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OS X Mountain Lion Review
John Siracusa at Ars Technica has published a lengthy and detailed review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. (Lengthy enough that the review garnered a review of its own.) Siracusa methodically goes through all of the changes in the new version, covering everything from the minor new features to the overarching goals. Quoting:
"Despite the oft-cited prediction that Mac will eventually be subsumed by iOS, that's not what's happening here. Apple is determined to bring the benefits of iOS to the Mac, but it's equally determined to do so in a way that preserves the strengths of the Mac platform. Where we Mac nerds go wrong is in mistaking traditions for strengths. Loss aversion is alive and well in the Mac community; with each 'feature' removed and each decision point eliminated from our favorite OS, our tendency is to focus heavily on what's been lost, sometimes blinding ourselves to the gains. But the larger problem is that losses and gains are context-dependent. A person who never uses a feature will not miss it when it's gone. We all pay lip service to the idea that most users never change the default settings in software, but we rarely follow this through to its logical conclusion. The fact is, we are not the center of the market, and haven't been for a long time. Three decades ago, the personal computer industry was built on the backs of technology enthusiasts. Every product, every ad was created to please us. No longer. Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts.'"
A somewhat briefer review is available at ComputerWorld, and there's a quick one from John Gruber.
This is why I left the commercial software behind so many years ago. Let us contrast OS X, Windows and Linux+GNOME. All have recently succumbed, or will soon, to tablet madness. By this I mean that they are all undergoing an almost total rewrite to target an audience almost exactly unlike the one that currently uses the product. Whether this will be 'successful' is still debatable but for my purpose, as a current or past user, almost beside the point.
If you are a Mac user, as a drinker of the Kool-Aid you have no choice. Whatever is coming out is insanely great, you simply must believe that because any other thought would lead to madness. Windows folk will simply bitterly cling to Windows 7 until it end of lifes and hope policy changes, as it often does. They are more like Star Trek fans, they admit there is a pattern to which releases suck and don't suck. But again, their choice is limited to picking one of the available supported versions. When you hitch yourself to a commercial entity you always subject yourself to their business needs, which are rarely in alignment with your own and you get little input into the decisions they make and few options when they change directions and abandon you.
Now lets see how I came out. Few would dispute the GNOMEs also became infected with tablet madness and were suffering from 'lets remove features until an idiot can't screw anything up" disorder long before that. Difference is that when it finally became too much, after installing Fedora 15 and looking at the steaming turd that was GNOME 3, I didn't have to develop a cognitive disonance and convince myself the turd was actually shiny, new and that I loved it after all. I didn't have to bitterly cling to Fedora 14 (along with my gun, bible, etc.) and pray either. There were a multitude of options at that time and because I was in the company of a multitude who had also been similarly abandoned even more new options quickly appeared. And none involved the pain of even distro switching, let alone switching OS and most applications just because one group decided to change focus. In the end, WE decide. I decide. Worst case I could fork the closest thing to what I like and work on it.
Free means never being at the mercy of someone else's business plan.
Democrat delenda est
It's a post about a review of a review of a review.
Look. All I want is a computer with two keys. A 1 and a 0. Preferably really, really big keys. No software. No firmware. Just me and the machine. No way to screw things up. It will do what I tell it, and no more. That way, I can keep banging away until I get either Turing's syndrome, or Tourette's.
1000 different text editors and solitaire clones
Don't forget text editors which run solitaire!
Or is that a solitaire game which permits text editing...?
It's a good thing there isn't a handy command like "apt-get dist-upgrade" on debian based systems or anything.
This is why I left the commercial software behind so many years ago. Let us contrast OS X, Windows and Linux+GNOME. All have recently succumbed, or will soon, to tablet madness.
I'd buy that in the case of Win8, and maybe Gnome 3, but not OS X. Apple already owns the most successful tablet OS in the business. OS X has borrowed a few iOS touches, mostly aesthetic [eg superficial and easily ignored] ones, but has not succumbed to "tablet madness" the way Microsoft did. Probably because Apple was the only OS vendor that didn't have an "Oh-shit-we-need-our-own-iPad-thing" reaction.
