Ubuntu too, but so what?
I am a Linux user (Redhat/Fedora) exclusively since 99, that tried to switch to Mac and failed. Finally sold MacBook Pro after three months just today.
The problems with Mac:
1. The hardware is beautiful, but the lack of dock sucks. Heat problems and noise are not helping either.
2. The superb OS reliability is a myth. It is fairly okay, but not nearly as solid as it is made out to be. I made it unusable (not intentionally) more than once in short time.
3. The software availability is behind even Linux. The quality of third party software is often very low. Everything, even basic stuff costs money and does not always work.
Having killed 2 nights to copy a DVD (and failed) and several nights to get WMV to play in Firefox (and failed) I said heck with it, I'll just do it on Linux.
4. MacBook is essentially closer to a handheld device: whatever is there works great, if you want something extra, it is going to resist and generally suck.
5. I want my software to be open and to behave during the install. A lot of packages do install in $HOME, but a lot want a root install. And there is no package manager in the OS: you can install a package, but you can not remove it using standard means. A mess.
6. The text-based UNIX tools do not work quite the way I need: no decent raster fonts, no X11 style cut'n'pase, no multiple desktops (expose helps, but...). This is not a showstopper by itself, but a big minus for me. I write code in vim 10 hours a day, I want it nice and comfy.
7. I need a minivan, not a luxury coupe. Especially with the engine compartment welded shut. Especially if it is not running that great to begin with.
Bottom line: I could to give up my OS being free and become dependant on a single vendor if it would be a big improvement, but Mac OS X was not. I can see why a regular user may like a Mac, but it just was not for me. Also, none of the issues alone would have made me drop mac OS X, but all together they just outwight the benefits.
Scott Adams?
I use os x and have for many years, but always been a linux guy. I use centos and rhel on business servers and centos on my personal servers. I really love os x for a client os, but for a server os, it is a pain in the ass with all the case-sensitive and really non-standard stuff (for my linux liking anyway).
I tried ubuntu last time around when I was ripping out fedora and before I went to centos and was really unimpressed. I am checking-out unbuntu server and will see how it goes. With Crossover coming to OS X, I think the switchers will have to rethink some options again...
As an earlier anonymous coward mentioned, if you do a whois on wineverygame.com you find that Chandler Kant is the administrative contact. At the same time LinuxCertified has a major employee named Chandler Kant (see http://linux.about.com/b/a/062983.htm for one reference). It is quite unfortunate when a dealer of linux systems will lie on a forum like slashdot about his identity in order to sell systems.
So uppity yuppie BMW-driving faggots are now becoming the kind of fags who'll take it up the ass from some smelly junkie at the adult bookstore and listen to Elton John?
Still the same queers to me.
Don't you think it's great that people have the ability and choice to switch their operating system, be it from Linux to OSX or vice-versa.
This quality of choice of options didn't exist a few years ago.
Who are they ! If they where canarys in a coal mine i would free them from there cages.
Most of the mac users i have met are far from nerds/geeks and would be just a usefull
staring though a keliderscope while munching on some mushrooms.
Strange analogy. The canary dies and the whole point is that others will do anything not to follow its lead.
Macs have won over the Ruby crowd (who are definitely nerds):
7 6520552/
http://flickr.com/photos/mintchaos/sets/721575941
To reply to my own post: something came to me after I hit "submit". I.e., the platform does not matter (well, almost. You still can't replace mainframes in many applications, for example), it's the tools, the apps, that count.
An OS is not *the* solution to your problems, you don't get things done with an OS/hw platform alone. You need the apps to get things done, wether it's Oracle, DB/2, WordPerfect, etc. etc. etc. For some problems, needing to build a web server, you can find a complete solution with Free Software. But for other, daily problems, Free Software ain't there yet, both at the OS level and at the app level.
That is why, like I said, Apple still has nothing to fear from the likes of Ubuntu, SuSE et al.
I'd *love* to see a fully-functional platform built on Free Software that would let me do what I want to do. But it's not there yet, even though FOSS is getting closer every year. Some day, maybe, but not right now.
Now he says 2 people switched from Mac to Linux? And it's newsworthy? Fuck, almost every /. Apple story has half a dozen people that make the same claim.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
And theres this horde of windows users switching to linux as well
What's really happening is that Mac "nerds" are becoming versed enough in Unixisms because of OS X that they can take a walk on the wild side with Linux and not get completely freaked out. They have just enough street smarts to take a walk through the OS inner city with the tough nerds, and not get shot or beat up. And they've discovered that, hey, wow there's a lot of cool shit happening on the mean streets of Linuxville.
But what they don't know is that downtown Linuxville hasn't been a rough a place for a few years now. It still clings to its tough reputation, but it's all college kids and coffee bars now. The place is gentrifying, and has a bit of that yuppie stench to it these days. It's not yet all Wonderbread and Wal-mart, like Windowsland, up the highway, but the Windowsland folks are moving in, and it's starting to get that feel.
The old-timers who gave Linux the frightening reputation that it carries, have long since settled down, had kids, and moved out to the leafy lanes and plush lawns of Mactown, to get away from the plastic Windowsland people. As a result, the Mactown folks have realized those Linux guys aren't so scary after all, beards and sandles notwithstanding. Maybe, some of the Mactown folks think, we could get a condo in Linuxville, and try some of that inner city living. Just on weekends for a start.
So they get a luxury condo in Linuxville, right on Ubuntu Street, which was built by a big-name property developer who saw that all the starving artists were living in the area, building cool lofts and studios from the abandoned tenements and factories of old Unixville. So he bottled up that artsy mojo and built a condo development with new appliances, and hardwood floors, and put in a Starbucks on the ground floor, and marketed it heavily to Mactown and Windowsland people looking for a change. Come to Linuxville! Not as scary as you think! But every bit as edgy! Now with taskbars! Sometimes you get contemptuous looks from the mean looking men who still hang out on Slackware Road, but it's best not to go down there if you can help it. If you can avoid them (and ignore the snotty punks on Gentoo Avenue), then it's all terrifically edgy and artsy, and just so-o-o-o nerdy cool in that certain je-ne-sais-quoi kind of way. It feels like they're right on the cutting edge, where the culture is created, where everything happens, just like they read in Wired Magazine in 1996.
When die-hard Mac fanatics decide that Apple has over-DRM'd the OS and leave, it should be a wakeup call to Cupertino.
Unfortunately, there's only one guy at Cupertino who matters and that's Jobs. If he doesn't see why they're pissed off, he won't see it when 2 become 200,000.
Apple isn't alone here. Sony is just now getting a taste of consumers saying bleh to the company's products. Sony - makers of some of the coolest tech is facing hard times simply because they've forgotten that customer convenience matters more than making sure no one violates copyright. Sic transit gloria.
Funny how Linux on the desktop has been stagnant or declined since I've been reading that. It is taking over the UNIX workstation market, it isn't making a dent in the installed base of Mac and Windows desktop machines.
Dapper Drake changed that :)
What's so special about Ubuntu? How is it different then every other Linux distro that has been hailed as the second coming? I'm not being sarcastic. I really don't know.
I haven't had any luck at all getting Ubuntu (or Knoppix) to work with my wireless network. What, am I supposed to just turn off security (i.e. switch to WEP) to get online with Linux?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
You just miss something. Freedom, OpenSource and open format !! And you're right, some people aren't good at analyzing a situation.
...and he can't afford a new MacBook???
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
... that these guys will have switched back within 2 years.
Ubuntu is certainly a nice distro, but its big (or at least noisy) following seems to largely come from cannibalizing the previous Linux du jour, Gentoo, rather than other OSes. Linux nerds, in other words. In the wider world, most people don't move to another OS just because it's new; it has to do at least some things better. Ubuntu certainly might qualify if you're just looking at another Linux distro (although I don't personally see a lot that actually distinguishes it from, say, Fedora) - but OS X is in a whole different league.
I doubt Jobs is losing any sleep over this, and there's no reason he needs to even think much about it.
BTW remember when Gentoo was the Golden Child? Remember having discussions about what distro is best for newbies, and there'd always be a bunch of people that would - Lord knows why - advocate Gentoo?
#DeleteChrome
Wow, people are asses. Who the fuck modded you down for trolling? And Offtopic? This is specifically THE topic.
OS X is the opposite. It is high margin, high sytle, and slick. It is perfect for the brand-concious, reasonably wealthy, consumer who wants everything to work together easily.
