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Ubuntu Linux vs. Mac OS X
An anonymous reader writes "An article on InformationWeek pits an Apple user against an Ubuntu Linux user (although he talks about other distros as well) as to which OS makes a better desktop operating system. As might be expected, the conclusion seems to be "different strokes for different folks," but it's interesting to see Microsoft cut (mostly) out of the equation."
Ubunutu is easy to install on a Mac.
Easier to read print version:t icle.jhtml?articleID=201002048
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableAr
crazy dynamite monkey
MS isn't out of the equation at all. The whole point of TFA is about switching AWAY from Vista.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I don't care what Microsoft's CEO says about them having a gajillion installs by the end of next year, etc. They've brought their own shovel & are digging their own hole as more & more people recognize Vista for the crapware it is. More & more articles like this one are opening up people's eyes to the vast non-Windows world & how grand it truly is. Sure, Microsoft shot themselves in the foot w/Vista but user-friendly alternatives like OS X & Ubuntu (amongst a bevy of Linux distros) will be closing the gap rapidly in the next few years.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -Mahatma Ghandi
Queue the flamewars in 3...2...1...
Seriously, religious wars aside, you pick the tool that will best meet your needs. That's largely going to be based on applications. Increasingly, there are good choices on both platforms here for a wide variety of different things. The one thing I will say -- if you're looking to do video editing, buy a Mac. 'cause the state of video editing on Linux right now still sucks. If you need Microsoft Office, buy a Mac.
For me, I do a lot of software development work and audio production. I could pick either platform, really, but lots of factors make me choose Linux over Mac OS X -- software freedom, hackability, and cost are my 3 biggest reasons. OS X is nice, don't get me wrong, it's just not for me.
My blog
Really, in the end, all the article says is that Mac OSX is great if you want the prepackaged experience, and that Linux (Ubuntu) is great if you like to tinker and completely personalize your machine. So... 10 pages to say what everybody already knew.
the first part of the article states:
"If you're a Vista-wary Windows user who would rather switch than fight, should you move to a Linux distro or Apple's OS X?"
Why would they put MS into the equation?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I have a macbook and dual-boot with OSX and Ubuntu. They both serve different purposes, but together, for me, cover everything I could ever need to do. It's good to see that Ubuntu is bringing Linux to some attention, and exposing a lot more average consumers to the Linux side. Linux is definitely desktop ready, and is advancing at a pace far beyond any of the alternatives, especially as Ubuntu has become the poster boy of Linux, more and more people are becoming involved. Soon, Linux (maybe Ubuntu, maybe some other flavor) will become a dominant force in the personal computer market, which will lead to better support from hardware companies (I'm looking at you, ATI) and better software.
From the description I thought the Ubuntu user and the Mac user were going to fight to the death. Too bad.
What's the point of all of this? It's all about what people prefer. If I like Apple enough to take a second mortgage on my house to get one, you better believe I would learn to like it. And if I just plain hated M$ but didn't have the means to get Unix in Mac form factor, I would install Ubuntu. (Or in my case Fedora) What did this really accomplish?
The game.
Like Ubuntu versus Islam.
technical writing / development
Article bangs on the "mighty mouse" as not really being a 2 button mouse... ...while I am no fan of it, I recently hooked my Mom up with a new IMac and played with the mouse and the button on the side does right click and the knobby deal in the middle acts as a scroll wheel, at least it worked for me... ...and on my MacBookPro two fingers on the pad can accomplish same functions as a 2 button mouse...
AZspot
if you are looking to save money on computer go with Linux = Free (both beer & freedom)...
if you have plenty of cash to spend on a computer go with whatever you want (either Apple's Mac or build a top notch PC and install whatever Linux distro you like best)...
Apple may be a good alternative to MS-Win but it is not free (no free beer & none of the four freedoms as RMS's definition)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Who's more UNIX-user between the two guys ?
I'd bet on the ubuntu one.
Take a look at the success of the iPod. The Slashdot community may not get the "lame iPod", but you can't argue with its success and market penetration. Nearly all my friends have one. I have one and I love it. Now how on earth are we possibly going to consider a switch to Ubuntu without having iTunes available?
To me that seemed like "Genuine, Honest Evaluation of Ubuntu" vs "Mac is Awesome." For one thing, in the 'Installation' section the Mac guy failed to mention the necessary re-install of OS X when you buy the mac. Unless you like 15GB of crap you don't need on your computer (>1GB of printer drivers!!!). The Ubuntu guy focussed on the concerns for a new user, whereas the Mac guy focussed on how much he liked certain things, and all the cool stuff you could buy for it. Not worth reading
as per my earlier comment to another article.
0 58857
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=258135&cid=20
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Hey im new around here so wutzup. How about just have all three OSs?! I multi-boot with OSx86/WinXP Pro/Ubuntu/SUSE OSED, theres gotta be people out there like me that do this right? Why fight over which girl you want when you can just have them on speed dial and switch em when you need to?
some like craftsman chisels and unbranded, cheap hammers, while others go all snap-on.
:P
BTW: no brand lasts much more than 100 years in fact, very few companies do, and those are quite interesting companies.
me, i like my Dutch East India Trading Company Darjeeling Tea.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
So I will keep buying Windows. You get what you pay for in this world, and if I want fun, I expect to pay for it.
Businesses are already rejecting Linux - mine has just insisted that, if any Open Source code is proposed for a project, it must be eyeballed by the security team (who can't code). So that's no Linux here.
If anyone knows a good way to pursuade management to accept Open Source without commercial guarantees, then let me know!
(Of course, Linux took this one step further with an open OS too.)
Of course, you're wrong. But nice try. For you n00bs around here: Open source is not new! Repeat that until you understand it.
IBM was releasing open source OSs when Linus' dad was probably still learning to walk.
Get over your Linux FUD. It's really old at this point.
I'm a skier, been skiing for over 7 years now and (if I dare say it) I'm pretty reasonable. I'm not an expert, but as long as it isn't icy moguls (or moguls for that matter) can handle most of the pistes ... and I enjoy it.
Now snowboarding looks cool. You can do things you can't do with skis, it certainly looks like fun and you can do some great tricks. So I gave it a go, several times. The problem was that here was I, standing at a resort with my snowboard on and looking at what I could do. The black down the mountain? Nope. The long red? Nope. The winding blue through the trees? Nope. The rubbish green which snakes past the lifts. Well, sort of as long as I didn't mind falling over a bit.
So here am I, completely unable to go off and explore the mountain because the tool I was using to do it, I couldn't use properly. I hadn't invested the time and the effort to learn and here was I, unable to get the best out of it.
So what should I do? Spend the next week (and only week of my holiday) falling about on a green run? Or slap back on my ski's and head off and explore the mountain, try all the runs, get to the summit and check out the blacks down the back - plus a little off piste?