OS X still has a Desktop metaphor.
Still has a user-accessible filesystem.
Still has windows and a menu bar.
Doesn't even have native touch-screen support at all
And these are not accidents, or features that Apple forgot to cover up or replace with tablet-like equivalents. They're there because Apple was smart enough to understand the differences between tablets and traditional PCs, and had enough foresight to come up with a separate OS for the former five years ago.
"It feels like Apple has run out of ideas. Or worse, that Apple is too afraid to implement new concepts, fearing it will kill the company's golden goose. "
>Free means never being at the mercy of someone else's business plan.
It just means being at the mercy of a bunch of random developers instead.
Nobody has enough time to maintain forks of everything they use, never mind the people who don't even have the knowhow.
"We all pay lip service to the idea that most users never change the default settings in software, but we rarely follow this through to its logical conclusion."
That most users are ignorant?
Or the Windows 8 folks could simply click the Desktop tile or install Start8 to boot directly to the desktop.
I'm sure you're trying to make a point in there somewhere, but it's pretty evident that you haven't used OS X Lion or the new Mountain Lion. With a few tweaks, my desktop looks the same in Mountain Lion as it does on my older machine running Leopard. I just don't see what you are talking about. A single application named "Launchpad" doesn't mean that OS X has abandoned the desktop and gone tablet crazy.
Congrats on your effort to somehow include Gnome 3 and your free software slogan in your diatribe.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Looks like they still don't have a working spell check though.
Yeah, Apple is going to phase out Macs, because disposing of billions of dollars of profit every quarter makes perfect sense, right? Apple makes lots of money from Macs. That is only one of many reasons that they're in no danger of dying off.
...um... And here I thought I was just upgrading to a newer release, not drinking Kool-Aid or proving I am a slave or whatever.
10.8 is a nice dot release. I am VERY happy to have AirPlay mirroring to my AppleTV. I travel and give presentations to small groups and in meetings, knowing that I just lost my tether and will be able to sit anywhere around the table instead of right next to wherever the monitor cable happened to be is kind of nice. I also appreciate the integration with my reminders app on my iPhone.
I dislike the fact that they removed Podcast Publisher. This means I am going to have to find a workaround for what (had been) an easy workflow for me. I'm sure I'll find other little annoyances over the coming days and weeks. And I'll adjust.
All things considered, I'm pleased. More than that, though, I guess I'm just really confused by the us-vs.-them mentality in the above post. I happen to use the OS I do because it seems to be the right tool for the job. I also run Windows 7 (via Parallels) so that I can run Visio and MS Project and a few other programs that I need. Sometimes my smartphone is the right tool (happens to be an iPhone but I've seen similar functionality on Android phones and Windows phones) sometimes my tablet... I don't feel "locked in" to any of it any more than I feel locked in by the choices a television network makes for their fall lineup or the choices my state has made for when and where road construction will occur. There are projects in life that are bigger than one person and choices are made we don't always agree with.
Jeepers. I had no idea I was drinking Kool Aid or stifling dissenting thoughts so as to stave off madness. I've been coming to Slashdot for over 14 years. I appreciate a low 4 digit UID. But really, does a content free screed about how open source is the only right path posted minutes after the article hits the front page really further the discussion about the OS X Mountain Lion review?
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
What if. What if Linux and Windows ARE that "multitude of options" to OS X? You know you can install GNOME in OS X and use that, right? You can drop right to a command prompt too and to the lay person it doesn't look any different than any other BSD OS.
What if. People actually like these improvements? What if you had actually liked GNOME3?
Dun Dun Dun.
As long as you do not mind having a botnet zombie.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Their handling of the retina display was a major screw up that sacrificed the very reason to call the MacBook Pro a professional device so that normal users (home and manager types, for example) could have an expensive and sexy fashion statement-laptop (instead of giving them a 17 inch retina display Air). Their unwillingness to maintain the Mac Pro is another reason why people get the impression that the iPhoneification of OS X is underway.
