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Gnome Founder Miguel de Icaza Moves To Mac
TrueSatan writes "Miguel de Icaza, via his blog, has explained his gradual move to the Apple Mac platform. 'While I missed the comprehensive Linux toolchain and userland, I did not miss having to chase the proper package for my current version of Linux, or beg someone to package something. Binaries just worked.' Here is one of his main reasons: 'To me, the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros, and the incompatibilities across versions of the same distro were my Three Mile Island/Chernobyl.' Reaction to his announcement includes a blog post from Jonathan Riddell of Blue Systems/Kubuntu. Given de Icaza's past association with Microsoft (CodePlex Foundation) and the Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman's description of de Icaza as a 'traitor to the free software community,' this might be seen as more of a blow to Microsoft than to GNU/Linux."
Now he's going to try to clone all of Microsoft's clones of other people's technology for the Mac.
Lets see how far that gets him.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Time to open up OSX and allow it to be installed on any computer.
And never looked back. Linux maintains its place as my workhorse, while I rest in the comfort of whichever other OS I feel like using that day, typically OS X or iOS. SSH and SFTP fill the gaps.
I left Linux for the same reasons for the most part.
Mono was/is a good project, and De Icaza is a great coder and hell of a guy.
But nope, we're going to get all up in arms about using an ISO standard language because a guy at Microsoft came up with it. Better get those Java VMs installed!
How'd that java thing work out for the free software community, anyways?
...but sometimes you just have to Get. Shit. Done. Part of getting shit done is using tools that Just Work.
Yes. Freedom. Openness. Yadda. Yadda. All good things. I agree with them. I also need to ship code. That's the difference between my project and HURD. Sometimes, I just don't care if the tools I use were made from crushed unicorn horns and children's spleens.
So he is leaving the mess he caused?
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
It's true then, Apple are the new Microsoft!
I'm starting to think this guy just likes to read about himself in the news. I think his announcement is pretty funny - Linux Mint is a shining example of Linux as a functional desktop OS. It's still not as polished as OS X, but I do find myself using OS X less and less these days.
Maybe he's just butthurt that Gnome probably doesn't have much of a future. I mean, the older versions are great if, uh, your graphics card stops working or something. . .
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
he would infest Linux with Microsoft poison
I'm not keen on .NET either, but that's quite overdoing it.
As for "allowing" anything, Apple lets you sue whatever language you like to produce iOS binaries - MonoTouch is one of them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Ha ha mac is so much better" Why even post these?
Been running Linux for 15 years now, and it's better than it ever has been. I guess this guy just lost whatever zeal he never really had in the first place for free software.....Read his blog post and it seems like he's just bored or lazy, or both. Oh well......
As in, he's screwed it as much as he can. Now, it's time to screw up Apple.
Either that or he's just a complete plank who is self-aggrandising by stating he's going Mac.
I did the same about 10 years ago for the same reasons. Oddly enough it was the people at the local LUG with their iBooks & MacBooks that made me realize something was amiss.
Enough about degarza who cares anymore.
I'm still not happy about his whole, "Qt isn't OSS so I'm writing GNOME to compete with KDE" move back in the late '90s. Though I appreciate Ximian, I fail to see why he's even relevant these days.
I was a HUGE Linux fanboi in the late '90s through about 2010. I agree with him, however, that Linux just doesn't work as a day-to-day end-user platform anymore. As it is, I'm mostly using my Nexus tablet and Galaxy phone for tasks, and then resort to Wintendo when I need.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
It doesn't matter his affiliation or if he likes or even works for MS or not. Judge the statement on it's own, and it's true.
It's something Linux geeks have trouble admitting, but it is the sole reason Linux usage has not skyrocketed in adoption. If the LSB worked anthing close to how it was envisioned, developers would flock to the platform and then so would users.
At the moment, people use the distro they like and defend, while non linux geeks use distros like Ubuntu or Mint, which are the only platforms commercial developers tend to target.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Apple's loss is Linux's gain.
It's ironic that he complains about fragmentation, since he's largely responsible. Gnome is pretty shitty, but numerous distributions waste effort either supporting it or for some reason using it primarily instead of KDE which is a lot better. If it weren't Gnome all Linux desktops would have long ago standardized on KDE and we'd be better off for it.
Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman's description of de Icaza as a 'traitor to the free software community,'
Well, if I wasn't before, I'm firmly on de Icaza's side now.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I liked to tinker with configs and settings and libraries, but now I like my home computer to just work. They cost more, but are worth it. I still have a unix command line and most of the open source tools but have access to commercial software as well.
Yummy KoolAid.
Each single day the software gets into the way, I am fed up. Unfortunately I am not in the situation to call Microsoft or Apple even a slighly better...
cb
founder buys a mac and doesnt look back
I am truly stunned. I mean, his support of Dot Net, and his prior ties to Microsoft would suggest an eventual departure to Microsoft, and its Desktop that just works, but mac?!?! Our closet Microsoftie has joined Apple.... I'm speechless.
Nope. In fact, I think it made it worse.
And they are still advertising Moonlight even though it is a dead project (and they admit it!). Can someone PLEASE turn off this site*! http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/
One of the biggest problem with Linux is people abandoning projects and not removing them from the net/distros. You were wrong, you've admited it, but you leave us the mess.
*In all seriousness, the few Silverlight websites redirect their Linux users to this page where it almost never works for them. This of course makes the Linux experience go from just "Unsupported" to building up the hopes of the users and then Unsupported.
In 2003, RMS kicked Miguel out of the FSF because Miguel insisted on saying Linux instead of RMS's fabrication "GNU/Linux".
RMS is a glory-hogging piece of shit who will throw a temper tantrum if you don't give him credit for everything, even things he had nothing to do with.
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3361991/Free+Software+Group+Not+Well+With+Mono.htm
Its really simple. You can f around with linux endlessly or you can get tired of it and move on to something more interesting. Obviously, Miguel is getting older and just doesn't want to f around with linux anymore. The Mac (for now) just gets things done. Thats not to say that nobody should f around with linux, obviously we need those people to do that, and eventually they'll get it more and more solid. Bless their little hearts. But in the mean time, other people want to f around with other things and not have to constantly be f'ing with linux.
Its like cars (or motorcycles)...
When your younger, you don't mind the beater car that you have to repair all the time. You dream of the day when its perfectly restored, but you never get there. One day you just realize, you have other things you want to do, so you buy a new car that just works. If you're lucky you can now afford one because you stopped f'ing with linux and started f'ing with something else that you can make a good living at. And if you're really lucky, you pick up some pile of junk to work on solely as a hobby and without the stress of wondering if the f'ing thing is going to get you to work on time.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
I found myself moving from Linux back to Windows 7. Turns out I didn't actually care what fanboys proclaimed Linux could do if the software I wanted to run didn't exist in Linux. Or that my USB3 ports were busted in Linux due to a regression in the kernel that no-one bothered to fix. Or that there aren't any GUI file managers that are as quick at displaying info (and enough details including bitrates and resolutions) that are capable in Explorer.
Shame. But I think I've rid myself of the fanboy stink and use whatever the fuck I want now.
Raenex is a dickhead
A random Mexican (disc. I am a Mexican too) writes about some crap in his personal blog, someone posts it to /. and everybody gets their panties in a bunch.
Meh, I don't like Apple philosophy and a lot of the shit Jobs made, but right now I am writing this from a Mac I got in my current job and I have no problem, iterm2 and brew give me everything I need from the Linux world.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
And it sleeps in a drawer.
I would put the fault on the fragmentation of packaging distributions like Fink, MacPorts, Homebrew, etc. Also videogames that supposedly work on Mac usually just do not even start because they are not compatible with the hardware.
Please refrain from attacking de Icaza for these simple reasons.
Like Stallman, de Icaza has donated countless hours of organization and programming time to Linux. Neither got rich as a result. Politics aside, Linux is about superior engineering, even if only as a side effect. Because of the efforts of these two individuals, among many others, Linux is now the most popular operating system on the planet. By any stretch of the imagination, they were and are victorious. Android is closing in on a billion users, but regardless of what Google's marketing materials may tell you, Android is a Linux distribution, and GNU and GNOME have been perfecting Linux distributions for over two decades.
I understand that Android does not ship with much GNU or GNOME software, but GNU and GNOME are what built Linux. Without either, the foundations upon which Android runs would never have accreted enough functionality to even think about running a smartphone.
As mostly non-rich people, often not closely allied with specific companies, we don't have publicists or agents. We don't come off as polished. We don't have speech writers. Forgive us for seeming offensive, rude, obnoxious, conceited, full of ourselves, or some other adjective. We're people, and as engineers we're trained to traffic in the honest truth. Once you meet us you'll like us, for the most part. And even if you don't, enjoy using our software. Contribute if you like.
I was with you until you got to the last two words. I think you should replace "registered republican" with "politician." Hypocrisy is not exclusive to the Republican party.
...but not good enough as it needs to be. This will always be Linux' mantra.
Miguel de Icaza is a contrarian. That doesn't bode well for Apple.
On reading Miguel's blog post I found myself thinking about a character who showed up on Gilligan's Island who was perpetually lost in his biplane. His nickname was "Wrong Way."
Ever notice how Miguel always seems to get involved in chaotic situations and then flees them by taking the wrong train, ending up in the middle of nowhere? Why does anyone even listen to this guy?
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Can't speak for Icaza but for me personally, the trend towards making the Linux desktop "easier to use" has had me running away from the platform as a Desktop.... the problem is if you are going to make a GUI(and as a result make command line configuration more difficult), that GUI better damn well work. And at least with the desktop managers I have tried, it doesn't. So I find myself constantly trying to figure out what they changed from the previous version(that isn't working in the current version), and of course constantly changing where things are located etc. doesn't help.
If you are going to change the desktop experience in order to make it "easier to use", you damn well better get it right, or else not only do you fail to capture a new audience, you end up alienating the current user base. That seems to be what Gnome has done.