I did what, I suspect, a lot of people did. I put my ski's back on. My weeks holiday in the snow is precious. I don't have the time and money to fly abroad to ski again multiple times a year so in the end I wussed out, picked what I knew was comfortable and that I could do and went with that.
I rationalise that my holiday was too short to be sitting face down on a green run when I could be taking full advantage of what the mountain had to offer. I did the training and the falling over 7 years ago when I was learning to ski - it's taken me years (literally) to get where I am now and, in one fell swooop, I don't want to go back again to that.
I think a lot of people consider Windows vs something else in the same way that I consider skiing vs snowboarding.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The problem now is that, because of how widespread Windows is, the "open hardware" is made specifically for Windows. If you want to use much of the hardware for something other than Windows, you are on your own. While it is better than the single vendor system, it currently has some problems.
See, those of us who enjoy using Apple products actually think of steps like that as a great leap BACKWARD. Sure, there are plenty of people who want to run an OS on whatever hardware they buy, from the latest-and-greatest to $150 crap. That's what Windows and Linux are for. Many people LIKE that Apple produces both the hardware and the software because it offers better integration. The more systems you have to support, the more stuff than can go wrong, pure and simple. Linux has come a long way with drivers, but last I heard it wasn't a piece of cake to install a wireless driver on a Linux-based laptop. (I'm sure someone will correct me, but be sure to include your definition of "piece of cake.")
When you do call up Apple support, they can't tell you to hang up and go call the maker of the box or Microsoft.
I realize that having clone-makers wouldn't dilute my choice to buy Apple hardware, but--and this has been said a gazillion times already--it won't happen because Apple values the user experience and subsequently wants to control it from top to bottom.
If what you really want is Apple's OS running on whatever box you want, maybe you're not clear as to the advanges of NOT being able to run it on whatever box you want.
Ubuntu, OS X, Vista, who gives a fuck, use what you want to use, stop wasting everyones time.
...only one leaves.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
"That was the great leap forward with Microsoft's OS. You could run it on open hardware from almost any vendor."
It was a "great leap forward" for Bill Gate's bank balance. It's not clear that it's been an advantage to users: it certainly hasn't produced better products (unless you're naive enough to think Windows is a good product).
And, of course, "people who care about software build their own hardware". Gates not only brings no culture to his products, as he admits himself, he doesn't fundamentally care about any aspect of the quality of the products his company shovels out: he only cares about profits.
Incidentally the Great Leap Forward was one of the most horrific chapters in modern China's history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
You might like to stop using the term for trivial purposes.
Several months ago, I decided to get a Mac, which was a first. I've never been happier. It's easy to use, and it's BSD Unix, with a fully-functional command line. I still run Linux in a virtual machine, using Parallels, along with XP, but there is little point at running a completely separate instance of Linux, unless there is some specific program (or user interface) that one desires to run. It's difficult to deny that OS X is easier to use the any version of Linux in existence. I was sold when I saw that "installing" applications is usually unnecessary, and generally consists of dragging an icon.
The purpose of a user interface is to be functional and efficient, and I am constantly confronted with features that appear to exist simply because someone realized, "It would be easier if it were done this way." There are some annyance, as well: I think that having to press Command-O to open a directory is one keystroke too many, and that the fact that [Enter] renames a folder is backwards. I feel similarly about the fact that the Home and End keys do not function as they do in every other operating system in existence. I also find annoying that, when I select the "get info" option for a directory, I can't copy the full path to the clipboard (and thus to the terminal). This could probably be fixed with a line of code.
ad infinitum.
Linux has come a long way with drivers, but last I heard it wasn't a piece of cake to install a wireless driver on a Linux-based laptop. (I'm sure someone will correct me, but be sure to include your definition of "piece of cake.")
Okay... I'll satisfy your desire to be corrected...
Why would you want to install a wireless driver on a Linux-based laptop? I just installed Ubuntu and the wireless worked fine without having to do the driver installation myself.
How could anyone at slashdot take seriously a reviewer who refers to the computer case as the "CPU" and uses such language as "You just plug the CPU into the wall and away you go"? ...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Screw CP/M - it never had the mindshare or marketshare that Windows, Linux or the Mac OS did.
From the article:
Feature X
Linux: To do X you can use this, or see if that works, or maybe find a solution here.
Mac: Buy Y for $Z.
Contextual menus are (and have been) a core part of Windows for years. I don't need to hunt down a menu item in some far flung location when I manipulate an object in most Windows-based programs. Instead, I can right-click on it and see what functions are appropriate...and available, based on the object type and its state.
;-
Here's the rub - adding that functionality to a program is not free. It takes effort. A bunch of effort...especially if you do it well...and if the program allows you to right-click on a wide range of objects. I know. I have developed applications (professionally) for Windows, (cross-platform) Java Swing, and...yes...for the MacOS. Thing is, most Mac users don't use this functionality since the two-button mouse has not been standard...and because Control click is a pain in the ass. Thus, very few Mac application developers exert the extra effort to do a halfway decent job for contextual menus. The same developers know that they MUST do a decent job on Windows since windows users expect this functionality...and have expected it for a decade. Cross-platform apps are the exception...but they are not the rule.
Feel free to flame away...about how right-clicking is a broken (and ill-advised) UI paradigm...and implies something wrong with the balance of the UI design...but frankly, I disagree...and so do many others.
Yes, you can buy a two button mouse for MacOS...but it would not change the fact that the code just isn't there in most applications to exploit the second button...at least well. BTW, most Windows users now have three button mice (center wheel click).
so uhm. yeah. your post is rather misleading. of course, that didn't stop it from getting a +5.
I use both Linux (Fedora Core: where Men are Men and modules are scared) as well as OSX (10.3.9 - yeah, I'm lazy - on a dual G5).
I originally got a Mac because that's where all the affordable non-Windows 3D/CG compositing software was at that time. POV-Ray I love (on occasion), GIMP I love, Blender, umm, I love in an S&M sort of way (which is why I eventually bought AC3D)... but there was no compositing thingy back then for less than ten zillion bucks, a'la Shake and Maya.
Anyrate - a few years on, and I use both quite happily together. I still use AC3D on Linux to do mesh, DAZ|Studio and Poser on the Mac, and NFS binds the two machines seamlessly.
I love using either one in spite of the diffs. I have a link to Terminal sitting on the OSX Dock, and once I got used to the 'not-quite-but-okay-yeah-it's-BSD' setup, it's been a breeze to script and poke around on with bash.
Truth be told, if I could run DAZ|Studio or Poser natively on Linux, I'd probably slowly but surely let the Mac fade and go full-on Linux (they sort of run under Crossover Office and Cedega, but the render times are murder). The reason why is cost-effectiveness. Yes Macs are actually fairly competitive hardware-wise, but I can more easily build a new box in stages (buy bigger CPU/mobo/RAM combo, then a bigger HDD, and who gives a crap about the case style as long as the P/S works...), instead of plonking down $2500 in one go. (I guess I could buy a Mac Mini and just mod the guts into a bigger case... Hrm. Never thought of that).
