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Ask Slashdot: Mac To Linux Return Flow?
jasnw writes "I'm one of apparently many people who moved to OS X from Linux in the early/mid 2000s for their desktop system, keeping Linux boxes around for the heavy lifting and server work. I may also be part of a large segment of that group now considering a return because of all the iOS-ification of OS X, despite the fact that the Linux desktop still falls short in the 'it just works' area. I'm angry enough at Apple, and wary enough of Linux, that I might just go to using Windows 7 for the desktop (not Win8, however). What is the feeling/experience of other 'traitors' who run OS X for the desktop and Linux for everything else?"
I actually feel like KDE and Gnome were the traitors, not me. If Windows 9 is anything like Windows 8 I'm going to have a huge problem.
It runs just fine on the recent MBAs
Use your brain, chose an OS, learn to use it.
Stick Men
This thread will be good. I expect well-reasoned and rational comments from all sides, naturally.
*Munches popcorn and waits*
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
There is a livecd of each and every desktop available for linux. Try them, choose one, get things done.
Your trollcraft is strong, you named every OS, praising it whilst simultaneously deriding it. I give you 32 troll points for what will likely be highly polarized responses and self-sustaining conjecture and disagreement.
Linux is a great kernel. Linux has never had a good or stable GUI environment. Ever.
OS X and iOS QA has gone to shit. They're toys from China that break a lot now.
Windows 8 is a LSD trip. Windows 7 is the new Windows XP. However the Microsoft people will say Windows "next version" will be super better!!!! (since about Windows 3.11) like a broken record.
What's wrong with paper again?
You already have FreeBSD safe hardware. Linux is great, but FreeBSD would be easier for a Mac user. Personally, I would suggest Debian if you want Linux.
I went linux -> mac in about 2004, and mac -> linux in 2009. Basically got sick of the extra hassle required to get stuff that runs out of the box on linux running on mac. eg a mysql/php/apache stack that actually matched all the linux servers I administered; qgis, grass gis, inkscape, scribus,.. And by 2009 linux-on-the-desktop was a lot more 'just works' than it was in 2004. In short, the extra time I spend getting my mint linux setup working as I want from fresh install to doing work is much shorter than the amount of time spent doing the same on osx. But that's just me - my particular software needs are dictated by the kind of academic work I do, and what you do with your computers may make your experience different.
I just cannot figure out what this "question" is all about? You *apparently* *might* be part of a *possibly* large group of OS X people who *might* want to go using Windows?
Well, I just might not feel like answering this. My experience is that this type of questions are apparently suggestive, and only meant to be so.
--------
* Sigh *
You can have my Mac when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. :-)
I'm not going back. I'm exactly as you describe - my desktop runs OS X and my mobile devices run iOS, but my servers run Debian.
Neither of which is going to change. Specifically, you would have to shoot me before I use Windows as my work environment. I'm happy that I can run a very similar environment on my OS X and Debian machines, which makes development just so much easier. I boot Win7 once a decade or so when I want to play a windows-only game, though mostly I pick games available for OS X (Guild Wars 2, League of Legends, yeah!). Every time I have to use windows for anything other than launching the game I want to play, I cringe. It's just so... words fail me. I don't understand why it's not considered a violation of human rights.
You wanted emotions, there you got em. OS X is the best desktop I know. Debian Linux is the best server operating system I know. Windows is the best reason to shoot someone.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Disclaimer: This is a very speculative long shot ....
But it used to be that differences between platforms in terms of end user control were a matter of degree. Now with commercial operating systems moving rapidly away from that, with more closed systems, restricted app stores, secure boot, locked devices, disregard for privacy, etc., Linux has a much larger opportunity to distinguish itself on that feature (as well as the security that goes with it).
Don't wait for users to tell you they need it; that will be too late. Though privacy and control aren't so 'cool' now, I find it hard to believe that suddenly human beings will have permanently stopped caring about them. The pendulum could swing back, and if that happens you want Linux firmly associated with end user control and privacy in people's minds.
Plus, Linux could educate them simply by presenting an alternative. Few end users understand the value of end user control and openness.
What you do with the tools is more important that the tools themselves.
You gave us no real idea what you got going on with your computer aside from some comment made about "heavy lifting and server work." If you can use any of the platforms just decide on one. I have a boot camped rMBP that I use and I'm more than happy with it. I'm not exactly sure what the iOSification of OSX is suppose to mean but it sounds like you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
BTW: My personal experience is that people who claim that they need a machine for "heavy lifting" just don't know how to make a reasonable computer do what they need it to do. Unless you're talking storage and if you're really using a full functioning computer for storage then you're just lost right out of the gate.
If you go back to Win7 - make sure you disable the Microsoft forcibly-installed 6to4 adapter (just google it - there's plenty of posts about it) - because if you don't, and you're running an IPV4 home network, your linux box(es) will do nothing but complain.... I have an iPad, and two laptops - older of which I use primarily as a file server running Ubunti... when I went to Win7, I suddenly got crawling file transfer speeds, despite being on a hardwired full-duplex 100mbit network... once I disabled 6to4, it got happy again...
First of all, I don't see a problem with iOS. Nor the incremental changes in OS X which give both a similar look or feel.
Adding an applications list with "folders" via expose is hardly iOS-ification.
Have I missed anything?
You're leaving the Mac platform because you don't like the direction that platform seems to be headed, right? That's certainly an okay reason to try your luck elsewhere.
But you've already indicated with your "not Win8" comment that you ALSO don't like where the Windows platform is headed.
Windows 7 may be further from the hated future of the Windows OS than the current Mac OS is from the hated future of the Mac OS, and so Win7 may seem nicer for a while because of that. But in less than a decade Win7 will be orphaned for security updates and you're going to have to jump ship again to an OS you don't hate, and the only OS it looks like you're going to want to consider at that point is Linux.
It's time to dive into Linux and start learning what you like and how to make it work for you. Better now while you've got some lead time than in a few years when it becomes an emergency.
When Mac and Windows users complain that Linux doesn't work, I really don't know what they mean; my experience of late has been that I have fewer annoyances and more things just work, with little-to-no need for configuration when using Linux. (Computers in my household running a mixture of Win 7, 8 and Debian at the moment.)
I went from OS X to Linux Mint with Cinnamon and, aside from some initial tearing in videos due to compositing, it has been a delight. Linux is great as long as you don't mind the occasional debug session.
I have used both Linux and Windows pretty extensively for my desktop system, and for servers (not always my choice). I love using Linux servers (specifically CentOS) - they perform well for the tasks I use them for, and they are rock solid.
I miss Linux on my Macbook Air probably about as often as I miss having Windows on my Macbook Air. There are plenty of things I don't like about Apple: expensive hardware often lagging on the performance-features front (e.g. USB3 took a while), their 'our way or get lost' approach, how truly awful Finder is (and it is truly awful), and all of the bollocks about 'It just works' (it mostly works). However, I can use the apps I need on it (e.g. Photoshop: and no, Gimp is not a replacement; MS Office: and no, OpenOffice is not a replacement). The touchpad functionality is brilliant (multi-touch, swiping, etc). Menu bars always at the top of the screen is genius, as it turns out. I don't need to deal with installing GTK+, QT, etc etc - although this is mainly just an artifact of the packaging system.
So in essence, I don't feel like a traitor. I feel like I'm using different OSs for different things based on their match to my needs. Mind you, I revisit Linux fairly regularly to check on how it is going as a desktop OS (and was one of the weird folk who didn't mind Gnome 3), and it is certainly getting better, but I always wind up back on OSX (or Windows, prior to that).
If I stop being able to install apps without the app store, or they all need to be digitally signed and approved by Apple, then you'll see me switching to something else faster than you can blink, but that's a ways off yet.
The "iOSification" of OS X is overblown hyperbole at the moment. Yes, Apple's simplified some of the core apps like iPhoto. Yes, Apple's made the Calendar app fugly. They added the "Launchpad", which you never have to actually see unless you invoke it, and they added the Gatekeeper security feature, which you can switch off with a few clicks of the mouse.
They also recently got rid of the guy who was responsible for some of that stuff, so we may see a roll back on the nasty skeumorphic nonsense.
The core OS, and its UX in general, are still excellent, and every single app distributed outside of the App Store still have as much freedom as they used to.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I went from Linux to OS X around ~2006 and really haven't looked back. I use BSD / Linux for most server stuff but there is no way in hell you can make me go back to Linux to deal with messing with things to work, dealing with dependency hell and everything else. No gracias.
However, if Apple keeps trying to make it more iOS like I'll probably bitch and complain and I'll still use it because it'll still work out of the box and support far more on the desktop then Linux ever will. And yeah yeah, throw the Ubuntu blah blah blah out there and claim it works just as good as OS X in a desktop environment but I've been waiting for Linux to make a dent in the desktop arena since 1999 and I've given up on it and haven't looked back since. It's great for everything else, but it's not suited for the desktop yet and I doubt it ever will be.
Do yourself a favor and get xubuntu. simple menus, ubuntu repositories. Looks like older mac os with the quicklaunch bar at the bottom and menu at the top.
install xubuntu-restricted-extras, VLC, virtualbox, gimp and libreoffice.
You got everything you need.
That just is NOT true anymore. Windows 7 has been stable from the word go. Uptime measured in days and weeks for a DESKTOP computer that is only interrupted by important updates and other administrative tasks that require a reboot. Otherwise, it Just Works. This coming from a guy who LOVES Linux- on servers.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
I may also be part of a large segment of that group now considering a return because of all the iOS-ification of OS X
What. The. F***.
despite the fact that the Linux desktop still falls short in the 'it just works' area
So usability aside...
I'm angry enough at Apple, and wary enough of Linux, that I might just go to using Windows 7 for the desktop (not Win8, however). What is the feeling/experience of other 'traitors' who run OS X for the desktop and Linux for everything else?"
you are looking at other operating systems for emotional reasons...
and people who use OS X as a desktop and other OS's for other reasons are "traitors" *roflsnort* WHAT?
This will not have any meaningful discussion, I promise you.
The iOSifcation of OS X is real frustrating. I run as many machines as I can on 10.6 (the best OS X version IMHO) for the time being and am not sure if I am going to move on to newer versions. However, for the average end-user the iOSification doesn't seem to matter as much. Sucks for me but they don't seem to mind. Managing a mixed environment can be a pain but JAMF's Caspar Suite (which is running on a Debian box) makes that relatively smooth. A move away from anything non OS X will anger a large user base of mine. Really, it's not our decision of IT alone to determine what we should run. It needs to coincide with the business vision and align with the finance departments foreseeable budget.
You're too smart for OS X. You're not geeky enough for Linux. Windows is just right for you. Be smart enough to ignore the lunkheads that can't figure out how to 7ize windows 8. It will make upgrading to Windows 9 that much easier. You can only hope that Microsoft doesn't totally screw up their cloud initiative. They've had plenty of time to learn from others, and they should be ready to roll. Office 365 is actually not as bad as I thought it would be. p.s. keep your old Linux box plugged in just in case. You will need it sooner or later.
GNU/Linux is rewarding if you are willing to learn how the OS works. Rather than focus on a GUI, I would suggest you learn the command line which is the underlying system in any GNU/Linux distro. Once you know the command line, you can run Gentoo, Ubuntu, Slackware, whatever. Even if your GUI fails or gets glitchy, the command line will save you. Another benefit of GNU/Linux is that whenever a friend (who does not have a lot of money) gets a computer virus, an install of Ubuntu really sets them on the right track and they get amazed at all the cool, free software and pretty interface(s) to pick from. Not all people like learning or have the patience (it was frustrating for me the first year) but it paid off in the long run. I am not rich, but have all this great software for free and am doing things I never dreamed. I never thought I would edit audio, or design album covers because I cannot afford the industry standards. But software like Audacity, Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus gave me opportunities to do amazing things. I ran a record label and music distro biz on a shoe sting budget thanks to GNU/Linux. Apple/Windows still hold the industry standards, but free software seems to be catching up. So it really comes down to; do you want to spend money or time/patience? If you go with the latter, you may be the better off for it.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
http://www.oslike.se/
Windows 7 for the commercial junk until support drops in 2020
Ubuntu Unity, OS X 10.7/10.8 and Windows 8 totally suck ass.
Touchscreen UI's do NOT belong on the desktop, neither do fingers on the screen, except on a tablet or phone.
Apple, Microsoft and Shuttleworth are all a bunch of baboons.
What does this mean, "iOS-ification"?
What are you looking for in a desktop? And where does the Linux desktop fall short for you?
I made the switch to full on Linux (from windows) in 2005, and never looked back. Fedora is my flavor of choice, and every year it gets better. I have had my fill of issues, and there have been some less then favorable fedora releases over the years. But overall it has given me an acceptable desktop environment for everything I do accept gaming. Both Apple and Microsoft pigeonhole you in doing 'it' there way; Apple too a much greater degree. And ultimately that's why I don't use those OS's.
Windows is for good-consumers who like shinny buttons. OSX is for "really cool" good-consumers that like shinny buttons. Linux is for men.
.
OSX is a prison that keeps getting smaller. Linux on the desktop is wonderful. Stable and easily configurable .
I started using OSX in 2010, and like you I still use Linux. For the most part, I use Linux to develop software and for data munging. I'm still good with OS X. If they get rid of Terminal then I am done. Until then, I can do most anything I need on OS X that I can on my Linux box. The difference being, I don't have the same ease of use for all the Open Source projects on OS X that I do on Linux.
I'm fine with OS X moving towards an iOS interface. So far they are maintaining the ability to work around the interface. I have yet to encounter any limitations that cannot be bypassed. I also use OS X because it works without me having to maintain it. When I was in high school, I had days to spend screwing around with Slackware, and I learned a lot doing it. But, I no longer want to mess with setting things up just so I can get to the point where I start doing my actual activities. Which is one reason I moved away from Slackware to Ubuntu.
I've used Ubuntu on the desktop, and it is fairly good. But, there are still problems. A number of times I would have to kill the Synaptic Update system and do a manual apt-get update apt-get upgrade. Not sure why the GUI version wasn't working, and these days I no longer care. I don't have time to figure that out. As well, my network card would not alway be enabled when I booted my Lenovo R61 Thinkpad. This was in 2011. I bought the Thinkpad in 2007. Its hardware is old enough that it should just work at this point. To fix it, I would have to reload the card's module. There may be other issues I had. I can't remember any right now though.
My point is, I want my personal computer to turn on and work. I don't want to spend time configuring it. I realize I am betraying, in some sense, the Stallman Free Software ethic, that, in large part, is responsible for the programming skills I enjoy today. I have contributed to an Open Source project recently. And, I intend to do so in the future. But, I have become a pragmatist rather than an idealist in my thoughts on Free Software.
As for moving to Windows, I see no sense in that. Unless you want to use Cygwin or something like that, and those projects may be more mature now, but Windows is so far removed from the Unix philosophy that it is painful to use. At least in OS X, I can still pipe individual programs together to generate something useful.
I switched over from linux to OSX, here's what I found out:
Apple wins at:
- Setup is way longer in Linux (No surprise). OSX was pretty quick thanks to google integration and good defaults (i.e for the trackpad).
- Applications. Work uses Go2Meeting and others, so I'm a bit stuck with that. I don't like dual booting, so OSX was my best shot.
- The hardware is really good. I do not regret having paid the price for a retina, since I use it a real lot, on the go and at home. This isn't really about OSX, but I wouldn't mind having an Apple laptop with Linux as the main OS. That's if the price isn't too much of a problem, I guess.
Linux wins at:
- Compliance to my development work. Rarely have any problems installing anything from source. With OSX you can expect a problem whenever you try that.
- Linux, in my experience, is much less buggy. OSX works in very narrow setups, but will recklessly bug everywhere as soon as external monitors are involved with my laptop.
- Customisation, if you're that kind of guy.
Now, if you're a developer or other IT professional, I recommend some good flavor of linux nowadays (Arch, Debian, Gentoo...)
OSX is good, but it's in decline if you ask me. They aren't doing any real improvement that will matter for me, and we see more and more software being ported to Linux, so it only gets better. The stuff is all locked-in to iCloud and iOS, and even having an iPad, I don't want that. I much prefer having my notes on Evernote or google for example, rather than using the very limited Apple solutions. Whenever you get a bit serious in any usage, you'll see apple falling short quite often.
Drafts being saved in like 40 duplicates by default on google? Check
Same for notes? Check.
Reminders only sync on iOS? Check
Calendar randomly resets own settings as it syncs up to Facebook while I specified it shouldn't? Check.
iTunes missing many audio formats? Check
That's the tip of the iceberg. I'd rather choose my own solutions rather than being bloated with completely useless software that I can't delete.
I have seen more Linux crashed than windows crashes from XP on.
However the stability is really based on the hardware and drivers more than the actuall OS now adays, having running windows on good hardware and Linux on cheap hardware isn't really a fair test. But compared to the mess of the DOS based windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME. It is rather stable.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I've been thinking that I might like to own a retina Macbook. My reasons are: the good screen, the BSD-based OS, a professionally-made desktop environment.
What is this "iOS-ification" of the Mac you write about? Is Apple making changes to close the platform to non-Xcode development?
Tell me more.
After having tried all the others (best liking XFCE of those), I am back to KDE3.5. An update should be out shortly once heavy internal restructuring is completed, then the lo0Oong 'feature freeze' should be over for KDE3. *joy*
That just is NOT true anymore. Windows 7 has been stable from the word go. Uptime measured in days and weeks for a DESKTOP computer that is only interrupted by important updates and other administrative tasks that require a reboot. Otherwise, it Just Works. This coming from a guy who LOVES Linux- on servers.
That's the first problem with Windows : there is so many things that needs you to reboot it is ridiculous. And the freakin updates that FORCES me to reboot. Only thing you can do is tell it to postpone the reboot for 4 hours. Then 4 hours later that fu***n thing pops-up again requesting you to reboot. And the worst : if you are not in front of you machine when it pops, after about a minute it will decide that it can just reboot. So you come back, your computer is at the login screen and you just have to re-open everything to get back to work. Who the f**k decided this was a good idea ?
Now I don't have that problem anymore. I installed Mint on my work computer and the only time I need to reboot is when I upgrade the kernel. After the upgrade there is a popup that tells me it needs to reboot to fully apply the update. If I click postpone IT WILL NEVER BOTHER ME AGAIN.
Also, I measure uptimes in months, not days and weeks. In fact I have an internet-facing server that is up for more that 5.5 years.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
Use whatever you want when you want...
I switched from Linux to OS X in 2003. I switched back in 2011. My reasons were (roughly in order of importance):
- The package managers suck. Yes, all of them. Compiling packages from sources is a huge waste of time, and at least back then, the management of the Mac package manager projects was amateurish at best (read: stuff breaking all the time).
- I needed a new computer, and at the time Apple didn't make one I liked.
- Apple's generally worsening "our way or the highway" attitude; Everything Just Works as long as your needs line up neatly with what Apple provides. When they don't, you're better off in Linux where you can at least more easily tear open and patch anything you need to.
I'm using Arch Linux now. Not because I enjoy tinkering with my OS, but because I don't. It was a pain in the ass to set up (who the fuck decided it was a good idea to get rid of the installer altogether?), but now I have everything working pretty much exactly the way I need it to, and as long as I take a few minutes to read about major system changes every few months or so, it's rolling smoothly. I've had nothing but bad experiences with the supposedly user-friendly distros.
Brief background: I've been using Linux since Slackware '96, with kernel version 1.0.0. I prefer using Linux for servers, but often have used Windows in cases where it presents some advantage (like using Active Directory so I can govern Windows desktops, etc)., and most environments I've worked in have become mixed Linux/Windows environments. Still, I am known much moreso for my *nix talents and content to leave Windows to the armies of Windows sysadmins out there.
For a while now at work, I've been using Windows 7. Using KiTTY (or PuTTY) I can generally work well with unix systems, and the Windows system gives me an environment like a normal user, which helps in reproducing issues, etc. The downside is, well, it's still Windows and prone to quirky issues, e.g. problems caused by Windows update, wanting to reboot more often than I'd like..