For me personally I develop on a mac, and run my test and prod on Linux(I've tried OS X as a server, and ironically it seems to suffer the same problems as a server as Linux does as a Desktop, they tried to make it "easier to use", but didn't get the abstraction right and the result is a mess).
I was recently put in the unfortunate position of having to develop a PHP app, and I tried doing everything on Fedora 18 with Gnome, and.... that was just plain frustrating. The installer tried to be "easy to use", but often failed, the system got stuck in reboot but I couldn't figure out what service was failing because I couldn't get it to not show that stupid startup animation and instead show me the boot log etc. Eventually I got the machine booted and then just ssh into it from my Mac, much less frustrating.
Bottom line: don't make Linux "easier to use" by breaking a bunch of shit.
Monstar L
and no resurrection and that is joyful news!
I don't have any issues with Miguel, but I met him about 4 years ago and even then he was using a macbook with osx. Or maybe he was just a closet osx user and now coming out? Or he's just starting a fight?
To me, the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros
So he chooses to get his hardware and software from one vendor. Okay thats very neat and simple but he could get it from Canonical as well, or one of the BSD projects.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
... the Linux community continues to talk to themselves across random blog posts. What a small and insignificant bunch.
As I sit here on my MacBook Air running Ubuntu, working on Ceph (ie getting stuff done!) while browsing slashdot. I've tried OSX many times, and I keep coming back to Linux because it's so much *more* productive, especially when working on code. The only thing I miss is netflix.
So whatever. I still have a soft spot for Apple hardware, but I'll stick with Linux thank-you-very-much.
So close... you've almost achieved the near-mythical +5 Troll!
I use serveral operating systems frequently due to work (and it used to be my hobby). I appreciate OS X's desktop interface a lot, but I don't realy understand Miguel's justification that Mac "just works" in terms of package availability and the quality of the base system.
It's no secret that OS X's base is lifted from FreeBSD. Is Linux too fragmented and chaotic for you? Do you long for a complete and and integrated system base in a single source tree, backed by unified development effort? FreeBSD has that. It also has very high package availability (better than most Linux distros).
On the Linux side, I use Fedora. I never have any trouble finding packages for Fedora. The quality that gets put into the base system of Fedora also leaves little to be desired.
I don't fault Miguel for his choice. OS X is nice--it gets the job done. I just don't think OS X is really giving him something special that he couldn't have gotten with Linux, BSD, or even Windows. If he misses the development toolchain of Linux, he should go back to Linux; that's totally understandable.
I moved to a MacBook for the sole virtue of it being a well-designed notebook, but I have strong feelings regarding Mac OS's functionality and "administrability" when compared to linux distros. It bothers me that there is NO package system to speak of, and you basically have to scour the internet like a fool to find basic tools that are one apt-get away in Ubuntu. I mean, yeah, I know there's stuff like homebrew, fink and macports, but so far all of those gave me nothing but headache, for the sole reason they are third-party hacks not supported (or even acknowledged) by the builders of the system (i.e. Apple).
To top it in terms of silliness, he speaks of "the binaries just works", but he neglects to mention that you still have to look for them in really random places over Google - something that apt-get like systems have been doing securely for the last what, 10 years? I indeed find it very odd that, although there's only one hardware platform for the Mac OS to run, all those third party packaging tools I mentioned actually require you to COMPILE everything again; then you go to the Ubuntu/Debian world, meant to run on several platforms and there's BINARIES for just about anything.
I really want to know what this guy is on. Gnome was a great thing, and he let it rot into that sad piece of bad usability called Unity; then he started dabbling in the very proprietary, advantage-free world of .NET, and he just bows down to Jobs walled garden legacy? I don't get it.
Anyway, freedom not to use is one of the 4 fundamental freedoms, according to RMS. Nothing of value is being (newly) lost, so big effing deal.
Amazing how much shilling is going on here. Too many anti-Linux posts from high user numbers getting modded up.
Good Riddance, indeed!
After developing with Mac OSX for a year using the command line interface (i.e., lots of terminals), I found I needed some sort of ports-like package management which has its own headaches. After jacking around with seemingly never-ending updates to Ubuntu and it's resource hungry UI, I found Debian quite refreshing. Not on the bleeding edge, but this is a GOOD THING! Never regretted it.
...but what OS is he running on it?
/* No Comment */
"Machine would suspend and resume without problem, WiFi just worked, audio did not stop working, I spend three weeks without having to recompile the kernel to adjust this or that, nor fighting the video drivers,"
Interesting, that is identical to the experience that I have with Debian. Even people on Arch don't need to "recompile the kernel to adjust this or that." But I hope he enjoys his Mac.
Penny - plain text accounting
Stallman's description of de Icaza as a 'traitor to the free software community,'
Any enemy of the filthy toe jam eater is a friend of mine.
What's the problem with that? Icaza is not a member of linux community since many years ago. He was an important fellow, but not anymore. Also, THIS IS A FREE WORLD, if he decided to change, he is completely free to do that. No problem, really. There always will be people, like me and *many* others, who enjoys the liberty of FOSS community. Everybody is free to use the OS of their choice.
I went the other way about two and a half years ago. I'm sure someone will tell me I was doing it wrong; I wouldn't be surprised if they're right. But I found the FOSS package managers for OS X incredibly painful to work with. I remember it taking at least a day of mucking around with compiling and pre-built binaries just to get the tools I needed for web development. It took me ten minutes to get the same thing working in Ubuntu.
Still, there were plenty of headaches: sleep mode, hybrid graphics and synaptics. Even though I had been avoiding dependence on proprietary software since activation chased me away from Windows, I had to give up really useful Mac tools like Scrivener, Tinderbox and Screen Flow (I still boot the Mac when I need to do a screencast). I used to be a programmer. Now I'm a social scientist. These days I do mostly reading and writing, not programming; the loss of Scrivener was a hard blow. I smoothed the way by writing my own tool.
OS X was significantly better for all but the most ordinary end-user applications. My area of research is the online commons - copyright, FOSS, creative commons - stuff like that. I could make my peace with Apple when they were only a pipsqueak tyrant. When they released the iPad and it was locked down, I simply couldn't stomach it anymore: and I was tying myself to an ecosystem that could be progressively enclosed by Apple. A friend of mine - a social scientist, not a programmer - switched to Mint, proving it was finally doable. Also, XMonad is pretty cool, and my search for a decent editor finally led me to take vim seriously.
Linux isn't perfect, but it's come a long way since I first used it for development in 1993. It really is usable - and sometimes excellent - for everyday work. Using a platform is supporting that platform. I wouldn't tell anyone else what to do, but I'm content to use this one.
Eventually you'll want to do something on the platform though, and will find it difficult-to-impossible. Maybe it'll be that you want a different choice than the crappy low-end video card and the marginally less crappy "high-end" video card. Maybe you're finding your "high-end" video card is cooking itself and decide to attempt to install an OEM heat sink and cooling fan. Good luck with that. Maybe you'll want to do some Java development. Maybe you'll start hating how their directories are laid out.
Little things will start to rub you the wrong way, more and more. One day you'll find yourself formatting over the aluminum monstrosity with a current Ubuntu distribution. But you know, it'll be fun while it lasts. So enjoy!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Icaza can still use gnu tools on the mac; is the point that he's gonna be a Mac pro-booster now or something? While I kind of get his gripe about package dependancy woes its nothing that outshines the frustrations I've felt on both mac & windows with regard to other aspects of theose respective os'. I also think the dependancy issue hassle can be mitigated or even nullified with one really simple change, I don't understand why the aptitude develooers don't do it, but anyway, it seems a little showy to me. Is it simply another headline grab?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I've been a mac user since 1990 (System 6.0.3)...through all the awful A Error of Type 10 occured restart. A fan of OS X through 10.7.5 and also Windows 7 64bit. Never drank the iTunes/ iOS/ App Store Koolaid. I'm not liking these closed wall gardens that are springing up. AppleID appstore, Widows 8 Microsoft store, Android Maket/ Google play. I want control of my hardware and software. Loved Ubuntu until the Unity / Dash mess. Now using Linux Mint (MATE). This is great!!! Gotta Have my Synaptic Package Manager!!!
Joking aside, good riddance, I hope he forgets that Linux ever existed. He's certainly done the cause much more harm than good.
And his programming skills are overrated -- Mono on Linux (compiled cleanly from source) is a total disaster compared to .NET on Windows.
Mac OS X is just Unix with a better GUI than any Linux distros (and other Unix systems, for that matter). It is also more consistently designed for an end user. Okay, it so happens that it's not free. So what? How much did you really pay for Mac OS X when you purchased you last Apple computer? Linux developers, behold.
The worst thing about Linux and OSS is Miguel de Icaza.
Linux gets shit done for me just fine. The only significant issues I ever face are poor hardware drivers and UI quirks. The former of which can be mitigated by sticking to Linux-friendly hardware. The latter is a no way a productivity stopper. As far as productivity goes, I have found no more productive system than Xubuntu 12.04.
Linux runs everywhere. You more or less have the freedom to choose whatever hardware you like. It's an open platform which allows anyone to go in there and modify it to suit their needs. It's a stable platform written collaboratively by people all over the world. As, as far as a platform to invest on, Linux is a great investment as both a user and a developer because it's not subject to the same market forces as Apple or Microsoft OSes. If Microsoft or Apple were to decide to impose a productivity hindering draconian system, what can you do to stop them? You've invested all of your time and energy mastering their proprietary system. If they make bad decisions, YOU pay for those decisions.
Freedom is why I stick to Linux. Freedom is why companies should build their platform on Linux. Freedom is why Linux is the future of desktop computing. Apple might be sexy now, but it won't last.
he never really got the unix philosophy and wanted to make linux something else.
Given the reasons cited, Windows would have been a wiser choice. Macintosh computers may be flawless when running the latest software on the latest version of OS X, but things quickly go awry when you want to run a newer application on an older version of OS X (where a .1 difference matters) or an older application (less of an issue, unless you use really old stuff). On top of that, running Unix applications on top of OS X is a mess. That's mostly the developer's fault, since they seem to be targeting Linux these days, but it doesn't improve the end user experience.
