BS..... they require a simple app to generate the correct key for the hash given that an awful lot of service techs and/or support personnel have. Most have been reverse engineered and scripts written that are floating around on the net.
A lot of these can be beaten with a simple paperclip on the read lines of the small flash chip on the board which forces them to take a shit and let you reset the password with a utility. Most have beaten the paper clip attack now but it still worked on Dell D6x0-series machines not all that long ago.
And my libertarian friends wonder why I hate both government AND mega-corporations. We the people no longer matter. Although there is one thing in favor of the megacorps: They can't suck money direct from my wallet, send armed goons to invade my house, or force me to go die in Nam or Iraq or some other stupid war.
No, they just bought the government and can push them into sending armed goons to your house for dubious reasons and manipulate the legal system to suck the money out of your wallet and give it straight to them.
SC treats medical debts as tax debts now and will put liens on your property, drain your bank accounts, etc if you owe an ER money for a while.
The problem is that now the megacorps ARE the government and in typical corporate fashion, if you don't like it, go work somewhere else.
I'm not lying nor am I a conspiracy theorist loon. This is fact.
So by eliminating the intelligent and convincing most of the populous that engineers and technologists are evil, it makes it a lot harder for the intelligent to unite and inform the stupid as to what's going on. It also gives engineers the reputation of being eccentric, monstrous lunatics so most things they say are never given the thought that it deserves. Most attitudes from upper management and the government towards engineers is that they're really smart but "just don't get it".
Want to make sure your populace never realizes what you're doing? Get a publicly known "crazy guy" to say EXACTLY what you're doing.
Of course, a single library (libaspell) is really so very difficult on linux, lol
That's one of several but admittedly aspell is the most common.
If you are using vst's instead of native ladspa plugins and native synths, you kind of deserve all of that pain you are self inflicting upon yourself.
Not saying they aren't making strides but last I checked Ardour, Jack and LADSPA lack much industry support.
For example, I can't get a good Korg M1 emulator as a LADSPA plugin. And most of the existing LADSPA plugins I've heard kinda suck. Is this LADSPA's fault? No. Not Jack's fault either. Neither LADSPA or Jack are the only game in town either. And then there's half a dozen sound systems that can be used under that with sparse documentation on making them all play nice.
And I prefer AU plugins to VST because they can be used with ANY mac audio app.
Can't say I'm much of a fan of emulating guitar amp noise etc since I primarily deal with other instruments, however essentially the entire arturia range can be replaced very nicely by the bristol audio synth.
Here we have an emulated analog synth that sells for a few thousand dollars replaced by another program that does the exact same job that is gpl and free. This is just one example, if you wish I could find more, it becomes more of a case of people not knowing what is out there and what works well together.
I know exactly what's out there, have gone through the pain of actually making it work in a decent fashion and found myself far less productive with it.
Can it get the job done? Yes. Is it pleasant? No.
Of course, logic and pro-tools attempt to be all in one integrated solutions. Sequencer/synths/post processing etc all in one. Ardour is simply a digital audio workstation for recording/mastering etc.
With jack I can feed any program to any other program and chain them just fine and dandy, the interface between programs is nice and standardised and especially from a coder-musicians standpoint a lot nicer.
Heard of CoreAudio and Rewire? Works great.
To me API's and libraries that are not only consistent but actually good as well is worth the mac premium.
I am a programmer, musician and long time UNIX SysAdmin and pleasant tools that make me a bit more productive are worth $150.
The right tool for the right job, different jobs require different tools, so I don't see it as a problem at all that i have different programs for sequencing and for synths etc at all. Each task is different so why make one unholy program that does it all?
My best friend is a mac user and swears by logic, but upon inspection of my setup he has commented both that it is capable of anything logic can do and some things it can't, and that the complexity of my setup scares him.
I agree more knowledge is needed than turnkey solutions such as protools and logic, but to me at least I don't see the problem with becoming knowledgeable about something that you have a passion for.
Ummm.... the problem is that only half the tools in the open source chain are what I would describe as good. Most Linux MIDI sequencers I've seen remind me of half-aborted Atari ST GEM apps from back in my earlier days of computing. Yes my first MIDI experiences were on an ST...
And does Ardour do "Flex Time" yet? That was a major killer feature that is missing.
I have the knowledge, and the passion, but my passion when composing is focused on creativity and making music, NOT dicking with the audio subsystem or trying to find replacement plugins that sound as good.
Linux is awesome but I can't really recommend it for a DAW yet. Gets in the way too much though I didn't find it any worse than Windows. Still not as pleasant as my mac for such tasks.
Will it work for a lot of situations? Sure. Will it be fun to set up and learn? For most assuming they are running a decent distro. Would I use it as my primary DAW? Not yet.
If you're broke and piracy offends you, Ardour is certainly capable.
