Confessions of a Mac OS X User 989
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an interesting commentary on OSDir.com about one Mac OS X user's guilt over using it instead of Linux on his laptop, and how he's been burned by the dreaded iBook logic board problems so much that it underlines the tyranny of hardware vendor lock-in: it's not that Mac OS X isn't F/OSS, but that it only runs on Apple hardware. It also raises the obvious question: have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?"
Don't ask me.. (Score:5, Funny)
have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?
You'll have to ask my ex-wife; she took the Mac.
Re:Don't ask me.. (Score:5, Funny)
umm.. no. however i do feel guilty for having a linux box without paying $699 to SCO. wait a sec. i don't feel guilty about that either.
Re:Don't ask me.. (Score:5, Funny)
-You'll have to ask my ex-wife; she took the Mac.
I was lucky. Mine got stuck with my Windows 98 box. They deserve each other.
Re:Don't ask me.. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, because I have one of each sitting on my desktop.
When I got the 17' Powerbook, I decided that I would give it the best chance I could, by refusing the temptation to install things like the X-Windows server and other Open-Source tools. I'd use Apple's tools and teach myself to use them. Only when I could use something without thought would I compare it with the corresponding linux tools.
Over the months, I've gotten quite comfortable with the PB, OSX, and the whole package. But when I lean back and compare them critically, I have to admit: Nearly everything is simpler, faster, and easier on the linux box. The Mac is generally prettier. And in a few cases (such as plugging in USB gadgets), it does a better job.
But so far, despite my best intentions, the Mac has turned out to be slow and clumsy compared to linux. I've even made my linux life more difficult by switching WMs occasionally. KDE one week, Gnome the next, then Enlightenment, then FVWM. This slightly slows down my linux use and sometimes produces stumbles. But still, the linux box wins on most comparisons.
One biggie is that text windows work much better on linux. One of the embarrassments of the GUI world is how much faster and more productive a CLI user is than a GUI user, for almost all tasks. And a CLI user can work on machines anywhere on the Net as easily as the onee on their desktop.
On the Mac, as on Windows, the text window is an orphan. On linux, like all unixoid systems, the text/CLI approach is well developed, and is the best way to do most tasks. On OSX, although it is a kind of unix, most of the system only works from the GUI. This is a real disappointment, and relegates it to the "toy" classification for many purposes.
It's too bad. But maybe it'll improve. Apple has only recently gone the unix route. Give them a few years of hanging with the unix crowd, and maybe they'll pick up some of the things that make linux better than OSX.
And maybe the linux gang will learn how to recognize USB gadgets smoothly and painlessly.
Prettier. (Score:5, Interesting)
So I'm delighted with all my Macs - I switched almost totally away from Linux and Irix, my previous systems, and in terms of computing environment, I couldn't be happier. The Mac isn't perfect, but it's as close to a hassle-free computing environment as I can get.
And that's worth its weight in gold, at least for me.
Just out of curiosity, could you give a few examples of things you can't do from the command line? I'll bet there actually are ways around it that you haven't heard.
D
RE: I lean more towards OS X than Linux too (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mac with OS X is the polar opposite of this, with a stunningly beautiful GUI and some of the most original GUI-related concepts I've seen on any platform. (Even Gnome and KDE couldn't seem to resist sticking to the Windows-esque concept of some sort of START type button in a corner of the screen with menu windows popping open from it, listing the applications you can launch. OS X bypassed that completely with the "dock" idea.)
If you really are a command-line "power user" in Unix OS's, then yeah, Mac OS X is currently not really for you. The thing is, I suspect relatively few of us really work from the CLI as much as we like to think we do. (I know for example, I have several good friends who are nearly Linux zealots, and they constantly like to point out the powerful things that can be done from the shell prompt. They're quite right, except I still see their machines running X and a window manager most of the time. Unless your system is primarily a server, being remotely accessed but not generally used locally, a GUI is usually more pleasing to the eye, and is the environment people would rather be in. (If nothing else, people like having nice looking pictures as their "wallpaper", instead of staring at a blank screen with white text and a blinking cursor on it.)
I think of Mac OS X as "Unix for the rest of us", sort of how the original Macintosh was supposed to be the "computer for the rest of us".
Re: I lean more towards OS X than Linux too (Score:4, Insightful)
Just a quick note for you: a CLI and a GUI are not mutually exclusive. The real question is - how many terminal windows are open at once on your friends' GUIs? At an average I'd say I have 5 or 6 terminals open at any one time using linux. And I often have two cygwin terminals open when using Windows.