I made the same decision, for pretty much the same reasons (plus pretty hardware) in 2007. It's nice being able to just do what I want to do, rather than faffing about fixing things or chasing dependencies to get something halfway there.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Good riddance! Can we please ban Mono now?
Wait, so, the guy who basically pushed 90% of the bloat, incompatibility, and other such madness I've ever seen in Linux is leaving because of the bloat and incompatibility?
Dude, not cool. You made that bed, now lie in it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
seven cats and one dog. Four laptops running Mint 14, 1 netbook running Mint 11, HTPC running Mint 14 KDE and second htpc running Mint 14 KDE. AND guess what, they all just work after install. Weird how you can't get it to just work.
but now I like my home computer to just work. They cost more, but are worth it. I still have a unix command line and most of the open source tools but have access to commercial software as well.
Yummy KoolAid.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Since when did freedom of computing mean you have to support something that doesn't make you happy? Back when linux had a handful of distros and you before package managers it was cool. While there are several unique distros, the majority of distros seem to be nothing more than a downstream with a different window manager.
The BSD community has it right by focusing on providing a distribution and letting the users customize..but then again maybe the flock of linux users impressed with "eye candy" is driving this bus. Their only downside is lack of drivers/device support.
For linux, if you remove the gui and they are all relatively the same and works well..which it is a better server than desktop.
So true. Seeing Gnome and Ubuntu sink is very depressing. If you want to break compatibilities for the sake of change, fork it. Don't mess up the original.
You are right. The dems have done their fair share of damage. It is just right now, I think about the damage with our deficits and the republicans blaming everybody but themselves. That is exactly what de icaza does.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sorry for the A/C...give him a few days with Xcode, and he will be begging for Linux again. Mac and OS X does not just "work" if you are a developer. How many hours have I wasted dragging files into Xcode to build only to have it corrupt the xcproj file or ignore library settings or screw up a certificate. Yes, certificates. Debugging with Xcode is a joke too. Press step (or other buttons in Xcode) too quick and it hangs or complains. Leave Xcode open too long and your machine grinds to a halt. The finder crashes on you randomly when browsing a simple share, or better yet, the finder just spontaneoulsy not showing any locations anymore. Give me a terminal and make and kdbg any day of the week over that pos. Any issue you have with Linux you can fix yourself. If you can't, then well, you deserve your Mac and your wonderful Xcode.
An Apple tattoo on his ass and a black turtleneck......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
What did they say about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel?
KDE which is a lot better.
You have to be kidding me. KDE is much more customizable, but better? Hell no! Not the same thing at all.
How the frack is this a blow to Microsoft? I thought he switched from Linux to MacOS (and by extension Mac hardware).
I guess that's why he was amazed by having a laptop that had a working sleep/wake and WiFi. Many Linux distros are still terrible to this day on many laptops.
Miguel deciding that there's nothing wrong with Finder that "a few hacks couldn't take care of", here and there.....
I got a Mac Mini about 6 months ago to work on software for OS X which also runs on Linux and Windows. My software uses Qt and I figured that I would try using OS X as my main computer and connect to Linux and Windows using ssh, vnc and/or rdesktop. I gave OS X about 6 weeks and it was OK for many things. I did not find myself relieved that things "just worked" on OS X. Instead I found that quite a few programs I used under Linux were difficult to get to work on OS X. I had troubles with kile and ksudoku. I had problems using X applications over ssh to Linux. Apparently OS X supports the connection for about an hour or so. Overall I found it mildly frustrating compared to Linux, through better than Windows.
A little later I tried Windows as the main machine using vnc to connect to Linux and OS X. This was marginally smoother than using OS X as my main system, but after a few months of trying alternatives I am back to using Linux as my main system using vnc to connect to OS X and Windows.
Now I certainly don't care if Miguel likes OS X better. Whatever works best for him should be his choice. OS X could have been totally Linux friendly if Apple wanted to be more cooperative. If they had, I might have been a convert. As is, it is not nearly as easy to get software to work on OS X as Ubuntu.
Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
I hear what you're saying about Getting Shit Done. I have that fantasy, too, and occasionally let it play out. Although I've been a mostly-Linux guy since the 90s, I've been jones-ing for some sequencing software that would "Just Work" that I could run on a platform that would "Just Work". Bought Ableton Live and a Mac Mini to run it on. (That's well over $1000, by the way.) If there's anything that should "Just Work", it should be this.
But I almost immediately tripped over the same old minor glitches I've seen on every other platform I've ever used. In this case, the problem is that Ableton perversely installs itself in such as way that only one user can run it (though the license is for the whole box). So, I dutifully tracked down the arcane procedure for making it available system-wide (just as you get with Linux apps by default, I might add), and a couple hours later it's doing what it should have done in the first place. Yes, it works, but it doesn't "Just Work".
It's a blow to microsoft because for years he has been microsofts top man inside linux. They just lost their most famous saboteur. Not a huge loss, of course, since saboteurs work best when they arent known as such. Miguel's name will live in infamy as the man that killed MC, and I am pretty sure that no half-baked linux project would let him in the front door at this stage, so I doubt it's a real loss, but still somewhat symbolic.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Miguel did not write Midnight Commander. He took over as maintainer of an already written and widely used file manager, loaded it down with crud to the point no one else could understand it and it was barely usable, then quit supporting it. The man deserves no credit for MC whatsoever, unless you mean for killing MC.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
... but it only boots Ubuntu. I have a 2008 MacBook that belonged to my fiancee. It was slow to the point of unusable on OS X Leopard, even after upping the ram to 4GB. Finally I gave her my Windows machine which she loves and took her MacBook. I installed a Raring daily on it and it's working like a champ. The hardware is fine, but the Mac OS is crap. It's slow as hell (I've owned a MacBook and an iBook in the past). I guess maybe if I had a Pro it would be faster, but why would they even release low end hardware that doesn't have the horsepower to run their OS? Doesn't make sense to me. So anyway, here I am using a Mac, but it's straight Linux for me (unless Ubuntu decides that they aren't getting the features they want from Linux and switch to a BSD kernel... yeah, I went there).
Smeghead every day of the week.
With windows 7 and 8 you can download and install applications later without the need for internet connection or deal with software dependency issues since all the libraries are packaged already in the .msi or .exe, unlike with linux which needs the internet to download updates for the .deb software package to install and work correctly well some of the software not all if you have the latest distro.
I ran team fortress 2 steam no multi cpu rendering(all my six cores run at 86-98% usage) natively in ubuntu 12.10 with the latest amd radeon 6570 drivers and my gpu fan started going berserk vibrating my whole freaking chassis so I had to stop. Gaming under windows on the same machine have no gpu fan issue. Gonna download and try team fortress 2 on windows 8 see if it makes my fan go bonkers. Ubuntu 12.10 does run sluggish at times probably because my cpu runs at 800mhz and rarely jumps to 2700mhz only when running gaming, but the majority of time the performance is on par with windows 7 and 8. If i set my cpu in the bios to run at it's full speed at 2700mhz or with turbo at 3200mhz than ubuntu 12.10 runs smooth consistently. Laptops and netbooks running linux(even xubuntu and lubuntu) or even windows 8 are hotter than windows 7.
All firefox versions including the latest freezes up especially when viewing images in google and brings windows 7 and 8 to a crawl but in linux it's actually stable no issues. Every OS has their pros and cons. I know few ppl including myself who have used OSX and seen crashes and freezes.
Mac is just a stop along the way.
Mac hardware sucks compared to the PC. A PC running OSX on a virtual machine is better than a Mac and cheaper. Why would he do this? I always suspected he was selling out, and he's fueling these rumors with his behavior. Remember him pushing Mono/.Net? Remember him defending Microsoft?
There may be some truth to this, but I think the bigger reason is that people like new challenges after a while. Once you know your craft, you know the holes better than anyone. People leave projects all the time and they sometimes just need some fresh air. Some even leave industries.
Look at Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. Look at Steve Jobs. Look at the past open source maintainers for gedit which basically changes every year.
How many software devs do you see stay on a single project for their whole lives? How many would actually WANT to?
He could run Linux and then run OSX as a virtual machine and it would actually run faster than running it on the crippled Mac Hardware.
The title doesn't say he switched to OSX. No one would care. It says he switched to Mac.
And the PC is objectively better than the Mac hardware. You can run OSX on the PC. I know because I've done it. You can run OSX as a virtual machine and it runs faster because it can run on PC hardware. Who the hell would run OSX on Mac hardware? That is suspect for someone with as much knowledge as him.
He makes moves which look and smell like the moves of someone who truly hates Free Software or just someone who doesn't get it.
If your goal is to use OSX because OSX works better then you'd run Virtualbox or even VMware and then run OSX on that.
Why would you run OSX on the Apple hardware unless you actually believe in Apples philosophy and if you believe in that philosophy then you're opposed to Free Software because it's the exact opposite philosophy. Apple releases crippleware hardware, and they lock you in with their software like Itunes.
The guy who launched GNOME as a counter to KDE is complaining about "the fragmentation of Linux as a platform"? Tthe guy who made the decision replace GNUstep (which was the GNU project's official toolkit/framework in 1996) in favor of GTK â" he's fled to the Mac? He's got the chutzpah to say, "Linux just never managed to cross the desktop chasm"â"without admitting that his decisions are a major cause of that failure?
Good damn riddance.
...that my ThinkPad suffered.
Well there's your problem. Stop buying Windows machines and loading Linux on them. Buy a Linux machine from a Linux vendor.
So I cannot make sense of him switching from the superior PC hardware to the inferior overpriced crippleware of Apple.
I've owned an Apple laptop and it just stopped working one day. Unlike a PC I couldn't just open it up and repair it. It's expensive to repair, required special screwdrivers just to open it up, it's harder and more expensive to upgrade and in many cases it's limited in how much it can be upgraded.
