All that is needed is to install a compatibility library.
I agree with most of the responses here that the linked article is weak, and I have no problem with the plethora of distros.
However, since you specifically mention binary compatibility, I'd like to share my perspective testing a proprietary DBMS.
We support Windows, VMS, and 31 flavors of Unix, so adding Linux (IA32 at first) was relatively easy.
We tested Red Hat, SuSE (as it was spelled at the time), and Turbo, but I figured it would basically work anywhere.
As the product grew and the Linux port matured, we had to deal with high-level libraries (C++, ODBC, LDAP, Kerberos, et al.) and low-level interfaces (asynchronous I/O, threading).
As we kept finding version-specific bugs (e.g., works on Red Hat 9, but not SuSE 8), we came to standardize on RHEL and SLES, eventually building them separately.
Meanwhile, we ported to AMD64 and IA64, so we were building six different Linux kits.
There may have been a way to avoid building separate kits for Red Hat and SUSE, and it may be possible to get the kits to run on something other than the build platform.
However, when it comes to deployment, customers do not appreciate that kind of wrangling.
Pretending that Linux distributions are equivalent is what Joel Spolsky would call a leaky abstraction.
The main thing that turns me off about Ubuntu is that, like Debian, the AMD64 version does not properly handle IA32 binaries. Unlike Red Hat, SUSE, and other FHS-compliant distributions, Ubuntu is "pure AMD64." I might remove that objection if it becomes easier to set up the necessary chroot environment.
The problem is that Apple is very selective about what market segments that they appeal to.
This is the point that so many people ignore, especially for desktops.
The Mac mini and the iMac distinguish themselves by their form factor--laptops in an unconventional desktop package.
The Mac Pro distinguishes itself as a consumer-friendly workstation, more or less comparable to a Dell Precision.
That said, it's important to remember that Apple does compete with Dell et al., even if it seems that they consciously choose not to.
To someone who would otherwise be satisfied with a $500 Dell Dimension, a Mac mini is wimpy and an iMac is expensive, to say nothing of the Mac Pro.
Apple would get a lot of new customers by adding a headless model in between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro.
We can only speculate as to why they haven't.
Economies of scale are only part of the answer, as this hypothetical model would likely outsell the other three desktop models combined, while still retaining a decent profit margin.
Maybe they're not ready for that volume, or maybe that market is more volatile.
Maybe it's simply a branding thing, part of "thinking different."
Pamela Jones has an interesting take on this story: now that Dell has bought some of the SLES coupons that Microsoft bought from Novell, Microsoft has effectively distributed a GPLed Linux distribution, thereby granting an implied license to any patents it may infringe.
the #1 thing I heard from tech people for why they stayed on Windows - or at least kept a dual booting system - was for the games
Games kept me using Windows longer than I otherwise would have.
I dabbled with Linux, trying out WineX (now Cedega), and buying Loki games at clearance sales.
Still, I couldn't resist the occasional Windows game, like Grand Theft Auto or Morrowind.
In the meantime, I got my wife an iPod.
I don't consider myself a true "halo-effect" switcher, but the iPod got me looking more closely at Macs, and OS X was looking pretty good by 10.3, so I eventually got an iBook.
When I was regularly using an under-powered laptop with a 12" screen in preference to a fast Windows desktop with a 24" screen, I knew I was hooked.
I'm now a full-time Mac user, both at home and at work.
Despite having an Intel-based Mac (24" iMac), I do not dual boot with Boot Camp, and I only use VMware (beta) for one work-related application.
I'm probably missing out on some cool Windows games, but I don't pay that much attention anymore.
I've still got more games on my shelf than I have time to play.
I'm a small part of the multi-billion dollar market, but I think I am (or was) pretty representative of the not quite hard-core part of the market that Microsoft is targeting with its Games for Windows campaign.
If I still cared about Windows, I would be annoyed about DirectX 10 being exclusive to Vista, and I would resent console-style branding (i.e., homogenization) in the form of Windows Live.
Besides Windows, there has always been the temptation of the console.
Two of my one-time PC gamer friends have mostly converted to consoles, citing the "couch factor."
I like a good console-style game like GTA or Lego Star Wars as much as the next guy, but I've been playing games on my computer since the TRS-80, and I don't plan to stop anytime soon.
In this context, data integrity refers to mechanisms that prevent you from doing something bad.
If you never do anything bad, these mechanisms aren't strictly necessary.
