Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon vs. Mac OS X Leopard
walterbyrd writes "Linux magazine has up a decent article comparing Gutsy Gibbon to Leopard. 'The stereotype for each OS is well known: Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time. Both have come a long way in a short time, and both make excellent desktops. So we have two great desktop operating systems out at roughly the same time. Let's see how they stack up against each other.'"
I think I just had a geekgasm from just reading the title.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
I dual boot Mac OS and Ubuntu now and I have to say I found it far easier to install than previous linux distributions I've tried. That being said, it took me hours of work just getting it up to what I would consider basic functionality.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
both UNIX- based
OS X Leopard *is* certified Unix (r). Ubuntu (and Linux) is not based on original AT&T Unix code nor is it certified Unix. It is a unix-like kernel.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sshbHTDSwCk
;)
Gutsy indeed!
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Well, that's one way of putting it. Then again, perhaps "One is UNIX, the other is like UNIX" would have been more accurate.....
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
The stereotype for each OS is well known: Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time.
Well, I'd say that Ubuntu is elegant, easy-to-use and intuitve, while Mac OS X is stable, secure and getting better all the time.
I don't want to troll... But both visions are true....
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
This is getting a bit weird. I'm all for Linux, but c'mon.... What in Linux "just works" like the Unified Mac Experience?
I'd rather see all-out WINE/Cedega funding to take *doze binaries and make them run better in Linux so I don't have to buy a version of XP or 2K to run CAD apps I want to buy in the next 3 months. (yep, I'll buy a 2nd hard disk and keep the main for any necessary warranty problems, but I'll clone it, suck it into Virtual Box or Win4Lin, and corral the bitch and never let it run native on MY hardware... I've had 8 computers at once back around 2001, and only ONE had windows 98 running natively for SOF/CS/HL/Apache Longbow, and after those got the boot, no more *doze booting)
Macs are HELLA nice, but short of winning one, I won't be paying for one.
Yeh, I know I could buy a Mac and use parallels, but I prefer hardware I can interchange or mess with inside, and even if a laptop, I can only afford maybe a $499 laptop or a bit more to get a CAD-friendly graphics card.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Er... it comes from NeXTSTEP. NeXTSTEP is the Mach microkernel overlain onto BSD. Surely you realise that BSD constitutes UNIX? You may want to do some more research on that particular topic.
Admittedly, though, no, Linux is a clone of a clone of UNIX, and shame on them for it.
I can't connect to the site.
The Ubuntu OS exceeds the Mac OS in Gibboniness, whereas Apple seems to have cornered the market on Leopardiness. The overall Toucaniness and Salamanderiness of the offerings is about the same.
I don't think they would ever do it, but I'd like to see the same article in a Mac mag. I have a feeling they wouldn't be reviewed as equals, personal opinions aside.
"Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance -- complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software."
... Leopard wins!
Recursion (n): See recursion
You're partly right ... linux is "UNIX-like", OS X is UNIX certified.
Wow, how many times does this need to be said before people stop claiming OS X isn't UNIX or UNIX-based? Leopard is a certified UNIX 03 product.
A Linux magazine comparing Linux to the Mac. Gee, I wonder what they're going to conclude....
- Old Man of the Mountain ---- "I want to disturb my neighbor"
Moreover, not only is Mac OS X Leopard UNIX based, it IS UNIX. Its got the certification and everything.
Isn't this like comparing apples to apes? :P No, seriously, the blurb was too stupid for me to bother reading anything more. Someone was really just digging for three-part stereotypes for the two OSes.
damn. we done did it now. it's /.'d !!
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
For linux, technically speaking, you are right, it isn't derived from any code that can be called 'Unix' and carries none of the certifications, and probably wouldn't pass the certifications as is. Pratically speaking, the linux kernel+GNU userspace is clearly Unix inspired and architected such that a Unix user is certainly familiar with the situation. GNU particularly makes clear the distinction (GNU's not Unix after all). Unix-inspired may be a more precise term.
OSX is to an extent the exact opposite. Technically speaking, it derives from BSD code (actual Unix code). Technically speaking, it implements the appropriate APIs and can run a program that runs on Unix. I want to say even before X11, Apple legitimately got the Unix moniker to describe their platform, but I recall there being confusing around this point. The addition of X11 out of the box makes it more complete, and less of a technicality. However, the fact of the matter is the extensive use of a non-X based graphical architecture and the almost universal situation is that NeXT derived APIs are used and required, and the underlying pieces that are true to a Unix heritage are nearly moot. A user accustomed to Unix will find OSX fundamentally different.
Technically speaking, OSX has a valid claim to being Unix, but could be accused of not necessarily being true to the 'spirit' of Unix. Linux is absolutely not a Unix, but on the other hand, people can certainly fairly claim Linux to being true to the spirit of Unix.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There you have it: validated, quantitative and qualitative proof that OSX does not work.
*** Don't be dull.***
Interesting take on things. When someone says "UNIX" to me that means one of two things: most likely, the old original AT&T UNIX, and its progeny; if not, then BSD, which is so old, old school, and original gangsta that it counts as UNIX proper.
Linux is not UNIX. Linux is UNIX-like. Linux is modeled after UNIX, and could be said to be "based on UNIX" if by "based on" you mean "intended to function similarly", but not, of course, "based on" the code from either AT&T UNIX or from BSD.
Mac, however, *is* UNIX, seeing as how BSD counts as UNIX (to me). I'm not clear on how you deny that. You can boot straight into a standard BSD command line, or access one any time. Most importantly, it meets both definitions of "based on UNIX": it works like UNIX and was also developed from the same code.
Windows meets neither of the definitions for based on. It's not UNIX.
The site was written in Linux, thats why it doesn't work! if they'd had have made it with Apache on OS X Leoperd then it would work flawlessly.
The article is slashdotted, so I cannot comment with knowledge here. That said, I do hope the fact that OS\X is artificially tied to a particular hardware platform is considered when comparing. This artificial anchor makes OS\X a particularly risky OS to become dependent upon, married to the economic ambitions of a hardware business now dependent on near identical components as so-called 'PC's' (Asustek, Quanta make around 70% of the worlds portables, including Apple's). Similarly the need to go to websites to find, install and upgrade software is also a great disadvantage for Apple's platform: Fink/Macports have fairly measley offerings compared to most desktop Linux distributions and both still suffer from the kinds of dependency problems plaguing Linux users 10 years ago (at least that is my experience on Tiger). It's 2007: where's my one-click-system upgrade?
While I use OS\X fairly often, these two factors - along with the inflexible bolt-on windowing environment - rule out OS\X as a good general purpose operating system. OS\X is super if you believe you're dependent on proprietary software, but for those that no longer are it offers very little over a modern Linux OS these days.
Though I think being 'UNIX-based' literally is overrated, you can't claim to be based on something that you didn't actually build upon. Just because a window manager theme looks like Windows XP, doesn't mean it's 'Windows-based'. You can say UNIX-like, or Unix-inspired, but Unix-based is totally inaccurate.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Is there any real need for Leopard vs Ubuntu debating unless it includes a Vista comparison too? Untimately what matters is what this means for breaking the Windows Monopoly in the long term.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I got the first page before it went down. Unfortunately Firefox wouldn't save the page as a complete webpage, so I had to use Word. http://micronetsoftware.com/uploads_tmp/mirror/Review.htm
How about we compare a ford pickup truck to a chevy van too?
Both similar, but different enough in intent to not be a truly useful comparison either.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm so sick and tired of these comparisons. I really don't care anymore, whether it's Linux vs OS X, Windows, Solaris, or whatever. It's so annoying and I won't even read TFA.
Once again, we come to the conclusion, that different operating systems do the same things differently! Wow! Yet another person wasted another few days trying out two OS's rather than getting any real work done. So cool!
...the slashdot effect brought it to it's knees.
Yep, counting on apple is pretty risky, you never know how long those startup tech companies might last.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have to agree with Linus on this one.
Just because it's further down the page dosn't make it redundant - this post was here before some of the +5 insightful posts above that say the same thing. They're the ones that are redundant!
About 20-25 years ago, there were massive debates about what was and was not "Unix". The means chosen to settle this (since it wasn't quite clear who to invite to the duel :-) was to develop a set of standards that would capture 'Unix' -to ensure application portability-. To avoid the trademark wars of that generation, the name chosen was POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface based on uniX) After much work, a bunch of standards were produced, including one covering the API, another covering common shell and utilities, RT unix, PThreads, etc, etc. (In this era of success for the Open Source movement, it's worth nothing that the concentration back then was on source code portability. It's hard for me to imagine the growth of the OSS movement without having this standard source code API to build much of that work on...)
The other thing that came out of this effort is a means to verify conformance. Note that word, "conformance". This is the term used in the standard, and if you want to talk about whether some operating system meets the standard, it's the word you should use, too. When you hear someone say 'compliant', you should ask them if they mean "conformance, as defined in the standard, or just some term made up by the marketing staff to confuse the buyer/user." An informed technical person will know the difference.
Conformance is rigorously defined in the standards, but I can informally summarize it this way:
-- Conforming Application uses only facilities within the standard.
-- A Conforming Implementation implements the whole standard (no subsets, unless allowed by the standard!).
From the POSIX effort and X/Open merged activities, there's a "Single Unix Specification", which is a proper superset of the POSIX standards and includes facilities not formally standardized by ISO. The Open Group (http://www.opengroup.org) both maintains the SUS and conducts a certification program against the specification.
It is good to see Apple go through this and pass (apparently Apple tried earlier and hit a roadblock/inconsistency.)
So when someone -now- says "Unix" they should mean a conforming implementation of the Open Group's Single Unix Standard. That includes POSIX conformance. And it should mean that the vendor has the certificate to prove it.
