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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."
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
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...
From the description I thought the Ubuntu user and the Mac user were going to fight to the death. Too bad.
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
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?
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.
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Ubuntu, OS X, Vista, who gives a fuck, use what you want to use, stop wasting everyones time.
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
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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
Your post is pretty uninformed.
/etc/fstab at the same time I added nfs shares to my system. Perhaps you'd care to share how you mount SMB shares at boot on an apple? Do you know how to do it in the GUI? Or how you find the shares when they don't turn up magically in the 'Network' tab - command-K followed by the IP address isn't it?
/Applications/Keychain.app. If your VPN just has a password rather than keys then it hardly counts as private. If your vpn is based on openvpn rather than pptp then OSX is out of date (2.0 rather than 2.1) so you can't get the full performance (2.1 adds better DNS support).
I have ubuntu at work and printing to samba printing was as simple as adding a printer. I haven't looked at smb.conf on the machine.
As for mounting shares, I don't really know. I mounted them by editing
Firewall is installed on ubuntu, and enabled by default. The lack of open ports on a default install makes this less of an issue too.
VPN is just as easy to set up on ubuntu as OSX. Actually, I'd say easier. On OSX to add keys for VPN use you have to go into the keychain as root which requires you to go to the terminal and sudo open
disk encryption. If I have a zip file with a password then I can click on it, enter the password and browse/edit files on it using a finder-like interface. That seems very like disk encryption to me. I suppose there is no flashing neon-light saying 'disk encryption' though... maybe the next version will highlight it more.
Sound is largely a fixed problem now, your desktop environment provides a sound server and everything connects to it. Not perfect, but not a problem for normal users. I remember when I used to switch user in OSX and be unable to play sound because another user was using the sound device too...
Every widescreen monitor I've used with ubuntu has just been plug'n'play, same as OSX.
I'm not claiming ubuntu is perfect (and I have two macs at home), but it works pretty damn well out of the box. Having all your OS updates in one place rather than just Apple updates available via software update is a huge benefit too. And the same program which does updating lets you add and remove programs. That's how it SHOULD be. Apple's drag to the Applications folder is kinda cute, but now and again it screws up with trying to drag an application out announcing 'permission denied' - WTF, why didn't it prompt me for my password if I don't have permission? Maybe 10.5 will fix that.
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
That's simply not true - I use the right mouse button in all applications I use, and I notice almost no differences between my OSX, Ubuntu and Windows boxes.
Maybe you care to name a handful of applications which fall under your above mentioned category? Maybe I'm just getting you wrong or you haven't even used a Mac much.
(And about that middle mouse button - I have set it up with Exposé's "show all windows" feature, and that boosts my productivity with a lot of open windows *greatly*. Just middle-click to see all windows and left-click on the one you want to switch. I'm eagerly awaiting an Exposé clone for X11, it just ain't coming...)
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
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.