A quick look at the Apple boards shows that this update is not working -- users should avoid it, Apple should retract it.
Given the fact that Apple -- as the True Believer faction loves to rub in other OS users' faces -- has complete control over the hardware and doesn't have to cover all kinds of variants like Linux or Windows, these things simply should not happen. This is a sign of sloppy testing or bad quality control, just like the famous creaking left handrest on the iBook, the batter cover that is not flush, the vanishing COMMAND-TAB command after using X11, and all the other little things that shouldn't be an issue given the amount of money that we paid for these machines.
Steve, either try harder or open source the bloody drivers. People with three percent market share and products with these price tags can't keep screwing up like this.
I get more negative comments, mods, emails, and stalkers from posting to/. stories about apple than I get every other story catagory on/. put together.
I know how you feel -- I used to feel Linux fans were fanatics until I bought an iBook and began hanging out with the Apple crowd. Since then, I've stopped laughing when people talk about joining a religion with your computer purchase.
I think there is some astroturfing going on here, too. Apple's community is small enough that a few people can make a difference.
I started my usual game today, again, but I hope to be finished soon:
After the Creation, the cruel god Moloch rebelled against the authority of Marduk the Creator. Moloch stole from Marduk the most powerful of all the artifacts of the gods, the Amulet of Yendor, and he hid it in the dark cavities of Gehennom, the Under World, where he now lurks, and bides his time.
Once I find the amulet and complete Nethack, I might take a look at those other games. I've heard about this thing called PacMan that seems to be quite popular with the young crowd...
Even if there is a problem with sound cards (which in the past ten years I have somehow failed to have with my sorry collection of no-name, cheap-ass, student-affordable soundcards), it doesn't mean that Linux is failing: If it really gets bad, buy a Mac, get rid of OS X, and install Linux on that. End of problem.
There should be pun here with Linux on the mainframe, but I'm just too tired this morning...
Nice try, but:
1. I have upgraded to Panther 10.3.3, and from what I have heard, this is not a bug, but considered a feature.
2. My consumer-lever Sony video camera has letterbox, and the open-source amateur video program Kino has letterbox. Apple cannot go around pretending that this is a professional feature if they want to charge that amout of money for iLife.
3. I don't have to do "jiggery-pokery" with any of my free Linux players to get Ogg support, and I don't see why I should have to for something I paid money for.
One interesting thing I have found about Apple users is that most have no experience with a modern Linux/BSD interface like KDE 3.2 -- figures, actually, because they are probably very happy with Mac OS X. As a consequence, they don't seem to realize that OS X, as flashy as it is, is going to have to get a lot better very quickly if they don't want to be run down by the Open Source crew.
Anybody who doubts this should ask themself this question: When is Apple going to be able to double the number of its developers again? With Linux and Co, this is just a question of time. As clever as Apple's developers might be, sooner or later, those numbers are going to catch up with them.
An article text that reads like an ad sponsored by Apple, page after page of gushing, ecstatic, even orgasmic talk about how wonderful the hardware is, how inspired the software, how brilliant the management -- come on, people, you're making this sound like the Second Coming.
Yes, Apple makes good products -- I just bought an iBook as my new laptop and would buy one again. It's a good machine. The hardware is well designed if expensive, the software good, if not the best of breed. But Apple is a bunch cut-throat-DMCA-loving-money-grabbing capitalists like Microsoft, just without the monopoly, and Steve Jobs eats his chocolate one bite at a time, just like everyone else.
Good software? Yes. Great software? No. Mac OS X doesn't play well with others, it drops those pissy little.DS_Store files in every single folder of a network it can find. iMovie can't deal with letterbox DV (like even Kino can). Mail doesn't know TLS (which even the Beta of Mozilla Thunderbird can do). iTunes can't natively play Ogg Vorbis. Listing the ways that DVD Player is inferior to VLC would take pages, and don't get me started on all the hacks that have been installed to cripple the iBook to make the PowerBook look better (starting with the stupid Spanning Block that is supposed to make sure that only what you see on the screen can be sent to a second monitor or TV). Good, yes. Great, no.
Dear astroturfers, on the long run you'll help Apple more by giving a balanced, fair view of what is offered instead of this mindless drooling cheerleading. These machines are, so to speak, merely human, not gods, and even at 10.3, OS X has lots of room for improvement.
...if we had a posting on the front page of Slashdot every time KDE was ported to another language. I mean, really, it's not like Hungarian is terribly exotic. For a lot of us here, the place is just around the corner.
German corporations enjoy free speech in Germany as well -- this is not the issue. The German legal system just doesn't believe in waiting years before addressing what is an obvious wrong. Contrast this with the judge in the SCO case who decided to let SCO keep spitting out their FUD until the IBM case is solved, thereby giving SCO a free hand to continue to damage RedHat's reputation for what could be just about forever. German courts happen to think that if you want to say bad things about the way other people do business, you should be able to prove it right away, not five years later. This is sort of along the lines that free speech does not cover me calling up your boss and telling him that you, say, have intercourse with sheep.
The simple fact is that Germany's legal system is superior in this respect, as in quite a number of others. Or to put it the other way around: The American legal system is hopelessly stuck in the 18th century, and even though Germany is not in the 21st century where everybody should be, it is at least in the 20th century.
Sometimes, 200 years and a bit of common sense can make all the difference.
Depends on your philosophy, doesn't it
on
Apple Revises eMac
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The hardware specs aren't what makes the difference man, it's the SOFTWARE. OS X is the best of UNIX under a fantastic GUI.
I tend to think that people who write in CAPS are trolls, but since I can't mod you down, I guess I'll have to answer:
Yes, OS X (10.3 at least) is a very, very good operating system -- I own an iBook G4 -- but only if you agree with the design philosophy. OS X was designed for completely different people who want to do completely different things with computers than, say, Linux users. Lots of people in these discussions don't realize this and get their panties in a knot about which system is "better". This is sort of like asking if a bread knife is better than a scalpel.