Now what about Linux? Last I heard, there were still inconsistencies between Linux and the SUS, so LINUX won't pass the POSIX part of SUS, and therefore isn't legally "Unix", nor is it a POSIX Conforming Implementation. My understanding these differences aren't trivial, but are in corners that the average user won't bump into. But the differences in the API specifications does have a significant impact on the implementation (kernel), and that's why the Linux community has stuck to its incompatibility with the POSIX standard.
dave (worked on POSIX standards from 88-94, primarily the Ada binding...)
Ackermann(10^100, 10^100) times is how many. BTW, isn't OS X based not on Unix but on the NeXT operating system ?
X11 does not make Unix. In fact, X11 apps can run on a machine that DOES NOT have an X-server installed. Shit, my Windows machine could happily run X11 apps and the X server on my Amiga could display them for all I care.
X11 support is an add-on. There is no technicality or incompleteness in getting a proper Unix certification without X11. Saying it's not Unix without X11 is like saying it's not IP without TCP.
I drink to make other people interesting!
No. Only the Intel version is certified. The PowerPC version is not certified. But then, UNIX certification doesn't really mean much anymore (if it ever did). It just means you've been able to pass a series of test suites and paid some money.
Where possible, I use Ubuntu. I haven't had experience with Apple products since I was forced to in highschool. Yeah, LOGO experience sure has been a big help....
Anyway, Ubuntu. I like it. Quite a bit. There are issues, to be sure, but I've mostly not had them.
I run 7.10 on my desktop(Windows won't even install, anymore) and things have been pretty problem free. The exception(s) are when I'd get cocky and tinker with something I really shouldn't have.
My laptop(well, my fiancees laptop. She gives it to me except when she's on business trips.) dual boots Windows XP Pro, strictly for playing City of Heroes, and Ubuntu 7.04. I tried 7.10 on it, but due to some kernel(?) issues it was ridiculously slow to boot(I also couldn't get Compiz working on it, though it works just fine under 7.04).Even then, if the laptop had a better video card(It has an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M), I could probably do without Windows and run it under WINE. The card's just barely enough to run it under Windows.
If people complain about linux its normaly because "it doesnt work on my ****"
So apple has an unfair advantage as it doesnt work on anything
also:
If the Ununtu interface isnt to your liking you have the choise to install kubuntu (more gui configurable) or xfce + mac style stuff
If the apple interface isn't to your liking your screwed
If you buy a linux certified pc/laptop it will outperform a mac in the same price range
If you want to spend you could pay for a years support on a good linux distro, or pay a linux friend to tweak your system acording to your spec
If you dont want to spend anything, you could get your linux friend to tweak your system for free
Linux supported hardware is growing, mac supported hardware is growing more expensive!
i should also ad that apparently gutsy was quite a buggy release so you should try feisty or another distro before giving up
It still isn't Unix and not even "Unix based". It has a Unix bolted on under a corner, but most of the OS doesn't use it at all. You can even opt to *not* install the BSD subsystem and the average OS X user wouldn't even notice there's something missing. There's hardly any line of code in usual OS X software that uses the Unix underpinnings and there's *lots* of essential stuff which is totally alien to the Unix parts. It has a Unix bolted on, that's all.
All this "OS X is Unix with a nice GUI" is just misleading. A few percent of OS X is Unix and it is nice to have it, but if you try to work with OS X as if it were Unix you'll see it just isn't. OS X has a shitload of APIs, some new, some old and some even older and the Unix in OS X is just a single one of these. "Unix based" would mean that Unix is the base of the OS and this is not the case with OS X. As I said, hit the "Customize" button when installing OS X and you can uncheck the BSD-subsystem. See, no Unix there, OK? The OS and apps will still run fine.
seems like comparing apples and oranges ;)
It's comparing Apples to Orangutans.
Except that Apple users are not so humor impaired as to feel compelled to point out that gibbons aren't orangutans.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Wow. Just wow.
You really don't know what you're talking about do you?
The BSD Subsystem isn't all the UNIX by itself. Deselecting it does not make your system not have UNIX. Leopard on Intel is UNIX Certified. As in, it just IS UNIX.
You are not paying attention to very basic facts about a very mainstream, well-known operating system.
If you actually knew anything about UNIX operating systems, you could have figured all that out in about 5 minutes in front of Mac OS X.
Technically speaking, X is not Unix. Practically speaking, outside of the Mac/NeXT world, *no* Unix platform has a GUI that *isn't* an implementation of X11. With the exception of GNUstep, those APIs simply do not exist in modern *nix systems outside of OSX, and GNUstep is a rarity application developers simply do not risk requiring (with exceptions that specifically want to recreate NeXT intrinsically, and not use it as a means to an end). When targetting NeXT, Cocoa, Carbon, or *even* GNUstep APIs, the 'Unix' aspect of it is not the primary concern. They consider themselves to be OSX/NeXT/GNUstep applications, without caring what lies beneath. A good many of them remain Motif based, ugly as that is, because even GTK/QT they don't consider ubiquitous enough (and it's cheaper not to bother for old codebases).
Yes, an X application can run on a remote X server, but the platform executing the binary still *must* have the X libraries, so the distinction is moot to this discussion. Before bundling/having X11, Apple had no X server nor libraries in terms of first-party support. Considering the overwhelming majority of Unix applications that people specifically care about require X11 *and* are not Step derived, the lack of X11 server/libraries was a very practical obstacle to being usefully Unix, as opposed to being technically a Unix.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
(I can't comment on TFA, it seems slashdotted but here's my opinion.)
I can say that they are both impressive, and both have their share of problems. Both could learn from each other (OS X probably more so from Linux)
OS X.. it's polished, integrated, (UNIX) powerful, and easy to use (stays out of my way).
But if you have a problem... start hunting for preference files and deleting them.
Why an addressbook would completely crash mail and iChat, in this day and age is beyond me. Restarts due to updates are entirely too frequent.
Ubuntu... it's good, again (UNIX) powerful, extremely easy to keep updated. Editing config files is a blessing and a curse. With one edit of a file, I've configured a Microsoft mouse (they make good mice) in under 30 secs. On OS X I had to download a file, install, restart and configure.. yawn.
I needed to connect to the Mac for file sharing and Ubuntu presented me with a GUI scp! I hadn't been that excited about an os, since working on UNIX for the first time. I was very impressed.
But on the other side, my screen resolution is different each time I restart...
Considering that I only use Ubuntu for one thing and one thing only (ET:QW) it doesn't bother me too much, since the game sets its own resolution.
All that being said, they are both light years ahead of at least XP. Not sure about Vista, since I've never used it.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
the article seems to have been slashdotted.
There's something reassuring about this:
The original site is slashdotted, so none of us relative latecomers can read and(&/or) comment on the substance of the article. Are we dismayed?
No! Helpfully, there's an extended discussion of the way the OSs are characterized in the article (presumably by people who've RTFA) and speculations about thew article based on the publisher.
So when someone -now- says "Unix" they should mean a conforming implementation of the Open Group's Single Unix Standard. That includes POSIX conformance. And it should mean that the vendor has the certificate to prove it.
I think that's fair. I won't object, though, when people say Linux "is" UNIX. But I also won't object when you do.
Oh, and the "if they'd had" was precious too.
Property is theft.
I'm not positive about this, but I don't think not installing the BSD subsystem is tantamount to completely eliminating BSD from OS X. I could be wrong.
How in the hell is this a troll? Moderators are cracked out these days.
Well, NeXTStep, the operating system that actually ran on the NeXT cubes, was a UNIX-like OS (I can't remember if someone had paid for the UNIX branding or not). It was a BSD-based system that used a mach microkernel, had proprietary dev tools (objective-C), and Display PostScript. Insomuch as there isn't a UNIX operating system so much as a UNIX certification, one could make the claim it was UNIX (having derived a large portion of the source code for the OS from BSD). If it wasn't branded, technically it's only UNIX-like, so whether it's UNIX or UNIX-like would be your call on branding vs. functionality. OS X is, for all intents and purposes, a modern version of NeXT since it uses the same architecture - BSD/mach hybrid, proprietary dev tools, and the successor to DPS. I dunno. It's as much UNIX as Linux is, I'd say, which means when I'm having to argue with an original UNIX nerd (beard to his belt, balding with a ponytail, looking somewhat like the Comic Store Guy from the Simpsons) I make sure to use UNIX-like in reference to non-branded OSes. Everyone else gets the 'UNIX' label. YMMV.
Which OS was running their Web server?
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
Not only has Gutsy (Ubuntu Studio style) been my first installation of Linux that I've actually been able to do music production work with, but this Tuesday I finished my first musical cut that was completely performed, recorded, produced and rendered in Linux. I'm still not ready to ditch my main production system, but I'm doing a lot of production work and rendering on the Linux box, which frees up the other system for what it does best. I've got the two system connected via TOSLINK cables, so I don't have to do any AD/DA conversion at all. The Linux drivers I found for the Mark of the Unicorn audio hardware are slick as hell, stable and sound great. I even use the Linux system as my clock master, and the systems sync up nicely.
Now if I could get Gigasampler or any of the Native Instruments synths or samplers to work in Linux...
I don't really care for the whole "Jack" audio engine thingie, which seems pretty kludgy, and it took a good while for me to figure out what it wanted from me, but some of the open source music apps that came with Ubuntu Studio are definitely for real, once you get past the fact that they didn't have some big corporation pouring money into making them look slick. After Christmas, when I've got some disposable cash on hand, I'm going to check out some of the professional, non-free (as in "expensive") music applications that are starting to become available.