If I had your requirements, I would probably use a Mac as well. My graphics and audio requirements are considerably simpler and different
For machines with simpler requirements I typically run some form of BSD. NetBSD on SPARC, FreeBSD on x86. Both have Linux binary compatibility and are very clean well thought-out systems.
(can a Mac play multiple streams to multiple sound cards btw?).
Yeah but there's no easy UI to get to the functionality. I'm sure there's an app somewhere for it. Not something I typically do usually.
Your requirements are quire unusual. Most Mac users need a web browser, office software, a mail client and other fairly standard stuff.
Most studios I've seen have a couple Macs and a copy of ProTools and/or Logic. Macs are great recording rigs.
Most people buy a mac for things like iMovie, etc. If they just needed a web browser and mail client any piece of crap Winders box for $300 will do. People know this. They aren't quite as dumb as we think.
You have obviously never used JACK the professional audio api for linux, there is an os x port too, kicks mac os x's ass in regards to latency and also more functional (you can't route arbitrary streams with core audio, need separate app for it etc etc) (and yes I do have a full digital audio workstation with seq/synths/controllers and it's quite lovely).
Yes, I've used JACK and I never said it sucked but I've counted no less than 7 audio API's for Linux over the years.
And the low-latency goes away when you're forced to use VST plugins in a compatibility box. And if you try to say there's an open source equivalent to something as nice as Amplitube I'm going to laugh in your face.
Ardour's UI is downright awful but it's a cool app. It still ain't Logic or ProTools.
Some people don't mind different options,
It's not an "option" if you're forced to put yourself through that pain just to have a complete enough toolkit to get your job done.
And then have to jump through extra hoops just to find pantone color presets, etc.
For people that do actual work, who cares about form over function? while I use kde4 I disabled compiz etc just because I fail to see the usefulness of shiny.
Ummm.... what I was getting at is compiz is all form, the UI effects in OSX are really inexpensive in terms of CPU and GPU usage and are more of a side effect of the WAY more advanced compositing features in Apple's UI.
Ever wonder why EVERY OSX app can spit out an incredibly accurate PDF with no effort and what you see on the screen is a really accurate representation of what is spit out on a printer? Mac devs get it for free with no effort. We also get things like system-wide spellchecking that actually works and isn't dependent on half a dozen choices of GPL'd spellchecker libs.
I've never said Linux sucks but for creatives who want to create without dicking with the OS constantly or dealing with cumbersome UI's that get in the way of creating, Linux is a poor choice.
Dell wouldn't be much nicer in that regard. Same rules apply. If you know how to remove a screw or 2, save $500 and spend $75 at TigerDirect or NewEgg.
No, I'm saying OSX has a more FUNCTIONAL interface for end users that's more consistent with better developer API's for writing applications while retaining compatibility with traditional UNIX apps.
The OSX windowing system also kicks X11's ass on the performance front as well as under the hood. The only thing lost is network transparency which isn't important to most end users anyway.
Oh, and native well-polished versions of commercial apps with no FOSS equivalent is nice as well. Running WINE for Photoshop or pro audio apps is lame. Ardour ain't Logic or ProTools and GIMP ain't Photoshop (yet at least, getting closer).
The only advantage Linux has over OSX is the fact that it's free and runs on commodity parts you can scrape out of the closet in any IT department.
X.org even w/ Composite has NOTHING on the mac windowing system. The mac API for writing GUI apps is also a helluva lot nicer. The sound subsystem is way ahead of anything for Linux. There's ONE generally accepted widget toolkit that makes for a much more consistent UI.
For example, GIMP uses GTK, Scribus uses QT. There's no GTK Scribus and no QT gimp and no theming kludge is gonna fix that.
Linux isn't crap and is a great kernel but that alone isn't enough. More of a BSD fan myself but anyway....
I use FOSS every day for real work and I love it but don't try to claim it's anywhere near a complete replacement for OSX for every use case.
Yes, Compiz and KDE4 are pretty. Yes, they use hardware acceleration but to claim it offers any benefits besides "Oooh, pretty" and a little less CPU utilization is a joke. Quartz is VERY powerful and used for more than making windows move smoother.
I have a mac because I like UNIX and I like native versions of common software packages that I actually enjoy using without having to resort to a compatibility layer. That's worth a premium to me.
i.e. Photoshop and Logic Audio
That and the proprietary Apple API's and subsystems are actually pretty good. I like Core MIDI and Core Audio for example. And for multimedia/creative work, Apple's GUI layer is far more capable than X. Native PDF output from any app is neat as well. System-wide spellchecking that works with EVERY native app in a consistent manner. Wish they kept the network transparency from NeXTstep in current OSX releases for GUI apps but for that I still have X11.
