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Mac OS X Switcher Stories
Posted by
michael
on Thu Aug 22, 2002 08:30 AM
from the not-stoned-at-all dept.
from the not-stoned-at-all dept.
spid writes "Tim O'Reilly posted an interesting article about people switching from other OSes (Mac OS, Windows, Linux) to Mac OS X. The resounding consensus is that most folks appreciate how, compared to these other OSes, Mac OS X 'just works.' O'Reilly also makes an interesting point that UNIX/Linux users, rather than Windows users, would be the best target niche for Apple's 'switch' campaign."
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Switched, and then switched back (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get wrong, I think it's a great system, especially for people who aren't computer gurus, but it's not for me. The main thing was that OS X didn't offer me anything "new." There wasn't a compelling reason for me to learn a whole new set of shortcuts and keyboard commands in order to do what I'm already doing.
Re:Switched, and then switched back (Score:5, Interesting)
As for reasons to switch from a free *nix to Mac OS X, here are mine:
1) Asthetics - from the look of the desktop, the beautiful anti-aliased fonts, the built-in PDF capabilty, and (of course) the beautiful hardware, it's hard to compete with a Mac when it comes to a slick user experience.
2) Support - Like *BSD and Linux, you have a great community that will provide informal support, but you also have AppleCare to rely upon.
3) Hardware - the hardware, as I'm sure you know, is top-notch. You pay an arm and a leg for it, no doubt, but compare a top-of-the-line Dell case to any Apple case and you'll see what I mean.
4) Microsoft Office - I know this sounds a little odd but Microsoft Office on OS X is just fantastic. I've never seen a better office suite, commercial or open source. If you use your computer for business and your job title is something other than "programmer", chances are that you will need MS Excel. MS may be the devil incarnate but they sure do make a good spreadsheet package.
So anyway, my advice to you is to give it another shot, preferably once Jaguar is released. Two weeks really isn't enough time to get familiar with the little niceties of OS X.
Good luck.
Chris
Parent
Re:Switched, and then switched back (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate comments like this, because "computer gurus" is a loaded term. The implication is that someone who knows what they're doing would never use a Mac; it's only a system for people who do art and make web pages and want to edit their photos. And even if someone using a Mac writes Perl and Python scripts and so on, then you are still superior to them.
Enough of that please. That's the kind of elitist attitude that perpetuates the horrible reputation that Linux users have garnered. I do hardcore software development. I love languages like Lisp. I write Perl scripts to automate tasks, but then I get pegged as a compute newbiew because:
I use a GUI.
I don't have serious objections to Windows of the Mac.
I still find an 800MHz processor more than fast enough for commercial software development.
I don't have an obsession with buying every new $400 video card that comes along.
Maybe it's the faux "power users" that need a condescending term for them? They're certainly a loud segment of the computer using population.
Parent
Re:Switched, and then switched back (Score:5, Insightful)
The tools-obsessed photographer worries and frets about spot meters, chemistry selection and razor sharp lenses while the master quietly makes images that impact the soul with little more than a box and some film
The tools-obsessed cook buys copper-bottomed cookware with non-stick surfaces and an endless stream of gadgets and tools while the master chef makes mouths water with little more than fire and meat.
The tools-obsessed musician spends all their money on optimized amplifiers and acoustically engineered instruments while the master musician wrings emotion from the cheapest pawnshop instruments.
The tools-obsessed artist concentrates all their energy on choosing the right paints and canvas while the master creates great works of art on fast-food napkins.
The tools-obsessed carpenter buys specialized tools for every type of joinery and finish while the master carpenter builds furniture and homes that last for generations with little more than a handsaw and a plane.
The tools-obsessed programmer spends his time arguing about language choice, editors and platforms while the master programmer produces elegant code in any language and any platform that suits the job.
Parent
Switch? Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Switch? Nope. (Score:4, Interesting)
As for the minor upgrade thing, $100 a year to keep on the ball isn't bad, especially for a "good" company like apple. Yes, don't bring up quicktime, it's been said and said again. But that is a different argument. Frankly, Apple needs the support. I equate it to giving charity to your favourite free software developer, in the case of Apple.