No, it's not as smooth as Leopard, but it's getting there. And now that Eve-Online has a Linux client, I don't care if Microsoft ever fixes Vista. I just don't need it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The article presents Ubuntu and MacOS as equals, if even only recently.
The author, as such, appears to have slept through the last 30 years, in which the original Macintosh established the desktop metaphors Microsoft poorly reimplemented and Linux re-re-implemented many many times over.
Many commenters are also operating under this illusion; the statement that 'While the Mac may present a more unified visual appearance, that's the only benefit it has over Ubuntu' is unbalanced for quite a number of reasons - the design and construction of MacOS and Macintosh human interface guidelines shape aspects of the use of a Mac from the subtle to the impressive. By comparison, there are few if any human interface guidelines or cohesive metaphors between multiple pieces of free software that are not driven by the egotism of their authors. I won't even touch on the pandemic of duplicated effort caused by the free software community's inability to collaborate, and the fractured, partly functional selection of software that has emerged as a result.
When speaking of user interface quality it's important to be objective. Try not to state subjective experiences like snap-to-screen-edge or focus-follows-mouse being far more efficient when this clearly can only be true for you. While Linux software attempts to satisfy the whim of every computer geek who ever used it, Apple spends an incredible amount of time and energy making a single, unified interface that will work as best as possible for the entire range of users.
Ubuntu just as good? No. Free software just isn't there yet. If it were, Dell, HP and Acer would have dumped Microsoft quite some time ago in the home market. People want cheap and easy. Not necessarily good, just cheap and easy. Linux doesn't even qualify as that yet - the market has spoken as always.
The Mac is capable of empowering users (even seasoned Linux users) to do far more with much more efficiency, but one must accept the application of its metaphors rather than demanding that it work the way they want and complaining bitterly when it won't.
Troubling that slashdot always posts articles like this. Slashdotters are by far the worst enemies of good user interface design. :P
// -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ --
When comparing OS X and Ubuntu, it's really a tie. Both OSs are relatively stable, secure, and have a great set of applications available for them.
If you like getting your hands dirty, they both have a good shell and can be scripted with little difficulty. They both have a nice set of apps in the default installation.
Ubuntu is somewhat ahead with application installation, with synaptic, while OS X is somewhat ahead with commercial application support.
It's hard to compare the default installation on each of them, because it's really a matter of taste.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_v._BSDi#Terms_of_the_settlement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.4BSD#4.4BSD_and_descendants
I agree that he knows not what he says when referring to the technical details of the aspects of OSX that make it Unix (the core c library, various APIs, the startup process behind the scenes, all the underpinnings that the Quartz system really needs to get going, and more).
However, I would say I wouldn't expect anyone to figure out OSX is a Unix without being explicitly being told so from a few minutes of using the platform. You have to observe how the startup process works underneath the pretty graphics (which is non-obvious by Apple design), you have to see the header files documenting the library calls. You must observe details of the filesystem hierarchy that are obscured/altered to Apple's best efforts as they perceive more mainstream Unix structure as confusing. Even if you start developing, the documentation is pretty Cocoa-layer specific, rather than discussing at length the more core Unix apis. The fact that by default you can start a *nix looking shell is a good hint, but without further detail, that could either accurately reflect it being a Unix or Unix-like system, or it could reflect bringing a Unix style interface to a non-Unix (i.e. Cygwin would not make Windows Unix or even Unix-like, and in fact cygwin sees the filesystem in a way that does not map well to the 'real' filesystem layout, so no matter how Unixy it looks from the shell, you can't easily be sure it's not just a trick).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
True, but when someone brings up a technicality, a technical answer is what matters, even if it doesn't in general. Interesting about the PowerPC certification. I looked it up just to verify. I guess since Apple doesn't sell PowerPCs anymore, it wasn't worth paying for. Or something.
Maybe Windows isn't UNIX, but it was created by a bunch of UNIX. Wait, did I spell that right?
But between OS X being official UNIX and GNU/Linux being UNIX-like, which one is easier to actually compile the kind of written-for-unix(ish) code that desktop users have access to?
/etc so hard to find in finder? Maybe I'm just giving up to easy, but I have a hard time getting over the single mouse button.
The other day my friend asked me to install some free software game on his MacBook... I think it was called Bos Wars. The webpage for the game claimed that it supports OS X but I couldn't find a binary, just the source. Downloaded that, read the INSTALL.txt and discovered that I'd need to install SDL and about 5 other libraries. And I'd have to get scons. I stopped manually fetching dependencies in the 90s (ok... it was 2001), and just told my friend he should install the game in his Ubuntu installation under Parallels. (We ended up playing Nexuiz I think).
Even if I'd had to compile the game from source code in Ubuntu, it would have been a lot easier. Most of the source code that us regular folks have access to is free software, and most of it is developed on GNU/Linux first, and ported to other platforms later. If you ask me, at least as far as consumers are concerned (not talking about big iron) GNU/Linux is the new UNIX. In that sense, it's more UNIX than some expensive certification.
Every time I sit down at a Mac I inevitably end up swearing at the lack of a util I'm used to having (why no wget?). And why are folders like
I've been a Linux user/fan from the very start, having used many distros (Slackware, Redhat, Debian, Ubuntu, several others), including in very large production sites. I've also used Solaris in a large deployment. In the past year, I've become a Mac user, and done all my development on it.
:P), and with a bit of hacking, it works great. I will keep the distro up, using it to manage my home's central storage array, and as a sunray server, general purpose testing and such.
.kext approach better than linux's modules; just seems to work better and more consistently.)
This past week, my Macbook was off for service (battery issue, power cord, and cracked edges), and I installed Gusty for the heck of it, to see how the distros were coming along these days.
It's definitely the nicest Linux distro that I've tried. But I still find myself popping to the command line, editing GNU configuration files, compiling modules, editing sources.list with additional repos, fighting isues with Flash not working on the latest Opera (still unresolved), and so forth.
I do like it. I even managed to get up SunRay server up with it to play with a few of the dozens of surplus SunRays I have (takers anyone?
But when my Mac is back tomorrow, it will become my primary desktop, hands down, once again. The user interface, the clean design, and so forth, make for a better daily experience. (I've done some hacking with drivers for a test hackintosh, and I do like the
So as impresed as I was by Gutsy, I will stick to my "develop on OS X, deploy on Linux" approach. (And for deployment on a server, the distro is less important; I generally prefer Debian as first choice; often I have to use CentOS for virtual dedicated hosting, which works, too; for a server, Ubuntu is probably third choice. As a Linux desktop, it's first choice, but as discussed, I just keep falling back to using OS X as the desktop, and Linux as the server.)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
As I said, hit the "Customize" button when installing OS X and you can uncheck the BSD-subsystem. See, no Unix there, OK? The OS and apps will still run fine.
You are partly right. In the early builds, OS X had an optional BSD subsystem which you could pick to install or not. (Which was the BSD userland goo, and a legacy of NeXTStep having BSD bolted on at the corner.) Choosing not to install the BSD subsystem would not break the world, though bits and pieces of BSD were still in 'Essential system software.' (Various libraries and suchnot.)
Since Tiger, however, the BSD subsystem is no longer able to be separated from the system; there's no longer a 'BSD Subsystem' package, and trying to remove the BSD stuff would break, well, everything; the Custom Installs in Mac OS X 10.4 knowledge base article at Apple sums this up with the simple 'BSD subsystem is always installed' note. This is true of Leopard as well; there's no longer separation between subsystem and OS.
In addition, as was mentioned by other posters, Leopard actually fully conforms to the Single Unix Specification and the POSIX standards right out of box, so quite legitimately can call itself a UNIX system. But you are absolutely right that previous versions of Mac OS X were not eligible, and could at best have been called 'UNIX-like' (and with the earliest versions, even that much only if you were feeling very generous).
--Rachel
I don't deny the fact that OS X (at least the Intel version of 10.5) is a certified UNIX. I just meant to make clear that this is only a small part of what OS X is and that OS X is *not* "just a Unix" with a GUI. It is *also* UNIX (and certified as such), but "Unix based" is just wrong in more than one context. In many parts of OS X the UNIX/POSIX stuff is just *one* way to do things and more often than not the rather unusual one. And many essential OS X APIs don't care at all.
Well... I believe that the BSD subsystem provides shell, utilities and library calls that are not part of the basic Darwin kernel.
:-) Now I'm sure 99% of the people out there would add (f) a solid C compiler, but I've done most of my Unix system programming in Ada (occasionally with some C to glue the Ada to the kernel or libraries.)
The default mode (the one that Open Group tested) in Leopard is to install the BSD subsystem -and- to install the Developer tools (which provides some utilities like make that aren't present by default but that are required by the POSIX Shell & Utilities standard.)
But underneath the covers, there's a BSD interface to the Mach kernel, and I don't think there's much debate that a Mach kernel is a legitimate Unix kernel. All this is explained in Singh's "Mac OS X Kernel", which sits on my bookshelf next to the Daemon book ("Design of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System" by Leffler et. al) and Bach's "Design of the Unix Operating System" (focuses on ATT/Sys V). (Singh's book is thicker than those other two books put together... About the only book on Unix/Linux I've seen that is thicker is the annotated Linux kernel that was published some years ago, a very cool idea IMHO.)
Earlier I discussed the formal standard and certification program. It's possible to get a POSIX cert for a system that is not 'really Unix under the covers', it's been done for VAX/VMS, MVS and WinNT...