I agree with you that Linux and OS.X are in many ways opposited but who says OS.X is just for brand consious yuppies? I develop for Linux alot and yet I use OS.X on my workstation because my nerdy need for problem solving is fully satisfied by the development problems I encounter with the software I develop on various Unix/Linux and even, occasionally, Windows 2003 server systems. I simply don't need the added trouble of getting Linux to work properly on my laptop with the degree of smoothness that I demand from a workstation. I despise Windows for workstation use due in no small part to the abundance of malware and the work it takes to keep it off the system but also because the Windows UI simply annoys the hell out of me for many different reasons. I use OS.X for my day to day work mainly because it is the only *NIX that truly works and does so nearly completely flawlessly as a desktop system, straight out of the box. If there was a Linux variant that worked as smoothly as OS.X does on hardware as compact and well designed as that made by Apple and that had a full featured and properly integrated graphical desktop environment that didn't look like a poor imitation of Windows I'd certainly conisder it. So far I haven't found anything that can hold a candle to OS.X in every way, there is always something that doesn't quite work. One thing is for sure, whether you use Linux or OS.X for your workstation OS it is always amusing to see the look of utter despair that appears on the face of a Microsoft trained corporate support monkey when confronted with an OS that hasn't got Microsoft's product logos plasterd all over it. They are so relieved when they find out (after regurgitating the ususal speech about how they only support Windows) that all you want them to do is assign an IP number, set up E-mail access and a VPN account.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I run Ubuntu on VMWare on top of XP (I play with several other OSs that way, too) . For me, it is the best of both worlds. Why should anyone care? Apple should care if there are any others like me. I was this (thumb and finger 1 mm apart) close to getting a mac, but why would I pay $2K+ when I can get almost all of what I want for $1K? Apple make some sweet products, but not that sweet.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords
It shows the effectiveness of the tagging system when an article about two people switching to linux is tagged "fud" and "notfud".
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I am running 'Duke Nukem Forever' in a Forth shell running on top of a Ken Olsen-signed copy of the One True Enterprise-Class PC Operating System, OpenVMS. Which is running on a Tadpole Sparc laptop whose guts I installed into an old Amiga I used to use as a fishbowl.
As for Gentoo, the flakiness of Gentoo ebuilds makes me treat my Gentoo machine like a Slackware box. I figure I might as well go with the real deal.
Just as I am planning to ditch Ubuntu and buy a Mac to look as cool as the RubyOnRails guys!
Please, cool guys make up your mind on which is the coolest OS so that us mere mortals can follow.
Got a link for that nonsense? I don't think so. You are about as likely to meet a person who has not heard of Linux as you are to prove that stagnant. Everyone now knows about Linux and many more people are trying it out. The flood is coming.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ubuntu is nowhere near as polished as OS X and has nowhere near the quality of applications available. I call BS!
Karma Schmarma
I guess I am missing the big deal here. Why not use a MacBook Pro and use Ubuntu within Parallels on a Mac, and have the best of both worlds? Or do as I did, and have a dual-boot PowerBook G4 that runs OS X 10.4 and Ubuntu? That is, until I decided that Ubuntu was a wasted 10 GB partition and wiped it, and went back to solely using 10.4. But when I get my MacBook Pro, for the small price of Parallels I can use any Linux within 10.4 just fine.
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both? (Note: this line of reasoning does not work very well with girlfriends or wives, but it makes perfect sense for cmoputer operating systems.)
Switching would be BIG trouble. Not worried yet.
So, we should wait & see if theese two die off before doing anything about this ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
People get excited about good tools because design matters. People *care* about craftsmanship, integrity, simplicity, and elegant design.
Most good painters don't use just any old brand of paints and brushes. Most good musicians don't play on second-rate hand-me-down instruments. Why should digital folks use third-rate software?
Why can't there be a Retarded or Slightly Confused mod? I have mod points but they are no good here!
Calling two nerds switching from Mac OS X to Ubuntu a "canary in the coal mine" reminds me of what the (un)intelligent design people say. The ID people draw up a list of a few hundred scientists who "dissent from Darwinism." So, of course, the scientific community is suddenly going to discover how wrong they were about ID and it will become a hypothesis not ridiculed by all but a miniscule percent of biologists.
The ID movement's lists are bullshit, as demonstrated by Project Steve. Project Steve keeps of a list of (credible) biologists who support the teaching of evolution (about 750 right now). The one restriction for the biologists: they must be named Steve/Stephanie/Stephen. Until I see more than a few nerds switching from Mac to Linux, I'll believe the predictions of mass migration as much as I believe the ID people.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
I guarantee that 98% of the computer using market that would benefit from owning a Mac (my mom, my dad, my grandma, my brothers, my friends... none of whom are tech "geeks") could care less about Ubuntu or who Doctorow or Pilgrim are.
Worried? No, I don't think Apple is worried. In fact, they may see this, take note and grow from it. But worrying about this would be highly unlikely. That suggestion is quite absurd in fact.
Know your market for god's sake.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
I've used (and use) both Linux and Mac OSX (and run FreeBSD 6.1 on my server at home).
Macs give you integration, hardware just works and has generally good resale value on e-Bay. My Linux laptop took me three successive weekends to get the WiFi up and running, Macs don't take that time. But if you are on a budget Linux looks damn good.
You can get most of the core functionality of Mac Apps through Open Source, but it won't be polished, you'll page through newsgroups looking for help (or on forums) and spend a lot of time configuring your system. For some people this time/money tradeoff works. For others it doesnt'.
Right now I'm looking seriously at the cheapo laptops for $400, with Linux I can put a lightweight Window manager and spend a few weekends getting WiFi to work, have a very nice machine that does most of what my Work MacBook Pro does for a fraction of the price. Of course other things are not as nice.
An alternative to Fink of course is Darwin Ports; if you've used BSD Ports they work the same way. You can run stuff like GIMP if you just need light Photoshop style stuff (like I did just 20 minutes ago) and it works out fine. Another Mac plus is the ability to run MS Office, crucial if you're exchanging Excel spreadsheets with Macros built-in. Open Office is not there yet.
I think some people will choose time, others money, and there's nothing wrong with either choice really.
Here's why Ubuntu and any other Linux distribution is inferior to my OSX install:
Now Cory can moan all he wants about DRM and his precious EFF but iTunes works well for me. I don't mind paying $10 for an album I would otherwise pay $15 at a store to purchase. I don't mind being restricted to sharing it among 5 friends or only playing it on an iPod. I didn't by universal rights to the music. I bought it for reasonable personal use. I understood that when I bought it. I didn't buy it and expect my computer to work differently than anyone else's computer.
Contrary to popular belief, the personal decisions these pundits make really may not matter one ounce to most of us.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
I disagree. Despite all the hype, switching platforms is hardly more difficult than buying a new computer running the same platform. New, out of the box, most machines come pre-loaded with some flavor of Windows - which you may or may not choose to keep on there and use. If you don't, then you're looking at a "from scratch" format and install of your OS of choice, and all the hunting for prerequisite drivers that goes with it. If you do keep it, you probably have to reboot many times as you uninstall a plethora of garbage you don't want that they threw in with the new machine. (Scratch the Norton Personal Firewall, the 30-day McAfee anti-virus trial, the "enhancements" to the media player, etc. etc.)
If you, say, switch from PC to Mac, or Mac to Linux, you're looking at pretty much the same hassles you get with a new machine. You have to reinstall all the apps you want to use on it, restore your backed-up data files of significance, etc.
If you're a self-proclaimed "nerd", I'm assuming the "learning curve" shouldn't be much of an issue? (Or do you really think guys like Mark, Tim and Cory need a while to "get the hang of" Ubuntu?)
MOST people have already concluded that Linux distros don't meet their needs, as illustrated by the fact that so many people rely on Windows every day, while many others paid quite a bit for a Mac running OS X. A few prominent people in tech. circles announcing they're tired of their previous platform of choice is no canary in a coal mine. It's more of a dull thud in the mine, ignored by all the other miners making similar but louder sounds with their pick-axes as they work.
This isn't meant to be a "troll" against Linux.... but rather, a cold, hard look at the facts. Linux enjoys great success when it's used as a mail, file, print or web server. It also enjoys success as the basis for embedded devices, from routers to PVRs. It never has been a significant player in the workstation space, and I dare say it may never be - as long as it's built "by geeks, for geeks". Geeks don't tend to add "fluff" to code just for the sake of saving a user some time reading the instructions. Geeks only consider a GUI an "afterthought project" when it relates to configuring a system-level application or service. (How many rock-solid reliable GUIs in X have you seen for point and click easy configuration of *all* the possible optiions for an Apache web server, for example? And that's a high-profile app in the Linux world that's used by many folks who use Linux for practically nothing else!)