Anyway, for the foreseeable future, I'll prolly be using both, and I have no problems with that.
That said, I don't use Windows. I wanted a safer and more flexible OS a long time ago, moved everything to BSD and Linux, and haven't looked back since.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
How can anyone give a fair review of any Linux distro when there are many different ways to do things?
I have both ubuntu and a Mac on my desk at home. I use just one monitor. The are very much alike except for one big thing and that one big thing is huge. I can't run Photoshop or Apple's Final Cut, Aperture or even iTunes on my Linux system. The other thing is that Mac OS X will not run on my non-Apple hardware. So I use both.
At work I'm on Linux almost exclusivly with some things running on Solaris.
i'm on a mac, and not using firefox... not using adblock... nothing.
and by page 2 i was so furious with having to close each fucking float-in ad that i gave up on reading the article...
guess ill just go back to work now... on my g5 desktop, macbook pro laptop runnng vista... firewall server running openbsd and the rest of my computers running gentoo linux...
oh, and fuck zealotry. right tool for the right job. sometimes the right tool costs a bit more money. deal with it.
- We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!
= The Judean People's Front?!
- No, no! The Romans!
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
So how does this article say "different strokes for different folks"? It's clearly states that OSX is the winner for most people looking to switch away from Microsoft.
this goes against all what I said before, either way OS/X is good, I am an ubuntu religious myself but OS/X got its merits, I think the dock is friendlier than a taskbar and apple sets standard on looks and that stuff. But what makes OS/X good is that it is unixish and it uses cups, I just noticed my hp printer works totally out of the box in ubuntu and that was because it was built to be compatible with OS/X and thus it is a cups printer. Without OS/X hp wouldn't care.
What I am trying to say is that the more market share goes to OS/X away from windows, the better, it tells hardware and software developers not to be inept and focus on a single platform.
In a perfect world no OS would own more than 40% of the market, I think that would be perfect for us, the users, a world in which you don't only can choose but you also have to choose . And I am sure windows got a place there, in fact I guess that when this happens MS will be forced to go back and innovate and figure out that making the product better is more effective than of bullying competition.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
The point should be to educate people about the pros and cons of alternatives to Microsoft's OS. Sure everybody here knows what each platform is like but the other 99% of the population who aren't the type to read /. needs a little push in some direction (most likely OS X given that they are the ones who don't know the difference already). They need to know something before it can be "all about what they prefer".
It's a fine subject for an article it's just being preached to the choir.
The whole point of TFA is about switching AWAY from Vista.
Actually, the point of the article is never going to Vista in the first place:
The problem is that M$ has already forced radical change on their users. Had M$ allowed competition or freedom on their platform, there would be a choice of UIs and this would be a non issue. Instead, M$ has kept their old school, forklift upgrade treadmill running. M$ fanboys who don't mind throwing away all of their hardware and software as still faced with the fact that M$ has not provided a stable and modern OS as a reward. Information week seems to have picked up on the fact that less than 12% of home and business users want Vista and Vista is not selling.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
After reading this steaming bag of crap in its entirety, I have decided this has to be one of the most biased, uneducated articles I have ever read. I'll save you the time. Basically it is an non-stop onslaught of ass-hattery such as,
* No gaming on Linux.
* No gaming on Macs, but you can use Garageband, iLife, iMovie, iPhoto, iRectalThermometer...
* It's become something of a truism that Linux is more secure than Windows, but that doesn't say much for how secure it is on its own.
* The Mac operating system itself is extremely secure.
I admit: I may be a Linux zealot, but at least when I write an article, I do some research before and try to portray an accurate and fair comparison. Save yourself some time and don't even bother reading this: it will make you dumber. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
Actually, it's more correct to say:
"Like GNU/Ubuntu versus GNU/Islam."
I switched from using Linux and Windows to OS X when the Intel Macs were released. I gotta say, it has been by far my must enjoyable computing experience.
... only to be different. Not to be better. I do not enjoy doing non-stop defrags, virus scans, etc. I out right refuse to work with Windows servers, no amount of money will change that.
... so, dunno yet) Linux has a lot to catch up on and so does Windows. The question is, who is going to catch up first. Without a doubt, I think Windows is dying and going down hill rapidly. I think OS X has a much stronger shot at being the new king.
I only really used Windows for a few games and certain jobs, I could never really stand using it. Besides all the common problems, it just never felt right to me. I didn't like the filesystem structure, or how MS was trying to be different
Now, on to the Linux world. I have been using Linux for a very long time now. I think its by far the best server platform (for me). However, Linux fails on the desktop part. Lets face it, having access to a billion different desktop managers is nice and all. However, there is gross incompatibilities with config files, for things like bookmarks, menu items, etc. Its hurting Linux more then anything.
Moving on to the day to day installation of applications, upgrades, installing new devices, etc. Linux is by far the worst, even MS is better in this area. I couldn't image someone compiling video drivers for their kids computer. Every single application has its own way of installing, and they all install differently and in different locations. OS X has by far the best method, either drag the icon from the disk image or run the *standard* installation application. Lets also face it, Linux doesn't have the creative applications that were mentioned in this article. Photoshop, Final Cut, iTunes, etc. (and no, Gimp is NOT a replacement for Photoshop) The fact that Linux is also a community effort is going to hinder its success on the desktop.
Now, on to OS X. By far a million times more stable then WIndows. Equally as stable as Linux. Shares some of the same benefits as Linux, such as tighter system security, no defraging, no spyware scans, no viruses scans, etc. Where OS X shines is that the GUI is really nice and simple. OS X does have a slight learning curve if you are coming from another OS. However, my grandmother had no trouble getting "on the internet and surfing" where she had never been able to do that with a Windows machine. People complain about that top menu bar, but over time you learn to love it. The dock is also a great way of having your most used applications with quick and easy access. I don't need a giant applications menu. Lets face it, we all have quite a few applications installed that we use once in a while. No need having it in a giant menu.
Yes, people also complain that OS X only works on Macs. (Sure, some hardware besides Mac works, don't know how well) Guess what, thats a good thing. I think this is the reason why its so stable. Apple knows what hardware it will be used on and how to use it properly.
All in all, OS X works perfect for me for a desktop and Linux for the server. (However, haven't played around with OS X server yet
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Well that's an actual reason, besides "why not install Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, SLED, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and CP/M, so that you can jerk off to the length of your boot menu."
"If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind."
What happens to that MacBook when you put in a wifi card it wasn't expecting to see?