It's analogous to the difference between dynamically and statically typed program languages.
What do I mean by "something bad"?
Without referential integrity, you could have the database equivalent of dangling pointers.
Without concurrency controls (either through locking or the previously mentioned MVCC), one user could accidentally blow away another's changes.
(Look up isolation levels for some specific examples.)
Without transactions, a failed update could leave the database in an inconsistent state (e.g., the money left your savings account, but never made it to your checking account).
You tout the advantages of a point-and-shoot camera, while somehow spinning the high-end capabilities of SLR (and now medium format) as a disadvantage. Using available light with a 35/2 or 50/1.4 seems much less apt to make one look like a "freaking dork" than the flash of a "hold still and say cheese" compact camera. If you're more likely to carry (or less self conscious about using) a compact camera, great, but I don't see what your studio full of strobes has to do with anything.
Eben Moglen has been the highlight of the FSF member meetings.
As much I respect Richard Stallman's accomplishments, he's just not that much fun to listen to, especially in discussion.
For example, Lawrence Lessig gave a great presentation on the Creative Commons his first year on the board.
(He gave one striking example of a home movie that someone made over the course of several years for the cost of a camera and a bunch of tapes;
when it got picked up by a studio at a film festival, it cost $400,000 dollars to license the music and TV shows that happened to be playing in the background.)
All Richard wanted to talk about was how evil Flash is.
Eben tells you about some dire threat (usually from Microsoft), and how he and the little old FSF have a plan for it.
I passed on the meeting this year, because I'm not that interested in GPL v3.
I do hope Eben will continue to attend.
Thanks for pointing out the problems with WinZip. I no longer use it, but it's good to know that there may be non-standard ZIP archives out there.
Looking at the MaximumCompression results, 7-Zip takes more than twice as long as gzip to compress and decompress in each of the three tested modes, so I would generally not bother.
However, the compression is significantly better, so I would consider it if space was really at a premium.
After scanning MaximumCompression's results (sorted by compression time) the last time one of these data compression articles hit Slashdot, I gained a newfound appreciation for ZIP and gzip:
they compress significantly better than any of the faster (and relatively obscure) programs
the programs that compress significantly better take more than twice as long
they're at the front of the pack for decompression time
If you have a hard limit, like a single CD or DVD, then the extra time is worth it.
Otherwise, look no further than the ubiquitous ZIP.
It is some fancy RAM, as a matter of fact.
The Mac Pro uses fully buffered DIMMs.
Crucial, which usually has decent prices, charges $294 for two 1 GB DIMMs, and $766 for two 2 GB DIMMs.
I should like to point out that emacs has the most unconfigurable and absolutely silly indenting method of any editor. It's actually impossible to get emacs to tab like a normal editor (where the tab key inserts tab characters only) AND still retain syntax aware indenting.
I generally avoid tabs altogether by setting indent-tabs-mode to nil.
To use tabs (and only tabs), make sure that indents occur at multiples of tab-width.
For C, for example, I might use the following settings:
indent-tabs-mode: t
c-style: k&r
c-basic-offset: 4
tab-width: 4
There's no... built in debugging facility
When I'm working on a C program, I can start up gdb with M-x gdb or Tools > Debugger (GDB)...
Like just about everything in Emacs, this is configurable to a fault.
If you enable Display Other Windows and Look For Source Frame in Gud > GDB-UI, you'll get a tiled layout that you may find comfortable.
Assuming your program has debugging symbols, you can see the current line, set break points by clicking in the margin, and fancy stuff like that.
for things like text editors... I can defer looking at the product
Even though I have a TextMate license (from MacHeist), it has not wooed me away from Emacs (I currently use Carbon Emacs).
However, I do look at other editors from time to time to get ideas.
For example, just seeing "open, edit, and save files on remote servers" in the BBEdit feature list inspired me to figure out Tramp.
Code folding in Komodo and another proprietary IDE got me started with outline-minor-mode (which I actually prefer).
All that said, TextMate's rapid success is evidence of pent-up demand that Emacs, vi, BBEdit, et al. were not satisfying.
Some of it may be hype and/or fad, but it looks like TextMate is here to stay.
The reason Borders partnered with Amazon in the first place was because they couldn't come up with a good enough web site on their own.
What has changed since that time?
I don't know about the business side of it, but as a customer I rather liked borders.com, and I deleted it from my bookmarks when it merged with Amazon.
