Um, I write OSS [which I release as public domain]. So I'm not strictly an outsider.
But when I get comments like "your code has comments in it, god bless you" from random people on a near daily basis... that's saying something.
I mean honestly try and decipher the kernel, or GCC or any other project [firefox?]. You'll see a trillion lines of goobly gook code that lacks organization or proper forethought. Is there good OSS out there? Yes. Is it the rule? No, it's the exception.
OSS is much like drivers on the road, most are shity but they work just enough not to get into crashes. And when the software is stable it's usually still a mess underneath anyways.
I just finished building a Core2 box LAST WEEK. It required me to add new [undoced] USE flags to get Pango/cairo/etc installed correctly [flags I may add that my Opteron box STILL doesn't have].
Clearly the "xft" flag [iirc] should be either documented or defaulted as I didn't see it required elsewhere [and strictly speaking I was emerging Gnome so Gentoo should set the flags required for Gnome regardless].
my "spare boxes" are DIFFERENT PLATFORMS, one is a P4 32-bit, another is a Core2 64-bit and the other is a $7000 Opteron 2-way box.
I'm not buying spare IDENTICAL boxes just because Kernel developers are too immature to address the problem properly. I mean how do you get the right to brag "Oh, I'm a Kernel developer, see my code-fu muscles" when you can't invest the money to actually develop seriously?
You think MSFT has only one type of workstation in their QA labs? Very doubtful. Everyone is so quick to mock MSFT but then when the real punches come out they get all super defensive...
I bought my boxes because I implement crypto software and I take performance studies seriously. I even own various ARM and PPC kits to test on. These things aren't free. They cost money to buy and time to setup and use. But I do it because I take my projects seriously.
I don't have the time to rebuild kernels and reboot all the time. Especially since this is a MULTI-USER box with a file share on it. I need it to be up and working. I really don't see how you can screw up a working USB driver. I mean EHCI still works but UHCI just gives "bad address" errors when probing the USB device [it detects that I plugged it in, just can't get past the probe stage].
You know, real companies who make proprietary software have boxes for testing. This is what Linux will need if they want to grow beyond a neato hobby. I mean hell, if I can buy spare boxes for processor testing surely there has to be enough people in the Linux project to buy boxes just to test the mobo/hardware.
fuck you, ebuilds/package/ports it's all the same idea. The *BSDs invented [modern] ports anyways. So don't think Gentoo was the first with scriptable installs.
That said, I question how much testing goes on, specially on the core platforms [e.g. x86 and x86_64]. Often I find packages will install and run fine first try on the x86 but take a -r1 or -r2 before it works on x86_64.
I use Gentoo because I like the idea of Linux and I like USE flags. Generally though my attachment isn't that deep. If Gentoo died tomorrow I'd just go to FreeBSD.
That way when Gentoo decides to do something like "lets move to glibc 2.4 and break all your coreutils, nobody needs ls anyways!" you can just untar and wait.
I feel pity for people like you. Who can't simply co-exist with others because you feel you have to mock and insult others.
Friends buy you pints at the pubs.
Foes just ignore you.
Keep that in mind.
Oh, and Gentoo has USE flags which NO OTHER LINUX DISTRO HAS [or to the same degree] which is why I use it. It isn't because I'm fan. Yeah, building 900 packages, that's fun! really!
Um, that's such a inappropriately ignorant comment it's hard to really put this into context.
Let me see I can take a stab at it anyways...
My workstation is the product of about 800 Gentoo ports being installed. Roughly speaking probably around 200M lines of C, C++, Python and Perl source code. I don't have the time, nor the energy to go through all of them to fix them up because the developers are too lazy to maintain them. Frankly, this is why OSS sucks. In the non-free world you don't see Microsoft telling it's customers "You don't like explorer? Fix it yourself!"
I report bugs when I can but sometimes you don't know what to say. Like why did my UHCI controller stop working after I moved from 2.6.16 to 2.6.17? Fucked if I know. Why does my gige not work in 2.6.18 but it worked in 2.6.17? [actually this is a ICH8 fix I bet...]
Sure I could report it to the lkml, but chances are they'll need more than "Tyan 2882 and UHCI no work."
Spend more time on fucking Q & A. I'm tired of trying to talk people into Gentoo only to find out that the tree is half-fucked all the time [like packages marked stable requiring other libs NOT IN THE FUCKING TREE YET].
