I guess it's time to define the term "Unix geek". Let's do it relationally. By my opinion, "unix geeks" care mostly about system integrity and data processing
Ok, I'll go with that, as I sit squarely in that camp.
My original comment was actually the question "why to switch from Linux/Unix to Mac OS X?". I respect the choice people made or will made. I just want to know the reason. I believe that the conecpt of freedom is not only to choose something, but also to ask the question about it. I respect all geeks shifted to Mac OS X, but I want some of respect to my questin. Instead of convincing me to shift to Mac OS X, I see that half of answers are trying to convince me to stop to ask the question "WHY".
Well, I can't speak for other 'unix geeks', only for myself. Before I switched my work environment consisted of both Windows and Linux. Linux PC's for my own computing needs, and a Windows laptop when I wanted to interact with customers. The latter was forced on me due to my customer bases' universal use of Microsoft Office. OpenOffice does a good job of handling many MS docs, spreadsheet and presentations, but it doesn't always get it right with complex documents. And I almost always have to pass these things on again with my own additions. Giving documents to customers that do not render right because I'm not using a compatible tool is unacceptable. I'm freelance, and cannot make it difficult for people to do business with me.
Mac OS X in this regard has been a blessing. It's a Unix under the hood, so I'm instantly in an environment that I know and love. It's rock solid. It's so easy to use from the GUI. There's a great wealth of apps out there, both closed and open source for me to choose from. It integrated very well with other hardware with the absolute minumum of fuss. I have an Ericsson T68m that I Bluetooth connect with to sync the address and calendar data; and I regularly use it to GPRS to the internet to read Slashdot and download my email when I'm on customer site. Mac OSX also worked first time with my brothers video camera when even WinXP barfed; it worked first time with my logitec wheel mouse (no setup requred).. in fact, the only thing I've had any stress getting going was the USB-2-Serial cable I got so I could use Kermit via a Terminal session to connect to the various Unix servers, SAN controllers and Network appliances I use to ply my trade. That problem was resolved by a driver update from the manufacturer.. but only after I'd worked out how to pop loadable drivers in and out of the kernel from the CLI and was able to capture a meaningful error message in the process. Had I been using Windows I'd probably still be stuck!
And that's the beauty of it. It's solid, slick, does what it says on the tin, and if I want to get under the hood I can.
And thanks to MS Office for OSX, I've been able to unify my Linux and Windows needs onto one platform, a PowerBook G4 800Mhz. I'll never go back to using Linux or Windows on the desktop again.
--[[ UNIXers that put up with UNIX desktops when Motif was the state of the art and the closest thing to an Office suite was Emacs are certainly not looking around to switch now. ]]--
I'm a unix head of 12 years, and I just switched. And if what I read on the net is true, there are many others out there like me.
You just made the classic mistake of assuming that because you, a unix geek, don't care about something, no other geek should either. Many of us do care about such things as good fonts. Just because we like the command line, doesn't mean we are prepared to put up with any old tat.
Expand your mind, and accept that other people have views just as valid as yours. If you are a true unix geek, you will appreciate the value of choice and not put down those that are different to yours. It's the desire for choice that has been the driving force behind most of geekdom for the past several years, hasn't it!
You are mistaken. 'sudo -s' just runs sudo with the shell specified in the $SHELL variable. It does not provide any extra special logging above 'sudo bash'.
I tried Chimera and didn't like it. Way light on features and just didn't *feel* very nice. So I settled on Netscape 7 + the popup blocker. Now it's the only browser I use and I'm very happy. Mozilla is the proving ground for future versions of Netscape, so I fully support the work they are doing.
I've used a number of pre-compiled KDE rpm builds from SuSE over the years. Some of them absolutely fly, some are as sluggish as hell. KDE performance is significantly affected by how good or bad a job the packager does of compilation, and whether or not the options chosen suit your architecture (Intel/AMD). Consequently, I will only trust a speed comparison now between installations that are freshly compiled the same on the same system.
... if it were at the right price enough would be fast enough for most laptop users to have as their dedicated connection to the internet.
Unfortunately, I'll bet it won't be cheap at all. I have GPRS on my phone, and bluetooth connect from my PowerBook when I'm mobile. But I have to use it sparingly because my phone service provider charges by the MB, and it can get very expensive.