At home, I use Mac OS X rather than Windows 7. I run a custom-built hackintosh pro system (built late last year, i7-ivy bridge type). Using Mac OS X, I can still interact with systems I need to (using CoRD for Windows Remote Desktop), and it runs all the other programs I need elegantly. It also doesn't need reboots very often and is quite a stable system.
However, I too have been looking for a solution now that Apple is moving in the iOS-y direction for OS X, in terms of a system that lets me keep the awesome BSD power of Mac OS without being confined to Apple's walled garden of App Store restrictions etc.
Linux doesn't work as a Desktop environment for me for a lot of reasons, despite the fact I love Linux. It requires too much overhead to install software (packages, dependencies, etc), often doesn't run software I need (and/or open source equivalents fail to install on my distro, etc etc), and the end-user experience in X windows is generally clunky and not nearly as elegant/streamlined as Mac or Windows. A lot of open source products that do work are second-best to the product you could use on a desktop -- e.g. Microsoft Word on Mac and Windows vs OpenOffice on Linux. It'll work most of the time, but sometimes, it'll be a problem. I'm not a one man team and I work with people using Windows and Mac -- so I have to accomodate. In order to work in Linux, I'd have to have a VM running Windows or Mac -- and that kind of defeats the purpose of Linux.
So, in short, I am searching for an operating system that has the nice interface and POSIX-compliant backend of Mac OS, the openness of Linux, and runs all the software Windows can. Will a solution ever exist? :)
A decently managed XP box could do the same. Hell a well managed 95/98 box could keep highish uptimes as well. The 95/98 still were not in the same league with *nix at the time but still.
I say this as a fan of *nix and someone who is no fan of MS's policies/politics but having worked with their software for...man I feel old now...too long they have done OK on the desktop as far as it goes. The idea of setting up some end user back in the day with a Slackware install vs 98? Yeah I know there were the hardcore who forced it on their friends/relatives and they "managed" to get buy. I still doubt were as happy as they would have been with a 98 install AND its faults.
The who trend of pushing smartphone/tablet UI's on to the desktop is the current problem. A bad one that is self inflicted by in large.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
When I went back to Linux I found Miro, which has been much better for me at organizing videos and podcasts than iTunes ever was.
Even though visually Linux isn't as beautiful as OS X, there are pleasant little surprises once you really get into Linux.
I have tried to migrate TO OS X a couple of times (from Linux) actually. The first time was right after Intel CPU change over. Bought a MacBook Pro. By far, things didn't "just work" on Mac OS X then. Finally gave up after a couple of months and sold the machine for a $700 loss.
A year ago I got my job to buy a MacBook Pro. Had it around for a few months. Things were better in the just works department, as far as browsing, e-mail and Netflix went. However, a lot of things that I needed as a developer (Java, Python, Web) were a hassle on OS X. There just wasn't a good enough reason to switch to OS X. Then I changed jobs and returned the MacBook Pro. No regrets.
Hold fast to your Apple anger. It is liberating.
I divested myself of Apple shares in early 2012 to finance my daughter's education, and now I'm comfortable wishing ruin upon them without fear.
The choices they make are anti-consumer, anti-competitive and anti-free market. It pleases me that they've lost nearly 1/2 of their value.
As someone who was a great fan of Apple computers going back to before the first Macintosh, I find their current direction extremely disappointing and destructive.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you compare 2001 Windows with 2001 Linux then yep.
2013 Windows vs 2013 Linux? It really starts leaning in the opposite direction.
I've used a Ubuntu desktop for years and make my living working online. I use it because it just works. Once I get my desktop setup right it stays that way.
Maybe someone could explain what's not working so I know what I'm missing.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Microsoft has done a great job improving the reliability of Windows over the last decade. Windows Vista and 7 now just work fine after a few years of service packs. With Windows, little things like cheaper printers, scanners, and wifi just work. There is lots of commercial software, including video games, out there that works. Changing screen resolutions and sound are easy. For a Desktop Environment that just works at the end of the day, Windows on a quality, lower performance intel box is a good, affordable way to go.
But, when I want to get coding done and don't care about sound and scanners, Linux it is.
I recently stopped using Macs after 8 years. Got rid of all my Macbooks, Mac Mini and Mac Pro. Picked up a good quality, yet affordable PC. And I dual-boot Linux and Win7 on it. I'm in Linux 95% of the time, including when I'm watching my video purchases on Amazon (that's right, it works fine there). (I tried to put Linux on my macs but it just wasn't as easy to install on the latest macbooks as the latest PCs)
each to their own I guess.
Have fun getting a scanner, printer, and digital camera to work.
Of course if you care about the principes of individual freedom no closed source solution is acceptable, but then you allready went to the shiny toy side,
so you probably do not feel very strongly about it...
But if you change, ... it does not really matter very much... make an inventory of the tools you really use, and you'll probably find out that you could use
FreeBSD with some minimal clickomatic task in pretty window launcher...
And welcome back, do not go astray again...
i moved to osx on my desktop 2003-07-01 from Debian, have the same feeling and will probably move back to Debian some day when i had it with osx.
You know you can just disable automatic updates if it bothers you? Or set it to download them - but not install them until you're ready?
This isn't rocket science.
Actually, most of those things don't need a Reboot. It's just the easier path to take to assume a reboot is a good idea than not to do it. You could also turn off the auto-restart if you wanted, but you're obviously too lazy to figure that out.
i wonder how many people like me, who after going through all the various cats looked at lion and
said 'no thanks'
i wonder how long i can stay there
A decently managed XP box could do the same. Hell a well managed 95/98 box could keep highish uptimes as well.
You could not keep 95/98 up more than 49.7 days : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216641
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
I bought a MacBook around the same time 2010. I came from a Windows + Linux world, with Windows really defined as "from MS-DOS 3.20 upwards" and Linux as "when Slackware came on floppies".
I bought the MacBook as a research tool as I was writing a book and I had not been near a Mac since I worked for a large telco that had OS 9 - which I found horrible.
In a month's time, I threw out everything on Windows and I have not looked back since. I only bought MS Office for compatibility, but I use LibreOffice and iWork. I use Omnigraffle Pro to work on Visio files. I have Pixelmator and Artboard for design. I have a command line that gives me perl, php, python and a way to compile wireshark. I have a Windows XP and a Linux VM. I don't need it, but it's a backup (I tend to use Bitnami stacks as they contain what they do on a machine).
Do I use Linux? Yup, on servers. OSX? Yup, as a desktop, I love the usability (and the absence of that %&Â# ribbon).
But returning to Microsoft? No way. Unlike Microsoft, Apple tried the iOS interface on Macs, but in such a way that you could choose. It was an extra capability rather than ramming i down your throat by making it the only option.
That's why I'll stick with Apple. It's simply more practical.
Tried Mac, didn't like all restrictions, and that Apple seems to think the user is stupid. Went back to Linux, dual boot with Win 7. Once used to Linux, there's no turning back,
You can turn the automatic reboot off. Its easy. On my blog:
http://tidbitsfortechs.blogspot.com/2011/06/turning-off-automatic-reboot-when.html
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Disable the Windows Update service if you truely don't want to reboot.
I liked the MacBook Air form factor, but not the OS so I blew away MacOS completely and replaced it with Fedora 17. Overall it's been great, it "just works." Gnome 3 works well on it and fully integrates with the brightness and volume buttons without issue. I did however install a few Gnome extensions like Axe Menu, Alternate Tab, and Task bar, now it's not unlike any desktop I've grown used to. Libvert also works well on it allowing me to build test servers when I need. Overall it's a 95+% solution for me.
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
I still use XP for my Windows needs. A few games and MS Office. Otherwise I still use my aging OpenSUSE 11.4 with Gnome 2. It works, and works well.
Everything that you mentioned is a thing. They aren't family, nor friends, nor pets, nor anything else that ought to be the true source of your emotions. Invest your emotions in the people who matter. Just use the tools that work.
You know you can just disable automatic updates if it bothers you? Or set it to download them - but not install them until you're ready?
And how are you supposed to keep that thing "almost" secure if you don't install updates ?
And it does not change the fact that it is REALLY stupid to reboot the machine without my consent.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
I use CentOS/Gnome, OSX and Win 7 and 8 and hands down 8 beat them all. The minimalist UI looks fantastic, task manager is mind blowingly awesome, but the one that took me over the top was the new copy/move dialogs. MS really nailed it with this new feature. Shows a graph of move activity, current speed, etc. but even better when it sees that you're trying to copy another file to a location that you're already trying to copy to, it cues it up rather than try and make two simultaneous transfers. On top of that you can pause/resume transfers. No longer will people say “wtf why does it say x seconds left” because they’ll clearly see that the transfer speed ebbs and flows. When you try and move files to a location where the file name already exists it gives you a very nice grouped choice dialog so you don’t have to click through prompts, this actually removes the need for “yes to all”, hard to explain without seeing it. I would say that this copy/move dialog like this would sell me on any system, it’s that good.
And of course it plays windows games, which is the primary reason for consideration in the first place. Hard to beat win 8 with all that.
Oh yeah, before I forget, fuck metro and whoever made it they should get some terrible STD. Fuck the start menu, I never liked the old one, the new one just makes me want to rip my eyes out with a spoon, but at least they removed the damn useless start button.
I've never been a fan of Stardock, but ModernMix actually seems like a good idea (for once). It allows you to run metro apps in a window. And they also have a start menu replacement for people who actually liked the old start menu, but I am not one, so you can find that link on your own if you're interested.
I'm not sure if you are being serious or not. Mac OS X is simply put the best desktop operating system available if you want something that just works. Mountain Lion is incredibly stable, memory efficient and fast. It has full UNIX underpinnings.
The only "iOS-ification" is that there is now an app store. Whoop-de-do. If you don't like it, don't use it.
Mac OS is still UNIX, still fast, easy to use and works properly. It sounds to me like there is no problem you just are looking for a reason to change.
Switched from Linux to Mac's only about 5 years ago, mostly cause that was when I could afford to go Mac. Don't miss Linux and I have not had any major issues w/ getting OSX to work as I want it too. Still don't find the iOS'ification of the OSX all that bad since the "old" ways are still mostly there.
Mostly my job is doing project work and System Admin, so really as long as I have command line ssh, cssh and a web browser I am good.
My only real gripes at the moment are:
- lack of 32-bit Java or a 64-bit version of Chrome
- Can't customize the UI
- Have to wait for some games to be released
- Discontinued MBP 17" :(
Other than that, Meh, I will stick w/ OSX for now.
Cybrhippy - "It all makes sense... Well, To me anyway." The Maxx
I recently left Linux, and went back to Windows 7 professional. Thinking Ubuntu's spyware now, I tried Debian, and it was old, clunky, and eventually just stopped loading, with no help from their forum.
But to my surprise, Windows just didn't work as well as Linux for basic tasks like web browsing - half the images on some websites like 9gag wouldn't load, and YouTube videos would often skip all the way to the end and not play.
So I tried Arch, and I'm so happy.
Windows sucks now, who knew?
I utterly hated the Metro interface. Actually, that's 'I utterly *hate* the metro UI'.
However, use either of the above and you get to enjoy Windows 7.1 (to give it its' proper name) without the bolted-on second OS designed for hardware nobody owns getting in the way :-)
In the 1990's I was an OS2 and then Windows user. However, I soon got tired of all that and switched to Linux. Slackware full time in 1999.
All was well but the update manager was really ragging on my nerves and compiling everything was getting old. So I switched to Fedora.
In 2007 I got tired of supporting 4 separate Windows laptops at home (for the kids and wife) and I switched everyone to OSX.
I was as happy as can be! I decided that I liked OSX so much that I switched myself.
I went all out. In 2008 I got 2 fully loaded MAC Pro's, 32GB memory and 3 (yes 3!) 30" monitors for each one.
I was in heaven! Everything worked as promised and it was amazing. Spent big $$$$!
Well, life has not been so good lately. I am so disappointed with Apple... They let me down!
No MAC Pro updates in 2 years and empty promises galore. I hate Apple's shit talk.
Especially how they just stopped making 30" displays just because (insert BS excuse here).
Apple is catering to the middle of the road and that's where I get off this fucking train.
I am a power user and I demand the latest and greatest hardware! Dammit, I see all the
nice ASUS and Supermicro mobo's and I am drooling!!!
What are my options? Well my CentOS 6.x desktop, which I use at work, is rock solid. Yes, CentOS for the desktop!
I am thinking of building a massive CentOS desktop: (2, 512GB SSD's RAID1), (2, 3TB disks RAID1), the fastest multicore mobo,
and at least 64GB of memory.
That should be enough to run any Windows 7 VM machine that I will need (for MS Office, and other stuff).
Apple, is losing the power user base. Fortunately for me, I have other options!
For other home users I'll stick with OSX.
Fuck it! Maybe Linux and Windows VMs is the right answer for today's power user.
Cheers!
So, let me get this straight : Linux is hard because you need to modify text files to change something, while in Windows there is that super easy click-happy interface anybody can use.
Then, every time I want to do something more advanced, I have to go hack the registry to do it ?
And the first big warning is that if you fuck the registry, your computer may not boot anymore.
Like if you want to disable that CapsLock key, you have to modify some hex value in the registry. On my KDE machine, I just went into the control panel and assigned the CapsLock to another CTRL.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
Instead of installing Linux it would have been easier to just turn off the automatic reboot when Windows installs updates
It has nothing to do with anyone's ability to "7ize" windows 8 you complete moron. Do you not understand, that if windows 8 is a success that even if 100% of users made it act like 7, windows 9 would be designed to make that impossible. It will be hard to instal a 3rd party start button in 9 if they only allow apps through the app store, and only if they conform to the metro design language. If you think that cannot happen you are an even bigger moron, it is there stated goal. By using 8, even bootlegging 8, you do a disservice to yourself and everyone else.
Although I use Fedora w/ LXDE as my main distro, my #2 is Mint 14 with Cinnamon (#3 is Lubuntu, and #4 is Puppy, which uses JWM).
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
If there is something in OS X that bothers you because its like iOS ... stop using it. There is nothing in OSX that came from iOS that is even on by default except notification center, let alone are you forced to use it. Notification center is hardly intrusive but its certainly trivial to turn off.
What exactly is your problem? What examples do you have of things from iOS that being forced on you in OSX now?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
With all the growth of OS X, LLVM/Clang and a slew of corporations moving to LLVM/Clang I'm seeing FreeBSD getting a lot of love. With version 10, a lot of infrastructure for both FreeBSD proper and Debian FreeBSD is making Linux less and less attractive.
My problem with these "just work" descriptions is that people have very different needs.
I use both Ubuntu and Mac OS regularly. The things that I need to "just work" are a lot of programming tools (gcc, python), databases, and servery stuff like databases, web servers, etc. Getting those to work on Mac OS is unpleasant. MacPorts and Homebrew are both terrible in comparison to the APT world. "apt-get install apache2" is very much "just works" in my book. On the Mac, I'm fine as long as I use Xcode and other Apple-specific tools, but anything else ends up being frustrating.
People complain a lot about desktop choices for Linux, but I never found any of them any worse than Mac, and some are better tailored for certain workstyles than others. All the major ones (GNOME with Shell or Unity, KDE, XFCE) are mature enough now for everyday work, even if they weren't so a few years ago. I really find all of them easier to work with than Mac's desktop. I don't like Mac's bubblegum dock, and I find the Finder to be perhaps the worst file manager ever made.
Another aspect of "just work" is installation. Installing a free OS can be painful on some hardware (and trivial on others). Since you can't (easily) install Mac OS on non-Apple hardware, this problem doesn't exist there, so it indeed "just works" in this respect. If you want a "just works" experience with a free OS, just buy a machine from System 76, a truly wonderful company that has yet to disappoint me. Comes with Ubuntu and everything working, great hardware and great support. And for me, all the things that I want to "just work" indeed do.
I use Windows 7, too, and it's fine, but I really need the Unix stuff to do my work.
Can we retire the "just works" phrase, or at least find better ways to qualify it?
I had a mac for about 2 years. The longer I had it, the less I liked it. Now, I dual boot Win 7 and Ubuntu. The only reason that I boot Windows is because I use Lightroom for my photography. If not for that, I'd use Linux exclusively. In my opinion, it's the most enjoyable OS.
Other than the mac touchpad, I do not miss my mbp.
Annoying as hell, but you can disable that behavior.
Using Mint 13 (LTS) w/KDE4 right now. It's pretty good, but I still miss KDE3 though.
Everyone changes their stuff around too much for me to want to deal with. So I just maintain my own desktop exactly how I want it.
Debian Testing (until the new stable is out), a custom maintained kernel (was having problems with stability on new-ish thinkpad that new kernel fixed), and windowmaker. I maintain my own versions of a few things like java and some VPN software that works with my company's old server. I also bit the bullet with wireless tools and relearned iwconfig/wpa_supplicant stuff fully so I can work in coffee shops and not need the GUI wireless config (which was actually nice and I do miss). I setup LUKS for homedir encryption and just manually mount it. My workstation isn't rebooted all that often.
Sure, it's a bit of work on occasion to keep things going the way I like it - the deal is, it's a lot of work to keep any desktop functioning the way you prefer. When things are constantly changing "for their own sake" ala Ubuntu, or win8.. and you have to fight to revert stuff how you're the most productive until it's no longer possible.. there comes a point when it's much less frustration and time to just bite the bullet and control things how you want.
I've yet to find anything I want that I can't get working. I have VirtualBox for win7 if needed for the odd work-related tool. The biggest struggle I have is consuming media I pay for ala netflix and the lack of a decent flash player in Linux. I prefer Firefox but often have to load web videos in chrome (which isn't 100% either).
It's somewhat ironic since I've come full circle; when I was younger, I enjoyed maintaining my own desktop env and custom packages.. then I just wanted stuff to work so used Ubuntu+gnome putting up with its quirks for a while.. now here I am maintaining my own setup again. Mostly because desktop UI folk can't just leave well enough alone and want everything to be designed for a tablet or smartphone.
in my case linux doesnt even have the ability to detect a monitor correctly
I formatted my drive, installed windows 7, even in setup with no drivers it ran at my native 1280x1024 resolution, linux on the other hand tossed it into some weird ass resolution at 50Hz causing the lcd to spaz like crazy, swore up and down that my VGA connector was plugged into the HDMI port, and when I installed the nvidia driver I didnt see X for the next two nights.
As I stumbled around nano and links -g whipping up a fucking hack script using xrandr I sat there wondering why the hell I ever started using this software in the first place... but then I remembered that it used to have no problems detecting my monitor ... once KDE 4.9 loaded I just sat there for a moment thinking of how far backwards linux has moved in the last couple years.
it Just Worked, and they weren't trying to screw around with adding useless UI elements to it all the time
In college I once ran win7 on my desktop for 6 months with no reboots.
KDE 3.5.13.1 looks to be the latest stable at trinitydesktop.org. It's not as much of a smoothie as G2 but if you like KDE 3.5, they have a UBT 12.04 spin with .13.1 as the primary DE. I like it because it reminds
me of the Slackware renaissance period. (Late middle ages). Feels
like you are close to the iron, don't know how true that is though.
I started using Apple's for personal computing in 1991, and *nix on servers in 1993. I even had a brief interlude (1999-2000) using Yellowdog Linux installed on my Bondi Blue Imac so I could meaningfully go back and forth between both worlds. The release of OSX was one of the great moments in my life (so, I'm pathetic, get over it...you're not any better) because I could finally operate equally well in both areas I need to get do my research/teaching, etc. In other words, OSX made me more effective, efficient, and happier.