It can be hard to tell the difference between a lemming and a canary in the dark. Not that it really matters -- both will perish.
In many ways, IT is a global make-work project. We spend millions of hours re-re-recreating the wheel and building incredibly complex "vehicles" to perform previously unimagined tasks. It's rare that someone stops and asks questions like, "Does Slashdot make the world a better place?" or "would we be better off without iPods?"
Back in the late 80's and Early 90's, I ran a 300+ member strong Mac User group at a well known computer research institution... I'm a fan, but I'm not a fool. As much as I like the MacBook and OS X, my Dell Inspiron 8000 w/Dapper is just as functional, if not more so, for my needs. I can't justify shelling out $1300 for something marginally better, even if that means I have to replace the drive on my laptop in the next year for ~ US$60.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ok, I guess I can share my experiences here...
First, hello. I'm a Mac (user), since.. well, always... I've been checking out Ubuntu in the past few months. I first tried to install it on a friend's PC box, but unfortunately he uses dial-up and it was complicated for us linux noobs to get the drivers working.
I still got to use the system and thought it was very interesting and "friendly" in many aspects. I also learned quite some stuff about Linux which will be useful later (and actually has been useful for a couple issues I had with my TiBook).
Now, I'm into certain projects which have made me check out edubuntu so I downloaded the Live CD. Tried it on my TiBook. I had just bought a few days ago a PCMCIA Wifi card (airport card reception is very bad on these if you didn't know) and was impressed that the distro recognized the card right away. However, I was not able to configure it to connect to my network (I still don't know much about using the OS so that may have to do with it).
On the OS X side, I installed the drivers and I could get connected to my network without hassles.
So, Ubuntu brings good software for most basic uses (not all, but I guess you can install that easily, don't know yet), except when it comes to getting online thru something that isn't ethernet. I'm sure it's possible; it's just not as easy as I feel it should be (for me and at least one of my friends).
I will however, try installing this on a beige G3 (still don't know if it will work), because hacking OS X into it isn't that great either. And I think Ubuntu will only get better with time anyways!
My main mac (mini) will still use OS X.
Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.
Yeah, you bet! I mean, look at that mass exodus of people who are switching to Linux from Windows, 15 years after the first Windows nerds switched!
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I've got all this multimedia stuff going on.. proprietary drivers for my soundcard. and unfortunately, I don't have RMS's programming talent, nor his political smarts.
by the way, my captcha was 'travesty', which is quite fitting.
could it be?
Some people just plain don't get along with OS X. Not everybody cares about aesthetics (not just looks, mind you) or elegance the same way Apple does. Some people just work better textually. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
Its great to ruffle Apple fanbois panties - cause its so damn easy!
And I regard their posts informative at least.
Their email is borked. I won't use Mac email software, as I don't use Windows email software. Opera mail client wins hands down.
Their texts were borked when updating formats. Well, that happened to me when opening Wordperfect 5.1 docs in MS Word. I still believe that there are several msword features coded but never shown in their GUI as several features of WP51 were living happily in MSWord, but only if the docs where created with WP51 and the features used there. And now there is OO.org with its own lot of misfeatures.
Since long ago all my writings are in text format. In LaTeX if I need some formating. No upgrade or conversions needed.
And I still use Winamp for all my listening needs.
I do thanks their informative post (don't use propietary formats). I will not.
I can use Opera, LaTeX and all the good graphical mac apps and all the command line unix apps I would ever need. In the same desktop, not like I do now with gentoo inside a virtual machine.
I'm switching to a Mac.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Think of what rosetta is doing - it's translating code for an entirely different processor almost on the fly, making things work almost seamlessly that a normal computer user would have no expectations of. How many Alpha Windows executables could you just move over to Intel Windows?
Photoshop is kind of slow on a new mac, but not unusable slow. And on an Intel mini I bought for some time my HDTV decoding software was running under rosetta with only a little slowdown at the very highest resolutions.
I find it pretty amazing that rosetta works as well as it does, while being as unnoticeable as it is. At least take a moment to appreciate what a smooth transition it allows for most users who never ever have to know what "emulator" even means.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OK, sure, these are 0.0004% of the installed base.. Big whoop, but they are in the headlines and some people only read the headlines. Also, just the fringe-element mentioning this can start to fan flames of some longtime Mac-users to contemplate making the 'switch' --yeah, pun intended. I do believe the flames are starting to fan, here...
:( are turning my apple bitter. Jobs seemed to be about listening to the user experience when he was younger and idealistic, but I guess a multinational corporation doesn't or can't do that anymore.
On a more somber note, I have become dissatisfied with Apple, as a whole. The discontinuation of Darwin GPL, their aggression against free speech, the strange specter of a company looking like a fledgling Microsoft, all over again, with media capitalization on their minds (iTunes Store, Disney), possible stock fraud, and iPod sweatshops (I own a sweaty Nano!!!
A friend of mine in the film industry was at a meeting sponsored by Avid. After the presntaton, a spokesman told him the reason Apple increases system requirements for Final Cut Pro with every version was to encourage new hardware purchases. Understandable, if a company makes 60% of it's bottom-line on hardware (pre-iPod era). Knowing basic economics and some sociology, I knew this is suicidal as a business model. Many people who want to make films have a limited budget with high-price hardware. If a person can get better performance from one app that costs the same as another (same features, etc.) then most likely, I'll buy the performer. But if both companies are going to meet each others hardware requirements, I may be forced to get a new computer and pirate the software. It's that simple.
In a nutshell, if people can get increased performance and OSS is meeting their production needs, like Blender, then I'd even think of running Linux.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
have any sort of sense of humour installed. C'mon, I was making a joke. That's why I saved the "punch line" for the end. I know, it might not have been at all humorus to you, but it was meant as such. Why are you taking it so hard anyway? I should have known not to comment on Macs.
I have freaks! I did something right...
In my experience XP is a very stable OS. Reports of 'constantly have to reboot' from my users has always come down to hardware... or an incompetent user wanting to assign blame to someone other than themselves.
How nice to hear from an AC who probably uses XP as a Half Life workstation.
I use both XP and OS X daily, and I'm talking about heavy use. I install things and run a lot of different programs. I've never had an OS X laptop for the many years I've owned it crash; I restart only for system updates.
Last week I tried to fix a slightly munged FAT32 partition on an XP computer. After a number of hours of waiting for the XP repair tools to fix the directory structure I game up and pulled the plug on the drive (hey, the directory structure was already hosed) bam - same old blue screen I was so used to with NT. Granted it happens much less often than with NT, but there are still "irregularities" that arise more often on XP that requires a system restart - not necessarily a blue screen but reboots are required from time to time (say every few weeks).
As a sidenote the OS X Disk Utility program was able to fix the hosed FAT32 directory structure in under a minute.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Regarding changing the names of files, it sounds like you need to adjust your double-click rate.
Perhaps your wife has never changed it, because she doesn't rename files. But OS X has an adjustable delay for determining the difference between "click, click" (two single clicks) and "doubleclick."
As a general rule, inexperienced users need this set slowly, while more experienced users want it set shorter. This is because new users seem to hesitate between their clicks, while more experienced users do the double-click as a single motion (once it's ingrained into muscle memory, I guess).
If you find yourself double clicking on icons and not having them open, then the click delay is set too fast (you are clicking too slowly for the machine to recognize it -- thus the delay must be increased).
If you are doing things that should be interpreted as two distinct clicks (say, clicking on the file to highlight it, and then clicking again on its name to rename) and are opening the file by mistake, then the delay is set too long, and you need to shorten it.
I think it's changed through System Preferences: Mouse.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
A post on Slashdot that was better written than any of the editorials I've ever seen come through the front page. Bravo, good sir/madam!
And to be slightly on topic, I'm surprised that more people don't realize the influence of well recognized Mac users and the consequences of their very public "switch" away from Mac computers. Consumers are generally sheep, after all...
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http://www.burningserver.com/, for all your blank web page needs!
I switched from Windows to Debian Sid many years ago. It worked OK even though Sid had problems. Then I got my wife a PowerBook. Since I needed to support her (and I like toys) I got myself a Mac Mini. The Mini has been a great, if slow, for web, email and learning about the Mac.
