2-Year Study Shows Mac Users Downloading More Open Source Software

Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 06:55 · Score: 3, Funny

I also wonder how much of the Mac users downloading more open source software can be chalked up to the better download infrastructures that Linux distros have!

Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by masternerdguy · 2011-11-19 07:34 · Score: 1, Insightful

I've noticed that too. Do people still use SourceForge? This just means Mac users are behind Linux users on the development curve.

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Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by errandum · 2011-11-19 07:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Not that, but maybe some mac users (I'm one of them) used to use linux but decided to get a mac simply because it doesn't require you to read 3 manuals just to change some configuration while still allowing you to have a really powerful console.
Because of my Linux past, I tend to use macports or homebrew to get almost anything, so I suppose I don't count to the sourceforge statistics
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by geekd · 2011-11-19 07:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

I second this, and add the reason that stuff (sound, video) actually works with zero user effort on Mac.
Plus another reason: can't live without software like Photoshop, Pro Tools and Final Cut Pro.
All that AND I get the unix environment I know and love.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 08:10 · Score: 1

That's because Mac has 1 hardware platform to support with all the specs. Linux does an awesome job with hardware from generic sources... Drivers have always been a nightmare in Windows (again, Mac doesn't count, here is THE driver you need.).
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by chmod555 · 2011-11-19 08:53 · Score: 2

I agree; Linux users are probably more dependent on the individual distro's repositories. The bigger and better maintained the repo the less users have to venture to outside sources.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 10:06 · Score: 1

Yeah, I believed that too, once. Till I spent half an hour in the OSX paritition manager to find a way to create a partition. No button, no menu entry, nothing.
Turns out you have to click into the picture somewhere (the free space or so). Intuitive, my ass :-)
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by micheas · 2011-11-19 10:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is another explanation that is being ignored. Linux developers are more prone to having migrated to github. Added to that the much larger repositories of debian, and ubuntu which reduce the downloads from the original source. An example of this is that when MySQL stopped offering official downloads for debian, I doubt more than a handful of people noticed, as it was a lot easier to get mysql from debian.org.

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Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 11:03 · Score: 1

I'll read three manuals rather than deal with the undocumented shit that you find when you step out the simplified OS X's configuration tools. Gnome's 3 has the same simplified configuration, so that's merely on par. OS X loses, badly.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by jedidiah · 2011-11-19 12:09 · Score: 1

No not really.
Depending on the Mac you have, you could end up with any one of the 3 major GPU vendors. Although the fact that you are buying a machine with an OEM OS install is probably the key thing here. If you don't bother to install your own OS, you kind of avoid that problem.
As far as after market things go, the Mac is in the same boat as Linux. It may work or it may not be supported at all and you have to be careful what you buy.

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Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by tqk · 2011-11-19 12:20 · Score: 2

The bigger and better maintained the repo the less users have to venture to outside sources.
Usually. However, it can just as easily go the other way. Try installing afio on Debian squeeze/stable. You can't from the Debian repo's. They've decided it's so non-free, it can't even fit in the non-free section. So, what's the non-free section for again? Great, they've just made a decade of my backups inaccessible! !@#$
That drove me to Freshmeat ... er, Freecode?!? When did that happen?!?
tar xzf ... && make && make install
Works. Thanks Debian. Not. [I'm kidding about that last part.]
Classic "Debian gotcha!", again. Grumble, mumble, ...

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"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 13:01 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Linux developers are more prone to having migrated to github.
Yeah, all three of them.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by ancienthart · 2011-11-19 14:13 · Score: 1

I'd have to agree with that, as over the last few years, I've found myself using ppa's more and more.
Maybe sourceforge needs to consider ppa support if they want the Linux crowd back?
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Darinbob · 2011-11-19 15:16 · Score: 4, Informative

Notice that the Mac comes with a compiler on the distribution DVD along with a traditional set of tools that most open source projects will need. Thus you can get source code and build yourself much more easily than on Windows. Of course you can get binary only software but a lot of people shy away from that sort of thing because of malware concerns.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by WorBlux · 2011-11-19 15:56 · Score: 1

Plus those that aren't often use git or SVN where you can pull in a copy without sending browser information.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 21:08 · Score: 0

simply because it doesn't require you to read 3 manuals just to change some configuration
Not true. Macs aren't terribly configurable through the GUI tools because Apple Knows What's Good For You, so if you want to change something that Apple thought shouldn't be changed (and that's a huge number of things) you will have to search for a solution.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by errandum · 2011-11-19 21:24 · Score: 1

I've change mouse buttons, configured gestures, ntfs drivers and remote ssh mounting with popups and clicks. They don't even come close in user friendliness, sorry.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by alexandre_ganso · 2011-11-20 01:31 · Score: 1

Did you actually try the mac os' help? It is actually usable.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 01:34 · Score: 0

Uh, the format is supposed to be cpio and thus other tools should be able to read it? (though not write it with all the same features).
Also, for a software that nobody knows who owns the copyright, nobody knows how to interpret the license, the code having been modified against the license, seemingly people having attached an incorrect license on it etc. it seems more that justified to me to assume that distributing it in any way is actually illegal - even if there is no reason to believe anyone will care or even sue.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by exomondo · 2011-11-20 10:03 · Score: 1

No not really.
Depending on the Mac you have, you could end up with any one of the 3 major GPU vendors.
But they don't have to support every GPU from all 3 of the major GPU vendors, and they don't have to deal with configurations of all different processors from both major manufacturers, same with motherboards, RAM, etc...that's the point.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by tqk · 2011-11-20 11:10 · Score: 1

Uh, the format is supposed to be cpio and thus other tools should be able to read it?
What's the equivalent of the "-P" switch (compression method) on cpio?
I've never used cpio, and don't see why I would need to. The original author's license intended it to be free. US law has muddled beyond comprehensibility the meaning of free. I'm not a US citizen, nor am I in the US. Again, what's non-free for if not for questionably free software?

[It] seems more [than] justified to me to assume that distributing it in any way is actually illegal - even if there is no reason to believe anyone will care or even sue.
Why not wait for whoever does own it to notice and complain, then $do_the_right_thing and take it down? Why preemptively stab loyal Debian users in the back making a decade's worth of backups inaccessible for no discernable reason, other than its licensing appears to be questionable?
Is Debian a commercial concern, so not able to touch it by the original license? Should Freshmeat/Freecode be worried now that they'll be sued? I would think, "Hey we own that! Take it down!" "Okay. Done." would be a perfectly valid defense (though possibly not in Lawyerville, USA).
This is just classic "shoot yourself in the foot" stuff, for no good reason.

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"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 22:09 · Score: 0

What if the percentage of mac users using open source software is fairly constant - but you know mac machine sales have sky rocketed over the last few years [comparatively] so it should be no surprise open source use should scale up too right.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Dog-Cow · 2011-11-21 07:23 · Score: 1

Well, your ass comes pre-partitioned. So, I'd hope, anyway.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Dog-Cow · 2011-11-21 07:28 · Score: 1

Wow. You are a truly sanctimonious asshole. It's all about you, is it?
Should I wait to stop murdering until someone tells me to stop? If something is illegal, it's illegal. It doesn't matter what your opinion is.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by tqk · 2011-11-21 12:48 · Score: 1

[mods, go ahead, offtopic, I agree.]

You are a truly sanctimonious asshole.
Right back at ya. :-)

Should I wait to stop murdering until someone tells me to stop? If something is illegal, it's illegal.
Equating copyright license infringement to homicide. Slick!
Illegal just means illegal. It doesn't also mean ethically or morally wrong. Anyone can find lots of things/acts that are stupidly illegal.

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"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by gullevek · 2011-11-21 13:42 · Score: 1

Thats not the point. The basic hardware support works very well in Linux. It is the layer between Software and the Kernel that is shit. All the special Audio drivers above the kernel, below the actual GUI, etc, etc.
This is all really crap beyond crap. I also moved to OS X and I will never ever use Linux on a desktop again. Ever.

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"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by exomondo · 2011-11-21 14:15 · Score: 1

Thats not the point.
Actually it is the point, the OS devs know exactly what hardware their software has to run on, that obviously makes the job of compatibility easier. Small number of known configurations as opposed to large number of unknown configurations.

The basic hardware support works very well in Linux. It is the layer between Software and the Kernel that is shit. All the special Audio drivers above the kernel, below the actual GUI, etc, etc.
What 'audio drivers' are above the kernel? Or are you complaining about the userland components of audio subsystems like ALSA, PulseAudio, etc...? What's wrong with those?
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by gullevek · 2011-11-21 21:42 · Score: 1

Because they suck, they change all the time and the software above might talk to ALSA but not Pulse, or only direct, etc. This is all just a confusing thing. KDE does this, Gnome does that and who knows what the others do.
At some point you just say, whatever and use an OS where you do not have to worry about any of this crap and it actually works out of the box. Who cares if they have to support gazillions of hardware alterations, at the end the user experience is what counts.
And if I have a better one with Apple because of their limited hardware selection, then I will go with this.