The iOS-ification process is real and not to be undersold. And it is having a real and negative impact on my ability to get my research/teaching/writing done effectively. A simple case in point is the recent loss of Apple supported X11. Yes, I know, I just download it from Xquartz and recompile everything in fink. Not a big deal. But, what is a big deal is that X11 is a cornerstone of much of what has historically been written with a GUI in mind for *nix systems for a very long time. If it's not on Apple's priority list to keep on top of even the minimal job of maintaining a port of it themselves and making sure it works, then that tells you that they are in the process of dumping support for the whole *nix legacy. Sure, the underlying OS will always be a bastardization of BSD so it will always be *nix at some level, but the ability to have an OS that has deep compatability and interoperability with the *nix world is in danger of being lost.
I have owned/purchased over 20 Apple computers over the years. My machines are currently running 10.8.2. It's possible that 10.9 will make me switch over to linux.
What is still true is that package managers and big Free software repos make using desktop linux a breeze compared to the windows experience. Give me fluxbox and aptitude upgrade, I'll be more happy than with any windows version.
My laptop's discrete GPU is dead (it's one of those Optimus ones, with two GPU's), so I'm in the market for a new one. I was in Best Buy last week looking at their models, and saw one with this weird-looking flashy colorful thing with a bunch of boxes on the screen. "Huh", I thought, "this must be some shiny Best Buy demo software designed to show off the laptops' displays, or something."
Nope, it's the damn OS itself!
First and last time I'll ever use Windows 8.
Yes you can, the clock just got all fucked up.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
He lost me when he said iOS-ification. That's when I realized this was just a troll for comments.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I'm in pretty much exactly this situation. My livelihood is in Linux, and I've always had a Linux box or two at home, but I ditched Linux desktop around 2004 when I got my first Powerbook and thought I'd never look back. Forget "iOS-ification," boat loads of bugs in Lion and Mountain Lion made me flee back to a Linux desktop. I've been using Fedora 18 on a nice simple tower I built for just that purpose for about a month now and am really happy. My rather new rMBP will probably get loaded with it soon. I say try a Linux desktop, it's come a long way. I was impressed when even my wi-fi worked right out of the box. I can't think of anything that didn't, though my bluetooth mouse settings seem to sometimes forget themselves and the pointer goes back to default, unacceptable speed. We have Steam, Chrome(ium) and I bet even Netflix support soon. Also, the guys at Yorba are doing some cool modern apps in Shotwell and Geary. I really like GNOME 3, but of course there are plenty of current options if that's not your thing. If you've been happy on a Mac, you'd likely be just as happy or more with a modern Linux distro than with Win 7.
They also block running the older OS on new system.
Just think if all dells and other windows pc where locked to only windows 8 or newer.
It went Windows, Linux (around the time of Vista, for obvious reasons), OS X (work got me a new iMac, figured I might as well give it a chance), then back to Linux. I love Linux. Everything is open to the user to be configured as they wish... whether to make things faster and more efficient, or shoot themselves in the foot. I like that. (Ubuntu may be a little bit more like Windows now, which is why I moved to another distro.)
But then, I'm a developer. I'm not exactly the most common type of user. Even at my workplace, we have maybe four Mac users, a Windows user, and myself with Linux. It all works out. Just use whatever works best with your workflow, and ignore the haters. I find that last bit is a good rule for life in general.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I use what is productive for me, and I won't dictate to others what is productive to them.
The cross-platform file formats/standards/etc. are such that it makes a heck of a lot less difference, these days.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken
Agreed. I have kept my win7 VM up for the last month, just logging in and out occasionally to backup my roving profile. I'm quite happy, finally having moved from an XP-running VM.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In effect they are. Try running Windows 2000 on modern hardware (and XP isn't far off).
Hardware is no longer an excuse to be using OSX or whatever.
Not because you can multi-boot Linux or Windows on a mac.
Multi-booting is not practical for 99% of what we need to do.
It's because of hypervisor+driverstack products (Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion) that not only run guest OS's fast (we've had virtualisation on the desktop for a while). It's because they integrate guest and host OS to work side-by-side, on one monitor, at the same time, to make a unified experience and allow using software for all environments, at the same time and with virtually no lag.
I use Apple hardware, because it passes the 2-finger test (can lift the machine with 2 fingers at 6AM in the morning), and has enough RAM and PCIe I/O to run a desktop-grade gamebox and outperform the craziest alienware laptop. (yes, really.)
But I work across all OS's, and am running omnifocus on OSX side-by-side with Microsoft Visio on Windows and KDE.
If you're still stuck in a OS1 vs OS2 vs OS3 dillema, you're doing it wrong.
I Like that. A guy who confuses "there" and "their" is calling someone else a moron.
If you allowed it to do auto updates, you consented. Turn them off if you don't. Seriously, I turn them off on all my machines. It's not hard. And it keeps the patches installed on folks too lazy or tech-impared to figure out the couple of clicks necessary to turn them off, so there are less zombies out there.
I'd say get a copy of Linux Mint MATE (more stable than Cinnamon, and can be set up to run with Compiz for eye candy). Spend an afternoon or two customizing it with the help of forums, web pages, YouTube etc. (it's all there) and you'll probably have a system that "just works" for at least the next two years. You might want to opt for Mint 13 (instead of the newer 14) for added durability since it's based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (long term release).
The downside is, well, it's still Windows and prone to quirky issues, e.g. problems caused by Windows update, wanting to reboot more often than I'd like..
So turn them off, or at least wind them back. Windows updates are not as important as most people would like you to think. There was a period about 10 years ago when a number of vulnerabilities needing patching regularly or you'd get hosed, but since about WinXP SP2 it's no longer a big deal. I do mine manually every few months, haven't had problems in years.
I am one of those who moved and moved back. I switched to OS X back in the day of PowerPC iBooks. On paper, it was the ideal operating system. Beautiful, supported by commercial software developers, Unixy, and with all the open source software you know and love available. The iBook was also a great machine, easy to carry, great battery life, and surprisingly affordable.
Unfortunately, reality was not so great. The differences from other Unixy systems were small, but annoying. A lot of open source software wouldn't work out of the box. Even when things did work, the experience wasn't the same, e.g. fork was annoyingly slow. I also realized that one of the great assets of the Linux systems I was used to is the package manager. All your software managed with a few simple commands. By comparison, OS X was and is an absolute mess. So I switched back and have been happy since.
I do use a MacBook Pro now for work. It runs, basically, a web browser, and ssh client, a VPN client, and a mail client. That's a manageable amount of software to keep up to date with the hodgepodge of updaters you get. I guess this would have been easier if I used only the software that Apple supplied, but, unfortunately, their mail client doesn't work for the volume of email I get, and the browser has enough of an impact on my productivity that it's worth it to me to install a different one, even though Safari is very good. With all this, I still think I *should* install Debian, if only to keep my windows from being rearranged to useless positions when I plug in / unplug an external monitor.
As for Windows, I use it at home to play games. In my definitely not humble opinion, it does that better than any other OS, but I wouldn't want to use it for anything else. I've tried that, and while I'm sure one can get used to it, it made me run away screaming.
I use a lot of computers just to run a web browser and an SSH client. Chrome OS, your favorite Free operating system, OS X and Windows will all do that just fine. For anything beyond that, I prefer Debian, because, in my experience, it requires the least maintenance effort. If you're used to something else, it may or may not be worth switching.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
In effect they are. Try running Windows 2000 on modern hardware (and XP isn't far off).
If there's even a generic driver for the hardware, then Windows 2000 generally screams along very nicely. Up until a few months ago, I had W2K Server running nicely on 2 year old rack mount systems very nicely.
To be fair, the AC may be referring to the fact that one often needs to locate and download drivers for Windows whereas Linux typically comes "batteries included".
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
Will a solution ever exist? :)
Sorcerer
It's the linux that allows you to run as little or as much as you want. Bit of a pain to set up, though.
Unless you installed the patch listed at your link...
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
You are an idiot. iOS-ification in OSX is completely optional. You have to MANUALLY activate it. If you don't like it STOP USING iOS-fication features LOL.
And how are you supposed to keep that thing "almost" secure if you don't install updates ?
You keep it secure by installing patches. Just do it at a time that's convienient for you (turn off auto updates).
It's just not that hard.
I guess I should bitch and moan too because my Ubuntu desktops have a red icon in the upper right sometimes, wanting me to reboot after installing some updates. Geez.
I deal in all 3 operating systems (Mac/Windows/Linux). Actually 4 as I have a number of Solaris systems
to maintain (project underway to migrate to Linux). I have not used WIndows 7 very much; I used to use
XP as my main desktop but the system got wiped after a minor infection (caught and fixed by the AV but
that was not good enough) so I have been using my Mac laptop heavily. When I use Linux I am mostly
in a terminal window running command line mode. One thing I like about the Mac is that I have a robust
GUI but I'm just a terminal window away from Linux command line - something just not easy to do under
WIndows.
I am currently using Snow Leopard but need to move to a new Mac Book Pro and Lion but where is the
time... I must admit I am disturbed by the IOSifcation of the Mac and the slow death of Mac shareware
and freeware (aided and abetted by the Mac App Store).
I too feel like Linux will be more important in my future as a desktop OS.
Dr. Frank J. Nagy Fermilab Computing Division Authentication and Directory Services Group
I have a windows 7 box at home.. huge beast of a machine that I use to play games. I've got windows 8 on a laptop to experiment with. What I love so far about windows 8 is that it boots on my laptop in 2 seconds (with a solid state drive). That's from power-on to usable. Linux Mint came close to that speed but not quite.
The laptop is for taking meeting notes, reading email, taking on trips, etc.
My desktop at work is a Linux box. I fired ubuntu a few years back and went to straight debian. This wasn't as bad as it sounds, and with 3rd party repos for most of the big apps it never felt out of date. I occasionally would package things or repair packages if I wanted to deploy to servers or help with debian community stuff, or just wanted to make sure whatever it was installed cleanly.
Recently I upgraded the computer at work and decided to try ubuntu again, but while I was feeling experimental I decided to try KDE again too. I've been a gnome user for years because I wanted something unobtrusive that just worked. Like CDE on Solaris (most of the time, long ago).. slightly bloated but quick, something where terminal + firefox + thunderbird + pidgin just worked.
I hadn't used KDE since probably before KDE3 days.. so I hadn't given it a fair shake in a long time.. I'd given windows and MacOS X more of a shakedown than KDE, so it was only fair to try it again. It was hideously terribly ugly.
But everything I hated about it has become easily customizable via the menus, and the terminal feels like it's made for developers or power users. Everything has a power user tweak or a way to get rid of it, if you decide it's something you don't want. My last big gripe was I couldn't tell the dumb ATI driver which monitor was really primary so it always put my taskbar on an old 21" 4:3 I have turned sideways. I wanted it in my middle monitor where it's easy to navigate.
KDE lets you drag it to another monitor and put it wherever you want.
So, while it's pointless to ask slashdot for opinions on these things, I feel like I've tried all the OS's recently and Linux is mature enough to be a primary desktop OS for anyone, if that's what you want.
That's you !
After the story about Miguel de Icaza switching to Mac OS X, it got me thinking about my own history of operating systems. While I had happily used OS X for six and a half years, over that period of time I have drifted back in favor of Linux. This had less to do with new features being offered in Linux as it did with growing tired of foibles in OS X. Here are a list of some of the bigger issues:
- Beach Ball of Death (BBOD): While this didn't occur frequently, when it did it was more frustrating than a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). At least you knew you were fucked when you saw the BSOD. With the BBOD, sometimes you would recover from it and other times you could wait for up to ten minutes before realizing that you're never coming back. During that period, you are completely unable to access the System menu or start another app to find the proc that is chewing resources so that it can be killed. In 2013, this is completely unacceptable from an OS.
- Mouse Acceleration: There is no way to modify the acceleration curve in OS X, let alone disable acceleration. This is not a problem when you are using a trackpad since the acceleration curve is one of the best out of all OS'es for that, but it is incredibly frustrating when using a mouse. I have gone through many forums and found many other users complaining about this issue, but no one has come up with a decent solution for disabling mouse acceleration. For situations in which I am better off with a mouse, I always hopped over to a non-OS X machine.
- Poor Multi-Monitor Support: Since the menu for each application is in a detached panel that is only displayed on one monitor, this means you will be racking up a lot of mileage on your pointing device to hop between apps on the secondary monitor and their menu on the primary monitor.
- Updating Settings Behind Your Back: For me, this shit started with Microsoft and was one of the big reasons I left their OS. After an update, some of your settings would be changed to whatever they felt you should be using. Apple has since taken up this behavior, doing things like resetting all of your file associations to iTunes after one of their many updates. This didn't happen with my latest update, so maybe they stopped, or at least took a break from this behavior, but it has still left a very bad taste in my mouth.
- Frequent Update Cycles: This would not be too bad of a thing if they didn't regularly remove features they didn't like (but you may have loved) as well as make changes that disrupt your workflow. At this point, I am an old curmudgeon who has everything exactly as he likes it. I don't want to upgrade and run the risk of having the upgrade go south. Such an issue would cause me to have to reinstall all of my apps from scratch and attempt to reconfigure tons of settings to get it to work like it did before the upgrade. And with the update frequent cycles, it won't be long before your current OS version is not supported. Once that happens, Chrome and Firefox support go out the window as well. And don't even get me started on how Apple stops supporting perfectly fine hardware when they come out with new versions of OS X. Apple: you control the hardware in your machines yet you can't be bothered to continue supporting it six years after it is released while Microsoft supported XP on an almost infinite number of hardware configurations for eight years and Linux even longer!
There are many, many more reasons, but these are the biggest gripes. None of them on their own were dealbreakers, but over time they wore on me to the point of driving me back to Linux. While I still use my Mac for some commercial software that isn't available on Linux, it's Linux for everything else.
I moved from Linux to Mac OS X back in the days of OS X 10.1. I bought myself a PowerMacintosh G3 (Beige desktop) when I was in college on ebay and thus begun my Apple fanboydom (as an aside, spell check wants me to change 'fanboydom' to 'bondwoman').
Over the years, as my income increased, I began buying myself brand new Macs from Apple - A PowerMac G4, A PowerMac G5, various PowerBook/Macbooks and finally iMacs. My experience with my 27" iMac finally did it for me. I had, against my better judgement, bought an all-in-one because the Mac Pro was just too dang expensive.
I quickly learned the hard way that all-in-ones are NOT user-serviceable. Power supply go bad? No, you can't slap another one in your tower, you get to lug your big iMac into an Apple Store, walk past all of the hipsters fondling their iDevices, and up to the "genius" bar and leave it there for a week. A week during which, btw, you're not getting any work done. I was so mad, I blogged: http://jamesadam.me/blog/why-im-switching-from-mac-to-linux/
So, the hardware situation, combined with the whole iOSification thing you mentioned, has driven me back into the clammy arms of the penguin. I tried a handful of distributions, and finally settled on Xubuntu, because I hate Gnome 3.
Office 365 is actually not as bad as I thought it would be.
Yea, 12 hour service outages aren't a problem or anything!
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Why not? Maybe you just have some preconceived notions, like I did? Read too much internets, like I also did? I was scared to upgrade my laptop, because the new one only came with Win8. I did it anyway, and could not be happier:
- it looks awesome. Granted, I don't use any "metro apps", just desktop only. The UI is super sharp, osx looks like something from the 90s compared to it. After using it, even Win7 with the aero stuff looks dated.
- everything works. Everything. And works well. Programs from 10 years ago, git, power management, drivers. I now run linux in a virtual machine under Win8, because I don't have to deal with driver issues, hacks for hybrid graphics, not being able to use keyboard shortcuts for screen brightness etc.
- the new "metro" start menu is pretty cool. Hit "win" key, type the application name (or whatever), click enter, done. Same as Win7, except now I have extra space on the taskbar.
- there are some really handy shortcuts, like win+1 (switches/starts first application on taskbar), win+up maximizes current application etc. Very similar to xmonad, my go to window manager on linux.
- nu fluff. No flying windows, no pulsating icons etc. Less is more, looks better, doesn't get in the way and doesn't induce motion sickness.
- cleartype. This might be the same as Win7, but it's still the best for serious wor (like programming, reading slashdot, jut to name a few).
- no need for any pay for or free classic start menu applications. Really. Desktop works just like it did in Win7, and better. There's only one reason for osx: ios development. But it's turned off as soon as the build is posted. For servers and other headless machines it's linux, for getting stuff done, Win8.
Right on brother. the problem is that windows users have come to just expect constant reboots to be normal. *nix machines will go forever unless you replace the kernel. I don't know why people have so much trouble getting programs to work, I've found linux/bsd works out of box. Arch has some quirks but its my fav so far, and if that's a problem, mint works great out of box.. better than any windows I've used. Thanks for the "Unknown Error" popup, that helps me a lot, MS. Windows 8 even pages kernel memory. What!?!
bio->bi_end_io(bio, error);
The Underside of OS X is almost FreeBSD. The things you don't like about it can easily be removed from the user interface. If you have overcome the initial jump to mac OS X, why go back. What about their operating system makes it so unbearable that you would consider running Windows 7? Not to trash on windows 7 it is microsoft's best work since dos 6.22. Reconsider what is annoying you about the current Mac OS and see if there are ways to remove or circumvent those elements before jumping into linux as a desktop. If you do make the jump.... Check out FreeBSD it is by far my favorite *nix no-cost operating system.
See what I mean about fear being the enemy of good decision making? You give Microsoft much more credit than they deserve. If you think the Microsoft sneezes without checking with their EU lawyers first, you are just another conspiracy wingnut.
I guess I should bitch and moan too because my Ubuntu desktops have a red icon in the upper right sometimes, wanting me to reboot after installing some updates. Geez.
And it pops-up every-now-and-then bugging you to reboot ?
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
> What is the feeling/experience of other 'traitors' who run
> OS X for the desktop and Linux for everything else?
That I will stick with OS X on the desktop because it still sucks less than the others. 10.7 and 10.8 brought some annoyances but nothing unbearable. I'm hoping 10.9 is a genuine improvement. (If they'd just quit messing with the trackpad settings with every release I'd be a happy camper.) I'm still running 10.6 on every machine under my control that supports it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I Like How You Didn't Make Any Grammatical Errors In Your Reply. Good Work!
OK, there's some justification for this. Some.
Older versions of the OS do not support, and are not expected to support new hardware. If I was making an OS (let us be thankful I am not), I'd do the same thing.
That being said, it's often frustrating to buy new machines that won't support an older OS version. As the network admin for a small college (happily) infested with Macs, we often deal with major software (Avid, Pro Tools, etc.) that is very version-specific. Trying to find the latest version we can run on a lab's computers that will work with every 3rd party software application that the situation demands is like walking a tightrope. Run too new an OS version and you'll break something, guaranteed.
All of this kvetching aside, I'd 100X rather manage Macs than Windows. As to Linux, and we have a number of Linux servers on campus, I sit in my office with the 27" iMac my boss so generously purchased for me, and most of what's on the two screens it's running are xterms. Yet in a moment I can switch to Photoshop CS6 to do some tweaks on an image that is soon to become part of an informational how-to poster that students and faculty alike will completely ignore. Life is fun.
In effect they are. Try running Windows 2000 on modern hardware (and XP isn't far off).
Erm, no they aren't.
Lack of driver support is an issue yes, but they are not actively blocking you from developing your own driver. They wont make it easy for you but they aren't blocking you. Most of my XP/2000 applications have moved into Virtual Machines anyway and 2000 seems to work fine of VMware virtual hardware version 7. I wish the users who still require a Win 2K application worked half as well.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I've got 30,000+ software packages available to me from Debian's repositories, all of them tested before I install them. I don't have to deal with downloading funky software packages from questionable websites. I just do a sudo apt-get install and I'm good to go. Debian was so stable that I decided to upgrade the software on my workstation every day with a sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade for 3 1/2 years without problems.
I use KDE on my workstation an LXDE on my 7 year old laptop. Everything "just works" for me. Either I'm missing something or you folks must be using some really sucky Linux distro.
Maybe it's the hardware. I always check to make sure the hardware works with vanilla Linux. Are you folks using hardware made straight from Redmond? Are you using those funky windows drivers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDISwrapper)? I wouldn't trust that steaming pile for anything. Don't ever use a windows driver on your Linux machine. That's just insane.
