OT: Solaris (wasRe:Wine + Antitrust = Final Nail?)
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Wine Works Towards 1.0
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· Score: 2
I beg to differ. Recently, I performed both an upgrade of my Redhat 6.1 installation (to 6.2) and my Windows 98 installation (to Windows 2000). While I would consider myself to be well-skilled in the operation and installation of both, the Windows 2000 installation was by far easier. Windows 2000 easily recognized my current settings, my current programs, and my current hardware and moved everything over the new system.
Having just hosed my primary desktop PC, I've now got the time to play around with the various OSs I've got lying around. I've got a bit of an oddball system and usually have to resort to some tweaking to get everything humming.
To cut a long story short, Solaris 7 (x86) was, freakily enough, the best at getting everything properly configured. This was up against Windows 2000, Windows 98, FreeBSD 4, Debian 2.2. RedHat 6.2 and BeOS 5. I found it a little off that the poor stepchild of Solaris SPARC was better able to handle my system than a number of OSs whose bread-and-butter is x86.
To pull this back on topic: how platform-independent is WINE? I'm guessing that it's x86-only (since it's running Windows x86 binaries) but does it work (well) on *BSD, Solaris x86, Be, SCO, etc?
Even funkier question (to which I don't expect an answer): can it be compiled on an Alpha-based UNIX system and run Windows NT for Alpha binaries?
I recently (beginning of March) bought a Poweredge 4400 from Dell, no OS, no questions asked. Is this a new policy?
Its probably a desktop PC-only policy which isn't enforced on servers, since Joe/Jane Average isn't going to be buying a PowerEdge sans OS license and then proceed to call up Dell Technical support asking why [insert OS here] doesn't install correctly. If you're buying a server, Dell assumes that you know what you're doing. (whether that's actually the case.... )
On the other hand, it could just be a particularly rigid sales rep who doesn't understand why you wouldn't want Windows 98SE and thinks you're just trying to make his/her life more difficult. I've jumped through this hoop trying to get Windows NT 4 pre-installed from a certain vendor, so asking for Linux and getting the run-around isn't suprising.
My hope for the next NT is that MS finally gets rid of drive letters. This holdover really, really tells of NT's deep roots in DOS
The drive letters are there for the benefit of higher-level programs (including much of Windows itself) that still rely on that notation. NT's kernel uses a different notation (take a look at the BOOT.INI file in NT:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"
NT also uses UNC paths (\\SERVER\SHARE\FILE) pretty heavily too.
But you're right, it would be nice if Microsoft would scrap the drive-letter device model. I know Windows 2000 lets you mount network shares as folders on a local disk -- I don't know if this functionality has bee extended to include mounting physical disks as folders.
A BSOD in Windows 9x is not the same thing as a BSOD in WinNT. A Win9x blue screen is a more generic and, generally speaking, less nasty error than its NT equivalent. It a generic crash that can be from bad hardware or fatally damaged software, but can be just as easily caused by a program that circumvented Win9x's weaker memory protection.
An NT BSOD is a very bad thing. It usually means something is pretty solidly hosed in either software or hardware and you'll either need to fo some serious bug-squishing, a re-install or hardware maintenance. It's about the equivalent of a kernel panic.
BSODs in NT are usually reproducable -- BSODs in Win9x are usually random crashes that people just have to live with. If you're 98 machine is blue-screening consistently you'd do well to do a simple re-install. If an NT machine doing it, it's usually worth reading Microsoft's list of STOP error codes to see why it happened and if you can fix it.
Also, if you don't want the ads, Eudora Light versions are still available(no 4.x versions though)
Actually, you can run Eudora 4.3 in Light mode, but you lose some of the advanced filtering features as well as multiple account support. You may lose IMAP and LDAP support as well -- I'm not sure.
There's the Paid Mode (full functionality, no ads) and the so called Sponsored Mode which displays ads in a small portion of the screen but still gives you all the capabilities of the full version of Eudora. Its a nice approach on Qualcomm's part.
acs suck in this area too. They only use a 40MHz bus. Its no wonder they are slower than shit in Alaska.
Quadra 840 and x100-series PowerMacs use 33-40MHz buses. Most of the original PCI PowerMacs (not including oddballs or PowerBooks) went 66MHz. The G3 and G4 have a 100MHz bus. I think most, if not all, of the iMacs do as well.