If 3G can be charged by the minute, or even better at a fixed rate like Cable and ADSL, then it stands a chance at being widely used and accepted. If not, then they will just price themselves out of a market.
You're quite right. Everything is modelled on JIT delivery these days, because stock languishing on shelves is wasted money...
And you're not even factoring in the effects of Panic Buying. Last year when we had the petrol strikes in the UK, and the public suddenly realised that no petrol (and diesel) meant no product deliveries to the local supermarkets, a wave of panic buying swept the country. Warnings on TV not to panic buy had exactly the opposite effect, and within days supermarkets had all but run out of the essentials. If the situation had lasted for more than a week, people would have found themselves with empty larders and no way to re-stock. Hunger driven chaos and anarchy would have followed soon after.
It was quite an eye opening experience and unpleasant experience.
You guys are all forgetting about the Alpha EV7 chip. Alpha is on its way out, but it's not dead yet. EV7 will also leapfrog Itanium 2 on performance, which is why HP are continuing to sell Alpha systems and develop new ones. Plus, Tru64 clustering technology isn't due to make an appearance in HP-UX until 2004, so there will still be demand for Alpha from customers who need the best clustering money can buy. At least for the next couple of years anyway.
You're nuts.. network configuration on OSX is one of the easiest I've ever seen or used. I constantly travel around between home office, hotels and customer sites; and setting up on a new network is fast, quick, and painless. It takes seconds, and (like any other Unix) there is no requirement to logout or reboot.
And I want that as much as a hole in the head. What makes the Apple experience so good, is the tight integration between software and hardware you simply don't get on any other platform.
Save up your cash and get one.. you won't regret it!!!
You're not the only one. I used to use a Linux desktop at home, and a Windows laptop when out visiting customers. I've combined both workloads onto the same 800Mhz Powerbook Moshse uses. I couldn't be happier. It's proving to be a real benefit in so many ways.
Just this weekend I was talking to my brother and he was bitching about a problem he was having trying to get some footage off his Sony video camera. He's got a firewire card for his PC, but 5 mins into the import it would lock up and his PC (WinXP) would crash.
So I called round, plugged it into my firewire port and fired up iMovie. It saw the camera right away and I was able to import the clips. Next step, connect my network port into his hub and connect to a fileshare on his PC (a 30 second job.. no reboot required) and I'm ready to start converting the clips to quicktime movies (Expert mode: Sorensen Codec @ 720x576 resolution) and drop them on his PC.
Actually, that's something else where Mac OS X really shines.. the ease with which you can jump around networks makes working with a PowerBook a real joy. Even when I dial into customer networks, OSX quietly turns off my local ethernet network for the duration, and then restores it again afterwards. No intervention needed from me. It's real sweet.
I'm hooked. I'm so much more productive on OSX than I ever was with Windows or Linux. Best desktop I've ever used.
PS: The longest part of the day was generating the quicktime movies. The Sorensen Codec seems to be the only one that can generate good quality movies at that resolution.. but it's massively cpu bound and takes an age to render.
But there are certain people that actually lost respect for me, all because I examined all posibilities and chose the best one.
More than likely these people find security in being one of the (mindless) crowd and feel threatened by others who dare to think for themselves. Don't judging your own worth based on their opinion of you. They would like you to, because it makes them feel important. But that would be a mistake.
I'm about to take the Mac OS X route and get an iBook myself in a few weeks. Purely because I can combine both my Linux and Windows computing needs onto one OS platform and go mobile with it. Suits me perfectly.
To spoof in Mozilla, you need to download something like uabar (which didn't work for me), or the Evangelism sidebar (which does)
Thanks for the tip
I agree that it's not easy or convenient... but then again, those who go the trouble of using Linux in the first place are more likely to take the trouble to spoof, IMHO.
Why? If I'm taking the trouble to browse with Linux, then it's in my interests to let the sites I hit, know that I'm using a Linux browser. The more Linux hits they get, the more likely they are to take me into consideration in future development. Only in very dire need would it be in my interests to spoof a Windows presence.. like I wanted to book and airline ticket or something and the site wouldn't let me in. I've not actually hit a problem like that, I'm just speculating.
I see no reason to spoof my browser ID just for the sake of it. And I challenge the assumption touted many times in this thread that it's a wide spread practice, because it is counter productive to do so.