It's easy enough to turn the "Macintosh experience" into the "Linux experience". So given an arbitrary odd sort of hardware configuration MacOS doesn't have clear superiority over Linux. It might be better. It might not. It's not something you can simply take as a given.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The one advantage if you are on a pc switching or trying linux to replace windows is that you don't have to buy anything to try it. If your going to try OS X you have to buy or already own a mac which means that you may automatically become biased (who's going to spend $600 to $2400 on a Mac only to go put linux or windows on it. You would of course try as hard as you could to justify your purchase first). Those who already have OS X but want to try linux should try to work with the UNIX side of OS X first then go on to a full fledged linux distro to really see if it will "do" what you need it to. Those people may find that they already have all the power they really need in a system that is both functional and pretty . And the few people who have no clue as to what they really want or need (assuming you don't have a computer) should get a low end mac and put all three on it and see for themselves. I think the real problem is that the average person who uses OS X and is considering linux may not know how much they can actually do with OS X from a purely CLI standpoint. It seems to me that people really want both a very easy to use visual-cue based OS and a powerful CLI for when you need to do more detailed and complex actions and it already exists in OS X. Now when linux can make similar claims of ease of use on the visual-side then and only then will there be cause for a real OS holy war because the battle will be over cost and "power user" class features.
Ubuntu dropped commercial paid technical support for PowerPC. They are still releasing official PowerPC releases, with updates and everything.
e lease/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/feisty/r
Sleep works out of the box on iBooks/Powerbooks with Ubuntu and has for about 2 years now.
i find it amusing that an article concludes that a product cobbled together by a few geeks for free in there spare time and running on hardware designed for (and with restrictions to make it only usable by) another operating system can compete with the best product of a multi-billion dollar company which has had total control over every stage of hardware and software design and production for nigh-on 30 years.
Cue the Apple ad-writers to create another amusing 'person analogy', this time with Apple represented by a trendy guy in comfortable but well-cut clothing and Ubuntu represented by an acne-ridden teen hacker.
...front wheel drive cars are for housewives and homos. Rear wheel drive and all wheel drive are a man's vehicles. The only front wheel drive cars ever manufactured that could be considered a "real man's" car -- those were the Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado from 1967 thru 1978 with five bazillion cubic inch big-block V-8 engines and 4-barrel carburetors under the hoods. Uh-huh, that's right.
And I have to say that Ubuntu is pretty disappointing, even compared to other Linux distros.
File/print sharing is impossible to setup through the GUI (even though the GUI will let you tinker and give you the impression that samba is supposed to work). You have to edit smb.conf radically to get anywhere. Luckily I have a running Xandros Linux system that produces working samba configurations that I can copy to Ubuntu.
Once you basically get sharing working, the GUI still provides no convenient way to actually mount shares.
OS X has all this covered in the GUI, and quite elegantly too.
Security: Ubuntu is very poor in this area and I do not recommend it for any laptop user who is not an IT expert. They only recently got WPA working, and the rest of the OS lacks standard firewall, VPN and disk encryption configurations. In OS X, these capabilities are built-in controlled with the click of a few checkboxes.
As for other Linuxes, SuSE also covers the above essential features although samba is rather awkward (at least it is workable). Xandros covers these features in spades (especially samba). Unfortunately both distros are now in bed with Microsoft and I am helping a friend switch to Ubuntu as a result.
I'll only touch on the mishandling of widescreen monitors and getting different sound apps to coexist-- these are typical Linux maladies. The rotten sound architecture alone (where access implies an exclusive lock on the sound card unless special precautions are taken by the app programmers, the exact opposite of how audio should be handled on personal computers) pretty much makes Linux ultimately unsuitable for 70% of the desktop users out there.
The Ubuntu "just works" philosophy seems to operate on the assumption that ease of use is achieved by avoiding any features that might possibly cause problems or confusion. IMO the clean interface lulls people into a reverie that raises their tolerance for all of the frustration and CLI work they'll be lured into. Granted, a GUI ought to be clean, but also must be capable, and Ubuntu's does not achieve the latter.
Apparently only idiots appreciate a car that handles well.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/
Works for me.
What's so interesting about that? FOSSies and Slazhealots post the exact same delusions and propaganda every day.
Personally, I've never understood why Lunix FOSSies and Mac people seen to get along. It's probably because they have the exact same "vendor lock-in", "software monoculture" agenda, and both view their their blind, bitter hatred of all things Microsoft as their only reason to exist.
It's just amazing to me how FOSSies claim to be all about freedom, but are working to both remove any kind of freedom of choice (companies and consumers are not allowed to choose Microsoft), as well as propping up the supposedly "benign" brutal monopoly of Apple. But nobody ever accused a FOSSie of not being a living hypocracy.
The Apple side is completely understandable: they never claimed to be anything but a brutal monoply seeking to force all computer hardware in the world to bear an Apple logo, as well as to be sold directly from (and ONLY from) Apple. So if the FOSSies want to help them out, what does Apple care? If the FOSSies can help Apple destroy Microsoft, then Apple will just turn on the FOSSies (after thanking them, of course).
But FOSS has the exact same monopolistic attitude... but strangely it's not about the money (at least, not for the rank and file who are giving their work away for nothing: it's an extremely top-heavy structure and nothing will ever trickle down from the high paid corporations and consultants reaping the real rewards). The GPL essentially bans commercial apps for Lunix (especially GPLv3), so the ONLY option users of teh Lunix will ever have is FOSS (and mostly poorly supported knockoffs of commerical software at that). Yep... that sounds ALL about choice... not.
FOSSie choice is just like the choice Henry Ford gave everyone with the colors of the Model T: they could order any color, as long as it was black! So FOSSies using teh Lunix can choose any software... as long as it's FOSS. Unfortunately, they hare trying to force Windows users to accept the same rules. But thankfully people are starting to push back... but primarily FOSSies lose because the mainstream simply ignores anything FOSSies have to say.
Apple sleep functionality is not the problem, its Ubuntu's.
Apple's don't ship with Ubuntu so how could it possibly be Apple's fault?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Are there any other reasons, besides that the software is free, to use Ubuntu over Mac OS X??
If so, please explain.
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
Circumcision is child abuse.
Mac OSX only runs on Macs, Ubuntu runs on almost every X86 PC out there. I even think there is a PPC port of Ubuntu to run on the old PowerMacs. They are both written for two different markets.
This is sort of like those old Mac OS verses BeOS arguments from the 1990's, when PowerMacs could still run BeOS. Then Apple refused to release info about new Mac hardware to Be Inc. and they couldn't port BeOS to newer Macs and ended up porting it to Intel based PCs instead. Apple could do the same to Ubuntu and Linux, refuse to release the hardware specs to Linux distros and shut out Linux ports to newer Macs. I doubt they would do it, because the Linux crowd would boycott Apple if they did.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Vista is selling via pre-loads and it'll keep selling this way until the public+dog are beat into submission and accept it.
You can't beat people down with something they don't have. It's not really selling and that's really hurting PC sales because people already own a system that runs XP. Vista has not been a big enough improvement, and many are calling it a downgrade due to bugs, outrageous hardware requirements and digital restrictions. Even M$'s bottom line is unchanged, despite Vista and Office releases. At this point, only gnu/linux and OSX have real improvements and they are both selling at an increasing rate. Vista is a long way from breaking even, say nothing of market dominance.