I think it's much simpler: Steve Jobs was the last executive who understood the need to keep Apple's feet in both the home market and the outskirts of the enterprise. Their current management may know the design approaches he liked and a host of other things that can let them keep going in the same pattern. Unfortunately, I don't think they "get" the different segments of Apple's products. Macs aren't supposed to just be toys for upper-middle class snobs (I say this as an owner of a 2008 MBP). They're supposed to be able to actually do work as well.
This is why I really think Apple's fans need to realize that this may be the start of Apple's decline (not into irrelevant, just to some place of North of Sony's current position in 10 years). A company Apple's size can afford to maintain both appliance-like devices and real workhorse computers. Apple is not even saying they won't keep going. They're just stumbling around.
> Nobody has enough time to maintain forks of everything they use, never mind the people who don't even have the knowhow.
The point is that we usually don't have to. Unless you really are a unique snowflake, you aren't the only one being abandoned. In the case of GNOME going nuts there were lots of options and more directly on point a lot of pissed off former users creating offshoot replacement projects. Most of those will fail but it doesn't matter because it will be because a couple will succeed and attract in attracting the majority of the outcast former GNOME users. You don't HAVE to create everything yourself, from scratch. You can even take the last 'good' version of a software line that goes off the deep end and use that as a starting point.
If you don't like MIcrosoft or Apple's new direction you have fewer options. You can suck it up, switch operating systems or start a cleanroom cloning effort of the entire stack from scratch. And look at ReactOS or Wine to see how impractical that last option has proven to be.
Democrat delenda est
I think you're blowing the "iOS-ness" of Mountain Lion out of proportion. I've been using the GM for a while and the DPs before that, and my core usage has remained unchanged since Lion. "Now wait," you say, "Lion also brought iOS features!" True. Of course, you don't have to use them. My Lion usage patterns are unchanged from Snow Leopard.
If you look at the main features, you'll see two things. First, it's not a big update like Leopard or Tiger (hence the $20 price tag). Second, the most iOS-like feature is Notification Center, which is basically just a better version of Growl that Macs have had for years now. Reminders and Notes are apps that appear in iOS, yes, but that's all they are--apps. Use them or don't.
There are two major features of Mountain Lion. iCloud is the most obvious user-facing one, as it is much more tightly integrated with the OS than it was in Lion. The biggest feature is probably the one least talked about, and that is Gatekeeper. It's pseudo-iOS-like, because by default it only allows apps from "identified" developers to run on your system, but when you try to run an unsigned app it lets you know how to turn it off. It should be noted that "identified" does not mean App Store only, though obviously App Store developers are "identified".
Compare this to Windows 8, which is getting a near-complete UI change. Or GNOME or Unity and possibly other DEs I haven't used, which are also heavily influenced by tablets. Apple seems to be the only one that isn't trying to completely change my workflow. I wouldn't be sure I'd call this update insanely great or anything--frankly, the iCloud features should have been present in Lion--but it's a nice update and it's cheap.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Neil_Brown recently came out with his new #40767049 comment response to Moblaster's comment. In a surpising move, it was available for immediate reading at the time of its announcement. While missing out on some of the features we've come to love about his line of comments, I find it a refreshing level of meta-commenting that hasn't been seen in a while. Whether it's worth refreshing the browser to read responses to his comment has yet to be seen. We'll have to give it some time out in the wild to really get a feel for its general reception, but its +5 funny moderation does suggest that it will be read by many.
No it won't.
Eventually 3rd parties will begin to ignore it.
XP is interesting here only because it's successor (Vista) was so bad that Microsoft was forced to continue supporting it against it's will.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Or you could give them the one sentence worth of instructions it takes to disable Gayekeeper; or better yet, the one sentence it would take to tell them how to right-click and exempt your app only, so they can continue getting the anti-malware benefits of Gatekeeper with other apps, at least.
Or best of all, you could take the hour or so to download a free signing certificate from Apple and recompile your app... But that would actually be useful to your loyal customers who want to take advantage of Gatekeeper, and you wouldn't want that because how then would you grind your axe?