Later I got a crappy laptop (Compaq Presario 2100) and tried Debian on it. That was like stabbing myself in the eye with a fork so I switched it to Ubuntu Warty and it worked great.
For a while I mostly left the Linux box idle except for some games (NWN, Guild Wars, UT2004). After a while Sid finally did something to tick me off after Sarge was released and I installed Breezy and it was a whole lot better. I'm finding myself using the Ubuntu box about as much as the Mac. So I haven't really switched back. I just use them both.
It may change again when I get a Intel Mac. The performance of the mini gets annoying after a while. I'll still keep the Ubuntu box around because some things are just easier under Linux. Especially web work and programming.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
But what do I know? Every Mac user I've ever met has been a profoundly un-technical artiste who has yet to find a market, or a nerd who likes unique hardware and software.
Blar.
recent stories from http://www.roughlydrafted.com/
1. BSD & GPL: Different Sources for Different Horses
2. The Revolution Will be Open Sourced!
3. Apple & Open Source... Strange Buffaloes?
4. The 'Mac OS X Closed by Pirates' Myth
Uhm....
There was no competition for computers, unless you count analog computers. So geeks had a 1/1 chance of choosing the right choice.
I've noticed pretty much the same thing. Geeks choose the right technology. The general public chooses the best-marketted technology. In many cases, those are not equivelent.
I believe Linux (or some other Free OS) will become the de-facto standard. It'll be years, though. MS has a lot of money to burn, and a lot of money coming in. Yes, we've already seen the world change for them (WRT income, shares, market share, etc), but it'll *still* be a long time before MS is truly no longer the leader.
Years, I tell you.
So, we were right with computers. Duh. There was nothing else. We were right with the internet. I mean, it was the Internet, or whatever dial-up island you chose, whether AOL or... well, I don't remember their names. But there were a slew of them. Of *course* the Internet was going to win. The others were just islands. The Internet was everything. So it wasn't much of a choice.
Geeks don't have the best record for specific products. We just know where things are going in general.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I've been a Mac user since 1997. I still don't understand the significance of this. I have never heard of these two people, and I subscribe to several "Mac Nerd" list serves like macenterprise.org and afp548.com. It's not like Josh Wisenbaker, Schoun Regan, or some other significant user has left the platform. I know people that have switched from Linux to Mac, Windows to Mac, Mac to Windows, Mac to Linux. I think it's great. Learn other operating systems so you can make a informed decision. The only way to truly learn a OS is to immerse yourself in it and make it your primary OS for a period of time. I've done the same thing with Windows and Suse. I've always come back to the Mac, some may not. Windows is thee ultimate gamers OS, Linux is the ultimate server OS, but I feel OS X is currently the best productivity client OS. My two cents.
One of the more significant points was the desire not to reward Apple and in essence finance further developement of proprietary, closed source and DRM encumbered software as found inexorably attached to Apples proprietary hardware. That and Apple itself found the corporate equivalent of a deaf mute.
... I'll take freedom and choice over mindless religous fanaticism any day of the week. Some people just don't like being owned. Myself included.
The hardware is pretty, the software polished and smooth but your selling your soul to get it and all is not trouble free. For these two people it became more than they were willing to bear so they made a trade to an operating system while lacking some of the polish allows them to regain control over their machines and their data. The hardware happens to be commonly available and devoid of any Apple Tax.
This is about having choice and voting with your dollars. They don't like the direction Apple has taken. An even greater number doesn't like the path that Microsoft has taken either. Those who are bothered enough to do something about it, and have the means and ability may well choose what is for them, the better alternative.
That these two guys were dyed in the wool Mac types is the most troubling aspect to the fan boys and the evangalists. For them to attempt to downplay, discredit or ridicule these two is really just living in denial. This same scene plays out on the Microsoft side as well as both of these companies are all about lock in. Some people don't want to be locked in. Simple as that.
I'm old school and I sure as hell don't want to be locked in either. Truth be told, getting locked in is for the rubes as long a choice exists. Microsoft versus Apple is not much of a choice it turns out.
As I sit here and type this I realize that half the applications I actually use are OSS. Firefox, Thunderbird, Putty etc. I can easily use Koffice or Open Office instead of MS product for what I do. Most of the programs I take for granted have their equivalents in any modern OS. Not an issue. It is possible I will miss a particular application or how a specific feature of the desktop works and so on, but interestingly enough when I go software shopping I prefer OSS. I don't instantly feel OSS is out to screw me like either Apple or MS products do. Switching to a Linux based OS fulltime would not be difficult. Peace of mind is worth something, and to me not feeding either of these bitches is worth even more.
And to a few of these posters
...using photoshop all day, day in and day out on their computer.
One of my friends who always brings that up, doesn't have it on his computer and couldn't use it to do dick when I launched it on mine. It reminds me of the way Mac users used to always bring up how good the music making software was compared to the PCs(this was like 12 years ago), despite the fact that none of them I knew personally made music.
Say anything to defend the faith.
As part of the Mac initial bootup, you link the new Mac to the old Mac with a firewire cable. It automatically transfers all the user accounts and anything new in
I've done this 3 times at this point. The only time I had to do anything else, it was because I had placed games in a directory I had created,
For me it really was a painless upgrade process. (Here's where
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
a) If I buy a bagel - I can toast it in any toaster - sliced or a wide slot model (most are).
b) If I buy gasoline - I can put it in any gas tank - any car with a gas tank.
c) If I bought/buy a VHS tape - which I did for 20 plus years - it worked in any VHS player.
d) If I but butter - I can put it on any bread.
c) When I but a AM/FM/SW radio - it plays all the radio stations.
But... BUT when I buy an Apple product :
I have to use "Apple's butter".
I have to use "Apple's bagels".
I have to use only "Apple's tapes"
I have to listen to "Apples radio/playlist" Can't wait to get Ubuntu running on the $500 dual core 4.1 Ghz (see Toms Hardware).
A couple of geeks, who cares, but CARS? CARS is switching to CURS!?!?
Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
My Mac loving was well known among my social circle, and I even helped some people switch to Macs. But I don't plan on doing Apple any favors in the near future.
I switched from OS X to Linux(debian),have never looked back.I still use os x though for photoshop,thats about it.
Where is the bug report?
... Netcraft confirms it!
http://slashdot.su/
There is ONE thing about OSX that makes me want to punch iSteve iJobs in the throat:
* Give me a god-damn maximize button. The current one is a "make the window a random size that we determined at compile time and has no reflection on the actual contents of the window that you're looking at now" button. In many cases (especially with the finder), it actually makes the window smaller. I can't stress enough how abysmally terrible the lack of a maximize feature is.
I can live without a taskbar and learn to use the dock. I can live with the random disk thrashing in the background for no apparent reason. I can even also learn to work around the abysmally incoherent keyboard shortcuts. But the lack of a maximize button is eternally grating.
The problem is that a maximize feature is something that Apple Mactards, after being trained by iSteve iJobs to loathe all ideas that are Not Of The Apple, and sitting in front of the biggest and most expensive 30" monitors in the world - have never wanted to maximize a window. They cannot possibly fathom why you'd want to have a window take up the entire screen. That's their mentality when it comes to a great many problems with OSX (well, *I* don't have a problem with it, therefore it isn't a problem) - and I can see why it's made people move on to Linux (although, obviously, for reasons more significant than no maximize button).
So yeah, maybe some ubergeeks I've never heard of switched. Whoopie. Back in the real world, the rest of us are pretty happy not having to screw around with configuration files for every little thing, because it leaves us more time to play with our children.
I still get an IBM employee discount, which amounted to several hundred dollars.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
It may be intereting to note that these two Switchers are long-time (pre-OS X) Mac users, and were not part of the more recent and largely unremarked-upon migration of Unix geeks to OS X.
Hey if these guys were using Macs as early as a year before they were first available, that is impressive. How do they like Apple's 2007 products?
This article was brought to you by the letter X, some cogs, a swirly thing and a penguin.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
You clearly don't have a monitor larger than 19". I *hate* Windows for having a maximize button instead of a zoom button. I don't want firefox taking up the entirety of my 20" widescreen monitor when the content is designed to fit in a width of 768 pixels. Maximizing most windows to 1680 or more pixels wide is an INCREDIBLE waste of screen realestate. The zoom button is used to combat this and to have a button that will automatically resize a window to be the most efficient size for you. Also it is not determined at compile time. Load up many different sites in Safari and use the zoom button on them. You will find that the zoomed size will differ between different sites.
Thanks for the info.