Parent
Re:OSX upgrade costs (Score:3, Informative)
ADC Student membership costs $100/year. If you're a student, it makes more sense to get ADC membership than to buy Jaguar.
Re:Switch? Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
It's the interface, man!!! (Score:2)
osX for PC (Score:4, Interesting)
After switching from Windows to Linux last year, I recently got a job working with 3 osX server machines and a large network of osX machines (it's a newspapaer, the boss is so sold on Macs that I can't even say PC at work). Initial scepticism aside, I love these machines. They do just work, as servers as well as clients.
Re:osX for PC (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:osX for PC (Noooo!) (Score:5, Insightful)
Porting osX to the nightmare of unstable hardware that is the PC universe would be a disaster! The intel chip is horribly dated, and the supporting hardware architecture is one layer of kludge atop another, all the way down to the remenants of the ISA bus that *still* linger and screw things up to this day.
Do you *really* want that to continue? Do you ENJOY fighting with IRQ conflicts, or having to look up and be sure you don't put your ethernet card in PCI slot 1, because that shares an IRQ with the ATA 100 controller, or slot 3 because that shares with the on-board sound chip. No thank you.
I'd rather see windoze ported to the PowerPC platform, but that's just the video gamer in me talking. Beyond games, there is absolutely nothing in the PeeCee world that I can't find in the unix and/or MacOS world. Hence, the reason I will switch.
I love linux, but I look at that hardware and imagine how much MORE it could do if it weren't held back by all the legacy crap we have to endure so that Joe Accountant can run his 1989 copy of DBase II instead of moving his data onto Postgres and keeping up with the times.
At the risk of skirting Holy-War (TM) territory here, I will say that I did as much or MORE with my 7MHz Amiga 500 than I do with my 1400MHz Athalon PC. Why is that? Because 4/5 of the power of that machine today is throttled by paradigms from the 1980's. The hardware has continued to grow, but the methodology has stagnated. Apple took the first step towards letting all that go and moving on. Now if the unix community can do the same with X11, maybe we'll start seeing real innovation again, instead of years re-implementing the shiny button that Microsoft changed from grey to blue this week.
Parent
Two sides... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other side, what's not to like? THE PRICE! Most Linux users have a Linux box that isn't the biggest and best machine, just a box with spare parts that you put together (cause, hell, it works GREAT on subpar hardware). Not many get stuff like GeForce4 cards, because the 3D gaming market hasn't really hit Linux hard. Now, to switch, you have to buy a fairly expensive machine. Personally, I'd rather spend the money on a PC, because I'm a gamer, and that's where my cash usually goes.
As a linux user... (Score:2, Interesting)
As a Linux user, I agree, at least partly: Linux users are the most likely people to switch from Windows to Macintosh. I was never able to live with just Linux, I always used to have at least one Windows partition somewhere. Now I find that having a Macintosh around the house helps me sever my last ties with Microsoft. I'm still not giving up Linux, but Macintosh is a nice compliment to it.
How have I "Switched", running Linux X apps w/KDE? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here I sit, writing on MacOSX IE 6, waiting Software Update to install new version of OpenSSL on the background. I use apt-get (fink), KDE and Emacs, develop software on this iBook and run it on *nix machines over network, be it command-line or X11, thru openssh.
I have not switched. This was, with it's 6 hour uptime, the best *nix-laptop I could afford.
I have not "switched", nor have I to "switch" back when someone puts out a better laptop. I just use whatever *nix is applicable to me. Yellow Dog, yeah, I would try, but I don't need to fix what is not broken.
Apple simply did not break BSD when they created Darwin.
I meant: "freedom" is unlimited ability to switch (Score:2)
Switching back and forth between different boxes all supporting your standard toolset is "freedom". Apple is in the game as long as they support it; soon as they start "locking" (see the excellent interview of Dre), they're out. Wish it were the same for every company.
