The obvious: money. 500mhz with lots of ram should be enough for web browsing, ssh and X forwarding (which I have working on OSX but guess what--it's slow)--I didn't see the need to spend $800 more on the tiBook. But the point is not whether Apple makes any machines worth having (the TiBook is nice, no doubt about it) but that OSX is such a poor performer when compared to Linux on the same hardware or Linux or Windows on similar quality i386 hardware. How can it be that Apple, with all its resources, is not able to come up with a faster OS than the Linux PPC distros, which have so few people and so little money supporting them? Maybe because, like other proprietary systems, they are much, much more interested in positioning themselves to make money (by forcing hardware upgrades) than in offering something useful. OK, alright, it's capitalism, but in this case any user not willing to fork out for a new G4 based system got screwed....one might think that a useful, quick OS that worked on even older Mac hardware would also make money but that's not the direction they chose. It's telling how they decided not to support older machines and yet within months users (presumably in their spare time) had come out with software that enabled OSX on those same unsupported machines. So it wasn't that hard--but it wasn't in Apple's interest, so they didn't do it. This to me is what the beauty of open source is all about--a focus on the software, not on the business politics.
I agree. Bought a 500mhz iBook2 mostly on the promise of OSX and its BSD base. Even with 320 megs RAM, OSX is basically unusable. Browsing is worthless. Mozilla (I need that tabbed browsing) runs like a dog. Even opening shell windows takes longer than it should. Luckily Yellow Dog Linux has saved the day and shows the promise of the hardware--it's a pleasure to use. KDE looks beautiful on the nice bright screen and everything, even KDE, feels responsive and quick.
I've got a PIII 450 desktop sitting nearby. Several years old, 256 megs ram, ata100 card. It's blazing fast for an old machine like that.
Apple is supposed by some supporters to be a vanguard of new hardware adoption (OK, so they were quick to adopt firewire). Yet the first iBook2 has pc66 memory! And OSX, for all its eye candy, is useless unless you've got a completely new G4. Really, save your money and buy a 386 based system. You'll laugh as the OSX users watch that spinning ball and you blaze around on something as old as a pentium II.
OSX is a cynical exercise by Apple, where they think their users are so stupid that they'll take eye candy over performance and usability (oh wait this is supposed to be usable). Or, maybe it's a ploy to make everyone buy new macs. Whatever they're doing, this reminds me of how I felt about Star Wars Episode I, where Lucas cynically thought he could put any old crap out and his fans would love it. Well, not this one.
Linux actually works pretty well on new world Macs. I use it on an iBook2 500 mhz. Everything works for me (I don't use exotic hardware), and for anything not supported I simply boot up Mac-on-Linux. Want to look at something in Quicktime, for instance? Mac on Linux will do that just fine, with sound and all. I originally bought the iBook to use with OSX but I simply can't use it: it's too slow and I miss Linux apps (which with some work you can get to run on OSX--Fink works nicely, but it doesn't do KDE). Linux is so fast on that iBook--it really shows the promise of the technology. OSX is like computing through molasses--and don't even try to use Classic mode for anything complicated. Yes I can do X forwarding on OSX but it works SO much better under Linux. For browsers Mozilla is nice and Opera actually has a Linux PPC version as well. And btw I use a much customized and updated Yellow Dog 2.0 on this machine and can't complain too much--most everything worked out of the box. YDL does need to do MUCH better testing, but overall it's not a bad distro for the iBook2. And of course there's just the cool factor of the iBook running Linux (I use Liquid KDE, it looks beautiful on the bright monitor), if nothing else...
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The obvious: money. 500mhz with lots of ram should be enough for web browsing, ssh and X forwarding (which I have working on OSX but guess what--it's slow)--I didn't see the need to spend $800 more on the tiBook. But the point is not whether Apple makes any machines worth having (the TiBook is nice, no doubt about it) but that OSX is such a poor performer when compared to Linux on the same hardware or Linux or Windows on similar quality i386 hardware. How can it be that Apple, with all its resources, is not able to come up with a faster OS than the Linux PPC distros, which have so few people and so little money supporting them? Maybe because, like other proprietary systems, they are much, much more interested in positioning themselves to make money (by forcing hardware upgrades) than in offering something useful. OK, alright, it's capitalism, but in this case any user not willing to fork out for a new G4 based system got screwed....one might think that a useful, quick OS that worked on even older Mac hardware would also make money but that's not the direction they chose. It's telling how they decided not to support older machines and yet within months users (presumably in their spare time) had come out with software that enabled OSX on those same unsupported machines. So it wasn't that hard--but it wasn't in Apple's interest, so they didn't do it. This to me is what the beauty of open source is all about--a focus on the software, not on the business politics.
I've got a PIII 450 desktop sitting nearby. Several years old, 256 megs ram, ata100 card. It's blazing fast for an old machine like that.
Apple is supposed by some supporters to be a vanguard of new hardware adoption (OK, so they were quick to adopt firewire). Yet the first iBook2 has pc66 memory! And OSX, for all its eye candy, is useless unless you've got a completely new G4. Really, save your money and buy a 386 based system. You'll laugh as the OSX users watch that spinning ball and you blaze around on something as old as a pentium II.
OSX is a cynical exercise by Apple, where they think their users are so stupid that they'll take eye candy over performance and usability (oh wait this is supposed to be usable). Or, maybe it's a ploy to make everyone buy new macs. Whatever they're doing, this reminds me of how I felt about Star Wars Episode I, where Lucas cynically thought he could put any old crap out and his fans would love it. Well, not this one.
Linux actually works pretty well on new world Macs. I use it on an iBook2 500 mhz. Everything works for me (I don't use exotic hardware), and for anything not supported I simply boot up Mac-on-Linux. Want to look at something in Quicktime, for instance? Mac on Linux will do that just fine, with sound and all. I originally bought the iBook to use with OSX but I simply can't use it: it's too slow and I miss Linux apps (which with some work you can get to run on OSX--Fink works nicely, but it doesn't do KDE). Linux is so fast on that iBook--it really shows the promise of the technology. OSX is like computing through molasses--and don't even try to use Classic mode for anything complicated. Yes I can do X forwarding on OSX but it works SO much better under Linux. For browsers Mozilla is nice and Opera actually has a Linux PPC version as well. And btw I use a much customized and updated Yellow Dog 2.0 on this machine and can't complain too much--most everything worked out of the box. YDL does need to do MUCH better testing, but overall it's not a bad distro for the iBook2. And of course there's just the cool factor of the iBook running Linux (I use Liquid KDE, it looks beautiful on the bright monitor), if nothing else...