If you think that's bad for the Soft, just wait until the market is flooded with $200 gnu/linux laptops. Big changes that have been a long time coming are finally here.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You can't put any power behind a front wheel drive car and still expect it to handle. I'm sorry but if you care about engineering then it goes, in order:
1. Mid-engined
2. Rear-engined
3. Front-engined
and
1. 4WD
2. Rear Drive
3. Front Drive
Now for convenience most cars are front engined but rear drive is certainly better than front drive.
I'm afraid you all have it completely wrong...
Windows is like a mid-size luxury SUV. Apple is like a Fox Terrier. And Ubuntu is like a Pomegranate. Except, not in the *same* analogy, of course.
Don't you get it now?
My bicyles
So far I've seen Windows compared to everything from a Pinto to a hulking SUV, and everything from fuel economy to FWD/RWD used to rationalize the analogy. Wheee, what fun!
My bicyles
I'm a developer who works with a team of around 50, I've noticed a growing trend within the group that more and more of us are switching to Mac's for our personal computers . I made the switch about two years ago and the only thing that I have missed is the PC gaming (though I assume with the new Intel's that issue could be resolved). OS X has allowed me to customize my system to the extent that I choose and having the UNIX backbone allows me to continue to check out OS projects out there, I usually go through http://www.macports.org/ I still continue to have a separate box for Ubuntu, though I am planning on buying a new Mac Pro desktop in October with the release of Leopard at that point the Ubuntu box will go to the Wife so I can trash her P.O.S (HP Box, she bought it before we were married 'Because it had a pretty blue light'...which I hate). As far as those who "hate" Macs, I just think they haven't given it its fair shot because they might become Mac fans and then have to fork out the $2500...I know its expensive but its worth every penny.
This subject is true. About a year ago the CIO-DD [AKA: DareDevil wannabe] says confidently to me that on 20070801 M$-Vista would be pushed out to all Intel/AMD user computers in the biz. My reply was quick and assuring back at him: "M$-Vista would not be on any computers prior to 20080801," no I am not the CIO. So, this leads me to the following ... stuff.
... US and EU. We are in defensive protection-economics and avoiding offensive open-economics. We are presently our greatest enemy in the world of economics.
... all USA-Biz need to modernize their business models, limit exposure to Ludite-legacy industrial intellectual property rights, change-manage technology and resource volatility far better, and move away from government sponsorship of corporatist-welfare AFAP. Old Suppley & Demand (S&D) economics and trickle-down accounting/taxes has become much like S&M sex. IOW: You can enjoy it till the day you die, but it dang sure ain't the smartest way to produce the next generation for US. Yep, I am saying present corporatist-welfare economics based on customer-hostages/lock-in has become an old perverted economics architecture. Telcos-Vs-Goggle, NetNepotism-Vs-NetNutrality, DMCA+RIAA-Vs-OpenIPR ... are just a few of many comparable examples in US and EU economics. We need to think, BizS&M=BizSterility, and Open=Virility is not just a BizBuzToken for US and EU [I hope some man speak help folks look past the dogma-hogs].
"Microsoft cut (mostly) out of the equation" as are Ford, GM, Dell, RIAA, MPAA
M$-Gates
We have lost our Cervantes, Goya, Descartes, and Kierkegaard formed belief in self for the protection of the State/Religion.
It amazes me that Sun-Tzu wrote the strategy for defeating the very opponent we have become today. Look out for China folks, because it ain't a democracy any more than we have been for 30 years now. We are a sitting duck about to be fycked and plucked (over the remainder of this century) if we remain as non-moving and stagnate as any other couch-potato spectator watching the world fly by US.
!HAVEFUN!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
My girlfriend just switched from MacOSX to Mandriva. She became so exited at how easy everything was...she actually told me that, after using OSX for so long, she had learned to block out all the things she couldn't do with it. Only problem is all her music is still locked up in iTunes, but we're working on that. It's amazing that, after 4 years, she still couldn't manage to upload things to FTP or figure out her local IP address (and I couldn't help her either since OSX, while trying to be Unix, lacks most of the key parts)...both of which I taught her to do on her new box in about 5 minutes.
I use the Qemu port to Mac called Q. Works perfectly with Ubuntu and Gentoo for me, also work OK with different versions of Windows.
/dev/disk1"
I prefer Qemu to Parallels with Linux simply because I can dedicate a full USB/Firewire external disk for Linux that way by simply editing the configuration.plist file usually within Documents/QEMU//configuration.plist modifying string to "-hda
and updating the dictionary in the same file to value "/dev/disk1" for key -hda.
To Vista from Unbuntu, I could not be happier.
Insert Signature here, or not.
I am blown away by the fact that the Mac OS X reviewer failed to mention SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner on the page about backups. They linked to a page that mentions it, but it should have been at the forefront in big, bold letters. This IMHO is one of the best features of Macs and Mac OS X, that any idiot can make a clone of their entire system onto any internal or external media. If that media is a FireWire hard drive, the clone will be bootable on any Mac with a FireWire port (and the same processor type, PowerPC and Intel can't boot from each other's drives without some hacks). This means that for any PowerPC Mac going back about 8 years to the first iMac with a FireWire port, you will be able to clone the system drive of any other PowerPC Mac onto a FireWire hard drive and boot from that drive on any other PowerPC Mac in that range. The same goes for Intel machines, although they can also boot from USB devices. (There are reports that some PowerPC models can also boot from USB drives since about Mac OS X 10.4.5 came out, but FireWire is a much better choice speedwise anyway.)
So if your hard drive dies, you have a bootable backup that works just as well as the internal drive (if you're using FireWire, USB is a little slow). If the computer dies and you have access to another Mac, you can boot from your backup drive and it will be just as if you were still using your own computer, barring any extreme differences in memory and processor speeds. With enough RAM available the processor speed makes very little difference under general usage like web browsing, email and office applications. When you get your computer fixed (or replace a failed hard drive) you can then clone your backup drive back onto the drive in the computer, reboot, and it's like nothing ever happened. Click a button, walk away for about an hour, and get back to work.
With a properly implemented cloning schedule you can recover any system, including a Mac OS X server, in about 5 minutes (as long as it takes to restart the computer, hold down the Option key, and choose to boot from the latest backup drive). I could teach a monkey to do it.
No resetting hidden magic identifiers.
No reinstalling a hundred different drivers for different motherboards, video cards, network cards, etc.
No, "I'm going to refuse to work at all because there is too much different hardware." (I tried to Ghost a Win2K system from one laptop to a virtually identical laptop once. The clone failed to function, ended up having to reset the registry and reinstall most of the pre-installed software.)
No, "This copy of your operating system needs to be reactivated because the hardware changed, you dirty pirate." The non-server version of Mac OS X doesn't even require a serial number, so of course there is no product activation crap to make your life more difficult. Even the server version can be freely cloned and moved to a different system. It requires a serial, but there is no product activation.