No more extras, fix the base!!!
This is the problem with OSS. Everyone wants to get famous for the next big breakthrough and nobody wants to maintain the shit.
I suppose if I didn't own one and I didn't know how to build a custom box... I'd buy the $300 TV tuner [my PCI card cost $100 retail in 2001...]. But I'd also be a starbucks latte sipping poetry writing retard with money to spend foolishly.
Um, no, because my custom box does what I want [and more than the mini]. The fact that Apple doesn't sell anything comparable, and even if they did it'd still be more expensive is why I don't own a single piece of Apple gear. That was the point of my post in the first place. To point out that Apple doesn't make good [any] custom boxes and loses appeal with people who have to be smart with their budgets.
Recall there was a time when Apple made towers with proper expandibility and all that. The original G3 and G4 towers had PCI slots where you could add new hardware on. But that all aside. I honestly think there is a larger market for the "beige box" then the cute boxes.
I'm not saying that apple has to sell to the mass markets. I'm just saying if they want to eat into the larger market they have to sell something the larger market wants. If they want to remain relegated to sub-5% market share that's their right.
I think that's my point. Most people I know would rather have a beige box [e.g. custom functional reliable box] over some cutsie-wutsie-itty-bitty box.
Your point #3 highlights why Apple is not growing. They're not tagetting a rational market. More people would rather have a beige box than a tiny little cute espresso sipping elite box.
As for the warranty, I've read the anti-apple websites. Their warranty isn't something to really be proud about. That said, the company I bought from is trustworthy. I've had to exchange/refund things before and they never fight it. Because of that I order from them for all my gear, even though I don't live in the same city. I'd rather pay $15 shipping on $300 worth of gear, than pick it up locally. That's call loyalty.
The only reason I compared against the Mini is because it's the only thing Apple offers that is close to what I needed. I didn't need a "box in the monitor" imac and I certainly didn't need a quad-core MacPro thingy...
My time is worth money too. However, unlike the average consumer I'm not a retard and know how to google. It literally took me only 10 minutes to find the boot line I required.
In many fields [not just computers] if people were willing to invest just 5 mins of their time they could save money, resources, etc. Granted there are limits to this, but spending 10 mins looking for a string saved me over $100 and got me a box with more gusto than the Mini.
So what *I'll do* is pay LESS MONEY for my next box [re: what I did with this] and then SAVE MORE MONEY by NOT buying additional hardware that I already have in another form factor. Why would I pay MORE money for the Mini, and THEN pay EVEN MORE money to get a tuner?
Tell me how fun this is in a year or two when your newer applications stop working because of broken/missing symbols and what not. If I bought a MacOS box I'd upgrade it, not only because I want security fixes but presumably because I'd use OSX software that I need to have running and can't afford the risk of it not being compatible with previous releases.
Only problem I have with this box is the ICH8 is not well supported by 2.6.17 but apparently 2.6.18 addresses the issues I'm having.
In general, I use my boxes for a lot of random tasks. One of which is TV watching which uses my 5 yr old Hauppage WinTV PCI card. It's passed through 4 or 5 diff boxes and it's just the way things are:-)
But also I need a bit more horsepower than a core solo @ 1.6GHz. My build times affect how much work I can get done in a day and faster == better.
That and Core2 is wickedly overclockable. Without changing the voltage and not going over 60C [I turned the alarm on] I can clock my 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo all the way upto 2.6GHz [380MHz x 7] with PC2-6400 memory. It still runs cool, passes memtest86 and runs builds properly. And given that the Core 2 competes well with the Opteron it's not a bad free speed boost.
Actually the mobo I got [Gigabyte 965P-S3] has Intel HD sound, gbit eth0, 1394, usb, parallel and serial ports, PS/2 keyboard/mouse, a PCI-E 16X and 3 1x slots as well as 3 PCI slots. It also has four, count em four, not 1, not 2, but four slots for DDR2 memory.
As for OSX/ilife/etc, I don't want that. Gentoo is free. I have all the tools I need as a developer, gamer, music listener, author, pron viewer, etc for free from the nice world of OSS.
I agree with your post though. I know the mini has a niche market. But RIGHT NOW [as you pointed out] if I were to compare custom boxes, the mini is what I'd choose as it's more comparable in featureset [e.g. not a quad-core xeon]. So yeah, if Apple made something similar they could probably price it right. Unfortunately, "rational" people is not who Apple targets.