Apple provides you with a flashy, very consistent, closed, minimal-options operating system that starts with the idea that choice is bad and will confuse the user. Steve Jobs tells you what you can and can't do, and in return, you don't have to deal with the computer as such: You just plug things in, and they work (or they don't). It is ideal for people who just want to listen to music, surf, do some email, and chat -- that is, 90 percent of the population. If this is all you want from a computer, by all means, go buy a Mac. It is what I recommend to my computer-illiterate colleagues when they complain about the latest Microsoft virus or crashing Windows.
However, some people think choice is good, and want to be able to decide for themselves just where they want to be in the big computer trade-off of ease-of-use and efficiency. To take the cliche example, one mouse button is not confusing, but when you do lots and lots of cut-and-paste, three buttons kick ass all over the place. One single desktop is not confusing, but virtual desktops give you more room to move without having to invent flashy tricks like Expose. A mail program without TLS support is one less option for the user, but if your provider happens to require that extra layer of security, you're screwed.
This is the reason why I will be installing Linux with KDE 3.2 on my iBook: I like choice, I am willing to learn things so that I can be more efficient, and the cozy, closed world of OS X is just too limited for what I want (and like) to do. Does this mean that I hate OS X or dispise it? No, it is just the wrong tool for the job in my case. No need for flames (or caps), just a rational assessment of my needs vs. those that OS X provides. Go forth and be happy with OS X, just realize that it is not the uberOS of the Gods. And please stop shouting.
As for the "best of Unix": Apple did the right thing from a business point of view. They realized that they could make all kinds of money without having to give anything in return by using BSD, and then even get to charge premium for a glossy GUI pasted over that. Basically, this is another case where the BSD people are helping a major corporation get richer (remember Micorosoft and the TCP stack?) while getting peanuts in return. If Apple had used Linux for the base system, they would have been forced to be part of the community and give full value in return instead of getting away with dropping a bone here and there. And they still could have sold that flashy GUI on top, made lots of money, made their users happy, whatever.
It is Apple's job (no pun intended) to be greedy: They are bound to shareholder value just like Microsoft. I just wonder if it should be our job to give them a free ride -- for any meaning of "free".
I had submitted this two days ago and it got thrown away, probably because I had the better quote:
"Now that foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists know that Linux is going to control our most advanced defense systems, they can use fake identities to contribute subversive software."
The whole story is so absolutely paranoid (The Russians are coming! Beware of the Yellow Peril!) and shows such a complete lack of understanding of the Linux Open Source process that it would make me worry if I were buying Green Hills' software: Do you want to buy something from somebody who is this divorced from reality and has this little understanding of how his competitor works?
To those who seem to think that Microsoft could "miss the boat" and be overtaken by Open Source software: This is not going to happen, simply because Microsoft has all the BSD operating systems at its disposal to help it play catchup should the need ever arise. Thousands and thousands of hours of work and testing, theirs to sell for free for any price they want in the next version of Windows, with no need to give anything back to the community. They can always do an Apple, but bigtime.
Richard Stallman might not be the person the best temperament to take tea with the Queen of England, but when everything is said and done, he ends up being right, which is probably the real reason so many people here hate his guts. He has been right a along, and the events we are watching just confirm this a bit more every day. And when push comes to shove, the BSD license and all the oh so helpful people that turn out software under it are Microsoft's life insurance, just as they were for Apple.
I know you are supposed to be nice to the BSD people and smile and be friends, but everytime Microsoft grinds another competitor into the dirt (bye-bye Sun) or prevails over another government (bye-bye Europeans, you could have made it count), I remember who handed Microsoft their TCP/IP stack on a platter and who knows what else, I come another step closer to the conclusion that they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Giving Apple a free ride might be seen as an act of charity, but helping Microsoft make money...
Terrasoft, the makers of YDL, actually have an answer to that question themselves. Their line: Yes, other laptops and desktops run fine. Therefore, we believe there must be people who want more than fine. They want the best.
Cheesy marketing drivel, yes, but with a grain of truth. At the risk of being moded down to Hades by Mac lovers, let me very carefully point out that to some of us, OS X is not the operating system to end all operating systems. It has some problems (like a clumsy finder that dumps its bloody.DS_Store files all over every filesystem it can get its hands on), some severe limitations (like a Mail program that doesn't do TLS), and lacks important capabilities (no well-integrated office program except MS Office).
Don't get me wrong, OS X is probably the best operating system available for pure-consumer type users. When my co-worker complained to me a few days ago that he caught some sort of dialer virus thingy, I told him (politely) to get rid of the problem (Microsoft) and buy a Mac. Is Linux for him? No. He would be very happy with Apple's closed-world, choice-is-bad philosophy.
Some of us, however, like choice, and don't want to, say, pay extra for modern features like virtual desktops that Apple's engineers consider too confusing for us and are covered by shareware. I want a modern mailer (good grief, even the 0.5 BETA of Mozilla Thunderbird has TLS), I want Konqueror instead of the brain-damaged Finder, I want my right-click-lelf-click-done! mouse back. But I love the hardware: My iBook G4 is quiet under heavy loads, for example, and battery life is good.
Linux on a PowerPC gives you the best of both worlds -- even more so because you can use Mac-on-Linux to run your Mac OS X applications from inside Linux. Nobody is talking about wiping OS X off the computer (well, except maybe for this guy), because, remember, though Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are jealous computer gods, Linus is not. I did dual-boot for years with Windows before swiching completely. You can have your cake and eat it, too.
A lot of Mac people I have gotten to know after buying my iBook have no idea how good KDE and Gnome have become, they seem to think that Linux users still have to figure out the refresh parameters for X11 by hand. With more and more Linux people moving to PowerPC hardware, I think we'll see more discussions between OS X and Linux users. Linux can give OS X a good run for its mon-, er, can force Apple to try harder, a lot harder, in fact. And that is good for Mac fans, too.
And with that news just in, it is good to hear that Yellow Dog Linux has just announced a new version of Linux for the PowerPC line for the end of May, including kernel 2.6 and support for 64 bit machines.