No shutting down the system and booting from some special magic CD just to do a clone. That's right, Mac OS X can be easily cloned LIVE, while it's running. It can be cloned automatically on a schedule, so the user doesn't have to even have to think about it.
The target media can be smaller than the source media, as long as there is enough room for the data. It's a smart clone, only the relevant data gets copied. That's all automatic too, the user never needs to go through any complicated preferences or command-line arguments. No need for defragmenting the drive or anything like that either.
In short, Mac OS X is the first operating system I have ever encountered where it is incredibly easy to make a complete USABLE system backup that doesn't require jumping through hoops for hours to restore the system. Any non-technical user can be told in one short paragraph how to keep their system backed up and how to recover from a typical hardware disaster in a matter of minutes. Observe:
"Here is your external backup drive. Her
I got exactly one result for this search: the parent comment.
In a few days I'll be ordering a Macbook Pro and I'll been wondering about setting it up to dualboot Ubuntu. At first I was set to just that but now I'm wondering if doing so will mean I can do more with it. I've also got a PC with Linspire Linux preinstalled and want to dualboot Ubuntu on it as well. However I've been looking for a dl dvd drive to install. The Linspire website didn't list any dl dvd drives when I checked a week or so ago and Ubuntu's hardware compatibility page didn't list any. So I used the search box on the page and still didn't get any. Of course I can Google or use Alta Vista, which I'll do later. The problem I'll have though is actually installing one and getting it to work with both Linspire and Ubuntu. While many /.ers may not have a problem doing it, basically I'm a Linux newby.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Thing is, most Mac users don't use this functionality since the two-button mouse has not been standard...and because Control click is a pain in the ass. Thus, very few Mac application developers exert the extra effort to do a halfway decent job for contextual menus.
;-Whoop de friggin' do. Center (scroll) clicking is also supported by default under OS X. Can you also squeeze the mouse to activate the task switcher, as you can with the standard Apple mouse? No? Oh, look, the standard Mac mouse has four distinct click modes, plus two scroll axes! My mouse-penis is larger!
Yes, there are some Mac apps where commands exist only in the menu bar.
On the other hand, there are dozens of applications where commands exist only in right-click menus. This is a much, much worse state of affairs, because the only way to find these commands is to right click on every single object on the screen.. At least with a menu bar, you can see the full list of commands for the application just by swiping your mouse across the screen once.
It is for exactly this reason that the Apple HCI guidelines state that the menu bar should get first priority, and contextual menus second.
BTW, most Windows users now have three button mice (center wheel click).
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
The reason I have a hard time dealing with Mac zealots (and yes, I do use Macs...) is that they tend to have the exact opposite view. People tend to take it personally when they're looked down on and considered idiots for using anything but Macs.
That describes zealots of all stripes whether Mac, Windows, or al Quada zealots. All computer and the OSes that run on them are tools and I believe in using the best tool for a given job.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The difference in price between identical hardware at Dell goes to pay for OS X. So when I configure a Dell system that's $500 less than an equivalent Mac
The last tyme I went to both Apple's and Dell's, and HP's, websites to price comparable systems Apple was lower than Dell. However even if it was more I'd happily pay a couple of hundred dollars more for a system that didn't crash on me and would last for years.
FalconShould there be a Law?
When looking for a very nice 17' laptop, I went to Apple and Dell for a Mac book Pro and 17'inch Inspiron. After building a 17'inch laptop on each (with specs as close as I could get them and usually favoring Dell when no direct match was available), the Mac book Pro was roughly $1000 more then the Dell.
A few months ago I did the same, though I added HP. Going to their websites I selected a base system then configured systems as close as I could get on Apple's Dell's and HP's websites. The lowest price was Apple's. Admittedly I used the standard amount of RAM on the Macbook Pro and used it for the others, Apple charges an arm and a leg for more RAM. Why yesterday I configured a MBP and saw the difference in the price between 2GM and 4GB was $600. I just checked Crucial and they have 4GB, not 2GB upgrade, for the MBP for less than $300. But leaving the stock amount of RAM on Macs, they generally have comparable prices.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You unpack the Mac; plug the CPU into the wall socket;
Ok, unpacked ok. Got the CPU right here. Wall socket - doesn't look like it fits much, must be some weird adapter. I'll try anyway.
ARGH!!! It Burns!!!!!!
Damn Apple, I thought this was a real breakthrough - I'm going back to Windows 3.1.
... its quality.
There's nothing stopping anyone from installing and switching to Linux; the process couldn't possibly be cheaper or more simple. Yet few people try it out, and far fewer people (outside of first-year Comp Sci students) stick with it as their primary desktop. Why? Isn't it time to stop with the excuses and start looking at the software?
In the mid-to-late 90s, Linux desktop development could have started on one of two paths:
Of course, they (Gnome and KDE) went with the latter, the rationalization being that it would be easier for Windows users to switch to a familiar Windows-like desktop. (That it's much, much easier for developers to copy Win95 instead of designing something original is just a bonus, I guess.)
The downside to this approach is that the Linux Desktop, as a Windows clone, offers few compelling reasons for Windows users to switch. The best the Linux Desktop can achieve is "almost as good as Windows" which isn't much of a selling point for people looking to get away from Windows.
The bottom line is that the Linux Desktop has not been, and continues not to be a compelling alternative for Windows users, even for those who appreciate having a good bash shell close at hand.
And it's a shame. Most of the features that compelled me to try out OS X were right there in NEXTSTEP as far back as 1993. Yet both Gnome and KDE decided to model their GUIs off of Windows 95 instead. Because of that, the Linux Desktop is as disappointing to me now as it was in 1998.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
To use Apple means to trust Jobs, and everyone else at Apple, on faith. I can't see the source code. I don't know what's in there. I mean, Jobs does have a nice sense of minimalism in presentation, I'll give him that. But trust him, or everyone at Apple? Why?
And that's before you even get to issues of price. Ubuntu = free.
I am using ubuntu now. And after a week of nailing every little quirk that an install has, migrating applications, etc, it's working perfectly. Sure, it might be a lot of effort to go to. Or I could have just ordered one from Dell and got everything set up out of the box. But I'm cheap.
Either way, it's worth it to be finally using free (all senses of the word) stuff. And honestly, the top flight distros are miles ahead of what was available ten and even five years ago. Printer drivers just work. No worrying about configuring fstab, network, syntax coloring, etc. No worrying about mounting USB drives etc.
Synaptic rules. Search. Install. Done.
Linux is certainly ready for MY desktop. No Vista for me, or OSX either. And I've tried linux and given up in frustration something like 4 or 5 times before in a 10 year period.
This will continue. I will be burning liveCDs for my friends and family. After all, they are free. And I won't be changing back. If anything, I will move to OpenBSD and figure out how to make that ready for my desktop.