To my mind, what makes up a 'real Unix' system is (a) native support for fork() as distinct from exec(); (b) a truly hierarchal file system where the entries '.' and '..' are actually entries in the directory structure, and not afterthoughts; (c) efficient implementation of pipes for interprocess communication; (d) support for user/group/world read/write/execute permissions in the file space (e) support for sh, one of csh or bash, and EMACS (well, OK, EMACS isn't part of the POSIX/Single Unix Spec, but it's essential to my mind for doing real programming, YEMV Your Editor May Vary
dave
p.s. I don't mind informally calling Linux 'Unix" or even 'Unix' Linux, but it might be a bit of a stretch to call 'Mac OS X ' 'Linux'. Just as long as underneath we understand what the formal definition is, for most people the distinctions aren't very important. It's a blast to take source from Linux and bring it up on Mac OS X.
p.p.s. My favorite 'Unix' was SunOS 4.0.3. I think Solaris was a step backwards when it moved to System V features over BSD features.
No text.
I run Gutsy on my desktop and Leopard on my PowerBook G4. I like both of them for different reasons. Both of them look good, function properly and "just work". I like using some windows only software under wine in Gutsy. I've got a PPC so i can't use windows software easily on my mac. OpenOffice.org is nice on either system, although I have to do some professional work that doesn't work correctly with OpenOffice.org and I have to use MS office on the mac with some extra plugins. I like having both around, I basically have the option to run most any software I want without having to run windows. The bottom line is I would not recommend Ubuntu to people who don't know how to use computers well, or to people who have fear of the Terminal. If you can run every piece of software you want on Ubuntu and never use the terminal I commend you. You just have to use it (or at least I do). I would, on the other hand, recommend Mac to people who suck at computers. First off I can trouble shoot them easily (call 1-800-APLCARE). Secondly they are stupid easy to use and work with just about anything.
I use both OSX and Ubuntu on my home computers. They both are excellent OS's. I use OSX more then Ubuntu though. Mainly this is because I use my MacBook Pro more then I use my desktop PC. I love the MacBook Pro so much so its hard to think outside the box.
haha PUN INTENDED!
Anyways I give both two thumbs up. OSX for Apple Hardware and Ubuntu for PC Hardware.
You are a winner either way!
Ah, thanks. I haven't looked at that for quite a time...
It's absolutely clear that previous versions where somewhat UNIX-like and the certified versions now are, well, certified UNIX. But that was not what I meant: I meant to say that OS X is not just a UNIX with a GUI and as such is not "Unix based". Many of the most essential OS X APIs don't care at all for POSIX or any unixy stuff. It's probably a matter of what you mean with "based upon something".
So OS X is UNIX (among other things), but it is not "based on UNIX". Actually I just tried to warn people to think that OS X is just another UNIX with a nice GUI. Any Unix knowledge will help you only with the Unix aspects of OS X, but these are often quite irrelevant when it comes to admin tasks or software development there. Yeah, you can use symlinks, but the Finder creates Aliases instead (which POSIX says nothing about), for example. An OS that is "Unix based" wouldn't do that, it would use symbolic links in the file manager. And OS X is *full* of such things.
OS X is UNIX, but it is also 95% other stuff totally different from UNIX.
I had a Powerbook with Tiger.
It sucked. Linux was difficult to make work, it wasn't a very powerful machine, and it was a PowerPC, which means I can't play Windows games reasonably on it. Nor would win32codecs work, or, of course, anything x86. Then the monitor died, and Apple decided it had died because of physical damage, and thus wasn't covered by the warranty.
And the OS wasn't that great. Zoom is not the same thing as Maximize. I had to tack on virtual desktop support, and it didn't work that well. No package manager meant I had to update everything separately, except for the things which auto-updated, and they'd do that on their own time. There was one particular keybinding which the OS would forget about on every reboot -- I reported this bug to Apple, under terms which basically said that I couldn't tell anyone about that bug.
There were a few things about it, though, that were beautiful.
First, the UI was pretty slick. So of course, I immediately put Beryl on my Linux desktop to laugh at that.
Second, and more troubling: Terminal is actually a better experience for the way I work than any terminal app I've used since. I now use KDE and Konsole, but I've also used aterm, eterm, gnome-terminal, xterm, etc.
Here's what I miss: On OS X, while windows can be managed individually, everything is grouped by application, not window.
I like to have as many terminals open as I reasonably can, all at 80x24 -- on my Powerbook, this turned out to be four, and still have room for Adium and, occasionally, other things, and I'd put my browser, email, etc on other desktops. But the point is for them all to be visible, not to be modal tabs of a window.
On Linux, this means multiple instances of aterm (not a problem, since I could probably run several thousand instances comfortably on my desktop) or Konsole. On OS X, there's only one instance of Terminal. Which makes absolutely no difference until you realize that on OS X, this means there's one Terminal icon on the dock (clicking it raises all Terminal windows and takes you to a workspace with one on it), one menu bar at the top of the screen common to all Terminals...
There's exactly one thing this allowed that I really miss, that I have not been able to duplicate on Linux short of writing it myself -- and haven't had the time to even figure out where to begin on writing it myself. And that is the ability to cycle through all terminals with keystrokes.
I had command+left as "previous terminal window", and command+right as "next terminal window". This is not based on order of use, but order of opening -- so by "cycle through", I mean if I was in the upper-left terminal and I wanted to be in the lower-left one, I would press command+right twice.
I mean, I was SSH'd in to Linux machines 99% of the time, with my only other UI a browser window. There was absolutely nothing tying me to OS X, or even to proprietary software. And yet, the single most efficient way to work was with OS X. Hands down, that workflow beats my current habit of using sloppy focus.
I agree with your essential point that Linux is at least as good, just pointing out that there are a few things remaining, even in Terminal, which are better on OS X than on Linux. Which makes me sad, because how they treated my warranty means I'm not likely to buy an Apple again, if I can help it.
Oh, by the way, why the fuck are you using Win98 as a webserver? Especially when you know Linux?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
With one edit of a file, I've configured a Microsoft mouse (they make good mice) in under 30 secs. On OS X I had to download a file, install, restart and configure.. yawn.
Try connecting a 10-button mouse, configuring each button to do something different (and useful), and tell me how long it takes you in OS X vs. Ubuntu. (hint: the answers will be measured in minutes and days, respectively)
After you've got that done, try it again with a Bluetooth mouse.
I'm pretty sure both NeXTstep and Mac OS X use GCC, so definitely not proprietary dev tools. Both of them are patched though, Objective-C has been in mainline gcc for a long time, but they had patches to support Objective-C++ (C++ & Objective-C in same file) which weren't merged until quite recently.
And Objective-C can't be called a "proprietary" language, it wasn't invented by either NeXT or Apple.
Erik Dalén
Isn't an executable stack needed for Wine?
More importantly, what is your job? And what happens when you find those exploits?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
That's nothing. On Kubuntu, KDE supports the "fish" kio-slave. Short of some FUSE hackery, you're not going to get anything like this anywhere else -- type a fish uri into Konqueror (or Dolphin) and I have the equivalent of a GUI SCP, though it's more than just SCP. I can rename files, move them around on the remote server, or open them with local apps -- if I wasn't so comfortable with vim, I might feel a bit more smug about being able to use Kate to edit the fstab on a remote server, which doesn't even have any X/KDE libs, let alone Kate.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You should be aware of the tool called "Fink", which is just the Debian package manager ported to OSX. It would have taken care of the dependencies for you - same as Ubuntu or Debian. You want wget? Type "fink install wget" or use your friend dselect or FinkCommander or whatever. Apple chose to include "curl" instead of wget, so you still have a command-line http utility.
:) Most of the old standbys are available for Mac, though. /etc is available in the Finder by typing Command-Shift-G and then typing "/etc". There is also a single command-line command that can set the Finder to always display system or "invisible" files. Novices should not be able to see /etc - it can lead to nothing but pain for anyone except the command-line geeks.
2nd, a two button mouse (with scrollwheel!) can be had for such a low price that it might as well be free... plug one into the Mac and you are off.
Yes, code developed on a Linux box and not debugged on other platforms will probably be harder to compile on those other platforms
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The weird thing to me about OS X is that you can delete the terminal application. It's weird that it's an application at all. Sure you can boot into single user mode, but it messes with my mind that you can permanently remove access to the core system via the GUI.
On Windows, the only way to install software is to download an exe and pray. (Or pop in a CD and pray.)
./installCrap, I do apt-get install crap. The former might give me malware -- the latter won't.
On Linux, we have package managers, which means repositories. Which means I don't do
Perhaps more importantly, how did installCrap get there? How did it come to be executable? (Never mind that shiny new icons don't come in executable form.)
On Windows, for a user to install malware, they have to open the wrong email or visit the wrong website, and maybe they have to click "yes" or "ok". On Linux, for a user to install malware, they have to open the wrong email or visit the wrong website, but they then have to download a file, remember where they saved it, find it, mark it executable, then run it. And if it needs admin rights, they actually have to enter a password, not just click "ok".
Ultimately, you are right -- if the user is determined to crap up their computer, there's not much we can do about it. But Linux is quite a lot farther along than Windows. The fact that Windows and OS X both ripped off sudo should tell you something.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The dev tools do not end at the compiler though... Interface Builder and Project Builder were proprietary, and at least in the beginning the Objectice-C runtime was also closed. Objective-C isn't proprietaty though, even taking into consideration that what most call "Objective-C" is really Objective-C with the OPENSTEP framework. Since the latter is a specification it's not proprietaty (GNUstep implements the OPENSTEP API).
The OS X System Settings allow you to set the mouse to 2-button configuration. Actually the standard Mac mouse is a 2-button mouse, but the default configuration interprets either button as the main (left) mouse button.
om namo bhagavate vasudevaya
I'm a seasoned Linux user with nearly 10 years of experience. I still use it regularly and it's the OS on all my custom PCs. That said, I use OS X (Panther and now Tiger) on both my iBook G4 and my new Mac Mini. Setting up a mint system as a work enviroment takes half the time it does with Kubuntu 7. Hardware/Software integration being one of the reasons.