Of course it's nice to have pretty wallpaper and a few bells and whistles. But they don't get the work done
Re: I lean more towards OS X than Linux too (Score:4, Informative)
I found it amusing that the Gothic designers would spend hours and hours on beautiful 3D rendering for their almost illegible Gothic fonts, leaving the fonts you actually had to use as unreadable as ever
So you have two type of people working on Gnome/KDE, the types who want to not frighten people by making their system look as much like Windows as humanly possible, and those who do want to frighten people with morbid images! What an unbeatable combination.
(I might sound less bitter if I'd succeeded in getting just one of the Gothic themes to actually work on my Linux PC. I actually like the Gothic types, but I can't resist poking some gentle fun at them).
Anyway, with that setting the stage, you can see how much of a breath of fresh air MacOS X was to me. It's an original interface, that looks lovely and owes debts to nothing save its NeXTian ancestors. The fonts are lovely out of the box; you don't have to install complex X-Windows extensions with elaborate 15 step procedures to make them look ok; you can make 'em look great without any effort whatsoever. You can use great applications like Final Cut Pro and GarageBand, together with Unix stalwarts like emacs and all the command line stuff I know and love.
I don't find MacOS X deficient in command line operation at all. There is emacs (although I wish there was a graphical version that used lovely Cocoa fonts), all my friends tar and ssh and gcc and so on are present and accounted for. It's true that command line administration is a bit obscure, but if you (like me) don't do a lot of administration on your personal computer, that's perfectly fine.
It looks like I echo a lot of MacOS X users, when I note my 10-odd terminal windows and my 10-odd web browser windows. The value of the GUI seems to be primarily in the web browser when I'm doing work. Of course that might be because I develop web sites.
There's definite value in having Unix and Photoshop on the same machine, and that alone makes MacOS X beat Linux and other Unix variants effortlessly.
It's one computer for functions that used to take two or more. Not bad at all.
D
Re:how about keychain access on the command line? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple provides a neat little tool named security [apple.com] for this purpose. It allows full access to, and manipulation of, the keychain.
To retrieve my Slashdot password from the keychain, I would do the following:
Note that the first time you use security to access a keychain item, you will receive the standard Confirm Access to Keychain dialog. It would be unwise and unhelpful for this to happen when you are trying to access the keychain remotely via SSH, therefore it would pay to first access the keychain in this manner when you have access to the UI to Always Allow security to access that keychain item.Re:Don't ask me.. (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? I assume you have found the Terminal application and used it? I am a Sun/Solaris admin and I just replaced my good old Blade 100 with a G5 and nothing really changed for me. There are only four apps that I run constantly from the GUI: Terminal, Mozilla, Mail, and Acrobat. Everything else is done from the command line. You might want to check it out. Almost everything in OSX can be done from the command line. If you need some help to find your way around, check out the "OS X for UNIX geeks" book from O'Reilly.
Re:Don't ask me.. (Score:5, Interesting)
open gets you into bundles (Program.app), as well as to documents tied to particular programs.
softwareupdate and defaults cover a bunch of ground. Now that there's a decently usable Carbonized Emacs, I don't even use an X server most of the time: Terminal, Emacs, and Camino cover 99% of my needs. Oh, and Preview for looking at compiled TeX.
But that said, you're unfairly biasing the comparison by not using X11 and free software. One of the big advantages of the Mac is that it provides *both* (MS Office, iChat, Finder and other GUI tools for business) and (Emacs, an X Server, a good free programming environment). Cutting half of that off isn't a Mac any more; it's more like a 1997 Mac. For example, I have a custom-built Postfix install with TLS support on my laptop, using client certificates to authenticate to my home MTA: perfect mail relaying no matter where I am. And it lets me tell Mail.app to just use the localhost as an SMTP server. Now I get good S/MIME and GnuPG support, in-line spelling checking, and a nice UI *and* the technical features I want. AND, since it's standard-based IMAP, I can hand that system off to friends and family, and use it at work, but use Gnus for my personal mail.
Re:I guess that makes it Mac OS eX? (Score:5, Funny)
Confession of a Mac OS X User (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To all mods: (Score:3, Interesting)
It all depends on whether the particular mod laughed or not really.
Under the right circumstances slipping on a banana peel is still funny.
As the 2000 year old man once noted:
"Tragedy is when I bang my thumb. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die."
It's all in your perspective. IAIYP in the modern way of phrasing things.
When dealing with the sort of humor that is based on language and spelling the appreciation of a certain cleverness is part of the humor respo
This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed... The "guilty" question is the really puzzling thing:
It also raises the obvious question: have you ever felt guilty over using Mac OS X instead of Linux?
Why would you feel guilty for not using a F/OSS operating system? This is just ideology run amuck. Programmers and engineers need to eat too. We can't all work for free.