I can dismantle your whole pro-Linux argument with one sentence:
- Show me how to run Microsoft Visio on Gnome, KDE, or any other distribution so I can open, edit, and then save *.vsd files on my company's network drive.
I don't use MS-Windows because I like it. Anymore than I drive through interstate jams for fun. I do it because it's the defacto standard that everyone uses. I avoid Microsoft as much as possible but using alternatives (LibreOffice, VLC Player, Winamp, Mozilla seaMonkey, etc). But at the end of the day I still need to use Windows as my base because that's where the office & engineering tools run.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Having jumped this morning on the download train, I think I've now got everything back up and running, Parallels v7 required a reinstall (it uses kernel extensions so I'm not surprised that it needed an over-the-top reinstall) The odd one was Firefox not allowing me to download anything (even with a control-click save-as) the solution to that one was to clear my download history (why that fixed it ... I have not idea)
.0 release of software on the day it comes out :)
Fink is proving to be a total pain in the ass to get working again, not to mention xcode apparently now requires a developer-enabled apple account to download and install the command line tools via the GUI (you can still download the tools via the developer website)
Ah the fun of running a new
Or Carpal Tunnel
The point is that we usually don't have to
Thus putting yourself at the mercy of someone else.
the changes OSX is making and the dumb moves that ubuntu did.
Removal of scroll bars on OSX is not a big deal, Apple hardware had scrolling devices (magic mouse and multitouch pad) for a long time. so scrolling is not affected on that platform. Removal of scroll bars on Ubuntu was the stupidest move ever. I dont have a multitouch device to scroll with, so now I have to hit a 2 pixel bar on a window. WTF is that??!?!?! ROWARRGH!
Ubuntu needs to stop everything they are doing right now and support apple multitouch hardware and tell everyone to use X,Y or Z and suck it up. OR they need to stop chasing a UI that requires special hardware to make it useable.
Now the "single window" mode is retarded. on a 27" mac it is utterly stupid to do this. on a 11" macbook air? ok, I can see that. Dumbification of the UI needs to be optional. Let me have a "professional mode" to switch to a power users multiple window setup.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As long as you do not mind having a botnet zombie.
Botnet malware doesn't just pop in out of nowhere. It's gets in when the user does something careless. It's gotten much easier to avoid issues without being excessively paranoid. If you like torrents or porn, quarantine them in a Linux VM. I believe Chrome (and maybe Firefox) now sandboxes websites as well. (of course, VM works here too) Change the moronic default settings to various programs so executables don't get launched without your direct action. (I blame software developers, including Microsoft, in the early 00's for this) There are other things to do as well, but you still get to enjoy your Windows gaming.
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
I can dismantle your whole pro-Linux argument with one sentence:
Wow, you're confident.
- Show me how to run Microsoft Visio on Gnome, KDE, or any other distribution so I can open, edit, and then save *.vsd files on my company's network drive.
And yet again, your confidence is misplaced...
I don't use MS-Windows because I like it.
So, basically, your argument about how free is better because you're not a slave to proprietary software is to show that you are a slave to proprietary software and how you dislike this.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ah, the old astroturfing: a "dearth of applications for Linux" and "great backwards support for Windows". Give it up, man, you'll never hype your stock up again.
That depends on who you are. As an individual, sure. As a company with 10,000 employees, things look quite different. Companies like Red Hat or iX Systems will happily let you pay for a fork to be maintained on your behalf.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm a little tired of the analogies between software and physical freedom. The suggestion (in fact, the outright claim of this OP) is that using commercial software is the equivalent of slavery. RIDICULOUS. People making this claim are almost 100% tech geeks. For such people (and I include myself), open software is a great thing because *we know what to do with the options* and the consequences of making incorrect choices (and how to fix them). The vast majority of people (such as my parents and 99% of my friends) are NOT tech geeks. For them, open software ("freedom") presents choices to them that they do NOT want to make or simply do not know HOW to make. For them, a walled garden is a beautiful thing. Far better than the jungle out there where they may be eaten by lions and bears.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
For now, I know firefox was talking at one point of dropping XP support and we aren't far from the rest of the current software developers doing the same. A 12 year old Linux system is still just as usable, but you would be a fool to think any 12 year old system with no updates is in any way secure. As Microsoft is soon to phase out all updates for XP, you'll find that your 12 year old OS is no longer really usable.