There are some other details. To be honest, I think one of the biggest problems I see is X. Not that X isn't cool with networking and 'runs on an old Irix box' and all that, but the weedyness of the X enviroment is starting to annoy me. Not only is modern style font management still a crampy thing to get running - the mere though of opening XF86Config to set modelines, gfx drivers and whatnot appears to me so bizare and strange, even though I'm still quite proficient in it.
Kubuntu7.04 still has serious trouble handling resolution switching and X allways intervenes with strange scrolling and zooming behaviour. Running a VNC server puts me right back to 2001, configuration wise. It's not only that, but X is symptomatic for some of the old stuff that Linux still carries around.
That said I do believe a well configured KDE + GTK2 combined with a well-designed theme and a well-balanced setup of stable OSS desktop gadgets can kick OS Xses ass up and down the street. It's just that you have to spend a week setting it up. Even for an expert like me that becomes tireing after all those years. Nevertheless, a regular PC laptop with a neat Kubuntu setup as my next piece of hardware isn't entirely rules out. Especially with a 17" MacBook Pro costing north of 2500 Euros.
Once KDE removes the last glitches, gets it's integrated koffice into fastlane and starts diving a bit deeper than kwin and fixing some of the X anachronisims closed source vendors are going to have a hard time selling their stuff. Slowly but shurely they're getting there. Until then - if Apple doesn't screw up - cheap macs like the iMac or the MacMini will still be the best bargain for solid enviroments built to get work done.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Step 1: Open mouth.
Step 2: Insert foot.
Step 3: Know what you're talking about next time.
Uhhh, what? you don't need to install anything to configure a Microsoft mouse in Mac OS X. It just works out of the box.
... and then they built the supercollider.
If you want a coherent user interface try using enlightenment or pure gnome?
people love a single look and feel over usability soo much that almost all mac users use firefox, not even camino?
kubuntu can be modified and packed with an almost mac like system but nobody will sacrifice usability of a system designed for 5 mouse controls to a system desgined for 1
I was more referring to the Mac's multiple programming environments (Cocoa, in particular), rather than specific tools. I know Obj-C has been out for years, but aside from using it to build GNU/OpenStep applications, do devs use the language? It can be argued that Cocoa isn't any more 'proprietary' than Win32, and I wouldn't disagree with that, but compared to the standard libs used in your typical X/Windows-based UNIX or UNIX-like, i chose to use the term 'proprietary'. This was in response to the appropriateness of a UNIX label for OS X, after all ;) I can't argue that Apple/NeXT developed Obj-C; obviously neither company was responsible for that. I do posit that NeXT was the biggest step in making the language 'popular', if such a term can be accurately applied to Obj C (no insult intended for Obj C), with Apple carrying the banner now. I shall have to poke around and see what other sorts of stuff has been developed with Obj C, aside from NeXT/Open/GNUStep. Perhaps I'm laboring under a huge misapprehension.
give jack a chance. i can't stand having to use someone else's machine for audio anymore, i used to be a big logic fan (before apple bought them out) but now i just get frustrated when i don't have jack around to 'just plug this into that'. maybe i'm more of a spontaneous 'try this' type person than some, but i feel really limited without it (which i think is why even international audio schools like sae are supporting jack and ardour's ports to mac)
porl
WTF? No, you don't.
Yes, you do.
Have you never heard of "Migration Assistant"? Not only does it copy your applications, it copies your system setting and documents as well.
Migration assistant copies from one Mac to another; that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about making a fresh install on an existing Mac.
Migration Assistant doesn't help new users; they need to install everything they want to use from scratch.
Migration Assistant doesn't work reliably: some applications never get copied, others end up missing configuration files or license keys.
And Migration Assistant blindly copies bad configuration files and rogue applications, which are often the reason people are doing fresh installs in the first place, so they can't actually use it.
All of my family is confused and excited about leaving Windows because Vista sucks. I'm just going to point them to this slashdotted article and this long list of arguments about whether OSX or Ubuntu are truly Unix or not. I'm sure that will clear it all up.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
A user accustomed to Unix will find OSX fundamentally different.
A user accustomed to what form of Unix? I'm just thinking that a user accustomed to Solaris might find NetBSD to be different. A user accustomed to FreeBSD might feel out of place when using AIX.
Maybe you'd have to explain what it is that all these systems have in common that forms "the spirit of Unix", and which of those things OSX doesn't have. Seriously, I'm not being smart or sarcastic here. I've used FreeBSD, OSX, and Unix, but find Solaris a little confusing, so I wouldn't consider myself a Unix expert.
It doesn't seem to me, though, that additional graphical systems and APIs make it "un-Unix-y", or else the development of X11 itself would have been a violation of "the spirit of Unix". (it wasn't present in the original version of Unix, and AFAIK it isn't required to be Unix certified) I don't know. Maybe I don't understand what you mean.
Macs are for people who don't want to fuck with their machines all the time (Linux) or get fucked by their machines all the time (Windows).
In Soviet Linux, if you have a problem... start hunting for missing prefrence files and creating them!
(seriously, the last time I installed MPlayer on linux (several years ago) it segfaulted on start every time, until I dug through the docs, found references to a file for font preferences that wasn't created properly during the install for some odd reason, and created one of my own with some sample entries copied from the docs)
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Is that noted in the comparison?
...Macworld has up an article comparing Leopard to Gutsy Gibbon.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
>Technically speaking, OSX has a valid claim to being Unix, but could be accused of not
>necessarily being true to the 'spirit' of Unix. Linux is absolutely not a Unix, but on
>the other hand, people can certainly fairly claim Linux to being true to the spirit of Unix.
Absolutely! After all, if it isn't hard to use, it isn't in the spirit of unix. Really, lacking compatibility with other versions of unix makes it *more* in the spirit on unix, as historically and currently unixen have had huge compatibility problems (thus autotools/autoconf).
Also, since OSX takes a subsystem that was horribly designed and whose implementations were buggy and broken, X11, and replaces it with a modern, slick, robust, and efficient subsystem, aqua, it is *clearly* committing the cardinal sin of unix. Given historical precedent it would be *much* more unixy to instead standardize on the bad design, and then try to fix it with a bunch of extensions which are in themselves problematic and inconsistently implemented.
Seriously, people who talk about how great the unix system design is have no understanding of the internals and how they compare to other modern operating systems. Everything is inconsistent and many things are fundamentally broken. Linux's approach to unix has been largely to take something broken, and add more broken and incompatible parts to it.
Now, I use and develop on Linux quite a bit, which is why I *know* there are so many things wrong with it. However, there is a reason why I use it, and it has its strong points. Permissive licensing, lots of drivers for commodity hardware, and a very efficient kernel are some of Linux's strong points compared to other OS's. System architecture is just not one of linux's strong points. Comparatively, OSX and solaris have a *much* more impressive unix architecture. Windows also has some strong points in some of its API's, although not the core win32 windowing API, which is disgustingly crufty).
On OSX, give macfuse a try, with sshfs. It's not a client. It's just a filesystem.
Is it just me, or does "Gutsy Gibbon" sound like some kind of really freaky sick slang term, like Dirty Sanchez, Hot Carl, or Cleveland Steamer?
I dunno, but I can't shake the feeling those Ubunghole guys are having a joke at our expense.
How do I set that to interpret the buttons differently? I'm tired of pressing CTRL to set an orange portal in Portal.
yeah, only Leopard on an INTEL. Not on PPC. why?
and when do we start seeing the opensolaris vs. (insert os here) articles?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or maybe even Ubuntu = !stable
Seriously. The whole point of Ubuntu is to be a bleeding edge distro. Every six months they take debian sid, aka unstable, throw in some bleeding edge Gnome, kernel and X patches from their respective development repositories, and do a blitzkrieg stabilization effort effort. There is very little time for testing. The breakneck release schedule means that unlike sid, ubuntu development branches are often broken to the point of being unsuitable for normal day to day use so the developers are really the only ones running the unstable branch and testing it. An RC is put out which users are encouraged to test and a few weeks later there's a release. Whatever bugs can't be fixed in that tiny window are left broken until the next release.
This is all fine and good. My issue comes with marketing a broken by design distro as newbie friendly. Newbies can't tell the difference between a bug and when they screwed something up. Ubuntu devs can idiot proof the GUI until the sky turns green and it won't do a damn thing about kernel and X bugs. I'll still be getting phone calls from newbies in crisis at 1 AM because I'm the one who gave them the Ubuntu CD. Never again. I've been hooking newbies up with PCLinuxOS for a while now.
I can never use ubuntu if for no other reason than there freakin' idiotic release names. They really couldn't be any worse.
Does the slashdot effect apply to dns servers too? I seem to be unable to resolve the hostname.
Unix is Unix and all the other OS's are the same. At a very simple definitive level all of today's OS's are based on the earlier UNIX systems. Its just like saying a ford f-150 and a chevy S-10 are based on the model-t ford. This for the most part is true since they run on engines that burn fuel to move it along the road and they are trucks. Simply put they both do the same 'basic' stuff. Evolution took over and made them different paths. But there foundations/bases will still remain until something unrelated comes along. Like a OS that can make your machine be able to think like you or me. For now though it is I/O for us all. This is especially true for linux and Macintosh.