I'm not even an Apple user, because of the cost. But Apple makes a good product and charges what it's worth. You get a well designed package, with hardware and software components designed by the same manufacturer to work together as a system. I can't go to Fry's, buy a cart full of cheap commodity PC hardware, and expect to (easily) run Mac OS X on it. So what? Avoiding vendor lock-in is one thing, but why would you feel "guilty" for using it?
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Insightful)
The all-too-common misconception again. I'm an engineer and a programmer, working only on free software projects, and I make a decent living off of it. (Before you ask, "only free software projects" means that for software that is released to the general public, I request that it is under a free license, otherwise I won't work on it. For internal software used only at a customer site, the question naturally doesn't apply. I do recommend using free software as infrastructure in these cases though. So all my work centers around free software, literally.)
It all depends on where you set your priorities, and whether you are willing to question the established way of dealing with software, and try something new.
A lot of big businesses are jumping onto the same bandwaggon right now. And when someone like IBM does it, believe me, there's a lot of money involved.
I am an Apple user (Score:4, Insightful)
I would *love* to use Linux but I can't even get XDarwin and MacGimp to run on my powerbook. So yes, I do feel guilty sometimes. Is it aan overwhelming, mind numbing guilt? No, but it is there.
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Informative)
Free and Open are not about money (Score:4, Informative)
Wake up. Free and Open have little to do with money or salaries or commercial interests. It has to do with rights, freedoms, security, and doing the smart thing for your own company and your clients.
My company runs Linux on all desktops (yes, we're small and nerdy so we can do this) and production servers (just good business, here). We pay money for our operating systems, just like we would to MS or Apple. We happen to pay RedHat and SuSE for our operating systems. We get fantastic support (so far). We make (small) profits here, and we're able to pay our programmers. The RedHat and SuSE people get paid, so they're okay too. Our products save our clients money, so they're doing just well also. What the hell is the problem? Yes, we release nearly all of our own products Open Source, under the GPL. And it doesn't prevent us from charging money to people for them.
If my company goes under, our clients have a lot of piece of mind that the latest source is available to them. Lately, there have even been 3rd party consultants who have taken our source and added features that we simply don't have time for (or disagree with), and they're able to make a living (partially, at least; I'm not sure) at that. Yee ha. There is no lack of money in Free and Open if that's what your goal is.
Dammit, Free and Open are not about money.
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Up until recently, the Mac O/S wasn't really that geek-friendly in the sense that it didn't have a command line interface (the older ones had A/UX, but that went away for a while), it wasn't multiuser, it wasn't as powerful as Linux, and so on. So it has a reputation as "that user-friendly end user thing" among the kind of people who are into tweaking their Linux boxes. Plus there were all the cutesy touches that turned some people off, like calling their Java development environment "MrJ" (WTF???).
So the author is afraid the fact that he likes Mac OS/X means he "isn't worthy" like the old-time Pascal guys. He's afraid the spicy-Szezhuan devouring hackers are all going to make fun of him and throw fortune cookies at him while making rude noises. It's kinda funny, actually.
(Shameless advocacy section begins here)
I think it's bizarre that anyone would feel GUILT anyway, because OS/X is a great operating system. It gives you all the geek power of Linux (Perl, GCC, JDK1.4, a great IDE almost as good as Visual Studio) with none of the headaches. Turning on the firewall and turning off nonessential services can be done in one minute flat. Keeping the system up to date is a piece of cake, and because Apple is a profitable hardware vendor, you don't have to worry about them not having enough money to keep the patches flowing.
I was briefly annoyed that their filesystem isn't case-sensitive until I realized that it preserved case so it didn't break Java packages. So it turned out to be kind of a nonissue.
Finally, and this is where OS/X eats Linux's lunch, OS/X has perfect hardware support. Almost every piece of hardware on the market has an OS/X driver available. You don't have to kludge anything to work with a general purpose driver, you can use the manufacturer-supplied driver. So, you can spend your time USING your scanner, digital camera, and sound system instead of trying to make it work. That's priceless, ok? Not having to spend hours hacking away to get a scanner to work is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Don't get me wrong. I love Linux. In fact, I use it on my other machine. But I love OS/X also, and I use that on this, my main machine. It's really about giving credit where credit is due. Apple's done a fantastic job.
Anyway, that's my
Executive summary - (Score:5, Funny)
I think that he is going to try to load Linux on his Power Book. That's a followup story I'd like to see! I don't know if it is possiable, but he seemed to have trouble getting an wireless card running....