This would be like asking Alienware to make a low-power student box...:-)
My point is if I wanted to price shop, the Mac Mini would be what I'd compare against a custom box. Yeah, I guess if the OUTSIDE APPEARANCE of the box mattered more I'd be in the "target market." But for the rest of us who can at least compare two numbers to find out which is smaller... we avoid Apple because you pay for a stupid name.
As for the Antec being "better"... let's see
- room for PCI/PCIE cards - ventilation - room for drives, e.g. RAID - PSU that can handle the combo
And frankly this case actually looks decent. It's not just "another beige box." It's got neato ports on the front, neato front panel, it's cool.
Yeah, I am running Gentoo on it. I get your point, but it's moot once you hit the next revision of OSX. And anyways, for the price of "Apple Approved" memory [to at least match the GB I have] you could have bought an OEM copy of WinXP. So you're still ahead by ~$100 with the custom box. And yes, I trust the people I bought it from. The box works and if it didn't they'd make it right [not all shops are evil]
Trust me, surface area is precious to me. But I'd still rather have a tower I can put things like my TV TUNER CARD in [thus removing the need for a TV] or a half-way decent GFX card in. MacMini is basically a laptop without a screen, keyboard or trackpad. You can't add a PCI device to it, etc... Even given my limited horizontal surface area for stuff I'd much rather have the tower. I can [and do] stack shit on top of it anyways so the loss is trivial.
Oh, and it being a better box underneath is a nice feature too...
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Um, I write OSS [which I release as public domain]. So I'm not strictly an outsider.
... that's saying something.
But when I get comments like "your code has comments in it, god bless you" from random people on a near daily basis
I mean honestly try and decipher the kernel, or GCC or any other project [firefox?]. You'll see a trillion lines of goobly gook code that lacks organization or proper forethought. Is there good OSS out there? Yes. Is it the rule? No, it's the exception.
OSS is much like drivers on the road, most are shity but they work just enough not to get into crashes. And when the software is stable it's usually still a mess underneath anyways.
Tom
I just finished building a Core2 box LAST WEEK. It required me to add new [undoced] USE flags to get Pango/cairo/etc installed correctly [flags I may add that my Opteron box STILL doesn't have].
Clearly the "xft" flag [iirc] should be either documented or defaulted as I didn't see it required elsewhere [and strictly speaking I was emerging Gnome so Gentoo should set the flags required for Gnome regardless].
Tom
my "spare boxes" are DIFFERENT PLATFORMS, one is a P4 32-bit, another is a Core2 64-bit and the other is a $7000 Opteron 2-way box.
I'm not buying spare IDENTICAL boxes just because Kernel developers are too immature to address the problem properly. I mean how do you get the right to brag "Oh, I'm a Kernel developer, see my code-fu muscles" when you can't invest the money to actually develop seriously?
You think MSFT has only one type of workstation in their QA labs? Very doubtful. Everyone is so quick to mock MSFT but then when the real punches come out they get all super defensive...
I bought my boxes because I implement crypto software and I take performance studies seriously. I even own various ARM and PPC kits to test on. These things aren't free. They cost money to buy and time to setup and use. But I do it because I take my projects seriously.
Tom
That, or ... they could TEST THE FUCKING UPDATES.
I don't have the time to rebuild kernels and reboot all the time. Especially since this is a MULTI-USER box with a file share on it. I need it to be up and working. I really don't see how you can screw up a working USB driver. I mean EHCI still works but UHCI just gives "bad address" errors when probing the USB device [it detects that I plugged it in, just can't get past the probe stage].
You know, real companies who make proprietary software have boxes for testing. This is what Linux will need if they want to grow beyond a neato hobby. I mean hell, if I can buy spare boxes for processor testing surely there has to be enough people in the Linux project to buy boxes just to test the mobo/hardware.
Tom
fuck you, ebuilds/package/ports it's all the same idea. The *BSDs invented [modern] ports anyways. So don't think Gentoo was the first with scriptable installs.
That said, I question how much testing goes on, specially on the core platforms [e.g. x86 and x86_64]. Often I find packages will install and run fine first try on the x86 but take a -r1 or -r2 before it works on x86_64.
I use Gentoo because I like the idea of Linux and I like USE flags. Generally though my attachment isn't that deep. If Gentoo died tomorrow I'd just go to FreeBSD.
Tom
Hint: tarball your system drive. Burn to a DVD.