Why is this important? Some of us really, really like Apple's hardware -- my iBook G4 was worth the money just because it is silent even under heavy loads, goes to sleep (and wakes) like a charm, and has a pretty impressive battery life compared to most x86 laptops. But OS X comes with a certain closed-system, choice-is-bad philosophy that just drives me nuts. Also, some of the programs included even in 10.3.3 are downright primitive -- Mail doesn't even have TLS in Panther -- and there is no cleanly integrated office package outside of MS Office.
This is where Linux (or dual-boot) comes in: Virtual screens, Kmail, OpenOffice 1.1 without having to boot a second window system, and if you still want to run OS X applications, well, you just do it from Linux with Mac-on-Linux. Hey, have your cake and eat it, too!
I can see lots of people moving to iBooks and PowerBooks and G5s -- heck, in that sense, I'm a switcher -- but keep in mind that just because there is a glowing Apple on the cover, it doesn't mean that there isn't a penguin on the inside. Mac OS X is good if you can stomach its closed-world, Steve-knows-best philosophy, but a lot of people will want the best of both worlds.
This is another example of how the 18th century American legal system has become a liability to the whole country.
Ashcroft is going take the tax payer's money and try to assault the First in court again, which the U.S. justice system will let him do over and over again for ever. In countries where these things are handled by laws that are set down in books, he wouldn't even get to court until the legislative changed the law itself -- and fat chance lawmakers would be caught debating pornography at a time when U.S. combat deaths in Iraq are climbing to at least a dozen a day. The War against Terrorism can't be too pressing if Ashcroft can take time off to push his puritan agenda.
The whole SCO-farce has shown how bad the U.S. legal system is for companies and customers -- IBM and RedHat will still be in court years after German judges bitch-slapped SCO so loud it resonated all the way back to Utah. Ashcroft is demonstrating why the current U.S. system cannot protect the individual's rights adequately. Not that this could surprise anybody after parts of Cuba were turned into Bush's private holding pens, to the horror of the rest of the civilized world but with the go-ahead of U.S. courts...
Time to admit that the system is beyond fixing, time to admit that case-based law needs to be dumped where all those other countries have already put it: On the scrap heap. Other countries don't have to go through this kind of crap, and there is no reason we should have to, either.
and instead suggested that the steep decline in gamers over the age of 37 simply demarcates the first generation that grew up with the medium.
Or maybe they just have a job, kids, and a house and can't spend enough time in front of the computer anymore to make those expensive games worthwhile.
God, how I'd love to spend a whole week again just playing "Half Life", or maybe finally finishing "Diablo II" with all characters...
Somebody has to mention the Mock Mainframe Linux Howto, which suggests you change your system following the mainframe philosophy so that you have one big computer and lots of little terminals for small groups of people.
What is so special about a blinking cursor that gives Linux geeks a hardon?
It is not a Linux thing, it is a Unix thing, so you might as well include the BSD crowd, the Sun crowd, and the new kids on the block from Apple. In fact, since the only people left standing without a Unix-based operating system (in our price range at least) work for Microsoft, the question should probably be phrased more like: What are the Windows people missing out on?
The Command Line Interface (CLI) is a beautifully designed tool set that will let you solve just about any computing problem elegantly and with very few resources. If you program in C, it is the best environment possible. You have easy access to far more options than any GUI can give you -- liberal use of the "nice" command (decrease the priority of a task) will save you one CPU generation right there. And last but not least: The GNU tools have been in use forever, and are beyond stable. In my ten years of using them, I have yet to have one crash or lock up. When things have gone wrong, it has been the kernel or, ah, me. Usually, me...
However, this power comes at a price: You have to sit down and learn a thing or two. For most computer users these days, this is not worth it, because all they want to do is write emails, chat, and download porn, and don't like learning things anyway. For those who use their computer a lot, be it for fun or profit, and like to use it hard, the time invested is repaid very, very quickly. This is one reason why some CLI fans look down on those who don't speak bash: In their eyes, GUI-only people either don't use their computer for serious (non-email, non-chat, non-porn) work, or -- worse -- are too dumb or lazy to learn how the best tools work. It is sort of like a carpenter who says he doesn't know how to use power tools and doesn't want to learn because it would be too much of an effort.
So basically, the *nix command line is like any other powerful magic: It takes time to learn, it is habit forming, it will change your perception of the (computer) world forever, it can bite you bad, it is not for everybody, and -- obviously -- prolonged use will make you arrogant as hell.
The thing to remember in all these discussions is that Apple has a completely different philosophy behind its OS than say KDE does. It is like comparing...uh...bananas and oranges.
OS X starts with the idea that choice is confusing to the user, who doesn't want to have to learn anything new, ever, even if it makes him more productive. Choice is bad, and the user must be protected from it. This is the reason for the (usually) benign dictatorship that OS X imposes on the user. Given this philosophy, OS X does what it is supposed to do very, very well. If you put ease of use and lack of confusion first, OS X beats KDE hands down.
Almost all Linux desktops like KDE still carry the completely opposite philosophy around in their guts somewhere: If you really, really want to, you can drill down to the last bit and change things. Choice is good, the user is not stupid, and is willing to learn if it makes him more productive. Given this philosophy, KDE does what it is supposed to do very, very well. If you put productivity first, KDE beats OS X hands down.
All we need to do now is for each side to realize that they are not in direct competition. The KDE people do seem to admit that they'll never be as flashy (not until X11 grows real transparency, at least). The problem I have found is that the OS X people seem to believe that their OS can be all things to all people. Not so.
I've been using my new iBook G4 exclusively with OS X 10.3 now for over a month while waiting for YDL to get the next Linux version out. As nice as OS X is to look at for the first few days, once you get down to serious work, it is simply a pain. You can't get rid of the cute gimmicks (when minimizing the window, you can either have the "genie" or the "scale" effect, but you can't get the damn thing just to vanish). Closing a window doesn't close an application like it does in the rest of the computer world, you have to Command-q it or else it will hang around in the background. Expose is cute, but basically it is just a complicated way to make up for the lack of virtual desktops.