If you've never heard of Debian Linux, do yourself a favor and check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Linux
Ubuntu Linux is based off Debian, except Ubuntu is about the bling, Debian is about the stability.
There and back again...a nerd's tale!
Real iOS-ification would be sandboxing applications so that they can't operate on arbitrary files in the file system, and removal of access to said file-system. I can't really see either of those happening.
That's exactly what happens in the Mac App Store sandbox, as I understand it. Several application developers have released special crippled "Mac App Store edition" versions that have had features removed because those features don't work in the sandbox.
Or probably since about 2002 with the nvidia produced driver and a bit later on with xrandr. Just because you didn't know about it doesn't mean it's not there.
I suggest writing about stuff here and now instead of playing games (intentional or not) with history based on nothing but your own personal memory. A comment like your one above makes you look dishonest with an agenda to push even if it's just an innocent comment.
Yess!!!! 2013 is the year of Desktop Linux!
My windows 7 machine just downloaded and installed some updates and didn't say anything to me. Didn't make me reboot or any nonsense. I didn't even notice it was doing anything other than a little icon in the task bar that was there for like 2 minutes.
Also helps if you have an SSD for your OS if rebooting is such an inconvience for you, 20 seconds from post screen to a usable desktop, if that...
I need Windows whether I like it or not. Kies to update Galaxy SII (contrary to belief, TMobile does not push out all updates), iTunes for wifes iPod, and Yahoo Messenger for video chat with relatives in Philippines (that is all that they know how to use). Used Linux exclusively until the need for the previous 3 applications started popping up.
That just is NOT true anymore. Windows 7 has been stable from the word go. Uptime measured in days and weeks for a DESKTOP computer that is only interrupted by important updates and other administrative tasks that require a reboot. Otherwise, it Just Works. This coming from a guy who LOVES Linux- on servers.
That's the first problem with Windows : there is so many things that needs you to reboot it is ridiculous. And the freakin updates that FORCES me to reboot. Only thing you can do is tell it to postpone the reboot for 4 hours. Then 4 hours later that fu***n thing pops-up again requesting you to reboot. And the worst : if you are not in front of you machine when it pops, after about a minute it will decide that it can just reboot. So you come back, your computer is at the login screen and you just have to re-open everything to get back to work. Who the f**k decided this was a good idea ?
Now I don't have that problem anymore. I installed Mint on my work computer and the only time I need to reboot is when I upgrade the kernel. After the upgrade there is a popup that tells me it needs to reboot to fully apply the update. If I click postpone IT WILL NEVER BOTHER ME AGAIN.
Also, I measure uptimes in months, not days and weeks. In fact I have an internet-facing server that is up for more that 5.5 years.
You have to reboot because the files are in use. What happens to shared libraries that are in use when you update them on Linux?
For Windows, someone made a design choice a while back that having multiple stale copies of a shared library in use was a bad idea, and you'd be hard pressed to argue against them. Unless you dig through lsof every update, you are just ignoring the problem on Linux, it's not solved.
And Linux users go to mac http://tecnoalt.com/de-linux-a-mac-gnome-fundador
XP will get bug fixes to 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP#Support_lifecycle
On April 14, 2009, Windows XP and its family of operating systems reached the end of their mainstream support period and entered the extended support phase as it marks the progression of the legacy operating system through the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy. During the extended support phase, Microsoft continues to provide security updates every month for Windows XP; however, free technical support, warranty claims, and design changes are no longer being offered. Extended support will end on April 8, 2014â"after which no more security patches or new support information will be provided.
When you think it was released October 25, 2001 providing bug fixes for 14 years is not that unreasonable.
And the thing is it will still work - I'm sure there will be a few XP boxes sat behind hardware firewalls for a long time after 2014 simply because people have forgotten about them and they work fine.
If you wall a machine off from the internet but for a couple of ports and keep the software that listens on those ports patched it could last until the PSUs and hard disks fail.
The activation is already cracked for the corporate versions and I'm sure someone will make an "XP forever" bootleg with the last set of security patches slipstreamed in and activation cracked. If MS patch the machines to self destruct with the last Windows Update I bet people will work out ways to disable that patch.
It doesn't support UEFI but most boards have the compatibility support module necessary to boot XP. Like I say, people will be running XP boxes long after 2014.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yeah, because rebooting every once in a while is just sooooooo much of a hassle. I mean, who on this sweet sweet Earth can handle the gawd awful waiting for a computer to boot?
Waiting 1.5 minutes for my computer to reach desktop stage is an AGE. How can anybody live with waiting an ENTIRE 1.5 minutes! its crazy!
Losing 90 seconds a week is intolerable, the only solution to this unmitigated time-disaster is to spend thousands on an entirely different computer platform.
Speaking personally, the first thing I remember doing after moving to Windows 7 was hunting down a hotfix just to prevent Windows 7 from bluescreening when plugging in a USB device. Having said that, yes, it is relatively stable compared to previous iterations of Windows.
Now if only the time to the desktop becoming _useable_ didn't take 3 months, it might even be a serious desktop OS. I mean, they might as well take a screenshot of your desktop and use it as a loading screen the time it takes essential services to start up after boot.
Yeah, I so totally would have guessed that just by looking in the mist logical place for it!
Using any form of windows is like worshiping slow or worshiping insecure. Windows crawls and using it and its programs make money crawl right out of your pocket.
It is like going back to high school and insisting on marrying the ugliest girl in the school.
Already happened to me; I bought Aperture, version 1, then upgraded to 2, then to 3. Then I bought a new camera, moving from a Canon 50D to a Canon 6D. Apple's support for the 6D only works under 10.8, not under 10.6, A large number of my scripts and such stopped working with my OS upgrade to 10.6.8 from 10.5, and although I've worked through most of that, I'm just not willing to do it again.
So I moved to Adobe Lightroom. Featurewise, it's a step down, but at least it works.
My next Macpro will almost certainly be a used one from EBay; something I know I can install 10.6.8 on and keep all my stuff solid.
I like the machines I own, I even like OSX at the 10.6 level, but Apple annoys the heck out of me.
And yes, Linux powers my servers.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
For what it's worth, I'm running Ubuntu 12.10 with Cinnamon and I swear I have to reboot just as much as I do in Windows. There are prompts for updates almost every other day, and probably a reboot prompt every other week or so. Now, I know in Linux I probably don't *have* to reboot and could just kick services, and it's probably a lot related to the desktop manager and I could just restart that. But at least for me it's far from the panacea of infinite uptime, at least from a desktop user perspective.
Except for when it doesn't - coming from someone looking over more than a hundred linux, solaris, freebsd and AIX boxes and about a dozen MS Windows machines. Guess where the most of the time gets consumed. If you can't guess it's the idiot that managed to sneak an underpowered Vista laptop into the place who doesn't want an upgrade, but next in line are some Win7 machines that are still a bit flaky (USB3 drivers etc - full crash when you plug stuff in). More stable, yes. As stable as anything outside MS - not yet.
I was a so-so Linux user, primarily using Windows for most of my tasks, and just sort of playing with Linux. I went to OSX for a laptop, and although didn't like it at first, and still have issues, I'm reasonably happy with it. New job though, and I'm in front of Mint Linux 100% during the day. I've found it surprisingly adept at just about everything I do for work (heavy embedded work, libre office, web, pdfs, etc)....enough so that I have a VM of it at home running 24x7 on my Windows machine, and use it quite a bit. In fact, I've scaled back the things I do on Win7 quite a bit, and with a few tweaks, think I could be happy running Mint full-time. It runs well enough as a VM that I'm inclined not to mess with it. I don't think I'd gain much from having it native, except the endless stream of background Windows updating that's always going on. I can't slam Win7 that bad though. It is rare as hell for me to need to reboot the machine, maybe once this year so far.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
There was a time when a post like this would get 800 fish on the hook.
Thing is, people don't care as much about the desktop - especially the younger readers.
[Sent from my Amiga phone]
wait wait wait. Are you saying some Mac owners use their computers? I always thought they were just for decoration. Like that ribbon candy my grandma always had on the table. You weren't meant to eat that stuff you know.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Son as soon as y ou have a desktop, you are ready to work ?
I need more than this to work. Beside starting my dev environment and logging myself un gmail, our project management etc, I think it takes more than 1.5 min.
And who said I spent any money on a new platform ? Linux is free you know
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
If you have to run a really old OS on a new system, you often find that while there's no drivers, the default ones work fine. The "standard VGA" driver works ok for display and so on.
There's also the minor issue of 2000 being unsupported (meaning unpatched) and almost 14 years old.
I don't think companies should have to support everything forever, but MS and PC makers like Dell do a pretty good job with older and newer stuff.
We had to install Windows XP on some newer Lenovo systems, for temporary project. It worked surprisingly well. These were Sandy Bridge Core i5 systems, with Intel graphics, and Realtek NICs. We were able to get graphics, sound, and network all working without a problem. It wasn't as easy as setting up Windows 7, which they were designed for, but it worked. While these are exactly latest hardware, they're not all that old.
Also, as you say, it is quite different between not actively supporting something, and actively stopping it from working. Apple not only has extremely short support cycles, they only support to previous OS versions, and their OS release cycle is pretty quick, but they'll then go and actively stop old OSes from working on new hardware.
Microsoft support its OSes for a minimum of 10 years from release. That's pretty good, and far longer than Apple. PC makers generally doing okay job of supporting older OSes on their PCs at least for a good while.
I have no doubt that windows XP support is going to become fairly hard to come by for new hardware quite soon. This is because it is falling out of support in 2014. However, it's rather hard to hate on a company for "only" supporting something for 13 years.
Cygwin On Windows 7
Apple nerfed both, badly, in the last two years. That has me anxious about what they're going to do with the rest of the Mac OSX product line.
Also, a WiFi-only retina MBP? Given the wifi issues my 2011 MBP has had with non-open WiFi, I'm not looking forward to that mess.
Finding God in a Dog
this is PROOF that gheyness can be cured; therefore it *is* a choice!
C|N>K
One of my biggest pet peeves with Mac OS X is it's non-conformance to Focus Follows Mouse. Why can't Apple fix that for fucks sake?
Because Apple shows you the only way (or the highway).
For novice users, I think it is a pretty good O/S. For semi-advanced users, there are traps in the making. For power users, aside from the FFM issue, in my experience, I have been happy with it (after doing some tweaks like macports and some UI customizations). http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/geeklets/collections/dark-is-beautiful-1/
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
I've got a similar attitude - I've got the same e16 theme on my desktop (ganymede) that I was using in 1997. So from RedHat linux 3.0 to Fedora 17 it has looked the same and acted the same way. At home I'm using e17 and some day I may bother setting up a similar theme in that to use at work. Having windows with red, green, blue or grey borders depending on task importance is good when you have tasks spanning weeks that you go back to every now and again.
> You have to reboot because the files are in use. What happens to shared libraries that are in use when you update them on Linux?
Why would you EVER modify an in use library?
If anything, you would get a NEW version.
The management of system software for critical production systems is not exactly a new thing. There's really no excuse for WinDOS to keep screwing it up in 2013.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
stop being so annoying. windows 8 is windows 7. anyone of you nerds that thinks a GUI defines anything and then stands behind linux are a bunch of frauds. I have both win8 and win7 and there's no difference. if you think there is, then you're very simple minded because this whole "there's no start menu" is a joke. The start menu was the PROBLEM, the launcher was what you nerds/geeks/asocials demanded... you got it and now you complain. Give me a break. Go use ubuntu... oh wait, it won't catch on because doing "-sudo anything" is the most ridiculous way to use a computer and iOS has already hit it's glass ceiling due to it being so closed (other than for "educational" purposes which as a person that works in that environment... i totally disagree. Printing on a xerox + iOS = disaster)
signed
ac
Though privacy and control aren't so 'cool' now, I find it hard to believe that suddenly human beings will have permanently stopped caring about them. The pendulum could swing back, and if that happens you want Linux firmly associated with end user control and privacy in people's minds.
We should totally submit keystrokes to the primary shell to third-parties, by default. That would work!
Just for perspective, Erickson's telephone switches that ran Erlang regularly ran for years without reboots, including periodic code updates (the Erlang language was effectively the kernel). It of course also ran thousands of processes in parallel on as many processors as needed. AFAIK no other machines have had uptimes comparable to those phone switches. I keep planning to learn Erlang. I've done a few toy programs but nothing past the level of the Erlang book.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Parent poster does an excellent job outlining all the ways in which both the grandparent poster and the original submitter of this Ask Slashdot are incorrect about the perceived "iOSification" of Mac OS X. He makes an excellent point about the recent removal of Scott Forstall, which will probably bring both the "skeumorphism" BS and any further iOSification of OS X to a complete halt.
The main thing that people like the original submitter seem to be worried about, that Mac OS X will become a locked-down walled garden in some future version, is so unlikely as to be preposterous until someone like Microsoft leads the way. There is a huge difference between creating a walled garden for maintaining control of a brand new software ecosystem on proprietary limited-function devices like tablets and phones, and locking down a previously-open general purpose operating system on a general purpose computer. It would be suicidal for Apple to do something so stupid with Mac OS X, and those who are expecting it to be right around the corner are just ideologues fighting an imaginary enemy. The backlash if either Microsoft or Apple tried this would be legendary.
I'll be the first to eat my hat if this really happens, and join the crowd moving away from Mac, but for now the submitter is a part of a very small group of zealots who have simply latched onto a cause without sufficient evidence. Mac OS X is still the best, most consistent and user-friendly desktop for something like 90% of the populace outside of the small group of people who are technically minded enough to deal with the remaining quirks of Linux and who need the better environment for programming work. There are a lot of technical folks here which makes it seem like there are a lot of people who don't like Mac anymore, but the rest of the population is doing just fine with both OS X and Windows 8. Honestly at least two thirds of the few posts I see on articles like this from people who moved away from Mac are always from some kind of programmer, and they don't seem to realize what a tiny fraction of computer users they represent.
The funniest part about all this is how many of these idealogues are "fleeing" Mac and going to Windows of all things, as if this is some sort of improvement that will protect their computing "freedom". It's a rather bizarre phenomenon.
Hey man, if all you like to do with a computer is watch porn and reboot often, Windows is for you. As a Linux/BSD user, I prefer to watch porn without rebooting.
bio->bi_end_io(bio, error);
This isn't like Win 8 where you can't reach some features without going through the metro desktop. All the tools are still there, Apple hasn't threatened (yet) to prevent installation from other sources outside their app store. They aren't making you use their little app display thing (which is really the same thing as the start menu in windows) and they let you change the weird backwards scrolling they introduced.
I'm really not sure what your anger is about? That OS X has changed? It's been around for nearly 14 years, of course it's changed. Are you worried it's losing its unix roots? iOS is unix based as well!
Besides what would you switch to?
Ubuntu? It has the best support in terms of "just working" but they have ADD about their interface which has changed how many times over the last five years? And now they decided they didn't get enough derision over the Unity fiasco so they're going to go recreate it with the Mir/Wayland controversy.
Fedora/Redhat? Kind of ADD on features from time to time. Less easy to get some components working with normal hardware. Redhat especially isn't as bleeding edge. I guess if you're going linux that's the better route but either way you lose the polish.
Win7? I don't get this at all. MS isn't going to support Win 7 forever and you'll be forced into the nastiness that is whatever windows they come up with next. Microsoft is trying to recreate Apple's success with a worse interface. If you don't like Apple I can't understand why on earth you'd switch to MS.
The Anti-Blog
what do you mean if...
all the dells you buy right now with windows 8 home ARE locked in.
??
And you nerds with your fascination with uptime trumping security patch requirements are part of the reason why I am so well employed as a security professional in this down economy. Get over yourself and realize that redundant systems are the only secure way to achieve uptime anymore. A single system should not run an uptime counter, let alone be used as a comparative measure of admin skill or platform stability. Stability does not equal resiliency.
I switched for OSX 10.1. Though I should say I switched from dual boot. I had been using Unixes all during the late 1980s onward and Linux offered me a way to run Unix software. OSX had XFree86, with Fink it had access to Unix software (worse than most Linux distributions but still fairly good selection).
As I saw it: OSX was only slightly worse than Windows for Office productivity and only slightly worse that Linux for Unix software. The ability to freely intermix was hugely important.
2013 I still think the same things. Linux is great for open source though OSX is still pretty good. Windows has some advantages on productivity apps though I like OSX a lot. My reasons haven't changed.
The only thing that is making me 2nd guess is I love the idea of ubiquitous computing. I really like the One Note and would want that on a tablet. I really would like to be able to twist my screen and use a finger. That might get me to switch. But honestly 85% of what I want ubiquitous for I can get from my iPad.
Apple does this on 2 year cycles. That would be liking blocking Windows 7 next year. Of blocking XP in mid 2008.
I followed a similar curve, but I saw OS X going to hell in a handbasket after the iPhone was launched and became a huge money maker. Suddenly I couldn't trust OS X updates not to break things anymore, etc etc. I think I went back 100% around 2008. For me, it was a relief to to back to Linux. I know I can trust my Linux system not to change unless I want it to. I know that my Linux apps will 'just work', and I won't have to screw with MacPorts or Fink or whatever the cool kids are using these days. To the OP: If you know what you want in Linux, I'd say just try the mainline distros (Debian, Fedora, even Ubuntu), see if they meet your needs. If not, maybe Windows. Like other commenters I don't even really hate Windows 7. It's just not well-suited for what I need. I have no experience with Windows 8.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
hah, read your title as suggesting the VMS operating system. having had at one time a VaxStation at work, I can with experience tell you it's not really the best desktop OS.....
seems obvious to me. elementary os. yea its beta, but its more stable than ubuntu.
Well they did manage to run something like two years without the EU-required Browser Option Button, apparently by mistake. It's about to cost them $600 million for this one line code error. So I would argue that somebody forgot to check with the lawyers.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
At all the recent tech events I've been to, I've noticed 90% of IT ppl and/or developers were using OSX, with nix handling backend stuff somewhere else. In fact, you'd have to ask around to get help doing a common task in Windows.
I've got a Mac Mini with VMWare Fusion. I keep home directories on a QNAP NAS box. So I can create Linux VM's with only as much disk space as I need for the root file system. As a result, I have my cake and eat it too with a plethora of VM's from most of the major distributions.
Right now, Windows 7 sucks the least.
I switched, too. apple will soon require apps to go through their appstore, increasing their revenues and making life safer for 99% of all users.
problems: quartz was nice, esp inside R. the printer driver, though also cups, worked better with some printers. too many flavors of linux, esp desktop, too. logitech quickcam no longer works. Preview.app was great, esp for small touchup and conversion work. many other little items like this which just work under OSX but not under linux. then again, OSX has its own nuisances that linux solves. a little like vanilla vs. chocoloate. for the most part, linux works great. /iaw
Unix was described as "like a toolbox of small, sharp and well-honed tools that do precisely what is expected of them; no more, no less."
I wish that were still true. On the command line it's still mostly true. The once-and-ever big thing of Unix was that these simple, reliable, straightforward commands like 'cat', 'echo', 'ls', etc. could be combined into programs of arbitrary length and complexity - basically the shell environment could be considered as the inspiration for Perl and many scripting languages. But these all-consuming GUI Desktop Environments like KDE and Gnome have a different purpose, and a different model. And while I was a cheerful Gnome user for quite a while, I think these environments have Lost The True Way. X11 is, of course, problematical and possibly was the essential negative inspiration
So I think the way forward for me is going to be one of the very simple window managers, with additional support for 3D visualizations (e.g. Desktop Cube) and compositing, each of which are also simple features in their own way. Think of them as filters of the visual field comprised of the collection of windows. In that sense they can be added to the simple environment and taken away with minimal impact on anything else that doesn't depend on them.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Debian is good except for the browser that freezes on a regular basis. Usually it is an automatic freeze if you click on a link in icedove. Iceweasel is a piece of junk, they badly crippled firefox. Why? Why? Why?