GNU == GNU is Not Unix. Since most all Linux OS distros are compromised of 80% GNU code, the OS part anyway, yes what you use and call Linux is more correctly referred to as GNU/Linux and GNU is Not Unix.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
In modern terms, I think not having X11 as the primary rendering platform goes against the current perception of 'Unix', though not technically. I think the common usage/higher level apis is as important as the mere core Unix behavior dictated by the Unix certification. In the past days of NeWS and such, etc, there was no immediate winner, but there was no established thing to compete with, so nothing would seem 'un-Unixy' at the time. Now it's been nearly two decades with X11 as the clear GUI implementation of AIX, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, et. al., as well as not-quite official FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD, and the universally accepted unix-like Linux platforms. With the X11 layer, they can run applications relatively nicely, but the end-user experience is degraded by having two concurrent, vastly different usage experiences set before them, with the NeXT inspired applications taking front seat. If you are remotely serious about the OSX platform, you will produce a 'real' port using Cocoa. I would consider a Unix-y app to be equally at home in FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris, whereas in OSX, an application with a mere recompile won't look right.
Of course, the whole 'Unix certification' thing is overrated. OSX is a good platform and benefits well from the Unix kernel/libc underpinnings, but the precise certification versus 'close enough' is of nearly no value to end-users or developers like. It let Apple rapidly get a mature modern core to build on, but other than that it's kind of a moot point. Just something for pedantic geeks to hash to death.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
INDEEDIE! Wish I could mod this up...
I couldn't open the article page (for _some_ reason), so I don't know which one is actually better. I'm using Ubuntu Hardy dev release at the moment, but I still think that Gutsy was a great release ! I've never really used OS X so I can't really tell how good/bad it is. However I can tell I've been very happy with Ubuntu ever since I started using it. I recommend !
and then Idiot Iguana
Is that a weasely way of saying "other than all the proprietary software, Mac OS X offers very little over a modern Linux OS"? If you're not dependent on the high performance engine, a Corvette is just a little prettier than the other cars...
You seem to be saying "Ubuntu is a better Linux than OS X."
Well, OK, your requirements are pretty straight forward, stick to your Linux distro.
Looking for a mirror. This is too new to have "cashed" copies on google. Thanks!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A user accustomed to Unix will find OSX fundamentally different
/etc/init.d/service_name. You'll find that you need to replace /etc/init.d/ with /etc/rc.d/. You'll also find that the way you manage installed software on FreeBSD to be fundamentally different than how you would on Linux. In addition, you will also find on FreeBSD that Bash isn't the default shell. Imagine logging in to a new account and finding that you have been dumped into Sh for a shell.
A user accustomed to Linux will find BSD to be fundamentally different. For instance, try starting a service on FreeBSD by typing
To make things even clearer, imagine if you open up the comparisons to UNIX. You'll find that OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, and AIX are all fundamentally different. The Unix world is actually pretty diverse.
Karma: Positive. Mostly effected by cowbell.
> but this Tuesday I finished my first musical cut that was completely performed, recorded, produced and rendered in Linux.
Wow, that's pretty good. Are you coming from Windows? because I didn't even know Windows was really capable of that. Most (well, all) musicians I know have Macs.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
The article is loading, slowly, through this coral cache link:
http://www.linux-mag.com.nyud.net:8090/id/4641/
Where the f did you get a 10 button mouse? Here we call that a keyboard....
Gutsy Gibbon still doesn't support SATA DVD drives, so I'm still without an ubuntu.
expandfairuse.org
I guess I'm not really following what you're saying, unless it's "OSX has unix API's and other ones too". Well, duh. There are lots of API's in all operating systems that aren't anything to do with unix - GTK is hardly a unix requirement, nanosleep() probably isn't in the spec, device-driver api's are almost always specific to the OS in question, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
...) and realising that all the fancy GUI's just configure the same old text files is how to learn once and control anything.
The Finder creates aliases because aliases have more functionality than symlinks, and solve a different problem anyway. If I rename the file a symlink is pointing to, that symlink is misleading and broken. If I do the same to an alias, the alias still resolves the file correctly. Both behaviours are useful, under different circumstances, but for a UI-based desktop, the 'alias' behaviour seems superior for day-to-day use.
OSX is exactly a "unix with a pretty GUI". It's also other things, and certainly for me, it's the unix underpinnings that brought me to the platform a few years ago. It's the best damn unix workstation that I've ever used.
As for admin, again I guess I don't see your point. Administration tools on Solaris are different to HPUX, which are different to those in KDE, which are different to those in Gnome, which are... (another ad nauseum). There is no standard unix administration toolset. There are just many choices - learning the fundamentals of what is going on (how the networking/firewall works, how the system boots,
As for coding, well I guess all the gtkmm, gcc, glade, etc. (ad nauseum, ad nauseum) tools on my machine are an illusion then - strange that they seem "quite" similar to the versions on the linux box in the garage. Oh, and then there's XCode and ObjC/C++/C as well, with a nice IDE. So nice that I slave my iphone development stuff through xcode (xcode calls 'make') so I can get my nice IDE features (variable/argument/function expansion,...).
OSX is unix, and it's also other things. It's certainly not 5% unix like you seem to think - speaking as something of a unix expert (I've been using it for 20 years) *and* an OSX programmer.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
The other one is gay.
And his boyfriend also uses a Mac.
...And they both have iPhones.
Those two also seem to think that setting a laptop on a desk means that it's a desktop, but I don't think that has anything to do with their sexual orientation.
Besides, it beats getting fucked by Windows every day. You see though, that's what I like about Windows. I know when Windows is fucking me. The only time I know I got fucked by my Mac was when I compared the machine to the check I wrote to buy it.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
The Linux drivers I found for the Mark of the Unicorn audio hardware are slick as hell, stable and sound great. Out of curiosity, what hardware is that specifically- the one that does firewire? I've been looking around for a good multi-channel interface for a while, but the RME HDSP (which has been around for a while) has a bit higher price tag than I can justify.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
No, The Unix pedigree comes from being tested and certified as conforming to the spec / definition of what Unix is. You can start programming your own Unix from scratch, have it certified and call it Unix, no problem.
Page 1 and 2 respectively
http://www.linux-mag.com.nyud.net:8080/id/4641/
http://www.linux-mag.com.nyud.net:8080/id/4641/2/
Thanks to The Coral Content Distribution Network
http://www.coralcdn.org/
I'm a Ubuntu GNU/Linux user and love it. Freedom is my main argument.
I bought one for the first time last summer (a MacBook), and I have to say the whole thing has been a huge disappointment. 2 of the most important parts of the GUI are sub-par (the Finder and the Dock) (which is interesting for a company which is supposed to have a superior user interface), the GUI is generally slow and unresponsive, applications often just hang (spinning beachball syndrome), 3rd party helper apps are usually payware (open source on Linux, freeware on Windows), open source ports are neglected (Firefox crashes all the time on quitting for instance), the keyboard layout is odd, when something goes wrong (like an OS update that leaves the machine unbootable) it hides any diagnostic info from you, and it's just very difficult to do anything that Steve Jobs doesn't approve of.
As soon as I can I'm heading back to Linux.
*1. YMMV
*2. For Mac users who share my pain, may I recommend using a start up script to kill the Dock and use Butler to show tasks as icons in the menubar. Best solution I've come up with so far...
I just bought a computer from parts and put it together. It has the following components:
Atheros wireless (which was just the cheapest card I could find, I did no research for compatability)
Nvidia GeForce 8600GTS
onboard Gigabit lan
onboard ac97 sound
Which worked out of the box on XP? The sound. Yay.
All of it worked out of the box during the installer for Ubuntu. I was cruising the net using my wireless while the files copied, checking slashdot or the like. Add to that, everything worked out of the box after install as well.
Boy, that wireless support sure can be a bitch for poor old linux.
So OS X is also "X11 based", because it has X11?
Anyway, if you want to treat OS X as a "Unix with a nice GUI", you can surely do it.
I'm getting the following from the site... :-) /dev/null
Something (somewhere) is broken. Don't worry, we don't blame you.
We're looking into the problem, which is almost certainly not related to the software because the developers are virtually infallible. We suspect it has something to do with the sysadmins. Because they are tyrants. And this is their comeuppance.
We'll have things fixed in a jiffy. Check back in a bit.
-- The LM Staff
Then again, the modern Linux desktop is largely based on KDE and GNOME libraries, the Mozilla runtime and the OpenOffice runtime, all of which provide their own portability layers that can run on non-Unix-like systems. The conclusion is that both Linux and Mac have transformed into non-unix systems, although they do provide a unix command line and unix system calls for those who still want them.
Linux is like the girl next door, while Windows and MacOS are like hookers. Linux is free, and is plenty good enough for most people. It feels good to be with. Windows and MacOS have more eye candy (mascara), and can do some things that Linux can't (or won't), as long as you're willing to fork over the money.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Laptop built-in wireless cards seem to have been just working lately.
NetworkManager is far from perfect though, and after a certain number of reconnects seems to just decide it isn't playing any more.
But yeah, Nvidia driver is now pretty easy, and if you pick the right external wireless card it's great.
Keep tuned for upcoming kernel developments though. The latest is 2.6.23. 2.6.24, the upcoming version, has a new wireless stack and a lot more in-kernel wireless drivers.
Mrjb, to answer your question, I'm using a MOTU 2408 connected to their PCI-424 card on the Linux box. It's an old unit, not the current "markIII". This one's probably a "mark .5" but it's been through the wars with me. MOTU makes good stuff and their new firewire boxes are dreamy.
I tried a firewire interface on the Linux system, but couldn't get it to work. I didn't try very hard, because the Fireface is usually connected to my main systems, along with the HDSP because I like the microphone pre's. The problem, I'm sure was with me and not the hardware. I'm not at all experienced with Linux.