Before people get pissy, believe me, I love GIMP and use the crap out of it but it is not Photoshop yet when it comes to huge RAW images and CMYK work. YET. I believe it will be one day and I hope they get around to doing a Cocoa UI for it some day as well.
Ardour is cool but it has nothing akin to "Flex Time" and having native common commercial plugins instead of relying on a VST plugin hack is way preferable. Ardour's interface is more akin to something like MOTU DP and doesn't fit well with my typical workflow and I spend too much time dicking with Ardour and less recording or composing. And I like Core Audio and Core MIDI. And yes, there's FOSS plugins and some are pretty good but show me a real suitable replacement for Amplitube.... or a Korg M1 emulator......
It ships with a decent X server and Macports makes it easy to get my FOSS fix as well.
The base-model Macbook is actually very capable and comparable in price to a similar Dell, Acer, etc. At least when I bought mine in Feb 2009 it was. The rest of the lineup is a bit overpriced but that's why we have the OSx86 project. And for people who can't pull it off, it may be worth the extra price to make the leap just for the nice OS and great hardware integration.
On PC's and servers I typically run BSD but there's simply no FOSS replacement for some things that I do and OSX really is pretty awesome. Even if Steve Jobs is an engineer-abusing, manipulative dick. I have nothing against PC's, just never cared for MS OS's or running software targeted for MS OS's in a compatibility layer.
I also, for the record, HATE the glowing Apple on their laptops. It's like a big bullseye that says STEAL ME. I got one of the fake leather MacAlly form-fitting cases just to cover this. It also just seems kinda pompous.
LOL good point but I bring up a counterargument.....
The Macintosh IIfx. A $10,000 machine that EVERYONE bitched about.... especially when they decided they wanted a RAM upgrade or to add external SCSI devices and had to buy a $50 special terminator.
Win95 wasn't always preemptive in its multitasking either (especially with legacy 16-bit 3.1 apps) and runaway processes sucking all CPU time were still common.
MS's early preemptive scheduler sucked ass as well and typically performed as bad as coorperative multitasking on the mac.
A/UX was expensive but it was a great MacOS/SysVR2 UNIX hybrid.
Does classic MacOS suck? It does now but at the time it was simpler and more user-friendly than anything else out there. The interface was great. Under the hood it was already an antique POS by the time the mid-90's rolled around but really wasn't much worse than anything else in regular use on the average desktop.
The fact they got that 68K/PPC hybrid crap to work at ALL is impressive much less run in a remotely stable fashion.
NeXTStep was a good choice as an OS replacement. I've never met anyone who used a NeXT machine and said it was a piece of crap.
In addition, you -could- run homebrew on the PS3. You didn't get access to the BD, you didn't get full access to the graphics bits and pieces, but you could run homebrew. Apparently that wasn't enough for some,
So basically you couldn't get access to any of the bits that make writing anything but a folding@home client on the platform remotely appealing interesting. The bits that actually make it a PS3 instead of a fairly quick PPC with some extra DSP units and a dumb framebuffer. No.... that wasn't enough. And then they stole that. An old PowerMac G5 would be infinitely more useful and interesting than that PS3 sandboxed Linux environment.
Sony telling me what I can and can't do with hardware I legitimately purchased and then being ballsy enough to remove functionality without adequate notification or consent is shady at best and they deserve whatever comes to them as a result. Fuck Sony, I hope they burn and people pirate on the PS3 until it's so unattractive to developers that it tanks.
System 7 was on par with Win95/98 in terms of capability and stability. System 6 was actually very solid with well-behaved apps.
Comparing either to NT is unfair to say the least. The Apple workstation/server OS in this timeframe was A/UX which kicked NT's ass in terms of reliability.
You know OSX is UNIX(ish) right? There is a kill command. There's also Activity Monitor in Applications/Utilities from which you can kill processes with a click of the button like the processes tab in the Task Manager in Winblows.
Don't mistake your unwillingness to truly learn a different platform with missing features. Everything is there, you just aren't looking hard enough.
And what plugins are you using with ProTools that's causing it to blow up every 2 minutes? That ain't normal. I use Logic Studio anyway but ProTools on the mac is still a good package that I rarely hear people bitch about.
If you use that good old Activity Monitor, you might be able to even figure out what's causing your hassles to begin with.
And for the record, I've had the "End Task" button in Winblows take MINUTES to work in the past where a good ol' "kill -9" on a Linux box or Mac is instanfuckintaneous usually.
Yeah, considering NewtonOS 1.0 had IRDA and network printing support out of the box in 1994. I miss my MP2100.
I'm just wondering how they pulled this fiasco of restricting the shit out of a PDA and stripping most of the functionality that made a PDA useful, vehemently denying it's a PDA, abusing their developers AND users, and somehow managing to crawl on top of the world.
Steve's lucky NextStep, OpenStep, I mean MacOS X is really slick otherwise they are just a shitty consumer gadget company. Too bad he wants to try to kill desktop computing.