Makes perfect sense... (Score:4, Interesting)
His main point is that if this happened to you on a PC, you could easily go to another vendor and run the same software on different hardware. Your Dell died and you think it's not going to recover? Drop the drive (or dd, or rsync, or whatever) into an IBM and you're basically good to go.
Because Apple does not let you run OS X on any other hardware, you are completely dependent on them for making your software work. If you get used to a certain environment and certain applications but then the hardware fails, you're screwed.
Not so with anything on the x86 platform. It may not be easy, but linux, Windows, and others can be moved to different hardware from different vendors pretty easily.
In other words, using Apple's software is _both_ software and hardware lock-in, and he hates it.
I thought the guilt thing was silly, tho. Use what works best for you; I find it takes hours more a month to maintain my stupid linux box (often just because it's x86) than my powerbook, even though I do much more crap to the powerbook. I'm certainly not going to feel guilty for just using my computer, instead of maintaining it.
Re:Makes perfect sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't you just drop the Mac drive into another Mac?
Re:Makes perfect sense... (Score:5, Informative)
Take a drive out of a PC and put it into another PC - Check.
Take a drive out of a Mac and put it into another Mac - Check.
Both work equaly well. In fact, its even easier on the Mac. You don't even have to take out the drive!! Just hook the two Macs up via Firewire, hold Cmd-T while booting up the Mac with the problem, and have the functional Mac boot from that Firewire drive. If its a drive problem, you've just found it.
The parent has no idea what he's talking about.
Re:Makes perfect sense... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's take this one step further:
Take a drive out of a PC and put it into a Mac - Check.
Sure you can't boot off of the drive without installing a Macintosh operating system but all of the data on the drive will be accessible to the Mac if the drive was formatted with FAT or NTFS. I've done this a number of times to help my PC friends recover data from their crashed PCs and it works without a hitch.
Sure Mac OS is proprietary, but it hardly locks you in to a specific operating system. In fact Mac OS does a damn good job of trying to cooperate with as many other operating systems and file types as possible.
Re:Makes perfect sense... (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition, the parent said this (direct quote):
"Because Apple does not let you run OS X on any other ha
Re:Makes perfect sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why there's this nifty new invention called screws . They're used to hold the hard drive into the mounting bracket. The best part is that they're removable! Ain't it great all the technology we got from going to the moon?
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Interesting)
The more I hear these stories, the more I wonder if people try to boot their machines by throwing them against a wall. These aren't windows machines people, put away the sledge hammers.
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Informative)
I seem to make similar posts in Apple threads where iBook logic board discussions arise. I'm a happy owner of a Dual USB 600MHz iBook which has been used for 4 hours or more per day since I bought it nearly two years ago. It's been over the Atlantic three or four times since then and it's travelled all over the UK in my car, on buses and on trains.
It's bombproof, and I still get 2 hours on a full charge even at this age (down from the original 5 or 6 hours when new).
I've never owned a more robust piece of hardware, and that includes my sledgehammer and welding kit.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, maybe a well known fault, but this is the sort of hyperbole I'm talking about. Those online petitions contain maybe a thousand names (many of them as original as 'donand.d.duck@disney.com' and 'mac-sux@domain.com'').
Apple has shipped something like 680,000 [macworld.co.uk] iBooks in 2003 alone (137,000 in Q4 according to that article) - so a measly few thousand people with logic board faults doesn't really mean all that much for overall build quality and customer satisfaction.
"there are a lot of people with this problem, look up the petitions" - I did, and I looked at the total number of iBooks sold too. The number of people on the petitions (being generous and assuming they're all legit) makes up a mere 0.2% of iBook users just using the 2003 figures for iBook sales.
Zero point two percent, if that. Out of proportion hype? I think so! How often do you hear of major problems with Dell, IBM, Gateway [some other random x86 box maker] because of hardware problems? Certainly not on issues affecting such a small subset of the users.
I submit that you sir, are the idiot.
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:4, Insightful)
It sucks that iBooks are failing, and I'm not denying there's a problem - there obviously is. It's just not as widespread as people seem to think or make out (although if my iBook kept failing I'd be pretty pissed off too!).
It would be a shame if you decided not to buy Apple again after your experience, although I can understand why you'd be reluctant. I've been an Apple user since the days of the 9600/300 - a machine that we still use 6 or 7 years on! I also look after a Beige G3, a Dual 450 G4, 12", 15" and 17" powerbooks, dual usb iBook and dual 2Ghz G5 - none have had any problems (aside from some booting issues with panther + ati graphics + g5 causing the display not to start, but that's been fixed now).
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Informative)
Say what you like about Apple, but they're willing to stand behind their problems once they recognise a fault (witness the whitespots on the Powerbook G4).