Yes, it is a cliche by now, and Apple users will probably go arrghhh because the have heard this so many times, but the single mouse button is one of the biggest drawbacks of a Mac (and no, I can't attach a USB mouse every time when I'm on the road with my iBook). KDE has a beautiful two-punch right-button, left-button combination that works consistantly over (almost) all applications. Reply to mail? Right-left. Log out? Right-left. With OS X, you're constantly pressing strange key combinations or (horror!) have to move up to the menu bar. Working with one button feels like having one hand tied behind your back.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with the iBook and would buy one again if this one got eaten by rabbits or something. If you are thinking about buying a laptop, do yourself a favour and at least look at Apple's portables. But OS X? High cuteness factor, quick to learn, but not for those who want to be productive first and cool second. Just like it was designed to be.
If there is ever a language that you can get up and running with quickly, it is Python. Runs on any platform, has a great library, and what is more, if you have to take a month off from your code, you can still figure out what you were doing.
I wanted the ultimative usability experience and OO.org could not satisfy any of that.
You, Sir, are watching way too many TV ads...
Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package.
I just bought my first iBook (I'm a Linux native), and I agree that there is no good office package for Apple. AppleWorks is a joke, AbiWord doesn't do enough, and OpenOffice.org has to be fed through Apple's rather klutzy X implementation.
But make no mistake: This is Apple's problem, not OpenOffice.org's. There is no serious office package for Mac OS X except for MS Office -- but there is no way I am going to pay that much money, and I'm one of those old-fashioned people who things stealing is wrong. Given that OS X's Mail is too primitive (no TLS, so im using Mozilla Thunderbird), Safari doesn't work with online banking (so I'm using Mozilla FireFox), DVD Player is anal about region codes (so I'm using VLC, which has better quality anyway), I don't see much point in Mac OS X over Linux KDE 3.2 -- living without virtual desktops is simply hell, Expose or not. As soon as YDL gets sleep to work on the iBook, Linux it is again.
Apple is making a big mistake by not dumping AppleWorks and putting its programers to work on porting OpenOffice.org to OS X. They are not going to build a good office suite on their own, any more than they are going to make a good OS on their own. OpenOffice.org is there to help them, just as BSD was there to help them with the OS. Financing Microsoft through Office doesn't seem like a clever move.
On a more general note: One of the interesting things about native Mac users is that they are so in love with OS X they don't realize how Linux & Co are breathing down their necks, too. There seems to be a belief that Linux can only replace Windows, not OS X -- a form of "can't happen here" that is just fascinating. Apple is going to have to pedal really hard to stay ahead of KDE and Gnome, especially now since Novell, Sun, and (maybe) IBM are getting serious about the desktop: Mac OS X 10.3 is okay and flashy, but there is little there that won't be in KDE in a year, too.
If ever there were a marriage made in hell (and we mean that in a good way), it has to be Quake plus Nine Inch Nails.
That game with that music was so spooky, it made me want wet my pants. Nothing, not even Half Life has come close to that feeling of running around in a place where I shouldn't be with the ammo counter way down and monsters just around the next corner, for sure, and that music that you just couldn't get out of your head...
I could have been born in a different age, but then growing up with id Software has been a real kick.
I've been using OOo for about a year now, and it is beyond me why anybody would actually still pay how many hundred dollars it is for MS Office. It has done everything I have needed it to do, it hasn't crashed in the process, it works on every operating system I have, and it's for free. What more can you ask for?
The only seriously annoying thing about OOo is that they have decided to postpone the Mac OS X version until kingdom come, and I have to fool around with 1.0 via Apple's X11 program. This is partially Apple's problem, too: If they had any sense, they'd get rid of AppleWorks and MS Office for X and push OOo.
OOo, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird put you in the wonderful situation of not having to give a damn about which operating system you use. This is terrible for Microsoft, of course, but great news for the rest of the world. We can now concentrate on fighting about other and far more important things -- like who makes the best chocolate bars, or who is the cutest witch on TV, or which sequal to the "Matrix" was the worst...
As the new owner of an iBook, I have had a lot more to do with Mac owners lately, and let me tell you: Linux zealots can't hold a candle to an enraged Apple fanatic -- take for example the death threats this guy got when he did a parody of changing his PowerMac G5 into a PC. Linux users just don't get that excited, certainly not over hardware.
But then, everybody seems to think Mac users are some sort of peace-loving hippies, and the Linux people are radicals. Guess Steve Ballmer running around and calling us anti-American communists does have an effect after all.
I saved about 300 Euros / 500 Dollars a few months ago by buying an iBook in the United States. The voltage is not a problem -- Apple's transformers are 110/220, and if you take off the "corner", you can plug in any normal electronics cable. The DVD drive is not a problem -- it picks up the first regional code you use (I haven't checked about getting rid of the RC altogether yet, though; Apple still enforces it in hard- and (!) software, I'm told, which would be dumb thing to do). The warranty is not a problem, as Apple's standard one-year is worldwide on portables (not, however, on desktop computers). The keyboard is not a problem -- if you can touch-type (and you should be able to), the trick is to never, never think about what you are doing. It's just like climbing a mountain: As long as you don't look down, you're fine.
Customs was not even a theoretical problem in my case, as there are no duties for importing computers to Germany. If you bought your iBook in a U.S. state that doesn't have sales tax [yes, my European children, there are whole states in the U.S. where there is no VAT. Remember this when your politicians try to tell you why your national sales tax has to be raised to 18 percent], you might have to pay a certain amount so they are satisfied you paid at least some sort of tax to somebody. This is the Einfuhrumsatzsteuer and German customs describes the details here. In my case, the Euro was high enough that it was still well worth it.