It's better to run a PC running Linux on state of the art hardware and then load up a VMWare virtual machine. Someone with the money of that guy should have enough money to build a state of the art Virtual Data Center. There is no reason why someone with his expertise and money would be using standalone platforms anymore because he should be using his own personal cloud at home, his own personal datacenter, and run virtual machines of any OS he wants to all on the PC.
So why would he run Mac hardware? Mac hardware can't do as much.
Interesting not so much about Miguel but for the many "Score 5: Insightful" comments that mirror my own experience. I tried to make Linux my do-it-all system but all the updates and incompatibilities, particularly with the desktop side of things, drove me batshit crazy. When OS X became mature enough to see what it was going to be I switched to Mac for my desktop and Linux for my workhorse/server. Not that either is anywhere near perfect, but it fits my needs and there are times when you need "It. Just. Works." so you can indeed get shit done. Unless Apple takes OS X over an iOS cliff (which is where it appears headed, unfortunately) I think Linux on the desktop isn't going past the hobbiest/technogeek user as far as installed base is concerned (Yeah, I know, your old grandmother rolls her own kernel patches. The rest of us have work to do.)
Linux could have dominated the Desktop in 2006 or perhaps even sooner but he was pushing Mono and talking about how Microsoft was just better. He kept trying to morph Linux into another version of Windows. Then when it had all the problems associated with Windows thats when he goes over to OSX?
At least he's not involved with Android.
Thanks to Miguel De Icaza.
It enslaves your PRODUCTIVE TIME. Instead of doing real work, you spend time making Linux work. Linux is a time sucking pit.
Miguel, UR DOIN IT WRONG bud.
No-one on linux should have to deal with wifi and video issues. Not in 2012. Or in 2011. or 2010, 2009, or 2008.
I don't on my Dell laptop running Fedora. This laptop was purchased in 2008 and has only really ever run Linux.
Number of kernel recompiles? ZERO
Then again, I would question the knowledge of someone bothering with a Thinkpad for Linux.
If Miguel's reason is actually for the reasons he states, he is not qualified to run Linux
Isn't that what he always does?
is the only capital you cannot ever replace. I moved to the mac because as my understanding of the value of time matured, I became less willing to squander it on OS friction.
Tim: Okay now Miguel. Spread over this barrel so we can insert Steve Jobs' dead dick where the sun don't shine!
Miguel: Oh boy! Oh boy!
Ballmer: Ew. That's just TOO creepy! Even for me! *Throws a chair*
Mac hardware today is no better or worse than a PC. It's the same goddamn components.
No, it's not better. For one thing, running OS X in a virtual machine on a non-Apple PC is a license violation. For another, you get to deal with Windows, the avoidance of which is a big reason why many people migrate to Macs in the first place.
For all I've done, GNU tools and Linux seem to work just fine. I think somehow it works for Google, Amazon, EBay, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and dozens of others. Somehow they manage to get things working. You can package things yourself if you want (instead of having to beg someone), and if things don't work the way you want, you can fix or alter them. It's rare to find something not working though. When I find something not working, its a commercial binary-only application. Example: I worked for a company administrating a system that was powered by "Bikerosoft" (Not quite its real name). The database timestamps were things lawyers would frequently subpoena. Unfortunately "Bikerosoft's" NTP server software was DOA. But hey, its a binary so it can't be fixed, and "Bikerosoft"'s official policy was "go out and get a 3rd party software application that can replace their broken stuff." Anyone yelping "binaries just work" has their head up their ass, and they've been eating too many beans and hot peppers. I don't normally buy boxes wrapped in brown paper with a big question mark on the side from novelty stores where it can contain anything from a brand new digital camera to a peanut, because you usually get the peanut. Binaries are like that. With software that includes the source, I can see what I'm getting. I like seeing what I'm getting.
Hypocrisy is not exclusive to the Republican Party, but they have the lion's share of hypocrites in their ranks.
It's gotten to the point where programs like The Daily Show can just show alternating clips of Republicans condemning and celebrating the same talking point over and over, without adding jokes or dialogue. That's the punchline, that Republicans will deny things we have videotaped proof of them accepting years, days, or in some cases hours earlier.
Their conduct itself has written the joke and no external input from writers was necessary at all. I don't know why Republicans don't find that troubling.
Considering Apple is getting out of the computer business, this is of no real relevance.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
So, "apt-get install ..." was too hard for him?
OS X does have better cross-version binary compatibility, but its dependency management is nonexistent.
I transitioned away from SunOS and used Linux from 1993->2009. Big chunk of life.
In 2009, really out of curiosity, I installed a "Hackintosh" partition on my Thinkpad. Within four months I had a MacBook Pro and was using Mac OS.
The basic reality is that as a Linux user on some regular N percentage of days, I would sit down to do work and end up doing something else: fscking around with Linux. Download, tweak, read, peer at code, compile, plug, unplug, read some more, write some code, tweak again, blah, blah.
It was a regular occurrence. Every now and then I'd simply sit down to work on work and instead, hours later, would find myself having worked on Linux. I generally got the problem solved. Often it resulted from a "yum update" that did unexpected thing X to my userspace. Sometimes it didn't—it just emerged.
Some stuff had never worked well—sleeping, for example, or audio and streaming video—and I never spent much time on them in Linux. I didn't miss them until I'd had them working perfectly well on the Hackintosh partition—a system that was "hacked" together and that wasn't supposed to work well at all.
By the time I'd bought my Macbook Pro I'd already bought and installed Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, DevonThink, and a bunch of other software on the Mac partition, and had installed MacPorts and many GNU utilities, giving myself a command line that felt almost exactly like the Linux one. But fonts worked. Audio worked. Power management worked. Streaming video worked. Commercial applications worked. The apps all had a similar look, feel, and user interface behavior. The visual designs were cleaner and more professional, something I'd never given a second though to in Linux, but which I later realized had been distractions during visual scanning of screen space.
It was when I realized that all of my recent work was done on the Mac partition and I hadn't booted into Linux in a month and really didn't want to unless I had to that I decided to get the Macbook Pro. I thought I'd dual-boot Linux on it, but that soon went away. I still have a Parallels VM with Fedora on it here somewhere, but I don't think I've even run the initial yum updates on it after installing. It's just an unused VM, years later.
Linux had a lot of promise as a desktop OS once. But now, with the desktop on the wane for many common consumer uses and Mac OS and Windows trading blows as equals, I don't think Linux in its desktop form will ever be much more than it is right now. Android is another story—thought my experience with android has been less than perfect.
Too bad, in a way—when KDE 1.0 came out, it seemed to me that Linux was headed for global domination. I used it and loved it and was more productive that I could possibly have been with any of its contemporary Mac or Windows alternatives. But by the late '00s, the roles had reversed.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Miguel is not wrong... the lack of sufficient standards amongst distro's was and still is a major stumbling block in individual user adoption and still gives linux that 'slightly unkept feeling about it'. After a while even really intelligent people can get tired of tinkering with unix/linux and just want something to work out of the box. OSX just works and has most of what linux can offer to the individual user, and often times with a muc,. much better user/programmer experience.
For Big Data, the 'new' big iron (read clouding computing)... linux is great. If you are a company the monetized internet traffic, performs big computations, etc., and can fund people to make linux do your laundry, then linux is 99% upside... pretty much no downside because you'd already have to code most of your own shit no matter what platform you selected.
It really isn't quite the same case with linux as it was unix in the 80's, but there are some similarities... particularly for the companies attempting top [obtaining] profit from linux. Back in the 80's, IBM, HP, Dec, SGI, etc. never agreed to standardize API's and figured they could carve up the market betweenst themselves... along comes DOS, windows, with it's cheaper price and working GUI, with half decent documented API's... and Unix went out to pasture. And then, as now, l/unix developers pretended like the lack of standardization was not a problem... well it was then, it is now. Difference is, linux is free so people are relatively happy to live with it. Far too simple a history, I know... and Linux does not have to be relevant to a majority user based (it is general open source and not for profit).
Note: I would term myself a linux and programming dabbler at best. I dabbled with Gentoo, linux from scratch as my more 'hard core' distro quite some time ago and then kinda dropped out of the user base... i dabble with a bit of C and python from time to time now. In the past 10+ years, User experience on linux has seen little improvement, in my opinion... linux is still just as cool and fun to tinker with as it ever was, though. So don't take this as bashing. Use of 'bash' intended... the world needs a lot more bash, or was it hash?
Miguel is making a strategic error. I went from Apple to Linux. I like the freedom to use low-cost hardware, where I can swap batteries on laptops without sending the machine back to the manufacturer. I like the workspace switching of XFCE. The package management and upgrade ease of Xubuntu. Most stuff just works. If not, there are a zillion support forums to figure things out.
Meanwhile, Windows 8 is an atrocity. Just getting to the desktop is pain ... or is it pane? Tiling is great for a small screen on a smartphone. On a computer? Not so much. But MS wants to standardize everything on the platform they figure will make them the most money and the most growth -- PHONES.
Same with Apple. Wanting everything IOS-like, the company makes the vast majority of its profits and margins from phones. Guess what, long-term the Mac OSX environment will turn into one giant IOS app.
Which for people who want to get things done, is not very productive. Meanwhile, Apple's hardware is the same substandard stuff from China, with poor capacitors and quality amply documented here on Slashdot. Just at a markup five times that of generic PC manufacturers.
I've been using Linux exclusively for ten years, and yesterday wiped it off my laptop in favor of Windows 7. I had previously been a long-time Ubuntu user who had switched back to Debian because Ubuntu became keylogging spyware. But Debian is kind of crappy compared to what it once was (before Ubuntu stole their scene) - Gnome 3.4 on sid?? And then a system update broke my whole system irreparably and no-one could tell me how to fix it. So enough of this ham-radio computer hobbyist Linux enthusiast business. Feels good. It's nice to be back with Windows, everything working like it's supposed to, Dolby audio, Netflix, etc. etc.