In fact, it was a disincentive to shop at Borders stores.
Buy.com has since taken up some of the slack, although my opinion of them has declined recently.
One thing that has changed is the rewards card program.
I don't know whether Borders had one back then, but they seem to be promoting it pretty aggressively now.
The FAQ list says that rewards can't be earned or redeemed at borders.com at this time.
I would expect that to change once they ditch Amazon.
Dumps Windows because the new Macs can all run Windows?
As numerous other posts point out, the headline is a little off.
If you get past that, this story shows exactly why Apple moved to Intel.
Macs now compete in the broader PC market, with OS X as an exclusive value add.
I switched from Windows to Mac before the Intel transition, motivated in part by the Windows XP activation scheme.
With Parallels or VMware, people much less geeky than I can afford to make the switch.
With Boot Camp, they don't even have to switch.
I miss the tabbed terminal in GNOME, but I wasn't impressed by iTerm the last time I looked at it (0.9.0, maybe?).
It was slow, and the font rendering seemed a little off.
That Cmd-Enter trick sounds cool, though, so I'll give it another try.
Googling quick-silver screen-cast should turn up some video tutorials.
I'm not familiar with Deskbar, but from your description it sounds similar to Quicksilver, which also makes extensive use of plug-ins.
If you want to control everything with an app. like this (a sort of Emacs for your O/S, so to speak), I think OS X has a bit of an advantage.
Automation is possible on Linux and Windows, but AppleScript on the Mac is more established and pervasive.
Launcher apps. like Quicksilver and Launch Bar aare very customizable, and I'm sure I could get used to any of them.
The one I've gotten comfortable with is Butler.
On Windows, I launched programs by navigating the Start menu with sequences of keystrokes that were ingrained in my fingers.
Navigating the Dock or the Applications folder felt glacial by comparison.
Butler's abbreviations are better than either approach.
It's kind of like the WIndows Vista Start menu, except that it recognizes initials; for example, if I type "qp," one of the matches will be "QuickTime Player."
Another nice feature of Butler is the macro facility.
I TELNET or SSH to dozens of Unix systems using a variety of accounts, so the terminal isn't always configured the way I expect.
I have a "bash" macro that execs bash and sets TERM, and a "ksh" for machines without bash that execs ksh, enables emacs mode, sets TERM, and sttys the delete key.
If you're remotely a power user, I definitely recommend spending an hour or two with one of these launcher apps.
On the flip side, if you want a launcher even simpler than the Dock, consider Docktop.
If you've seen the desktop icons on the demo systems at an Apple store, Docktop is kind of like that.
It puts big, single-clickable icons on the center of your desktop that even your Windows-using house sitter can understand.
Mail has been running for a month without being restarted on my machine
I guess you're luckier than me.
I have an iMac G5 at work with 1 GB.
Over time, the new message count takes longer to recalculate.
Eventually, Mail won't display the contents of a mailbox in a finite amount time (where finite is defined as less time than it takes to get frustrated and restart Mail).
Yes, I have a lot of email, but this happens even with small mailboxes.
Memory is a real problem on OS X, especially with Apple programs. After Safari and Mail have been open for a while (say, a day or two), they get sluggish. Measuring memory is tricky, but Safari is almost always one of the first two or three processes in top sorted by rsize or vsize. (Is it bad if vsize for a single application exceeds the total RAM?)
I suspect that some programs have been conservative in their use of autorelease pools, causing garbage to lie around longer than necessary. I ran across this article the other day, which argues that you shouldn't be shy about creating pools. I'm hoping that garbage collection will help, but it may be a while before the majority of apps. are compiled for 10.5+.
Would an experience scripter suggest that I switch to perl... or spend more time with sed/awk?
There are two good reasons to learn sed and/or awk: portability and history. Although Perl may seem ubiquitous, you wouldn't use it in a cross-platform (i.e., Solaris, AIX, Tru64, HP-UX, etc.) install script. Since Perl is in some ways inspired by sed and awk, knowing them may help you to appreciate Perl. Otherwise, I wouldn't spend too much time on them.
CoreImage choses the fastest code path it can, so if you're graphics card is going to do something slower than the CPU, it will use the CPU.
I don't think it works exactly like that.
My understanding is that Core Image uses the video card if it supports pixel shaders (i.e., the ARB_fragment_program extension).
For the specific case of the GeForce FX 5200 it defaults to the CPU, but I don't think that it would otherwise detect that using the video card is suboptimal.