Fix your laws, United Slaves of America!
It just works? (Score:2)
Let me build my own box.
Re:It just works? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then it wouldn't "just work". Say what you like about Microsoft, they support a vast range of hardware, and that's one of the reasons they software is sometimes unreliable. The only way Apple products can "just work" is if Apple maintains absolute control over the hardware their software runs on.
Parent
What I find nice about OSX (Score:2)
Interesting Negative Switchers Story on Salon.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting Negative Switchers Story on Salon.c (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Interesting Negative Switchers Story on Salon.c (Score:4, Funny)
Me: baby we have DSL if you need a file while you're at school you can transfer it, its faster than loading the 500K word doc off the floppy
her: but what if the harddrive breaks?
me: that floppy will go bad long before the harddrive breaks
her: I don't care, it could still happen and I want it with me!
Women
Parent
Re:Interesting Negative Switchers Story on Salon.c (Score:5, Insightful)
My conclusion was different. She wasn't suckered . . . being suckered implies being deceived. She wasn't deceived at all. Her negative experiences have to do with unreasonable and unrealistic expectations about the switching experience. She can't print, she can't talk to her boyfriend, she misses her floppy disks, she doesn't understand CD-RW, she misses her left-clicking Windows mouse, her favorite font is gone, she can't figure out what keys perform what task.
In other words, she expected her new Apple Macintosh iBook laptop to behave _exactly_ like her old Microsoft Windows desktop PC. And when it didn't, she blames someone else for "seducing" her. Suckered, or typical modern consumer? I think the conclusion is obvious.
Parent
OS X is great (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple seems to be much more willing than pc makers and microsoft to switch to new things and I think this is very good as it encourages others to follow. I am mostly a windows user and I must say that OS X is deffinately on par with winXP when it comes to usability and surpasses it when it comes to stability.
Hardware (Score:2, Insightful)
Mac OS Users Are Inflexible. (Score:4, Insightful)
Mac OS 9 users (Lord bless 'em) are the most stubborn, inflexible, fearful sort of user you can imagine when it comes to how their Macs work. That's a compliment to Apple--it shows the power of the original Mac OS interface over its many years of tenure. When you have a good thing, you are very stubborn to change.
But the loyalty to Mac OS 9 hurts Apple's move to OS X, of course. I anticipate having to take my client's OS 9 users through a Mac OS X orientation, watching them kick and scream in the process.
Linux and Mac OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux a perfect system for those who enjoy working with computers and need to do things which are beyond the scope of your typical office suite of software. Linux is an operating system which is able to bend over backwards to fit an extraordinary range of platforms, and get the job done in an amazing number of ways.
Mac OS X appeals to those who don't need that extraordinary flexibility, but still want the stability and control of a UNIX system along with their "normal" applications. It's a compromise, and my personal opinion is that it strengthens the Linux / Free Software community tremendously, as it puts a command prompt two clicks away from the average user's fingers. Those who want to explore now have the option to do so, without the extraordinarily steep learning curve it takes to "get into" UNIXes.
Regardless -- there's way more money to be had by converting Windows users with hip marketing campaigns. Geeks will float about on their own free will, and I'm sure OS X will be a better OS for it. It's proving itself to be a magnificent platform, and Apple doesn't need to spend any money to spread the word in that regard.
Why I switched - the short version (Score:4, Insightful)
I love Unix - I love the power and the stability. I still use Linux as a server system (though, I admit I wouldn't mind trying out an Apple server just to compare).
But the biggest reason why I switched just deals with making it work. Do I have to worry about whether my clock program, which has the features I want, works under Gnome or KDE or not? Will I be able to cut and paste between Emacs and Mozilla? How do I install the serial port adapter software - oh, wait, I'm using Red Hat, and the designer made it to work with Suse....
Again, it's not that Linux is bad at all, it just takes that much more work to tweak. Want to change resolution in Xwindows? Get out to a prompt and run Xconfigurator.