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"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by exomondo · 2011-11-21 22:34 · Score: 1

And if I have a better one with Apple because of their limited hardware selection, then I will go with this.
Of course, and that's my whole point, that's what i believe to be the case. I mean that's what i did too.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by stewbacca · 2011-11-22 03:35 · Score: 1

Actually it is the point, the OS devs know exactly what hardware their software has to run on, that obviously makes the job of compatibility easier.
Yes, because a 2011 27" iMac uses the same stuff that my 20" 2006 iMac uses. Yet, amazingly, both still work with modern software and old software written for OS X. Compatibility is not a function of programming to the hardware specs available at the time of software development. Apple changes hardware out several times a year, sometimes even within the same product line.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by stewbacca · 2011-11-22 03:40 · Score: 1

By definition, it is intuitive. By eliminating the buttons and menu entries, the concept of affordance kicks in. That is, the only thing you can do is drag the partition size up or down. There are no other options or distractions. That is the definition of intuitive, and this is why Apple is generally considered expert in this field.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by exomondo · 2011-11-22 10:43 · Score: 1

Yes, because a 2011 27" iMac uses the same stuff that my 20" 2006 iMac uses.
Well no it doesn't, but if you actually think about it how many different configurations of Mac hardware are there compared with other PC hardware configurations? You think they're about the same do you? You don't realize there are a comparatively tiny amount of different Mac hardware configurations?

Yet, amazingly, both still work with modern software and old software written for OS X.
Now you're talking about software running on the OS, why? We're talking about the OS stability due to the fact that the OS devs know what hardware their software has to run on. The software on top relies on the stability and compatibility of the OS it's running on, which is why the OS is the discussion point.

Apple changes hardware out several times a year, sometimes even within the same product line.
And when these decisions are made the OS devs can be consulted to determine any potential issues and changes can be made for that specific hardware because Apple controls both the OS and the hardware, which is a clear and obvious advantage to a situation where you control one but not the other.
Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by nobodie · 2011-11-22 15:09 · Score: 1

let me add that as a fedora user, and sometimes arch player (that is a lite user in my vocabulary) i never go to sourceforge, never google for an application, the package tools are just too powerful to make it worth my trouble. While there might be a slightly newer version, if I really want it I can use the test repo which is usually up to date with SF. So...

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Obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 06:55 · Score: 5, Funny

After buying our Macs we don't have any money left to buy software.

Re:Obvious by Nimey · 2011-11-19 09:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's the funny thing:for some reason Macs have been a stronghold for shareware for /ages/. If you can find a program to do something for free on a Windows machine, odds are you have to pay $19 for a rough equivalent on the Mac.

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Re:Obvious by N_Piper · 2011-11-19 12:54 · Score: 2

I really don't know where or what you are looking but most of the software on my Macs is just plain old beggar-ware, you know "If you find this helpful please consider donating" that sort of thing.
As I've transitioned to windows I find is hard to locate software with the glut of abandoned products that won't work on newer versions of windows.
Re:Obvious by gumbi+west · 2011-11-19 15:19 · Score: 1

Well, you *can* pay for LAME on the mac...
Re:Obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 19:57 · Score: 0

I can't even imagine. There's countless examples of utilities for Windows that are an easy google away, but for which Mac doesn't have a free equivalent. Most annoying for me is the lack of a quality video converter that isn't geared towards iphone users.
I am writing this on a Mac and honestly I can't imagine why anybody buys one. Basically I use my Mac as a glorified Linux box that costs 2 or 3 times as much, while Windows is the OS with the best interface, only you have to deal with virus issues and OS bloat.
Re:Obvious by MidnightBrewer · 2011-11-19 21:23 · Score: 0

After buying our Macs that come preloaded with some of the best software on the planet, we typically don't have any need to buy any more software.

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"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Re:Obvious by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-20 01:21 · Score: 0

Seems obvious. If you're using an Apple computer you are more likely to have the attitude that if a product is good it's worth paying for.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:Obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 03:40 · Score: 0

It's not beggar-ware. Beggars beg for free money, developers like this create software and let people try it for *free* hoping someone who at least has the means will compensate them for their work. Typically it's a bad idea because so many people are f-in cheap, but it certainly isn't begging. Usually if you cough up 1/2 the price for a single lunch for a tool you actually find useful and saves you time (heaven forbid) the nag will go away. If only more software companies worked like this.
Re:Obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 10:18 · Score: 0

After buying our Macs that come preloaded with some of the best software on the planet
lol...yeah...best on the planet!
Re:Obvious by stewbacca · 2011-11-22 03:44 · Score: 1

Yeah, once you wade through the 242 virus-laden scam sites, you might find one usable freeware product for Windows with a Google search.
And I'll just pretend you didn't write the second paragraph.

About those linux downloads... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 06:56 · Score: 1

why download?

pacman -S whatever-you-need

Re:About those linux downloads... by majesticmerc · 2011-11-19 14:52 · Score: 2

Technically you're still downloading. ;-)

Package managers by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 06:57 · Score: 5, Informative

I'll tell you why downloads for Linux have declined - better and more complete package manager systems give users less incentive to go to places like SourceForge for programs, because they can use built-in tools like Ubuntu's Software Center.

Re:Package managers by RonVNX · 2011-11-19 07:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

The original "app stores" for Linux are its package repos.
Re:Package managers by Nerdfest · 2011-11-19 07:17 · Score: 1

With the bonus being that things are kept up to date. I'm still amazed that the Mac app store doesn't allow third party repositories to be added. Well, not really amazed, I think Apple and I have different goals.
Re:Package managers by Korin43 · 2011-11-19 07:26 · Score: 1

It doesn't really explain why it's declining since 2010 though. Linux distros have had package managers for over 10 years. I'm not aware of any huge changes in package managers recently, but it could just be that there are more packages and people are getting better at using their package managers.
Re:Package managers by CapuchinSeven · 2011-11-19 07:27 · Score: 1

How would that make any sense to what the Apple App store is meant to be doing for users?
Re:Package managers by theshowmecanuck · 2011-11-19 07:36 · Score: 1

FTFY

How would that make any sense to what the Apple App store is meant to be doing for users: draining their pocket books?

That's Apple's right, and the right of users to let them. But let's make sure the idea is complete before posting it. :)

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Re:Package managers by jpate · 2011-11-19 07:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

My guess is that it has to do with the rise of github and bitbucket, together with version control systems that aren't completely dependent on a central repository. Sourceforge used to be the go-to place for coordinating open-source project development, but not so much anymore.
Re:Package managers by vinayg18 · 2011-11-19 07:39 · Score: 1

Non-geek users don't usually open terminals to install packages. They need simple interfaces. Ubuntu Software Centre, for example, has been in Ubuntu versions since 9.10. That could be one of several reasons.
Re:Package managers by SnowZero · 2011-11-19 07:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

There has been a shift toward Debian-based derivatives such as Ubuntu. Historically at least, Debian repos were bigger and didn't require going outside the manager to download an RPM/tgz as much. RPM distros also seemed to be more fragmented into incompatible subgroups, while Ubuntu and several others stay close enough to their parent that simple packages (the bulk of long-tail software) can be exchanged. Things are much closer than they used to be, but if you gather a lot of data you might still see a statistical difference.
Re:Package managers by digitig · 2011-11-19 10:37 · Score: 1

It might indicate that the number of non-uber-geek users -- users who wouldn't necessarily see beyond the repositories. I have to count myself in that class; I'm mainly a Windows user but I'm a casual Linux user, and I'll venture beyond the Ubuntu package manager as far as apt-get, but any further and I'm likely to figure the installation is going to be more trouble than the application is worth.

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Re:Package managers by Jerry · 2011-11-19 14:15 · Score: 1

Exactly.
Since I moved to Kubuntu, in Feb of 2009, I have downloaded only 3 apps from SourceForge. Everything else came from the repositories or the PPA's.

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Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Re:Package managers by gumbi+west · 2011-11-19 15:21 · Score: 1

Yet installing packages (in my brief encounter with ubuntu) required lots of time on the CLI digging out errors from some non-compatable hardware.
Re:Package managers by f()rK()_Bomb · 2011-11-19 21:14 · Score: 0

Indeed, Linux still sucks as a desktop os, that why I run it in a vm. It's fine as a desktop os as long as you never do anything more than use it as an Internet kiosk.

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"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
Re:Package managers by CapuchinSeven · 2011-11-20 01:07 · Score: 1

WTF are you talking about? Paid programs on the app store are nearly always cheeper, often by a large amount, than from other sources and can be installed legally on five computers instead of just the usual one. The App Store is a safe way to find software with a push towards finding software that uses sandboxing and there is plenty of free and open source software, to include other repositories would break the whole point of the place and it's clearly having no ill effect on a large number of OSX users using open source software, even if Apple's entire idea is to drain users of their money that doesn't change the point that was made.
OOH wait I get it, you wanted your little podium moment to let everyone know you don't like Apple, while making no actual point. This is a safe place, this is Slashdot, you're safe here.
Re:Package managers by theshowmecanuck · 2011-11-20 08:16 · Score: 1