I'm not familiar with OneNote, but I've heard it mentioned in discussions of outlining / note-taking / "junk drawer" apps., such as OmniOutliner, DEVONthink, and Yojimbo.
This seems to be a particularly hot genre on the Mac right now.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with most of the responses here that the linked article is weak, and I have no problem with the plethora of distros. However, since you specifically mention binary compatibility, I'd like to share my perspective testing a proprietary DBMS.
We support Windows, VMS, and 31 flavors of Unix, so adding Linux (IA32 at first) was relatively easy. We tested Red Hat, SuSE (as it was spelled at the time), and Turbo, but I figured it would basically work anywhere. As the product grew and the Linux port matured, we had to deal with high-level libraries (C++, ODBC, LDAP, Kerberos, et al.) and low-level interfaces (asynchronous I/O, threading). As we kept finding version-specific bugs (e.g., works on Red Hat 9, but not SuSE 8), we came to standardize on RHEL and SLES, eventually building them separately. Meanwhile, we ported to AMD64 and IA64, so we were building six different Linux kits.
There may have been a way to avoid building separate kits for Red Hat and SUSE, and it may be possible to get the kits to run on something other than the build platform. However, when it comes to deployment, customers do not appreciate that kind of wrangling. Pretending that Linux distributions are equivalent is what Joel Spolsky would call a leaky abstraction.
The main thing that turns me off about Ubuntu is that, like Debian, the AMD64 version does not properly handle IA32 binaries. Unlike Red Hat, SUSE, and other FHS-compliant distributions, Ubuntu is "pure AMD64." I might remove that objection if it becomes easier to set up the necessary chroot environment.
This is the point that so many people ignore, especially for desktops. The Mac mini and the iMac distinguish themselves by their form factor--laptops in an unconventional desktop package. The Mac Pro distinguishes itself as a consumer-friendly workstation, more or less comparable to a Dell Precision.
That said, it's important to remember that Apple does compete with Dell et al., even if it seems that they consciously choose not to. To someone who would otherwise be satisfied with a $500 Dell Dimension, a Mac mini is wimpy and an iMac is expensive, to say nothing of the Mac Pro.
Apple would get a lot of new customers by adding a headless model in between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro. We can only speculate as to why they haven't. Economies of scale are only part of the answer, as this hypothetical model would likely outsell the other three desktop models combined, while still retaining a decent profit margin. Maybe they're not ready for that volume, or maybe that market is more volatile. Maybe it's simply a branding thing, part of "thinking different."
Pamela Jones has an interesting take on this story: now that Dell has bought some of the SLES coupons that Microsoft bought from Novell, Microsoft has effectively distributed a GPLed Linux distribution, thereby granting an implied license to any patents it may infringe.
Games kept me using Windows longer than I otherwise would have. I dabbled with Linux, trying out WineX (now Cedega), and buying Loki games at clearance sales. Still, I couldn't resist the occasional Windows game, like Grand Theft Auto or Morrowind.
In the meantime, I got my wife an iPod. I don't consider myself a true "halo-effect" switcher, but the iPod got me looking more closely at Macs, and OS X was looking pretty good by 10.3, so I eventually got an iBook. When I was regularly using an under-powered laptop with a 12" screen in preference to a fast Windows desktop with a 24" screen, I knew I was hooked.
I'm now a full-time Mac user, both at home and at work. Despite having an Intel-based Mac (24" iMac), I do not dual boot with Boot Camp, and I only use VMware (beta) for one work-related application. I'm probably missing out on some cool Windows games, but I don't pay that much attention anymore. I've still got more games on my shelf than I have time to play.
I'm a small part of the multi-billion dollar market, but I think I am (or was) pretty representative of the not quite hard-core part of the market that Microsoft is targeting with its Games for Windows campaign. If I still cared about Windows, I would be annoyed about DirectX 10 being exclusive to Vista, and I would resent console-style branding (i.e., homogenization) in the form of Windows Live.
Besides Windows, there has always been the temptation of the console. Two of my one-time PC gamer friends have mostly converted to consoles, citing the "couch factor." I like a good console-style game like GTA or Lego Star Wars as much as the next guy, but I've been playing games on my computer since the TRS-80, and I don't plan to stop anytime soon.
In this context, data integrity refers to mechanisms that prevent you from doing something bad. If you never do anything bad, these mechanisms aren't strictly necessary. It's analogous to the difference between dynamically and statically typed program languages.