I used to configure my desktop PCs to dual boot Windows and Linux. I started doing so in the mid 90s. Some tasks were just better performed in a unix environment. I didn't care about the politics of linux, I just wanted a unix environment. In more recent years I've found that Mac OS X fills this role quite well, for both traditional unix tools and whatever FOSS software I want to run. Some folks seem to erroneously equate FOSS with linux but configure; make; make install seems to work just as well under os x for what I've tried. Mac OS X just makes for a better desktop environment. I still use linux, but its running on the headless servers in the closet. I have linux VMs to start up in VMWare should I actually need Linux but I don't think I've started one up in a year. At the time I had to write something that would be deployed on a RHEL box and I started the project at home under CentOS.
Been running Linux for 15 years now, and it's better than it ever has been ...
Yeah, its better. I haven't had to manually enter my monitor's operating frequencies to setup graphics under linux in recent years. ;-)
There are quite a few men that discover when they are getting older that they are gay. That they either were gay the whole time and just didn't realize or admit it, or that they became gay along the way. Some leave their families to live with a partner of the same sex, some just buy a Mac. Nothing wrong with that if it makes them happy, I guess.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
My ThinkPad cost about as much as a MacBook and I certainly think of it as a PC. I could have bought another PC at a third of the price, but I like the features of the ThinkPad. MacBooks have similar aspects that actually make worth three times the cheapest PC. There's nothing wrong with that.
Now we wait for Lennart Poettering to do the same and THEN we celebrate.
Seriously, are you still spouting that bullshit? For the configuration Apple chooses to sell, they are very competitive on pricing. Ultrabooks are typically more expensive than MacBook Airs, and the very cheap ones have really shitty cases.
Or are you one of those assholes who like to compare a macbook air to a cheapie $250 netbook?
Mucking Foron.
I have worked on a number of multiplatform projects and I can safely say that Mac isn't technically better for software. Only reason "Macs just work" is that you only have one distribution on Macs (you know, OSX) and people are really dedicated in supporting it.
OSX has breaks API/ABI interfaces often and developers just have to fix those. There's always a rush of fixing whenever Apple releases a new version of OSX.
There's also hardly any packaging infrastructure. Projects like fink and homebrew try to patch things up, but they don't help when you want to make redistributable software.
Miguel de Icaza, have you noticed that you're still introduced by "being founder of GNOME", that is because that was the last time you did anything worthwhile.
Wait, I don't. I hope they all die.
Mac hardware sucks compared to the PC. A PC running OSX on a virtual machine is better than a Mac and cheaper.
Once you don't compare "cheapest PC" vs. "cheapest Mac", but "the Mac I want" vs. "a PC with the same specs, bought from a reputable company", the Mac hardware will beat most PCs of the same price.
A PC running MacOS X on a virtual machine is running unlicensed software. First, it is running a modified VM that you probably had no right to modify, second it runs an unlicensed copy of MacOS X that has just enough copy prevention built in to make it a DMCA violation.
The Gnome project was a disaster from beginning to end. It accomplished exactly one useful thing: Trolltech was forced to GPL QT. At that point, Gnome should have been promptly shut down, having accomplished its purpose, and Linux on the desktop would be much further advanced than it is. But instead we have this crippled zombie thing that shambles on and on. Somebody put a stake in its heart or something please.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I just read at least a dozen "but OSX just WORKS!!" threads, "I don't have to do anything to make it WORK!#@!".
Well, guess what. What you spend your money on is *REAL* *VOTING*; more than any election.
When you *VOTE* for shitty, evil Apple Business Practices (that would be ALL OF THEM), you're supporting and proliferating Evil (tm). They're worse than Microsoft, just without as many of your Billions. Keep feeding the beast and see what happens.
the Mac hardware will beat most PCs of the same price.
That's a bold claim, and one that doesn't hold up. The "Mac Tax" is quite a fiction by people who don't consider size, weight and build quality to part of the specs. But Macs aren't especially competitive.
Last time I was in the market, the two closest machines of interest were the Zenbook UX21 and the Macbook Air. Both were the same price. The Zenbook had near identical specs, except for an SSD twice the size and much better speakers.
I'd say that Macs are generally fairly competitive on price compared to similar PCs, but not usually beat.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ultrabooks are typically more expensive than MacBook Airs,
That's also a wild claim. Ones with the same specs (like the Zenbook versus Air) are similar in price. The Zenbook usually but not always wins slightly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Once you don't compare "cheapest PC" vs. "cheapest Mac", but "the Mac I want" vs. "a PC with the same specs, bought from a reputable company", the Mac hardware will beat most PCs of the same price.
That's true, but it's also not a very good comparison. The real test is to start with the specs you want, and then compare a PC from a reputable supplier and a Mac that most closely approximate them. The Mac you want will almost certainly have some features you don't need, as will the PC that most closely approximates it. Both are likely to lack some features you want.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I have a "funny" feeling Miguel probably turned his back on the community because of the zealotry and hate spewed from the community at large. Some of the comments AND moderation are embarrassing!
The GNOME Desktop at version 2 was great, I was a fan for many years and I'm grateful it exists. I didn't like KDE during that time (found it too clunky - just my humble opinion - I like it now!) .
Personally I think the "Desktop" as it stands today is bloated and way too complicated now and I say this in particular for KDE and GNOME. I'm currently using XFCE.
The Mono project was a response to Microsoft's "invention" of the .net platform where "all Windows software will be based on .Net". Potentially there would have been no way to write cross-platform software for Windows. Thankfully not much of a threat now. I used Mono years ago and enjoyed coding for the platform.
Miguel has started Xamian and the company offers cross-platform development tools which is great but I can't afford the $300 yearly subscription and Linux support for the "platform" is noticeably absent. A damn shame really. I would liked to have evaluated it.
Also, one of the main "features" of Linux is the existence of many distributions of Linux. I started with Slackware then Redhat, Mandriva, Debian, gentoo, Ubuntu and now Porteus. They've all served me well over the years because each one filled a particular need at the time.
I'm no zealot and I use what works for me. Generally I use Windows for gaming & Linux for everything else. I'm considering buying a Mac because I want to develop stuff for iPhone (I actually own an SIII) and don't like the idea of Microsoft locking down the bootloader on a "PC". I know Apple do this too but at least their OS foundation is based on unix.
Miguel is entitled to his beliefs and opinions. He may have made mistakes but nobody is perfect.
he speaks of "the binaries just works", but he neglects to mention that you still have to look for them in really random places over Google
He will have a first hand experience to this when he will look for a simple text editor with syntax highlight :
I tried to find one, have installed two or three, but there're far from what we have in any Linux distro out of the box (usability and stability).
Oh! Wait, he will maybe pay for one of the store ? Good for him, but I won't pay just for being able to edit code...
Also: Did he noticed that pipe, backquote, square brakets, ... are not displayed on the keyboard? I suggest he googles the key combinations to get them, because they aren't mentionned in the system documentation... Or, if he has time, he can use the visual keyboard to find those combinations, pressing modifier keys until the required character appears somewhere... What a shame.
In a few years he will find out that he needs to pay to upgrade his OS because the new apps won't start on his otherwise functionnal system. New binaries just won't work.
Working on the Mac OS system is quite painfull for a developer, and frustrating.
The end key is driving one crazy: instead of going at the end of the line it goes at the end of the paragraph. Seriously who needs this?
Oh! And if the window management is so painfull to you, you can *pay* a small app that eases the process of arranging windows (this is not a joke, an Apple fanboy told me that). However you still have only a small corner to resize them, on their right only... What a shame.
I wish good luck to him, we will see in a few months how his coding productivity looks like.
Quote:
[...] "I did not miss having to chase the proper package for my current version of Linux, or beg someone to package something. Binaries just worked." [...]
I can agree to this to a certain extend. I am actively using Linux as my primary desktop since Linux 0.99pl14 came out. Having used/configured/compiled fvwm/olwm/olvwm/CDE/twm/piewm/wm2/AfterStep/Enlightenment 16-17/KDE1-4/GNOME1-3, thus I consider myself able to handle things quite well.
Whenever I (more recently, i.e. GTK2/GTK3) tried to install a new GNOME program I ended up updating my whole stack of applications breaking others on the way, having to fix them later on.
*This* never happened to me when upgrading or installing KDE programs. They are simply designed with a rather stable API and thus are much more forgiving of one not having the bleeding edge library "X" on ones system. Sure even KDE programs sometimes require one to update libs along the way, but the APIs for "older" programs seldom breaks.
So I can only agree with Miguel if he states that he needed to chase the proper package, which is, if at all, never available for your current distro (Murpy's law). But if GNOME (the project members) kept things more clean and stable instead of making major API changes while making minor library number upgrades the problem would never have occurred in the first place.
Eh, I really liked GNOME towards the end of its version 2 cycle. The Mac OS ness didn't bother me at all, I thought it looked great and was really easy and nice to use. I've recently started using a Mac for work, and I'm pretty disappointed at how unimpressive it is in comparison. The way OS X handles multiple desktops seems like a total regression.
If you want a really nice polished unix system that works and has all the shit you need for development and it's all on some of the best designed hardware you can buy then of course the Mac is your only real choice.
Windows isn't even an option and I suspect he's recieved enough hate for mono that the shine of Linux might be wearing off. Mono was stupid and he was being a tool for accepting a Microsoft technology but some people do taking their hate a bit too far.http://apple.slashdot.org/story/13/03/05/2256243/gnome-founder-miguel-de-icaza-moves-to-mac#
After having recently purchased a Mac Mini i have had a number of problems with things not working as i would expect.
Simple things like .
Using a non Apple keyboard - unlike the keyboard selection widget in Ubuntu which "Just Works(tm)" (press a couple keys and voila). Even a Mac guru friend could not get OSX to use the correct keyboard layout. Even with various 3rd party tools and hacks still certain keys on the keyboard are in the wrong places. such as backslash and tilda.
The responses i get are "your not doing it right" - considering the Mac Mini was originally punted in such a way that you can use your own keyboard and mouse - it should "Just Work(tm)" - it doesnt.