I can't recommend the RME (and MOTU) stuff highly enough. If the HDSP is too expensive, get yourself an older Hammerfall 9636 (they can still be found). You'll never regret it. However, there is a plethora of really good new pro audio hardware on the market that's surprisingly inexpensive. I teach, and one of my students brought in some little firewire box by M-Audio that was really surprisingly good and only cost a few hundred bucks.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ubuntu people have abandoned PowerPC from official distro including G5, Apple introduced pure 64bit OS X for G5 with release of Leopard. If you upgrade to Leopard, you will have a pure 64bit capable OS which also happens to run 32bit stuff just fine.
Their reason was "Lack of new hardware". That was really noted by PowerPC users, not just iMac G5 people, XServe G5 and Quad/Dual G5 Workstation users too.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCReview
You can't compare OS X Leopard to Ubuntu Linux for a simple reason. It doesn't exist "officially" on PowerPC Mac. Ubuntu showed something real bad for its image after that decision.
Of course, there is always real Debian, Yellow Dog and others for PPC people.
I mostly agree with you.
I'm surprised no one on the thread (that I found) emphasize on the applications. At work I'm on Debian, but at home, it's Leopard. I *want* to switch to Ubuntu, but sorry, the iApps have no equivalent to my knowledge. The ability to use the same multimedia files from iPhoto, to iMovie, to Mail, to iWeb, etc make the significant difference. I don't doubt both Ubuntu/Leopard are "good" OS, but as a customer, that's not what matters, what matters is the overall experience in regards to my needs. In my case, the iApps are an important part of my use of a computer.
(otherwise, I'm a fan of Spotlight, but there's Beagle on Linux which (more or less) does the same thing)
Animoog.org
was that CP/M systems were actually dominate in the 76-82 timeframe based on zilog's Z80. In particular, Radio shack was one of the leaders. Apple was the main competitor to CP/M during that time. But version of CP/M actually supported multiple users via serial terminals.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Jack+Ardour is what I envisioned myself using under Linux. It was a thorny path to travel, and at some point I figured that it can't be worth all the trouble it seemed to spawn at every turn. I hope the jack users are happy with the product - I might give it another go someday. For now, I'm using an older laptop with winxp for all audio work.
> which frees up the other system for what it does best
Bluescreens are used during the production of music ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
I have a Logitech MX1000, and it's got 10 buttons.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
I made the choise to this myself. Do you know what my conclusion is - OSX. Wanna know why?
I work in a NOC (actually I run it), I thinker with computers,routers and other intelligent and not so equipment all day long. When I get home I want just to turn it on, see some TV show or do that god forsaken diploma of mine, play a game or two and go to bed. No hassle at all.
And this does not come with linux (even being Ubuntu). I cannot sit tight to use the system, but instead I spend all my time constantly upgrading, touching, tweaking, compiling, testing and so on. God, I am tired. My wife gests frustrated, even my cat gets frustrated.
I finaly got my MacMini deleverd by a friend from the states (Apple is outrageiously overpriced in Europe) so Ubuntu will stay on my laptop (Ubuntu has some pains on laptops) but there will be an MS product also - after all I do some cad work for additional money. To be frank I have 2 linux distros on the laptop, four MS osses, 1 solaris instalation and I personaly think I have to force myself stop.
OSX will be my salvation.
The side buttons don't.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
The subject is personal computing. They day I have to go into gear head mode to just to get my "my Nintendo DS, my DSL modem, my wireless access point, my bar code reader, my cat" etc. into usable condition are the days I replace said items. I consider myself a fairly technically savvy person, but I can think of better ways to spend my time than to have to hotwire a basic tool out of the box not to tune it up, just to get it working at an acceptable level.
By the way, OSX now operates on a phone, (the iPHONE) and the new series iPod Touch)
WoW Native Clients:
OSX - 1
Ubuntu - 0
Strong, Light, Cheap - pick two.
FTA "Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time."
IS this to say that Mac OS X isn't stable, secure, and getting better all the time? Maybe it's just me but this doesn't lead me to any advantage of Ubuntu over OS X.
to be fair, Apple hasn't really pointed that out. Tiger wasn't certified.. but Apple kept claiming "Unix-like", so fanbois feel the need to correct. The only mention Apple has made in press releases is the logo.... unless you go to the Leopard site.. heck even if you install it, they don't really brag about it.
In other news, we did a review and while we find the Bark River Pro Scalpel a great blade, but it just didn't compare to the less expensive Feather® Sterile Disposable Scalpels, #15 for event the basic incision. The Bark River constantly left infection in the patients.
http://www.buffalogapoutfitters.com/storefrontprofiles/processfeed.aspx?sfid=110172&i=236887056&mpid=7349&dfid=1
http://www.medexsupply.com/surgical-supplies-scalpels-blades-knives-feather-sterile-disposable-scalpels-15-x_pid-3538.html
Come on folks, these are different tools which do different jobs. I run more OS'es than I can count at the moment. Being able to make an informed choice in OSes is great. Why limit yourself to one? Ubuntu is nice for dropping on an old PC you don't want to purchase an XP license for. Or running in VMWare to have access to free software in *nix. Personally, I prefer OpenSuse. But I use both.
I love OS400. My favorite OS. Windows XP is excellent. What I am tired of is all the crappy hardware that causes BSOD's. And all the incompatible issues with drivers, lowerfilters, upperfilters, etc. So I just bought a Mac. I will still have PC's though. I still run Windows 9x (not networked) on a highway sign. It can run on a much smaller, cheaper industrial PC with DOC .
Whatever makes the most sense.
Mod parent up, please. (I've contributed to this discussion or I would have...)
dave
Ubuntu: dick around with imwheel until you get it working.
OS X: buy SteerMouse.
That's actually an excellent way to illustrate the difference in attitudes driving both systems.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I basically have the option to run most any software I want without having to run windows.
Same here with OS X desktops and free-UNIX servers. Yes, that includes all the open source UNIX-hosted GUI software I've ever tried.
If it's absolutely necessary, I've got VMWare as a fallback for Windows... and a usually-turned-off "Wintendo" for games.
But I think the last time I used VMware for Windows was to help figure out a problem for another Windows user.
I really don't get the "Linux vs OS X" thing. The only major issue OS X has for me is the "Mac Tax"... if you don't need commercial software you can put together a MUCH better free-UNIX box using your free UNIX of choice (Linux, BSD, and don't forget Solaris) for less money. It's all "UNIX". UNIX is UNIX is UNIX. Who cares which color it's painted?
One other item, OS X does support multibutton mice out of the box. (I'm using a Intellimouse on mine). And current Mac mice are multi touch now.
Windows is POSIX compliant certified.
And Linux is not certified.
How can you explain that?
I cannot find a single POSIX thing in out-of-the-box Windows!
Cygwin makes it POSIX compliant? "Services for UNIX" makes Windows POSIX?
I tried everything and failed to compile my POSIX thread program under Windows which compiles cleanly on Solaris and Linux, and I have no doubt that it will compile under MacOS.
What does it mean to be POSIX compliant really?
Or perhaps this POSIX-certication authority is bribed (again) by Microsoft?
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Well, if OS X can be accused of "cheating" because it's designed to work on a very limited/specific set of hardware configurations -- then it makes one wonder why Linux distros aimed directly at a *single* piece of hardware (like Sony's PS3) can't get everything right?
I'm not trying to knock Linux here.... But I'm just saying, we've had a decade or more of people putting out Linux distros (like Yellow Dog) that were for specific system configurations FAR less convoluted than Intel/x86 platforms - and I've yet to see one that gave a really satisfactory user-experience. The problem runs deeper than Linux developers just having too many hardware/peripheral combinations possible on today's x86 type PCs to anticipate everything.
They never even mastered making things work on vintage Macs (PowerMac 7x00 series, etc.) with PPC Linux distros intended for them.
I've used Linux on and off since about '97 but haven't ran it for about 3 years. I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my laptop last night (Dell, P4 2.8GHz, 512mb). I purchased my first Mac (Power mac G4) two and a half years ago. My initial impression is that the Ubuntu interface is drastically more polished than I remember from my last Debian installation. The install was almost automagic, the OS is fairly responsive, and I thought installing from a live CD was a nice touch. The only complaint I have so far with Ubuntu is a problem getting my wireless card (wpc54g) to work. It is installed using NDIS and the XP drivers. It will establish communications with the router but then drops the connection before receiving it's configuration from DHCP. I realize this could have something to do with the driver or NDIS and not directly with Ubuntu but so far it doesn't seem that way. Now to be fair not everything "just worked" for me on the Mac either. Working with my Garmin 60csx was particularly frustrating and I had to run software to patch the OS when I upgraded from a combo drive to a super drive. I really love my Mac and I'm not at a point where I have to make a choice but if it came down to Ubuntu being my only OS I wouldn't cry. Windows free(at home any ways) for 2.5 years.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
technically speaking, I think you use the phrase "technically speaking" way too damn much.
I dual boot Mac OS and Ubuntu now and I have to say I found it far easier to install than previous linux distributions I've tried.
A few months ago a got a MacBook Pro and at first I was planning on dual booting with Tiger and Ubuntu. However once I got it I started wondering what use I would get out of dual booting it. And for the same reason I haven't upgraded to Leopard either, even though I have a disk for Leopard.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Well if Canonical, Red Hat, or Novell started producing their own hardware then you can make a fair comparison pertaining to the limited hardware set. Then Ubuntu and other company backed distributions would be able to extensively test and get it right. Even then, they would have to make various deals and pull some sort of leverage out of their ass to convince hardware makers to produce drivers for their hardware.
Ok, its spam, but there are two positive things in the message
- a "Pump up the Volume" reference
- a an awesome codename for a software project.