SimplyMEPIS, Knoppix, Kanotix, to name a few. And they've done it for far longer than Ubuntu has done it....in-fact, I did a Knoppix install while browsing Slashdot before Ubuntu began to exist.
These are not what I would term "distros". Forget decent support, upgrades and the huge libraries of available applications. I remember installing Knoppix some years back, and then trying to upgrade via Debian while battling many Knoppix-specific bugs and non-standard ways of doing things. Finally, 2 years back I clean-slated and went the Ubuntu-way. Haven't looked back, and it's good to hear good news about Ubuntu now.
Don't get me wrong, the Knoppix system worked great, but I felt left out in the dark after installing it to HD. No source for the kernel was to be found anywhere, packages got outdated and removed while I strived to upgrade from Debian repositories, small forums/FAQs concerning HD-install, etc.
Making a painless and auto-detecting install sounds great. Even better is if the auto-detecting can be installed too, so cloning becomes even easier (X usually craps out). I clone alot to save time.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I'm told that Coke frowns on their employees publicly drinking Pepsi, too. Or try showing up to work at GM with a Honda.
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I said that the Win98 disk restores the MBR so that Windows alone boots. It's not a fix for 'Linux b0rkage' but a way to get rid of Linux from the system: it destroy GRUB and makes the computer only start Windows. Other replies to my post tell me that more-recent versions of Windows have the same capability in their System Restore functions, but the point was to help mad.frog retrieve a usable computer without having to spend hours reinstalling Windows.
Ubuntu runs Final Cut and Photoshop. Its great that I can run Maya and Shake unsupported on Ubuntu but uh I still need access to AE, Illustrator, Quicktime, my kona 3. I have Kubuntu on my PC but i am booted into XP most of the time. None of my color grading tools run linux. Hmmm Seems like most of Apples market can't even switch to Linux. Windows we could switch too. (shivers) Did you all see the announcement that the commercial version of WINE will run in OS X 10.5????/ index.php
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/06/30/crossover
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
So Cory's latest purchase is a Lenovo with Ubuntu instead of a MacBook Pro because he doesn't like iTMS DRM? And Mark's upset at Apple because he doesn't backup his iPhoto or iTunes databases and somehow open source software is going to be impervious to that? It's a free country, so they can do what they want, but I wonder if this is a tempest in a teapot - not a sign of impending doom. Corrupted data is common on all platforms and if one doesn't like iTMS DRM, don't buy music there. Rip CDs instead.
I guess these final straws are non-events for me. And I'm skeptical of their public switching. Seems more like a publicity stunt to me.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
Mark Pilgrim is a Mac developer.
Cory Doctorow is a Mac user.
Nobody should care what Cory Doctorow thinks.
I've been thinking about Pilgrim's reason for switching, and for the love of God I can't figure it out. Basically, his argument is that he wants to get away from proprietary formats. I understand that. I want that too. And I have it for most formats. I'm using OpenOffice, my mail is stored in mbox files, my images are PNGs, my music is AAC (not exactly open, but a standard).
And I'm using a Mac.
There's a problem, though: if I make a movie, it's locked in iMovie's format. If I burn a DVD, it's locked in iDVD's format. If I make music, it's in Garage Band's proprietary format. If I buy music, it's DRM'd. What to do? Switch to Ubuntu?
Guess what, I do have an Ubuntu box in my living room. Problem is: There's no iMovie for Ubuntu. There's no iDVD for Ubuntu. There's no Garage Band for Ubuntu. You can't buy music from major labels on Ubuntu unless you use questionable russian sites. Sure, I could switch to Ubuntu. That would get rid of the remaining proprietary formats. It would do that because it would get rid of my ability to make movies, DVDs and sound.
Yes, there are appliations which run on Ubuntu which allow you to do that stuff. No, you can't compare them to Apple's stuff. I know it because I've tried. Pilgrim himself says the same.
No, wait. I'm using MacOS X and Gentoo Linux (different jobs, different tools to handle them!) - and I'd not change that as of now.
I don't see anything with MacOS X which hurts me. Nothing, really. So why change?
Gentoo is giving me the creeps right now - compiling for two days, because I did not update *anything* since about... 2004 - but it's still the best Linux flavor for bleeding edge low level develompent, IMHO.
Let them be lucky with Ubuntu, I feel perfectly save with MacOS X right now.
Main reason: drag&drop installation of programs. And Drag&Drop REMOVAL of the same applications. There might be configuration artifacts in the system, but the executable is organized in one "file", and I really LIKE that.
Don't think Ubuntu has anything alike.
I love your response... It is exactly what the Linux community as a whole need to learn to do to further their aims. You've been polite, helpful and not railed on about anything being the user's fault for not working out how to fix it. Lovely!
none of u who are sane. osx is just plain superior for most people. linux is a chore for anyone who isn't into learning a whole bunch of stuff just to run an os:P
You're kind. Thanks. [blush]. Excuse the buzzwords, but I'm sure that the collaborative nature of Free Software/Open Source means that each person should use their knowledge to benefit others. Trying to be helpful like that has parallels with writing good, clean and free code...
Anything that cunt Doctorow does, do the opposite.
Well if they switch to Ubuntu, they can stop making nerd propaganda to Apple and software companies.
:)
For example there are GUI wrappers coded in Applescript for Unix commands which care about maintenance of your OS X system. People while they know 100+ keyboard shortcuts of Adobe apps or AVID, doesn't want to SPARE TIME to Terminal. Yes, they aren't stupid, they just don't have time or they don't see meaning of typing a command on terminal vs clicking it on a GUI wrapper.
If you look those programs feedback, there will be always people saying they are lame, stupid and people using them are lazy. No, they don't have too much time in their hands messing with same sudo command over and over.
So, they go to Ubuntu, we stay using Onyx, Yasu, Cocktail and mess with those 15 h264 quicktime snippets we must put on that commercial site instead?
Peace for all
Seriously, OS X loses if it becomes "geek only" OS and at last Apple decides to be a iPod and music company only. We would see a slashdot story saying "Apple gave up OS X, becomes iTools for Windows company" along with couple of "I knew this was coming" nerd RIPs and they move on...
What would we have in hand? Only commercial Mach/Unix based alternative to Windows: Dead.
I, personally, have made the same decision, switching back to GNU/Linux from Mac OS X a few months ago. Mac OS X has a great GUI, but there's virtually nothing else (compared to GNU or the *BSDs) to commend it for. GNU/Linux has major problems, but I'm never going to have an issue that requires money to be spent and data to be lost to fix.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Hey asshole - yes you. I am a Linux user - exclusively so since several years in fact (first Gentoo then Ubuntu), and before that I've been using it in parallell for more years. Thanks to that, I am in a good position to help clarifying what it would mean to make the switch.
As I work with lots of graphics artists in my daily job, I know exactly what almost all of those would say if I told them before the switch that yes, they can run Photoshop... only to reveal later that I meant Photoshop 7. To these people - even those who actually does not need anything more - this is a big deal. So, better be up front about it than taking your fanboy road of name calling and insults when out of arguments.
Now, my way my stop someone from switching today. Your way will stop someone from switching forever.
Spine World
I've wasted a large number of thousands of dollars on Apple hardware that died immediately out of warranty. (iBook, two iPods, two Mighty Mice, and my old 17" G4 iMac was flaky but still works most of the time).
As long as people like you refuse to refuse to buy equipment from such companies they will continue to sell shoddy equipment and deny support. Six bad experiences and you still apple your life?
Ubuntu is one of the more cohesive and polished linux desktop distributions, but it's no where near the league of OS X, or even windows XP. People switch to linux because it serves a specific task they need, or for the novelty. It's still lightyears behind on useability. I've been using Linux since 1994, and it's come a long way, but it hasn't really closed the gap any since the mid to late 90's, it's just been keeping pace since then with still a huge gap between.
It just worked out of the box for me. WPA-PSK with AES off some cheapo linksys 802.11g bridge.
:) There were some WPA issues earlier, but the gnome-network-manager stuff fixed them for me (they are default now, right?).
Now, I find all the rough edges annoying in Linux, but at least it all works so far in my experience.
My first Linux production desktop was set up in 1995 (Slackware).
I had email, web browser, newsgroups reader, document processing was very simple so it suited my needs. I saved my employer a good amount of money on a time we were cash strapped.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Eh, that's not -entirely- true. OS X does have a few things going for it beyond the aesthetics, most of which are directly related to the design of Cocoa. Ever notice that, with a few exceptions, almost all text areas in OS X can be spell-checked? I am so going to miss that feature when I make the switch to Linux.