That way when Gentoo decides to do something like "lets move to glibc 2.4 and break all your coreutils, nobody needs ls anyways!" you can just untar and wait.
Tom
Kids....
I feel pity for people like you. Who can't simply co-exist with others because you feel you have to mock and insult others.
Friends buy you pints at the pubs.
Foes just ignore you.
Keep that in mind.
Oh, and Gentoo has USE flags which NO OTHER LINUX DISTRO HAS [or to the same degree] which is why I use it. It isn't because I'm fan. Yeah, building 900 packages, that's fun! really!
Tom
True and Gentoo sucks on both accounts most of the time.
The only reason I use Gentoo [other than USE flags] is that I *like* tinkering with my box [e.g. hacking to install packages].
Most people aren't as inclined as people like me which is why OSS sucks.
Tom
Um, that's such a inappropriately ignorant comment it's hard to really put this into context.
Let me see I can take a stab at it anyways...
My workstation is the product of about 800 Gentoo ports being installed. Roughly speaking probably around 200M lines of C, C++, Python and Perl source code. I don't have the time, nor the energy to go through all of them to fix them up because the developers are too lazy to maintain them. Frankly, this is why OSS sucks. In the non-free world you don't see Microsoft telling it's customers "You don't like explorer? Fix it yourself!"
I report bugs when I can but sometimes you don't know what to say. Like why did my UHCI controller stop working after I moved from 2.6.16 to 2.6.17? Fucked if I know. Why does my gige not work in 2.6.18 but it worked in 2.6.17? [actually this is a ICH8 fix I bet...]
Sure I could report it to the lkml, but chances are they'll need more than "Tyan 2882 and UHCI no work."
Tom
NO MORE!
Spend more time on fucking Q & A. I'm tired of trying to talk people into Gentoo only to find out that the tree is half-fucked all the time [like packages marked stable requiring other libs NOT IN THE FUCKING TREE YET].
No more extras, fix the base!!!
This is the problem with OSS. Everyone wants to get famous for the next big breakthrough and nobody wants to maintain the shit.
Tom
Except that GPGPUs are not a competitor for x86. Tell me how fast your C compiler will work on that nvidia or ATI card.
... oh wait. IBM did that.
If you're gonna beef up and make more general a GPU you might as well all it a Cell
NEXT!
Tom
1. My custom box is cheaper.
... I'd buy the $300 TV tuner [my PCI card cost $100 retail in 2001...]. But I'd also be a starbucks latte sipping poetry writing retard with money to spend foolishly.
And
2. I already own a TV tuner card.
I suppose if I didn't own one and I didn't know how to build a custom box
Tom
Um, no, because my custom box does what I want [and more than the mini]. The fact that Apple doesn't sell anything comparable, and even if they did it'd still be more expensive is why I don't own a single piece of Apple gear. That was the point of my post in the first place. To point out that Apple doesn't make good [any] custom boxes and loses appeal with people who have to be smart with their budgets.
Recall there was a time when Apple made towers with proper expandibility and all that. The original G3 and G4 towers had PCI slots where you could add new hardware on. But that all aside. I honestly think there is a larger market for the "beige box" then the cute boxes.
I'm not saying that apple has to sell to the mass markets. I'm just saying if they want to eat into the larger market they have to sell something the larger market wants. If they want to remain relegated to sub-5% market share that's their right.
Tom
What box from Apple compares to the "beige box?"
I think that's my point. Most people I know would rather have a beige box [e.g. custom functional reliable box] over some cutsie-wutsie-itty-bitty box.
Tom
Your point #3 highlights why Apple is not growing. They're not tagetting a rational market. More people would rather have a beige box than a tiny little cute espresso sipping elite box.
As for the warranty, I've read the anti-apple websites. Their warranty isn't something to really be proud about. That said, the company I bought from is trustworthy. I've had to exchange/refund things before and they never fight it. Because of that I order from them for all my gear, even though I don't live in the same city. I'd rather pay $15 shipping on $300 worth of gear, than pick it up locally. That's call loyalty.
The only reason I compared against the Mini is because it's the only thing Apple offers that is close to what I needed. I didn't need a "box in the monitor" imac and I certainly didn't need a quad-core MacPro thingy...
Tom
My time is worth money too. However, unlike the average consumer I'm not a retard and know how to google. It literally took me only 10 minutes to find the boot line I required.