You may have a point about it being easier to install Ubuntu on a random untested piece of hardware than OS X, but. on the opposite end of the spectrum, installing Mac OS X on a Macbook Pro (made for use with OS X) takes fewer clicks and requires less dialog pages be clicked through than installing Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 1420 N (made for use with Ubuntu)).
You don't have any horror stories upgrading to Leopard then do you? Apple's forums are filled with them. Even though I have Leopard I have no plan on upgrading to it from Tiger.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have a mac laptop for "day to day" (pretty presentations, etc) and linux on my home desktop to do things I can't on my mac.
What can you do running Linux you can't do on your Mac? A few months ago I ordered a MacBook Pro, and before ordering it I was planning on setting it up to dual boot Tiger and Ubuntu. However once I got it I started wondering exactly what installing Ubuntu would offer I can't do now. For the same reason I don't plan on upgrading to Leopard, it doesn't offer anything I need but don't have now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I won't pay overpriced hardware to get to the software.
Have you compared prices on comparable Macs and PCs lately? Today's Macs are comparable in prices to PCs with comparable specs. The problem with Macs is that Apple doesn't have as wide a range of Macs as PC OEMs have for PCs. This shuts out those who want a custom configuration but it also means Apple doesn't have to spend a lot testing a bunch of various configurations.
FalconShould there be a Law?
1. Openoffice (NeoOffice sucks and I don't want to use openoffice X on the mac and deal with strangeness. And so I'm reliant on MS Office
I have and use NeoOffice and there's no problem with it, not even with MS Office 2007 docs I downloaded from the web. Maybe you tried an older version if NeoOffice didn't work. Also MS Office runs on Macs, but not on Linux without WINE or CrossOver. Though I won't use it a trialware version came on my MBP.
2. I do some computations (code in fortran)
This I can see, a special app. Maybe XCode 2 or the new version 3 will work. I don't plan on trying Fortran on the Mac but I plan to tryout Free Pascal and want to learn Smalltalk.
4. I don't want to use Fink on mac I'd rather just use native apps on linux (I'm not a programmer, but I like to tinker)
I tried to use Fink to install HTTrack but for some reason it wouldn't download. Just as well though, I want to create an OS X native port install of use the X11 port.
So mostly it's not that you can't use Macs but that you want to use specific brand named apps that don't run on Macs instead of an app that does the same thing.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Technically speaking, OSX has a valid claim to being Unix, but could be accused of not necessarily being true to the 'spirit' of Unix. Linux is absolutely not a Unix, but on the other hand, people can certainly fairly claim Linux to being true to the spirit of Unix."
Absolutely. Some of the other posts are insanely stupid.
IBM's big monster mainframe O/S, z/OS (some versions) are certified UNIX. It, and the Mac OS, have a base core that strictly follows a precise set of API rules. Goody for them. Then both layer a MOUNTAIN of proprietary code on top of that, changing the fundamental nature of the user experience. Not necessarily for the bad, but clearly very, very different from the standard user experience that long-time users of UNIX have.
Linux is much closer to the spirit of UNIX, even if the Linux folks don't waste a ton of money getting a pointless trademark certification. If you don't know what the spirit of UNIX is, read "The UNIX Programming Environment", by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike.
UNIX 03 is a standard specification for operating system interfaces, it is not an operating system itself. The designation of an OS as being UNIX 03 is controlled by the Open Group. The operating system's source code or its history has absolutely nothing to do with that OS being UNIX 03.
Leopard is UNIX 03 because Apple fixed its API, CLI, and whatever other interfaces to pass requirements stipulated by the Open Group and then paid them to test it and to allow them to certify it as such. Without much difficulty, a Linux distribution probably could be UNIX 03, but no one wants to bother tweaking it into the Open Group's specifications and then pay them for passing it. And considering that so many developers nowadays generally make sure their programs compile, link and run on Linux platforms, there's nothing to gain from having a Linux distribution certified for UNIX 03 compatibility anyway.
Concerning the compatibility with the interfaces allowing people to use source between platforms, the Linux distributions and Leopard are true to the spirit of the original Unix, though you can accuse anything of anything if you want. As for the openness of the OS source code, don't forget the original Unix by Ken Thompson et al. was proprietary code even though people snuck the source around. The license of Darwin which is at the core of Leopard is much more liberal than AT&T's license for Unix whose source was open to only educational institutions. As for the rest of Leopard, the GUI standard is openly defined in NextStep and the preferred programming format for lower level graphics is OpenGL. If GNUstep had enough support, many applications could easily be portable between Linux and Mac OS X/Leopard.
Ubuntu installs and just works: all the applications are there out of the box.
By default Ubuntu installs every single program a person could want?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Because after a clean MacOS install, you have to manually install all the applications and utilities you want to use.
WTF? No, you don't.
Have you never heard of "Migration Assistant"? Not only does it copy your applications, it copies your system setting and documents as well.
GP does say "clean install", but even if "Migration Assistant" assists migrating from one Mac to another it's no good for clean installs with just one Mac. However GP also says Ubuntu installs all apps needed when Ubuntu is installed, which I seriously doubt.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Linux (Ubuntu, Debian and Redhat, as well as many others) have a nifty little package manager where you can install a program for almost anything you can think of. Where is that feature on your Mac? The Mac may come with a number of third party tools, but they still don't do 100% of what every user wants to do with their computer. Under Linux, it's much closer to "feature complete", as far as application availability.
There's MacPorts and Fink. Macports uses RPMs and Fink uses "Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get". Not only can I install Mac software but I can also install many programs for BSD and Linux.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You know, if we'd been buying Apples crap all this time instead of PCs, Linux never would have had a chance. Apple are much more ruthless about locking down their hardware and software than Microsoft ever were.
I can install Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro, and I can install Leopard on as many Macs that meet the minimum hardware requirements. Where's the locking? The only lockin I see is where Apple has made it hard to install OS X on generic hardware, but guess what? Apple makes, er has a subcontractor make, hardware they then sell, ie Apple isn't a hardware or a software business, Apple is a systems integrator creating compleat systems, system that "Just Work".
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't know about that. While I would consider Mac OS acceptably stable for my day-to-day work, I would never say that "stability" was one of its prime advantages. My Mac is generally acceptable, but I've have several crashes and other stability issues with both 10.3 and 10.4 (they might have fixed things with 10.5, but I've heard some horror stories). By contrast, I don't seem to ever have any issues with my XP machine.
I've only had my MacBook Pro about 4 months and though I haven't had a problem with it's stability I haven't had it long enough to decide whether it's really stable. However the very first tyme I used XP the Dell it was on froze while booting up. Now let's see, having a computer running more than 50% of the tyme for four months and not having a problem versus less than 5 minutes from first booting up a computer, which do I think is more stable? The one that actually runs and doesn't freeze.
FalconShould there be a Law?
All of these commands are present on every fresh Ubuntu installation, for example, and none of them require the presence of magic pixies to define away other parts of the software installation process to make it look more simple than it is. It really is this simple, as long as the software is in the repository.
And how do you know what software you want to install on Ubuntu? Perhaps those magic pixies?
FalconShould there be a Law?
I really enjoy Linux for home use. However I am a game developer and into computer animation. I find I use the Mac Os for work, however I love to tinker with Linux, and I like the security of a Linux system at home. However for computer animation and game development I will use the Mac system
I've said it before, but I'm not sure if anyone listens. Probably why I have a mod point of 1.
Ubuntu and many linux distros lack in some fundimental area's. For starters I'm well aware that you can write scripts for ubuntu, but how many applications are scriptable? How do you even find out if they are? On Windows and OS X I can script the OS and applications. So I can have MS Word on both platforms scripted. This is a major utility for me and I don't even know where to begin scripting applications with linux. That is the first major roadblock for me.
Second, there are many mature applications for Ubuntu, but I don't see much integration or cross application capability. On OS X, I have iLife and the applications work well with each other. There are great applications on linux, but each one is it's own entity and they don't play together. OS X has it's core services and flat xml files which allow application developers to take advantage of the system easily and aid in cross application compatibility. This isn't necessarily Ubuntu's problem, it's the lack of communication and cooperation between development communities and the vision to see how things could improve.
One of Apple's biggest flaws is that they have consumer lock-in. iLife applications are not opensource and therefore it's much more difficult to build applications that work with them or at least as seamless as the suite itself. OpenSource could easily trump this by having an open core services architecture and allow any application builder to easily work with another, but this has to start from the core of the system. You need to have a few standard databases for consumer based applications, something like sqlLite, and some xml files that define application properties. You should be able to have any MP3 application read an XML file of another application and have immediate access to the same library without having to examine the library. That library could also be used for a video application to make it easy to add a soundtrack to a home movie or a photo application to allow you to make a cool slideshow with your music files. Obviously if the application has some rather unique features it could be put in a separate file or added to the original.
OpenSource is great, but it has a lot of barriers for your average consumer. Applications are one, but codecs are another. Granted licencing is a problem, but I think people would give it a go even if they had to pay a nominal fee. But unless you can have some standarized services or an address book that works with any application, you're always going to have this barrier. I'm certainly not saying there should be one way of doing things, but the foundation needs to be very accessible and running any application should be a very simple and intuitive to the end user.
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
Fedora manages to run wine without a executable heap or a executable stack (Maybe it has specific settings for wine, java, and others packages). :)
I don't find exploits, just write them. If i found one, I of course report it, look at my home page
As an aside, your website got my browser entirely wrong. (It reports me as mozilla/netscape 5 or something. I'm on a fairly recent Konqueror.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Linux applications is getting better and better...
Awesome, how a mac user dualboots into linux for gaming. Absolutely priceless. ;)
lynxcache mirror: http://lynxcache.com/Ubuntu_Gutsy_Gibbon_takes_on_Mac_OS_X_Leopard.html