-- james
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm gonna do a "me too" on this one.
I have had a 1/2 dozen Apple laptops pass through my hands via home, work, family. The only serious problem I ever had was
Re:Bad Batch (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then he came out of a meeting the other day and found the screen frozen with an immobile mouse cursor- the thing had locked up spontaneously while he was gone. So he did some Googling and found a lot of people complaining about a problem with the G5 motherboards. Nobody seems to know what it is, except that replacing the motherboa
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Funny)
I think I know what the problem was.
Re:This article doesn't make sense..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't base the quality of a PowerBook on problems people are having with iBooks, they are completely different animals.
I have a TiBook 1GHz and considering the hell that the cat put it through it can take more than "normal use".
No (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
umm..... (Score:3, Funny)
click. click. click.
mmm......
no.
Felt guilty for using Mac OS X? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would so much rather run this than just about any Linux distro out there. Mainly because I can guarantee my vendor is available on the phone when I need them to troubleshoot any of the funky ass things servers tend to do.
And no, you can't come to my site or have a look at my logs because it's secure, just tell me what error code -16246 means in your software, ok, thanks, bye.
Re:Felt guilty for using Mac OS X? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, (Score:4, Funny)
I fell guilty about using Windows XP.... opps, sorry wrong subject.
-B
Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Linux has a loooong way to go as a desktop OS. The word from LinuxWorld was "It's not quite there yet.." which means that other people feel the same way.
Mac OS X just works. It has applications that I need to get along. I like having some games. I like having stuff like iSync & iTunes. Yes, I know there's Linux apps, but I like how everything works *together* and isn't an ugly kludge. See, at work, I need to get *work* done.. I don't have time to futz around with Xconfig.
I have never ever felt guilty about using Mac OS X instead of Linux on my Apple hardware.
Linux goes on the *x86* hardware anyway.
What a silly article.
Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell no. I only ever use Linux for servers.
Using any of the window managers that ship with Linux makes me love my OS X box even more.
And hardware lockin is a double-edged sword. If the hardware is of poor quality is is indeed a problem but I have never had an issue with any of the Apple hardware I have owned that I couldn't get fixed by an Apple tech in a few days.
Can't say that for some of the x86 beige box machines I've owned that I've had Linux on.
never felt guilty (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like programming: java, perl, c++ depends on the solution I need to solve.
Jonathan
Let's all step back for a minute. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldnt (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think anyone should feel ashamed for not using linux as their desktop. Fact of the matter is, any OS claiming to be linux is just a mess of free software utilities and applications, on a unixy type setup.
While there have been a few noble attempts at actually building an OS from the linux kernel, it ends up being no more then repackaging the same crap in a more "shiny" way.
The linux kernel is a good base for an OS. Until something other then a Unix clone is made from it, I will stand tall to the fact that I wont use it for my desktop.
use what works (Score:5, Insightful)
And then I look at the current state of the Linux desktop: it's pretty much caught up to Windows, but it's got a long way to go before it matches the Mac. I switched from M$ to Apple when I realized how much Windows sucked in comparison to the MacOS, and I've never really regretted that decision, so why would I want to take a step backwards? At the end of the day, I'm a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Use what works, not what someone else tells you that you should use because it's morally superior (Linux) or what everyone else is using (Windows).
Right here, right now, OS X lets me get my work done faster, more efficiently, and more enjoyably than any other OS. If that changes, maybe my choice of OS will too. It hasn't happened yet, and honestly I don't expect that it will any time soon.
Feel guilty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I feel no guilt in using the right tool for the right job.
hard disks locked inside the ibook (Score:3, Interesting)
My ibook has suffered 2 motherboard failures, and the machine would not even boot in firewire mode. I wished I could just remove the disk, and send the laptop for service (the service people don't need to see my files!)
The laptops I owned previously (IBM and dell) both allowed me to remove the disk.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:hard disks locked inside the ibook (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the following picture [geocities.com] (and the rest of the instructions [geocities.com]). The disk does not sit under the keyboard, and requires the removal of the back of the laptop and many other screws.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe just a little, but not much guilt (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been a medium-level Linux sys admin for a number of years. But I'm also a web designer, and recently I decided that I needed to get a notebook. The decision to go with an iBook was almost a no-brainer: I wanted professional applications instead of almost-professional, and I didn't want to worry about incompatibilities, libraries, GNOME buggering itself, etc. And it has been marvelous. Now that I've replaced my linux box with a dedicated DSL router, I hardly ever turn it on.