You'll also find that your not getting the performance if your running that 12 year old OS on newer hardware since you have a lack of 64 bit support, lower memory allowances, and worse video performance capabilities.
You'll also find you still have to reboot on a frequent basis, a Linux system can go years without a reboot (and our Linux based phone systems do go 2+ years without frequently)
This is the most chilling thing I've read in a while: "Three decades ago, the personal computer industry was built on the backs of technology enthusiasts. Every product, every ad was created to please us. No longer. Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts'." Why is it chilling? Because I'm seeing it everywhere. Things that I consider to be killer features that MUST exist on a computing device are just disappearing. No OS is immune at this point. As a hardcore Linux fan since the early 90s, even I have to acknowledge that Linux is dying. Ubuntu is killing it. Windows isn't looking to sharp in version 8 either. It sounds like Mac OS X is headed down the same road.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Mountain Lion might be the thing that tips me over. The retina Macbook Pro is becoming hard to resist and there is no comparable Windows laptop on the horizon. I like Windows 7, I am comfortable with it, but if I am going to relearn stuff from scratch, I would pick ML over the travesty that is Windows 8. I'll pick something that doesn't show me a blocky touch based interface on a goddamn laptop. I never wish to use a touch screen on a laptop or a desktop, it's the most uncomfortable thing ever, I don't know why Microsoft and everyone forgot about Gorilla Arm. OSX doesn't look like it's going to anything that crazy, some of the things copied over from iOS, like notifications, are actually worth copying over. At least for now, Mac OS still doesn't put restrictions on anyone who wants to do stuff from the command line or install unapproved apps. App support in Macs has improved with growing market share. The only thing I will miss about Windows is games, but for the few times I do play games, dual booting with Boot Camp will do.
I can't think of a reason why I shouldn't 'learn' ML rather than learning Windows 8.
Pick up Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Both will allow you to run an instance of 10.6 within Lion or Mountain Lion.
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
12 year old linux system just as usable? seriously? would you be able to find _any_ recent binaries that ran fine on it? which was the point about windows stability.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Ridiculous. Microsoft may have "succumbed to tablet madness", but the review made clear that Mac OS X has not. Mountain Lion has borrowed things from (tablet) iOS, but many of these ideas are not tablet-specific at all. The review specifically states that OS X has not been subsumed by iOS, and has a distinct trajectory.
Do iOS 6 and Mountain Lion converge a bit? Yes. Is there "madness" to it? Not even a taste. You should actually read the article instead of using it as a jump-off point to grind your Linux axe.
Slightly OT in that I'm getting away from the Apple-ness of the topic, but...
This is precisely why smart phones and pads are going to return us to the days of $2000 hard drives and $5000 PCs. The general population has needed to buy a PC or laptop in order to not be left behind in our increasingly computerized and online society. Now that the average person has access to surfing the web, reading email, and anything other than compute-intensive work in the palm of their hand, there is absolutely no need for them to buy desktops or laptops. The commodity surge of desktops and laptops is now passing us by, and we're going to see general purpose computing return to non-commodity prices.
To quote Samuel L. Jackson, "Hold on to your butts!"
The guy's argument was that we should all stop using OS X or Windows. I dismantled the argument by showing that I can't run Visio or ModelSim or other worktools on Linux, because they are only available on Windows.
