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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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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
I also don't see the problem. A few changes to the UI and people scream and shout as if the world ends. Grow up, choose the tool you need and get to work.
-- Cheers!
OSX is a prison that keeps getting smaller. Linux on the desktop is wonderful. Stable and easily configurable .
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.
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)
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? :)
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.
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
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)
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?
sane + gimp
ghostscript + cups
take out memory card from camera and insert into memory card reader like a pro. done
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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;
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.
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)
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.
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.
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?
For Focus follows mouse to be reasonable, they'd have to offer a way to turn off the menu at the top of the screen, and place the menus at the top of the application windows... otherwise, choosing a menu item without maximizing the window could be very difficult.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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
No, you don't understand it.
It sounds to me like he understands it very well.
If you want to do those things, you are an advanced user who can also audit Bare Bones, download a disk image, and perform a traditional app install, and save a serial number, same as for the past 11 years, and similar to the 15 years before that.
Oh good, the user should definitely have to jump through a bunch of hoops before they can do what they want to do, instead of checking a simple box or similar.
The exception is that sandboxed apps cannot access the System files or Unix layer.
So, what you're saying is that no sandboxed app can access the System files or Unix layer. Meaning that, for example, I can't build a sandboxed app which can access one of those things but not the other, which should help an exploit in one from becoming an exploit in the other through my app.
That is a synonym for âoehigher-security edition."
What is this, choose-your-own-euphemism day? It's not your security, it's Apple's security, because it's designed to keep the easily-accessible apps from doing the things the user wants to do.
The thing is, this tracks with what users are doing. I
You lost me at "I".
In all this criticism of iOS, we should also remember that iOS almost never crashes.
Android almost never crashes IME, in a supported configuration anyway. So what? Linux almost never crashes if I stick to official repos, since I built a halfway-decent computer. Do you want to give iOS a medal? Done and done. That doesn't change the nature of the wall around the garden, which is for Apple's benefit first and for the user's benefit only as a means to convincing them to live there.
None of my apps need access to anything they can't get with sandboxing.
And since you don't need it, no one needs it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.