Me too. I tried switching to XFCE again recently, but went back to FVWM after a day. I have too much configuration and automation built in to FVWM and it works neatly and quickly and I get my work done better. Looks like I'm stuck with it for another ten years of productive work.
They also block running the older OS on new system.
Just think if all dells and other windows pc where locked to only windows 8 or newer.
umm, citation? I have never heard this before. I'm pretty sure you could install any osx variant on any computer in the apple store. unless you mean the system 7 os, which yes, you can't install on new machines.
Especially how they just stopped making 30" displays just because (insert BS excuse here).
Today I just happened to see a bunch of 30" displays. I basically searched for '2560 monitor' to see what kind of extreme HD hardware was out there. Turns out there are lots of 27" and 30" 2560x1440 and 2560x1600 displays available. On E-bay there are even ones from Korea that are only about $400 (but may have a few dead pixels, no speakers, only DVI, or other weirdness). I kept seeing the names 'Catleap' and 'Yamasaki' (IIRC). Many of them are using the exact same IPS panel as the Apple ones. So let Google or whatever be your friend, and you may find happiness.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Apple not only has extremely short support cycles, they only support to previous OS versions, and their OS release cycle is pretty quick, but they'll then go and actively stop old OSes from working on new hardware.
umm, citation? this is not true to my knowledge. I'm pretty sure you could take any osx variant and install it on any computer in the apple store.
Where are my mod points when I need them. My kubuntu machine's even automatically rebooting after installing security updates. Please mod parent up.
I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
I was a Mac guy but I was alienated by all of the changes that Jobs made when he returned. I began my PC-ward move around the time of the iMac. In two years, you'll wonder what it was about Macs that had you hooked.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Linux still feels pretty 1990s to me. I use Debian all over the place for servers, but if you want
- CUDA or OpenCL
- iPhone syncing
- advanced audio
- multiple monitors
then I hope you like playing with drivers, and xorg.conf, and automake. Because that's going to be a few days of your time.
There is a much easier way to deal with updates than GP's method:
Click the start menu.
Click "Control Panel."
Click "System and Security."
Click "Turn automatic updating on or off."
Change "Install updates automatically (recommended)" to any of the other three options.
Congratulations! Now you won't get surprised by Windows Update automatically installing updates that require reboot.
Not only can you disable the behavior, you can avoid having to deal with it in five mouse clicks.
Peoples experience with Linux varies greatly. If you hate change you will hate Linux. If you buy a computer made for Linux and it really was designed with Linux in mind it'll probably work pretty darn well. The details matter. ie don't buy hardware from companies who don't understand the value of free software.
I would only advise buying hardware where the chipsets were free software friendly so that you can be sure to get updates from the community. If you don't you'll be wishing you did when the drivers/firmware/proprietary softwares discontinued. And because Linux expects you to be able to update the drivers/firmware and distribution releases are relatively frequent it is critical that you do this.
Right now ThinkPenguin seems to be the only such company. Everybody else I've looked at has shipped at least something that was dependent on non-free software.
As far as distributions just be aware that proprietary pieces are dangerous. Avoid them. I wouldn't go so far as saying you have to use a 100% free distribution although its definitely a wise move not to become reliant on things like adobe flash, oracle java, etc. You run the risk of losing support and in both these cases thats happened.
In effect they are. Try running Windows 2000 on modern hardware (and XP isn't far off).
You know, Windows 2000 predates the existence of the first version of OS X by over a year. You are having to go a long way back to make a point.
Why does everyone hate gnome 3 so much? I viewed it as an upgrade. Windows 8 doesn't look that bad either. Unity seems a little clunkier than gnome3, but still quite usable.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
OK, I have to be truthful here. I did purchase a single Apple Cinema HD 30" monitor and the damn thing cost me $1,500++
So, I checked out Newegg and the HP LP3065 was a dream come true: 3 Dual-link-DVI inputs and $1,100.00 price tag.
So, I had 1 single Apple 30" display and 5 HP ones.
About 5 months ago, I read somewhere a review of the eBay 2650x1600 30" Korean
monitors and the review was all praise. Which is a good thing for me because
my Apple Cinema HD just bit the dust 2 weeks ago.
So, I tried to see if I can fix the damn thing but there is little info on the web about replacement parts.
I still cant find a Maintenance Manual. Not to mention that the whole unit is like glued together
and difficult to fix. No wonder it blew up. There are no holes for hot air to escape. Stupid shit....
Back to my post. No, I would not spend a premium on an Apple display, but if I wanted to
get a 30" I no longer can. Not because nobody makes them but because Apple thinks
that "most of it's customers do not want a monitor that big".
What really REALLY, bugs me is that I have a friend who had a 30" display and he had to settle
for a second 27" (because he only buys Apple) and when I asked him about it
he was: "Yeah, I think Apple is right. 27" is the way to go."
I told him that he was a dipshit that drank the cool aid. We had a major fight. Still not talking.
Life, you gotta love it...
away from you
Apple still offers PPC Mac and 10.2 downloads.
Then insist you should buy a new computer. OS X is like leasing a car vs. owning one.
I'm using Snow Leopard, 10.6 and if I don't want to I don't have to install Lion or Mountain Lion and I can still use my Mac. Ubuntu stops supporting 10.04 desktop in April, and 12.04 server in 2015. And 10.04 is a Long Term Support edition. Canonical increased LTS to 5 years now for both version starting with 12.04. That is shorter than Apple's, and Microsoft's support.
I think however that I bought my last PC (personal computer) and OS from Apple. I may buy another Macbook Pro but I'm not sure. I don't think so but I may also try to build a Hachintosh.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I still have Mac laptops, but for the humongous desktop workstations we need for 3D applications and video work, we switched back to Windows, The primary reasons are: OS X is getting wonkier with each release. Apple isn't interested in making high-end desktop machines anymore I have to go to third parties anyway on the Mac platform to get calibrated wide-gamut displays. Mac doesn't support 10-bits/channel. It "just works" on Windows. (Again, important if you need accurate color)
I highly recommend "Arch Linux" + XFCE You can also try, Enlightenment.org
Microsoft supported Windows 2000 up until 2010. A 10 year support life cycle. The LONGEST Apple has EVER officially supported a release of OS-X was 4 years, and it's generally 3 or less (n-2).
So I'm about to loose support for my Mac running 10.6? Why would Apple do that when they still offer 10.02 downloads? 10.2 was replaced with 10.3 almost 10 years ago. There goes your "4 years".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Adobe Creative Suite
Until I can run Photoshop and Illustrator natively, Linux will not be anything more than a hobby for me. Yes there are alternative programs out there such as GIMP and inkscape that could substitute in extremis, but the fact is when it comes to design work Adobe Creative Suite is the one and only game going anymore. If Adobe released a version of Creative Suite for Linux I'd switch over in a heartbeat. But as it stands, my iPhone, iPad and Mac Mini all integrate seamlessly, and even though I occasionally chafe under certain restrictions (please Apple let me set a different default browser in iOS), I have far fewer headaches now than I ever did working in a Windows environment.
"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."
Nope. My wife and I both have 2011 Macbook Pros, mine came with 10.6; her's, purchased about 2 months later, came with 10.7. I had a BITCH of a time getting 10.6 to install on her's, and I'm still not sure how I did it. The reinstall disk that came with mine wouldn't work, and getting it to boot from an external disk with 10.6 was a pain although it finally worked. The install never did complete successfully, but it did boot after manually shutting it down and I was able to update it to 10.6.8. All told it took me several hours and a lot of luck to get Snow Leopard to install.
I was also told by an Apple employee that the firmware won't allow versions older than what was originally installed.
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
LaunchPad descends from Launcher in classic Mac OS. The reason it is necessary for most users today is that users have hundreds of apps, not 5. Take it out of your Dock and ignore it if you don't want to use it.
Mac App Store is a necessary part of a world where there are malicious software developers and consumer users. And also necessary when you have hundreds of apps, not 5. You can ignore it, though, if you like. You can set the Security preference to run anything.
Full screen apps make perfect sense on systems that only run Photoshop all day, or only run Aperture all day, or only run Logic all day. There are many Macs like that. You can ignore the full-screen button if you don't want full screen apps.
Even if iOS never existed, these features would have come to the Mac. They are simply ahead on iOS because iOS moved faster since its launch.
I can't really think of what else would be your problem. I'm running Macs since the 80's and the latest release seems to me to be a very natural extension of everything that has gone before. It hasn't changed in any significant way to me. I hated downloading disk images and installing apps and putting in serial numbers, I hated updating them manually. I hated having 30 things in my Dock and digging through the Applications folder for the rest. Now, I don't keep anything in my Dock, I launch apps from LaunchPad, and my Dock shows me what is running, only the apps I'm actually using. It works a lot better for me. Nothing to do with iOS. In 2001, you could put all your apps in the Dock and it would not even be full. Now, there are just too many.
I strongly recommend you don't look down your nose at these features. They are not only for newbies. Mac App Store protects newbies and enables them to install and use native apps (and pay developers for their work,) but for sophisticated users, it enables you to have hundreds of apps without having to do any updating or managing. If Mac App Store doesn't seem necessary to you, get more apps! It will seem necessary pretty shortly.
Also, I can tell you, I've had like 20 years of virus-free computing. I'm not willing to give that up. I'm glad Apple is continuing to enhance security, because I have unpublished work on my Mac. I can't have viruses and native malware digging through stuff.
Maybe it is browser plug-ins you miss? I certainly don't. They were always supposed to go away. I was a Flash developer from 1997 through about 2002 and we used to dream of a future where vector graphics, animations, and audio video ran in the browser. The Web needs to improve in order to compete with native apps, even if there weren't massive security and administration issues with plug-ins.
If you can get by with a Linux on your desktop, that is great, you should probably do that. But the reason to do it is apps. The non-app part of the Mac is functional, it is just a foundation for the apps. If the apps on a Linux desktop do it for you, then you have that opportunity. If you're not using apps like iMovie, iPhoto, Keynote, Pages, BBEdit, Hype, Xcode, PaintCode, Transmit, iTunes, Pixelmator, Sketch, or Creative Suite, Logic, Final Cut, Avid, Aperture — then use Linux. If you're not depending on subsystems like CoreAudio, CoreMIDI, CoreImage, CoreVideo, QuickTime — then bolt to Linux. I use Linux Web servers but I use a Mac workstation because I really need the unique-to-the-Mac apps. The apps pay for themselves for me many times over compared to any other system.
>> I might just go to using Windows 7 for the desktop (not Win8, however).
congratulations to the 2013 Slashdot Posting Darwin Award.
Ubuntu 12.04 and Cinnamon are a winning combination. Win7 is a fundamental usability nightmare. So is OSX, although you're probably used to its quirks that seem utterly bizarre to me, like the "end" key non-configurably taking you to the end of the page instead of the end of the line, and the absence of an "always on top" option in its window manager. At least OSX has a bash shell...
So, don't be afraid. Linux > OSX > gum scraped off the floor of a bus > Win7.
I personally prefer a combination of having a Windows 7 desktop with a Mageia Linux desktop beside it, best of both worlds. Funnily enough I'm running linux on a Mac because I grew sick and tired of OS X being so Apple.
If you have to run a really old OS on a new system, you often find that while there's no drivers, the default ones work fine. The "standard VGA" driver works ok for display and so on.
There's also the minor issue of 2000 being unsupported (meaning unpatched) and almost 14 years old.
Yep, default drivers work fine on the VM, no VMtools though but W2K is small enough I can back up the entire VM.
I wish I could get rid of ancient W2K boxes but unfortunately they haven't found a replacement program yet.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Strongly disagree. I'm forced to use it on my workstation at work. Most of my company (devs and ops) know they would be better off if we could use linux on our workstations. But we're vendor locked-in as a company.
somewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
if(color==blue){speed--;}
Iv'e been using Gentoo on my servers for many years now and I can't even imagine trading that for even another Linux flavor. No other system gives me the flexibility I need for development and the power tools to back it with, it is BY FAR the best tool for my job, the way I see it. That said, my desktop environments HAVE to just work, I learned that the hard way after fighting a rather ugly system upgrade my Gentoo desktop required after I've mistakenly updated a configuration file - which cost me an expensive half day of work. That's why on my desktop there's only one choice - Kubuntu. For me it's not plausible to use OSX or Windows, they just don't do the stuff I need them to do and their UI doesn't and CAN NOT (nor is it designed to) work the way I want to work. KDE4 on Ubuntu makes the most sense. Everything hardware-wise just works perfectly, package management is a breeze and KDE is the right power tool for the job. I'm sorry, but as much as I try I just can't figure out how OSX is an acceptable solution. Other than utilizing the hardware right it pretty much does everything WRONG for me.
Brief background: I've been using Linux since Slackware '96, with kernel version 1.0.0.
Linux doesn't work as a Desktop environment for me for a lot of reasons, despite the fact I love Linux. It requires too much overhead to install software (packages, dependencies, etc), often doesn't run software I need (and/or open source equivalents fail to install on my distro, etc etc)
Are you still using Slackware? In that case, take a more desktop-oriented distro for a spin. Fedora, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, etc.
I rarely have dependency problems and feel that software installations runs more smoothly in Linux than Mac OS X and Windows.
I feel that the elementaryos.org project is actually crafting the kind of experience I have wanted. I went Mac because I got tired of trying to make laptops sleep consistently, device drivers work just so - but with carefully chosen hardware and Ubuntu customized with the elementary UI on top, I think the lean, carefully crafted interface has finally arrived.
Even if they change elementary to resemble OSX less, and I think they should consider that, the framework has been extremely well thought out. They're using Vala instead of anything virtual machine-based for standard apps. Things feel light and fast. I approve.
My desktops have been Linux-only for years. I can run any games I care about in Wine, easily, and unlike a Windows system, I can transplant my hard drives into any x86 box Linux supports and it will just work.
Apple no longer make any "professional" machines, portable or stationary. They are "PRO" in name only. If people are moving away from Apple its because the hardware is staring to suck not because of the OS. I have been wanting to get a new machine for some time but I need my 17", I need my HDD and I want to be able to open the machine up if I have to. What Apple should do is make a few professional machines again.
This is what we need:
1. 17" dual HDD Xeon laptop with massive amount of ECC memory.
2. 15" single HDD machine with plenty ECC memory.
3. NEW MAC PRO!!!!!!!!
4. Non integrated machine with cheap components to reel in the hackintosh crowd.
Voila!
Why don't more people support Haiku OS?
MIT license.
Designed as a desktop OS
My main work and home machines run Mac OS X, but I have a Fedora 18 (w/ Gnome 3) box on the side. I'm really impressed with how far Linux has come, but man.. if you think being an OS X user in a Windows world was hard 10 years ago try being a Linux user in an OS X/Windows world. Even though my main tools (Vim mostly) run fine on Linux, there's a lot of small things I miss from OS X. I'm not happy with the direction Mac OS X is going (especially how Apple keeps breaking the Unix side of things), but on the other hand I'm really glad that the OS has finally become sort of mainstream (in terms of software support etc.). Besides, I feel really comfortable using OS X, so I'm not switching for now. However I can heartily recommend you give Linux a try for 30 days, because it really has come a long way on the desktop.
I abandoned Lion for Linux on my MacBook. While I ended up much happier after switching to Linux on my MacBook, I might be a bit more of a minimalist than most. My idea of a "just works" desktop is something more along the lines of LXDE or even Fluxbox, than Gnome or KDE.
I ran Arch for several months, but it was way too high-maintenance for even me...manually merging config files (*frequently*) is not how I like to spend my time, nor having to search the Arch forums to figure out why an update broke something. When they started reorganizing the whole init and config system, and I had to manually migrate config files to new formats and file structures, I got tired of it. And if you mention on their IRC channel that you're using a mac, prepare to be shunned and/or ignored...I found many in the community to be elitist jerks, but YMMV. In the end I had a sour taste from it, seeming more like an OS for people who want to *feel* smart because they run a distro that makes them solve problems all the time, than an OS that supports and encourages productivity...it definitely didn't know how to stay the hell out of my way.
Frugalware looked nice, but I couldn't get it to work on my MacBook. The general consensus in their IRC room was "never tried it on a mac before." Admittedly, it's an older machine from around 2007 or so...with the oddity of being a 64-bit architecture with a 32-bit EFI, and BIOS emulation that just plain wouldn't work when I tried to install a few distros. When booting Fedora, for example, the keyboard refused to work under BIOS emulation, and refused to boot under EFI because it detected a 64-bit architecture and thus assumed a 64-bit EFI.
Eventually I settled on Sabayon. Besides being one of the ones that actually worked on my particular machine, it had the balance I was looking for in several areas, such as working X, wifi, and most of the rest of the hardware out of the box, without a bunch of extra services running and gobs of desktop software installed that I'll never use. It was also as easy as it should be to customize and configure the system. After installing a few packages and tweaking a few configuration files, refining the desktop over its first few days of use, I ended up with exactly the features I needed, nothing in the way that I didn't need, about 200-300 megs of ram usage, and less than one screenful of 'ps aux' output.
I had been using windows up to XP, then had to develop some software on the then new OSX. Suffice to say I didnt switch full time and after a short period playing with various distros moved to Debian GNOME and subsequently Ubuntu.
I like Unity (yes I know) and it does just work for me, its modern and friendly and new users dont need any training to use it. Try getting a 70 year old lady to use the "search charm" in windows 8 and you will know pain.....Unity however took her under 5 mins to pick up.......
I find frustration and delay whenever I must use Win 8 or other OS. I am not a fanboi and simply use Ubuntu cause it works on anything I throw it at, end users I show it to have the odd question but generally just get on with running their home businesses or whatever.
So it depends on what you mean by "just works" I am called to support as many OSX users as Windows so it suggests both are equally tricky!
I made the switch and feel no need to go back, just for balance I feel the Windows Phone 8 interface is crack on shame there are no apps and MS pissed off every person who bought a 7.5 device by making 8 incompatible.
Being Mutual - Working together for a better society
jasnw at least try Windows 8. If you have used Windows 7 (or Linux with Compiz) on a daily basis and appreciate the way windows dock, and launch most applications via the startbar anyway, theres nothing to be missed in Windows 8. If you used Win7 daily and didn't appreciate that, go back to XP or linux. If you haven't tried Windows 8, there is no reason to avoid it except if you don't have a touch laptop anyway and want to stick with the old ways, or if you believe the mass media ensued hysteria, i blame low news days for that. And please don't install a startmenu replacement within 60 minutes of using Win8, that just shows you couldn't cope with the learning curve. (amazingly a lot of people i considered smart failed to find out that how exactly those screen edges work in context. I dont blame Win8, they just failed to grasp (as conservative adults) a really simple concept that any 2 year old gets, much like initial iOS adoption actually)
Hivemind harvest in progress..
I own my own system,
very quickly got over being owned by Apple,
Apple want to own the world just as Micro$oft did,
Gates is gone, Windows is a has been,
Jobs is gone, waiting for Apple to go stale.
Go well
Also the new keyboards are shit.
So where does the future lie? My latest computer purchase was a Dell XPS and a copy of VMWare Workstation 9.
I have set it up to load VMWare automatically on boot, and then I have various Linux distros and Windows 7 installed in VM's (the machine runs 8 which I consider a "server" OS as I would never want to "use" it.)
I get:
I moved from Debian to OS X (Tiger) in 2006 because I wanted to try Mac and didn't have the time to tinker with a Linux desktop to make it work. Being tired of not being able to upgrade my programs anymore (e.g., being stuck with Firefox 3.6) and unwilling to buy an OS X upgrade I installed Ubuntu on my Macbook in 2011.
I still use Ubuntu and can't imagine going back. But that's probably because of the tools I use: I think installing and using, e.g., open source programming tools and LaTeX is more streamlined in Linux than Mac.
Tried finding XP drivers for new hardware? Good luck.
> So, in short, I am searching for an operating system that has the nice interface and POSIX-compliant :)
> backend of Mac OS, the openness of Linux, and runs all the software Windows can. Will a solution ever exist?