I've always been impressed by how the members of the "MACs SuX!" crowd on Slashdot usually bases their arguments on their experiences with a badly-maintained LC 475 that they used in Grade Nine. Yes, the LC 475 sucks -- so does a clone 486SX/25. They're old machines, what did you expect? Use a modern Mac with a current verion of the OS that hasn't been left to rot by incompetent admins and then come back and explain why Macs suck.
And, no, "one-button mice" is not a valid criticism. You can get two, three, four or even five-button mice if you want. I happen to like one-button mice myself.
Finally the company name is Apple Computer and the product name is Macintosh, not [company name] MAC and [product]MACs.
Asus makes an SMP Slot-1 (not Slot A) motherboard with I2O and on-board SCSI. This is probably the best AT motherboard on the market and it's priced as such (CDN$1200)
Hey now, I'll take an iMac, if you can find one that doesn't have one button and a cylindrically symmetric mouse. How the hell do you cut 'n' paste with only one button?!?!?
Easy: Select, Command-C, Command-V. Plus it's almost guaranteed that cut and paste (as well as drag and drop) will work seamlessly between most programs (as long as you're not doing something stupid, like pasting a JPEG into a text editor). Its one nice aspect of the Mac that X (and the various add-on toolkits and desktop enironments) and (to some degree) Win32 still need to work on.
As for a two-button mouse...
Go to any Mac dealer and buy a two-button Mac compatible USB mouse. Anything from MacAlly's cheap replacements to Microsoft's Intellimouse Explorer (yes, the one with the laser) will work. Heck, you can probably use any USB mouse with the iMac (or G3/G4, or USB-equipped PowerBook) without much trouble
The 'one-button-mouse' argument isn't really a valid criticism of Apple: some people (like my father) like the simplicity of just one button -- and this is Apple's target market. I bought a four-button Kensington mouse so I could more effectively launch grenades in Marathon 2, but aisde from that I quite like only having to deal with one button.
The iMac is targeted at a specific type of user: criticising it for not having the expandability or complexity of a screwdriver-shop Athlon doesn't make that much sense: both machines are designed with different users in mind.
Although everything surrounding Microsoft's anti-trust case has pretty much wrapped it, this would have been a nice addition to the "Stifling Competition" pile.
Question: Assuming that it's possible, is reverse-engineering Microsoft's Keberos extensions legal?
i am forced to use iMacs at school. I have a severe problem with the design of the damn thing...the keyboard sucks, the clear wires suck...we don't need "pretty" cases, we need good stuff in the cases
I can understand the gripes about the mouse. It's designed for small hands and -- although no one has ever really gotten a straight answer from Apple on this -- "coolness" factor. I assume there's a reason why they're sticking with it through four or five iMac revisions, plus the G3 and G4 desktops.
I don't mind the keyboard, though. It's missing some page-naviagtion keys, but these aren't used under many MacOS applications to begin with. Plus its great if you don't have a lot of desk space. Finally, it's got a pretty good feel to it; better than the old AppleDesign II or Extended Keyboards did, and certainly nicer than the terrible two-dollar Taiwanese boards that come with many PCs. It's not a patch on the older IBM "clicking" keyboards for overall feel, but it's not terrible. A matter of personal choice more than anything else.
What's wrong with translucent wires, though? They don't work any better (or worse) than their opaque equivalents, and they give the computer a nice, consistent look. Plus, they don't look nearly as filthy as the old grey cables did after a few months of use. Heck, the whole system ages very well: the iMac, G3, G4 and/or iBook don't look nearly as disgusting after six months of sitting in a dusty workplace. The dirt, stains and yecchh on beige/platinum grey cases really stands out.
It seems as if most of the gripes about the iMac and its brethren are more a matter of personal taste than of professional criticism. The iMac itself is a fairly capable PC. I can see how power-users would have an aversion to it's lack of expandability and the MacOS's relative lack of robustness, but dismissing the system by it's looks is, well, thinking with your testicles (ie, I'm too manly to use a colour-coordinated PC):)
I actually went out and bought an iMac-colour-schemed ATX case for my Intel-based home system because I wanted something that wouldn't go yellow or dirt-stained. Pity that there's nothing I get that'll cover CD-ROM bays in the manner of Apple's G3 or G4.