File system support - certain filesystems on external USB drives cannot be written to by default - I've had to use third party - buggy drivers to enable this again - this is an area where I would expect OSX to "Just Work(tm)" it doesnt very well in this case.
iTunes - first time i plugged my iPod into the new mac into a virgin iTunes - it wiped all my tunes when it was supposed to be sync'ing up. No explanation why.
In the mac Terminal app the page up / page down / home keys were next to pointless - i had to hack a fix in place for this.
Using the mac ports system sort of feels dirty but i really miss "apt-get install packagename" - many software packages are not compatible with Mountain Lion which has led to frustration when trying to get things to work.
Lastly hardware support is really crap - eg: i have a USB midi interface that "Just Works(tm)" on ubuntu. I understand you need to install drivers on OSX (this was a surprise to me given that i was led to believe OSX "Just Works(TM)" of course the driver is not compatible with Mountain Lion.
So Macs are shiny and all - but if you want to go outside of the box "Just Works" does not apply - not for me anyhows!
N.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Given de Icaza's past association with Microsoft (CodePlex Foundation) and the Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman's description of de Icaza as a 'traitor to the free software community,' this might be seen as more of a blow to Microsoft than to GNU/Linux."
Does having a previous association with Microsoft automatically disqualify you from having a valid opinion? Shouldn't we be looking at what he is saying, as opposed to who is saying it?
Period. More than Windows in fact. Horrible UI. Can't get my head on what makes it so appealing to people? The 'Apple' logo on the side of their machine? Linux all the way! (Lubuntu)
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
I don't think it's very fair to say the Gnome project was a disaster. Sure, in the context of present-day desktop environments, GNOME 1.x looks pretty damn horrible now. But back then, comparing it to KDE (which, to be fair, was in some respects the more reliably functional interface) it was not bad. At that time, I really hated KDE, since it was so kfucking kluttered and kfugly.
I stuck with GNOME from 1997 until the end of the 2.x versions, since it did what I needed it to do reasonably well. Meanwhile, the early KDE 4.x releases were unusable. Sadly, GNOME 3.x has followed suit (and appears set to stay that way), while KDE has re-evolved itself in recent versions as a really nice, feature-rich environment.
Sorry, I have no sympathy for someone who was responsible for GNOME 3. As for whingeing about incompatibility of distros, just stick with one for bleeding sake! In my case, it's CentOS 6 (though Fedora 18 with MATE looks OK, it's just that Anaconda is so wretched on it) - 10 years of updates (more than Mac OS X), GNOME 2 (the best thing to come out of GNOME), System V initscripts (not the pain that is systemd) and the glory of GRUB 1 (10 times easier to manage than GRUB 2).
It's a rock solid setup that I think is the best "professional" Linux desktop out there today, which is why I use it both at home and work. Yes, I dual boot with Windows, but only to play games of course. Steam on Linux might knock that on the head once they get 1,000+ games rather than 100 or so they have now.
The way OS X handles multiple desktops seems like a total regression.
I normally refuse to say "This", since I hate the meme, but, well, this.
The way Apple carried on about their so-called "spaces" amused me tremendously, since the facility has been around in X11 environments since, err, not quite the dawn of time (I'm much older than that) but definitely in old versions of CDE, back in the early '90s.
Remove the head or destroy the brain! Stakes are for vampires, as any fule kno! :V
You can flame me if you want, but before you do there are a couple of things you should bare in mind.
I started using Linux when the kernel was 0.99pl13 (for the young people reading that's 1993) and I earn my living as a Linux Consultant specialising in deploying Linux into big companies and have done for over 10 years. I have used most of the distributions out there including Slackware, Red Hat, Mandrake, Deviant/Ubuntu
I have had a Linux Desktop/Laptop since 1994 until 6 months ago. What made me change to Windows 7 well it was a few things -
1. Windows 7 is actually a good O/S, it just works.
2. Graphics support is better under Windows.
3. Wireless support just works.
4. Better battery life, I spend a lot of time on the road.
5. Windows comes with the Laptop, I bought a new laptop last month and it took me ~ 2 hours to patch the O/S and install the software I need (putty/kitty X-Ming, Office, Photoshop Elements) as opposed to a day it took to set up my previous Linux laptop.
6. The apps I use such as Word and Outlook are a factor of 10 better than the Open Source versions.
7. The type of computing I do has changed over the years, I no longer need to have a linux desktop for development, if I need a linux environment I will fire up a VM on either my laptop or my VMWare server. I am more interested in processing photographs rather than data.
I should also state that the infrastructure I use for my consultancy business is based around Linux.
Would I move back to Linux as my Desktop/Laptop O/S yes I would if the following was fixed -
1. Good lightweight laptop running Linux that provides the same wireless, battery and graphics support as Windows.
2. Linux versions of Office, Outlook and Photoshop.
3. A GUI that is as smooth as Windows 7.
but now he's moving to Mac OS X?
Why didn't he just work in Objective-C from the get go?
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.gnustep.discuss/msg/a11ebc20417db2c2
Reminds me of the MacSnobs who used to complain of my pointing out the advantages of using NeXTstep instead of Mac OS 9 and earlier. It kills me that Mac OS X was so watered down to accommodate such ignorance. I'd give my interest in hell for:
- vertical menu .pdfs will fail to print, or fail when being refined / pre-flighted)
- pop-up main menu set to the right mouse button
- top-level print, hide, quit and services
- not having to load Carbon
- to have Display PostScript (I never had an eps file which would display and not print --- it's wearying the number of times
- to have PANTONE colours at the system level (I'm really tired of having to deal w/ RGB from MS Office products)
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
What I took very personal was how de Icaza wrecked the superior SuSe distribution which was the flagship of KDE. It was difficult to inflict more damage on KDE than the Novell acquisition and what Icaza has done with his toolkit fetish. Now KDE 4.10 is an absolutely impressive desktop but where would we be today if Suse had not been compromised by this Mexicoder. Caldera, Suse, Nokia. We see the picture! Suse has to be put into German hands again and become the driving force behind KDE. Stop the influence of all these incompetent US corporations and Mexican flame baits. Build organisational fire walls against poisonous coding. Libreoffice / The Document Foundation has shown the path to independence.
Mac hardware sucks compared to the PC. A PC running OSX on a virtual machine is better than a Mac and cheaper. Why would he do this? I always suspected he was selling out, and he's fueling these rumors with his behavior. Remember him pushing Mono/.Net? Remember him defending Microsoft?
In a LinuxFORMAT editorial over a decade a go, I labled him as a sellout. He has never proved me wrong.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
This guy was a pioneer of the open-source modern desktop and switches to a new platform (for whatever reason). Instead of taking that as a little kick in the ass to work on things, you condemn and crucify him.
Fuck all of you. What have you done?
27" iMac 4-core with 8 GB RAM - cost ~$1800CAN ... you have a big ass, noisy box sitting on or near your desk with wires snaking to and from the monitor. Conversely, the iMac fits cleanly, quietly, and completely on your desk. ... period.
A competitive screen (same resolution) from Samsung costs $1100CAN. Add in a good wireless keyboard and mouse, the RAM, HD, etc. and the difference between the homebuilt PC and iMac is maybe $200CAN BUT
If you want to game, maybe there is an argument for the PC. If you need to work or relax and enjoy some media, Apple
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
i usually build my PCs from well chosen quality parts made by reputable companies - and i end up with a machine significantly less expensive when compared to a mac with the same specs in addition i can add components with exactly the features i want (if i can afford them)
When Gnome 3 screwed the pooch, I could move to KDE. I was better off in the long run, although the short term pain was bad.
When Windows 8 screwed the pooch, I could ... ? I couldn't do anything, because there was no alternative.
When the Mac switches to a ChromeOS model with no way to install software locally only through the app store, I could ... ? Will I have any options at all if I want to keep using Linux-style open-source software?
And so on. Linux is like a democracy - the worst operating system except for all the others.
Yep. Agree. Spot on. Hear, hear. Concur. Amen. Roger that. Hallelujah. Damn straight. Ditto.
De Icaza's problem with Linux may be one of perspective. I view the major distros as seperate platforms rather than fragmented versions of the same platform, so I'm not surprised when something available for one distro isn't available for another. The fact that an application for one can be recompiled for use on another is a bonus.
I don't see what all the fuss is about. I like linux the way it is. It beats windows by far stablility wise and I get to chose whatever window manager, filemanager,... works for ME. At least I don't have 1 browser that is being shuved down the throat or need to installl *binaries*.
BTW: From where did the love for binaries appear to a guy who is developer, linux&mac user for a long time? I just love the fact that I have a choice in everything in linux. That what really makes it *FREE* for me. Free as in FREEDOM. Not as in FREE-software.
My understanding is that Mr. de Icaza is, always has been, and generally has conceded himself to be, a pragmatist. He values software freedom for the practical benefits that it brings. I can respect that to a point. However, like Mr. Stallman, I am an idealist. I believe that freedom is valuable primarily for its own sake, that suppressing it is a bad thing even if it is alleged to bring "practical" benefits, and that encouraging it is a good thing even if it comes at the price of some (usually temporary) inconvenience. Pragmatism, unfortunately, often leads to compromise, and to the abandonment of ideals that prove difficult or inconvenient. Idealism on the other hand motivates people like RMS to continue to try to address the problems with, e.g., free software on the desktop, not by abandoning freedom, but by trying to fix them.
Nonaggression works!
"but regardless of what Google's marketing materials may tell you, Android is a Linux distribution, and GNU and GNOME have been perfecting Linux distributions for over two decades."
No and no. Or do you consider OS X a BSD distribution? Let me just mention a few of the ways in which Android is much more incompatible to a typical Linux distribution than even the most brain-damaged system/UI "innovation" coming from Ubuntu and Fedora.
* Every program package or "app" in Android comes with its own user ID. While many daemons and services in a typical Linux distro do run under their own unique user ID, Android carries this to an extreme, extending the design even to end-user applications.
* Android is mostly a single-user OS as far as the human end-user is concerned. Stock Android doesn't even come with the "su" program that allows for multiple log-ins. Or a a /home/ directory for that matter.