The answer is Mac OS X. You install Parallels (or another virtualizer) and you run Linux in one instance of the virtualizer and Windows in another instance of the virtualizer, and you can even run another copy of Mac OS X in another instance of the virtualizer. Or, you can run Linux on a remote server that you get at with SSH and not use Windows or a virtualizer at all.
Mac OS X is not a walled garden by any definition. Mac App Store is optional and only contains a small subset of all Mac apps at this time.
What software is it from Windows that you miss on the Mac?
Hi,
a liitle while ago I became heavily fed with all those security riscs assosiated to Windows. Groundhogday. Besides that I was a happy camper. Sure, I hated the new (non-classic) start menu. But that's no big deal. Just install Classic Menu and there you go. I have had tons and tons of Win utils/games/emulators running.
Util: Irfanview/7Zip/Notepad++/... ...
Emu:PCSX2/ePSXe/Projekt64/Dolphin/Vice/Steem/Hatari/...
Games: Skyrim/Risen2/Burnout/NFS HP 2011/Rage/
I once used an SLES server @ a project and started with that (OpenSuse). It's cool, because of it's centralized approach. It's also a hassle, because anything more than just propietery nvidia means you're not in Kansas anymore. ;)
So I got Kubuntu suggested. That was on my personal list for quite a while. I had also years old isos lying around. But I've never even used it once. Not another unsupported bastard with no support and marginal market share, I thought.
Well.
It's the complete opposite. All of my windows apps just fly on Wine. Sure, If you want e.g. the Dirt series, you're lost. But allmost 100% of the apps I need and 95% of the AAA and indie games just run. (K)ubunu also recognized my force feed back wheel and the XBox360 controller out of the box. Including the force feed back (!).
I was amazed. There's simply *no* application gap towards win.
Regarding win stuff (!) There are additional, powerful linux app sources.
KDE's to 'windowy' for some dupernerds. Well, there's no place with more choice, right? I came to love it, after I heavyly configured it. (Classic Menu here we come again! ;) ) It's stable, highly flexible and powerfull. And it's much, much cooler than win and OSX combined: 3D Desktop out of the box. If you say so.
Linux has come a long, long way. Just open your eyes.
Cheers from still snowy Munich...
AC
Now that Windowmaker (http://windowmaker.org) has been picked up again, you might look at that one. That's the one i always ran before switching to OSX. And i'm pretty sure it's going to be the one i'm running when i move back since i already decided that my next laptop won't be a macbook anymore.
Windowmaker is close to the NEXTSTEP UI, but it's very different from OS-X. It's different from NEXTSTEP as well in that it rides on X11. I wonder what would be the reason for anyone to go from there to OS-X? Incidentally, if one leaves OS-X, one might as well go to PC-BSD w/ XFCE, which would be the closest interface to that one.
"We had to install Windows XP on some newer Lenovo systems, for temporary project. It worked surprisingly well. These were Sandy Bridge Core i5 systems, with Intel graphics, and Realtek NICs. We were able to get graphics, sound, and network all working without a problem. It wasn't as easy as setting up Windows 7, which they were designed for, but it worked. While these are exactly latest hardware, they're not all that old."
That's because Lenovo provides driver support back to XP (and even Win2K for some) for all enterprise products up to and including the Ivy Bridge generation (i.e. Thinkpad T/X/W *30), and possibly even Haswell when that arrives. Drivers and so on are all available on their support site.
People who use other hardware may not be so lucky... getting decent battery life on a laptop without proper driver support is difficult, for instance. Or getting certain IO features (special hotkeys and so on) working... it's less of a problem on desktops, but on mobile devices, it can be a real PITA...
KDE tried to copy Windows as much as they could - when I saw their annoying Windows-esque dialogue when you connect a USB mass storage device I was done with that. Then Gnome chased the "everything is going Web 3.0 and mobile" dream so this leaves me with only sensible window managers like XFCE and LXDE. Any other ones I should try?
Try Razor-qt, if you like the ability to run Qt based applications. If you are into the OS-X interface, go w/ XFCE. I actually disagree w/ your assessment of KDE - it can be made to look like a lot of things - CDE, OpenLook, Motif, NEXTSTEP, Windows XP and so on. The great thing about KDE is that it's customizable and flexible - you can leave your session, log into another account, and then work there in a different environment, and switch b/w them using ALT-F#. Something that can't be done under GNOME, and I dunno about LDXE, XFCE or others.
I have had no problems with windows 8 myself. I find it works wonderful.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Dude, you know what you sound like? You sound like someone who left his girlfriend, then tired of the new one and having remorse and crying to his friends how much he loved his ex and how much he misses her and what a huge mistake he'd made. And to top it off, you're now considering a third one.
Sorry for the harsh words, but you sound like a never-satisfied disloyal prick, it's always your partner's fault for the relationship difficulties. For once just own up to your bad decisions and live with the consequences. And don't whine to disinterested bystanders.
Does PC-BSD 9.1 still have video & Wi-Fi support issues? For them, it should be easier, since they accept both open & closed source software in terms of drivers.
What on earth do you mean by (when referring to Linux) . "It requires too much overhead to install software" ? Im inclined to think its been a long way since you tried using linux or you have been using some old / obscure distro. cus for the most part (and im referring mainly to debian based distributions here). There is no operating system that i have seen that has a package management system that comes anywhere close to what we have on linux. I honestly cannot remember last time i encountered dependency issues (back in the early noughties sometime maybe?). You can groan about anything you like regarding linux but the one thing that really shines out there is package management.
disclaimer : Other people have preferences such as RPM (which i hate), BSD's ports system , gentoo's portage etc. - I speak generally about debian / apt-get as its a long time since i used others as described above - i Imagine they are all pretty mature nowadays.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
What ever you decide to do, please don't do Ubuntu.
I use all three desktop environments. I want to use Linux as my desktop because of the sort of programming I do.
Fedora = constant breakage and churn. I guess Red Hat has run out of ideas for what to do with Linux, so they just randomly break stuff. Every time something breaks or crashes, I ask myself how much longer I can stick with Linux. I'd try Mint or something, but when I have a desktop I use every day to do my work, it's hard to just wipe it and start over.
Mac = less hardware for more money. I like the Mac, but the new MacBookPros have smaller screens (15" is the biggest now, not 17"), no ethernet port or DVD drive, and they cost more. Not a good long-term solution as a platform, although I love the 17" MBP. I guess Apple will keep removing features until the MBP is just a tablet. (I use ethernet for pulling big files over a network, and use the DVD player to examine archive backups in the archive so I don't have to drag out boxes of DVD backups.)
Windows 7 = really, really, really good. I have a cheap HP laptop with Win7, and really like it. More than I ever thought I would.
Windows 8 = total loss. Microsoft had a winner in Win7, and trashed it. If Win8 had been a tablet OS, sure, it would be interesting. But trashing the desktop with Win8 was a move MS will probably never recover from unless they revert back to the Win7 desktop (and soon).
Basically, the bottom line is that there's no one true desktop OS that does everything. You have to pick the flaws that you can live with.
So have I. ......of course I stopped using windows just after XP came out (unrelated, hadn't tried XP at that stage).
IMHO, it is the closest thing to a "it just works" distro. I think it is the most friendly to a desktop user.
w/ a nice development environment.
Wish it were further along.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Linux has never had a good or stable GUI environment. Ever.
Moderators, please stop rewarding these kind of unreferenced assertions. It makes you (the moderator) look like a teenager, and him (the poster) look like he actually deserves my time.
I used to be a Mac fanboy but left for similar reasons two summers ago. I've blogged about the experience here: http://www.adventuresinoss.com/?cat=26 Currently using a Dell XPS 13 running Ubuntu 12.04 - don't miss my Mac, although it did take awhile to wean myself from it.
I looked at my desk yesterday, I have a Dell machine running Windows 7 with two monitors. In the second monitor I run Linux in a virtual machine. My Laptop is a Mac running OSX. I also have Parallels on my Mac with virtual machines with Red Had Linux and Windows 7 images. Lately I have been working on embedded software, but I also write Windows apps and do some web site development. Some tools only run on Windows, some only on Linux, some only on Mac. You can wine and cry or just learn to use all systems. If I were to spend my own money today to buy a computer it would be a Chromebook. My children have no trouble using Macs, Windows or Linux as I also have all three types of machines at home. We are also about evenly split on iPhone vs. Android. Tablets, we use the iPad most as my early Visio Android tablet quit due to poor soldering. I just haven't gotten around to resoldering its poorly made power connector. Most people don't have experience with all systems and can't afford to buy multiple systems. Here are a few things I do to keep sane. Don't ever upgrade the OS on a machine. Unless you got a lemon OS like Windows Vista, you are better off keeping with the OS that came with your box. Buy the hardware and OS based upon your application needs. My wife uses iTunes, a web browser and email, so we bought her a Macbook Pro. My kids do school work and play games, obviously a WiiU and a Chromebook is what they need. Don't worry about switching from one system to another. If you are considering a system that locks your data in, reconsider. Even the best system will be out of date in three years. I've been buying personal computers for over 30 years, I was online before the internet. If I had stuck with the CP/M system I took to college I would be way out of date now.
Welcome back from the world of sanity!
Give it another 20 years, it will get there!
I moved back from OS X to Ubuntu, in part because I disliked Apple's policies, and in part because I disliked the OS X UI and its numerous quirks. Unfortunately, the joke's been on me since Ubuntu went on this kick to thoroughly mess up the default Ubuntu UI and Gnome 3 also breaks a lot of traditional paradigms and behaviors. You can run another desktop on Ubuntu (I suppose until they get around to breaking that with Mir), but it's an uphill battle since a lot of stuff just won't work. Right now, there simply don't seem to be any good choices.
No, you don't have to reboot at all or "kick services", since upgraded services will just get restarted automatically; the only reason to reboot is if the kernel gets updated. Don't blame the OS for your irrational choices.
give up and go to Windoze, try Crunchbang. Nothing really exciting about it except it works and works well (at least Staler does, the current stable release. It boots in 64 MBytes or less and quickly. Save all the excitement for your apps. Linux apps seems to love it. I am sooo glad to be a "#!"'er!!!.
Me, I love it when an opsys is boring and gets our of the way and makes the apps shine!!! Death to Bloatware!
Just a guess that your experience with Win 7 was in a corporate environment?
I've been running Win 7 at home for just over a year now and not ONCE did Windows force an update down my throat.
In fact, it probably has the BEST update system I've used. It'll download in the background (if you so choose) and only install at your next reboot. It NEVER asks me to reboot. If I happen to, the updates install quickly (already downloaded) and the machine is ready next power-up.
Now at WORK... They force the pop-ups, the force in the installs, and the force the reboots at the most asinine times of day, totally wrecking my workflow. Don't blame the OS for something that is totally under the influence of your corporate IT policy.
The Surface RT already is; x86 PCs are merely the next step.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You bitch about the iOS-ification of OS X but that's exactly what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8. To say your going to Windows 7 and not Windows 8 is ridiculous because you could do the same with OS X, i.e, stick with the version that has not been iOS-ified.
There's no logical consistency with your argument.
This post makes no sense at all. It might have made some sense a year ago.
MS is obviously working to kill off win7.
In 2005 I bought a refurbished PowerBook to try out OS X. I had previously been using FreeBSD as my *nix of choice along side Windows, but I had gotten tired of compiling everything and want to find a happy medium between FreeBSD and Windows. OS X looked like a good choice as it was a nice desktop with a Unix back end.
OS X was nice enough and fun; I'd definitely pick it over Windows since it is the more Unix-like of the two. However, it wasn't Unixy enough, and I found that my knowledge from FreeBSD didn't translate to OS X. The configs are different, the services are different, and X support was awful. I found out I was missing a lot of the stuff that I liked about FreeBSD.
In late 2006 my roommate, at the time, got his foot caught in the powercord and pulled the PowerBook off of the desk it was on. The battery compartment was bent from the fall, and it wouldn't work without having the powercord plugged in. I installed Ubuntu on my old Centrino Thinkpad because I needed to get stuff done, and that was it for my OS X experiment.
I've found Linux is the best balance between usability and Unix. It conforms to the Unix idiom, binary updates are nice and quick, and I don't have to mess with config files. However, I can still compile software if I want to, and I can still mess around with config files if I want to. I did ditch Ubuntu around 2008 for Fedora after getting tired of Ubuntu's poor release engineering. I primarily use Fedora, RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux, CrunchBang, and Linux Mint depending on what I'm needing to do. I have been eyeing Gentoo as of late, so I'm probably going to go full circle for a little while.
I am looking at getting my wife a Mac. It's more Unix-like then Windows is, and the commercial software support is still there. She's not attached to Windows, and she's not concerned about the iOS-fication of OS X.
Recently a *lot* of OS X users got owned. Their machines are infected and they don't even know it. Ironically, lots of devs (who *should* know better) have been rooted. The problem is so bad and widespread that it allowed attackers inside access into gigantic targets (like FaceBook).
Now don't get me wrong: the % of Mac that are part of botnets is still probably tiny compared to the % of Windows system. Botnets are so big and so numerous that hardly a day goes by without a major target being disrupted by a botnet (today it was GitHub, for the second time in a few days btw).
So what do I do? I'm using Linux as my main system / desktop / workstation. I strongly disagree with the people saying that X Window System sucks. X is amazing. X allows you to run simultaneously several graphical sessions: you simply cannot do that on OS X (on Windows you have to pay to get more than one user logged in graphically and, even when paying, you still cannot "switch" using a shortcut from one graphical session to the other: the additional graphical sessions have to be remote).
Why does all this matter? Because on Linux it is trivial to install a browser without giving root access: no .rpm, no .deb. Good old Chromium tarballs. So I create a special throwaway user account, completely locked down (no login shell for example), with quota etc. in which I install the browser (and no Java in that user account, even if I'm a Java dev). I then allow that one user to display it's browser on my main graphical session. That browser is then launched from that user account and then CPU affinity is set so that that browser can, at most, max two of the four cores my system has.
And that's not all of course: per user-id specific firewall rules.
Sure, it is a bit of work and it needs some time to set up: but once it is set up your config is good to go for months, if not years (I'd still recommend d/l'ing newer Chromium builds once in a while).
You can go further: do all this *and* run it all in a VM inside KVM.
That is how good Linux is. Of course this all requires some work and *learning*. But once you've done that, you'll have a setup that nobody on Windows or OS X can even come close to, simply because their technologies do not allow this level of control. They simply don't.
Linux is a developer / nerd's dream OS. It definitely is a big target enough so that you can have support for nearly all the languages out there (some Windows-stack only languages aside) and for goodies like Firefox / Opera / Chromium. So it *is* a pragmatic choice.
There's a reason why I'm mostly using Linux and why OpenBSD is doing it's job on my firewalling machine...
Thanks - can I send you screenshots every time Ubuntu prompts for updates and insists a reboot is necessary? I don't think the kernel is updating that much...
Yep. If it's Linux, users can't be expected to type in their name without breaking their fingers and attempting to eat their keyboard. If it's Windows, the user is born with the knowledge of the registry hack they need to fix their exact problem.
Welcome to 'user friendly.'
If I were using a standard "desktop" system I'd be running debian, or maybe a debian-derivative like ubuntu or mint. However I'm a laptop guy, and always on the move. My thinkpad (circa-2002) never suspended, resume was just a vague dream, and wifi chipset support was nil.
What is the current experience of linux on a laptop? And I mean, a normal laptop like a store-bought system? Can you just slap it closed and go, and always awaken upon opening? Is wandering between different wireless access points an easy thing, or a major, manual chore? Do you still have to kneel and pray to the xconfig gods when you have to connect to a projector? I've given up on audio, won't even bother with that for now...
These are the things that led me to the MacBook, then MBP - and honestly the only reason I'm not looking seriously at going back to linux is that I'd have to erase a system and lose about a day of productivity just to find out if it was worth it. I'm fine with the window managers and apps so "just boot from a livecd and see which one you want" doesn't really answer my questions. For me it is totally the operational aspect of having a linux laptop: suspend, resume, displays, wifi.
Can anyone vouch for the current state of laptop living in the linux world?
"The mind is a terrible thing to, um, uh, oh bollocks." -- Me
If linux came in a package as sexy as any Apple hardware, why would you want anything else? All the OS' are flawed in some respect and all have the average user at the mercy of the company/devs: Apple tyranny, MS tyranny, or Linux tyranny (yes, the constant churn of package dependencies, dead projects, etc.), it's all similar. The stand out is the packaging: Apple = uber sexy, PC = affordable and ugly.
So maybe Linux can make more inroads if say a kickstarter project puts together something as gorgeous as a Macbook Air with hardware that has open drivers.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
On the linux side of the house, things are becoming ubuntu-ified, windows-ified, and gnome3-ified. My linux laptop runs worse than it ever has, allows me to customize much less, and I dare say, is now a worse working environment than windows. Thought there would never be a day I would be saying that.
Various MS corporate products demand newer OS's. Sharepoint is one that comes to mind.
It has a file system, an environment that will run applications and services, host drivers, manage memory, and (maybe) add in UI and window management primitives and a network stack. In my lifetime, I've worked on over twenty different OSes (of course, this is because I started back before the Win/Lin/OSX hegemony came upon us), not to mention the at least half-dozen Windows versions I've used. Seriously, they're not all that different, at least where most of us are living each day. You get to a point where you say, OK, how do I run a program? How do I allocate memory? How do I open a network connection? Where's the library for this or that? And, in the end, they all have quirks that make them all a joy and all a pain in the ass. Pick one, use it, stop fretting and kvetching.
Besides, if you really wanted different, you'd be using an IBM iSeries or zSeries - those have OS'es with significant (and interesting) differences.
That is all.
heh - my IT guy at school (I was an assistant manager/TA for several labs) hated supporting macs with a passion, so I usually did the support. He also was a piss poor PC supporter, so I usually found and fixed viruses students constantly installed (either intentionally or not - and I know there were some intentional) because it would take him a month to get in and do it because of his "80 hour weeks" (every time I saw him, he was chatting or doing nothing). The next year after I graduated, the school went heavily to Linux (and I imagine the virus nightmare was horrible without me taking initiative and fixing them).
I went from being a Windows hater to being very platform agnostic at that job. I worked on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and IRIX (IRIX was on its last legs, but I have fond memories... always liked the obscure variants, and I supported many at my first post-college job).
If an app wants access to the user's home folder, they can get it.
When was that capability added? I thought sandboxed applications could read and write user files only by having the user select each individual file through a secure file chooser.
I stopped running a local server a few years ago because a remote staging server is accessible from Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and my remote staging server runs the same Linux as my main server.
The practicality of that depends on how fast the connection from your home to the staging server is.
If this thread proves anything you will not get allot of help from the linux community as i found a over a decade ago, your on your own. If you want to spend countless hours RTM's that are usually out of date and may or may not work depending on what kernel you are using then linux is great. and if you ever ask someone a question the response will be in the realm of 'you should know this , its been in linux for 20 years blah blah blah'. OSX is nice and friendly for home users, the vast majority of the time it just works, however its mostly a toy and usually management just likes it because its trendy and pretty. Now if you are looking to get actual real world work done, Windows 7 is the way to go (not Win8). The fact is the majority of companies still use windows, business applications are still written for windows, and its quicker to install an application on windows and help online if you need it that it is on any linux platform without having to know what Linus Torvalds 1st puppies name was just to get some ones attention.
I won't cough up a citation but I can say from personal experience that the current generation of iMacs will flat-out refuse to allow anything earlier than 10.7.
/* No Comment */
I use Windows XP, no metro, no 64 bit instability.
Then load TeamViewer and PuTTY to get work done.
That said, I use RedHat-based distributions with the yum package manager normally. For Debian, there's of course apt-get and dpkg. And yes, I can groan about that -- in case you ever needed to use a version of something that isn't included in the repos.
For example, in the CentOS repos. You can go add epel and remi, but sometimes, other things on the system break when you install packages from these repos. Also, sometimes it just doesn't plain work --- mixed up dependencies, etc that need to be sorted out manually. And further to that -- there's even some open source software you might need/find useful that no one has made a package for your given flavor of Linux yet.