1) Eject a disk. There are two ways. a) The system menu. OK, I guess I can see that. b) Pull the disk to the trash can. "But," says the new user, "won't that DELETE my disk?" No, it's just a bad metaphor. "Well, OK," says he, "but I'd feel safer if I could just eject it with a button--you know like on a PC." Macs don't have an eject button. Cross off "clean", "intuitive", AND "powerful" for these two major boo-boos. There's actually a good reason for not having a button (when floppies were the primary method of data transfer). I've known young children to pull a disk out of a running drive and corrupt files on the disk. This isn't nearly as big an issue now that most people save their data to hard disks or network storage devices, but it was a nice way of keeping people from hosing thier disks. The trashcan-eject is a poor metaphor for ejecting a disk -- you're right about that.
Its probably quite possible -- and much easier than most people realize.
Simple X servers already exist for the MacOS such as the free MI/X,as well as things like White Pine/PowerLAN's eXodus. These would either run under the classic MacOS emulation if they don't get ported to MacOS X's native environment. MI/X is pretty poor, but eXodus works well -- I use it to run X apps on my PowerBook.
It's not like X servers don't exist for the Mac or anything.:)
Notice: Video and Audio are present, but not yet supported.
I know this would be a rather poor solution, and it will very definitely go over poorly with vehemently open-source people, but perhaps if Apple and/or Sorenson were to release a binary plug-in for xanim?
I'd really like it if Apple released a QuickTime client for UNIX/Linux. But as that's not going to happen any time soon, at least a way to view Sorenson video on something other than Windows would be nice.
UNIX/Linux seems to be somewhat lacking in the streaming-media client field. Its great that I can serve QuickTime or RealAudio data: but it'd be even nicer to view it!
Its really distressing in that they didn't really explore the virtues and/or weak points of any of the distributions.
RedHat is a pretty decent all-round system, but it has enough kinks in it to have made me switch to Mandrake after a few days of using it.
Slackware and Debian probably shouldn't have been reviewed in this article, given that near-virgin computer users aren't their target market. At the very least, those aspects should've been considered more heavily.
If you download any of these distributions, the judging criteria changes dramatically: you lose the premium support and some of the snazzier features of, say, RedHat for example. This really should've been pointed out.
The support costs and documentation (not to mention the distribution's box price) could have been compared to that of, say, Windows 98, NT or even the MacOS.
The review's not bad, but its much, much too shallow. One would never expect to see (or tolerate) a review of a commericial OS that's so thin on content
It's a bit like the MP3 argument all over again - excellent distribution medium, excellent quality product - but unfortunately against copyright and therefore illegal.
Its not quite like MP3: for one, the image quality is terrible. More importantly, its not quite as blatantly illegal as ripping a song off a CD.
It is illegal, though. They are re-selling a product that, in most cases, you can't legally re-sell. The commercial stations are in a difficult position: they aren't making any more money from the re-broadcast, and iCrave is making money from selling banner ads to other companies. If iCrave had paid for a redistributon license, they'd probably have avoided this suit.
I'd like to see a list of stations that are suing them. I'll be willing to be its only the private stations that are angry. TVO/TFO (Ontario public) WNED (Buffalo public) and potentially CBC/SRC (Canadian national public, although they run ads) have much less,if anything, to lose.
They can remember their address can't they? Honestly, you need to learn to drive, learn to do maths, learn to write, what's wrong with having to learn how to use computers properly?
I disagree. Using computers "properly" is a matter of opinion. I have an Apple PowerBook I use for my, ahem, real work and Linux/x86 system that does server duty. I'm impressed with the strides Linux has made in end-user friendliness and I really admire the simple power of it, but I like my Mac more for day-to-day general work.
The bulk of the consumer and corporate-desktop user base feels this way. Saying that they need to adapt to a particular way of doing things isn't going to win them over. If Linux wants to make it as a desktop OS, it will need to accomodate these people.
Actually, I'm a little suprised they didn't rebroadcast a few more of the French stations. I'm sure they'd garner a larger audience if "Bleu Nuit" was available daily.:)
Either that, or their servers would get thoroughly tooled by the number of hits they'd get.