Other advice: Go on Apple's website (come on, you don't really want a loud, heavy, ugly Dell, do you), find a store in easy distance of where you are going to be, and email or call a few weeks ahead. IBooks are currently assembled in Taiwan, and take five to ten days if you want anything but the standard model (larger harddrive, for example). Remember, too, that America might have the most advanced stock market on the planet, but its bank system still hasn't gotten beyond the stage of sending little slips of paper around by mail: Most Americans have trouble understanding how an EC card even works, and happily go throught an 18th Century ritual called
"balancing the check book" once every few days without complaint. You will have to pay cash (don't worry, these amounts in cash are not considered unusual in the U.S.), or better, get yourself a credit card.
German readers will want to take a look at this article about importing iBooks from the consumer test group Stiftung Warentest. Note that there are some minor mistakes in there, however, like the need for an adapter for the plug.
In my case, there was no question that it was worth it: In fact, I could have probably flown there and back just to pick up the computer, and still saved money. And best thing: With 220 volts, my iBook is twice as fast as it was in the States. No, really. The trouble is, it sends my fingerprints to Donald Rumsfeld every time I touch the escape button...
After reading virus postings for over a year on Slashdot, I suddenly realized that as a Linux and Mac OS X user, this has absolutely nothing to do with my life and I can just delete the "Bug" topic from my preferences -- and do something more interesting, like sort my socks.
I would suggest that the people here who don't use Microsoft products do the same: All we are doing here, after all, is sitting around and feeling superior. Can this be morally right? No, fun as Microsoft bashing might be on a rainy afternoon.
But it just annoys the poor souls who have to use Microsoft at work, or like spending money for virus protection and time for daily updates, or are just too dumb to get it. It wastes Slashdot's bandwidth and throws mod points down the drain: Just how many times have you given "Switch to Linux!" or "Switch to Mac!" a +5 insightful? And that doesn't sound like Meta-Moderation-Karma-Whoring to you?
This is not our problem, there is nothing to see, and by now everybody should have gotten the point that it is either their own fault or that of their employer, and we are not sympathetic to their plight. Let's leave them alone and go elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the fact that Apple -- as the True Believer faction loves to rub in other OS users' faces -- has complete control over the hardware and doesn't have to cover all kinds of variants like Linux or Windows, these things simply should not happen. This is a sign of sloppy testing or bad quality control, just like the famous creaking left handrest on the iBook, the batter cover that is not flush, the vanishing COMMAND-TAB command after using X11, and all the other little things that shouldn't be an issue given the amount of money that we paid for these machines.
Steve, either try harder or open source the bloody drivers. People with three percent market share and products with these price tags can't keep screwing up like this.
I know how you feel -- I used to feel Linux fans were fanatics until I bought an iBook and began hanging out with the Apple crowd. Since then, I've stopped laughing when people talk about joining a religion with your computer purchase.
I think there is some astroturfing going on here, too. Apple's community is small enough that a few people can make a difference.
After the Creation, the cruel god Moloch rebelled against the authority of Marduk the Creator. Moloch stole from Marduk the most powerful of all the artifacts of the gods, the Amulet of Yendor, and he hid it in the dark cavities of Gehennom, the Under World, where he now lurks, and bides his time.
Once I find the amulet and complete Nethack, I might take a look at those other games. I've heard about this thing called PacMan that seems to be quite popular with the young crowd...
There should be pun here with Linux on the mainframe, but I'm just too tired this morning...
1. I have upgraded to Panther 10.3.3, and from what I have heard, this is not a bug, but considered a feature.
2. My consumer-lever Sony video camera has letterbox, and the open-source amateur video program Kino has letterbox. Apple cannot go around pretending that this is a professional feature if they want to charge that amout of money for iLife.
3. I don't have to do "jiggery-pokery" with any of my free Linux players to get Ogg support, and I don't see why I should have to for something I paid money for.
One interesting thing I have found about Apple users is that most have no experience with a modern Linux/BSD interface like KDE 3.2 -- figures, actually, because they are probably very happy with Mac OS X. As a consequence, they don't seem to realize that OS X, as flashy as it is, is going to have to get a lot better very quickly if they don't want to be run down by the Open Source crew.
Anybody who doubts this should ask themself this question: When is Apple going to be able to double the number of its developers again? With Linux and Co, this is just a question of time. As clever as Apple's developers might be, sooner or later, those numbers are going to catch up with them.
Yes, Apple makes good products -- I just bought an iBook as my new laptop and would buy one again. It's a good machine. The hardware is well designed if expensive, the software good, if not the best of breed. But Apple is a bunch cut-throat-DMCA-loving-money-grabbing capitalists like Microsoft, just without the monopoly, and Steve Jobs eats his chocolate one bite at a time, just like everyone else.
Good software? Yes. Great software? No. Mac OS X doesn't play well with others, it drops those pissy little .DS_Store files in every single folder of a network it can find. iMovie can't deal with letterbox DV (like even Kino can). Mail doesn't know TLS (which even the Beta of Mozilla Thunderbird can do). iTunes can't natively play Ogg Vorbis. Listing the ways that DVD Player is inferior to VLC would take pages, and don't get me started on all the hacks that have been installed to cripple the iBook to make the PowerBook look better (starting with the stupid Spanning Block that is supposed to make sure that only what you see on the screen can be sent to a second monitor or TV). Good, yes. Great, no.
Dear astroturfers, on the long run you'll help Apple more by giving a balanced, fair view of what is offered instead of this mindless drooling cheerleading. These machines are, so to speak, merely human, not gods, and even at 10.3, OS X has lots of room for improvement.
Wake me when it is out in Klingon, please.
German corporations enjoy free speech in Germany as well -- this is not the issue. The German legal system just doesn't believe in waiting years before addressing what is an obvious wrong. Contrast this with the judge in the SCO case who decided to let SCO keep spitting out their FUD until the IBM case is solved, thereby giving SCO a free hand to continue to damage RedHat's reputation for what could be just about forever. German courts happen to think that if you want to say bad things about the way other people do business, you should be able to prove it right away, not five years later. This is sort of along the lines that free speech does not cover me calling up your boss and telling him that you, say, have intercourse with sheep.