Very nice from an Apple stooge.
Since you seem to suffer from reading incomprehension, let me explain it to you. The OP was making a case for adding third party repositories to the standard Apple package manager so that less tech savvy Apple users don't only have the Apple Store to download from. I am making the point that Apple doesn't want that because it would cut into profits. Understand?
Now if you still don't understand there are one of three reasons: 1) you don't have enough information to understand (but given the info in this thread, you should have that already); 2) you aren't smart enough to understand (given that the info is here, that might be the case); and 3) you don't want to understand (given that you appear to be an Apple stooge and likely fanatic this is a strong possibility). But let me help you some more:
Linux has many safe third party repositories where users can legally download and legally use software (on however many computers they want, not just up to 5). And the software for each repository is almost always geared to a particular distribution (e.g. Red Hat, Ubuntu, Suse, etc.), and as such tested to make sure it works on that distribution before being added to the repository (Sourceforge doesn't guarantee a binary build for your OS, that is a convenience the developers provide, Sourceforge generally only guarantees the source code is there in case you want or need to build the application for your particular system). But the key difference between third party repositories and the Apple Store here is that those repositories host free (as in beer) software. In fact, almost all the usable software found on Sourceforge can be found in those free repositories. Now here is where you need to put on your thinking cap: but Apple doesn't allow third party repositories. Why? Because if they made it easy to get software from repositories other than the Apple Store, less tech savvy users (who are intimidated by manually installing software) would be able to get the same free software found on Sourceforge without having to install it manually or having to build it themselves. And more to the point, they wouldn't have to pay a fee or at least a commission for installing the software from the Apple Store. Get it fucktard?
Apple users ARE getting software from Sourceforge. You can't argue that. Apple wants to limit users from being able to get free software as much as they can. It is why all software sold on the Apple Store needs to pay a cut to Apple.
The other advantage to third party repositories as opposed to manually installing from Sourceforge, if you can figure it out, is that the third party repositories keep the software up to date, allowing you to automate updates to your computer from those repositories. That way you get patches when they happen instead of having to check back at Sourceforge periodically and updating manually (which is a source of vulnerability since most people don't check often enough). And try telling people that the software at Sourceforge is not safe or that it has viruses in it, or malware. You will be told by others in no uncertain terms to fuck right off. Sourceforge hosts safe software. At least as safe as that found on the Apple Store.
The only reason Apple doesn't allow third party repositories is that they can't make money from them. Now if you don't want to understand that, take your Apple Stooging Ass out of here and fuck right off. And for the record, I think Apple makes a good product. But they are more closed up than Microsoft for certain, and care more about dollars than their customers. And I don't see the percentage of spending twice as much for an Apple than for a PC, since Microsoft PCs are just as stable and safe, have more software available for cheaper, and just work too. The only valid reason to spend that kind of money is if you are a programmer on Unix systems. Other than that buyers are fanatic snobs who think they are cool. Fuck, Android phones make iPhones look like shit. Jobs was a tyrant and I seriously dou

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Re:Package managers by jcarr · 2011-11-20 11:37 · Score: 1

As another slashdot old timer, I agree that I use apt-get for most everything. I'm a software developer, so there are times that I get packages from upstream sources (via git,svn,etc). However, this is very unlikely for a normal user. Everything is already packaged in the repositories.
Re:Package managers by CapuchinSeven · 2011-11-20 12:37 · Score: 1

Since you seem to suffer from reading incomprehension, let me explain it to you. The OP was making a case for adding third party repositories to the standard Apple package manager so that less tech savvy Apple users don't only have the Apple Store to download from. I am making the point that Apple doesn't want that because it would cut into profits. Understand?
I stopped reading at this point, I'm sure you go on to rant about Jobs or something wonderfully fascinating. The OP said he's amazed Apple don't allow third party repositories, I followed that up with a comment that it would totally defeat the whole point of the App Store to do that, with the sandbox and security requirements. The WHOLE point of the App Store is so that, in your words "less tech savvy Apple users" don't have to worry about where their software comes from and is protected by sandboxing. Adding more repositories totally breaks the point of the App Store when there is a huge amount of free and open source software on the App Store and countless other places for more experienced OSX users to install software. Apple making money from that changes nothing.
So your point is, Apple is making money for offering a service (the bastards, how dare a business make money off a service they provide while allowing users to continue installing software any other way they choose from other sources outside of their store) and just HAD to add that in there with a rude comment which didn't actually change the point, i.e. "I'm amazed Apple don't allow third party repositories", "that would go against what Apple are trying to do with the App Store". Wonderful, thanks for your completely pointless contribution. You're an idiot.
Enjoy your follow up rant, I'm sure it will be wonderful and still won't change that one single point.
Re:Package managers by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-21 09:10 · Score: 0

Back when I wanted some weird app I'd go to sourceforge, but now I just look for a PPA, add it, and go that way. It's better in every way as I know where an app came from (when an upgrade breaks it), and I can know it will work with my version if it's in an appropriate PPA. No compiling & library hunting helps too.

I wonder.... by ducomputergeek · 2011-11-19 06:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

If it's because more *iux developers have moved to Mac, especially on laptops. 10 years ago I knew more "switchers" who switched from Linux to MacOSX for development including myself. Mainly because all the hardware worked and I had the same software stack for the projects I was working on even if the final deployment would be to linux servers.

Every year since I've watched the number of developers using macs increase at conferences so much so that in the past couple years non-mac laptop users really stood out at the three conferences I attend every year.

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"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.

Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think the Intel switch in particular was the biggest accelerator of this. Once this happened, one machine could easily run OSX, Linux, Windows and whatever else you might need it to. The Mac lets me be lazy when I want to be (ie use "mainstream" applications like Word, Photoshop, etc) and still gives me easy easy to tools when I need them (ie MacPorts).
Re:I wonder.... by laffer1 · 2011-11-19 07:15 · Score: 2

I'm sure Intel chips helped, but Ubuntu PPC was pretty awesome on G4 era iBooks. I remember dual booting while I was in college for awhile. Even wifi worked. The only downside was no flash.

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MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:15 · Score: 0

Don't be daft! It's because OS X users don't have a proper repository like Linux. Linux users have no need to crawl through shitty Sourceforge, applications are already and waiting nicely organised and dependency clean by each distro, whether it be Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Suse et al.
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

A little off topic, but following the parent thread. I am a freelance IT consulting and I see more of my colleagues using Macs with VM software. This combination gives one all that they need. You have complete *nix and all the command line stuff with useful Mac UI and then VM software for all the Windows legacy crap you have to deal with from time to time.
I downloaded MySQL 5 as my DB of choice and PHP (plus python, perl, apache, and others) came pre loaded on the mac.
Re:I wonder.... by JWW · 2011-11-19 07:22 · Score: 2

Yes, that's where I'm at too. Mac OS on my laptop, Linux on my servers. It seems weird but its way better than Windows. On your PC, Linux on your servers.
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:31 · Score: 0, Troll

Yeah, I don't know anyone who uses Linux for dsktops and fewer and fewer who use it for any kind of light weight servers. Too bad, it had a chance for a while but it has become obvious that closed source operating systems are FAR FAR FAR better than open source operating systems. Sorry, open source zealots, but that's just the way it is.
Re:I wonder.... by TimPL · 2011-11-19 07:48 · Score: 1

Good luck using Windows Server family on mainframes... Sure, big corporations base their internal communication on the SharePoint, MS Communicator and Exchange. And that's it! But there is more out there than just big, fat companies A lot of small and middle companies who deliver on Linux.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/09/despite-enterprise-dominance-microsoft-struggles-in-web-server-market.ars
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/692631.aspx
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 08:04 · Score: 0

YHBT YHL HAND
Re:I wonder.... by beelsebob · 2011-11-19 08:14 · Score: 2

Right, because the Mac App Store; fink, ports and homebrew don't exist... Wait, no.
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 08:14 · Score: 5, Funny

The only downside was no flash.
So, no downsides then?
Re:I wonder.... by Yvan256 · 2011-11-19 08:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

You have complete *nix and all the command line stuff with useful Mac UI and then VM software for all the Windows legacy crap you have to deal with from time to time.
I'd like to see Apple use that line in a TV ad.
Re:I wonder.... by Anthony+Mouse · 2011-11-19 08:18 · Score: 1, Troll

Obvious troll is obvious (especially when Linux still has better than 60% of the server market and an even larger share of small servers), but realistically this isn't the end of the world for open source. This is people replacing Windows with MacOS. Which can only be a good thing for Linux, because it helps break Windows lock-in.
Applications developed only for Windows rarely run properly on Linux. Applications developed with portability to MacOS in mind get a Linux port nearly for free, because MacOS and Linux share the *nix APIs and you've already separated out all of the platform-specific bits of the code to do the Mac port, plus you've then probably used some kind of cross-platform framework like qt and avoided MS lock-in like .NET.
So the win follows: MacOS achieves a critical mass to get third parties to target it as a development platform and stop writing Windows-locked applications. Then those applications are either easily ported to Linux or someone implements a MacOS equivalent of WINE which will be easier to do and more seamless because of the greater level of similarity between two Unix-like operating systems than between Linux and Windows and because unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't go out of their way to keep their platform a moving target to keep Linux from achieving compatibility. Linux then solves one of the greatest long-standing barriers to increased adoption, namely support for third party applications.
Obviously the death of open source, that.
Re:I wonder.... by kermidge · 2011-11-19 08:27 · Score: 1

....I don't know anyone who uses Linux for dsktops....
Now you know one. Linux on my tower, which I'm using right now, and Linux on my laptop which I loaned to a friend for her business.
While I sometimes use XP in a vm, I ditched Vista on the tower and Win7 on the laptop due largely to maintenance annoyances. I didn't need any Windows-based software that doesn't run in a vm or its open-source analogue on Linux. I made the switch mostly for convenience; any inclination to zealotry was left behind long ago with my youth. YMMV, of course.
Re:I wonder.... by Billly+Gates · 2011-11-19 08:48 · Score: 1

I have never seen a mainframe before. Most I.T. people have not as only 250 companies in the whole US need them. Who cares about them as they mostly run old 30 year old cobol written software running in an emulator on them anyway.