All this is the same Internet Appliance bullshit everyone was trying to cram down our throats in the late 90's. All those pushes failed miserably. Why is Apple succeeding? Because their toys are shiny and you can download the latest Britney Spears tune in one click now?
Q. User - How do I get (Linux/Apple device/whatever fanboi loves the most) to do $foo?
A. Fanboi who won't admit that his precious can't do $foo. - Why would you want to do that?
Why would you want to cut and paste on an iphone? Why would you want to print from an ipad? Why would you want your email client to integrate with your calendar? Why would you want to move the "song name" column in itunes..........
Which is kinda funny because I used to print from my Newton MessagePad 2100 over the network and IrDA, cut and paste text and had an e-mail client that integrated nicely with the calendar. Oh, and I could run code of my choosing without resorting to hacking the device. Whatever the hell I wanted.
IMHO, the iPhone and iPad are a very pretty step backwards from what I was able to enjoy in the 90's and far more restricted at that. About the only thing an iPad or iPhone can do that the Newton can't is play 720p video. That and display images in color but I liked the grayscale screen personally. I could even run a BASIC interpreter without Jobs kicking in my door and accusing me of being a scumbag lawbreaker.
The Newton just got very bad press in the beginning and it took several OS revisions and a couple hardware releases to get right, by then it was kinda doomed.
All this shit and no OSX news, the one product Apple still has that I remotely give a shit about? Fuck you Steve.
All that may be useful on an expensive supercar which will only be worked on by 100k/yr Jaguar mechanics but most of the diagnostic tools to read such information is even outside the budget of most small shops. Most people can't afford to take their car to a dealer for something which should be simple enough to do in a backyard or small-town car shop.
These systems are also so technician-hostile that you need specialized equipment just to READ diagnostics for different makes/model/years of car and they go out of their way to make it near-impossible for the average person to get ahold of them and screw independent manufacturers making generic devices.
If all of the systems were based on truly open standards and I could read the data with a standard usb or serial cable, I'd agree with you. And while it is more efficient, so was mechanical fuel injection. And a well-designed carb really ain't THAT bad..... those can be even be computer controlled as well.
They want you to treat cars like you treat modern electronics, disposable devices that are driven by super space age magic that you're not allowed to understand or modify that are only to be worked on by THEIR 100k/yr mechanics or else. If you want more features or want it to last longer, you must buy their approved nicer model or you're nothing but a cheapskate punk hacker looking to break the law.
Buy older cars. That's what I'm forced to do. I commute 500 miles per week. I can't afford a $700/mo in repairs/maintenance that I should be able to do in my back yard.
If they could get away with passing legislation that makes it illegal to open your hood, believe me they'd do it. Fuck it folks, it's time to eat the rich and powerful and reclaim our world from state-sanctioned corporate tyranny by whatever means necessary.
I've always used group policy even in the smallest environments when stuck in Windows-land.
Had to build some MSI packages to deploy Firefox but most folks are right, it is tougher to lock down via AD. Not really the fault of Firefox that they don't want to support a deployment system used only on one of the many platforms they support.
In most smaller environments there rarely exists a policy against this.... even when they are the ones who should be most concerned.... especially the ones with no on-site IT staff.
Want to bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts while you're at it?
No need...... 20 years is plenty sufficient..... in fact, this law was updated some recently. I don't remember "or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or" when I first read it.
Since they updated it recently, I wonder who the first target is going to be for this law because it's so broad that it can basically be applied to anybody at just about any time. I've sad it before, the instruments of our demise have already been put in place. The only problem is WE won't have 2 large superpowers to come free us from the Nazis like the German populace did. We're just going to rot and languish. Welcome to your utopian 21st century sci-fi bonanza folks.
See US TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 115 > 2385 (SC has a similar state law that works in nasty concert with this too)
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction. If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction. As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.
It was still far less powerful than their subsequent platforms released a year later. And in '82 the 400 wasn't a helluva lot pricier than a 2600.
The 2600 is too limited for any games that are remotely immersive or involved.
The Atari 400/800 were much better machines with a similar CPU (not crippled however). The Atari 2600 of Star Raiders compared to the 400/800 version is a good example. The 400/800 had a programmable GPU and used bitmap graphics instead of chasing a scan line. Also had a separate "CPU"/microcontroller to handle multichannel sound, joysticks, the keyboard and paddles.
And with the exception of Space Invaders, most Arcade ports sucked.
Slashdot Mirror
BS..... they require a simple app to generate the correct key for the hash given that an awful lot of service techs and/or support personnel have. Most have been reverse engineered and scripts written that are floating around on the net.
A lot of these can be beaten with a simple paperclip on the read lines of the small flash chip on the board which forces them to take a shit and let you reset the password with a utility. Most have beaten the paper clip attack now but it still worked on Dell D6x0-series machines not all that long ago.