Then I use OS X, and I get the best of both worlds. I get the power of Unix (I spend more time in Terminal than anything else), but I still get a slick interface and programs that look great. I don't worry about whether the program I'm looking at needs Windows Manager or something else - it fits in. I can still run Gimp (because I'm too damn cheap for Photo Shop) under XDarwin.
I'd love for Linux to make huge desktop roads, but that will take a change of paradigm[sic]. Linux developers will have to give up some things - say "Let's stop the KDE vs Gnome arguments, and say *this* is the standard - let folks experiment with things if they want, but we will heretofore say *this* is the way to do things", then go out and make it. They'll have to have an Interface guideline, and try to hold to it. They'll have to get follow up programmer who don't just focus on cool technology - which we need, and I thank God they make it - but then they need someone to come along after them and say "All right, let's put a good interface on this puppy."
Is OS X better? Probably not - the stability is about the same, the speed is probably less than Linux, but the interface is great. Linux is faster, but isn't as pleasing to work with.
So that's why I switched. I keep up with the Linux stuff for my servers, but my day to day gaming/typing/communicating is done on OS X.
And just to self pimp (or for more on this subject): Penguin2Apple: How a Linux Lover turned to a Macintosh [gamerspress.com]
O'Reilly is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Just from the whining posts of "OS X is cool but Apple is a big, mean, evil proprietary hardware manufacturer", you can see that O'Reilly is completely wrong in suggesting Linux users are a perfect niche target. Apple should focus their ads 100% towards Windows users--people that expect to pay for what they use. There is no point going after the Linux folks. The attitude of "if its not free its evil" is not one you are going to change with white backgrounded commercials. Plus why would you focus on 1% of desktop users instead of 95%?
Unless Steve Jobs wants to lay prostrate in front of Linus and RMS and wail, "I am not worthy, I am not worthy!", there isn't an ad that is going to convert a hard core (masochistic) Linux desktop users.
Who is switching (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who say they wont switch here are probably system administrators. Since I do sysadmin as part of my job, I can say that that part of me is a control freak, and loves the power of linux. That is also the reason why Linux has it hard on the desktop: only macosx, lycoris, lindows are even thinking of deprecating root in their OS'es.
The part of me which programs is split. Doing scientific programming today is easier on linux because of the number of high quality numerics/graphics libs available for X11. This will change. However, have you seen the simplicity of macosx? Every app is a directory. No gtk compatability problems(for those who remember). Copy the app anywhere. click, go. For command line people, change defaults using the default command, since all apps use plists. Open any file by saying open bla.pdf. It will use the default app. use open -with if you want a specific app.
The linking model is simple. The loading model is simple. applescript scripts most apps and is way easier to use than COM or bonobo. Still linux is a familiar model to lots of people. So I know people now, grad students and post-docs and engineers, whose desaktop is a macosx box and who program on linux..the professors dont program much so macosx works well for them. This student/scientist/engineer/programmer is the only remaining market.
But at the end of the day its the apps. Excel is available. And itunes and iphoto just rock.
There was a time when i liked struggling with linux to get all this working. At some point, one just wants to code. One dosent want to deal with dependencies, etc. You will say apt-get and I'll say hallelujah, its a great thing, but why cant i just install the freaking app where I want it too, and delete it by trashing it. rpm --erase??? Who would think of that?