Every person who switches is another person who can hack some more functionality, who can write a howto to smooth the process, to generate a bug report, to advocate or spread to friends. It's a virtuous cycle.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Well, the article *is* entitled: "Linux Vs. Mac: Which Is The Better Alternative To Microsoft Windows?"
So, of course it's going to cut MS out of the comparison.
I modified the graphics card, HD, and possibly a few other features to make my customized system. Does anybody know if it's Apples customized upgrades that push the cost of their systems way up,
If there's a way to change the graphics subsysten on the MBP I don't know how. All I'll seen it allows is either an antiglare or a glossy screen. You're allowed to change the RAM and the hdd but that's it for custom hardware configurations on the MBP. The Mabbook may offer more possibilities though I haven't looked. Though I like Macs I think Apple needs to boost it's product lines and customization options.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's really that simple, folks. I defy anyone to show me a way to do any of this so easily with Windows or Linux.
Carbon Copy Cloner is a wrapper around a command to make a disk bootable, plus a recursive copy.
That's all cloning *any* single-partition UNIX system takes. Linux is a bit more complex because they don't support single-stage booting so you need to run *two* commands to make a disk bootable, not just one.
The only reason you need a GUI program on OSX is because getting that "recursive copy" bit right is way too complex and tricky compared with the same operation on any other UNIX.
And it's a MAJOR step back from doing the same thing on classic Mac OS... *that* was a matter of a single drag in Finder, because they built that "make the disk bootable" operation into Finder. And they *still* haven't been able to make Finder copy all the fiddly metadata they keep whacking onto the side of HFS like a tumor.
Having worked with the entire line of Dell laptops and MacBook/MacBook Pro, I would say they best comparison to a current 17" MBP in the Dell world would be an M90 or XPS. The Inspiron may have the same specs, but the build and screen quality just isn't there. There is a reason these Latitudes are so much cheaper and you get what you pay for!
If you go for 15", a Latitude D820 built to the same specs as an entry level MBP 15" comes to within single digit percentages of costing the same. (If you include Apple Care, which you should as Dell warranty as standard on these things is superior to Apple's, otherwise the Apple is cheaper.) Again, anything less than a Latitude does not compare to the MacBook Pro on anything other than specs on paper.
Search for a torrent of the hacked OS.
For many, it all comes down to cost. Ubuntu can be installed on almost any hardware you can throw at it, from a $200 low end pentium machine to a quad xeon server or a sparc.
I recently did a comparison between windows XP and MacOS on equivalent mid-high end hardware. Apple's 3-yr warranty service fee itself is ridiculously high, and the overall cost for the apple system came to 30% more than the Dell.
What a waste of money. Let them bring down the cost, let them get MacOS on generic x86/AMD hardware and then we'll see a whole new dimension to Apple's industry dominance.
A long tyme ago... The hardware for PCs I liked were SGIs. However my fav computer/OS was the Amiga. The hardware, specially graphics, was real good. With added boards an Amiga could run both DOS/Windows and MacOS. The Amiga even ran MacOS faster than the Mac did, I once saw them running side by side and was blown away because the Amiga running MacOS was faster.
FalconShould there be a Law?
can someone just clone that "magical" mac interface on a linux distro?
For me, I do a lot of software development work and audio production. I could pick either platform, really, but lots of factors make me choose Linux over Mac OS X -- software freedom, hackability, and cost are my 3 biggest reasons. OS X is nice, don't get me wrong, it's just not for me.
Unless you're thinking of cost, why not run both OSX and Linux? A Linux PC let's you run Linux, and Windows if you're brave. A Mac will let you run these as well as OSX. Not quite a year ago I got a tower PC with Linux preinstalled, and next week I'll be ordering a Macbook Pro. When I do, I'll setup the Linux PC as a server. I'm also thinking of dual booting the MBP with Ubuntu, I'll need to do some research and let it marinate for awhile before I decide. What I want to do, is like you development, software and web. I'll also be doing photography. My idea is to combine the two. I want to setup my own photography website as well as setup other photographers' websites. There's a pretty good demand from photographers to have a website, it's a way to be able to show a lot of people thier portfolios thus possibly get offers for assignments. A website can also allow them to sale photos online.
FalconShould there be a Law?
no brand lasts much more than 100 years in fact, very few companies do, and those are quite interesting companies.
I find it ironic you say this yet in your tagline you use one of the first companies to be incorporated. The Dutch East India Company was the first mulitnational and first to issue stock. Started in 1602 it was finally desolved in 1800, it lasted almost 200 years.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Irrelevant. The MacBook already has WiFi, and no PCMCIA slot.
It's easy enough to turn the "Macintosh experience" into the "Linux experience". So given an arbitrary odd sort of hardware configuration MacOS doesn't have clear superiority over Linux. It might be better. It might not. It's not something you can simply take as a given.We're talking about the configurations an actual user is likely to see, not the total set of configurations a Linux enthusiast with a point to prove could come up with in an afternoon.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
iTunes was a BIG part of why I bought a Mac... My wife (not at the time) got an iBook for her senior year of school. She was taking mostly music classes, and previously was spending hours in the music library listening to the CDs there for class. She got an iBook, and the wireless worked flawless, and she could go into the library, grab the CDs, pop them in the computer, and auto-magically they were on her laptop in a few minutes. I got her one of the first iPods (when the wheel spun) as a gift, and she loved it. During the commute to class on the subway, she did her listening. It made her a HUGE Mac fan.
At the time, my work involved SSH'ing into Linux servers and editing in emacs. When it was time to replace my dying Compaq Laptop, I bought a Powerbook, in large part because of iTunes. I listened to music all day, and I had always used WinAMP and directories to manage my music. EVERY jukebox program that I had used sucked donkey balls, and hated them. I LIKED iTunes, it was simple, it was clean, it was elegant. Since my work computer needed to be a laptop for remote access, needed to run an SSH program (at the time, SecureCRT), and play music, the Powerbook was a reasonable option.
I since then have slowly fell in love with all the neat things that I can do so easily on the Mac.
Sure, I could do them all on a PC, but managing my digital media is so simple, I actually do it. We take pictures of the kid, plug the camera in, and iPhoto loads up and imports the pictures. Pick the ones I like, make an Album, and hit Export, and the pictures upload to Shutterfly and Facebook (people made free plug-ins for iPhoto). Wanted to send my grandmother a book of her first visit with her first great grandchild? Dragged some pictures in, hit "buy book" and it showed up at her house a week or so later.
All these things are COMPLETELY doable on the PC. But on the Mac, it's so painless, it's fun.
So much free or inexpensive amazing software. OmniGraffle is NOT NEARLY as powerful as Visio, but it's SO MUCH FASTER to use, it's really pleasant. I downloaded a few stencils for things that I diagram constantly, and away we go. BBEdit is an awesome text editor, and the built-in SCP/SFTP access is much smoother than anything I used on Windows.