The HDD locks can be more of a pain in the ass.
>>>want regulation that prevents competition
And my libertarian friends wonder why I hate both government AND mega-corporations. We the people no longer matter. Although there is one thing in favor of the megacorps: They can't suck money direct from my wallet, send armed goons to invade my house, or force me to go die in Nam or Iraq or some other stupid war.
No, they just bought the government and can push them into sending armed goons to your house for dubious reasons and manipulate the legal system to suck the money out of your wallet and give it straight to them.
SC treats medical debts as tax debts now and will put liens on your property, drain your bank accounts, etc if you owe an ER money for a while.
The problem is that now the megacorps ARE the government and in typical corporate fashion, if you don't like it, go work somewhere else.
I'm not lying nor am I a conspiracy theorist loon. This is fact.
The megacorps pretty much run the war as well.
Although there is one thing in favor of the megacorps: They can't suck money direct from my wallet, send armed goons to invade my house, or forc
The only holy grail of UI innovation I'm salivating for is a true scalable interface that's resolution independent.
I think I'll see it from Apple before anyone else. I know KDE is working toward this eventual goal as well.
So by eliminating the intelligent and convincing most of the populous that engineers and technologists are evil, it makes it a lot harder for the intelligent to unite and inform the stupid as to what's going on. It also gives engineers the reputation of being eccentric, monstrous lunatics so most things they say are never given the thought that it deserves. Most attitudes from upper management and the government towards engineers is that they're really smart but "just don't get it".
Want to make sure your populace never realizes what you're doing? Get a publicly known "crazy guy" to say EXACTLY what you're doing.
Of course, a single library (libaspell) is really so very difficult on linux, lol
That's one of several but admittedly aspell is the most common.
If you are using vst's instead of native ladspa plugins and native synths, you kind of deserve all of that pain you are self inflicting upon yourself.
Not saying they aren't making strides but last I checked Ardour, Jack and LADSPA lack much industry support.
For example, I can't get a good Korg M1 emulator as a LADSPA plugin. And most of the existing LADSPA plugins I've heard kinda suck. Is this LADSPA's fault? No. Not Jack's fault either. Neither LADSPA or Jack are the only game in town either. And then there's half a dozen sound systems that can be used under that with sparse documentation on making them all play nice.
And I prefer AU plugins to VST because they can be used with ANY mac audio app.
Can't say I'm much of a fan of emulating guitar amp noise etc since I primarily deal with other instruments, however essentially the entire arturia range can be replaced very nicely by the bristol audio synth.
Here we have an emulated analog synth that sells for a few thousand dollars replaced by another program that does the exact same job that is gpl and free. This is just one example, if you wish I could find more, it becomes more of a case of people not knowing what is out there and what works well together.
I know exactly what's out there, have gone through the pain of actually making it work in a decent fashion and found myself far less productive with it.
Can it get the job done? Yes. Is it pleasant? No.
Of course, logic and pro-tools attempt to be all in one integrated solutions. Sequencer/synths/post processing etc all in one. Ardour is simply a digital audio workstation for recording/mastering etc.
With jack I can feed any program to any other program and chain them just fine and dandy, the interface between programs is nice and standardised and especially from a coder-musicians standpoint a lot nicer.
Heard of CoreAudio and Rewire? Works great.
To me API's and libraries that are not only consistent but actually good as well is worth the mac premium.
I am a programmer, musician and long time UNIX SysAdmin and pleasant tools that make me a bit more productive are worth $150.
The right tool for the right job, different jobs require different tools, so I don't see it as a problem at all that i have different programs for sequencing and for synths etc at all. Each task is different so why make one unholy program that does it all?
My best friend is a mac user and swears by logic, but upon inspection of my setup he has commented both that it is capable of anything logic can do and some things it can't, and that the complexity of my setup scares him.
I agree more knowledge is needed than turnkey solutions such as protools and logic, but to me at least I don't see the problem with becoming knowledgeable about something that you have a passion for.
Ummm.... the problem is that only half the tools in the open source chain are what I would describe as good. Most Linux MIDI sequencers I've seen remind me of half-aborted Atari ST GEM apps from back in my earlier days of computing. Yes my first MIDI experiences were on an ST...
And does Ardour do "Flex Time" yet? That was a major killer feature that is missing.
I have the knowledge, and the passion, but my passion when composing is focused on creativity and making music, NOT dicking with the audio subsystem or trying to find replacement plugins that sound as good.
Linux is awesome but I can't really recommend it for a DAW yet. Gets in the way too much though I didn't find it any worse than Windows. Still not as pleasant as my mac for such tasks.
Will it work for a lot of situations? Sure. Will it be fun to set up and learn? For most assuming they are running a decent distro. Would I use it as my primary DAW? Not yet.