Therefore his advice to abandon Windows is an automatic deadend, and as brain-numbingly stupid as the Libertarians' advice to get rid of government-built roads. Clear?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Exactly. Since Apple designed the iPad (before the iPhone, actually), it's understood that there are similarities and differences between laptop/desktops and tablets/phones. Microsoft never got this, which is why its tablet and phone OS's sucked: they tried to port a desktop OS and UI into a smaller form factor. Now, Microsoft is assuming that its philosophy was right, but the direction was 180 degrees off: they're porting a phone OS and UI to the desktop.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to share ideas between the two while keeping the distinctions clearly in mind. And Linux, which has always suffered from poor UI design, is floundering and trying desperately to catch the tablet wave since it will obviously never dominate the desktop/laptop market.
If "and yet I don't have to upgrade my OS at all" means no longer being updated with security patches, then that probably qualifies as "the user does something careless".
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
The guy's argument is that we should all stop using OS X or Windows. The problem is that I can't run Visio or ModelSim or other worktools on Linux, because they are only available on Windows. Therefore his advice to abandon Windows is an automatic deadend, and as brain-numbingly stupid as the anarcho-capitalist's advice to get rid of government-built roads. (IMHO)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Their handling of the retina display was a major screw up
You didn't lay out the case for that well at all.
The fact is the VAST majority of professionals like and use the 15" form factor. The Macbook Retina is a "pro air" in that form factor, really light, really thin and an amazing display. Months after launch, there's still a 1-2 week shipping delay on new systems.
I myself have a 17" macbook pro, and while I don't plan to upgrade soon (my system works well enough as is for a year or so more I think) I wouldn't mind switching to a system that has more physical pixels than what I have now. It has as fast an interface as I could desire (in fact two, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt). So how can you possibly argue that is not a "pro" system?
Also there are hints the Mac Pro is not abandoned, just not updated yet... early next year we'll probably see a new line of them. And possibly a Macbook Pro 17" retina too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
$100 a year is hardly significant for obtaining developer certs.
> The problem is that I can't run Visio or ModelSim or other worktools...
Dunno about you but I'd run Visio in a VM the few times a typical person needs it and download the Linux tarball for ModelSim. It ain't the 1990s anymore, dude! Professional tools tend to be available on professional workstations and Sun and SGI are long since out of that space, replaced with high end hardware running Linux, usually RHEL. That means any serious software runs there now. Sure they have a Windows exectuable and since Mac is POSIX they will often do one of those too, but real work happens on real workstations and more importantly, real compute heavy stuff happens on clusters. In case you have been in a cave the last few years, Linux pretty much owns clusters.
Democrat delenda est
If you are a Mac user, as a drinker of the Kool-Aid you have no choice.
I have been using Mac computers since 1989 and to this date I have found the OS to consistently improve over time. The only exception being OS 9, which kinda sucked. I'm speaking about my perception of their software of course, and implying others should share my opinion.
It makes no sense for me to believe it's better to switch to Linux out of fear of being let down in the future. I really have no reason to believe it will happen. Even if it did, moving my files to some other PC would not really be an issue for me.
My experiences with Linux weren't very happy ones either. I'm not trying to generalize but I've more than once found myself in a situation in which I've been told to fix something myself - which really is not something I'm interested in doing at all. I've got my dev projects and work, and I don't really care about improving the OS I use at home. Some of those issues were things that I know I can get working much easier in windows or mac (maybe due to experience on the OSes, that's not really important to me). My personal opinion on the subject is that Linux is not for me.
Going back to your idea about Mac users drinking Kool-Aid, I think you're failing to put yourself in other people's shoes. Maybe your principles regarding open source/free software vs commercial software are not as important to others as they are to you?
diegoT
Your analysis is like an analogy of an airline passenger. You can choose to be a consumer and fly one of the major airlines. You get the seats the give you and the snacks they serve. You don't get to pick the flight path to your destination, and you don't get to pick your own schedule. To "best the system", you went to get your own pilot's license. You can fly where you want, when you want and choose the path. You're part of an elite bunch alright.
From up that high, you might not be able to see it, but not everyone has the ability/time/desire to be a pilot. An overwhelming majority of the people who use planes to get from A to B are content with that choice. And frankly, I don't really hear a lot of private pilots droning on about how much better they are that they can fly themselves to somewhere when they want to.