Of course, that said, you pay for that kind of convenience by having to write code in Objective-C. IMHO, Objective-C requires an amazing amount of kool-aid to be palatable. YMMV.
She is running Ubuntu.
She was computer illiterate 3 years ago.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You just gave a new meaning to "forking"!
I laugh at you people who claim forking is bad.
"No mouse pointer in the middle of the keyboard like is found on the Thinkpads or the Toshiba Tecra line."
Oooh, I would never trust a computer with a clit.
Someday, when you get some experience with one, you will learn to love it. Learning to operate it truly is the best way to move things in the direction you want. Good luck and have fun.
At present I'm running a dual boot powerpc mac with Ubuntu, and, of course, OS X. While I was excited at first, I soon became a little wary of the powerpc versions (and I've found this using powerpc debian also), because I was getting some weird results with software I use regularly. For instance, using Snort, same versions, same config file, with Ubuntu as I was using in OS X, would not trigger alerts on certain events. I tested this using pcap files with know alerts. I'm not sure if its something specific to the debian powerpc derivatives or whether its in the powerpc kernel tree or what. So I'm back using OS X for most things. Because, while Linux has a greater range of tools available for it than OS X, I simply cannot trust them to be working adequately on the linux distros for powerpc architecture.
FAT32 is not a good file system. Use NTFS if you want some stability. It is a journalized file system (well mostly) just as Mac OS 10.4, 10.3 and even 10.2.8 (if you enable it) have. You're running on an NT kernel, use it right.
I know NTFS is the better choice under Windows, but I need a filesystem readable and writable both under XP and OS X. Unfortunatley, FAT 32 is pretty much the best option as far as removable storage is concerned...
If you install and uninstall software all the time you will have problems. The registry doesn't scale well because there's crap left over. Also, who knows what source you're getting the software from.
If I don't install and uninstall software all the time I will lose my job, as it's part of that - I consider keeping my job more important than keeping my registry minty-fresh. It's not fair to say "just don't do that" when what you are doing is no nessecary... it's like a doctor reccomending to elimate all liquid intake when a patient says it hurts to swallow. For a lot of people this is just not practical advice.
I already know just how horked the registry gets during a lot of installs/deinstalls, which is why I dislike the registry so very much.
I do not get viruses simply because I do not install untrusted software on my system and i don't open emails from people i don't know.
Did I say I get viruses? No I did not, on either XP or OS X. However the mechanisms in place around XP to ensure that remains so are more cumbersome in terms of system resources used than anything on OS X.
I'm not downloading and installing Gator and retaed things like that chap that wen't on a spyware binge. I'm installing evaluation software of various sorts for work.
I didn't buy a cheap 300 dollar system and expect perfection though. I have a dell precision workstation with a dual xeon 2ghz (precision 650). Its as reliable as my wife's powermac. I'm still running on the original motherboard unlike her mac. (well logic board on that end)
If you want anecdotal evidence I've had a mac laptop for five years now with all original componets - and my mothers work compuer is an even older Powermac 450 that is still going strong and running OS X at a good clip.
Statistically, Apple computers hold up better than other makers computers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Face it, linux is not ready for non-geeks. We keep on hearing about how "this year", linux will be ready for the desktop year after year but the real problem is not a technical one. The problem is the attitudes of the developers of linux and how they do not give a damn about the potential needs of others with regard to ease of use and functionality. There is too much scratching of their own itch going on.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Yes, they have some good reasons for not wanting to use the Mac, such as what they perceive to be lock-in. Then they blame data corruption for who knows what reason on Apple and parade this as a reason to leave the platform. (Nevermind they have certainly experienced data loss on every platform they've ever used.) Whatever.
But you go into their details on how they can get the same functionality from Ubuntu, and we are witness to a firehose of complexity. Add this repository, run that shell command, and use this set of a half-dozen disparate tools to get a task accomplished. I suppose casual users who aren't hackers are expected to do all this just to watch a movie or back up some files? Ubuntu “works out of the box” with all this additional effort, and the one guy still goes on to write:
Is this guy serious? At this point all I can really write is that this guy is a self-contradicting, whiney little bitch. These guys are the archetypical tactless nincompoops who wander into computer stores and harasses sales people with irrelevant questions that they could not possibly have any reasonable response to and harp endlessly on details that they, as end users, ultimately should never care about. I got over that stage when I was 16 and these days and my concern has become getting things accomplished and not spending untold hours fiddling with inane details (servers excluded).
Join Tor today!
Try it! You'll like it!! Really! This is the one and only operating linux system that can install on the original ext-2 filesystem that can absorb a sudden power failure and come back, come back quickly, and with no ill effects time after time after time. That is saying a lot. Caldera/SCO's (lot)lizard installer can quickly install linux, but the very first time the power fails for any reason or it 'somehow' shuts down 'abnormally' its to the operating system and ALL your data---and that is with any SCO system (why'dja think that they'd rather sue their customers than continue to sell a system that never works). Red Hat systems built on ext-2 will come back, but take forever to come up do the endless bad inodes it finds on a power failed system. The Hat is better than SCO in that the Hat usually never comes up with 'kernel panic' like SCO consistantly does. Mandrake installs will fail in ext-2 systems on a power failure, and in releases before version 8 they were down for the count, but they had a french twist to it. You had available a set of 'magic keys' that you could use to rescue yourself, but only a stone expert could effectively use them. For most of us, these keys only meant that you wasted a day playing with yourself and getting the repeated irrrepressable irresistable urge to boot the thing next time with real boots before getting down to the business of re-installing your 'operating system' and holding a short funeral for your data. SuSE had the best system. It could ALWAYS boot an 'unbootable' installation that was somehow unreachable from LILO or Grub by using the boot feature of the system CD. If you did not plan, however, your data could still be lost. Ubuntu, the Warty Warthog version, never failed on a power failure. And that is really saying something. .357 to his 'pooter out of frustration with windows. Windows 3.1 would not load about 30 percent of the time. That was good cuz win3.0 bombed over half the time on loading. Win 95 would fail an installation if you changed even a joystick!
And you windows addicts, windows has a long and inglorious history of failures. I know! I used to be a wing-nut and nobody knows that system like I do. Never took the 'A+' test or became a micro$$$certifiableNUTjeneer but have had every windy package since 2.1! They ALL crash! Only for different reasons. PC magazine used to run a column called "abort - retry - fail". You can find all kinds of windows war stories. One nutcase took a
They all fail to this day if an application crashes hard enough, even XP the notorious spy. No linux system ever came to me programmed to allow outsiders...no not only allow but INVITE outsiders.. to remotely control your system.
Why exactly is TWO people switching operating systems a news story? I'm sorely tempted to write a "10 people switch from Windows and 5 people switch from Linux to Mac OS X" article. It happens every day.
Haiku for you!
No mouse pointer in the middle of the keyboard like is found on the Thinkpads or the Toshiba Tecra line.
While I'd rather have a mouse-clit than a trackpad any day of the month, any month of the year, what I'd really like to see is a hardware manufacturer bring back the trackball. I hate the faked "acceleration" on the eraser-like pointers and I detest the lack of general ergonomics.
A trackball can be easily cleaned, it's response is quick and absolute, it doesn't take up nearly as much space as the trackpad, and you don't have to worry about all the potential trackpad accidents*. I could never understand why they did away with it.
* Biggest trackpad gripe: typing a bunch of text, then accidentally swiping your palm--which because of the hardware designer's idiocy naturally rests directly on the trackpad--which causes a bunch of text to be selected. Of course, you're in a typing frenzy, and it happens so quickly that you continue typing, overwriting all of that (unhelpfully) selected text. Oh sure, there's always UNDO. That's a perfectly cromulent solution.
Thanks. :)
I think it's safe to say that your average consumer doesn't have any idea who these people are. But your average techie probably does, and they (we) are the ones who'll be set thinking because of it, and even if it doesn't convince us, we in turn will probably help turn the theme of open data into enough of an issue to finally be picked up by the media and consumers.
The Boing-boing entry refers to an essential software list on which I particularly loved the recommendation for the web browser:
'Mozilla Thunderbird. It's just like Evolution, except it's intelligently designed.'
Maybe you like to stare at your desktop or tweak settings all day but some people like to use software that is easy to use to get stuff done. The beauty of OS X is that it comes with tools like Interface builder that let you whip up a webkit browser or a to do list app in a matter of minutes without any coding. If you have an idea and a couple of hours to spend, you can create useful app yourself without writing a line of code. Does linux have anything like that?