The sad part is, most of what macosx has done could and still can be done on linux. Make a restricted distribution. Share earnings with app developers. Choose 10-15 best-of-breed apps, thats all. Thing of the next evolutionary step in these apps, rather than remaining behind the curve. root should only be a single user mode thing. Like gentoo, make init scripts dependent on whats running and whats not. Simplify the runlevels to single-user, and multi-user. Reduce hardware complexity by certifying systems based on linux friendly manufacturers. run daemons not as root. Get rid of the start, or hat, or whatever menu. Get rid of the XP like icons(see redhat8 beta). Give gtk a default look which dosent look like grey shit. Use a tasteful muted color scheme. Make sure pcmcia and usb and firewire just work on plug in. Use hotplug and devfs like mandrake do. Get rid of one million etc config files and use gconf and alchemist like redhat do. Simplify the gnome2.0 desktop. Check out the innovations in oe-one's desktop. Use autofs pervasively. Implement per process namespaces. Implement a simple event layer on top of bonobo, pipes, mimetypes, clipboard, etc to make scripting the desktop trivial. See plan9's plumbing. Unify zsh(bash) and nautilus to use same mime system. Allow apps to be manipulated as directories. When such directories are opened in either, allow hooks to be called which can start or install apps into a dependency database. Create a pasteboard server like in macosx. Implement gnustep over gtk2.0...
You get my point. There is so much thats already there but just missing a bit. It needs people with that extra bit of innovation, and that extra bit of compansation a app-royalty scheme would generate to push it across the edge. It needs that part of me that is a system administrator to let go. But it may be too late.
Re:Who is switching (Score:3, Informative)
You will say apt-get and I'll say hallelujah, its a great thing, but why cant i just install the freaking app where I want it too, and delete it by trashing it. rpm --erase??? Who would think of that?
Oh please no! Not appfolders again! Appfolders have so many disadvantages it's not even funny. They are far, far, far too simple for even most apps, which is why there is not one, not even two but three different ways of installing software on the Mac: Drag'n'drop, Apple Installer, 3rd party installers (ie Wise). Appfolders don't meet many developers requirements. Some more disadvantages:
In short, appfolders seem like a good idea, but actually aren't.
The sad part is, most of what macosx has done could and still can be done on linux. Make a restricted distribution. Share earnings with app developers.
I don't understand this. What's a restricted distro? And last time I checked, SuSE and RedHat did actually pay their developers.
root should only be a single user mode thing. Like gentoo, make init scripts dependent on whats running and whats not. Simplify the runlevels to single-user, and multi-user. Reduce hardware complexity by certifying systems based on linux friendly manufacturers. run daemons not as root.
Huh? What? Even MacOS supports multi users not as root. Only 2 runlevels? Why???? It's not like the average user will even care. Why reduce flexibility for no increase in usability? Certifying systems? Sorry, this is the real world, a lot of people have systems that were modern once, then they upgraded, or that were built to order, or that they bought from the shop down the street and so on. The answer is to make Linux hardware support perfect - not to reduce user choice!
Get rid of the start, or hat, or whatever menu. Get rid of the XP like icons(see redhat8 beta). Give gtk a default look which dosent look like grey shit. Use a tasteful muted color scheme. Make sure pcmcia and usb and firewire just work on plug in. Use hotplug and devfs like mandrake do. Get rid of one million etc config files and use gconf and alchemist like redhat do. Simplify the gnome2.0 desktop
Wow. A lot more suggestions. Why get rid of the start menu? 95% of the world are used to it. You can always use Gnome, or E, or WindowMaker if you don't want one. The new RedHat null icons are hardly XP style, I've seen them. If you mean cartoony, well switch themes! There are plenty available. Yes, the GTK default theme is ugly, but changing that took me 1 minute on gnome 2. The theme files are tiny! Simplify Gnome 2? How simply do you want, it's about as simple as you can get. They need to add more features, which will mean more complexity! FYI GConf is just a front end to a load of XML config files ;) Devfs support is not yet 100% bug free, so not all distros use it yet - it's coming, be patient.
The rest of the ideas aren pretty good, but they are hardly necessary for a slick desktop. Unified mimetyping between shell and nautilus? Yeah, it's a cool idea, but hardly critical. You want to see them? Well, you know what'd I'd say ...