The simple fact is that Germany's legal system is superior in this respect, as in quite a number of others. Or to put it the other way around: The American legal system is hopelessly stuck in the 18th century, and even though Germany is not in the 21st century where everybody should be, it is at least in the 20th century.
Sometimes, 200 years and a bit of common sense can make all the difference.
I tend to think that people who write in CAPS are trolls, but since I can't mod you down, I guess I'll have to answer:
Yes, OS X (10.3 at least) is a very, very good operating system -- I own an iBook G4 -- but only if you agree with the design philosophy. OS X was designed for completely different people who want to do completely different things with computers than, say, Linux users. Lots of people in these discussions don't realize this and get their panties in a knot about which system is "better". This is sort of like asking if a bread knife is better than a scalpel.
Apple provides you with a flashy, very consistent, closed, minimal-options operating system that starts with the idea that choice is bad and will confuse the user. Steve Jobs tells you what you can and can't do, and in return, you don't have to deal with the computer as such: You just plug things in, and they work (or they don't). It is ideal for people who just want to listen to music, surf, do some email, and chat -- that is, 90 percent of the population. If this is all you want from a computer, by all means, go buy a Mac. It is what I recommend to my computer-illiterate colleagues when they complain about the latest Microsoft virus or crashing Windows.
However, some people think choice is good, and want to be able to decide for themselves just where they want to be in the big computer trade-off of ease-of-use and efficiency. To take the cliche example, one mouse button is not confusing, but when you do lots and lots of cut-and-paste, three buttons kick ass all over the place. One single desktop is not confusing, but virtual desktops give you more room to move without having to invent flashy tricks like Expose. A mail program without TLS support is one less option for the user, but if your provider happens to require that extra layer of security, you're screwed.
This is the reason why I will be installing Linux with KDE 3.2 on my iBook: I like choice, I am willing to learn things so that I can be more efficient, and the cozy, closed world of OS X is just too limited for what I want (and like) to do. Does this mean that I hate OS X or dispise it? No, it is just the wrong tool for the job in my case. No need for flames (or caps), just a rational assessment of my needs vs. those that OS X provides. Go forth and be happy with OS X, just realize that it is not the uberOS of the Gods. And please stop shouting.
As for the "best of Unix": Apple did the right thing from a business point of view. They realized that they could make all kinds of money without having to give anything in return by using BSD, and then even get to charge premium for a glossy GUI pasted over that. Basically, this is another case where the BSD people are helping a major corporation get richer (remember Micorosoft and the TCP stack?) while getting peanuts in return. If Apple had used Linux for the base system, they would have been forced to be part of the community and give full value in return instead of getting away with dropping a bone here and there. And they still could have sold that flashy GUI on top, made lots of money, made their users happy, whatever.
It is Apple's job (no pun intended) to be greedy: They are bound to shareholder value just like Microsoft. I just wonder if it should be our job to give them a free ride -- for any meaning of "free".
"Now that foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists know that Linux is going to control our most advanced defense systems, they can use fake identities to contribute subversive software."
The whole story is so absolutely paranoid (The Russians are coming! Beware of the Yellow Peril!) and shows such a complete lack of understanding of the Linux Open Source process that it would make me worry if I were buying Green Hills' software: Do you want to buy something from somebody who is this divorced from reality and has this little understanding of how his competitor works?
Richard Stallman might not be the person the best temperament to take tea with the Queen of England, but when everything is said and done, he ends up being right, which is probably the real reason so many people here hate his guts. He has been right a along, and the events we are watching just confirm this a bit more every day. And when push comes to shove, the BSD license and all the oh so helpful people that turn out software under it are Microsoft's life insurance, just as they were for Apple.
I know you are supposed to be nice to the BSD people and smile and be friends, but everytime Microsoft grinds another competitor into the dirt (bye-bye Sun) or prevails over another government (bye-bye Europeans, you could have made it count), I remember who handed Microsoft their TCP/IP stack on a platter and who knows what else, I come another step closer to the conclusion that they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Giving Apple a free ride might be seen as an act of charity, but helping Microsoft make money...
Cheesy marketing drivel, yes, but with a grain of truth. At the risk of being moded down to Hades by Mac lovers, let me very carefully point out that to some of us, OS X is not the operating system to end all operating systems. It has some problems (like a clumsy finder that dumps its bloody .DS_Store files all over every filesystem it can get its hands on), some severe limitations (like a Mail program that doesn't do TLS), and lacks important capabilities (no well-integrated office program except MS Office).
Don't get me wrong, OS X is probably the best operating system available for pure-consumer type users. When my co-worker complained to me a few days ago that he caught some sort of dialer virus thingy, I told him (politely) to get rid of the problem (Microsoft) and buy a Mac. Is Linux for him? No. He would be very happy with Apple's closed-world, choice-is-bad philosophy.
Some of us, however, like choice, and don't want to, say, pay extra for modern features like virtual desktops that Apple's engineers consider too confusing for us and are covered by shareware. I want a modern mailer (good grief, even the 0.5 BETA of Mozilla Thunderbird has TLS), I want Konqueror instead of the brain-damaged Finder, I want my right-click-lelf-click-done! mouse back. But I love the hardware: My iBook G4 is quiet under heavy loads, for example, and battery life is good.
Linux on a PowerPC gives you the best of both worlds -- even more so because you can use Mac-on-Linux to run your Mac OS X applications from inside Linux. Nobody is talking about wiping OS X off the computer (well, except maybe for this guy), because, remember, though Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are jealous computer gods, Linus is not. I did dual-boot for years with Windows before swiching completely. You can have your cake and eat it, too.
A lot of Mac people I have gotten to know after buying my iBook have no idea how good KDE and Gnome have become, they seem to think that Linux users still have to figure out the refresh parameters for X11 by hand. With more and more Linux people moving to PowerPC hardware, I think we'll see more discussions between OS X and Linux users. Linux can give OS X a good run for its mon-, er, can force Apple to try harder, a lot harder, in fact. And that is good for Mac fans, too.