When I chose OS X, I was attracted by the software available on it (both commercial and free) from Apple and third-parties. While OS X may not expose a lot of functionality to the user in the finder, anyone with some programming knowledge is free to either extend or replace the finder with something better. Take http://filerun.info/ for example. That looks like a promising replacement for the finder that offers a great deal more functionality for power users. Another alternative is a product called Pathfinder. The tools to create that type of software is available free with OS X and the documentation is also free through the developer site.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Do you honestly beleive that there are no Apple employees posting to this forum proclaiming how they love Apple and OS X or that many of the stories that appear on Slashdot are actually paid-for advertisements? You are extremely naive.
The main file system structure for OS X, with the exception of /etc is different for other *nix OSes. The /Library, /System, and /Applications folders are in no way related to the directory structure of other unixes or unix-like OSes. Even the /Users/ folder is not a direct analogue to the /usr/ or /home/ folder on other unix OSes. It is not even necessary to install the BSD subsystem in order to have a functional OS X installation and the only reason you would need to install it is to make use of free software that uses it or for the developer tools. Software written to only use the Cocoa or Carbon libraries does not require the BSD layer in order to function.
Having said all that, OS X does offer the standard *nix directory structures such as /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin and so on but it is not recommended that third party software install files into those directories but rather that it be placed in other directories.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Why don't you go crying to the OSS developers and see if they can make wine work for any release of photopshop. If that doesn't work then you can piss on them on slashdot like all other photoshop trolls do.
"Now, my way my stop someone from switching today. Your way will stop someone from switching forever."
Who cares. I don't. Last thing I want is a bunch of people who stole photoshop to start using linux and start complaining that the finder is missing or that IE looks weird.
evil is as evil does
You're right, applications matter a great deal. Unfortunately, OS X ships with almost nothing, and a lot of UNIX applications don't run on it at all, or don't run well.
None of the applications you mention matter to me. But a lot of the applications that ship with Ubuntu do, and they aren't well supported on OS X. So, as far as I'm concerned, applications are another reason to prefer Ubuntu.
these switches.
I've been running IRIX and an older release of Mandrake for quite a while now. Took me quite a while to work all the bugs out of the Mandrake system. Once I got it right, I didn't mess with it.
Fast forward to today. Decided to build a new machine and migrate onto it. I'm at 90 percent in only a few days with Ubuntu. That's huge honestly.
Anyhoo, I still want a Mac, but not quite as bad as I thought I did. Really I wanted a Linux machine that was easier to get up and going. I'm one of the geeks, who can do this stuff, but chooses to spend his time elsewhere.
Blogging because I can...
The Tim Bray punchline is that whatever he switches to, it most likely won't be his employer's OS.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
now, according to some, i am just a stupid kid. so take this post with a grain of salt. i started out with dos. as time progressed, i bought myself windows 3.1, and eventually journeyed to 98 and xp. then i became tired of my computer's instability (i am not saying that all windows machines are unstable, just the one that i built) and installed suse linux to dual boot with xp. that was pretty cool for a while, but eventually i became tired of non-commercial software (I didnt have the spare time to get half of those free programs to work) and that whole driver issue. So, i bought an apple notebook. Now, i use all three operating systems. I may spend the majority of my time on an apple, but i boot up in windows or linux for the occasional progam that i need, or to fulfill the desire for a geek moment. my point: an operating system is an operating system. nothing more. you run programs on it. most operating systems may behave very similar, but there are always subtle differences and nuances. people will choose their operating system based on their desires and needs, not because of a passing fad. i have switched operating systems because of what i want in a computer, not because of what my next-door neighbor is doing with his computer. this may seem obvious, but it cannot be understated. apple has lost two customers. most people will not switch to ubuntu because they saw two guys do it, mac os X is the operating system which they use (for things that other operating systems often cannot do) and have grown accustomed too.
"Having said all that, OS X does offer the standard *nix directory structures such as /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin and so on but it is not recommended that third party software install files into those directories but rather that it be placed in other directories."
/usr/local/bin, /usr/local/etc, etc.
Other directories such as
Looks like Unix to me.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
My switching to apple has paid off immensely. I wasn't forced to open the OS's hood everytime i wanted to go downtown. Unexpectedly, a month ago i changed jobs, and went to the Fraunhofer institute (the inventers of mp3) and found my new double processor pentium with a linux installed. As i had been out of the circuit for a while, i had expected all sorts of annoyances or having to edit property lists, configuring modules, having driver problems and the like, along with not having my sweet eye candy of expose.
The linux was in fact ubuntu.
I am selling my mac.
Q: What's purple and works from home? A: A non-Abelian group. (It doesn't commute.)
Welcome To Crazy Ubuntu Rumors Site!
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
"I used Apple in the past, because it seemed to me it was the best alternative to Microsoft. Now that Linux, through Ubuntu, is finally Ready For The Desktop, I decided to switch."
Who are these guys anyway?
You are a loser.
It is unix if you install the BSD subsystem but as I said before, the BSD subsystem is not a required component and not everyone will choose to install it unless they run software that requires it (mostly unix ports with or without a GUI). Applications written to only use Cocoa or Carbon will not balk at it not being installed.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I don't use Ubuntu but yes, I do magically have access to all of the software that I want thanks to APT. I use Gnome and the only UI consistency issue that I have is with K3B since it's the only KDE app that I use. Your complaint is like someone saying they wouldn't use a Mac since some software doesn't have the Aqua look and feel. I'm OK with a variation with one piece of software that I use.
I would say iLife and iPod are the Mac's reason to be, not nerds. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it doesn't matter that some people are switching to another OS (and Ubuntu looked like a fun thing to play with when I had a toy with it last year), but what is there on any Linux like Garage Band, iMovie and iDVD. Yeh, there are more powerful apps, but none so easy for those functions. (My expertise being mostly Garage Band, Logic and Audacity, but also some iMovie and Final Cut.) Frankly, if anybody thinks they'd rather use Audacity over Garage Band likes to do things the extremely hard way for the sake of it. Can't see this causing a mass exodus to Ubuntu.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Instead of "notfud" people should be using "!fud" which cancels out a "fud" tag. Perhaps "notfud" should be linked to "!fud"
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
My point was that it doesn't make much sense for nerdy UNIX types to switch to OS X if they didn't have any use for the orginal Mac OS. The less UNIX-like OS X is, the stronger my case.
So I doubt the claim that the Mac's demographics has changed all that much.
Most people do not want to spend a lot of money on a notebook or desktop, especially if they could be buying a much better notebook or desktop for the same amount of money. Apple notebooks and desktops are very expensive, mostly because if you want to run OS X, you have to buy the hardware from Apple, therefore no competition = monopoly = they can charge whatever they want. This high price discourages new people to switch to OS X (would you pay 2k for a notebook with an os you have never tried before??) and also makes current mac users give in to the temptations of Linux in the fact that its very similar, free, and will run on even some of the cheapest notebooks. In fact, I have seen KDE setups that looked almost identical if not the same as OS X.
If Apple doesn't want to lose more people, they should try more competitive pricing or at least make some incentive to bring the Mac users back to Apple.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Many apps run under wine. Very few last long. How many minutes between crashes for Photoshop?
Ubuntu will only get better with time anyways!
This is the amazing part.
Ubuntu's on, what, its third major release? Since Hoary (the one before the most-recent), it's been the best distro that I've ever used. My past experience has been primarily with Mandrake, Debian, and Gentoo (in that order, chronologically), and I've at least tried ALL of the other major distros, including the recent, much-touted releases of SuSE.
Ubuntu went from nothing to being miles ahead of everything else within a year or so. Dapper has managed to make even more improvements. In a few months, it's slated to have a mostly-stable working hardware accelerated desktop (it can already to it, but it's not exactly stable, and it sometimes looks a little bit off, but it IS damned impressive-looking most of the time).
I know that it built off of the work of the Debian devs, but it's still an impressive feat. Mandrake/Mandriva built off of RedHat's work, and they've been doing it for years, yet Ubuntu has rocketed ahead of them in a much shorter time. Incredible.
Ladies and gents, here is the reason the mainstream will never adopt linux. Amazing. Simply amazing.