1. Many people change their browser identification as IE in Win* to be able to read moronic web pages
I think you're quite wrong to say that, and don't think it's many people at all. For one, you rarely need to. There aren't that many sites that Mozilla or Konqueror can't get at (I use both).
Secondly, Konqueror supports and encourages you to set alternate ID's on a per-site basis, not a generic change for all your browsing. And Mozilla doesn't appear to have that functionality yet.. or if it does, it's not easy to get at. By easy I mean a dynamic change from a menu option that doesn't force me to close all tabs and exit Mozilla
Lastly, there is no need to change the ID for Google. Google is very browser friendly, so their stats are strongly likely to be right on the money.
2. It is likely that given the variety of browsers and Linux flavors, many Linux visitors to Google are not counted properly
They are still going to contain Linux somewhere in the ID string, so I don't see how can miss this.
3. People using computers in wealthy countries have both the money to pay M$ licenses and surf the web more frequently. Google's stats give a higher statistical weight to these users.
Which if you think about it, makes their stats more valuable to software houses who want to develop for where the money is. Maybe that's why there are so many more commercial apps for Mac than there are for Linux.
First you complain that they toss out the aging OS9 kernel and replace it with one that is multithreaded, has preemptive multitasking, and a modern VM subsystem with protected address space.... then you about face by saying that they should have done that.. but you just don't agree with the Microkernel technology they chose to base the Darwin kernel on.
You say that the Mach microkernel sucks, but don't back up your claim with an explanation as to why.
Further more, you don't seem to know that Darwin isn't pure Mach. Like other successful Mach based Unix kernels (e.g. Tru64 Unix) it's neither a microkernel, nor a monolithic kernel, it's a hybrid. In Darwin's case, it's a blend of Mach and BSD technologies.. drawing from the strengths of both.
Writing into NVRAM should mean that the data survives not just a kernel panic/reboot, but also a powercycle or warm restart. Store it in (volatile) RAM and there are situations where you could loose it!
> I don't see that as particularly being an > improvement. They would have been better off > updating to a more recent version of zsh
Except that there are millions of bash users out there who are already very familiar with it. I've never met anyone who's ever used zsh. Mac OS X is meant to be for mass appeal, so it makes sense to use well established technologies where they have the choice to do so.
.. compresses and writes the contents of memory out to the primary dump device. When the system reboots, it looks for a dump header in swap and if it finds one, writes it out to a crash dump directory along with a copy of the current kernel. Lastly, it runs 'crashdc' and performs an preliminary analysis and report on the contents of the cpu stacks, etc.
From a trouble shooting point of view, it's very useful and time saving.
Surely the Holy Grail of home automation has got to be voice activated. Perhaps an infared badge to tell rooms receivers where you are, combined with a wireless microphone, linked to a central system, which in turn can drive an array of X 10 controlled devices.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess it's time to define the term "Unix geek". Let's do it relationally. By my opinion, "unix geeks" care mostly about system integrity and data processing
Ok, I'll go with that, as I sit squarely in that camp.
My original comment was actually the question "why to switch from Linux/Unix to Mac OS X?". I respect the choice people made or will made. I just want to know the reason. I believe that the conecpt of freedom is not only to choose something, but also to ask the question about it. I respect all geeks shifted to Mac OS X, but I want some of respect to my questin. Instead of convincing me to shift to Mac OS X, I see that half of answers are trying to convince me to stop to ask the question "WHY".
Well, I can't speak for other 'unix geeks', only for myself. Before I switched my work environment consisted of both Windows and Linux. Linux PC's for my own computing needs, and a Windows laptop when I wanted to interact with customers. The latter was forced on me due to my customer bases' universal use of Microsoft Office. OpenOffice does a good job of handling many MS docs, spreadsheet and presentations, but it doesn't always get it right with complex documents. And I almost always have to pass these things on again with my own additions. Giving documents to customers that do not render right because I'm not using a compatible tool is unacceptable. I'm freelance, and cannot make it difficult for people to do business with me.