When it comes to Ubuntu and other Debian derived distributions, they usually keep the repos more up to date (often at the expense of stability and/or security). But still -- not everything always just works in package management, and often times I find myself downloading .pkgs or .tar.gz and compiling from source.
It strikes me as you're the type of person who has run Linux on the desktop and hasn't had to do much management of customized systems?
Not at all true. There's been some serious issues with Windows, especially a lot of the MS12 KB's, that could allow someone on the same LAN as you to easily compromise/privilege escalate up to local system on your machine. When you work in the world of "compliant systems" where network security can't be an afterthought, this philosophy is dangerous.
Mitch,
My 1st gen netbook has been running various flavors of ubuntu since before there was the netbook remix that was a pre-release of unity.
Ubuntu seems to hides hibernate from the GUI in revent versions, but hibernate and sleep work fine. Wifi, skype, and bluetooth just works.
A new thinkpad should behave similarly.
When it was time to upgrade the main workstation (a high end G4) Apple and Adobe were engaged in a pissing match, and as the CS suite was not negotiable, and I didn't know how that was going to play out, so I switched to Win7 on the front end and Red Hat for storage and web servers. Win7 does some annoying things but it doesn't go out of it's way to be cute, and at least at the moment, Microsoft is playing reasonably nice with Adobe.
The back end will probably stay on Linux (no reason to change -- it works well) but I have Win8 up on a spare laptop (taking advantage of the $69 introductory offer) and it stinks. It's not slow, in fact it's fairly responsive, but Microsoft has broken the desktop paradigm. If this is the future of Windows, I may have to switch back to Apple. And if Apple is trying to put IOS on the desktop, I'm not sure where to go. Maybe Linux with a Win7 virtual instance, for as long as the CS suite supports Win7. Hopefully at some point the major players will realize that a cell phone interface is not appropriate for a desktop machine, and "cute" != "useful". In the meantime, we just have to tough it out.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Just a few comments about your 2nd to last paragraph (Linux doesn't work as a...)
If its been a while since you've used one of the major distros (like Ubunut, Mint, etc) you really ought to try them out again. Package dependencies were definitely a problem for me years ago, when half the stuff I installed were "beta" packages that weren't yet part of the distribution. In fact, that was one of the reasons I used Slack for so long in the early 00's (because it had the simplest package system). However, I use Ubuntu now and haven't had issues with that in years...if you're still installing cutting edge OSS, then it might be an issue, but I can't imagine it being any better in Win/Mac.
While I agree that the Xwindows experience (even with modern desktop environments) is still a little clunky, its not so bad that I think about it on a daily basis.
As far as Windows/Mac software goes: Wine isn't perfect, but if you're concerned about MSWord specifically, don't be. I use MS Word (still 2007) under wine and it works great...I was even able to install an official MS service pack to correct a font problem I had.
However, I too have been looking for a solution now that Apple is moving in the iOS-y direction for OS X, in terms of a system that lets me keep the awesome BSD power of Mac OS without being confined to Apple's walled garden of App Store restrictions etc.
Sounds like what you're looking for is... BSD.
I'm not angry at Apple with regards to their desktop OS (I am a bit annoyed at how locked down their iOS devices are, but I switched to Android).
However I am *wary* of the future of OS X, specifically the fact that the late Steve Jobs was always talking about the "post desktop era" and that much like Microsoft they seem to be trying hard to move everyone over to tablets. So I've been catching up with Linux as a contingency for if/when Apple turn around and say "the Mac only accounts for 2% of our sales, so we're withdrawing them from sale". It could be 5, 10 years from now but the whole industry seems to be predicting the death of the desktop in favour of tablets and I'm pretty certain I'm going to end up one of those stubborn old fools who likes his 30" monitor, physical keyboard and mouse and the freedom to customise my own hardware. By then Linux may be the only desktop OS left, and us old-farts-to-be have to be prepared.
The problem it has at the moment is that developers and users alike have kind of invested quite heavily into the GNOME/GTK environment, only for GNOME3 and Unity to get "Tabletification Disease" and end up dumbed down and buggy. I feel that they were right to update the ageing GNOME2 and I don't personally believe that MATE is the answer in the long term, but that they jumped the shark in the process.
It's actually gone kind of backwards from when I was properly into Linux about 5 years before, when GNOME2 wasn't so old and.. 2D. Everything was solid, stable, mature. Now it's like the Linux Desktop, at least on the G side, has gone back to square 1. Basic features are missing and it's just not right in 2013 that the desktop should show graphical glitches and/or lock up on popular AMD cards for example, nor that I should have to do command line incantations to repair my wireless driver after an update, both of which are examples of my recent experiences with it. I'm capable of fixing things but do that for a living and have better things to do with my time at home.
On the positive side, I tried KDE and gosh.... relative sanity! They actually dare to give us controls and buttons and not treat us all like retards who will flip out if there's more than one button on the screen. But most of the decent software (IMHO) is GTK/GNOME based because we all had faith in Ubuntu (and look where that's led us - nowadays with Canonical doing their own thing with everything it's one step away from closed source). *sigh*
It's just..... a mess.
Getting a new camera (Panasonic LX7) and finding that Corel haven't added RAW support for it to Aftershot Pro and "goodness knows if/when they will", then going to my Macbook and having it work instantly on Aperture, was the turning point for me when I thought "why am I back to wasting my time messing with Linux again?". (Plus Aperture is so much nicer to use, but I was willing to make a sacrifice if Aftershot would actually work). I'm now severely tempted to about-turn and flow my way right back to OS X on the desktop and consign Linux back to a secondary drive for playing with occasionally and seeing if it ever matures. Life's too short, you know?
Hi:
I don't think you'll find anyone who'll uncategorically vouch for anything, but
I've had a few different laptops (incl. HP and Dell) and, though reluctant to admit it, have found Toshiba's to be my primary choice.
I do have S2D: hibernation and sleep working, but it took a lot of digging to get right.
Some issues are distro related:
For instance, to not have screen-blanking when closing the lid. The fix: ("Lock screen when screensaver is active") is more ubuntu/compiz related than toshiba hardware specific.
Or getting dhcp to force a new lease on wakup.
Or restarting the sound daemon.
Others are purely hardware related to toshiba and settings/scripts that had to be added to /etc/acpi/events/
It would be nice if vendors were more supportive and I suppose one could pay a premium and get a 'laptops4linux' box equipped and shipped with those deliverables..
If/when I get another laptop I'm going to see if the liveCD can handle suspend/resume... before doing the install, but I haven't tried it yet.
The more immediate issue for me will be when I want a tablet that 'purports' to do native Linux (like an eePC transformer or maybe an Acer) running ARM/Mali/... chipsets.
My experience w/Linux on laptops has generally been satisfactory (uptimes in months) with just a few down-sides that unfortunately consume far too much time to get working perfectly.
I hope that's not going to be the same for netbooks and pads, but expect it will.
resist propaganda
Can't you use Unix? A Unix shell on the Mac is plenty productive.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I've been a long time (since 1998) Linux user, while at the same time being forced to use Windows at work.
When Win7 came out, I've decided to give it a chance and used it almost exclusively for 2 years. The end result is that I got sick and tired of all the little ocassional performance quirks, unexpected reboots due to autoupdates (previously explicitly disabled) and other seemingly minor crap.
Converted all machines I have to Linux, whatever windows crap I need for work I run in WinXP installed in VirtualBox, and boy am I loving it.
Windows has not strayed from its tradition of being seemingly nice and easy at first, yet driving one up the wall over time.
You have to reboot because the files are in use. What happens to shared libraries that are in use when you update them on Linux?
A copy stays in memory until the last process that uses it, exits. All newly started executables use the updated version.
What, there is another behavior that is not broken?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Minor nitpick: Slackware 3.0 (of '95), already used Linux 1.2.13. It also provided 1.3.18 for the more adventurous types, although I never managed to compile it. :(
A Unix-like command line interface (as found in Debian preferably) is critical to my day to day use of a computer. Having tried every POSIX emulation layer for Windows under the sun, I just keep suffering Kubuntu daily. I have little to none experience with Macs: Last time I saw one was at a shopping mall; opened a terminal, typed a command (was it "clear"?), got the "command not found" message and left. I might as well install cygwin on Windows for this sort of experience.
You might want to try Kubuntu too; the Muon package management frontend included in the latest versions feels very snappy and simplified, compared to other solutions to this problem. Just make sure you enable the Omnilinux PPA and install everything found in it after you're done installing the base system.
Come on in, the water's fine! I'd avoid the whole red hat gnome mess (which includes Ubuntu, btw). Go straight debian, or if you want something easier/prettier, got Linux Mint, and in particular the xfce edition.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Experiencing what a virtual machine is and doing it on the Mac is analogous to getting laid for the first time. -- Now you know what you have been missing.
I've used Windows and Linux for decades and with the Mac virtual machine setup I can run whatever OS tickles my fancy. On my 27" widescreen iMac I am running latest Ubuntu, RedHat Enterprise Workstation, Win 7 x64, Win 7 x32, and Win XP and of course OS-X 10.8.2. Can enter/exit any of them without stopping work or rebooting. With the unified desktop you literally forget which OS your using because all the apps are all on the same screen.
I don't care how cool your Ubuntu desktop looks unless you can top that trick. If anything crashes, just restart that VM and keep working in the other OS. File swaps are drag and drop between OSes.
Judging from the posts most people aren't using virtual machines and either have their Linux sunglasses on or are stuck rebooting in the windows. As much as I love using Linux, the Mac is just as stable without spending all those hours tweaking it. The shift towards IOS-ness is annoying but minor. I'm not about to go back to Linux package manager games with libraries to install some program or be bothered with kernel updates just so I can jump for joy because now I have yet another file system supported. - I just want to get my work done and do other stuff. My 2 cents.
The reinstall disks that come with new machines are intended only to install on the new machine they came with. They're locked to the model number they were produced for. It's no surprise you had trouble installing your laptop's reinstall disk on your wife's machine. You're not supposed to be able to install it on other systems because you're violating the license in doing so. Think of it like an "OEM" CD for Windows. It's only going to install (without a fight) on the system type it came with.
If you had a retail install DVD (or created a DVD/USB stick from the DMG in the AppStore download), you shouldn't have any trouble installing an older OSX on newer hardware, just so long as you're not trying to cross the PPC/Intel boundary. Drivers are of course the wild card there, but the OS should work in some kind of fashion.
yeah with apple you're lucky if you're hardware architecture is supported for 10 years.
meanwhile I'm running a program last updated 10+ years ago on windows and it runs better than ever(in win8, opengl - win8 has it's bad sides but old stuff works better than in 7.. it's just the ugly metropolitics that make it bad really).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
away from you
Apple still offers PPC Mac and 10.2 downloads.
But they don't offer any fixes for them, not even security fixes.
I did not know that, thanks!
good point! I have a retail snow leopard disk (and leopard, and tiger) so i wonder if this would be a problem. is it like the GP, where the apple store guy said it was a firmware issue, or is it like the P, where it's the difference between a recovery disk and a retail disk?
a related point is where to find retail copies of old OS versions. Apple squashes them quickly. You might have to go to the resale / ebay market.
On Windows, I'd miss being able to collaborate using MS Project and Visio (as others I work with have made this their choice), being able to test my workplace's Silverlight-driven web application using IE in addition to Firefox and Chrome. I still use Outlook for my email too -- I haven't found Zimbra Desktop, Thunderbird or other products sufficient for my email-power-user needs (they cost me time).
Most of my company's code can be managed through Eclipse (it's Java), but some code requires Visual Studio (Silverlight).
I could run parallels or Fusion on Mac -- but then I'd be running a virtual machine to do both at once. And despite strides towards making it seemless, there's always seemingly a bit of clunk involved. Then what happens if by, Mac OS X 11, Apple makes OS X more IOS-y and walled gardened off, making it less useful for power users? I'd be at a dead end and would need a new OS at that time.
Oh yes, to add to my other comment, here's a big one -- the VMWare VSphere client. Can I convert a 30-server VMWare infrastructure to something I can manage via Linux? Sure, SSH to ESXi functionality is useful, but they recommend turning SSH off, and it's much quicker to manage via the GUI.
In ~2007, after the birth of my first child I had very little time. So I thought to myself "I don't have time to keep up with maintaining a Linux desktop" and I bought a nice iMac, and moved from Linux to Mac.
The experience I had was that everything that was a royal PITA on nix at the time (web browsing, audio, skype, video, photo management, suspend/resume, printing) "just worked" on the Mac. Hurray!
But the problem I had was that the unixy stuff stuff I needed to do my job (X11 across multiple monitors, emacs, serial console control, local command-line tools, etc) did not just work, and was more a PITA to maintain on MacOSX than the flashy stuff was to maintain on Linux. The final straw was when I upgraded to Leopard, and multiple monitor support in X11 was totally hosed at the time of the initial release.
In the end, I wound up giving the iMac to my in-laws after about 9 months, and building another whitebox for 1/2 the price of the iMac, and I have been happy ever after. That 2007 whitebox is now running Kbuntu, and is my 6 year old's PC (while I've built myself a newer one..)
Aside from Service Pack 4 (released in 2005), can someone point out what security updates for Windows 2000 have been released after that? I'm not talking about the application frameworks like .NET; I mean security updates for exploits in the base OS.
And if you fuck the wrong text files on linux, your computer may not boot anymore either...
Linux just stores (most of) its `registry' in ASCII files strewn across directories, rather than binary. The KDE control panel is just a utility editing the right files for you; there is an analogous free utility for Windows called ``sharpkeys". It's a third-party download, but that's just how commercial OSes roll.
That's why I switched back
And if you fuck the wrong text files on linux, your computer may not boot anymore either...
Linux just stores (most of) its `registry' in ASCII files strewn across directories, rather than binary. The KDE control panel is just a utility editing the right files for you; there is an analogous free utility for Windows called ``sharpkeys". It's a third-party download, but that's just how commercial OSes roll.
You are so wrong ! You can completely remove apache's config file (for example) and the only thing you will achieve is that the apache service won't start anymore.
Even if you screwed GRUB's config file, you can still boot the machine on a live-CD and re-install grub and it will work again.
And the big advantage of text files is that it's really easy to copy them to another system if you want the same config there.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
Ubuntu, arguably the most popular distro for end-users (and less arguably, the highest profile), logs everything you type into dash. They don't even warn you. I've only just learned this. Their is even a privacy entry in dash with NO mention of this (and most of those controls don't do what you expect, even worse than any facebook privacy controls I've used). Does Windows 8 do this? I doubt it. And, you think linux is going to win the hearts and minds of the people because they are concerned with privacy. I, for one, will be screaming caveats and warnings if anyone EVER suggests that some popular linux distro has better privacy control than Windows.
The other popular end-user linux variant is Android, and it's a privacy nightmare.
I'll admit that this is distro specific, but if your argument does not apply to a user friendly distro, it's moot. Linux COULD differentiate itself on good privacy, but the one big user friendly distro definitely does not right now, and it's only getting worse. Sadly, I really don't see this happening. Linux distros are always playing catch up because they're always following.
OOPS! their != there
Wrong way to look at this. When I was in high school I almost exclusively used Linux (Mandrake, eventually switched to Debian, back before everyone had proper package managers). Eventually I got an iBook running OS X 10.3 because I wanted a Unix laptop that delivered great battery life, and at the time the iBook's promised 6 hours was far better than the two hours you could find in most competing laptops; plus it had a dedicated GPU, so I could at least dream about gaming on it in my off-time. But it had a big bonus: it ran Photoshop and Illustrator so well (again, this was back in the day where if you threw a 200+ MB PSD file at the Windows and OS X copies of Photoshop, you'd see the Windows copy freak out and crash while the OS X copy would eventually open it). At the time, I thought I was going to get into graphic arts, and this seemed like the best combination of features I could get, though it was admittedly expensive.
When I went to college, I bought a MacBook Pro. I had changed directions in education, and now I was sprinting full throttle into video production, and being able to run Final Cut Pro was a deal-breaker (especially since my school only taught Premiere and Avid Media Composer). The five-day turnaround on repairs was a huge plus, as was the reliability factor. Major bonus points were awarded that I wasn't being conned into getting Windows Vista, but had the option to make that mistake if I wanted. On top of that, Time Machine saved my bacon more than a couple times (mostly user error). This ended up being a very good decision, since knowing both Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer is what landed me my first job.
All the while, I maintained a Linux server. Why? Because just like the Macs I bought were great tools for image and video editing when I bought them, Linux was great at being a reliable file server, firewall, and DVR (thanks to MythTV). I still run one today, though because of the direction Apple is taking the entire OS X platform in (hardware and software), I'm considering changing that. I use Final Cut in the office enough that my skills are kept in tip-top shape, and personally I prefer Avid when I have my druthers, which runs on Windows.
For me, it's not about the politics of this or that, it's about what tool will do the job I need to do, and do it well. Beyond that, then decisions about what kinds of companies I want to support, their practices, environmental record, prices, etc. gets factored in.
Rawr
away from you
Apple still offers PPC Mac and 10.2 downloads.
But they don't offer any fixes for them, not even security fixes.
In May Canonical will stop offering fixes for Ubuntu 10.04. In December 1997 I bought a brand new MS Windows NT 4 Workstation. I was shocked in 2000 when I ran Windows Update and received the message MS was no longer releasing new updates. When I checked something like 2 years ago MS still offered update downloads, but there were no new ones. And as a responder said "Update != Support".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm pretty sure you could take any osx variant and install it on any computer in the apple store.
Good luck installing a PowerPC-only OS X version (i.e., anything prior to 10.4, or any of the pre-x86 versions of 10.4) on any computer you can buy now from Apple (none of which have PowerPC processors). Even older x86 versions might not have support for all the hardware available on newer machines.
umm, citation? I have never heard this before. I'm pretty sure you could install any osx variant on any computer in the apple store.
Same incorrect claim, same response.
I've been one of the persons myself who switched to Macs in 2005 and I've just started considering coming back to Linux about ten days ago. I've been heavy into selecting a distribution that I like, and trying out all the current desktops and wms to see what I would choose. I've also started looking at laptops that might be good for linux usage. System76 comes to mind, and even though a MacBook is in a whole different league in terms of design and build quality I think that the prospect of buying a 'designed for linux' laptop is quite appealing to me. The switch will happen this year for me, and my reasons are largely because development of OS X has started to clearly take a back seat on Apples To-Do list. I've been a hardcore user, always on the latest betas, throughout my entire time using OS X, because I like to be cutting edge even if that means sacrificing some 'just works'. However the last releases have slowed down teremndously. OS X is no longer the pool of innovation and quality that it once was. My computer rush sluggish as hell. Chrome is by far the slowest on this platform and it basically feels by now as if my MacBook Air is taxed to 95 by even just looking at it these days. This is not because it is such a terrible old machine, but because OS X has become such a slow slug compared to earlier versions like Tiger. I don't really mind that they are iOSifying Mac OS a bit, I actually liked the things like the new full screen mode. The iOS-home-screen-like Launchpad is of course utter rubbish, but also doesn't get in my way. It is however a good example of how bad ideas are making it into a final product these days at Apple while that wasn't the case years ago. Launchpad is aimed at a beginner user but beginners don't find it particularily clear or simple to use. 'Why do I have a lot of icons down there on my dock and then even more of those behind this button???' It's usability is lacking. The gesture for bringing it up is highly annoying and doesn't work most of the times. In short: It's confusing for a beginner, and it's annoying for a enthusiast. So who exactly does this feature target? My RAM usage?
The gp claimed that apple actively prevents installing older os's. I asked for citation on this. You say that you can't install a ppc OS on new computers with x86. I don't know if it's true or not, but it sounds reasonable. However, there's a huge gulf between technical barriers between chip architectures and *actively* preventing old OS installs. I ask again, citation?