If you're broke and piracy offends you, Ardour is certainly capable.
If I had your requirements, I would probably use a Mac as well. My graphics and audio requirements are considerably simpler and different
For machines with simpler requirements I typically run some form of BSD. NetBSD on SPARC, FreeBSD on x86. Both have Linux binary compatibility and are very clean well thought-out systems.
(can a Mac play multiple streams to multiple sound cards btw?).
Yeah but there's no easy UI to get to the functionality. I'm sure there's an app somewhere for it. Not something I typically do usually.
Your requirements are quire unusual. Most Mac users need a web browser, office software, a mail client and other fairly standard stuff.
Most studios I've seen have a couple Macs and a copy of ProTools and/or Logic. Macs are great recording rigs.
Most people buy a mac for things like iMovie, etc. If they just needed a web browser and mail client any piece of crap Winders box for $300 will do. People know this. They aren't quite as dumb as we think.
You have obviously never used JACK the professional audio api for linux, there is an os x port too, kicks mac os x's ass in regards to latency and also more functional (you can't route arbitrary streams with core audio, need separate app for it etc etc) (and yes I do have a full digital audio workstation with seq/synths/controllers and it's quite lovely).
Yes, I've used JACK and I never said it sucked but I've counted no less than 7 audio API's for Linux over the years.
And the low-latency goes away when you're forced to use VST plugins in a compatibility box. And if you try to say there's an open source equivalent to something as nice as Amplitube I'm going to laugh in your face.
Ardour's UI is downright awful but it's a cool app. It still ain't Logic or ProTools.
Some people don't mind different options,
It's not an "option" if you're forced to put yourself through that pain just to have a complete enough toolkit to get your job done.
And then have to jump through extra hoops just to find pantone color presets, etc.
For people that do actual work, who cares about form over function? while I use kde4 I disabled compiz etc just because I fail to see the usefulness of shiny.
Ummm.... what I was getting at is compiz is all form, the UI effects in OSX are really inexpensive in terms of CPU and GPU usage and are more of a side effect of the WAY more advanced compositing features in Apple's UI.
Ever wonder why EVERY OSX app can spit out an incredibly accurate PDF with no effort and what you see on the screen is a really accurate representation of what is spit out on a printer? Mac devs get it for free with no effort. We also get things like system-wide spellchecking that actually works and isn't dependent on half a dozen choices of GPL'd spellchecker libs.
I've never said Linux sucks but for creatives who want to create without dicking with the OS constantly or dealing with cumbersome UI's that get in the way of creating, Linux is a poor choice.
Dell wouldn't be much nicer in that regard. Same rules apply. If you know how to remove a screw or 2, save $500 and spend $75 at TigerDirect or NewEgg.
No, I'm saying OSX has a more FUNCTIONAL interface for end users that's more consistent with better developer API's for writing applications while retaining compatibility with traditional UNIX apps.
The OSX windowing system also kicks X11's ass on the performance front as well as under the hood. The only thing lost is network transparency which isn't important to most end users anyway.
Oh, and native well-polished versions of commercial apps with no FOSS equivalent is nice as well. Running WINE for Photoshop or pro audio apps is lame. Ardour ain't Logic or ProTools and GIMP ain't Photoshop (yet at least, getting closer).
The only advantage Linux has over OSX is the fact that it's free and runs on commodity parts you can scrape out of the closet in any IT department.
X.org even w/ Composite has NOTHING on the mac windowing system. The mac API for writing GUI apps is also a helluva lot nicer. The sound subsystem is way ahead of anything for Linux. There's ONE generally accepted widget toolkit that makes for a much more consistent UI.
For example, GIMP uses GTK, Scribus uses QT. There's no GTK Scribus and no QT gimp and no theming kludge is gonna fix that.
Linux isn't crap and is a great kernel but that alone isn't enough. More of a BSD fan myself but anyway....
I use FOSS every day for real work and I love it but don't try to claim it's anywhere near a complete replacement for OSX for every use case.
Yes, Compiz and KDE4 are pretty. Yes, they use hardware acceleration but to claim it offers any benefits besides "Oooh, pretty" and a little less CPU utilization is a joke. Quartz is VERY powerful and used for more than making windows move smoother.
I have a mac because I like UNIX and I like native versions of common software packages that I actually enjoy using without having to resort to a compatibility layer. That's worth a premium to me.
i.e. Photoshop and Logic Audio
That and the proprietary Apple API's and subsystems are actually pretty good. I like Core MIDI and Core Audio for example. And for multimedia/creative work, Apple's GUI layer is far more capable than X. Native PDF output from any app is neat as well. System-wide spellchecking that works with EVERY native app in a consistent manner. Wish they kept the network transparency from NeXTstep in current OSX releases for GUI apps but for that I still have X11.
Before people get pissy, believe me, I love GIMP and use the crap out of it but it is not Photoshop yet when it comes to huge RAW images and CMYK work. YET. I believe it will be one day and I hope they get around to doing a Cocoa UI for it some day as well.
Ardour is cool but it has nothing akin to "Flex Time" and having native common commercial plugins instead of relying on a VST plugin hack is way preferable. Ardour's interface is more akin to something like MOTU DP and doesn't fit well with my typical workflow and I spend too much time dicking with Ardour and less recording or composing. And I like Core Audio and Core MIDI. And yes, there's FOSS plugins and some are pretty good but show me a real suitable replacement for Amplitube.... or a Korg M1 emulator......
It ships with a decent X server and Macports makes it easy to get my FOSS fix as well.
The base-model Macbook is actually very capable and comparable in price to a similar Dell, Acer, etc. At least when I bought mine in Feb 2009 it was. The rest of the lineup is a bit overpriced but that's why we have the OSx86 project. And for people who can't pull it off, it may be worth the extra price to make the leap just for the nice OS and great hardware integration.
On PC's and servers I typically run BSD but there's simply no FOSS replacement for some things that I do and OSX really is pretty awesome. Even if Steve Jobs is an engineer-abusing, manipulative dick. I have nothing against PC's, just never cared for MS OS's or running software targeted for MS OS's in a compatibility layer.
I also, for the record, HATE the glowing Apple on their laptops. It's like a big bullseye that says STEAL ME. I got one of the fake leather MacAlly form-fitting cases just to cover this. It also just seems kinda pompous.
LOL good point but I bring up a counterargument.....
The Macintosh IIfx. A $10,000 machine that EVERYONE bitched about.... especially when they decided they wanted a RAM upgrade or to add external SCSI devices and had to buy a $50 special terminator.
NT could run Win95 apps.
A/UX could run System 7 apps.
AIX, though it replaced A/UX in the server lineup was just another bastardized UNIX with a poor app lineup.
Win95 wasn't always preemptive in its multitasking either (especially with legacy 16-bit 3.1 apps) and runaway processes sucking all CPU time were still common.
MS's early preemptive scheduler sucked ass as well and typically performed as bad as coorperative multitasking on the mac.
A/UX was expensive but it was a great MacOS/SysVR2 UNIX hybrid.
Does classic MacOS suck? It does now but at the time it was simpler and more user-friendly than anything else out there. The interface was great. Under the hood it was already an antique POS by the time the mid-90's rolled around but really wasn't much worse than anything else in regular use on the average desktop.
The fact they got that 68K/PPC hybrid crap to work at ALL is impressive much less run in a remotely stable fashion.
NeXTStep was a good choice as an OS replacement. I've never met anyone who used a NeXT machine and said it was a piece of crap.
In addition, you -could- run homebrew on the PS3. You didn't get access to the BD, you didn't get full access to the graphics bits and pieces, but you could run homebrew. Apparently that wasn't enough for some,
So basically you couldn't get access to any of the bits that make writing anything but a folding@home client on the platform remotely appealing interesting. The bits that actually make it a PS3 instead of a fairly quick PPC with some extra DSP units and a dumb framebuffer. No.... that wasn't enough. And then they stole that. An old PowerMac G5 would be infinitely more useful and interesting than that PS3 sandboxed Linux environment.
Sony telling me what I can and can't do with hardware I legitimately purchased and then being ballsy enough to remove functionality without adequate notification or consent is shady at best and they deserve whatever comes to them as a result. Fuck Sony, I hope they burn and people pirate on the PS3 until it's so unattractive to developers that it tanks.
System 7 was on par with Win95/98 in terms of capability and stability. System 6 was actually very solid with well-behaved apps.
Comparing either to NT is unfair to say the least. The Apple workstation/server OS in this timeframe was A/UX which kicked NT's ass in terms of reliability.
You know OSX is UNIX(ish) right? There is a kill command. There's also Activity Monitor in Applications/Utilities from which you can kill processes with a click of the button like the processes tab in the Task Manager in Winblows.
Don't mistake your unwillingness to truly learn a different platform with missing features. Everything is there, you just aren't looking hard enough.
And what plugins are you using with ProTools that's causing it to blow up every 2 minutes? That ain't normal. I use Logic Studio anyway but ProTools on the mac is still a good package that I rarely hear people bitch about.
If you use that good old Activity Monitor, you might be able to even figure out what's causing your hassles to begin with.
And for the record, I've had the "End Task" button in Winblows take MINUTES to work in the past where a good ol' "kill -9" on a Linux box or Mac is instanfuckintaneous usually.
Yeah, considering NewtonOS 1.0 had IRDA and network printing support out of the box in 1994. I miss my MP2100.