Seriously, the current client is awful. On the same machine under WinNT the difference is astounding -- the Linux client is buggy, slow and just awful. Hopefully, Real will throw a little more money or open up the development of it a bit
On the other hand, the Mac client is terrible, too. I guess that pretty much tells us that Win32 is their target market.:)
It would be nice if someone (Apple) were to port QuickTime to Linux. They've already open-sourced the server to a degree, pity we can't get the client. I guess the copyright issues with some of the codecs are a problem, though.
Macintosh video has always been rather odd. I remember a few of the macs i had in the past and the res was always limited by the monitor. different monitors would let the mac video run at different resolutions. Kinda like an INF in windows will set the parms for the monitor you have and not let a destructive res be attained.
Most Macs use a somewhat bizarre sense-code to detect what resolutions are supported by the monitor. Its akin to (but not the same as) Window 9x's "Detect PnP Monitors" function. This system works well with an Apple-brand monitor and most commercial Mac-compatible displays (Sony, NEC) but makes using cheapie monitors a pain -- you need to purchase a little DIP-switch equipped adapter to properly inform the Mac of the display's supported resolutions.
I don't know if this applies to the newer Macs that come equipped with standard VGA-style connectors. I've never had an occasion to plug a SVGA monitor into my PB3400, so I can't say for certain. Older Macs used an odd fifteen-pin connector that looked a lot like the joystick port on most PCs.
However, the quality of manafacture always seemd high. Their cases have traditionally sucked to work on (im sorry, I shouldn't need to remove the power suply to add more RAM)
Actually, Apple has made some pretty good cases as well: the Quadra 605, 610/660, PowerMac 61xx, 7300, x600, G3 and G4s and the PowerBook 1400 were all really, really easy to take apart. Ask a salesperson to demo how easy it is to add a hard drive or more RAM to a G4 and just let your jaw drop. I used to own a 6100av and, man, what a nice repair that was -- two snap-tabs to open the whole case
They've also released some terrible machines: the Plus, SE, PowerBook anything-but-the-1400, the Quadra 800/PowerMac 8100/8500. I used to dread taking apart our office's Quadra 840av: it had to be almost completely dissasembled. The Duo Dock was even worse.
Apple's current strategy seems to be designed around letting people muck with the high-end machines (because if you're buying a G4, you're probably going to stuff it full of more RAM or faster disks) while locking down the consumer systems. This makes some sense: I've met some scary end-users who've done awesomely awful things to their systems because they had enough knowledge to take them apart, but not enough to be reasonably careful
The main problems I have had with Macs have tended to be stupid shit, like the heavy insistnce on 1 button mice
I happen to like the one-button mouse. No assumptions about left- or right-handedness. Plus, people like my father who used to be completely vilified by my Amiga's two mouse buttons (to the point where he never used it) really likes his iMac.
Other things I liked about Macs was SCSI, they always used SCSI (until recently when, and perhaps once long ago I think they trid an IDE model but didn't stick with it)
Actually, all modern Macs (save for the professional PowerBook G3s) come with IDE standard and SCSI as an add-on card. If you take a peak in the SCSI-equipped G4s, you'll see (I think, but don't quote me on this) either an Adaptec PowerDomain 2930 or 2940 series card. Professional Macs have been IDE-standard since the beige G3s, consumer Macs since the Performa 63xx and PowerBooks since the 190/2300/5300
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Having just hosed my primary desktop PC, I've now got the time to play around with the various OSs I've got lying around. I've got a bit of an oddball system and usually have to resort to some tweaking to get everything humming.
To cut a long story short, Solaris 7 (x86) was, freakily enough, the best at getting everything properly configured. This was up against Windows 2000, Windows 98, FreeBSD 4, Debian 2.2. RedHat 6.2 and BeOS 5. I found it a little off that the poor stepchild of Solaris SPARC was better able to handle my system than a number of OSs whose bread-and-butter is x86.
To pull this back on topic: how platform-independent is WINE? I'm guessing that it's x86-only (since it's running Windows x86 binaries) but does it work (well) on *BSD, Solaris x86, Be, SCO, etc?