I've been using Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows simultaneously for a very long time and here's my take on what I've learned about each:
The vast majority of the OS bellyaching going on here is, at it's core, a bunch of FUD. Just lean how to use your damn software. Seriously, shut up and Google it. All of these OSes come with a plethora of great tools built-in if you'd just learn how to use them properly. Even then, it's still highly subjective.
Personally, I'm on the Mac OS X side of the house and you'd have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. That's not to say that I couldn't do the same work on a Linux box or even a Windows machine. I can. I have. But I'll never go back unless Apple does something stupid. I've found that I can have more out of my Mac OS X system with less effort most of the time than with the others that I've tried.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2186
No need. I run Ubuntu on several machines. Generally, Ubuntu only requires reboots when an OS should require reboots: after kernel and firmware upgrades. I think after upgrades to the core C library, reboots are recommended but not required. Packages requiring unnecessary reboots are considered broken.
On Windows, on the other hand, many installs and upgrades that shouldn't require a reboot do so anyway. I don't know whether it's laziness or some limitation of Windows, but it clearly is much worse than Ubuntu and it's clearly broken.
I never upgraded the powerbook as the next versions of the OS felt like being a regression.
I kept it only because some software is not available on linux. But wine may be a way out of that.
Currently another laptop made it's appearance. That one has windows and linux. But I only use linux and never had the need to boot into windows.
The smartphone I bought was not iOS but android.
So yes, the Apple adventure was nice but I did not get hooked.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
...before it is too late. I don't pretty much care about the scrollwheel going this way or that way. My main concern is the organization of more and more of my stuff into proprietary databases... (Whats' wrong with files, man?) Right now, I am pulling my approx. 15000 RAWs out of iPhoto. Next task will be my approx. 8000 Mails trapped inside Mail.app. And then iTunes... I hate to do this but I have the suspicion that the longer I am waiting the harder it will get.
BTW: Does anyone here know a good Linux alternative to Aperture / Lightroom?
A copy stays in memory until the last process that uses it, exits
Translation :- You continue to be exposed to security vulnerabilities despite a patch already installed.
Windows decided to do the sane thing and prevent users from getting exploited. Linux will catch up some time.
You can't even do simple shit like backup 'programs and settings' when migrating on Linux computers. The entire fucking software repository is under control of distribution and still you cant. No.. you have to keep downloading hundreds of megabytes every single time some stupid OSS dev adds some shit in the repo. But surely.. you can pause and resume updates later right? No? hahahaha...dont worry Linux will catch up in some time.
Whats awesome is crappy plugins like "fastest mirror" uses mirror choice based on stupid criteria like ping or geo ip, rather than ACTUAL SPEED. I guess somebody should teach linux developers about ISP peering and the fact that having a server close to you doesnt mean anything. Valve has already figured it out for steam updates... also Microsoft... Oh well..
Linux only works in places where its locked down and completely out of users hands. e.g. servers,phones and embedded devices.
Here here!
Also my biggest gripe with Windows 7.
It upsets me when you realise that something you 'own' is actually 'owned' by some corporation.
Back in 2009, Ubuntu was a breath of fresh air, and made me realise it doesn't have to be like that.
D
I'd agree that it is not yet a walled garden, but it is obviously incipient and moving in that direction. The default settings to require software be signed/approved by Apple should be quite a hint that they want to move in that direction for Mac OS X.
You've badly misunderstood what went on there.
When Apple originally announced plans to require sandboxing of all MAS submissions, many small Mac app developers were concerned. Yes, some of that was paranoia about Apple locking out everything distributed outside the MAS, and putting straitjackets on stuff inside the MAS. However, the saner ones, especially the ones with contacts inside Apple who knew the sky wasn't actually going to fall, were worried about something entirely different: user confidence.
Even if Apple never requires distribution through the MAS, merely having a MAS will train users to trust it over other distribution channels. There will be less malware in it, it has the Official Stamp of Apple Approval, etc. Many independents rightly feared this would hurt non-MAS software distribution, even without Apple cutting same off, particularly for the smallest (and least well known) names. While those indies had no intrinsic objection to selling through the MAS (it's a great option for any program which fits it), they also knew Apple's sandboxing requirements would force many of their apps out of the MAS, or to lose features to stay in.
Apple's default Gatekeeper config is quite similar to a public proposal made by one of the more prominent indie developers who voiced these concerns. They actually do not require apps to have been signed or approved by Apple. Instead, they merely require apps to have been signed by their own creator, using a signing key acquired by joining Apple's Mac developer program ($99 fee). Once you register and get your signing key, you can sign whatever you like, distribute however you want, and at no point are you required to submit anything for review.
Gatekeeper's defaults amount to requiring that apps cryptographically prove they're from a known source. That makes it harder for malware authors to make Trojans claiming to be a popular app, or to modify a popular app with malware and redistribute. Also, if Apple discovers that a signing key is being used to sign malware, they can revoke it, limiting the damage. This is intended to give users much of the confidence associated with the MAS without actually requiring the app to be submitted to Apple, reviewed by Apple, or distributed through the MAS.
TLDR: Gatekeeper is actually Apple being willing to take input from concerned 3rd party devs who want to make sure non-MAS distribution remains viable, not Apple slowly boiling the frog.
Translation :- You continue to be exposed to security vulnerabilities despite a patch already installed.
The alternative is to lose user's data currently held by the running processes.
Windows decided to do the sane thing and prevent users from getting exploited. Linux will catch up some time.
Servers are restarted automatically by package managers, and web/mail clients have restart notification procedure as a part of the update. Your arrogance on the part of your overlords is misplaced.
You can't even do simple shit like backup 'programs and settings' when migrating on Linux computers.
What the Hell are you talking about? User's home directory contains all his settings.
The entire fucking software repository is under control of distribution and still you cant. No.. you have to keep downloading hundreds of megabytes every single time some stupid OSS dev adds some shit in the repo. But surely.. you can pause and resume updates later right? No? hahahaha...dont worry Linux will catch up in some time.
You have no idea what are you talking about. Distribution updates are indexes, lists of packages. User can choose what to upgrade (UI usually insists on at least all security updates, but it's up to the user to reject or postpone the update), however indexes are always updated, so package manager always knows how dependencies graph looks like.
But surely.. you can pause and resume updates later right? No? hahahaha...dont worry Linux will catch up in some time.
Package downloads can be interrupted and restarted, this is what /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/ is for.
Whats awesome is crappy plugins like "fastest mirror" uses mirror choice based on stupid criteria like ping or geo ip, rather than ACTUAL SPEED.
That's because measuring speed precisely enough to choose among hundreds of universities and ISPs would create more traffic than actual update, you dumbass.
Valve has already figured it out for steam updates... also Microsoft... Oh well..
Except both Microsoft and Valve have nearly glacial download speeds no matter where you are. With their resources they could've paid Akamai to handle that.
Linux only works in places where its locked down and completely out of users hands. e.g. servers,phones and embedded devices.
Do your managers give you those idiotic statements to paste into your postings, or does your software automatically add them?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The alternative is to lose user's data currently held by the running processes.
If only someone thought about that. *cough* SIGTERM *cough*. Current update design is plain broken. You're too stupid to understand that because youre a fanboy.
What the Hell are you talking about? User's home directory contains all his settings.
False. I use applications daily that store their config state under /opt and /etc. And there is *no way* in linux to track that dependency. So much for having a unified package management system. What a stupid design.
You have no idea what are you talking about. Distribution updates are indexes, lists of packages. User can choose what to upgrade (UI usually insists on at least all security updates, but it's up to the user to reject or postpone the update), however indexes are always updated, so package manager always knows how dependencies graph looks like.
You think only libs are dependencies? What about after installation. The package metadata should also contain list of locations of all config files created outside of home directory. Also apart from settings, there is a dependency on data. Package metadata should have included in design.. option for application to specify its default data store directory. What is the point of having unified system if you cant migrate from one pc to another without any problems. Apple has already done this on iOS.. I can install previous app on any iOS device and I get my documents + settings automatically restored from previous state. But thats just the sane way of thinking.....
Package downloads can be interrupted and restarted, this is what /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/ is for.
You're talking about downloads... pause/resume on downloads is something that a highschool student can implement. And indeed some of them have implemented such horrible download managers which are fucked up and dont work on many linux dvd ISOs because file is greater than 4GB and they use 32bit int for file size... I'm talking about the entire update transaction. As it is currently implemented transactional model for all package managers in all distributions is broken and fragile (aka shit). I have to "clean" the state when I lose power in the middle of update. Power is not guarenteed to be continuous in my country. And BTW.. this is not hard problem. every single database in the world has already figured it out for past 20 years.
That's because measuring speed precisely enough to choose among hundreds of universities and ISPs would create more traffic than actual update, you dumbass.
You don't have to start from hundreds of mirror list... and if you cant think of better solution than current one.. *YOU* are the dumbass.
Except both Microsoft and Valve have nearly glacial download speeds no matter where you are. With their resources they could've paid Akamai to handle that.
Its oppisite for me. windows and steam updates close to 5-6mbps on my 8mbps line and linux barely crosses 2mbps. And that is the best server... the worst will be 500kbps. But thats ok.. I am not paying bandwidth bills... so cant complain much. Its just the "fastestmirror" is a joke for let-me-find-slowest-server-LOL-LOL.
Do your managers give you those idiotic statements to paste into your postings, or does your software automatically add them?
Do you get upset when truth is stated or are you always such an asshole? The only parts of linux that are solid are those that are under active development by _paid_ developers at commercial companies. currently this happens to be servers/phone/device domain. If you don't see this obvious truth.. then you are a fool.
If only someone thought about that. *cough* SIGTERM *cough*. Current update design is plain broken. You're too stupid to understand that because youre a fanboy.
You don't even know, what currently implemented update design IS. Web browsers ask the user to restart. Text editors do not. One can be pretty sure, a text editor already editing a document won't get any less secure from continuing running, no matter what security bugs its libraries contain, if it was exploited it's too late, and editing another text file will start a new copy of the editor with the updated library. Only if the user will somehow decide to keep opening documents in the old copy, he will be exposed to any threats, but that would be a monumentally stupid behavior after seeing a list of updates.
You think only libs are dependencies? What about after installation. The package metadata should also contain list of locations of all config files created outside of home directory.
They are a part of either the package itself, or referred from it as configuration files, they are not dependencies. Dependencies are other packages -- libraries, servers, utilities -- that are necessary for a given package to work.
Also apart from settings, there is a dependency on data. Package metadata should have included in design..
It already is.
option for application to specify its default data store directory.
Non-user-specific data is always in the same directory. If the admin does not like it, he can make a symlink, mount point, or maintain it by himself. Package manager will still do the right thing -- it will move or update the data if any conversion is required between versions, but it will not destroy data without asking, or touch custom configuration that the admin maintains by himself. User-specific data is handled by the user in his home directory. Package manager does not touch it, however applications are free to provide their own configuration and update mechanisms whenever (almost never) it may be necessary.
What is the point of having unified system if you cant migrate from one pc to another without any problems.
You don't migrate. You move your hard drive, or copy it -- then new computer *IS* your old computer, just with all hardware replaced. I am currently sitting in front of the Linux box that is essentially the same configuration I have first installed in 1994, except over the years it had at least four complete updates of hardware, at one point the base system was switched from Slackware to Gentoo, and then Gentoo switched from 32-bit to 64-bit with the same set of packages. Home directory stayed the same, and set of packages varied more through the life of hardware or distribution than across the transition. And that's Slackware and Gentoo, distributions not known for easy transitions or maintenance. Debian or Ubuntu wouldn reduce any of such moves to running a simple script.
You're talking about downloads... pause/resume on downloads is something that a highschool student can implement.
Actually he can not because he does not know yet how to verify the integrity of the result.
And indeed some of them have implemented such horrible download managers which are fucked up and dont work on many linux dvd ISOs because file is greater than 4GB and they use 32bit int for file size...
What download managers? What DVDs? The only two programs used for downloading updates are wget and curl, and protocol implementations in package managers. They always work.
I'm talking about the entire update transaction.
DVD images are never downloaded as a part of update.
As it is currently implemented transactional model for all package managers in all distributions is broken and fragile (aka shit). I have to "clean" the state when I lo
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Use of any and all of the iOSified features on OSX is 100% optional. If that is the reason you are switching, you have not really thought this through. What in OSX has changed that you don't like?
GateKeeper? Turn it off
Launchpad? Don't use it.
App Store? Don't use it.
Notification Center? Really if you don't like this you should stop using computers.
Mission Control? Don't use it if you don't want to, but really the problem does appear to be you.
iCloud? Just don't use it.
If there is a flow like you describe, it is a very small number of people. Very few people use Linux on the desktop to begin with. They saw a little spike during the netbook fad, but it is all gone now.
Your faith in repository integrity is touching.
You don't even know, what currently implemented update design IS
Funny thing to say since I am using Linux since March 1996.
Web browsers ask the user to restart. Text editors do not. One can be pretty sure, a text editor already editing a document won't get any less secure from continuing running, no matter what security bugs its libraries contain, if it was exploited it's too late, and editing another text file will start a new copy of the editor with the updated library.
So the USER IS FORCED TO HAVE KNOWLEDGE of the fact that a running application with old .so's is unsecure? How fucking stupid is that? Why would any user even think that hitting update means "maybe" you're safe? Stop defending shitty design.
Only if the user will somehow decide to keep opening documents in the old copy, he will be exposed to any threats, but that would be a monumentally stupid behavior after seeing a list of updates.
Seriously how hard is it to add a UI checkbox like Windows has for allowing only critical updates to get installed... but no.. Linux has to do everything in its own fucked up way of spamming the user with dozens of updates for all kinds of minor packages.
What download managers? What DVDs? The only two programs used for downloading updates are wget and curl, and protocol implementations in package managers. They always work.
I download ISO dvd images to install from because I can never get a full net install to work. And I need to use download managers to resume the ISO downloads when my net goes out.
So did you lose power in the middle of downloading a DVD image or system update?
Actually I got disconnected a few times when installing shit with yum.. and the state got corrupted.
No desktop OS can survive a power failure in the middle of system installation or OS core (kernel, startup utilities, libraries) update.
Um.. nope windows server 2008 has (proper ACID) atomic file transactions that do exactly that for years (this is not file system block level journaling) . .. continue digging your own hole..
"Your country" has 8Mbps Internet connections but no reliable electric power grid?
Yeah.. I am a Freelance embedded C++ software developer living in India. Anything else you want to add fake quotes around?
Linux distributiond have to be doing something right if the worst their enemies can find, is that giant (by Linux standards) 10M system update takes 3 minutes on the "worst" mirror they could find.
Actually.. I was downloading the debuginfo packages. Most of them are hosted on some shitty low bandwidth server rather than faster mirror that I usually use for regular updates.... one for gcc was 100mb I think and took many hours to download.
That's almost all parts of Linux at this point, however your statement is still false.
Actually .. no. apart from the OS UI... most linux software UI sucks ass.. and tries to usually copy (badly) some windows 95 era product which no longer exists.
The only "truth" that can be derived from your postings is that you have no idea how Linux looks like, and all your "arguments" are results of poorly stitched together Google searches.
In which drug-induced-hallucinogen-sprinkled world do you live in that anyone would care to do a google search about linux problems to post a several levels deep comment on a website that nobody is going to read? You linux fanboys are really crazy... .paranoia can do real damage.. (or already has.. in your case)
Yes, I always hated Microsoft astroturfers, and will continue doing so as long as they exist.
Can I suggest new color for the tin-foil hat? lol...
Funny thing to say since I am using Linux since March 1996.
No, you don't. Watching slideshows for astroturfers is not "using".
So the USER IS FORCED TO HAVE KNOWLEDGE of the fact that a running application with old .so's is unsecure? How fucking stupid is that? Why would any user even think that hitting update means "maybe" you're safe? Stop defending shitty design.
The only thing "more secure" is to immediately kill all processes, what would be worse, and won't really improve anything. Whenever restarting is possible (daemons/servers) it's already done automatically.
Seriously how hard is it to add a UI checkbox like Windows has for allowing only critical updates to get installed... but no.. Linux has to do everything in its own fucked up way of spamming the user with dozens of updates for all kinds of minor packages.
GUI frontends to package managers have an option to select only security updates, however this is not recommended because updates are already very small.
I download ISO dvd images to install from
If you actually used Linux, you would not have to install it more than once on any computer in the first place. The only people who install Linux often enough to remember it, are people who don't use what they install.
because I can never get a full net install to work.
That's bullshit because network installation always works. Unless, of course, you use some special distribution that Microsoft maintains for its astroturfers.
Actually I got disconnected a few times when installing shit with yum.. and the state got corrupted.
yum does not work that way.
Um.. nope windows server 2008 has (proper ACID) atomic file transactions that do exactly that for years (this is not file system block level journaling) . .. continue digging your own hole..
Filesystem journaling does not work across multiple file updates performed by installer, and unrelated to that, Windows, just like Linux, has only metadata journaling enabled by default on desktops. Either way, there is nothing that can be done if filesystem support or system startup or corrupt when the system is booting. Everything else results in a bootable system, however if something is incomplete, it's incomplete. Installer's operation is not a filesystem-level transaction on any OS. Anyone who needs installer that can survive power being turned off while it is running, can use two-partitions method that I have described. It will even work for Windows, but it's a greater pain in the neck to maintain there, thank to stupidity of Windows bootloader.
Yeah.. I am a Freelance embedded C++ software developer living in India. Anything else you want to add fake quotes around?
Pretty much every word except "I am", and maybe "in India". There are no "embedded C++ software developers" in the first place, embedded development is never done entirely in C++, and no embedded systems developer would ever call himself "C++" programmer without adding C or omitting particular languages. Except, of course, idiots and charlatans.
Anyway, I have absolutely no idea how well Linux distributions update servers are accessible in India, however I am sure, you can choose any mirror server in India, China or other nearby countries with approximately equal results.
Actually .. no. apart from the OS UI... most linux software UI sucks ass.. and tries to usually copy (badly) some windows 95 era product which no longer exists.
Thank you for your opinion. Too bad, you are too stupid to have an opinion.
In which drug-induced-hallucinogen-sprinkled world do you live in that anyone would care to do a google search about linux problems to post a several levels deep comment o
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
If this iOS-ification of OS X continues, i will swich to linux too. Windows is big no-no, simply this is not even close to my ideal desktop OS. But it's not yet time to switch to Linux, we can survive with Snow Leopard or Montain Lion a few more years with no problem I think.
or system startup or corrupt
Should be:
or system startup is missing or corrupt.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Use what feels right, there is too much noise about the various options.
If you can do the (short) learning curve Ubuntu (yes with Unity) can do pretty much any day to day task, productivity or otherwise.
I am not a Linux guru but just a small business admin so have to use all the OS's on a daily basis. I find Ubuntu the most natural desktop for ME others will disagree but I have been on Ubuntu for all my business functions for 8 months and have never failed to get the job done, office admin, accounts, graphics, CRM, you name it I do it all on my laptop.
I do boot back into win8 occasionally for a laugh but it really is so slow and painful to be productive I simply cannot use it.
OSX is a paragon of useability for non IT people but as has alredy been stated its not really geared to be "managed" in the traditional sense, that lovely veneer of ease of use becomes a ball and chain in a managed business environment.
So If you have got this far, take a punt on Ubuntu but really commit dont give up after a few days as its unfamiliar once you settle in you will wonder how you did without it, I do.....and yes I am still an MCP/MCSE.......
Being Mutual - Working together for a better society
I HATE what Apple is doing to the Mac OS. I run Snow Leopard and only use Mountain Lion in VMWare emulation for Xcode.
Apple is the only company that's going to kill the Mac and they're doing a hell of a good job with that, trying to push iOS onto the desktop.
Mountain Lion: more animated crap that I can't turn off and a dumbed down user interface that I simply don't want to use.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
FUD
If you actually used Linux, you would not have to install it more than once on any computer in the first place. The only people who install Linux often enough to remember it, are people who don't use what they install.
Or people who work with Linux for a living, you fucking condescending dipshit. If you install Linux only once per computer you're probably a fucking idiot who never actually learns anything about his OS.