BSD User's Review Of OS X 406
Lally Singh writes: "Getting bored with the latest distribution? Or getting tired of searching for drivers for your 8 bit soundblaster (in)compatible? Then listen to one BSD user's opinion of Mac OS X. And stop complaining about the hardware. Give a Powermac or one of the portables a chance before knocking on it."
Did you notice this bit of padding? (Score:1, Interesting)
He pads out his pages with bogus keywords to help the spiders. Here's a quote:
<font class=hidden> <!-- a few words for the spiders --> Greasy Daemon, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSDi, Unix, Internet, Networking, NFS, Netatalk, SMB, Samba, Security, Guide, News, Benchmark, SSH, OpenSSH, Cryptography, TTY,
(and so it goes on ...)
Re:Too late to be good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why the heck did he COMPILE Apache??? (Score:5, Interesting)
And then there was Apache...why oh why did he feel the need to recompile Apache, when OSX comes with a Native Version [apple.com] of the damned thing that is far easier to use and confiugre than our standard *nix Apache.
*Sigh*
$349 vs. $77 [Lego vs. everything else] (Score:3, Interesting)
Oversimplified analogy:
Which would you rather have. Lego or the combination of building blocks, tinker toys, connectix, and structures.
Macs are like lego... they just fit together. PC's are like the combination of all the other toy building systems.
They are attractive for different reasons. I know lots of people who would rather try to put together a robot from 5 different toy sets, but I prefer the design work that Lego (and Mac) have to offer. I don't want to spend hours trying to get two different toys to work together.
On the outset, Lego costs more. That's because they stress quality and design. You can easily go out and buy building blocks from another company and they will cost much less, but they wont work as well. If money was all that mattered, I'd buy the cheapest toy and play.
But I want to play and have fun... so I buy Lego.
neo
Re:huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, although they certainly are improving. You might want to read the GNOME Usability Study Report [slashdot.org].
As long as your hardware is not total crap, Linux is not far from being a "insert CD, click install, come back in 15 minutes, start working" kinda OS. What do I mean by crap hardware? The kind of stuff that no self-respecting kernel hacker would buy, let alone write drivers for. (Like Winmodems, no-name Ethernet cards, old cheap SB-compatible sound cards, scanners with proprietary interfaces made by some company that died 5 years ago, etc.)
This is an internal myth of the Linux community. There is nothing wrong with reducing the cost of modem hardware by offloading some of its functions onto the main processor. In fact there's a major user benefit, which is lower cost. The reason people say Winmodems are crap is so they don't have to deal with the issue that Linux software support and availability isn't as good as on Windows. The tiny Linux market share doesn't lend itself to broad software or hardware support.
We have the same problem on the Mac side of the fence. It's a really unfair thing in a lot of ways, but it also is a concrete problem with using a minority platform, and the way to deal with it is not by saying that all the missing hardware and software is crap. (Although that was a good enough answer back when the war was between Mac and DOS!)
Mozilla, btw, is moving along nicely.
An ever-increasing number of bugs is not my idea of moving along nicely. I wouldn't ship commercial software that had Mozilla's defect curve [mozilla.org]. I'd link directly to the chart, but the bug chart feature is broken again today.
I think it's time to face up to the fact that projects people do in their spare time as tinkerers may never catch up to those that are funded, staffed and managed based on the potential for financial reward.
You need to read Eric Raymond's Cathedral and the Bazaar. http://tuxedo.org/~esr/ Enjoy.
I read it years ago. It bears no resemblance to reality and has even largely fallen out of favor in the open source community.
Tim
A good boost for Apple and *BSD. (Score:3, Interesting)
my girlfriend (Score:0, Interesting)
Consumer Unix (Score:3, Interesting)
OS X doesn't get everything right, but I think its probably the closest any Unix variant will come to the general consumer's desktop. OS X is a usable Unix distro, but has the niceties that most home users expect, and really require. Yes, translucent buttons on top of a port scanner are a requirement. Sure, its nice to grep for things, but my next-door soccer mom neighboor isn't going to. But I can use SSH to administer my website. This duality makes OS X the most usable OS - almost. Not enough native apps yet.
Later,
Goss
Apple hardware is actually pretty nice! (Score:5, Interesting)
After a series of problems with 4 Sony Vaio notebooks (two PCG-748s, a Picturebook, and a PCG-F630), my girlfriend and I decided to look for alternative mobile computing solutions. Both of us being Unix/Linux users, we were drawn to the Apple Powerbooks/iBooks (the new model, not the clamshell).
The notebooks feel solid. They have excellent battery life (I got 4.5 hours on a charge at the Ottawa Linux Symposium, while surfing wirelessly the whole time). The G3 and G4 processors feel fast. You don't have to have a 1 GHz Intel beast in your notebook - performance isn't measured solely by MHz, and especially not across different chip architectures!
Sure, I had some minor complaints - only one mouse button for instance. But both YellowDog and LinuxPPC allow you to easily remap keys to mouse buttons. Guess what? That Apple key, and the "enter" key, on either side of the spacebar, just above the mouse pad on a G4 Titanium make excellent mouse buttons! Not to mention full USB support for external keyboards/mice when "docked". Built in antennas for wireless networking reduce the cost of a wireless network card... here in Canada, an 802.11b wireless card typically runs around $220 Cdn, whereas the Apple Airport (OEMed Lucent 802.11b card) runs about $140. And the G4 Titanium's screen is simply the most georgeous thing out there IMHO.
Price-wise Apple hardware isn't all that bad these days. Sure, the G4 Titanium is expensive when compared to a Dell Latitude. But the G4 Ti is the top of the line Apple - it has more in common with the Dell 8100 series... and when you compare those two, the difference is $50-$100 Cdn.
Ultimately, it's up to the individual user to decide which notebook best suits them. But at least give an Apple notebook a chance before dismissing it. They are really quite nice (and quite popular with the Linux coder crowd at the Ottawa Linux Symposium - there were many, many, many Powerbook G4s, and a few iBooks).
Too late to be good... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anybody who complains that Apple hardware prices are high hasn't been pawing attention for a couple of years.
Compare the price/performance of an iMac with similarly powered x86 systems. Compare the price of an iBook with similarly powered portables.
They're very competitive these days.
Re:Apple hardware is actually pretty nice! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree, the Ti is an awesome laptop, but let's allow it to stand on it's own merits. It STARTS at US $2599. I just configured a Dell 8100 for $2,148.00 through their 'small business' store.
$450 is nothing to sneeze at, and will buy you a shitload of memory, giant hard drive, case, docking station, whatever. The Dell also has the best laptop video card avaiable (GeForce2go) whereas the Mac has the older ATI graphics.
So Apple is not quite there yet on price, but they are getting closer with the portables. Unfortunately, the G4 tower and iMac are getting further away...
Re:Too late to be good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:just as soon as.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mac's wrong with a mac. (Score:1, Interesting)
I said attitude... Maybe a G4 really is the best thing scince the microchip, but even if it is, it's not Apple's doing. They need to emphisize that. It's a very similar attitude that microsoft takes... 'you do the works, we'll steal it, and get all the credit.' Truth is, Apple isn't a stable company right now, they're way to dependent, on IBM (for PPC processors), and on NVidia (for releasing video cards first).
Perhaps apple is the best for content creation, on the low level, but SGI's are running lower costs now (used machines), and these things run for 3 months uptime overclocked! In fact, on the "max uptime" list on netcraft (which doesn't truely reflect acutal computer uptime, just site uptime) Irix trails Freebsd only. Maybe it's not a coincidence that AOL uses IRIX on their servers.