* Android doesn't use X or any of the major graphical toolkits used by Linux distros as diverse as Fedora, Ubuntu, Slackware or even Puppy Linux.
* Android is infested with proprietary programs to an extent that makes Ubuntu look like St. iGNUcius.
And no, GNU have not "been perfecting Linux distributions for over two decades" although you can read recommendations on their site about which "GNU"-slash-Linux distro they prefer you to install.
Did you miss your meds this morning?
Damn straight I'm posting AC in this mosh pit.
As someone who has authored and maintains a pretty damn big OSS project that directly addresses the needs of a tiny, largely computer-illiterate (and often extremely poor and unliked-by-society) clientele, I can relate.
I get zero help. That's because the project is completely free, and serves such a tiny, who-gives-a-damn-about-these-losers crowd. I'm completely alone on the project. It can get frustrating as hell; especially when the abuse starts pouring in from the very folks the project is supposed to help.
Sometimes, there are Higher Callings, and there are some of us that respond with Service.
And then, as a few minutes of scanning this comment thread will show, there are those who contribute nothing but bile.
I disagree with a lot of OS folks. However, no one can dispute their zeal and passion; which often manifests as real elbow grease and self-sacrifice.
Again, thanks. It won't even buy you a cup of coffee at the donut shop, but I might, if we ever meet.
And that differs from my claim
For the configuration Apple chooses to sell, they are very competitive on pricing.
how? What does "very competitive" mean in your world?
KDE was still cripped with QT GPL/dual license since Gnome and GTK were always LGPL.
Trolltech is a company like any other. They shouldn't be forced to do anything just because their toolkit was popular with some devs. KDE fragmented the desktop with their shortcut in QT.
It wasn't until QT was picked up by Nokia and LGPL'ed in mid-2010 that KDE's license was appropriate for mainstream Linux.
Mac users gives me the picture of people that is not interested in computers and computing at all. That don't care about Open Source. And thats the picture i gotten of MiguelDeIcaza the latest years. Not surprised.
I'm not sure, but something doesn't quite add up here...
The arguments on these Linux/UNIX/Mac/Win threads remind me of this sketch (Start at 2:44).
What's worse is that this "crippled zombie thing" actually seems to have a lot more users than KDE, even though people incessantly bitch about how bad Gnome3 is and KDE would be much, much easier for former Windows users to use (and is endlessly configurable for those who want something a little different).
What's worse is that this "crippled zombie thing" actually seems to have a lot more users than KDE...
And Windows has even more. That doesn't mean it's right.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
how? What does "very competitive" mean in your world?
Competitive as in compete with.
They're generally comparable in price. Sometimes slightly more, sometimes slightly less. Or, more typically exactly the same price but with variations in specifications.
Of course, they come with OSX. Whether that's a plus, minus or neutral is rather subjective.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How did the GPL'ing of QT destroy the Linux desktop? Or are you arguing that 2 desktop shells under GPL cannot be a good thing?
I can see the point being made for maybe https or ssh. But for a user interface no. I find your +5 Insightful comment, quite ridiculous.
I could care less about mono and Gnome. I've been using KDE for at least the last decade. I've avoided mono as the tool-set always seemed to be pretty useless for anything other than attempts to port VS Windows stuff. I use VS at work along with SQLServer and LabVIEW. While we have plenty of Linux at work on servers, most applications and development remains on the Windows platform. Mono just seems like a big waste. Too much incompatibility and a whole lot more work than I have time for. I avoid installing mono on my home desktop and avoid using the stuff on my systems. I've done C++/Qt and some Java on the Linux platform and have yet to see any need to use mono for anything.
So Miguel is now going to work on semi-compatible libraries and tools to confuse Mac users? Good luck with that!
bob@Osprey:~>
OSX is heaven for pretty and easy
Naked Linux is godlike for workhorse machines you "set and forget"
Updated Windows with MSE is perfect for your facebooking aunt you don't mind visiting once a month or so and need an excuse to do it..
(..also to keep you in a job)
These are universal truths you all just tweak for the drama
"oh, i can't get package X to work on my Linux Y, so i can't use the obscure video card to game on my webserver."
"i can't listen to my bootlegged starwars special release soundtrack because mac is too pretentious to support format gorkx"
"windows blows when i never install security patches and use the antivirus that popped up while i was browsing craigslist ads"
Dude, use a fork for salad, a spoon for soup, and keep your fucking bowls clean.. sometimes you don't even need step 3.
I can say this or that about why I still prefer linux over OSX. But really, day to day, the biggest factor is something that does not try to be clever and new. It is something that just-works, and just-works in a way nothing else can (and I do keep looking). I have refined a .fvwm2rc file to the point that nothing else can touch it, efficiency-wise, for me. Not tiling WMs. Not OSX. Not Gnome. Not Windows. Not KDE. (I also contributed to fvwm over a decade ago to get some touches I needed in).
There are lots of other things I like, like a toolchain that 'just works' (even moreso than OSX from my point of view, even on Arch, which is my current distro of choice). My point of view is no IDE (the vim and the WM /is/ my IDE), all command line, etc. IOW, I do not work the 'Apple Way'. I do not work the 'Microsoft' way.
Further, my day job is 100% linux, doing numerical simulation, visual effects, etc (I am in the CGI movie industry). I could not imagine being as effective as I am on Apple or Microsoft.
Miguel,
Given that you have decided to do the right thing and join the ranks of the Mac faithful, I, as GNUstep's Chief Maintainer, I would like to extend a formal invitation to re-join the GNUstep project. ;)
Sincerely Yours, ;) Enjoy your Mac.
Gregory Casamento
P.S. Kidding.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Many the high level problems (devs are always right and should ignore users, wm fragmentation, mono and the never ending chase game, etc) we have were caused by him, it almost looked like he was playing the MS game against linux... now he will attack the MacOS... just as MS wants...
He never finish anything, always leaving its project before they could work, contributing to yet another NIH solution for a existent tool/usage
Higuita
Elvis is dead.
Microsoft is not the reason why Linux has problems.
Mr. Rogers was not a Navy Seal.
OS X has so many quirks it drives me up the wall. I started off enjoying it too, but then certain things just got to me and I knew there was nothing I could do about it. Just stupid stuff like if I'm in the middle of dragging an object, the file copy dialog will never end.
The Gnome project was a disaster from beginning to end. It accomplished exactly one useful thing: Trolltech was forced to GPL QT. At that point, Gnome should have been promptly shut down, having accomplished its purpose, and Linux on the desktop would be much further advanced than it is. But instead we have this crippled zombie thing that shambles on and on. Somebody put a stake in its heart or something please.
The other thing - GNOME never lived up to its name, which is why the GNU people should have worked on GNUSTEP instead. What did GNOME stand for? GNU Network Object Model Environment. Nothing in that description suggests anything that wasn't there in NEXTSTEP, or by implication, GNUSTEP. So having had the license issue bother them, they should have simply done worked on a GNUSTEP desktop, with a liberated display server analogous to Display Postscript or NeWS that could also have been GPLed (since they weren't going the Quartz way of Apple) and then pushed that project on those merits, instead of just the license that Qt was under. That way, regardless of what Trolltech did, this GNUSTEP interface would have taken off.
Instead, dropping the GNOME objective, never really making Bonobo a viable standard and never providing a quality suite of applications as KDE does - all proved to be the undoing of GNOME. Honestly, GNOME 2 was a poor DE particularly compared to KDE3, and GNOME 3 just became more unusable, while reducing already minimal functionality. I don't know how legit de Icaza's complaints are for devs - after all, KDE does fine while supporting not just the various Linux distros, but the BSD distros as well.
For a very long time I have had the feeling following his Microsoft tech love that at some point Miguel de Icaza will giggle insanely, then pull of his face Mission Impossible style and say "You fools it was I Bill Gate all along!".
Fragmentation? It's more like a bloodbath. I've been waiting since 1998 when Netscape released it's source for Linux to get it's desktop act together. It hasn't. It isn't competitive, as evidenced by it's minuscule market penetration on the desktop. Eric Raymond was wrong. It takes a cathedral to make good *finished* software that is actually usable by a large percentage of the computer world. Apple and MS devote millions of dollars to usability. Linux? People argue about what should happen, then all do different things on the desktop. There's no standardization of usage across various programs, and as Miguel said, attempting to get things working by finding the right ... anything... is still problematic.
If you want to be a l33t self-satisfied Linux user, great. If you want users to be able to use your software, you have to do what the large software corporations do, QA the shit out of it, seek user input and spend big bucks to get developers to go to the nth degree of polish, whether they want to or not.
This is the biggest difference between corporate software and Open Source (et al.) for the user; corporations force developers to not be lazy when the grunt work starts.
It's because of stupidity like this that the DMCA should be violated at every opportunity as civil disobedience.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I think the average intelligence of both Linux and Apple communities just went up a little.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I don't know what you're smoking, but I want some. A quick check between the Apple store and Lenovo's site will show you that the lowest model Mac Pro is $500 more than a Thinkstation E31 with all the same hardware, except 12GB of RAM in the Thinkstation as opposed to the 6GB the Mac comes with. I've done this over and over, every time a Mac fan tries to make the point that you are buying high end hardware not commodity hardware. I always find Lenovo has a better price, and you don't get much higher end, or reputable, than Lenovo.
I agree 100%. At the same time, I just can't see how the open source community and companies would allow a non-free library a monopoly on the Linux desktop. Well, maybe RedHat or some other big Linux backed should be made a deal with TrollTech, instead of spending money on Gnome.
Another bad decision about Gnome was the choice of programming language for implementation as well as the main API. The GNU people hate C++.
The highest end mac does not compare to the highest end PC.
Technically, yes. But by the same standard, Ubuntu LTS is likely just as good.
To keep my point simple, I didn't mention the many problems in OS X that I encountered while setting it up. For example, it made me type in the password to my Apple ID over and over again. It seemed truly insistent on making me fill in info for a credit card. It pummeled me over and over with license dialogs I had to "agree" to. User switching doesn't work out of the box--you have to set it up. And perhaps most inexplicably, it absolutely would not let me proceed without declaring my gender. WTF Apple?