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http://saveie6.com/
Re:I wonder.... by RobbieThe1st · 2011-11-19 08:49 · Score: 1

Same. Debian+KDE on my desktop(now two of them), Debian+LXDE on my laptop(I have a W7 partition, but it's slow and annoying compared to LXDE), and my file/backup server, Maemo on my phone/tablet... What more do I need? Everything Just Works(TM) after initial install/setup. And I can control any machine from any other with SSH, and/or mount any drive to any machine with sshfs or nfs, including my phone!
It's /lovely/.
Re:I wonder.... by TimPL · 2011-11-19 10:36 · Score: 1

There are some countries outside US. There is Europe (please, mind! it's not a country!) and they have corporations, too. And they use big servers with Linux/Unix. I work for a Swiss bank - financial operations and calculations are done on Unix servers.
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 10:49 · Score: 1

From this developer's PoV, the Intel switch is only valuable when combined with the movement towards VMs. The ability to run Windows in Boot Camp, Parallels, VMWare or VirtualPC for those few instances where I need to run a Windows program allowed me to transition. That wouldn't be possible without the switch to Intel, but it wasn't just the switch that made it possible.
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 10:51 · Score: 0

Right, because the Mac App Store; fink, ports and homebrew don't exist... Wait, no.
You forgot the most important one: Google. Last time I checked, precompiled binaries were much harder to get than .dmg/.pkgs
Re:I wonder.... by micheas · 2011-11-19 11:04 · Score: 1

I would guess that the macports like the freebsd ports grab the source from sourceforge. Can't say as I've actually used macports recently enough to comment on the current setup though.

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Work bio at MMWD
Re:I wonder.... by mrchaotica · 2011-11-19 11:44 · Score: 1

...fink, ports and homebrew...
I sure wish we could just pick one of them, though!

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:I wonder.... by JanneM · 2011-11-19 11:53 · Score: 1

Don't be fooled by simple visual impressions though. Macs all look the same, while other machines all look different. The logo stands out and makes it look more prevalent than it is.
I was at a summer research school last year, and my impression the first few days was that more than half - and perhaps more - were using Macs. When I actually counted, though (not all lectures are absorbing and relevant to your own work), the reality was that about 25% were macs.
The most used OS, by the way, was Linux - typically Ubuntu booted native or in a virtual machine - since that's where the software tools we use have the best support.

--
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Re:I wonder.... by Billly+Gates · 2011-11-19 11:54 · Score: 1

I am talkimg IBM mainframes that cost millions a year and hundreds an hour to operate. Not unix servers. I refer to fortune 250 companies that are traded and this includes European countries. Banks of course use mainframes because they can afford them and need something reliable and have very old software they need to run.

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http://saveie6.com/
Re:I wonder.... by jedidiah · 2011-11-19 12:14 · Score: 1

Didn't Macs already have sufficient virtualization options available even before the switch to x86? Mac users have been emulating Win/DOS for a long time as have pretty much all of the alternative operating systems.
The fact that hardware has gotten a lot faster while OS requirements have remained relatively stagnant is why virtualization is much more viable these days. With 6 cores and 8G of RAM, you can virtualize quite a lot and that kind of PC hardware is pretty cheap.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:I wonder.... by jedidiah · 2011-11-19 12:16 · Score: 1

What do you expect the average Apple Store shopper to do with fink and homebrew exactly? You might as well ask them to BUILD their own software. Crowing over tools like that in the n00b OS is really stupid.
The App Store is relatively new and is not nearly as flexible as it's Linux counterparts.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:I wonder.... by gl4ss · 2011-11-20 03:57 · Score: 1

did you ever try pc emulation on a ppc mac?
no? stfu.

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 10:31 · Score: 0

Good luck using Windows Server family on mainframes...
It appears you're not familiar with what a mainframe is if you consider it to be a kind of light weight server.
Re:I wonder.... by stewbacca · 2011-11-22 03:50 · Score: 1

They stopped making MacOS in 2001. Please, call it Mac OS X.

Wonder no more Timothy ... by Zero__Kelvin · 2011-11-19 06:59 · Score: 1

I wonder how much of this last part can be chalked up to the ever-better download infrastructure that the various Linux distros have.

The answer is: (drum roll please) ... more than 99% of it.

--
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun

Re:Wonder no more Timothy ... by nomadic · 2011-11-19 09:02 · Score: 1

How do you know?
Re:Wonder no more Timothy ... by Zero__Kelvin · 2011-11-19 12:14 · Score: 1

I don't. I was misquoted.

--
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun

Linux user here. by IANAAC · 2011-11-19 07:00 · Score: 5, Informative

I can't remember the last time I had to go to sourceforge for anything. Everything I have needed is usually already in my distribution's repositories, or another easily addable third party repository.

Macs (or Windows, for that matter) don't have any sort of repository, do they?

Re:Linux user here. by TheRaven64 · 2011-11-19 07:02 · Score: 4, Informative

Macs have macports, which is a port of the FreeBSD ports system to Darwin. It usually does source builds though, and will try to grab the source from its upstream location, so these will still count towards the stats.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Linux user here. by laffer1 · 2011-11-19 07:16 · Score: 1

There's also mirports from the MirOS project as well. Not nearly as popular, but good enough to grab a few essentials like git for my Mac Pro.

--
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Re:Linux user here. by taiwanjohn · 2011-11-19 07:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

Same here. It's been a long time since I had to "go searching" for an app that wasn't already in the distro's collection. And it's been a good deal longer since I last downloaded something from Sourceforge. The only thing that even comes to mind is iscan which I need for my Epson scanner, and it's not hosted on sourceforge.
In any case, I'm glad to see the uptick in Apple downloads, though I suspect that's more a reflection of Linux geeks choosing Apple hardware, rather than the other way around. I don't have a laptop at the moment, But my last laptop was an iBook, and the the next one will probably be an iMac-Pro... because I know that Apple has good, solid hardware, and because the hardware is so tightly controlled, I know that it's easy to write for. If I get an Asus notebook, it's a crap-shoot for which chipset, which graphics chip, etc..
I'll gladly bet a beer that any decent Linux distro will boot "out of the box" on Apple hardware. But I'd be cautious about that bet on some random confabulation of "commodity-PC" hardware.

--
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Re:Linux user here. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:51 · Score: 1

I can't remember the last time I had to go to sourceforge for anything.
I use both Linux (Arch) and Windows (XP and 7), and it is extremely rare for me to go to Sourceforge when I'm on the Linux side of my box, precisely because there's almost always a package for what I want in one of the distro repositories. That leaves only the relatively few cases when I want the absolute latest version of the code, or there's something really obscure that I want to play with, in which case it's probably not on Sourceforge to begin with, like the ancient wireframe 3D viewer I was tinkering with recently.
On the Windows side, I hit Sourceforge all the damn time, though I'm always downloading precompiled installers in that case. Setting up the build toolchain on Windows is enough of a pain in the ass that I haven't bothered. I'm a Linux programmer, but I'm just a Windows user.
As for Mac users, I can only guess since I don't have a Mac and I'm not interested in owning one. But considering the increase in the Mac's popularity in recent years, it would be surprising if there weren't more Mac downloaders just because of their sheer numbers. There's a lot of good open software out there, and I don't see any reason that Mac users would be any less interested in it than Linux or Windows users. Given the cultural differences, I doubt that Mac (or Windows) users download as many commandline tools as Linux users but there's been a veritable explosion of open graphics, video, and audio tools in recent years, and those are going to appeal to people who want them no matter what their platform is, and MacOS has long been a popular choice for that kind of application.
Re:Linux user here. by marcosdumay · 2011-11-19 07:51 · Score: 2

I'd add a me to here. In fact, I used to download things from Sourceforge, mainly because the version available at my distro was old or had a version dependent bug. I don't do that anymore, in part because sourceforge stopped working as well as it used to (I can't even login again, try using a forum or bugtracking) and because Debian started to correct bugs faster than the packages available at Sourceforge.
Not that the data of the article is much relevant. It is composed of only two years (came-on, Sourceforge is there for a decade now), and most of the downloads are for unknown operating systems. Also, the trend on Linux isn't a trend at all, it is composed of 4 months with a lot of downloads followed by several months with less downloads, out of that change there is no visible trend (on other OSs there is no sudden change, they are just noise with a small signal added to it). It could be that something interesting happened by 2010-2 to 2010-5.

--
Rethinking email
Re:Linux user here. by TheLink · 2011-11-19 08:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

The last time I tried to use mac ports (last year?), it didn't work, the site was down or something. And I tried more than once over a period of time. Gave up.

FWIW at work I use Windows for desktop stuff, Linux and Windows for server stuff. And OS X for testing some OS X client stuff.

Many prefer OS X. That's fine with me. OS X doesn't suit the way I work. I typically have 30+ task buttons on my Windows taskbar. OS X's Expose would just be slower for me - would take more steps to switch from one window to a specific window. Yes it does it more stylishly, but no thanks ;).

I'm not surprised if many OSS developers/users are using Macs. The "Desktop Linux" developers often seem like they're sabotaging "Desktop Linux" with PulseAudio and other crap. To those who will reply "It Works For Me", hey the rest of the world says Windows and OS X works for them, and OS X's market share has grown way more than Desktop Linux has in a shorter space of time.