Mac OS X in this regard has been a blessing. It's a Unix under the hood, so I'm instantly in an environment that I know and love. It's rock solid. It's so easy to use from the GUI. There's a great wealth of apps out there, both closed and open source for me to choose from. It integrated very well with other hardware with the absolute minumum of fuss. I have an Ericsson T68m that I Bluetooth connect with to sync the address and calendar data; and I regularly use it to GPRS to the internet to read Slashdot and download my email when I'm on customer site. Mac OSX also worked first time with my brothers video camera when even WinXP barfed; it worked first time with my logitec wheel mouse (no setup requred)
And that's the beauty of it. It's solid, slick, does what it says on the tin, and if I want to get under the hood I can.
And thanks to MS Office for OSX, I've been able to unify my Linux and Windows needs onto one platform, a PowerBook G4 800Mhz. I'll never go back to using Linux or Windows on the desktop again.
--[[ UNIXers that put up with UNIX desktops when Motif was the state of the art and the closest thing to an Office suite was Emacs are certainly not looking around to switch now. ]]--
I'm a unix head of 12 years, and I just switched. And if what I read on the net is true, there are many others out there like me.
-->--
I'm a unix head of 12 years, and I just switched. And if what I read on the net is true, there are many others out there like me.
You just made the classic mistake of assuming that because you, a unix geek, don't care about something, no other geek should either. Many of us do care about such things as good fonts. Just because we like the command line, doesn't mean we are prepared to put up with any old tat.
Expand your mind, and accept that other people have views just as valid as yours. If you are a true unix geek, you will appreciate the value of choice and not put down those that are different to yours. It's the desire for choice that has been the driving force behind most of geekdom for the past several years, hasn't it!
You are mistaken. 'sudo -s' just runs sudo with the shell specified in the $SHELL variable. It does not provide any extra special logging above 'sudo bash'.
> remote peer-to-peer browsing of others' data
And when that data is sitting on someones laptop? What then?
Macka
I tried Chimera and didn't like it. Way light on features and just didn't *feel* very nice. So I settled on Netscape 7 + the popup blocker. Now it's the only browser I use and I'm very happy. Mozilla is the proving ground for future versions of Netscape, so I fully support the work they are doing.
I've used a number of pre-compiled KDE rpm builds from SuSE over the years. Some of them absolutely fly, some are as sluggish as hell. KDE performance is significantly affected by how good or bad a job the packager does of compilation, and whether or not the options chosen suit your architecture (Intel/AMD). Consequently, I will only trust a speed comparison now between installations that are freshly compiled the same on the same system.
You have obviously never used MacOS X in anger.
As someone who has switched from Linux and Windows to MacOS X, I heartily disagree with you.
Unfortunately, I'll bet it won't be cheap at all. I have GPRS on my phone, and bluetooth connect from my PowerBook when I'm mobile. But I have to use it sparingly because my phone service provider charges by the MB, and it can get very expensive.
If 3G can be charged by the minute, or even better at a fixed rate like Cable and ADSL, then it stands a chance at being widely used and accepted. If not, then they will just price themselves out of a market.
You're quite right. Everything is modelled on JIT delivery these days, because stock languishing on shelves is wasted money
And you're not even factoring in the effects of Panic Buying. Last year when we had the petrol strikes in the UK, and the public suddenly realised that no petrol (and diesel) meant no product deliveries to the local supermarkets, a wave of panic buying swept the country. Warnings on TV not to panic buy had exactly the opposite effect, and within days supermarkets had all but run out of the essentials. If the situation had lasted for more than a week, people would have found themselves with empty larders and no way to re-stock. Hunger driven chaos and anarchy would have followed soon after.
It was quite an eye opening experience and unpleasant experience.
You guys are all forgetting about the Alpha EV7 chip. Alpha is on its way out, but it's not dead yet. EV7 will also leapfrog Itanium 2 on performance, which is why HP are continuing to sell Alpha systems and develop new ones. Plus, Tru64 clustering technology isn't due to make an appearance in HP-UX until 2004, so there will still be demand for Alpha from customers who need the best clustering money can buy. At least for the next couple of years anyway.
You're nuts
> I WANT OSX on the intel platform !!!
And I want that as much as a hole in the head. What makes the Apple experience so good, is the tight integration between software and hardware you simply don't get on any other platform.
Save up your cash and get one
You're not the only one. I used to use a Linux desktop at home, and a Windows laptop when out visiting customers. I've combined both workloads onto the same 800Mhz Powerbook Moshse uses. I couldn't be happier. It's proving to be a real benefit in so many ways.