Why is this important? Some of us really, really like Apple's hardware -- my iBook G4 was worth the money just because it is silent even under heavy loads, goes to sleep (and wakes) like a charm, and has a pretty impressive battery life compared to most x86 laptops. But OS X comes with a certain closed-system, choice-is-bad philosophy that just drives me nuts. Also, some of the programs included even in 10.3.3 are downright primitive -- Mail doesn't even have TLS in Panther -- and there is no cleanly integrated office package outside of MS Office.
This is where Linux (or dual-boot) comes in: Virtual screens, Kmail, OpenOffice 1.1 without having to boot a second window system, and if you still want to run OS X applications, well, you just do it from Linux with Mac-on-Linux. Hey, have your cake and eat it, too!
I can see lots of people moving to iBooks and PowerBooks and G5s -- heck, in that sense, I'm a switcher -- but keep in mind that just because there is a glowing Apple on the cover, it doesn't mean that there isn't a penguin on the inside. Mac OS X is good if you can stomach its closed-world, Steve-knows-best philosophy, but a lot of people will want the best of both worlds.
Ashcroft is going take the tax payer's money and try to assault the First in court again, which the U.S. justice system will let him do over and over again for ever. In countries where these things are handled by laws that are set down in books, he wouldn't even get to court until the legislative changed the law itself -- and fat chance lawmakers would be caught debating pornography at a time when U.S. combat deaths in Iraq are climbing to at least a dozen a day. The War against Terrorism can't be too pressing if Ashcroft can take time off to push his puritan agenda.
The whole SCO-farce has shown how bad the U.S. legal system is for companies and customers -- IBM and RedHat will still be in court years after German judges bitch-slapped SCO so loud it resonated all the way back to Utah. Ashcroft is demonstrating why the current U.S. system cannot protect the individual's rights adequately. Not that this could surprise anybody after parts of Cuba were turned into Bush's private holding pens, to the horror of the rest of the civilized world but with the go-ahead of U.S. courts...
Time to admit that the system is beyond fixing, time to admit that case-based law needs to be dumped where all those other countries have already put it: On the scrap heap. Other countries don't have to go through this kind of crap, and there is no reason we should have to, either.
Or maybe they just have a job, kids, and a house and can't spend enough time in front of the computer anymore to make those expensive games worthwhile.
God, how I'd love to spend a whole week again just playing "Half Life", or maybe finally finishing "Diablo II" with all characters...
(I especially like the Willow Rosenberg quote).
It is not a Linux thing, it is a Unix thing, so you might as well include the BSD crowd, the Sun crowd, and the new kids on the block from Apple. In fact, since the only people left standing without a Unix-based operating system (in our price range at least) work for Microsoft, the question should probably be phrased more like: What are the Windows people missing out on?
The Command Line Interface (CLI) is a beautifully designed tool set that will let you solve just about any computing problem elegantly and with very few resources. If you program in C, it is the best environment possible. You have easy access to far more options than any GUI can give you -- liberal use of the "nice" command (decrease the priority of a task) will save you one CPU generation right there. And last but not least: The GNU tools have been in use forever, and are beyond stable. In my ten years of using them, I have yet to have one crash or lock up. When things have gone wrong, it has been the kernel or, ah, me. Usually, me...
However, this power comes at a price: You have to sit down and learn a thing or two. For most computer users these days, this is not worth it, because all they want to do is write emails, chat, and download porn, and don't like learning things anyway. For those who use their computer a lot, be it for fun or profit, and like to use it hard, the time invested is repaid very, very quickly. This is one reason why some CLI fans look down on those who don't speak bash: In their eyes, GUI-only people either don't use their computer for serious (non-email, non-chat, non-porn) work, or -- worse -- are too dumb or lazy to learn how the best tools work. It is sort of like a carpenter who says he doesn't know how to use power tools and doesn't want to learn because it would be too much of an effort.
So basically, the *nix command line is like any other powerful magic: It takes time to learn, it is habit forming, it will change your perception of the (computer) world forever, it can bite you bad, it is not for everybody, and -- obviously -- prolonged use will make you arrogant as hell.
OS X starts with the idea that choice is confusing to the user, who doesn't want to have to learn anything new, ever, even if it makes him more productive. Choice is bad, and the user must be protected from it. This is the reason for the (usually) benign dictatorship that OS X imposes on the user. Given this philosophy, OS X does what it is supposed to do very, very well. If you put ease of use and lack of confusion first, OS X beats KDE hands down.
Almost all Linux desktops like KDE still carry the completely opposite philosophy around in their guts somewhere: If you really, really want to, you can drill down to the last bit and change things. Choice is good, the user is not stupid, and is willing to learn if it makes him more productive. Given this philosophy, KDE does what it is supposed to do very, very well. If you put productivity first, KDE beats OS X hands down.
All we need to do now is for each side to realize that they are not in direct competition. The KDE people do seem to admit that they'll never be as flashy (not until X11 grows real transparency, at least). The problem I have found is that the OS X people seem to believe that their OS can be all things to all people. Not so.
I've been using my new iBook G4 exclusively with OS X 10.3 now for over a month while waiting for YDL to get the next Linux version out. As nice as OS X is to look at for the first few days, once you get down to serious work, it is simply a pain. You can't get rid of the cute gimmicks (when minimizing the window, you can either have the "genie" or the "scale" effect, but you can't get the damn thing just to vanish). Closing a window doesn't close an application like it does in the rest of the computer world, you have to Command-q it or else it will hang around in the background. Expose is cute, but basically it is just a complicated way to make up for the lack of virtual desktops.
Yes, it is a cliche by now, and Apple users will probably go arrghhh because the have heard this so many times, but the single mouse button is one of the biggest drawbacks of a Mac (and no, I can't attach a USB mouse every time when I'm on the road with my iBook). KDE has a beautiful two-punch right-button, left-button combination that works consistantly over (almost) all applications. Reply to mail? Right-left. Log out? Right-left. With OS X, you're constantly pressing strange key combinations or (horror!) have to move up to the menu bar. Working with one button feels like having one hand tied behind your back.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with the iBook and would buy one again if this one got eaten by rabbits or something. If you are thinking about buying a laptop, do yourself a favour and at least look at Apple's portables. But OS X? High cuteness factor, quick to learn, but not for those who want to be productive first and cool second. Just like it was designed to be.