Even funkier question (to which I don't expect an answer): can it be compiled on an Alpha-based UNIX system and run Windows NT for Alpha binaries?
Its probably a desktop PC-only policy which isn't enforced on servers, since Joe/Jane Average isn't going to be buying a PowerEdge sans OS license and then proceed to call up Dell Technical support asking why [insert OS here] doesn't install correctly. If you're buying a server, Dell assumes that you know what you're doing. (whether that's actually the case.... )
On the other hand, it could just be a particularly rigid sales rep who doesn't understand why you wouldn't want Windows 98SE and thinks you're just trying to make his/her life more difficult. I've jumped through this hoop trying to get Windows NT 4 pre-installed from a certain vendor, so asking for Linux and getting the run-around isn't suprising.
The drive letters are there for the benefit of higher-level programs (including much of Windows itself) that still rely on that notation. NT's kernel uses a different notation (take a look at the BOOT.INI file in NT:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"
NT also uses UNC paths (\\SERVER\SHARE\FILE) pretty heavily too.
But you're right, it would be nice if Microsoft would scrap the drive-letter device model. I know Windows 2000 lets you mount network shares as folders on a local disk -- I don't know if this functionality has bee extended to include mounting physical disks as folders.
An NT BSOD is a very bad thing. It usually means something is pretty solidly hosed in either software or hardware and you'll either need to fo some serious bug-squishing, a re-install or hardware maintenance. It's about the equivalent of a kernel panic.
BSODs in NT are usually reproducable -- BSODs in Win9x are usually random crashes that people just have to live with. If you're 98 machine is blue-screening consistently you'd do well to do a simple re-install. If an NT machine doing it, it's usually worth reading Microsoft's list of STOP error codes to see why it happened and if you can fix it.
Actually, you can run Eudora 4.3 in Light mode, but you lose some of the advanced filtering features as well as multiple account support. You may lose IMAP and LDAP support as well -- I'm not sure.
There's the Paid Mode (full functionality, no ads) and the so called Sponsored Mode which displays ads in a small portion of the screen but still gives you all the capabilities of the full version of Eudora. Its a nice approach on Qualcomm's part.
Quadra 840 and x100-series PowerMacs use 33-40MHz buses. Most of the original PCI PowerMacs (not including oddballs or PowerBooks) went 66MHz. The G3 and G4 have a 100MHz bus. I think most, if not all, of the iMacs do as well.
I've always been impressed by how the members of the "MACs SuX!" crowd on Slashdot usually bases their arguments on their experiences with a badly-maintained LC 475 that they used in Grade Nine. Yes, the LC 475 sucks -- so does a clone 486SX/25. They're old machines, what did you expect? Use a modern Mac with a current verion of the OS that hasn't been left to rot by incompetent admins and then come back and explain why Macs suck.
And, no, "one-button mice" is not a valid criticism. You can get two, three, four or even five-button mice if you want. I happen to like one-button mice myself.
Finally the company name is Apple Computer and the product name is Macintosh, not [company name] MAC and [product]MACs.
Info on this board is on this page
Easy: Select, Command-C, Command-V. Plus it's almost guaranteed that cut and paste (as well as drag and drop) will work seamlessly between most programs (as long as you're not doing something stupid, like pasting a JPEG into a text editor). Its one nice aspect of the Mac that X (and the various add-on toolkits and desktop enironments) and (to some degree) Win32 still need to work on.
As for a two-button mouse...
Go to any Mac dealer and buy a two-button Mac compatible USB mouse. Anything from MacAlly's cheap replacements to Microsoft's Intellimouse Explorer (yes, the one with the laser) will work. Heck, you can probably use any USB mouse with the iMac (or G3/G4, or USB-equipped PowerBook) without much trouble
The 'one-button-mouse' argument isn't really a valid criticism of Apple: some people (like my father) like the simplicity of just one button -- and this is Apple's target market. I bought a four-button Kensington mouse so I could more effectively launch grenades in Marathon 2, but aisde from that I quite like only having to deal with one button.
The iMac is targeted at a specific type of user: criticising it for not having the expandability or complexity of a screwdriver-shop Athlon doesn't make that much sense: both machines are designed with different users in mind.