Overall, perhaps I do feel a bit guilty. I wish Sodipodi, The Gimp, and Bluefish were more stable and competitive with FreeHand, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver. And while I've used all of those applications to do some advanced things, it is simply easier and faster for me to use my Macromedia apps. Sure they cost me a few (student) dollars, but they've been worth every penny. (and yes, I started with MacGIMP, which at least is better than WinGIMP).
But the best part is that I've stopped screwing around on the computer, thus freeing me up for other more important life activites (wife, for instance).
Enjoy! (Score:5, Insightful)
My uncle's ashamed (Score:3, Funny)
Ever since then my uncle gets extremely embarrassed when he mentions he's a mac user. He just doesn't know what to expect next.
iKnow iDon't (Score:4, Funny)
Now, some people will say that using OSX and Apple hardware brainwashes people into supporting Apple blindly. That is not the case. iLove Apple. They have never done anything that iDislike and iHave never noticed any kind of subliminal messages. iLove Apple. iPlan to upgrade and iPlan to stick with this company. iCal tells me to...
No... (Score:4, Insightful)
Vender lock in (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Vender lock in (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Vender lock in (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see this as being "Vendor Lock-in" because at the end of the day, I'm writing software that I can use anywhere.
The Apple component (in this case a TiBook) is nothing more than a tool. All the output of my efforts (Java, Perl, etc.), can be moved to Linux, Solaris, BSD, Win32, etc., and it's not a big deal.
I still have a choice, in the long run and where it really matters, and if Apple pulls some crap that I don't like, I can still bail without really losing anything but a bit of my time and some cash for new development apps/gear. Even then, most of my apps that I use for development are platform agnostic, and won't need re-licensing.
My end product will still have COMPLETE choice of where it wants to reside.
Now, if I want to do MS development (.NET, etc.), guess what, I'm seriously locked in. I have NO CHOICE on where to run my apps. If I don't like it, tough. For that matter, I'd be locked into the Dev environment for the most part as well.
Which brings up another issue... trust. I have way more faith in the business practices of Apple than MS. I don't believe that Apple will do anything that will piss me off, whereas I'm quite confident that with MS it will only be a matter of time.
Re:Vender lock in (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. That's why I specifically said MS development and deployment, not Java or Perl. That's when you have lock-in.
If you're doing Java dev on a Windoze box, the Win32 machine becomes a tool, just like Apple/OSX.
In my opinion, the choice of the tool that you use in dev is a preference, and not a lock-in when working on code that is vendor agnostic. (Except for reliances on proprietary tools, etc.).
At the end of the day, "vendor lock-in" depends on the context.
This guy just had bad luck with hardware. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've heard no hardware crap out stories so far about Apple, but what they DO need to make their offering rock solid is on-site support contracts like Dell has - where a person comes to you, bearing a replacement part. I've used this three times in two years, it's been great.
On the other side of the story, comitting to OSX (or any Apple product, or Microsoft product) is comitting to Vendor Lock In.
So stop your whining about "guilt" you little troll boy and use OSS and an more open hardware platform, and then contribute something to the community other than these stupid articles.
Call it a canard, but... (Score:3, Flamebait)
Not since realizing that you get what you pay for.
Guilt. Linux. OS X. (Score:3, Insightful)
Guilty about using OS X over Linux??? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Have I felt the *need* to use Linux instead of OS X?" Not even once. Heck, ever since I got a 12"PB to replace the Sony laptop that I had been carting around for 2 years, I don't even feel the need to use Win2K. OS X just works, which allows me to get work done, instead of twiddling/tweaking/patching.
Well, to be completely truthful, I did fire up the old VAIO the other day so that I could get on XBConnect [xbconnect.com] and play some Halo on the ol' XBox.
But other than that, I've been OS (se)X-ing it, 24x7.
---anactofgod---
so I like my desktop to look like candy... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:so I like my desktop to look like candy... (Score:3, Funny)
sometimes (Score:5, Funny)
"Guilty?" Good God No. (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X gives me a nice solid UNIX with a much nicer interface and better vendor support (both software and hardware). Thank You Very Much.
Besides, Apple's laptops are Really Nice and I haven't yet had anything like the same number of little annoying problems that I've had with both Windows and Linux on laptops. (This may well be related to generally superior hardware than you find from PC vendors who are engaged in cutthroat competition, but whatever.)
I actually bought our household's first Mac for my wife because I got rather tired of reinstalling Windows (and all her apps) for her every 3 months when it puked all over itself. I wanted something that wouldn't require a lot of admin effort on my part, but that was still easy enough to use and with enough software that she wouldn't pull her hair out.
It worked, although there were some teething pains as we both learned to use it and dug up the applications she needed.
I ended up liking her laptop so much that when it came time to replace my Linux laptop I went with a Mac for myself too. The silly things work well.