I get the impression that Desktop Linux users are having to switch distros every few years just to have something that works not too crappily.
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Re:Linux user here. by RobbieThe1st · 2011-11-19 08:51 · Score: 1

Yup. If I have to grab something from source, I'll usually look for an alternative as it means I'll have to keep it updated and managed, versus having apt do it all for me.
Re:Linux user here. by IANAAC · 2011-11-19 08:55 · Score: 1

I typically have 30+ task buttons on my Windows taskbar. OS X's Expose would just be slower for me - would take more steps to switch from one window to a specific window. Yes it does it more stylishly, but no thanks ;).
I'm not surprised if many OSS developers/users are using Macs. The "Desktop Linux" developers often seem like they're sabotaging "Desktop Linux" with PulseAudio and other crap. To those who will reply "It Works For Me", hey the rest of the world says Windows and OS X works for them, and OS X's market share has grown way more than Desktop Linux has in a shorter space of time.
I'm very much a keyboard kinda guy. Two of the most useful features of any Linux desktop I use (currently Gnome 2.x and Compiz) are [Super]A and [Super]W to get an overview of everything I have running and switch to, if need be much like you would with a Mac. I suppose I could also just cycle through [Alt]TAB as you would on Windows, but that seems cumbersome to me.
You're right about Desktop Linux getting sabotaged: Gnome3 and Unity purposefully seem to restrict the way I work. Sadly with the current course of Gnome3/Unity, I'll probably end up using XFCE. It's not bad, but nowhere near as useful as Gnome2/Compiz (yes, I know Compiz can be made to work with XFCE, but it's sort of buggy.)
Re:Linux user here. by ninetyninebottles · 2011-11-19 10:13 · Score: 1

I suppose I could also just cycle through [Alt]TAB as you would on Windows, but that seems cumbersome to me.
On Windows I still do this a lot. I used to do it on OS X before Expose and it was nicer (one chording key to switch apps and one to switch windows within an app is way, way faster when you have lots of apps and lots of windows). Now though, I think we've found a better way.
Re:Linux user here. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 10:28 · Score: 0

I'm a linux user that's a developer. I run Windows in virtual machine for development. I run Mac OS X, but an old version by Apple standards (even if it would be supported by Ubuntu LTS release and definitely in Microsoft release cycle).
1. No one uses sf.net for development. People use things like github or similar.
2. I haven't been to sf.net for a while. The most recent trip there was to get mingw for Windows.
Overall, I don't like OS X, so whoever said that OS X is where "everyone" is, must be mistaken. OS X is even worse to use than Windows + Cygwin. Actually, I would have to say,
Linux >> Windows+Cygwin > OS X > Windows
Re:Linux user here. by ohnocitizen · 2011-11-19 13:40 · Score: 2

To those who will reply "It Works For Me", hey the rest of the world says Windows and OS X works for them, and OS X's market share has grown way more than Desktop Linux has in a shorter space of time.
Its true. The Linux community can ignore the requests of users, but then users will continue to migrate. Same deal with Windows and even Macs at different points in their history (and still today). Ignore your market, your market leaves. For Linux, I think the most common requests are "a desktop that isn't a resource hog, looks nice, and let's me work how *I* want to work" alongside the eternal ask for "better hardware support", with "better office apps" and "better support for windows apps" along for the ride. It isn't a question of what is a fair feature request, simply "if users don't get what they want, they leave", and that is a shame.
Re:Linux user here. by lister+king+of+smeg · 2011-11-19 13:42 · Score: 1

as i have said many times grab the source and sudo make, sudo make install

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---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:Linux user here. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 14:23 · Score: 1

Unity is Compiz. Super+W works out of the box, try harder.
Re:Linux user here. by GPLHost-Thomas · 2011-11-19 20:58 · Score: 1

"Desktop Linux" with PulseAudio
It works for me!
Re:Linux user here. by TheLink · 2011-11-19 22:46 · Score: 1

I wrote a program that runs on MS Windows that allows you to quickly assign alt/winkey+ to windows.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/
Basically if you suddenly have 5 windows you need to quickly switch amongst, just click/raise them in reverse order of precedence (window #5 to window #1), then press "winkey+0".
After that:
winkey+1 = window #1
winkey+2 = window #2
and so on, till winkey+9 in most recently raised order.
Probably only a few people in the world would find it useful, but my turn to say "Works For Me" :).
FWIW I actually suggested it to the OSS GUI bunch:
lists.kde.org/?l=kwin&m=114068120330057
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/DesignersPlayground/KeyboardShortcuts
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Re:Linux user here. by TheLink · 2011-11-20 01:09 · Score: 1

Oops it should be:

quickly assign alt/winkey+[number] to windows.
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Re:Linux user here. by IANAAC · 2011-11-20 02:01 · Score: 1

Unity is Compiz. Super+W works out of the box, try harder.
If Compiz worked with the latest version of Ubuntu, then sure. But it doesn't. It crashes every half hour (or more) on me, so I had to downgrade to an earlier version of Compiz. So Unity doesn't work. If you do a search for "Ubuntu 11.10 (or Ubuntu 11.04) and Compiz crashes" and you'll see it's not an isolated problem either.
Re:Linux user here. by TheLink · 2011-11-20 02:55 · Score: 1

to get an overview of everything I have running and switch to, if need be much like you would with a Mac.
With Windows I just have double height taskbars and ungrouped task buttons. Typically have 30+ taskbuttons on my taskbar at work. I can switch to any window with just one click, rather than: "swipe", wait for Expose's fancy animation then click on window.
Windows 7 allows you to do winkey+tab to show the windows. But that doesn't really work for 30+ windows, and I actually prefer Windows 7 in classic mode :). Windows 7 also puts task buttons of the same application next to each other, which can be helpful sometimes.
If you're a keyboard kinda guy and ever use windows you could try my utility called LinkKey: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/
Not sure if you'd find that sort of thing useful though. I'm a bit surprised it even got one recommendation (wasn't me ;) ).
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Re:Linux user here. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 03:02 · Score: 0

Or switch to OS X.

Then you can focus on getting your own program's source code to work rather than waste time trying to get someone else's source code to work.
Re:Linux user here. by ninetyninebottles · 2011-11-20 03:58 · Score: 1

That's an interesting idea, although when I only have 5 windows it sort of seems like overkill. Is there a way to scale past 10 windows? Another innovation that someone has probably implemented but I haven't seen is window managers being aware of tabs within an application and optionally treating them as windows for purposes of keyboard navigation.
Re:Linux user here. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 06:17 · Score: 0

`I'll gladly bet a beer that any decent Linux distro will boot "out of the box" on Apple hardware.`
Ack. No.
As an example, the latest Ubuntu has trouble with the Mac's version of EFI, so you need to grab a tweaked "Mac" version that will use the BIOS compat layer.
After that, if you happen to be using a Mac like mine that only has evil nVidia graphics, you need to disable KMS or the automatic boot will freeze.
Fedora is even more troublesome.
Re:Linux user here. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 16:13 · Score: 0

uhhhh... nice way of putting it?
Apple hired some MacPorts developers, pumped it up until people began installing it instead of Fink, then fired or reassigned them. Why? To prevent there from ever being a viable free software installing system.
Not everyone knew back in the early aughts how control-freakish Apple intended to be. I know I didn't. Of course, I was in hyschool back then, and everyone was all "apple, think different" and shit.

We have X! by wjcofkc · 2011-11-19 07:02 · Score: 5, Interesting

Also a long time Linux user, I jumped onto the Mac bandwagon as my full time platform in 2005. Best personal computing decision I ever made. On the one hand, Apples default applications are remarkable (Garageband\iMovie anybody?) I also use textedit like crazy. For me the single most important piece of default software has been X windows. If you are running it on Linux I can almost certainly run it on my Mac. I use GIMP frequently. OS X comes with GCC, apache, etc... I also like that I don't really ever have to minimize anything since tiling a bazzion windows on a Mac really is very effective. Then there is built in system wide spell check. Did I mention spotlight? I could go on and on.

--
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.

Re:We have X! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:06 · Score: 0, Insightful

It would be nice if said programs would stop depending on X as it is rather shit.
Re:We have X! by CapuchinSeven · 2011-11-19 08:06 · Score: 1

I agree, I've moved from Linux to some Apple stuff and it's wonderful to use. My laptop is an 11" Air and I use a Mac Mini as a home desktop for all the reasons you've listed and more, I honestly couldn't go back to a Linux GUI, any of them. It still has its home on my servers though.
Re:We have X! by Billly+Gates · 2011-11-19 08:50 · Score: 0

It seems to me that Linux is a poor mans Mac. I can't justify the price and the way Jobs leaves old versions of MacOS in the cold fast. It is great if you do not have $$$$ in student loans or get paid pre-2009 salaries but count your blessings if you do and can afford one.
In the Windows world people still use XP which is over 10 years old for crying out and software companies still support it.
I left Linux but switched to Windows because it is much cheaper and I can run Linux in a VM

--
http://saveie6.com/
Re:We have X! by mspohr · 2011-11-19 12:13 · Score: 1

I found textedit very limited so installed gedit for Mac. Much better.

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Re:We have X! by wjcofkc · 2011-11-19 12:26 · Score: 1

Thanks. Didn't even think of that. I'll give it a spin.

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Re:We have X! by jedidiah · 2011-11-19 12:28 · Score: 2

> It seems to me that Linux is a poor mans Mac.
Linux is Unix.
You never "left Linux". If you had ever ran it, you would have half a clue.
Although a decent machine should not start at $2400.
Now if you are going to run anything in a bottle, Windows is the one to do it with. It's a menace on bare metal and is best treated as a quarantined contagion regardless of what hardware you run.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:We have X! by Vegemeister · 2011-11-19 18:24 · Score: 1

How are you liking the global menu? The broken mouse acceleration curve? The lack of configurable font rendering?
Re:We have X! by jones_supa · 2011-11-19 19:35 · Score: 1

It seems to me that Linux is a poor mans Mac. I can't justify the price and the way Jobs leaves old versions of MacOS in the cold fast. It is great if you do not have $$$$ in student loans or get paid pre-2009 salaries but count your blessings if you do and can afford one.
In the Windows world people still use XP which is over 10 years old for crying out and software companies still support it.
I left Linux but switched to Windows because it is much cheaper and I can run Linux in a VM
Apple makes pretty good stuff, but this price thing really deserves some criticism. It's not does not make sense for some laptop or a phone to cost that much. Even if I had the money I would feel desperate for paying that much. They really have a nice UNIX there with some money behind it so it actually works, better than the chronically crippled Linux desktop.
Re:We have X! by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-20 01:46 · Score: 1

You should go for either Textmate or BBedit, just so you can join the Mac equivalent of the vi vs. emacs holy war.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:We have X! by Andreas+Mayer · 2011-11-20 03:10 · Score: 1

How are you liking the global menu?
It's great.