Don't get me wrong, the Linux desktops offer some amazing power user features... but the Mac's aren't bad either. Tiger added a lot of polish and cleaned up some things that were missing (WebDAV not supporting SSL or Kerberos, etc.), and each release gets better and better.
Do I pay a price premium? Absolutely, because when I buy my Mac I buy a more functional machine than I would on the Windows side... but guess what, all those Firewire ports that I wouldn't have on a Windows machine... plus the camcorder in and suck out the videos PAINLESSLY. iLike is just plain fun. I've done a LOT of things on my Mac that I wouldn't have thought possible. Recorded someone's voice with a pitch, and we decided to put a slideshow in front of them. Built the slides, timed the transitions to match, exported to Quicktime, copied over the audio, and re-exported... no muss or fuss... didn't need to outsource it to a video guy, just got it up and running. Decided that we didn't want it in Quicktime, wanted it in Flash, bought a quick Quicktime -> Flash Exporter, quickly re-exported the files and uploaded them to the server.
None of these tasks would be impossible to accomplish on Windows or Linux with the right software, but on the Mac, it was all really easy, and the computer never got in my way. I plug a USB device in, and it works almost instantaneously. My Windows machines seem to want to pop up bubbles to chat with me about how they found a USB device and are figuring it out. I don't really care, do you know what it is or not? I ignore my Mac, it's in the background, and I focus on the application/task. The Windows machine always wan
Good point, I missed that as I read the article.
But still, what's really the point of a comparison where two people who already like their system of choice talk about the OS's separately? I know they used the same general categories, but they each talked about them very differently. Their differing attitudes towards security alone is a pretty good indication that it won't be possible to get a fair look at the two OS's in an article like this. The Linux guy understands that security isn't an open and shut deal, that it's all relative. The Mac guy thinks that just because there's no real-world viruses and worms for Macs, the Mac OS is rock solid. Who is a casual reader going to listen to?
They should have responded to each other's points in their own writing... things like VNC and Synergy (which is less complete and functional on Mac OS than it is in Linux and Windows) being mentioned as why the Mac is so great, with no counterpoint about how those same things work in Ubuntu Linux is just lame.
All I know is that I am now sitting 50' or so away from my wired LAN.
I'm out in the open-air porch, sippin on a mint julep, and with my Toshiba laptop running.. uhhh, VISTA.
I'd really LOVE to use the Feisty Fox that I installed 'flawlessly' on the laptop, but alas it will NOT run the wireless Atheros included in the laptop.
When I peruse the internet to find out how to fix this, I just get a lot of shit about MADWifi, NDIS wrappers and all manner of obscure command-lvl linux.
"YA DON'T KNOW UNIX COMMAND-LEVEL? TOO BAD, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!"
That's the kind of "help" I generally get on some of the help forums...
Well, yes I have occasionally used the Chmod, grep, etc years ago.. but I'm not prepared to memorize 50 new commands for my terminal session.
I'd love to convert some of my friends (who all have wireless) to Ubuntu, but... They seem quite happy with their Vista or XP, that like mine, connected flawlessly the first time.
Why should they trust Linux?
.
- aqk
F U
I am seeing Linux community and developers as the changing force in the world.
Freedom is not just a word, especially in a digital world where we living.
I can use Mac, ok, even Windows without problems with how to set the things up.
But Linux cannot be what it is without some sort of hacking drivers and others stuff.
'Wasting' time, learning on Linux already created a great OS and also a great movement.
You can watch or you can participate.
The world is changing all the time by the people who are daring and think on their free way.
What will be with Linux tomorrow! Have you a little imagination?
So I choose Linux for tomorrow
Maybe I'll by Mac for my teenage kids.
Yes, Mac OS X is more complex than the Classic Mac OS. Thank the Lord
I disagree. Classic Mac OS was built around an unnecessarily complex file system. NeXT came up with a superior solution to the problem that Mac OS file system was attempting to solve, a solution that worked on any OS, on even the most basic hierarchical file system... even FAT32. And if Apple had stuck with that solution and mapped the Classic dual-fork files into bundles then we wouldn't be faced with the current situation.
Other than complaining about some very well hidden filesystem bugs in HFS+ it doesn't seem like you've added anything to the conversation.
They're not "bugs in HFS+", they're design flaws in classic Mac OS that have been copied unnecessarily to OSX, and well, the bottom line is they really do cause problems:
I'm sure that making a bootable disk from a single-partition Linux system is technically just as easy as it is in Mac OS X. It's just that nobody ever took the time to make a tool that made it easy for normal people to actually do it, from beginning to end, with one click.
I've used CarbonCopyCloner, and that is not the tool you think it is. It can be rocket science to recover from a CCC image... I had to do it on my Macbook and it took a couple of software updates before Finder was behaving properly again. I never found exactly WHAT CCC had left undone, and in this situation I *do* qualify as a "rocket scientist".
Using some of the other recommended tools for cloning OSX produced even worse results. I didn't find out about SuperDuper until after it was too late, so I don't know if that would have done a better job or not... but given that there's several dozen tools available for OSX that claim they'll do this thing for you and all but *possibly* one of them don't get it right, I think you're giving it way too much credit. On FreeBSD I could have done "disklabel -B" and "cp -pR" and been guaranteed that the resulting system would boot and work, no ifs, ands, or buts. On OSX, Carbon Copy Cloner has to run a dozen separate "ditto" or (on Tiger or later) "cp -pR" commands... followed by "bless"... and you're still not guaranteed you'll be able to boot and use the resulting system.
So in actuality, it's close to impossible to accomplish this task with Linux without being a command-line guru.
And on OSX it's not certain that you'll accomplish it even if you ARE a command line guru, unless you're lucky enough to pick the *one* tool that is alleged to work reliably, *or* you're willing to try it half a dozen times.
It's the end result that counts.
Yep. It's the end result that counts.
Not how many clicks it takes.
Dual layer DVD drives? they should all work...
Well now I'm also thinking trying a Blue-Ray or HD DVD. The main reason I want one is for backups. I have a 750GB hdd in my Linux PC and I've used about 200GB. RSN I'll be working more in photography, so for backups I want something with high capacity. I'm starting to think the only thing that will handily work are external hdds.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why does the default email client, Evolution, intentionally make it impossible to save files with international (Japanese) filenames?
Why do USB headsets not work behind a USB 2.0 hub?
How come unmounting a USB hard drive from the GUI reports an error, but then maybe works?
Why is audio device configuration so difficult? How do you choose your default audio output device with ESD? Compare that to Mac OS X...
Why is monitor re-configuration not immediately obvious or just automatic?
Laptop sleep mode does not "just work."
It looks flashy at first, and it seems about 95% "ready," but it is not as seamless an experience as OS X.
But... but............ j..... just..... JUST WORKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSRRRRRRRRAUUUUUUURRRRRGGGGGH
Aren't you the same people muttering about war being peace, slavery being freedom, and us always being at war with... somebody or other?