Maybe soon. But I don't think so. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not gonna ditch Panter, since I have some stuff to do in Flash. Other than that I'll stick with OSS and use Java. After all, the Java integration in MacOSX is phenomenal. I'm looking forward to just firing up JEdit without skinning and all and have it not look like someone did doo-doo on my screen but instead really cool with native AA fonts and all that stuff. Jippeee!
It might be that I install Debian PPC on a different Partition though. Probably sometime later.
Apart from MacOSX being proprietary Apple did just the right thing, imho: Use a refernce grade OS with solid OSS support as base and design a high end GUI around it. To me OSX and Linux aren't that far apart. I used it the other day and it even has ZShell installed! OSS *nix goodness with Apple Eyecandy and high end design tools and Java run natively. Just how cool is that? No, I probably won't feel guilty.
Facts about Linux On Apple Notebooks (Score:3, Informative)
Guilty? Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we've reached the point where we're no longer able to simply take or leave an OS on its own merits. I use Linux most of the time because it's cheap, stable, and I like the KDE desktop. At work, I use Windows for proprietary applications unavailable elsewhere. I also have a cool older iBook running OS X that has taken years of rough treatment without causing me much offense. I'll buy a G5 soon to run Photoshop.
It's all a question of the right tools for the job at hand. Operating systems aren't a religion. There's no need to feel guilty using one or the other. No divine laws are transgressed.
That being said, I think the Open Source movement is highly worthwhile. It provides the means to quality computing for those who might not be able to afford proprietary software, and it certainly keeps Microsoft, Sun, and Apple honest. Well -- mostly honest, in the case of at least one of those companies.
I'm grateful to all those who have freely contributed code to the stuff I use. Power to the People.
But guilty for using OS X? How silly. Mac users should probably feel good about contributing to the diversity of the commercial software industry.
They should probably also feel good about an OS that works right out of the box, and which supports some quality retail software. Not to mention the time they save without the hassle of resolving dependencies, looking up hardware compatability, or the forever tweaking many of us actually enjoy with Linux.
i do! (Score:5, Informative)
i spent an entire year preaching Linux to all my friends but i have to admit that all the way i've been having tons of problems with it... USB devices were not working, attempts to switch keyboard layouts gave me XFree86 errors, trying to do accounting with Gnucash was a lunacy, and could XMMS be ANY UGLIER? Then i tried installing XD2 from Ximian (which I still consider the best "graphical shell" for Linux) and that just broke *everything* on my laptop... On that day i just got so mad i walked down the street and got a powerbook G4...
so, back to the guilt thing.... yes, i do feel guilty - probably because i kind of showed myself as a hypocrite - preaching linux to others then getting an Apple machine. i think the key with Linux happiness is to recognize whether it's APPROPRIATE for what you do. if you need email, web browsers and a shell then Linux IS perfeect... but if you try to use it the way i did (USB, Music, several business applications, multimedia), then you better know how to recompile things yourself (i don't).
Guilty? (Score:4, Funny)
Nope. I feel smug, just like the rest of my cult... err... community
and here's the link ... (Score:4, Funny)
...trying some reverse psychology here, aiming for guilt, revulsion and a subconscious unnatural urge to play with his erm... garageband)
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Funny)
This post is more right because it was posted from OS X.
Re:Nope. (Score:4, Funny)
Unspoken?? We generally say it loud and clear!
Re:Nope. (Score:3, Funny)
So do I but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I run 200 Macs, but I use Linux boot-CDs to image the ones from the pre-firewire days. It's just easier to have a respawning pair of 'netcat' processes listening on the server than fiddling with open-firmware or netrestore. I just boot the mac with the linux CD, netcat the file down and dd it to
Do I feel guilty about not using Linux? Sometimes, I feel bad for not using Linux on my x86 box here, but I need to run a windows app to track tickets on it. I feel bad for not running a few Linux boxes for the kids to toy with on campus, but if they show an inclination to geekiness I'll be showing them the way to OSS anyway.
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:5, Insightful)
Explain yourself.
Apple uses OSS as the foundation of Mac OS X. Apple uses open standards where it is possible in all aspects of the operating system and their applications. Apple even uses an open processor platform instead of IA-64 or IA-32.
I don't know of anyoen that says this. Monocultures are bad. Interoperability is good.
As far as Netflix Fanatic is concerned, Cricket still works for Apple. What does that tell you?
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:3, Interesting)
???