The broken mouse acceleration curve?
I use SteerMouse.

The lack of configurable font rendering?
Fonts are looking fine. What would I want to configure?
Re:We have X! by Vegemeister · 2011-11-20 03:35 · Score: 1

It's great.
So you enjoy single-tasking on 2560x1440? You must be a masochist.

I use SteerMouse.
A company renowned for UI design can't even get mouse input right and your solution is $20 fly-by-night shareware?

Fonts are looking fine. What would I want to configure?
DPI. Hinting. Subpixel rendering, or not. Subpixel order when using subpixel rendering.
Re:We have X! by Lanteran · 2011-11-20 07:38 · Score: 1

If you don't mind the CLI, vim is also installed by default on Macs. Probably one of the better text editors I've ever used.

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"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Re:We have X! by gullevek · 2011-11-21 14:17 · Score: 1

The X server has for me another more important meaning. I can X-forward stuff to OS X ...

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"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Re:We have X! by wjcofkc · 2011-11-21 14:53 · Score: 1

That is one of the most excellent (if not obvious) points I've ever heard made and the only time I think I've ever heard it made.

--
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Re:We have X! by stewbacca · 2011-11-22 03:53 · Score: 1

The last version of MacOS was "left in the cold" in 2001. I think you mean Mac OS X.

Easy to use nice computer by Phat_Tony · 2011-11-19 07:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's not a popular idea around here, but among my hard-core geek tech industry friends, there are several who used to use Linux as their primary OS who then got a Mac. Many still run both Linux and Windows virtualized, but still tend to boot into OSX.

A lot of geeks just hated Microsoft and were not necessarily huge fans of Linux on the desktop. Once Apple went to Unix, and to Intel, and started making nice laptops, it was an appealing option. Other geeks like open source but also still find Linux frustrating with dependency hell or config file editing or lack of some piece of software functionality, and just want an out-of-the-box OS that they feel they can spend less time messing around with so they can spend more time messing around with their code. [Obviously a contentious topic around here, but in my limited experience I have spent relatively less time troubleshooting configuration on OSX than Linux. Yes, yes, OSX supports a limited set of hardware and Linux tries to support everything, but that doesn't change the time commitment to making your stuff work.]

There are also developer geeks who, until Lion (which allows virtualization), practically had to buy a Mac because they wanted to test their software under Windows, Linux, and OSX, on one machine. So it had to be a Mac virtualizing the other two.

--
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?

Re:Easy to use nice computer by jasnw · 2011-11-19 07:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

I was going to respond to this topic, but this response pretty much sums up what I wanted to say. I switched from Linux+Windows in 2004 to Mac and haven't looked back. I've got two iMacs and a MacBook Pro, all running VMware with Linux and Windows virtual machines. I have a number of Open Source packages installed on all OS X setups using macports. There are things about OS X (and Apple) that I don't like, but the damn things pretty much "just work" and I can roll code that I need done and not that my OS needs done. Linux sans the desktop is still my main workspace (space-related research), but everything else that doesn't require Windows is done in OS X.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by Kenja · 2011-11-19 08:00 · Score: 2

More or less the reason I went with OSX. Scaled down from five different computers running different OS to one machine with lots of CPU power running OSX and my five old systems virtulized.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Re:Easy to use nice computer by Coolhand2120 · 2011-11-19 08:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

There are also developer geeks who, until Lion (which allows visualization), practically had to buy a Mac because they wanted to test their software under Windows, Linux, and OSX, on one machine. So it had to be a Mac visualizing the other two.

Just realize that the fact you can run Windows, Linux and OSX on the same machine has much more to do with Windows and Linux and really nothing to do with OSX.

The only reason you can't do this on every PC hardware platform is because Apple goes out of their way to prevent everyone else from running OSX on non-Apple hardware. They are the only player in the game that has ever done this and it's the most underhanded anti-geek thing there is. What if every OS was keyed to a specific hardware platform?

I find it very ironic that the only reason that a lot of people give for switching to Mac is that OSX is the very reason that Apple is much maligned: locking the OS into their hardware. Nobody else would even consider doing such an insidious thing.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 09:39 · Score: 0

i applaud their locking their os to their hardware. they are a hardware company afterall, you shouldn't begrudge a rational decision...
Re:Easy to use nice computer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 09:50 · Score: 0

There are also developer geeks who, until Lion (which allows visualization), practically had to buy a Mac because they wanted to test their software under Windows, Linux, and OSX, on one machine. So it had to be a Mac visualizing the other two.
Just realize that the fact you can run Windows, Linux and OSX on the same machine has much more to do with Windows and Linux and really nothing to do with OSX.
The only reason you can't do this on every PC hardware platform is because Apple goes out of their way to prevent everyone else from running OSX on non-Apple hardware. They are the only player in the game that has ever done this and it's the most underhanded anti-geek thing there is. What if every OS was keyed to a specific hardware platform?
I find it very ironic that the only reason that a lot of people give for switching to Mac is that OSX is the very reason that Apple is much maligned: locking the OS into their hardware. Nobody else would even consider doing such an insidious thing.
Not tying the OS to specific hardware is exactly what makes the Linux and Windows experiences so god damned shitty.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by Guy+Harris · 2011-11-19 10:16 · Score: 2

I find it very ironic that the only reason that a lot of people give for switching to Mac is that OSX is the very reason that Apple is much maligned: locking the OS into their hardware. Nobody else would even consider doing such an insidious thing.
There's "locking the OS to their hardware", and there's "only developing the OS for their hardware". Apple does both, but it's the latter, not the former, that people are giving, if by "the only reason that a lot of people give for switching to Mac" you're referring to "you don't have to fiddle with the OS to make it work with your hardware". There may be something "insidious" about the former, but not the latter.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by manicb · 2011-11-19 10:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Rational decisions will ruin us, and condemnation is all we have to oppose them. See Garrett Hardin's seminal essay The Tragedy Of The Commons or, if you're in more of a rush, the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by stms · 2011-11-19 11:21 · Score: 1

The only reason you can't do this on every PC hardware platform is because Apple goes out of their way to prevent everyone else from running OSX on non-Apple hardware. They are the only player in the game that has ever done this and it's the most underhanded anti-geek thing there is. What if every OS was keyed to a specific hardware platform?
As a Hackintosh user I can tell you they don't "go way out of their way to prevent other hardware from being run" there's a very small amount of copy protection on OS X compared to what it could be. I can remember having to tinker more to get my first windows install working then my first Hackintosh. They mainly just don't support 3rd party hardware. They still support their software on that hardware through the software update.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by jedidiah · 2011-11-19 12:31 · Score: 1

Alternatively, I have a Mac that sits and collects dust because it doesn't live up to the hype. I don't "need" it for many of the reasons that fanboys like to crow about. Plus the thing is underpowered and difficult to deal with.
The only real valid part of you comment is "software functionality".
For that, Windows has a far greater advantage in both apps and games as well as having a less "walled garden" mindset.
Apple products want you to adapt to them as much as the worst Unix interfaces out there. They just look prettier while they are doing it.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Easy to use nice computer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 21:13 · Score: 0

Agreed. It takes me longer to install Windows my on PC than it does OS X.
tonymacx86.com

Simple reason: More Macs by gnasher719 · 2011-11-19 07:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

The number of Mac users is growing. Therefore the number of Mac users doing X is growing, whatever X is. For example, the number of Mac users downloading open source software can be expected to grow since there are more Mac users. Now the _percentage_ of Mac users downloading open source software, that would be interesting to know.

Debian / Ubuntu user by phrostie · 2011-11-19 07:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

I hit up Sourceforge if i'm looking for what is out there,

to download, i use apt-get.

I only download from Sourceforge if there isn't a native package already

Re:Debian / Ubuntu user by GPLHost-Thomas · 2011-11-19 21:04 · Score: 1

I only use sourceforge to download ... software I want to make a package for! :)

The reason: Life is too short for a Linux Desktop by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

I want to be clear that the comments below refer to Desktop Linux, not Linux on the server or elsewhere.

After 12 years of being a Linux hacker, and running Linux on all my boxen, I switched to a macbook pro (running OSX) a little over a year ago. Oh, how I wish I had switched sooner. I wish I could reclaim all of the hours spent trying to get things to work on Linux. What a waste of time. My productivity as a software developer took a nice Jump now that the platform works, and is actually a pleasure to sit in front of. I'm sure other developers have arrived at the same conclusion: Life is too short to waste in front of a Linux Desktop.

OSX isn't perfect. I believe the Linux kernel, and other systems level components to be superior on Linux. The overall experience, however, is much better on a Mac. Now that the Linux Desktop is marginalized (due to various reasons), the desktop becomes a means, not an end. People just want things to work so they can get things done.

SourceForge is awful by tires+don+exits · 2011-11-19 07:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

SourceForge is an awful interface for development. The only reason to go to SourceForge for Linux users is if the project is new enough that you need to download the source and compile it yourself. I've seen more and more new projects moving to GitHub or BitBucket instead of SourceForge. SourceForge's user interface, bug tracker, wiki software, is kind of awful. The newest development isn't happening on SourceForge, it's on GitHub.

The projects still on SourceForge started there when SourceForge was where to go. They're all old enough that they're mature and in the package managers.

linux users decline by sega_sai · 2011-11-19 07:27 · Score: 2

My guess is that there are two main reasons for the decline from linux users -- one is that the old projects are already in distrib's repositories, while new projects don't really go to sourceforge, because of its insfrastructure. For the project admins code.google.com, github and etc. are way easier to manage comparing to sourceforge (I'm speaking as owner of a few projects on sf.net, code.google and github).