What do I mean by "something bad"? Without referential integrity, you could have the database equivalent of dangling pointers. Without concurrency controls (either through locking or the previously mentioned MVCC), one user could accidentally blow away another's changes. (Look up isolation levels for some specific examples.) Without transactions, a failed update could leave the database in an inconsistent state (e.g., the money left your savings account, but never made it to your checking account).
You tout the advantages of a point-and-shoot camera, while somehow spinning the high-end capabilities of SLR (and now medium format) as a disadvantage. Using available light with a 35/2 or 50/1.4 seems much less apt to make one look like a "freaking dork" than the flash of a "hold still and say cheese" compact camera. If you're more likely to carry (or less self conscious about using) a compact camera, great, but I don't see what your studio full of strobes has to do with anything.
Eben Moglen has been the highlight of the FSF member meetings. As much I respect Richard Stallman's accomplishments, he's just not that much fun to listen to, especially in discussion. For example, Lawrence Lessig gave a great presentation on the Creative Commons his first year on the board. (He gave one striking example of a home movie that someone made over the course of several years for the cost of a camera and a bunch of tapes; when it got picked up by a studio at a film festival, it cost $400,000 dollars to license the music and TV shows that happened to be playing in the background.) All Richard wanted to talk about was how evil Flash is.
Eben tells you about some dire threat (usually from Microsoft), and how he and the little old FSF have a plan for it. I passed on the meeting this year, because I'm not that interested in GPL v3. I do hope Eben will continue to attend.
One of the advantages of SLR is that you can mount a fast lens and shoot with available light.
Thanks for pointing out the problems with WinZip. I no longer use it, but it's good to know that there may be non-standard ZIP archives out there.
Looking at the MaximumCompression results, 7-Zip takes more than twice as long as gzip to compress and decompress in each of the three tested modes, so I would generally not bother. However, the compression is significantly better, so I would consider it if space was really at a premium.
- they compress significantly better than any of the faster (and relatively obscure) programs
- the programs that compress significantly better take more than twice as long
- they're at the front of the pack for decompression time
If you have a hard limit, like a single CD or DVD, then the extra time is worth it. Otherwise, look no further than the ubiquitous ZIP.That must be some fancy RAM
It is some fancy RAM, as a matter of fact. The Mac Pro uses fully buffered DIMMs. Crucial, which usually has decent prices, charges $294 for two 1 GB DIMMs, and $766 for two 2 GB DIMMs.
I should like to point out that emacs has the most unconfigurable and absolutely silly indenting method of any editor. It's actually impossible to get emacs to tab like a normal editor (where the tab key inserts tab characters only) AND still retain syntax aware indenting.
I generally avoid tabs altogether by setting indent-tabs-mode to nil. To use tabs (and only tabs), make sure that indents occur at multiples of tab-width. For C, for example, I might use the following settings:
There's no ... built in debugging facility
When I'm working on a C program, I can start up gdb with M-x gdb or Tools > Debugger (GDB)... Like just about everything in Emacs, this is configurable to a fault. If you enable Display Other Windows and Look For Source Frame in Gud > GDB-UI, you'll get a tiled layout that you may find comfortable. Assuming your program has debugging symbols, you can see the current line, set break points by clicking in the margin, and fancy stuff like that.
for things like text editors ... I can defer looking at the product
Even though I have a TextMate license (from MacHeist), it has not wooed me away from Emacs (I currently use Carbon Emacs). However, I do look at other editors from time to time to get ideas. For example, just seeing "open, edit, and save files on remote servers" in the BBEdit feature list inspired me to figure out Tramp. Code folding in Komodo and another proprietary IDE got me started with outline-minor-mode (which I actually prefer).
All that said, TextMate's rapid success is evidence of pent-up demand that Emacs, vi, BBEdit, et al. were not satisfying. Some of it may be hype and/or fad, but it looks like TextMate is here to stay.
The reason Borders partnered with Amazon in the first place was because they couldn't come up with a good enough web site on their own. What has changed since that time?
I don't know about the business side of it, but as a customer I rather liked borders.com, and I deleted it from my bookmarks when it merged with Amazon. In fact, it was a disincentive to shop at Borders stores. Buy.com has since taken up some of the slack, although my opinion of them has declined recently.