Switch then Switch then Switched again. (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple doesn't need to target Linux users... (Score:5, Interesting)
...because other (former) Linux users are doing the job for them. Between Tim O'Reilly, plenty of folks here on / and various others, it would be difficult for geeks not to know that OS X is "Unix Inside (tm)". [google.com]
I switched for one application, then stayed (Score:5, Interesting)
The cost for the PC hardware I wanted was about 2700.00 USD. Then I looked at my other PCs: one is very stable, one does not work with any version of Windows but runs for 100 days with Linux, another one was sort of flaky until I installed OpenBSD (this is why it's good to have many OS choices; if it's a hardware problem, it should die under ANY OS, like my Thinkpad with a bad motherboard used to do).
When I looked at the Power Mac dual G4 1GHz, I saw the tradeoffs: slower bus, less MHz in the CPUs, and so on. But, I get 2 firewire ports digital video out and OSX all included. I also saw several movies in the past 2 years with a credit to FCP. The price was $200 over what I would pay for a tricked out PC.
I went to the Apple store where they showed me how to download and edit footage right in the store. I have never seen a PC store with a setup like this.
I was surprised at how fast the Mac replaced my Windows PC for everything I do: Office, e-mail, software development. The hardware is not the latest or sexiest, but it works better. The computer _feels_ faster, because I never have to stop working to appease some sudden need the OS has.
I think that the world of cheap commodity hardware and all-compatible software is still a dream; believe it or not, Intel, Motorola, Sparc, they're ALL using proprietary technology that locks you into a vendor's plans, whims, and mistakes. Get used to it. When buying the Apple, I chose a different route: pay a premium for "commodity" hardware with a lot of added value. Dell and Gateway have gotten so big that they cannot afford to lose any money; maybe being the biggest company is not always the best thing to do.
About me and technology: I work in a Windows NT/2000/Solaris 7-8-9 shop. By day I am a systems architect building Solaris, Windows, and OpenBSD systems for security and business automation. I program in python, perl, java, and C++.
The Point is not YOU should switch.... (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife runs Mac OS X. She's a Project Manager for a International Medical Informatics project. She doesn't need the CLI but needs WebDAV, SMB, NFS and whatever else the project throws at her. Need to communicate with a hundred people all in different countries with different machines? You can't just send them Word files. I'm pretty amazed that a single platform can cope with both of our workloads.
My good friend runs FreeBSD. He swears by it. He writes little networked apps. He's recently got himself an iBook for development because he figures he can do 90% of the hard development work on any of his machines and then by just adding a pretty little GUI in InterfaceBuilder, he can sell the little apps to Mac people as well. He's not aMac guy but he tells me how much he's spent on hardware upgrades in the last two years and I'm amazed. Sure, PC hardware is cheaper, but is it necessary to upgrade everything every month???
I don't care what platform you use. Just leave me to use Mac OS X. You on Linux? Want to show me a cool app? Recompile and we're there.
Family PC with the Power of Unix. (Score:5, Interesting)
The iMac has proved a superb compromise. Both my children are addicted to the various DK educational software the shop on Tottenham Court Road threw in. iPhoto is superb and the integration of Digital Cameras and Camcorders with the rest of the OS is seamless, my four year old can now take the camera and edit photos on the box without much help. And underneath it all is UNIX, it connects easily to my broadband connection, and all my IMAP, LDAP and SSH sessions to my corporate network work fine, making it the perfect machine to use for working from home (and it looks good too).
So I wouldn't described myself as someone who has switched from Windows or Linux, rather Apple achieved a sale where nothing would have been bought in it's place. I am confident I am not alone in this market segment, one of my friends with children the same age has bought an iMac for exactly the same reasons, and I know of others considering it.
Please Intuit, please... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's it. Whilst I can temporarily live without the video conferencing, I consider the lack of an accounts package on a home machine to be a truly serious ommission. I realise this doesn't affect the US, but in the UK it kills the thing dead as a home machine. Virtual PC won't do by the way - if I'm switching environments I'm switching environments and don't want to run half and half.
Please Intuit. Please. You have an OS X-native Quicken, and you ave a UK Quicken for Windows. Surely it can't be beyond the wit of mankind to combine these products and produce a native UK Quicken?