I'd consider switching if OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle, and OmniWeb were available on Linux. But they aren't, so I won't.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
I'm afraid that you're completely missing the whole point of the argument. Yes, you can export all those things to standard formats. But the source files aren't standard. If you export your Garage Band music to AAC, you're destroying your ability to edit the file. Your tracks are gone, it's become a single-track stereo audio file. If you convert an iTunes store file to unprotected AAC and remove it from iTunes, you're also removing all of iTunes' custom metadata; if you export from iMovie to MPG (or whatever), you're again losing your tracks, your titles, your ability to make changes to your movie, and so on.
That's the argument here.
These are proprietary formats, and you can only use (as in read, edit, store) them as long as you keep using Apple's tools.
I just moved from Kubuntu to OSX, not looking back either. Much better.
Yeah, I'm aware of the Mac's ability to migrate your info over from an older Mac to the new one. That's a pretty cool feature, too. Apple didn't always include that with OS X though. I forget exactly when it was rolled in with new systems, but I know I had the very last model of the G4 tower (dual processor 1.42Ghz mirrored drive-door version) and OS X on it had no such feature. I'm almost certain my original G5 dual proc. 2.0Ghz tower didn't include it either.
Actually, there were two revs of G5 iMac the original thicker, more user servicable one and the second rev that was thinner, harder to get into and had a built-in iSight. Core Duo are Rev C because the G5 iSight had 512 MB soldered on, Core Duo went back to 2 DIMM slots and of course, the Intel switch.
"I didn't by universal rights to the music. I bought it for reasonable personal use. I understood that when I bought it."
You've been suckered, hook line and sinker. This is *exactly* the reaction that the RIAA wants.
What has happened, without you understanding, is that you've given up the rights that you *already had* for *less* rights that include you *not owning* the music. That means you didn't "buy it", you only bought access to it, so long as iTunes approves. Go back and read your copy of the 1976 Bern copyright convention as approved by the U.S. Congress. You just sold *all* of those rights for a $5 discount, think it was worth it?
What is perhaps unfortunate is that some folks decided a smear tactic to cut out the message, instead of providing their opinion openly.
Real geeks build their own version of Darwin from source ... at least we did
IIRC, that changed in 10.4; the "BSD Subsystem" isn't an option anymore, it's a mandatory install.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.
You mean like a fuse? The first to die?
BTW, the past tense of "lead" is led. Look it up. Lead (pronounced "led") is a metal.
What about the concerns that Lenovo will not support Linux, and that
/ 04/0415221
4 36250
China may be bugging Lenovo PCs ( although this may be paranoid )
"Lenovo To Shun Linux"
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06
"US Government Fears China Bugs Lenovo PCs"
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/22/0
No 6: "I'm not a number. I'M A FREE MAN!!!" No 2: "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA" -- The Prisoner
So what is this "step beyond" that you are are referring to? You commented in another message that you would like to have been emailed. Well the reality is you posted to a public forum. The most reasonably place to respond to such a message is in that same public forum. I wasn't just responding to you but commenting on your comment to the other readers of the article. If I had sent an email and waited for a reply my comment would no longer have been topical or read. And where's the fun in posting an unread comment (reading and posting is all about the fun remember... no one lives and dies by their karma).
Also I'm not sure how the information presented is selective. He (or I) could have checked the "about us" of the website in question but really that would have just led to more information, not less, linking you with LinuxCertified.
Let's assume for the moment that I am somehow obligated to do the "right thing" when it comes to responding to your message (I'm not after all. I'm just some dude wasting some time by taking part in a conversation on slashdot). What is worse, accidently falsely accusing someone of spamming for their company, or not commenting at all to the first comment moderated at 5 which is more than likely spam (I say more than likely because I sincerely believe that the vast majority of the time that you see a glowing review of a company from someone who can be linked to that company - even if that link is just having their website hosted by tha company - that you are looking at spam).
I'm also not sure what these "smear tactics" you refer to are. Are you referring to all the people who modded your comments down? Isn't this response a little predictable? I'm not saying this response was necessarily right or any of that wisdom of crowds crap. I'm just saying that when a whole bunch of people do something, whether you agree with them or not, it is usually not a surprise that they are doing it. Like how it was never that hard to guess the top answer on the Family Feud. Couldn't you figure out that once it got posted that you had some sort of association with LC that people were going to mod you down. It seems kind of silly to complain about something that you could have predicted was coming and probably could have prevented.
Feel free to respond to me at . It makes more sense to me to post any responses on
ps It still seems likely to me that you work for LC (or at least you are close friends with someone who works for them)
In 15 years I've been playing with quite some operating systems; DOS, OS/2 (active betatester), GEM, Windows 1.0 till xp-hell and definitely a few unices. My main selection 10yrs has always been Slackware. In Europe it was not such an easy way to get a hold on any unix; sure not when being in the age where 2400 baud modems where getting "a hot thing to have". I've been early fidonet and bbs activist and I also remember in the early 90's a lot of things happened, OSF/1 was released which was based on Mach and BSD. I guess it would be one of the pioneering effords around the open-source revolution? .. I've been through a lot of textwork; elvis, pico and nano sessions and every session has been till now a bliss text-based. I've programmed a lot text-based and also for the graphics/sound cards like the (real) Soundblaster, Gravis Ultrasound and other cards.
...
... is nothing compared to the os X or Windows desktop experience. Take any manager and you got to fiddle with configuration files setting your resolution higher than 1024x768. Why? Why is it so easy on os X or Windows to change the screen resolution when you got to edit configuration files to get the same result on a unix? The same for network settings, try setting up your own videoplayer in 1-2-3; which will not happen unless -you got the experience of its underlying system; the unix-
Windows came with its "emulated MacOS"; they both had their own folder and file system, which is still one of the easiest/genuine user interfaces available. You've got your maps and you've got your files; which more is there to tell. The rest is a few menus which will bring you to your result. Although the Windows OS's became more bloated; more options where added; some where good and some where to the demise of a lot of its computer users. I stopped programming Turbo Pascal and Assembler when Windows 3.0 came out.
Everything became very graphically and user intuitive; to my personal believe OS/2 was far ahead with its user interface against its Windows counterparts; if they only continued believing in their own product.. Still, the unices did not follow the graphical market (with exceptions of Silicon Graphics and some others which where really optimized for the use of graphics) and they where happy on the server/telecom market as they where already proven reliable, (fast) and optimisable for their use.
The desktop market was always a battle, a battle which is based on eye candy (and user-lockins). Windows had the most bells and whistles; eye and ear candy, macOS started only at version 10 to be "graphically enhanced"; because; the eye wanted something more than the boring file look. There was of'course development near 1984 for the X11 server-client architecture giving the same as the "desktop experience" but still
everything I had on Unix, X11, Metro/X, Gnome,
My father is a long time computer user, my mother is too the last few years; still; My father will not touch any unix because he failed getting to the result which they desired to have; even with help; the maintenance of the unix, to get a different result can be higher; which is just a point-and-click away in a few other commercial counterparts like Windows and os X.
It's still a far way to go to reach the desktop markt; where the l(azy) user has to plug in the machine, turn on the power button, work, change its settings to a teletubbies colored desktop with bells and whistles coming from the back 2 speakers, with the crunchy fast process of installing and "deinstalling" software (which is in no way without hassle in Windows; which os X has solved quite neatly with its container system). No unix desktop has given me that thrill of easy maintenance. I've tried a lot of desktop (enhancer)s and Ubuntu is sure not a count
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Your comments make me wonder if you've ever used Garageband for more than five minutes. Format conversion is easy!
Not if you want to save non-audio tracks it isn't.
I ended up deciding that the cheapest solution for getting Garageband data out for my daughter was to upgrade her G3 iMac to a Mac mini... and leave it in Garage band. She was due for an upgrade anyway.
Getting away from proprietary formats is the single most important thing in computing! The ability to make movies, DVDs, and sound, is cool. But it's an iAbility. At least with these apps, it's hobby!
For my work, I need email. I need to organize it. I need to archive it. I need to search and read it in a few years. What I DON'T need is bloddy mail.app change the format of my 3000+ email archive without asking me ! ! ! !
When I was younger and stupider, it took me days to convert the first few hundred emails from Pine to Pegasus. Now, a few years ago, it took me even longer to convert the rest of them from Pegasus back to mbox. I'm not that stupid to go back to closed format again, thank you very much! As people are getting older, their data is also getting older. Older and more heterogenous. So getting away from proprietary formats is the only solution.
From a prosumer's point of view, Apple is heading in a dangerously wrong direction here. It's all about iThis and iThat and whow!, but they seem to forget the few people who actually work with these things! Proprietary mailbox format just because they couldn't get spotlight not to puke when searching an mbox directory? Fuck that!