One thing that has changed is the rewards card program. I don't know whether Borders had one back then, but they seem to be promoting it pretty aggressively now. The FAQ list says that rewards can't be earned or redeemed at borders.com at this time. I would expect that to change once they ditch Amazon.
Dumps Windows because the new Macs can all run Windows?
As numerous other posts point out, the headline is a little off. If you get past that, this story shows exactly why Apple moved to Intel. Macs now compete in the broader PC market, with OS X as an exclusive value add.
I switched from Windows to Mac before the Intel transition, motivated in part by the Windows XP activation scheme. With Parallels or VMware, people much less geeky than I can afford to make the switch. With Boot Camp, they don't even have to switch.
whatever it cost to steal it from me. ... I'm not going to buy it back
Can you elaborate on how libtomcrypt.org was "stolen"?
command+enter gives a full screen of terminal
I miss the tabbed terminal in GNOME, but I wasn't impressed by iTerm the last time I looked at it (0.9.0, maybe?). It was slow, and the font rendering seemed a little off. That Cmd-Enter trick sounds cool, though, so I'll give it another try.
I'm simply curious as to what it actually does
Googling quick-silver screen-cast should turn up some video tutorials. I'm not familiar with Deskbar, but from your description it sounds similar to Quicksilver, which also makes extensive use of plug-ins.
If you want to control everything with an app. like this (a sort of Emacs for your O/S, so to speak), I think OS X has a bit of an advantage. Automation is possible on Linux and Windows, but AppleScript on the Mac is more established and pervasive.
Launcher apps. like Quicksilver and Launch Bar aare very customizable, and I'm sure I could get used to any of them. The one I've gotten comfortable with is Butler. On Windows, I launched programs by navigating the Start menu with sequences of keystrokes that were ingrained in my fingers. Navigating the Dock or the Applications folder felt glacial by comparison. Butler's abbreviations are better than either approach. It's kind of like the WIndows Vista Start menu, except that it recognizes initials; for example, if I type "qp," one of the matches will be "QuickTime Player."
Another nice feature of Butler is the macro facility. I TELNET or SSH to dozens of Unix systems using a variety of accounts, so the terminal isn't always configured the way I expect. I have a "bash" macro that execs bash and sets TERM, and a "ksh" for machines without bash that execs ksh, enables emacs mode, sets TERM, and sttys the delete key.
If you're remotely a power user, I definitely recommend spending an hour or two with one of these launcher apps. On the flip side, if you want a launcher even simpler than the Dock, consider Docktop. If you've seen the desktop icons on the demo systems at an Apple store, Docktop is kind of like that. It puts big, single-clickable icons on the center of your desktop that even your Windows-using house sitter can understand.
Mail has been running for a month without being restarted on my machine
I guess you're luckier than me. I have an iMac G5 at work with 1 GB. Over time, the new message count takes longer to recalculate. Eventually, Mail won't display the contents of a mailbox in a finite amount time (where finite is defined as less time than it takes to get frustrated and restart Mail). Yes, I have a lot of email, but this happens even with small mailboxes.
Memory is a real problem on OS X, especially with Apple programs. After Safari and Mail have been open for a while (say, a day or two), they get sluggish. Measuring memory is tricky, but Safari is almost always one of the first two or three processes in top sorted by rsize or vsize. (Is it bad if vsize for a single application exceeds the total RAM?)
I suspect that some programs have been conservative in their use of autorelease pools, causing garbage to lie around longer than necessary. I ran across this article the other day, which argues that you shouldn't be shy about creating pools. I'm hoping that garbage collection will help, but it may be a while before the majority of apps. are compiled for 10.5+.
There are two good reasons to learn sed and/or awk: portability and history. Although Perl may seem ubiquitous, you wouldn't use it in a cross-platform (i.e., Solaris, AIX, Tru64, HP-UX, etc.) install script. Since Perl is in some ways inspired by sed and awk, knowing them may help you to appreciate Perl. Otherwise, I wouldn't spend too much time on them.
I don't think it works exactly like that. My understanding is that Core Image uses the video card if it supports pixel shaders (i.e., the ARB_fragment_program extension). For the specific case of the GeForce FX 5200 it defaults to the CPU, but I don't think that it would otherwise detect that using the video card is suboptimal.
I'm not familiar with OneNote, but I've heard it mentioned in discussions of outlining / note-taking / "junk drawer" apps., such as OmniOutliner, DEVONthink, and Yojimbo. This seems to be a particularly hot genre on the Mac right now.