In many fields [not just computers] if people were willing to invest just 5 mins of their time they could save money, resources, etc. Granted there are limits to this, but spending 10 mins looking for a string saved me over $100 and got me a box with more gusto than the Mini.
Tom
Bingo, you got it.
The ONLY reason I was comparing my box to the mini is because Apple doesn't have a similar "beige box."
Tom
I already own the said PCI TV tuner card.
So what *I'll do* is pay LESS MONEY for my next box [re: what I did with this] and then SAVE MORE MONEY by NOT buying additional hardware that I already have in another form factor. Why would I pay MORE money for the Mini, and THEN pay EVEN MORE money to get a tuner?
Damn, you're a good consumer.
Tom
It costs me $0 to upgrade my Gentoo box.
Tell me how fun this is in a year or two when your newer applications stop working because of broken/missing symbols and what not. If I bought a MacOS box I'd upgrade it, not only because I want security fixes but presumably because I'd use OSX software that I need to have running and can't afford the risk of it not being compatible with previous releases.
Tom
Only problem I have with this box is the ICH8 is not well supported by 2.6.17 but apparently 2.6.18 addresses the issues I'm having.
:-)
In general, I use my boxes for a lot of random tasks. One of which is TV watching which uses my 5 yr old Hauppage WinTV PCI card. It's passed through 4 or 5 diff boxes and it's just the way things are
But also I need a bit more horsepower than a core solo @ 1.6GHz. My build times affect how much work I can get done in a day and faster == better.
That and Core2 is wickedly overclockable. Without changing the voltage and not going over 60C [I turned the alarm on] I can clock my 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo all the way upto 2.6GHz [380MHz x 7] with PC2-6400 memory. It still runs cool, passes memtest86 and runs builds properly. And given that the Core 2 competes well with the Opteron it's not a bad free speed boost.
Tom
Actually the mobo I got [Gigabyte 965P-S3] has Intel HD sound, gbit eth0, 1394, usb, parallel and serial ports, PS/2 keyboard/mouse, a PCI-E 16X and 3 1x slots as well as 3 PCI slots. It also has four, count em four, not 1, not 2, but four slots for DDR2 memory.
:-)
As for OSX/ilife/etc, I don't want that. Gentoo is free. I have all the tools I need as a developer, gamer, music listener, author, pron viewer, etc for free from the nice world of OSS.
I agree with your post though. I know the mini has a niche market. But RIGHT NOW [as you pointed out] if I were to compare custom boxes, the mini is what I'd choose as it's more comparable in featureset [e.g. not a quad-core xeon]. So yeah, if Apple made something similar they could probably price it right. Unfortunately, "rational" people is not who Apple targets.
This would be like asking Alienware to make a low-power student box...
Tom
My point is if I wanted to price shop, the Mac Mini would be what I'd compare against a custom box. Yeah, I guess if the OUTSIDE APPEARANCE of the box mattered more I'd be in the "target market." But for the rest of us who can at least compare two numbers to find out which is smaller ... we avoid Apple because you pay for a stupid name.
... let's see
As for the Antec being "better"
- room for PCI/PCIE cards
- ventilation
- room for drives, e.g. RAID
- PSU that can handle the combo
And frankly this case actually looks decent. It's not just "another beige box." It's got neato ports on the front, neato front panel, it's cool.
Tom
I'd never buy a MP Intel box. That's just criminal. AMD HT all the way!
Core 2 Duo + CSI (Intel's name for HT, not the TV show) would probably be a good contender, who knows...
Tom
Remind me how "free" Mac OSX upgrades are?
Yeah, I am running Gentoo on it. I get your point, but it's moot once you hit the next revision of OSX. And anyways, for the price of "Apple Approved" memory [to at least match the GB I have] you could have bought an OEM copy of WinXP. So you're still ahead by ~$100 with the custom box. And yes, I trust the people I bought it from. The box works and if it didn't they'd make it right [not all shops are evil]
Tom
Trust me, surface area is precious to me. But I'd still rather have a tower I can put things like my TV TUNER CARD in [thus removing the need for a TV] or a half-way decent GFX card in. MacMini is basically a laptop without a screen, keyboard or trackpad. You can't add a PCI device to it, etc... Even given my limited horizontal surface area for stuff I'd much rather have the tower. I can [and do] stack shit on top of it anyways so the loss is trivial.
Oh, and it being a better box underneath is a nice feature too...
Tom