And btw, nobody is free. Don't pretend to be free just because you're a computer enthusiast. You're still a slave to the farmers, the electric company, the sanitation and water sources that feed your house and every other item in your world that you pay for. For you, this may be about freedom and choice and all that other jazz that 90% of the world doesn't care about when it comes to an operating system. If you sleep better at night, then cookie for you. The "Aura of Rightness" that you're projecting just comes off as a bit juvenile, though.
Free software doesn't exist in industries that does not involve computers itself. This is the fundamental limitation of the free-software model, since it relies on its own industry to support it - you need other software engineers to make it happen.
But, most people don't use computers to use computers, they use them to do something else that DOESN'T involve computers. People are only interested in what gets that job done.
For example, there is no better tool than Apple's Aperture in cataloging and publishing photos within an hour of doing a photoshoot for a fashion magazine or newspaper. Free software doesn't even exist in that industry. (Lightroom isn't as good...) So, what are you going to use to code a free-software version of Aperture? A bunch of eager fashion models and stylists? =^D Who's going to code the controls of your kitchen's microwave ovens? A bunch of chefs?
Nobody else really cares about software. You still have to pay to play in these industries. If you can't pay, you don't play. Go do something else.
Not when there are vulnerabilities that don't require user initiation (or even awareness). Not all attacks are based on the user doing something stupid.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
I think the argument (more specifically) is that for a while now (thankfully) we CAN stop using OS X or Windows and it won't impact you in the way say, a decade or so ago would. The support and enthusiastic community surrounding all things Linux is very hearty and shows no signs of going anywhere. Things that were "impossible" (or very difficult) in the past are nearly as seamless as or (in the case of certain things) more seamless than the paid counterparts.
For me, the transition to 100% Linux came around the launch of Lion. My new Snow Leopard Mac Mini was humming along, but I was not on board with the changes and felt the new model for Apple was too restrictive for me. It had been a long time coming, in smaller increments of course. The rework under the hood that started after Jaguar was getting to be a problem... (mailbox formats, etc.)
So I put Debian Squeeze on my old Athlon PC and have been running it exclusively for a while now. I used to run a VM of Fedora on my Mini but now that I am having a ball using Debian, I will be making my Mini a full time Linux machine too very soon. Once I bother to get some of my old documents off the Mac. :) I don't even hardly turn the Mini on anymore... :)
As for Windows, I generally avoid it if at all possible. That's just me. I have an XP machine I use to play some old games, but mostly I run them in WINE, which works surprisingly well for strategy games and the like. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
DAMMIT EMACS!
You will likely need to do the same for a dozen dependencies before that works, since it won't compile against 12 year old libraries. And then some of those dependencies will need their own dependencies, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if you end up effectively upgrading half of your Linux install that way, if you actually started with a 12 year old distro - I mean, we're talking Gtk 1.2 and Qt 2.x in that time frame.
It's gets in when the user does something careless.
This myth really has GOT to die.
I direct you to exhibit A:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own
6+ years of Windows and OSX being utterly Pwned through nothing more than a link click. Ill note that OSX was the first one owned for the majority of the time, but really the OS and browser dont matter that much. Chrome's upped ante and subsequent pwning this year shows that if you give hackers an incentive and enough time, they will 0-day remote-code-execution exploit any machine out there.
The VAST majority of infections out there have NOTHING TO DO with Windows "exe" files, and everything to do with Flash, Acrobat, or Java plugins being exploited to run arbitrary code. Oh, and exploits run against older versions of Windows and IE, for those folks who never got the memo that upgrading is important.
You can go ahead and assume that nothing can get thru your smug barrier, but Im going to go out on a limb here and say you might already be infected.
Botnet malware doesn't just pop in out of nowhere. It's gets in when the user does something careless.
Yes, "something careless" like receiving TCP/IP packets from the Internet.
A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the Windows TCP/IP stack due to the processing of a continuous flow of specially crafted UDP packets. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.
That was in November last year. Hope you patched since then!
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC