A friend of mine uses osx and was complaining that there are (she cannot find anyway) any free beer osx irc clients. Are you aware of any that aren't 30 minute timeout nagware apps?
The fact remains that installing major packages targetted for one distribution on another distribution can be tricky at best. Hell, even trying to run packages on an older version of the SAME distribution is often hit and miss.
I can build applications against the Windows 2003 SP1 platform SDK and they certainly will not work correctly on Windows XP SP2 (Having done this myself, runtime errors popping up randomly are most common to happen in such cases).
And God forbid you're running a Linux distribution from 2001 (as opposed to running an app from 2001).
If I build applications against the latest Windows XP SP2 platform SDK. You will also find that running them on Windows XP (no service packs - a 2001 OS) will likely cause these applications to crash (if they don't crash while starting up, they will definitely crash when you minimize the application).
To put it simply, these issues exist on Windows on too - I should know since I have had a tonne of issues with this on most operating systems.
There's almost no forward compatibility in Linux distributions. Fortunately, it is free to upgrade, but still...
At the end of the day, this really depends on how the distributions decide to package their content. There are some like Slackware which make binaries that appear to 'run anywhere'.
As for OS X... Nevermind the architecture change and the Rosetta bugs with big endian and little endian. I can't get quite a few applications from 10.2 working at all on PPC versions of 10.4 or 10.5.
Running packages that were built for another specific distribution is in my opinion, a bad idea for any operating system. Linux isn't unique to this.
Sorry, but if you can't get Darwin ports running then you're not a power user. Just stick to things that require you to drag an icon to the Apps folder and you should be okay.
Seriously, the issues with Darwin ports are stupid things like dependency hell. The applications randomly segfaulting (on a brand new OS X system you just setup). Packages that are referenced, but don't actually exist.
These issues were resolved years ago on Linux distributions.
WTF else does one use Linux for, but to have a UNIX-like system? It's not because they're all too poor to afford a copy of Windows.
I personally find it technically superior for my needs. Others have philosophies. Some because it works for them while other stuff doesn't etc. Google for more reasons.
You wouldn't know quality software if it hit you on the nose.
Personally I am not impressed with the majority of software out there. The fact you would see all these applications as apparently "high quality" tells me your standards are set too low.
"how most of the applications you mentioned don't even follow Apple's HiG." Troll say what?
"Except when it comes to x11 on OS X. Then drag and drop absolutely sucks:P" Troll say what?
If you don't even know about these issues in OS X. You certainly don't know OS X well at all.
"Windows' POSIX subsystem behaves CORRECTLY unlike OS X's BSD subsystem. If you really wanted to get something because it behaves like Unix properly then using Windows' POSIX subsystem would definitely be a choice over OS X." ROFLMAO
Yeah, it's funny how OS X took BSD code and still messed it up to the point where signaling doesn't even work correctly. While Windows gets it right.
"Look up Windows Services for Unix." Oh God, you can't be serious. Yes, let's all use Windows, the real UNIX.
I didn't say it was the real UNIX nor did I imply it. I am saying that Windows's POSIX subsystem has the correct UNIX behavior, where Mac OS X does not.
You are such a bad troll, and I feel a little sick because I know your twisted little mind might actually believe the garbage coming out of your mouth.
Why don't you refute what issues I have mentioned instead of flamebaiting me?
I have doubts that most desktop users care that much about their desktop being UNIX
I can't see any reason for using Linux on the desktop at all.
Well, there are those who have philosophies - opensource, free. Don't want to pay for a expensive machine just get to get OS X (since Apple machines are higher priced and higher speced than the low end in the PC industry).
And then there are people like me, who don't really care about price. But use a OS because they feel it is technically superior for their needs.
In my case: OS X is too difficult - Getting things like applications in Darwin ports working is far more difficult than just using your average linux distribution. The GUI is simplified beyond my liking, I am a power user and I like to customize my desktop a little. Most OS X applications are geared towards the user who has never used the program before but don't hold applications for the more advanced users -- To explain this as simple as I can, a VIM user is likely going to be much faster with LaTeX from scratch to make a pdf document than a user that uses a GUI centric application like Pages and/or Microsoft Office to do so the same.
The reason is that the experienced user with VIM is capable of operating a lot faster with his aliases, tiny commands and so on than a user who has to rely on the mouse and various GUI menus popping up offering various options (yes, I am aware there are VIM ports on OS X). The problem is that OS X in this scenario doesn't really have many applications that even do a compromise by doing 50/50 in capabilities.
OS X doesn't handle x11 properly. I want to use a x11 application, that means I expect to be able to do simple things like drag and drop and copy/pasting properly.
I personally find OS X slower. I run Linux on the same hardware and I find general multi-tasking is just 'faster'.
I find OS X's bugs annoying. Can we please FTFF! (No, Leopard didn't) I am sick of stupid bugs that cause Finder to freeze up on silly things like file shares and even crashing on ungraceful events.
What is really sad is that OS X managed to get Unix certification, but still the BSD subsystem can't handle signals properly. Even Windows' POSIX subsystem does this correctly (that's right, Windows is capable of being more UNIX-like than OS X is in it's current state).
My Linux system does not have these limitations. I hope this was informative to you as to why at least I don't use OS X -- I don't particularly have any real philosophies when it comes to proprietary or opensource software.
Linux's modularity and potential small size mean it might still have a place for embedded devices, but even there, if you don't mind less initial user friendliness, there's NetBSD...and with NetBSD not only do you have arguably greater portability, you've also got a more liberal license, and the above mentioned social benefits, as well.
It is my belief that Linux has been ported to more architectures and platforms than NetBSD has. There are RTOS versions of the OS even that NetBSD does not have. Heck, take a look at the Linux on xbox, Nintendo DS and other random projects people have created. It seems to be running anywhere these days.
Wow... well, I think you just might be wrong there
Seriously, I never hear people wanting to use a Unix like system in general as the reason why someone uses Linux and I know a lot of Linux users.
What do people do most of the time? Photo editing, surfing, word processing, spread sheets, movie watching, music playing, IM, email and gaming.
I definitely wouldn't put photo editing first and I don't find it that common to see people watching movies on their computers outside of Youtube either.
Adobe Creative Suite, Omniweb (very nice app, by the way) - Firefox - Safari (not great), MS Office, Apple office suite (very very slick, IMO), Quicktime with codecs (quite nice, in fact), iTunes (not great, but not bad), Apple Mail (very nice app), various IM progs are all pretty decent, games... I don't play games, so I don't comment. You've got great interoperability in these apps,
Sorry, I'm not seeing a 'ton' of applications there. That doesn't even come close to my definition of a few high quality 3rd party application. Now high quality? That's arguable, especially with how Firefox is unstable (hint: known to crash) on OS X, how most of the applications you mentioned don't even follow Apple's HiG. (I find it strange that you didn't suggest VLC as a media player, which is known to be very popular with OS X users).
drag and drop is superb, man... it all just works.
Except when it comes to x11 on OS X. Then drag and drop absolutely sucks:P
For Unix compatibility, you would choose a non-Unix over a Unix...
Windows' POSIX subsystem behaves CORRECTLY unlike OS X's BSD subsystem. If you really wanted to get something because it behaves like Unix properly then using Windows' POSIX subsystem would definitely be a choice over OS X. Since it can't even do signals properly.
Beyond the obvious FPSes, Eve Online and Second life. There are also these game companies that have commercial ports for Linux systems.
We have Parallels for Mac OS X, which seems to be quite capable at running Windows programs at a decent speed, with good compatibility.
VMware server works fine for me. But best perforance tends to come from wine and crossover I have noticed.
I think anyone who's actually tried to use either of these will probably tell you that if you really want to run Windows programs on your Linux machine
I run all the source games (includes half life 2 and all it's episodes, portal, hl2 death match,, team fortress 2) just fine, Steam and so on just fine under. I hear World of Warcraft runs quite well too.
and the fact of the matter is that most of the commercial software out there is for Windows
Most commercial software available for the most popular platform. Who would of guessed?
Distributions are still a fragmented mess, it's incredibly difficult to produce a binary for Linux that will work across all distributions (especially with Gentoo and their whole CFLAGS fiasco...thank goodness that fad died off)
No it isn't. Follow the LSB.
As much as you'd like to complain about Windows and Apple, binary compatibility is not a problem.
I have plenty of applications that don't run on OS X from older versions of OS X. Windows Vista has issues running some older Windows programs. As for Linux... I can't think of a time EVER when a LSB program didn't work.
Professional audio? Don't even bother. ESounD, ARTS, JACKD, now PulseAudio seems to be the big name in useless sound daemons...but that doesn't mean everyone will standardize on it.
Gnome and KDE are adding support for it. gstreamer and KDE4's new sound system supporting it as a back end pretty much means it is going to be supported by a wide range of applications already.
Linux kernel is supposedly so "flexible" that it can be used in any range of devices from computers to cell phones, then why is it that 18 years or more later after the first release, there -still- isn't an easy way to do very low-latency, high quality audio recording on Linux?
Simply because the problem hasn't been addressed yet.
Linux distributions could _EASILY_ supplant a lot of the Windows based environments for professional audio if the kernel was up to the task.
I heard similar crap about when wine would run Photoshop and others. When Wine finally did for a large period of time, nothing changed at all. So forgive me if I just remain skeptical.
I haven't run Windows on my PC in over six years, so clearly Linux has been capable of meeting my desktop needs
I use Windows, Linux, various BSDs and OS X regularly.
I admire the work being done with Linux on the Desktop, but all of this talk of "Linux on the desktop in 200X!" is getting to be kind of silly.
Article nor the summary says that.
You want Unix
Unix is not important to me, I also don't think the majority of people who use Linux, use it because they want something Unixy. But! If I were to choose a system for Unix capability, I would choose windows over OS X since Windows' POSIX subsystem actually behaves completely to spec for one, unlike OS X's BSD subsystem (which still managed to some how get certified). My first choice would be a Linux distribution for the main reason that lots of things would just work without having to work too hard. I mean for one, the x11 support in Linux is superb. It supports drag and drop, no clipboard issues, X11 communications work flawlessly unlike on OS X with it's poor x11 support.
and a production quality desktop with tons of high quality third party apps with a buttload of real-world usage?
Tons of high quality third party applications and you are going to mention OS X? Can I have what you are smoking? There isn't that vast large amount of third party applications for any specific given version of OS X, never mind claiming the majority of those are high quality.
Stop waiting on Linux and switch to OSX... What you want is here, now.
Having used OS X for many years and still using it. Sorry, I don't agree with your reasoning
Forget about all of this "It's got to be 'free', man" stuff and just recognize the fact that it has to work, and work well... 10 years I was with Linux, set up hundreds of machines in various places. Now, I just tell people to go buy a Mac and let the computer work for you instead of having to learn (what is to the lay-person) a bunch of voodoo magic.
I use Linux because I consider it superior for my uses. I also find the desktop environment available are superior for my uses. I have even paid for certain distributions like SuSE and Mandriva and I have no problem with paying for Linux software which I have done also in the past too.
You assemble a full creative team for a game and only then decide what you want to do with it?
I am aware of this happening in the video game industry else where. Video game company starts, gets people together and they try to figure out what they are going to do exactly.
In animation, a studio like Pixar will spend years in developing a story. Only then will it begin assembling a production crew.
Not everyone is Pixar and can I get sources for that?
I say we build up the airports ala Second Life and party in the lounges! And, yes, you would have to actually fly to each airport and deplane in my vision.
The airports could become hubs into the cities. FlightGear has great potential to become a parallel earth so why not start populating it?
I also see value in 3D chat environments based on rendered 3D landscapes and scenes, a visual 3D version of chat rooms. There was a similar system called WorldsAway on compuserve years ago, but was quite limited by the technology of the time. With todays hardware, the level of realness could be much more developed. An open source system could start an IRC-like community of visual environments.
Spontanious because it happens randomly with writes
and how are these files OS-related?
Use your imagination. I already off the top of my head have a few ideas with a sharing the wrong sort of paths.
Home Server corrupts files that you have backed up, and only if you attempt to edit those files as they are instead of restoring them first.
Incorrect. Home server ends up corrupting files that are on file shares that are meant to be used for backup purposes - this does not mean people have used them for backup uses. It doesn't matter if the files were originally a backup or not.
As for my previous comment. I was being semi-joking when I said it.
Everything you just said would've cost more money. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a priority.
I'm pretty sure getting contracts next year is a priority never mind actually doing what they were employed to do. This is a big priority for that reason.
Who cares if it was when Microsoft released the first Release Candidate?
Here is a better question. Who cares if Microsoft implemented it? I don't. They certainly were not the ones who innovated it (AMOS had a implementation back in the early 90s when the Amiga was still selling well).
the ONLY reasons that PulseAudio has that feature first are: 1) Because Microsoft was developing it
Being that I have been personally pursuing having this feature added in sound systems since I was reminded of the feature in OS X (and found it was a really nifty idea). I don't agree with you. I even wrote a patch for ARts and kmix which did this feature before I even knew the name of Vista.
2) Because a tiny OS component like PulseAudio has a quicker release cycle than a huge OS like Vista.
Well that is not difficult at all. Just need to release before five years have passed.
Vista also had many, many, many more features that never, ever came to pass. Most of it was vaporware and everyone knew it.
Therefore, that's not a good example of innovation, that's just a good example of "keeping up with the neighbors." Which is what open source is good at.
I'm not the one claiming it's innovation, I'm trying to locate the truth. I don't believe if Vista didn't have the feature that we wouldn't have it in Linux since there were already people like me pushing for it.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2004-03-29-child-self-porn_x.htm where the minor charged with possesion and dissemination of 'child pornography' (along with child abuse) was the minor depicted in the aforementioned pornography.
Clearly these laws are harming the children. Won't anyone think of the children?
Please tell us of the software that can do batch processing the way the grand parent mentioned he was capable of doing with your superior closed-source applications.
If it's not possible with closed-source applications, does that mean you consider those features, not innovative?
there's nothing wrong with saying "You know, I'm going to do what these other people have done but cheaper, faster, whatever," however don't confuse that with innovation.
New ideas and concepts that grant such abilities are considered in my opinion, innovative.
Answer me honestly: Does PulseAudio have that feature because they heard it would be in Windows Vista? Honestly, now, please give me an answer.
It's been a requested feature since OS X had it (before Vista was even announced).
A better example would be something that Microsoft or Apple *hasn't* done. Do you have one?
Off the top of my head. Virtual desktops (OS X adopted these recently I believe), DNS, Gopher (It's significant because HTTP was based on ideas and concepts from Gopher -- which even did HTML, but intended to be originally a proprietary technology by some NeXTSteP developers), X windowing system (a windowing system designed to be as flexible as possible for the future - windows only came to have a real GUI until 1990 with win3. OS X and Windows have gone through many GUI systems, X windowing system has been able to keep up with all the technologies that OS X and Windows have ever developed while of course developing their own) and there are likely many more. But it's almost 3:30am so I'm not going to dig deeper.
UNIX - a closed-source OS, reimplemented as Linux and BSD.
I thought the original was opensource, just not freely redistributable?
Web Servers - started closed source, now we have Apache et al.
I would say most of the ideas and concepts were taken from the opensource Gopher technologies actually. Then reimplemented as a piece of proprietary technology that served things like HTML (which gopher supported), which later got open speced.
Development IDEs - started closed source (Borland, Microsoft vstudio, etc), now we have Eclipse etc.
For some reason, I recall some original processor SDKs came with very basic IDEs which were completely opensource.
Photoshop - closed source Photo editing, reimplmented in Gimp.
I don't think there is anything with opensource origins. But I would definitely not call the Gimp a reimplementation of Photoshop.
Media players - Started closed-source, now have many open source reimplementations
I don't know the origin of media players unfortunately.
Databases - System R, DB2, Oracle, all closed-source, inspired MySQL and PostgreSQL open source
I also don't know of the origins of databases either.
Java - started close-source, later became open-source
Started closed-source, but was open spec. Alternative bytecode interpreted languages existed in the opensource community before Java. There are also a bunch of Java implementations which are Opensource
Mono - reimplementation of.NET close source software
Much like Java, it's yet again another bytecode interpreted language. Mono is not a reimplementation of Microsoft's,NET since they are really taking the APIs somewhere else. The only similarity is the bytecode language used and a few wrapper APIs.
Office Software - (Word, excel, Lotus etc) all closed source, reimplemented as Open Office etc.
I don't know where Office software really originated from. But I do know that OpenOffice.org is a fork of the proprietary Staroffice software originally made by StarDivision which was originally released in 1984. Microsoft Office came out in 1989. I believe one Lotus product (not a complete suite) came out in 1983.
So, definitely not a reimplementation.
Where are the brand-new software ideas that never had closed-source inspiration?
Closed source software is very important to how people use computers, even if they tend to use OSS. For example, if, say, Windows XP or Mac OS X were fully open source, would you really choose Linux over them?
If they are in their current state as now, yes.
While it's good to have something for free
I don't care about price, I use what is technically superior for my uses. Which is why in the past I have bought commercial copies of Mandriva Linux, SuSE Linux and so on. I would even like to contribute the fact that I would pay the same fees as I would for a copy of Windows. Please don't categorize all of us who use opensource as being people who believe in certain ideals and philosophies or price.
For example, a real innovation that makes open-source software dead simple to set up, and different to anything before it. Because - let's face it - Linux is a jargon minefield for the inexperienced user, and while Vista is no better, XP and Mac OS X are dead simple - two editions, that's it.
I have never seen users have a problem grasping Linux anymore than Windows or OS X honestly, so I'll have to disagree with you.
Note: I'm not a exclusive user to Linux. I use Windows, OS X, various BSDs and so on... But at the moment, a Linux distribution is on my main workstation due to preference.
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To put it simply, these issues exist on Windows on too - I should know since I have had a tonne of issues with this on most operating systems.At the end of the day, this really depends on how the distributions decide to package their content. There are some like Slackware which make binaries that appear to 'run anywhere'.
As for OS X... Nevermind the architecture change and the Rosetta bugs with big endian and little endian. I can't get quite a few applications from 10.2 working at all on PPC versions of 10.4 or 10.5.
Running packages that were built for another specific distribution is in my opinion, a bad idea for any operating system. Linux isn't unique to this.
These issues were resolved years ago on Linux distributions.
And then there are people like me, who don't really care about price. But use a OS because they feel it is technically superior for their needs.
In my case: OS X is too difficult - Getting things like applications in Darwin ports working is far more difficult than just using your average linux distribution. The GUI is simplified beyond my liking, I am a power user and I like to customize my desktop a little. Most OS X applications are geared towards the user who has never used the program before but don't hold applications for the more advanced users -- To explain this as simple as I can, a VIM user is likely going to be much faster with LaTeX from scratch to make a pdf document than a user that uses a GUI centric application like Pages and/or Microsoft Office to do so the same.
The reason is that the experienced user with VIM is capable of operating a lot faster with his aliases, tiny commands and so on than a user who has to rely on the mouse and various GUI menus popping up offering various options (yes, I am aware there are VIM ports on OS X). The problem is that OS X in this scenario doesn't really have many applications that even do a compromise by doing 50/50 in capabilities.
OS X doesn't handle x11 properly. I want to use a x11 application, that means I expect to be able to do simple things like drag and drop and copy/pasting properly.
I personally find OS X slower. I run Linux on the same hardware and I find general multi-tasking is just 'faster'.
I find OS X's bugs annoying. Can we please FTFF! (No, Leopard didn't) I am sick of stupid bugs that cause Finder to freeze up on silly things like file shares and even crashing on ungraceful events.
What is really sad is that OS X managed to get Unix certification, but still the BSD subsystem can't handle signals properly. Even Windows' POSIX subsystem does this correctly (that's right, Windows is capable of being more UNIX-like than OS X is in it's current state).
My Linux system does not have these limitations. I hope this was informative to you as to why at least I don't use OS X -- I don't particularly have any real philosophies when it comes to proprietary or opensource software.It is my belief that Linux has been ported to more architectures and platforms than NetBSD has. There are RTOS versions of the OS even that NetBSD does not have. Heck, take a look at the Linux on xbox, Nintendo DS and other random projects people have created. It seems to be running anywhere these days.
(I find it strange that you didn't suggest VLC as a media player, which is known to be very popular with OS X users).Except when it comes to x11 on OS X. Then drag and drop absolutely sucks
As for my previous comment. I was being semi-joking when I said it.
Being that I have been personally pursuing having this feature added in sound systems since I was reminded of the feature in OS X (and found it was a really nifty idea). I don't agree with you. I even wrote a patch for ARts and kmix which did this feature before I even knew the name of Vista.Well that is not difficult at all. Just need to release before five years have passed.
Vista also had many, many, many more features that never, ever came to pass. Most of it was vaporware and everyone knew it.I'm not the one claiming it's innovation, I'm trying to locate the truth. I don't believe if Vista didn't have the feature that we wouldn't have it in Linux since there were already people like me pushing for it.
If it's not possible with closed-source applications, does that mean you consider those features, not innovative?New ideas and concepts that grant such abilities are considered in my opinion, innovative.
So, definitely not a reimplementation.Dig deeper
Note: I'm not a exclusive user to Linux. I use Windows, OS X, various BSDs and so on... But at the moment, a Linux distribution is on my main workstation due to preference.