Rage 128 Pro. Still, it's not the greatest, but it beats Apple's older proprietary video chipsets rather handily.
I think "Kerberos" is the more accurate spelling from the actual Greek. "Cerebus" is an anglesized (ack!) spelling.
Question: Assuming that it's possible, is reverse-engineering Microsoft's Keberos extensions legal?
I can understand the gripes about the mouse. It's designed for small hands and -- although no one has ever really gotten a straight answer from Apple on this -- "coolness" factor. I assume there's a reason why they're sticking with it through four or five iMac revisions, plus the G3 and G4 desktops.
I don't mind the keyboard, though. It's missing some page-naviagtion keys, but these aren't used under many MacOS applications to begin with. Plus its great if you don't have a lot of desk space. Finally, it's got a pretty good feel to it; better than the old AppleDesign II or Extended Keyboards did, and certainly nicer than the terrible two-dollar Taiwanese boards that come with many PCs. It's not a patch on the older IBM "clicking" keyboards for overall feel, but it's not terrible. A matter of personal choice more than anything else.
What's wrong with translucent wires, though? They don't work any better (or worse) than their opaque equivalents, and they give the computer a nice, consistent look. Plus, they don't look nearly as filthy as the old grey cables did after a few months of use. Heck, the whole system ages very well: the iMac, G3, G4 and/or iBook don't look nearly as disgusting after six months of sitting in a dusty workplace. The dirt, stains and yecchh on beige/platinum grey cases really stands out.
It seems as if most of the gripes about the iMac and its brethren are more a matter of personal taste than of professional criticism. The iMac itself is a fairly capable PC. I can see how power-users would have an aversion to it's lack of expandability and the MacOS's relative lack of robustness, but dismissing the system by it's looks is, well, thinking with your testicles (ie, I'm too manly to use a colour-coordinated PC) :)
I actually went out and bought an iMac-colour-schemed ATX case for my Intel-based home system because I wanted something that wouldn't go yellow or dirt-stained. Pity that there's nothing I get that'll cover CD-ROM bays in the manner of Apple's G3 or G4.
1) Eject a disk. There are two ways. a) The system menu. OK, I guess I can see that. b) Pull the disk to the trash can. "But," says the new user, "won't that DELETE my disk?" No, it's just a bad metaphor. "Well, OK," says he, "but I'd feel safer if I could just eject it with a button--you know like on a PC." Macs don't have an eject button. Cross off "clean", "intuitive", AND "powerful" for these two major boo-boos. There's actually a good reason for not having a button (when floppies were the primary method of data transfer). I've known young children to pull a disk out of a running drive and corrupt files on the disk. This isn't nearly as big an issue now that most people save their data to hard disks or network storage devices, but it was a nice way of keeping people from hosing thier disks. The trashcan-eject is a poor metaphor for ejecting a disk -- you're right about that.
Simple X servers already exist for the MacOS such as the free MI/X,as well as things like White Pine/PowerLAN's eXodus. These would either run under the classic MacOS emulation if they don't get ported to MacOS X's native environment. MI/X is pretty poor, but eXodus works well -- I use it to run X apps on my PowerBook.
It's not like X servers don't exist for the Mac or anything. :)
All I can see if the option to purchase it for the cost of media and shipping.
I know I say this at least once a week, but if the damn server's been open-sourced (sort of) why not the client, too?
I'd really like it if Apple released a QuickTime client for UNIX/Linux. But as that's not going to happen any time soon, at least a way to view Sorenson video on something other than Windows would be nice.
UNIX/Linux seems to be somewhat lacking in the streaming-media client field. Its great that I can serve QuickTime or RealAudio data: but it'd be even nicer to view it!
Its really distressing in that they didn't really explore the virtues and/or weak points of any of the distributions.
The review's not bad, but its much, much too shallow. One would never expect to see (or tolerate) a review of a commericial OS that's so thin on content
Its not quite like MP3: for one, the image quality is terrible. More importantly, its not quite as blatantly illegal as ripping a song off a CD.
It is illegal, though. They are re-selling a product that, in most cases, you can't legally re-sell. The commercial stations are in a difficult position: they aren't making any more money from the re-broadcast, and iCrave is making money from selling banner ads to other companies. If iCrave had paid for a redistributon license, they'd probably have avoided this suit.