.. no reboot required) and I'm ready to start converting the clips to quicktime movies (Expert mode: Sorensen Codec @ 720x576 resolution) and drop them on his PC.
.. the ease with which you can jump around networks makes working with a PowerBook a real joy. Even when I dial into customer networks, OSX quietly turns off my local ethernet network for the duration, and then restores it again afterwards. No intervention needed from me. It's real sweet.
.. but it's massively cpu bound and takes an age to render.
Just this weekend I was talking to my brother and he was bitching about a problem he was having trying to get some footage off his Sony video camera. He's got a firewire card for his PC, but 5 mins into the import it would lock up and his PC (WinXP) would crash.
So I called round, plugged it into my firewire port and fired up iMovie. It saw the camera right away and I was able to import the clips. Next step, connect my network port into his hub and connect to a fileshare on his PC (a 30 second job
Actually, that's something else where Mac OS X really shines
I'm hooked. I'm so much more productive on OSX than I ever was with Windows or Linux. Best desktop I've ever used.
PS: The longest part of the day was generating the quicktime movies. The Sorensen Codec seems to be the only one that can generate good quality movies at that resolution
More than likely these people find security in being one of the (mindless) crowd and feel threatened by others who dare to think for themselves. Don't judging your own worth based on their opinion of you. They would like you to, because it makes them feel important. But that would be a mistake.
I'm about to take the Mac OS X route and get an iBook myself in a few weeks. Purely because I can combine both my Linux and Windows computing needs onto one OS platform and go mobile with it. Suits me perfectly.
Thanks for the tip
Why? If I'm taking the trouble to browse with Linux, then it's in my interests to let the sites I hit, know that I'm using a Linux browser. The more Linux hits they get, the more likely they are to take me into consideration in future development. Only in very dire need would it be in my interests to spoof a Windows presence
I see no reason to spoof my browser ID just for the sake of it. And I challenge the assumption touted many times in this thread that it's a wide spread practice, because it is counter productive to do so.
I think you're quite wrong to say that, and don't think it's many people at all. For one, you rarely need to. There aren't that many sites that Mozilla or Konqueror can't get at (I use both).
Secondly, Konqueror supports and encourages you to set alternate ID's on a per-site basis, not a generic change for all your browsing. And Mozilla doesn't appear to have that functionality yet
Lastly, there is no need to change the ID for Google. Google is very browser friendly, so their stats are strongly likely to be right on the money.
They are still going to contain Linux somewhere in the ID string, so I don't see how can miss this.
Which if you think about it, makes their stats more valuable to software houses who want to develop for where the money is. Maybe that's why there are so many more commercial apps for Mac than there are for Linux.
Make up your mind.
First you complain that they toss out the aging OS9 kernel and replace it with one that is multithreaded, has preemptive multitasking, and a modern VM subsystem with protected address space
You say that the Mach microkernel sucks, but don't back up your claim with an explanation as to why.
Further more, you don't seem to know that Darwin isn't pure Mach. Like other successful Mach based Unix kernels (e.g. Tru64 Unix) it's neither a microkernel, nor a monolithic kernel, it's a hybrid. In Darwin's case, it's a blend of Mach and BSD technologies
Go have a read at some of the online docs.
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Darw
> I know more people who are familiar with the Korn
> shell from commercial UNIX variants than with bash.
That includes me
> tcsh remains the default interactive shell
I know, and that's another reason I'm happy bash is on there now. tcsh & csh I avoid like the plague.
Writing into NVRAM should mean that the data survives not just a kernel panic/reboot, but also a powercycle or warm restart. Store it in (volatile) RAM and there are situations where you could loose it!
> I don't see that as particularly being an
> improvement. They would have been better off
> updating to a more recent version of zsh
Except that there are millions of bash users out there who are already very familiar with it. I've never met anyone who's ever used zsh. Mac OS X is meant to be for mass appeal, so it makes sense to use well established technologies where they have the choice to do so.
sorry
From a trouble shooting point of view, it's very useful and time saving.
Surely the Holy Grail of home automation has got to be voice activated. Perhaps an infared badge to tell rooms receivers where you are, combined with a wireless microphone, linked to a central system, which in turn can drive an array of X 10 controlled devices.
Anyone tried anything like this?