I'm just wondering how they pulled this fiasco of restricting the shit out of a PDA and stripping most of the functionality that made a PDA useful, vehemently denying it's a PDA, abusing their developers AND users, and somehow managing to crawl on top of the world.
Steve's lucky NextStep, OpenStep, I mean MacOS X is really slick otherwise they are just a shitty consumer gadget company. Too bad he wants to try to kill desktop computing.
All this is the same Internet Appliance bullshit everyone was trying to cram down our throats in the late 90's. All those pushes failed miserably. Why is Apple succeeding? Because their toys are shiny and you can download the latest Britney Spears tune in one click now?
The standard non-answer. Kind of sad.
Q. User - How do I get (Linux/Apple device/whatever fanboi loves the most) to do $foo?
A. Fanboi who won't admit that his precious can't do $foo. - Why would you want to do that?
Why would you want to cut and paste on an iphone? Why would you want to print from an ipad? Why would you want your email client to integrate with your calendar? Why would you want to move the "song name" column in itunes..........
Which is kinda funny because I used to print from my Newton MessagePad 2100 over the network and IrDA, cut and paste text and had an e-mail client that integrated nicely with the calendar. Oh, and I could run code of my choosing without resorting to hacking the device. Whatever the hell I wanted.
IMHO, the iPhone and iPad are a very pretty step backwards from what I was able to enjoy in the 90's and far more restricted at that. About the only thing an iPad or iPhone can do that the Newton can't is play 720p video. That and display images in color but I liked the grayscale screen personally. I could even run a BASIC interpreter without Jobs kicking in my door and accusing me of being a scumbag lawbreaker.
The Newton just got very bad press in the beginning and it took several OS revisions and a couple hardware releases to get right, by then it was kinda doomed.
All this shit and no OSX news, the one product Apple still has that I remotely give a shit about? Fuck you Steve.
All that may be useful on an expensive supercar which will only be worked on by 100k/yr Jaguar mechanics but most of the diagnostic tools to read such information is even outside the budget of most small shops. Most people can't afford to take their car to a dealer for something which should be simple enough to do in a backyard or small-town car shop.
These systems are also so technician-hostile that you need specialized equipment just to READ diagnostics for different makes/model/years of car and they go out of their way to make it near-impossible for the average person to get ahold of them and screw independent manufacturers making generic devices.
If all of the systems were based on truly open standards and I could read the data with a standard usb or serial cable, I'd agree with you. And while it is more efficient, so was mechanical fuel injection. And a well-designed carb really ain't THAT bad..... those can be even be computer controlled as well.
They want you to treat cars like you treat modern electronics, disposable devices that are driven by super space age magic that you're not allowed to understand or modify that are only to be worked on by THEIR 100k/yr mechanics or else. If you want more features or want it to last longer, you must buy their approved nicer model or you're nothing but a cheapskate punk hacker looking to break the law.
Buy older cars. That's what I'm forced to do. I commute 500 miles per week. I can't afford a $700/mo in repairs/maintenance that I should be able to do in my back yard.
If they could get away with passing legislation that makes it illegal to open your hood, believe me they'd do it. Fuck it folks, it's time to eat the rich and powerful and reclaim our world from state-sanctioned corporate tyranny by whatever means necessary.
I've always used group policy even in the smallest environments when stuck in Windows-land.
Had to build some MSI packages to deploy Firefox but most folks are right, it is tougher to lock down via AD. Not really the fault of Firefox that they don't want to support a deployment system used only on one of the many platforms they support.
In most smaller environments there rarely exists a policy against this.... even when they are the ones who should be most concerned.... especially the ones with no on-site IT staff.
Want to bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts while you're at it?
No need...... 20 years is plenty sufficient..... in fact, this law was updated some recently. I don't remember "or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or" when I first read it.
Since they updated it recently, I wonder who the first target is going to be for this law because it's so broad that it can basically be applied to anybody at just about any time. I've sad it before, the instruments of our demise have already been put in place. The only problem is WE won't have 2 large superpowers to come free us from the Nazis like the German populace did. We're just going to rot and languish. Welcome to your utopian 21st century sci-fi bonanza folks.
See
US TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 115 > 2385 (SC has a similar state law that works in nasty concert with this too)
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.
It was still far less powerful than their subsequent platforms released a year later. And in '82 the 400 wasn't a helluva lot pricier than a 2600.
The 2600 is too limited for any games that are remotely immersive or involved.
The Atari 400/800 were much better machines with a similar CPU (not crippled however). The Atari 2600 of Star Raiders compared to the 400/800 version is a good example. The 400/800 had a programmable GPU and used bitmap graphics instead of chasing a scan line. Also had a separate "CPU"/microcontroller to handle multichannel sound, joysticks, the keyboard and paddles.
And with the exception of Space Invaders, most Arcade ports sucked.
Lemme see a 2600 do "Rescue on Fractalus".