I'd like to see a list of stations that are suing them. I'll be willing to be its only the private stations that are angry. TVO/TFO (Ontario public) WNED (Buffalo public) and potentially CBC/SRC (Canadian national public, although they run ads) have much less,if anything, to lose.
I disagree. Using computers "properly" is a matter of opinion. I have an Apple PowerBook I use for my, ahem, real work and Linux/x86 system that does server duty. I'm impressed with the strides Linux has made in end-user friendliness and I really admire the simple power of it, but I like my Mac more for day-to-day general work.
The bulk of the consumer and corporate-desktop user base feels this way. Saying that they need to adapt to a particular way of doing things isn't going to win them over. If Linux wants to make it as a desktop OS, it will need to accomodate these people.
Actually, I'm a little suprised they didn't rebroadcast a few more of the French stations. I'm sure they'd garner a larger audience if "Bleu Nuit" was available daily. :)
Either that, or their servers would get thoroughly tooled by the number of hits they'd get.
...that doesn't suck.
Seriously, the current client is awful. On the same machine under WinNT the difference is astounding -- the Linux client is buggy, slow and just awful. Hopefully, Real will throw a little more money or open up the development of it a bit
On the other hand, the Mac client is terrible, too. I guess that pretty much tells us that Win32 is their target market. :)
It would be nice if someone (Apple) were to port QuickTime to Linux. They've already open-sourced the server to a degree, pity we can't get the client. I guess the copyright issues with some of the codecs are a problem, though.
Most Macs use a somewhat bizarre sense-code to detect what resolutions are supported by the monitor. Its akin to (but not the same as) Window 9x's "Detect PnP Monitors" function. This system works well with an Apple-brand monitor and most commercial Mac-compatible displays (Sony, NEC) but makes using cheapie monitors a pain -- you need to purchase a little DIP-switch equipped adapter to properly inform the Mac of the display's supported resolutions.
I don't know if this applies to the newer Macs that come equipped with standard VGA-style connectors. I've never had an occasion to plug a SVGA monitor into my PB3400, so I can't say for certain. Older Macs used an odd fifteen-pin connector that looked a lot like the joystick port on most PCs.
Pah, it was just an Amiga-wannabee :)
However, the quality of manafacture always seemd high. Their cases have traditionally sucked to work on (im sorry, I shouldn't need to remove the power suply to add more RAM)
Actually, Apple has made some pretty good cases as well: the Quadra 605, 610/660, PowerMac 61xx, 7300, x600, G3 and G4s and the PowerBook 1400 were all really, really easy to take apart. Ask a salesperson to demo how easy it is to add a hard drive or more RAM to a G4 and just let your jaw drop. I used to own a 6100av and, man, what a nice repair that was -- two snap-tabs to open the whole case
They've also released some terrible machines: the Plus, SE, PowerBook anything-but-the-1400, the Quadra 800/PowerMac 8100/8500. I used to dread taking apart our office's Quadra 840av: it had to be almost completely dissasembled. The Duo Dock was even worse.
Apple's current strategy seems to be designed around letting people muck with the high-end machines (because if you're buying a G4, you're probably going to stuff it full of more RAM or faster disks) while locking down the consumer systems. This makes some sense: I've met some scary end-users who've done awesomely awful things to their systems because they had enough knowledge to take them apart, but not enough to be reasonably careful
The main problems I have had with Macs have tended to be stupid shit, like the heavy insistnce on 1 button mice
I happen to like the one-button mouse. No assumptions about left- or right-handedness. Plus, people like my father who used to be completely vilified by my Amiga's two mouse buttons (to the point where he never used it) really likes his iMac.
Other things I liked about Macs was SCSI, they always used SCSI (until recently when, and perhaps once long ago I think they trid an IDE model but didn't stick with it)
Actually, all modern Macs (save for the professional PowerBook G3s) come with IDE standard and SCSI as an add-on card. If you take a peak in the SCSI-equipped G4s, you'll see (I think, but don't quote me on this) either an Adaptec PowerDomain 2930 or 2940 series card. Professional Macs have been IDE-standard since the beige G3s, consumer Macs since the Performa 63xx and PowerBooks since the 190/2300/5300