And the games ... by perpenso · 2011-11-19 07:32 · Score: 1

I wonder if it's because more *iux developers have moved to Mac, especially on laptops. 10 years ago I knew more "switchers" who switched from Linux to MacOSX for development including myself. Mainly because all the hardware worked and I had the same software stack for the projects I was working on even if the final deployment would be to linux servers. Every year since I've watched the number of developers using macs increase at conferences so much so that in the past couple years non-mac laptop users really stood out at the three conferences I attend every year.

Don't forget the games. While not as good for gaming as Windows, Mac OS X was certainly far better than Linux.

Re:And the games ... by Vegemeister · 2011-11-19 12:15 · Score: 1

Macs have laptop-class GPUs at best...
Re:And the games ... by perpenso · 2011-11-19 14:56 · Score: 1

Macs have laptop-class GPUs at best...
That is not accurate, many PCs have low to midrange GPUs as well, the majority of PCs sold today to individuals are laptops, and what good does a better performing GPU do if developers do not target your platform? It is a frequent comment of Linux users that they configure their system to dual boot to Windows because of the lack of games under Linux.

Different User Groups, Different Needs by andersh · 2011-11-19 07:34 · Score: 5, Informative

While Linux offers a lot more [out of the box], the average Apple user doesn't need a repository. They can however easily add one! The App Store helped a lot in my opinion. Using Fink and Macports is not mainstream, but it sure works me!

Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by MrNthDegree · 2011-11-19 07:44 · Score: 0

The App Store is a bad attempt at adding a repository. Yet Apple made the n00bish mistake of thinking a whole monolithic blob called an "OS Upgrade" belongs in a repository as a single component.... and I thought Pat Volkerding was crazy!
Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by gOemb · 2011-11-19 09:20 · Score: 5, Informative

Just because you mentioned Fink and Macports, I would like to mention Homebrew [http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/]. It just amazed me how easy it can actually be. This is *the* package manager for OSX and the only one where everything I wanted worked very well just like that (zsh, tmux, new ruby versions...).
Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by elfprince13 · 2011-11-19 11:30 · Score: 0

I haven't heard anything good about Homebrew from anyone I know irl that has used it.
Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by tixxit · 2011-11-19 12:09 · Score: 1

Last time I tried, homebrew was missing several key pieces of software I used. MacPorts had them, but failed to install them. I miss apt.
Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by IAmGarethAdams · 2011-11-19 13:07 · Score: 1

I have.
</counter-anecdote>
Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 12:58 · Score: 0

I don't like the user writable /usr/local

Bogus by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2011-11-19 07:42 · Score: 2

The article is basically worthless. "A few short years ago ... you would not have shown your face at, say, ApacheCon, with a MacBook"? Please. Powerbooks are older than MacBooks, and back in the day I recall when those started to show up - a lot - at Linux-heavy events.

It's worth noting the author is a writer, not a developer - so she probably hasn't actually hung out with the rank-and-file attendees at these conferences much this past decade.

Actually my lead-in was a bit harsh. It is worth noting the large number of Mac-centric projects that exist on SourceForge nowadays as opposed to 2003 (when my desktop switched from Linux to Mac). Back then, it seemed most all projects I was interested in had to be grabbed as a .tar.gz file, built using config/make/make install, and used X11. Now there are a goodly number of Mac-only projects (although I suspect more of those live on code.google than on sourceforge), and a non-insigificant number of "Linux" projects offer a .dmg download as well. But beyond just noting the numbers, the article offers absolutely no justification for any of the speculation it proffers as to "why".

--
#DeleteChrome

Re:Bogus by HatofPig · 2011-11-19 08:53 · Score: 1

so she probably hasn't actually hung out with the rank-and-file attendees at these conferences much this past decade.
But we are hanging out! This is hanging out. This is hanging out, isn't it?

--
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay

Macs have Homebrew by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 07:43 · Score: 1

https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew — that's how I get nearly all of the open source software I use on the Mac.

Back soon.. by bwashed75 · 2011-11-19 07:48 · Score: 1

Not a major point, but with distros going crazy like Ubuntu recently, I don't particularly feel like installing anything I don't know on top of that. I only have so much time. I'll come back when my OS doesn't get in my way. /rant

Re:Back soon.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 15:18 · Score: 0

In your way of what? You have to define that before ranting. What do they prevent you from doing that OS X doesn't? Does it let you add third party repositories where Ubuntu doesn't? Does it run on all the random hardware Ubuntu neglects? Both are solid reasons to go with OS X, but still, you need to specify what OS X allows you to that Ubuntu doesn't?

Better look out for apple trying to do more lockin by Joe_Dragon · 2011-11-19 08:05 · Score: 0, Troll

They may in the next mac os move to more of a app store only lock in.

Right now alot of software in the app store is cut down vs the non app store ver and I don't think a lot of the open software will pass apples guide lines to get in to the app store any ways.

Uh that's not a good idea by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 08:14 · Score: 1, Funny

open source is known to have tons of viruses and porn/child porn in it. avoid it at all costs. its illegal and will screw up your macintosh

mod this post up plz so ppl know.

The answer is obvious... by icongorilla · 2011-11-19 08:36 · Score: 1

Everybody on Windows is waiting for GIMP 2.8. Everybody on linux is waiting for gWaei which I just released yesterday. ;-D Expect those numbers to go up!

--
The thought of hanging myself at my student loan organization doesn't bug me as much when I think it might make a differ

Mac: It runs everything. by LostCluster · 2011-11-19 08:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

I've been saying this for a while... Mac gets access to open source products shortly after Linux gets them and much before the project is ported to Windows.With the ability to run Windows by Boot Camp, VMWare Fusion or Paralells Desktop a Mac user gets access to all the Windows-only stuff and you can't forget the number of applications dedicated to Mac use. In total, it all just works.

MacPorts by MrEricSir · 2011-11-19 08:42 · Score: 4, Informative

I take it you've never heard of MacPorts? It's a package manager for OS X.

It's the easiest way to install MySQL and other necessities for web programming.

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."

Re:Better look out for apple trying to do more loc by LostCluster · 2011-11-19 08:44 · Score: 1

And your source for that rant is what? Apple ignoring the open downloads available from open sources will drive many people to Linux. They're not stupid enough to attempt the lockin nightmare you're imagining.

idea by nomadic · 2011-11-19 09:04 · Score: 1

I switched from linux back to windows a few years ago, and don't regret it; as far as I'm concerned Windows 7 on the desktop is now better than Linux on the desktop, even if the previous iterations were not.

Re:idea by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 19:47 · Score: 0

To each his own I say. Personally -- I still hate the way Windows programs install. The whole song-and-dance routine with unzip, extract, setting the setup, the splashscreen and in many cases even today in Windows 7 the conclusion with "Restart Computer because 2-bit-weather-widget has installed!".
And particularly post-Vista followed by Windows standard message -- "This program may not have installed correctly" (How the f**k a user is supposed to know whether it indeed installed correctly or not??)
Dialogs, questions are all ambiguous still. And to top it all --- the immense amount of screen space wastage with the new "glassified" Windows.
No thanks! Linux all the way.
Re:idea by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 21:11 · Score: 0

Trolololol

A lot of mac-fanboys by devent · 2011-11-19 09:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

A lot of mac-fanboys (maybe girls, too?) here. I'm using Linux because a) I can put it on every computer/laptop and b) it is a lot easy to use as alternatives (is there KDE for Mac?)

Just now I updated my Fedora 15 to 16, and I don't have to pay a dime. In a year I update to 17 and get the new awesomeness of KDE and other Linux apps, all for free.

But I know in our society if you can't pay for it, it is worthless. So you can't impress your friends with the newest useless expensive gadget. "I have Fedora 16 with KDE4.7" --- "Bahh I have it, too, it's free so you can't impress me"

I was only on sourceforge to download some java or c libraries, because I'm a developer. I wouldn't know what else to download from that site. Everything I need I can download and install with a few mouse clicks. To go to some obscure site (like sourceforge or download.com or some other crap website), it's like back when I still had Windows XP (with all the crap what the setup.exe are installing).

As Linux gets more attraction (like with Ubuntu), there is no wonder that less Linux users will go to Sourceforge to download apps. To get real popularity for a project there is nothing better as get into the main repositories of Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse (and the other distributions).

--
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute

Re:A lot of mac-fanboys by Analog+Guru · 2011-11-19 09:12 · Score: 1

(is there KDE for Mac?)
Yes. http://community.kde.org/Mac
Re:A lot of mac-fanboys by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 13:06 · Score: 0

"Fanboys"? Fuck no. I use what works. OS X works. Linux doesn't.

How did you get here? by cyberbill79 · 2011-11-19 11:43 · Score: 5, Interesting

I find many of these posts very interesting... especially the number of developers getting Macs. I was one of them myself at one point. But I find what intrigues me most is wondering about their histories and past experiences with the os's.

I am currently 99.999% linux, only using Windows or Mac when testing sites or software. But that's not how things began...