Cheers,
Ian
A switch? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having seen the Titanium PowerBook G4s on display in the Apple shops, that drool-worthy stop outside the display window became a regular pausing point on my way home from Uni. The student discount price made it even more attractive, so after a while of saving up the sweet silvery sexiness that is a TiBook was mine.
A Linux user of 4 years, I used to boot into Windows to play games like Baldur's Gate II, knowing that I would be able to combine the excellence and stability that I'd come to take for granted with Linux with the ease of use and hardware integration that Windows offered, but with a much sexier look and feel, and no hideous Start bar, I was hooked instantly.
I tried for a while running rootless X in order to have my favourite Linux apps (XChat for one - available through the rather excellent 'fink'), but soon gave that up because even with the "Aqua-esque" themes, GTK and the WMs I was using just didn't quite make the aesthetic grade. I've since found an XChat-alike (Snak) and either ports of or apps that are similar to the ones I used to use under Linux. Sure, you have to pay for some of them, but I found that I didn't have a problem with this (I'm not really in the FS philosophy camp, preferring the BSD license anyway) and figured that if the programs I used regularly under Linux were shareware I'd probably pay for them too
There are, of course, plenty of excellent free (and Free, for those who care) apps available for OS X.
However, the best point of OS X is all the excellent bundled software that comes with it. iTunes is simply divine, iPhoto is
Don't get me started on the *hardware*. The networking is as simple as a very simple thing, wander between WLAN and traditional cables and OS X doesn't miss a beat. Not to mention that the Airport cards are seriously kickarse. Great range (due to the aerial being lined up the screen), and fantastic integration with the OS. Under Linux I'd be fiddling around with ifconfig and routing tables and such - not so under OS X.
Turn on Apache with a checkbox, ready to go. FTP? No problem, another checkbox. SSH? Certainly! Check that box too! I hear 10.2 has a seriously nice firewall configuration tool coming with it, I'm looking forward to *that*.
The display is something that has to be seen to be believed. Never have I seen such luscious crisp images on a laptop LCD. And the machine is *quiet*. Unless you're doing something graphics-intensive or spinning up the seriously kickarse combo drive (CDRW/CDROM/DVD), it's virtually silent. A fan kicks in when there's some excitement happening, but in my experience it's only when I've been playing games/watching DVDs or using the combo drive a lot.
And yes, you *can* use a 3-button mouse.
So where does that leave my trusty desktop Linux box? Acting as a local mail server and backup machine
Dissatisfied PC owners (Score:4, Interesting)
Amen brother! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I'm a recovering MCSE and the only reason I can see to move tools around is to drive revenue in the training division.
My other Win2k gripe relating to Active Directory is that, by design, you HAVE to use their goofy-ass DNS server. Further, said DNS server must be on the domain controller.
Why in the world does DNS have to be on the same box as the domain controller? I mean, if you're running a huge enterprise, having iron to do both functions simultaneously and also buy a redundant box that gets expensive. Tell me how much Dell stock Gates owns, anyway?
Re:DivX on OSX (Score:2)
Apple doesn't seem that interested in getting DivX to work well in QuickTime. Instead, they're pushing their own MPEG4 format. VLC is definitely the way to go.
Re:Linux... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now there is a 'nix based OS that shows it can be done, the Linux distros should follow suit. It is no wonder that Linux "isn't on the desktop" given the current attitude of RTFM that pervades.
Parent
Yeah, but - you're a geek. (Score:3, Insightful)
We enjoy learning the ins and outs of our machines, much like my brother the gearhead enjoys rebuilding his 52 Harley.
My mother, on the other hand does not want or need to know how to rebuild her engine, or her PC. She just wants to get her work done.
Re:Linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're bent on Microsoft, and it shows badly. Apple doesn't prevent you from edit config files. They're all there, tucked quietly away from people that don't need to see them. But they are there, and you can edit them if you prefer.