How can you be "more closed source and proprietary"? I'd love you hear your explanation, including specifics where MS products are "more" open source [reference.com] and less proprietary. [reference.com]
Er OS X is based on open source (Score:5, Informative)
But OS-X has at its core DARWIN which is an open source version of BSD which apple puts out. The parts of the OS that isn't opensource is the graphics layer above OS and a few other bits (hfs+ the file system is not open either I think.).
They've given back web browser code, updates to GCC etc. etc.. So all told they're not bad guys.
Why I give Apple a pass (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe they wished they were in the same league as England or France, but they weren't. Wake me up when Apple has >50 percent market share and its piddly little evil deeds take on the coercive power of M$. Then I'll be all ou
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:5, Insightful)
You clearly havne't been visiting
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:5, Informative)
The puritans are running amok outside of reality again.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:5, Informative)
How is something so blatantly WRONG modded up as interesting? Since when was utter ignorance at all interesting?
Need I go on with how Apple differs from Microsoft and SCO?
Apple's not all that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of the stuff they do now is based on open protocols, and a lot of times these are protocols developed at Apple and then released. Rendezvous is probably the best example; this is something that computers users desperately need (yes, you too, even if you don't know it) and Apple's actually given us some hope we'll see it.
No, Aqua itself isn't open, but the Unix underpinnings are, and Apple does everything they can to give advancements back. Safari is based on an OSS rendering engine, and they've contributed back to that project quite a bit. They used an open (if not common) format for their audio (sorry, does Ogg have DRM? No? Then Apple can't use it).
As to the link you provided, that's totally unrelated. The guy is employed as a software developer at Apple. All employers have non-compete agreements with their employees, and all employers are somewhat harsh about employees doing things at home that are related to what they do at work. I'm currently under the thumb of a contract in which I'm modifying my own GPL'd code for the company but I can't rerelease the code. Incredibly stupid and annoying, but incredibly standard. And, of course, totally unrelated to this topic or to SCO.
As to control of the hardware and software, I guess it depends on your definition of "control". I can't think of any senses in which Apple has control of either my hardware or software. I can install whatever I want on my Macs, and it will only take <1 second to get through the BIOS, as opposed to the shite x86 boxes and their shite BIOS. I have control of the software too, in the sense that I've upgraded the crap out of OS X and strangely Apple hasn't seemed to mind. What do you mean by "control"?
You are soooo wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
They've made many documented improvements to KHTML, gcc, the *BSDs, and others. They've also made the entire underlying operating system available as OSS.
Can you even come close to saying anything like that about Microsoft and SCO? Those two companies are the ones who testify in from of congress that OSS is unconstitutional and will destroy the US economy.
Apple also doesn't lock down their hardware, and it's totally possible to run other OSes on Macs. Their is one proprietary part that is required to run Mac OS, but if you don't want to run Mac OS it's not a problem.
Ever heard of OpenFirmware? It's an open standard that Apple, Sun and others use instead of the antiquated BIOSes found in PCs. What do MS and Intel want to replace the BIOS with? A locked down firmware that will implement DRM for media and software and possibly even OSes at the most basic hardware level. That's open?
Apple uses standard components and has opened up many of their hardware innovations like FireWire.
In other words: you're nuts.
Re:OSX is not open source (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that its the zealots (whatever banner they ride under) that are the first to accuse everyone who doesn't agree with them of zealotry.
Listen up, buddy, it's a fricking tool. Get over yourself and find something worthwhile to fight for. It's a shame that hordes of idiots--who don't even have a vested interest in it--flame and whine until you drown out all relevant and reasonable discussion of what makes one tool the right one for a particular task.
Re:Never used an Apple product in my life. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can explain how the little colored circles are intuitive is beyond me. Normally one would associate the colors with traffic colors, red is stop, yellow is caution, green is go. How that relates to their use in OSX is beyond me. Maybe that's the reason why they need to have those bubbles popping up with an explanation of their use w
Re:What?! (Score:5, Informative)
Easy: Open a complex Microsoft Office document and not lose any layout settings because of conversion issues...
Well that's one. Let me give you a few others:
-Real world page layout (quarkxpress, indesign)
-Photoshop (CMYK) editing
-Real time video editing/post production work of HD streams across ANY IEEE1394 video device.
-Wake up from sleep in less than a second
-Connectivity to a Microsoft Exchange Server
-Actually play Warcraft 3 (and sign up for the worlds of warcraft beta test!) (and no, buying WineX and dealing with the emulation layer isn't good enough)
I can go on and on (like professional MIDI software for musicians) but I just remembered you asked for one thing "OSX can do that linux cant."
Now sure, I can't run it on my Lego Mindstorm, but I think the stuff I listed is a little more important. and with my hardware accelerated X11 server, I can do alot of the stuff that you linux guys can do too.