I am currently 32. I like many my age, but not all, had grown up with the Apple II's in my elementary school. My earliest memory of such events was being the 'printer expert' in 2nd grade. When anything went wrong with it, I was asked to fix it. I was an Apple fan, amazed at what I could do with this yellowing grey box on the desk. At one point my father came home with an Apple IIgs which just expanded on my experiences, buying my first modem and connecting to the world via the BBS's around at the time. My first email address was through one of these boards. We later got a Macintosh, I forget the model, but it had all sorts of multimedia capabilities. In high school, I bought my first PC from a friend. He gave me MS DOS 6.22 to use, and later Windows 3.11. I found it all very interesting, and learned quite a bit about the OS after formatting and reinstalling it so many times. Maybe a year later, I found out about Linux from another friend at school. He was very passionate about it which made me so curious about this relatively unknown OS. My first time installing Linux was very painful, but I was determined. Through Windows, downloading a handful of disk images, and then rebooting and loading what I downloaded onto a second partition. After a few times going back and forth, I had enough of the system installed, that I could get myself online through Linux and continue installing the packages there. Compiling the kernel I don't know how many times to get this or that working. Finally the full installation setup with X a week after I had began. From that point on, I had strived to use Linux as my main system. Only problem was I liked using laptops. It took a very long time for Linux to become viable in this arena. I switched from various versions of windows to linux and back again for many, many years. I could never switch fully over for one reason or another. Quite often it was due to lack of software for some task. I keep trying, though I often had a second system setup as a Linux server for various network related tasks. Fast forward to about 4 years ago, I got my first Macintosh since way back. A Macbook Pro with the intel processor. I got Parallels and was able to still do my Windows stuff and play with Linux when I wanted to. 2 years later, I had my motherboard replaced because of the NVIDIA issue. It was at that point that I felt incredibly vulnerable if my system had actually gone down. Was I going to drop another $2,000 on a new Mac replacement if something went wrong? All my software was Mac-only! I had backed myself up against a wall. I began looking for multi-platform open-source free software to replace all of the OSX-only programs I was using. 6 months later I did a full backup of my system in-case anything went wrong during the transition, and leapt back into the Linux community wiping my Mac and installing a recent edition of a Linux distribution. Only a few stumbling blocks since the Macs were just starting to get support, but I had made the switch. One year later, the screen on my MacBook went bad, an internal crack that would cost about $300 for me to replace it myself, more if I had someone else do it. Typing blind, since the screen was completely unreadable, I got myself to another tty console and installed ssh using apt-get. I can't believe it wasn't on there, but now it's one of the first things I do. I was able to access everything on my computer now from my fiancée's laptop, which I had recently switched to Linux (she loves it! :) ), while I contemplated my situation. Replace the $300 screen on this 'aging' laptop (wow technology moves fast), replace it with a new one (I find just about every laptop I

Re:How did you get here? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 16:38 · Score: 0

I've personaly been amazed at how easy it is to simply move linux to another computer. In the past few years I've owned a few different laptops, and rather than having to install linux (and more importantly - all my programs) again, I just copied and pasted all the files into recreated partitions on the new laptops drive, making sure to preserve permissions (ofcourse I could have just switched the harddrives... but I wanted the additional space :) ). And lo and behold, all my distributions booted cleanly and fine, with little to no problem. It was as though I was on the same computer! Quite amazing I believe.
Re:How did you get here? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 16:58 · Score: 2, Funny

I am currently 99.999% linux
Which, unfortunately, does not yet seem to support the carriage return.
Re:How did you get here? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 23:45 · Score: 0

Basically the same : using Debian since 1998, I dual booted for like 3 or 4 years because there was always some hardware/software not available/not working under Linux, then around 2002, I deleted my Windows install, and I never looked back. In 2007 I bought a MacBook, found it useful for a year or so, but I was fed up about a lot of small details, so I put back Linux around 2008, and it's my main machine since then...
Re:How did you get here? by Kagetsuki · 2011-11-20 01:03 · Score: 1

rsync! And I just backup my home directory or /home /etc and /var on servers. If you are using a Debian based distro it's easy to recreate the system fresh with just the installed package list.
Re:How did you get here? by Kagetsuki · 2011-11-20 01:12 · Score: 1

I'm surprised you stuck it out on OSX coming from Debian. Just installing software is enough of a pain in the ass on OSX compared to Debian, not to mention how the system is laid out and how it's relatively impossible to customize. Granted I could see how coming from Windows it would be nice, but from Debian!?

As a linux user by shadeofgrey · 2011-11-19 12:32 · Score: 1

I can say for myself, in my years of using Linux, I have never found SourceForge to be an option worth considering for my downloads. As for the suggestion that Linux infrastructure improvement having a part to play, I would choose to agree with that option.

Repository vs Store by andersh · 2011-11-19 12:44 · Score: 1

At first glance I agree it does look rather strange [for a repository], the difference lies in the fact that it's called the "App Store". The OS upgrade is a product.

Where you see a repository, Apple sees a store.

I am a Linux user and I am using Source Forge less by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 13:05 · Score: 0

I am a long time Linux user and I am using Linux a lot less than in past. Most of the source projects I am involved in have migrated to github (there are also a handful on Google code). If I don't specifically want source and it isn't in the main repos (a lot more stuff is), then I can usually find a PPA with up to date (or even bleeding edge builds).

I call BS by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 13:28 · Score: 0

By reading your own words, anybody with a brain can see that you are LYING.

It is not an issue of you not liking a platform. It is the fact that you show complete ignorance of the platform in your post and your "I hate Apple" label screams out loud in your words.

Videolan by j8ee · 2011-11-19 14:04 · Score: 2

I would have guessed it was it only VLC that mac users download from sourceforge... I have many friends with mac's, and they all use VLC.

Re:Videolan by Dr_Barnowl · 2011-11-20 00:33 · Score: 1

I've stayed in hotels where the in-room AV is provided by an iMac, running VLC. They stream everything from a central server, including the TV (much easier in a country where all the broadcasts are now DVB-T).
I appreciated the technical coolness of this solution, as well as the very welcome extra features of having a fully functional computer in the room. I wish more hotels would do it.

Testify by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 15:52 · Score: 0

I've never run Linux at home, just Mac. All the way back to System 7. Nothing against Linux, I just like Macs. I started using Gimp and Inkscape when Adobe decided to add copy protection in CS2. [I purchased the full CS for around $1200 new.] Adobe lost a customer to OSS. I also use apache, eclipse, and contribute to open source projects.

I won't buy an iOS device of any sort because of Apple's walled garden. I'm not thrilled that my new Macbook Air shipped without a backup copy of OS X in the box. (Gee Apple, a 4Gb USB stick is like 5 bucks at Office Depot. It's not like I didn't just drop $1800 bucks on you.) I also refuse to use the Mac App store, because of their copy protection antics. I haven't updated preinstalled software on my laptop (iLife suite) because Apple insists that it must be updated via the Mac App store. That's pretty sad, because I generally like those apps.

I like my new Air, but my wife's new viao z is pretty nice too. It seems Apple is on course to try to stuff the genie back into the bottle with the Mac App store. If they do try to lock users into buying through their own App store, I will switch to Linux and a different hardware company without a second thought. I have very little hope that regular people will follow suit though.

two years? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-19 19:32 · Score: 0

Who takes two years to do a tech study? The results are already outdated and worthless.

I am using linux. by drolli · 2011-11-19 20:50 · Score: 1

However, since i dont have to compile the software included in the distros myself, i usually dont do it. Unless the version is outdated or i want to patch something.

Trex 250 by yang10305 · 2011-11-19 22:13 · Score: 0

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As a relatively recent convert to linux by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 00:40 · Score: 0

I made the complete jump to Linux in Feb after a almost 2 decades of reliance on windows. While using windows I downloaded from sourgeforge a whole lot. Since my jump to linux I've relied on the distro repositories. Primarily because I'm becoming familiar with the OS, it's capabilities and quirks. I needed to have software that just worked and the repositories provide that. As I become more proficient I imagine I'll start to come back to sourceforge again and try my hand at compiling from source, probably within the next few months. I'm already getting itchy about not having the latest version of several packages so that's a good sign....

Re:I am a Linux user and I am using Source Forge l by Kagetsuki · 2011-11-20 00:58 · Score: 1

THIS! Someone mod parent up.

Seconded (mostly) by Morgaine · 2011-11-20 04:50 · Score: 1

Github and Bitbucket have made development and distributed SCMs painless, and that's why Linux developers have gone there in droves.

It's not necessarily because of any huge failing on Sourceforge's part, other than just not keeping up with the times. It's simply been leapfrogged. That happens all the time.

It's not too late to do something about it. Offer all the "new" distributed SCMs as options, make everything dead simple, pretty up the good ol' girl's face (and get rid of any Javascript that is only used for decoration), and offer some kind of incentive --- that bit's up to you, be creative, make your marketing people earn their keep.

It's not too late to turn the Sourceforge boat around for Linux devs, but it does need a little bit of effort on your (SF's) part.

--
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra

Hmm... by fat_mike · 2011-11-20 05:11 · Score: 1

(Note: SourceForge and Slashdot are both part of Geeknet.

What is this Geeknet, I seem to remember "Note: SourceForge and Slashdot are both part of VA Linux" and "Note: Sourceforge and Slashdot are both part of OSM"

Nobody uses it by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 07:58 · Score: 0

Nobody wants to use this because it has no good GUI package manager. They prefer the ease of dragging and dropping a file from a .dmg image.

Where to find open source by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 10:24 · Score: 0

Nearly a million hits now at http://www.thefreemac.com ands whole load of OSX for Macs

Re:The reason: Life is too short for a Linux Deskt by gullevek · 2011-11-21 14:21 · Score: 1

Yeah, I agree with every word. I switched to Mac full term around a year ago. I did that already at home, but I wished I would have done that earlier at work. Those wasted hours for getting something running. What a waste of time.

--
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919

The "Other" category? by Tormodular · 2011-11-22 15:58 · Score: 1

From the article, it looks like the "Other" category accounts for almost half the downloads. I'm a bit dubious about any conclusions drawn from a dataset with this many unidentified points.

Slashdot Mirror

2-Year Study Shows Mac Users Downloading More Open Source Software

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