There only one OS I know that's actually a candidate for the "Just Works" title: Chrome. I've been using a Chromebook pretty constantly since they came out, and it's amazingly trouble-free. It doesn't do as much, obviously, but I'm unable to think of a single hang-up I've had with it.
His actions since adopting and trumpeting Mono, but not limited to Mono have always made me think he was some kind of sleeper troll. His stances often seemed to take antagonistically disruptive positions. That even this time his "reasons" clearly don't seem to match up with reality, reinforce what I have seen in the past. I suppose what he said could be true if he is running one of the more esoteric distributions, but really...as much as I am not a fan of Ubuntu[I am a Debian user], there is little you can't get either natively packaged or via a ppa.
He is literally the John C.Dvorak of the Linux programing world.
I completey agree. long live gpl qt
I have used Windows, OSX, Linux (a lot of variations), BSD, and Solaris.. But, the OS that has stuck out the most to me the most was first Ubuntu.. and now Crunchbang (#!). I've been looking for a lightweight experience for awhile and I am someone that didn't dig GNOME3, KDE, or LXDE. I did like Windowmaker, but unfortunately that's a project that's kinda rolling in a grave somewhere. As far as this guy saying that he's having too many problems with dependencies, he's obviously "on something" because if you're using a package manager correctly, you shouldn't have the problems he's stating. Maybe 10 years ago it would have been a problem, but nowadays, Linux is a cakewalk! Even if you can't get the package from that repo, there are always other repos or you can even COMPILE FROM SOURCE like the rest of us Linux guys do!!! It's a novel concept really!
Get a recent laptop with nvidia Optimus (which is pretty much any new sandy/ivy bridge laptop with nvidia graphics) and see how easy it is to get it to work on Linux.
Last time I used Windows for more than an hour it was 1993. I'm not kidding, I switched from Windows 3.1 to OS/2 Warp till 1998. Then I moved to Red Hat, switiching distro from times to times, until I finally end up with Ubuntu in 2006. In 2011 the Macbook Air 13" price it was a bargain. I surprisely opened the terminal and it was all there. And then see Macports and then used Safari and Mail and decided to buy a Mac and I'm fully satisfacted. I still live in a ecosystem without MS. OSX, iPhone (maybe android in the future) and PS3. Facebook messenger is where people are and then I just started using it and loved it.
I think the whole point of Linux in the last years was keep way out of MS. I even never used MSN Messenger networks.
Now he's going to try to clone all of Microsoft's clones of other people's technology for the Mac.
Lets see how far that gets him.
===
I have this problem with Miguels conjecture, that it is a Linux problem,I see it as nothing but a Gnome project problem. I believe that the Gnome project was without a true project manager, a project manager who would sit down with the shopping list, review what was the priority, and do what a project manager should do. That includes getting funding and developers a timetable and testing plan and tackling what is priority number one to end-users and distribution developers. After that Gnome project would tackle priority two. Instead the project tried to tackle too many features without a good developers road map.
Why is it that there is no fragmentation with KDE, or cinnamon? Both just work and both are have their same functionality, irrespective of platform.
If Miguel was or is such a hotshot architect, developer, why is Gnome so fragmented? It is Gnome, not Mate, Cinnamon, or KDE or Enlighten.
Why did Canonical go their own way with Unity? Some questions that have been asked need to be answered.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Lock yourself into a single one. If they have what you want, good for you; if not, live with it. It's essentially what you do when you decide to go Apple or Microsoft.
I used to be a GNUStep proponent as well. But in the end it was the lack of apps that killed it. Well not killed it but put it in life support. If you want GIMP you have GTK+ as a dependency, same thing goes for Inkscape. Applications rule put simply. Otherwise you could just use a regular window manager.
The use of Objective-C brought it no favors either. People were not used to the language and contributors did not show up often. GNOME has a C bent and KDE has a C++ bent from the get go.
Qt has more problems than just C++. The problem is its own bastardized templates and the moc compiler. To be honest I prefer the gtkmm API.
Qt has more problems than just C++. The problem is its own bastardized templates and the moc compiler. To be honest I prefer the gtkmm API.
Speaking from experience, you can work around the MoC. Yes, the MoC sucks and Trolltech engineers are idiots to deny that, but with a bit of cleverness you can make the MoC vanish and all be dynamic as it should have been in the first place. This wart does not begin to outweigh the fundamental advantages of the QT object model.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I used to use slackware since 2002, when I bought a PC for using at home and got pissed of with the pre-installed windows xp. Back then, slackware 9 just worked for me. I got in love with it. But, just like someone else said before, after college, time started to become an issue. Later in 2010 I was introduced to ubuntu and realized there was a new level of the 'just works' experience. Since then I'm using ubuntu. I even like unity, got no problems using it. I use it for everyday work. No more ./configure, no more messing around, no more initrd or whatever: I just get my shit done. The system works for me now.
The only flaw it has right nowt that bugs me its that it cannot play blu-ray discs. Well, not the ones I rent from blockbuster. This and games. Thus, at home i'm still stuck with the win7.
The problem w/ the Mac is that one is limited to the form factors which Apple is willing to manufacture --- I'd love to replace my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121, but the closest thing to it now is a Microsoft Surface Pro --- Apple's iPad would require me to make do w/ software sourced from the Appstore and I can't find equivalents there for some of the special-purpose software I need.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
What do all the people who develop for OS-X & iOS use? Obj-C is pretty much the default for XCode, just like it was for NEXTSTEP. So where does Apple get all the Obj-C developers that are apparently in short supply?
Once you don't compare "cheapest PC" vs. "cheapest Mac", but "the Mac I want" vs. "a PC with the same specs, bought from a reputable company", the Mac hardware will beat most PCs of the same price.
This is simply not true. Apples prices are highly inflated and always have been.
I think you're about to get your wish. Canonical has all but declared war on GNOME. All of Canonical's projects are in the process of porting away from Gtk/GNOME towards a Qt/QML base. The most notable of these is Unity itself, although many smaller projects are following suit (case in point, check out the recent commit to lp:gwibber that dropped literally *all* of the Gtk code in favor of Qml).
Is he having one on with us? If not, this is like pissing in the town well before loading the last box on the moving truck.
Bye de Icaza. You won't be missed.
Oh don't get me started on GTK with their horrible documentation. It's nothing more than an info dump, with a great deal of the modules with incorrect syntax. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial. It's quite frustrating from the standpoint of someone trying to learn the API, as even the devs have said it's not friendly for new users. I had thought about trying to write them some user documentation as I was deciphering their unholy mess and then realized its Gnome and they can suck it.
1st part: yes
2nd part: yawn
Ubuntu is being moved to Window Maker as it's X11 window manager. It provides "integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment".
Honestly, GNOME 2 was a poor DE particularly compared to KDE3, and GNOME 3 just became more unusable, while reducing already minimal functionality.
As for which desktop environment is better, that is purely a personal matter of preference. Right now I use both KDE and Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 as well as Xubuntu 12.04. Soon I plan to install Linux Mint and use Cinnamon and KDE along with MATE. I also plan to install Arch Linux. I'll try all these out then decide which ones I will use regularly.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I used to be a GNUStep proponent as well. But in the end it was the lack of apps that killed it. Well not killed it but put it in life support. If you want GIMP you have GTK+ as a dependency, same thing goes for Inkscape. Applications rule put simply. Otherwise you could just use a regular window manager.
There are CinePaint and Krita to replace GIMP with. To tell the truth I've been waiting 15 year for GIMP to edit in at least 16 bits per color channels and it still does not.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What specifically do you need to do that Linux does not do? MS Office isn't an answer, it is a specific application suite. The functions it does can be done by OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
While I don't "work" in IT, I am disabled and have disability income, I volunteer for Freegeek Twin Cities. There we take in donated PCs, test them, and build new PCs from good parts that meet our minimum standards. We then install Xubuntu 12.04 and sell them at low cost to those who can not otherwise afford PCs. As of yet I have not come across a software need that Linux can not do. The closest I know of is editing photos and graphic design. If Blender, CinePaint, GIMP, or Inkscape can not do what needs to be done then it is possible to install Photoshop CS5 using WINE.
Ooh, I just thought of something, run XCode to develop for iOS.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Lol. In Linux or free unix desktop land you're a slave to software dependencies and chasing down half-assed solutions to common desktop application type tasks. On my mac, I spend a total of about 1 hour per 18 months on operating system upgrades. I've been there, done that, and will GLADLY pay the software licensing cost to get what I want done with a minimum of fucking about.
On my Mac I run Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 12.04 and I love the freedom to run whatever software I can. Now if Adobe were to port Photoshop CS to Linux, and drop the price, I and many other Linux users would use it too. Because I can't afford CS for OS X I'll try both CinePaint and Krita for deep color editing of my photos. I am willing to give up a little tyme maintaining my system for freedom to do what I want. Giving up freedom is what makes you a slave, not the other way around.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I just had a look at his wikipedia page. Midnight commander : hated it (when nc was fine) WINE : never worked properly for me. Mono : ditto Gnumeric : even worse. Don't get me started on GNOME or KDE, I hate both. I loved the Xwindows combination with any simple task manager (like mwm) but to me things are getting worse and worse in Linux and I have moved to MacOS in 2004, except for severs or computing work, done on Linux, but on the command line by ssh. So please, God, smite De Caza the same way you got Hans Reiser or McAffee out of the game. Those pricks just ruin it for everyone else with a huge ego and unusable software, schisms, and so on.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Once you don't compare "cheapest PC" vs. "cheapest Mac", but "the Mac I want" vs. "a PC with the same specs, bought from a reputable company", the Mac hardware will beat most PCs of the same price.
No.
A PC running MacOS X on a virtual machine is running unlicensed software. First, it is running a modified VM that you probably had no right to modify, second it runs an unlicensed copy of MacOS X that has just enough copy prevention built in to make it a DMCA violation.
What was the point of that?