On many levels, Apple has given us something that many others haven't - a choice. You can choose to use the interface, and most people will. For those who want more, use the console, install Xwindows, dig around in the config files.
And it's good that you keep different OSes. You should. If almost everyone used one OS, we'd have all sorts of headaches...
--
UNIX is Powerful, Linux is Free, BSD is Open, MacOS X is Usable.
Re:Linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
Red Hat is better - the GNOME desktop is well laid out, bold and clean but it still suffers badly in comparison to OS X.
If you want to see how badly, just compare how hard it is to change your screen resolution, or share a folder, or change the system time, or burn a CD, or rip a CD into MP3 format, or get help on doing any of these things. All these things are pretty straightforward in OS X. You'd be hard pressed as a novice to figure them out in RH Linux.
OS X has faults (using Sherlock to find a file is a major pain in the ass) but it's clear from the changes in 10.2 that Apple are addressing them. The next question is why aren't Red Hat and the rest doing the same?
Re:windows has the majority of the market (Score:3, Informative)
A copy of this ad can be seen here. [xahlee.org]
They really are targeting OS X at the scientific Unix crowd, even Linux, as the ad says: "'After two-and-a-half years of Linux, I've finally found joy in a UNIX operating system. And I found it when I purchased a Macintosh - the first one I've ever owned.' - John Hummel Jr., The Gamers' Press"
While I can see them winning business off expensive Unix hardware, I wonder how effective they will be in targetting linux users.
Re:Port it for crying out loud! (Score:5, Informative)
1. apple makes their money selling hardware. they will lose all that revenue if people can just use a walmart $400 pc.
2. apple is a systems company, using the fact that they develop both the hardware and the software as an advantage to them. how many times do you hear the words *it just works* when it comes to apple computers? that's a big selling point for the bulk of the population who don't like to tinker with hardware.
3. yet another architecture change? i think not. moving from 68K to ppc went well, it took some time but it was a success. os9 to os10 is going well, most apps are there and the open source/hobby coder population is booming. so to go from ppc to x86 after moving to a new OS, the big software companies are just going to say no. that's suicide.
4. ibm's new power4 desktop chip [com.com] is further evidence that apple is going to stay ppc. this chip has 160 vector ops (altivec has 162), that's another big indicator.
i can't see apple going x86 in the future.
Parent
Re:Port it for crying out loud! (Score:3, Insightful)
It just ain't gonna happen. Apple makes its money off of hardware sales.
Furthermore, do you want a great OS that runs on great hardware? Or do you want a great OS that runs on ad-hoc mismatched hardware.
Part of the reason that Windows sucks so hard and that Linux never seems to offer full support for hardware is because they have to support every little last variation and kludge that the hardware manufacturers can dream up. If Mac OS X were to go to x86, not only would Apple lose money, but they'd lose face -- OS X would start becoming more and more like Windows and Linux on the desktop...painful.
I haven't had any difficulty or undue expense in getting hardware for my Macs, so please...put away the FUD.
Re:OS X still feels beta, to me. (Score:4, Informative)
The menu bar is at the top of the screen for a reason, Fitts's Law which says that the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. Menu bar items are in essence inch-wide but mile-high targets, so you can zip your mouse to the top of the screen as fast as you like and you won't miss the target (the desired item on the menubar). In contrast, menubars attached to windows present far smaller targets. You are just very used to Windows-style menubars.
"I tried to do an su. Wrong password. (My account has admin privs anyway; I shouldn't need to do an su at all.)"
OS X has three privilege levels, not two: superuser (root), admin, and regular user. Admin privs are partway between user privs and full root privs; the idea is that you can run with some of the same privileges as root (i.e. privileges to install software for all users), without the problems of running as root full time. That's why you needed to do an su.
The Mozilla folder should have had you UID, not someone else's. That OS X's problem. Obviously you forgot your root password. That is *your* problem.
Parent
Re:Ok I'm convinced [here's your links] (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/x86.html
http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/darwin
Gene
Software Engineer
www.genedavis.com
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