If there is ever a language that you can get up and running with quickly, it is Python. Runs on any platform, has a great library, and what is more, if you have to take a month off from your code, you can still figure out what you were doing.
You, Sir, are watching way too many TV ads...
Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package.
I just bought my first iBook (I'm a Linux native), and I agree that there is no good office package for Apple. AppleWorks is a joke, AbiWord doesn't do enough, and OpenOffice.org has to be fed through Apple's rather klutzy X implementation.
But make no mistake: This is Apple's problem, not OpenOffice.org's. There is no serious office package for Mac OS X except for MS Office -- but there is no way I am going to pay that much money, and I'm one of those old-fashioned people who things stealing is wrong. Given that OS X's Mail is too primitive (no TLS, so im using Mozilla Thunderbird), Safari doesn't work with online banking (so I'm using Mozilla FireFox), DVD Player is anal about region codes (so I'm using VLC, which has better quality anyway), I don't see much point in Mac OS X over Linux KDE 3.2 -- living without virtual desktops is simply hell, Expose or not. As soon as YDL gets sleep to work on the iBook, Linux it is again.
Apple is making a big mistake by not dumping AppleWorks and putting its programers to work on porting OpenOffice.org to OS X. They are not going to build a good office suite on their own, any more than they are going to make a good OS on their own. OpenOffice.org is there to help them, just as BSD was there to help them with the OS. Financing Microsoft through Office doesn't seem like a clever move.
On a more general note: One of the interesting things about native Mac users is that they are so in love with OS X they don't realize how Linux & Co are breathing down their necks, too. There seems to be a belief that Linux can only replace Windows, not OS X -- a form of "can't happen here" that is just fascinating. Apple is going to have to pedal really hard to stay ahead of KDE and Gnome, especially now since Novell, Sun, and (maybe) IBM are getting serious about the desktop: Mac OS X 10.3 is okay and flashy, but there is little there that won't be in KDE in a year, too.
That game with that music was so spooky, it made me want wet my pants. Nothing, not even Half Life has come close to that feeling of running around in a place where I shouldn't be with the ammo counter way down and monsters just around the next corner, for sure, and that music that you just couldn't get out of your head...
I could have been born in a different age, but then growing up with id Software has been a real kick.
The only seriously annoying thing about OOo is that they have decided to postpone the Mac OS X version until kingdom come, and I have to fool around with 1.0 via Apple's X11 program. This is partially Apple's problem, too: If they had any sense, they'd get rid of AppleWorks and MS Office for X and push OOo.
OOo, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird put you in the wonderful situation of not having to give a damn about which operating system you use. This is terrible for Microsoft, of course, but great news for the rest of the world. We can now concentrate on fighting about other and far more important things -- like who makes the best chocolate bars, or who is the cutest witch on TV, or which sequal to the "Matrix" was the worst...
As the new owner of an iBook, I have had a lot more to do with Mac owners lately, and let me tell you: Linux zealots can't hold a candle to an enraged Apple fanatic -- take for example the death threats this guy got when he did a parody of changing his PowerMac G5 into a PC. Linux users just don't get that excited, certainly not over hardware.
But then, everybody seems to think Mac users are some sort of peace-loving hippies, and the Linux people are radicals. Guess Steve Ballmer running around and calling us anti-American communists does have an effect after all.
Customs was not even a theoretical problem in my case, as there are no duties for importing computers to Germany. If you bought your iBook in a U.S. state that doesn't have sales tax [yes, my European children, there are whole states in the U.S. where there is no VAT. Remember this when your politicians try to tell you why your national sales tax has to be raised to 18 percent], you might have to pay a certain amount so they are satisfied you paid at least some sort of tax to somebody. This is the Einfuhrumsatzsteuer and German customs describes the details here. In my case, the Euro was high enough that it was still well worth it.
Other advice: Go on Apple's website (come on, you don't really want a loud, heavy, ugly Dell, do you), find a store in easy distance of where you are going to be, and email or call a few weeks ahead. IBooks are currently assembled in Taiwan, and take five to ten days if you want anything but the standard model (larger harddrive, for example). Remember, too, that America might have the most advanced stock market on the planet, but its bank system still hasn't gotten beyond the stage of sending little slips of paper around by mail: Most Americans have trouble understanding how an EC card even works, and happily go throught an 18th Century ritual called "balancing the check book" once every few days without complaint. You will have to pay cash (don't worry, these amounts in cash are not considered unusual in the U.S.), or better, get yourself a credit card.
German readers will want to take a look at this article about importing iBooks from the consumer test group Stiftung Warentest. Note that there are some minor mistakes in there, however, like the need for an adapter for the plug.
In my case, there was no question that it was worth it: In fact, I could have probably flown there and back just to pick up the computer, and still saved money. And best thing: With 220 volts, my iBook is twice as fast as it was in the States. No, really. The trouble is, it sends my fingerprints to Donald Rumsfeld every time I touch the escape button...
I would suggest that the people here who don't use Microsoft products do the same: All we are doing here, after all, is sitting around and feeling superior. Can this be morally right? No, fun as Microsoft bashing might be on a rainy afternoon.
But it just annoys the poor souls who have to use Microsoft at work, or like spending money for virus protection and time for daily updates, or are just too dumb to get it. It wastes Slashdot's bandwidth and throws mod points down the drain: Just how many times have you given "Switch to Linux!" or "Switch to Mac!" a +5 insightful? And that doesn't sound like Meta-Moderation-Karma-Whoring to you?
This is not our problem, there is nothing to see, and by now everybody should have gotten the point that it is either their own fault or that of their employer, and we are not sympathetic to their plight. Let's leave them alone and go elsewhere.