Linux vs MacOSX

Message

Shan · Post by **Shan** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 7:34 pm

Forgive me if this is in an inappropriate section but this seemed to be the closest fit.

Anyway, I've been a Linux user for about 3 years, and a Gentoo user for about 6 months (made the switch with every system I own no less). Outside of that my only other experiance is just about every windows install under the sun. From Win2.0 (floppy based) 3, 3.1(1) 95, NT, 98(SE) ME, 2K, XP, .NET and 2k3, but until my girlfriend got her (used) iMAC, I'd never actually touched a mac. I'd heard (unofficially) that OSX was supposed to be using a [Free|Open]BSD kernel, but I wasn't aware that it so closely cloned Linux (or Unix, whatever you prefer) Cron, init, CUPSd, file system layout (/etc /usr, et al). Am I the only person who didn't know this? and how did Apple get away with this without infringing on the liscencing?

And since it basically seems that its a Linux distro core made for PPC, just with everything hidden, wheres the console? Hell even a virtual console would be nice for exploring the system a bit more in depth....

zenlunatic · Post by **zenlunatic** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:00 pm

OS X isn't really that great. I tried panther on a G5 for about 1 hour.

*No full screen console while running gui.
*Drag-resizing apps is still a bit slow on G5/Panther, at least for a modern OS. I attribute this to bad code, not Processor speed or GCC. My ibook 600 with Debian resizes perfectly on-the-fly.
*Aqua has no themability and system fonts cann't be changed. This sucks. Who are apple to say that font choice is confusing or against good UI? Fuck that! I want my freedom, thank you.
*Having the menubar at the top seems like a good idea in theory because it's less for users to think about or whatever, but honestly it's just annoying to have to look at the top of the screen all the time.
*Sure certain things "just work" when you plug them in, but so can those things "just work" on a well developed distro, using apps liek the awesome gphoto2.
*Apple really doesn't have anything against linux as far as drivers go. Sure like I said new hardware just works, but say I'm donated like 10 old g3 powermacs, I mean the first one's they had? Why should I just through those out? OS X wouldn't run, but free software could make great use of those, giving ten machines to 10 people who would not otherwise have machines. At least some poor kid could have abiword and gnumeric and do homework, and GAIM to talk to friends who have machines.

Good things for OS X:
*The dock is kinda nice because you can quickly locate apps and you can dynamically move them around. Having apps stay open in the dock until you quit is dumb IMO. It wastes RAM and if Panther really were fast, loading times would be null and it wouldn't matter. It's not really a new idea, just a different implementation of a paradigm of modern GUI's. Doesn't make your life any easier or using your computer easier. They just invented it to advertise and sell it.

*Safari is just another browser, but I do personally like how hovered links are shown in the URL insertion bar instead of the status bar as well as loading progress. GTK could easily add this though, which means it's not worth using the OS over.

I'll improve my list later. I have class.

monotux · Post by **monotux** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:12 pm

My only experiences from mac is from kindergarden - I was like 5 years old, and we had a MAC smaller than a TV, with a black and white display. We could play some really cool games using that monster...
I harassed a new mac in a computerstore the other day - when I saw the desktop, I felt like screaming. It's a total (insert any cursing word here) ripoff of gnome! gaah....

Can't we just go back to those early mac days?

wilburpan · Post by **wilburpan** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:42 pm

OS X is based on FreeBSD/Darwin and the Mach kernel, not Linux. Both are open source Unix-based systems, so there's bound to be a lot of similarities between the two systems.

What Apple has done is create a layer on top of Darwin that provides a GUI that rides on tp of Darwin. These components include Aqua, Quartz Extreme, QuickTime, Carbon, and Cocoa. This is the proprietary part of OS X, and this is what you pay your money for.

More info is at the Apple website.

The Terminal for OS X is in the Applications > Utilities folder. It's a pretty nice console program -- it even has TRUE transparency, which still doesn't exist in Linux with XFree86.

Personally, OS X is my favorite Unix based OS for everyday use. I love tinkering with Gentoo on my old P3 desktop at home, and I use Gentoo on a daily basis on my work laptop. However, when it comes time to replace my work laptop, I am going to ask for a Powerbook, and when I get home, I would rather use my iMac and OS X. [/url]

zojas · Post by **zojas** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:58 pm

I have an ibook which dual boots with OS X & gentoo.

originally the ibook was just the best price/feature set/battery life deal I could find for a linux laptop.

OS X eventually captivated me. my ibook usage went from about 90%gentoo/10% OS X to 50/50 to about 90% OS X/ 10% gentoo. I have 3 desktop systems/servers which run gentoo exclusively, and my work machine is exclusively gentoo, so when I'm using OS X I'm still kind of using gentoo too since that's how I get my internet access, email, etc

I wouldn't want to go exclusively OS X, but it sure is fun to run alongside gentoo. OS X definitely takes some getting used to.

my main gripe about OS X is that I wish I could change the colors.

and I wish portage were ready for OS X, fink sucks. it has an apt-get interface, but half the stuff I want has to be compiled from source anyway using the 'fink' interface, and it all just seems kludgy. I'll be much happier when portage is released for OS X.

ozonator · Post by **ozonator** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 11:10 pm

I, too, have an iBook that dual-boots OS X and Gentoo (and since zojas's web page about setting this up was very helpful when setting this up, I should take the time here to say thanks!

). And, my GF runs OS X on her G4, a machine that I set up for her, and use regularly myself. Unlike zojas, however, I've gone away from OS X on my iBook: after using OS X most of the time, I'm now using Gentoo most of the time; when I do run OS X, I do it mainly within mac-on-linux.

It's hard to say why, exactly, since some of this comes down to personal taste. I like a minimal window manager with multiple desktops (*box), even more than the OS X dock (yes, I know I can run fluxbox with multiple desktops in OS X's X11). I like that things seem faster on the same hardware with Gentoo, across the board (this is especially noticeable with offlineimap, a python program I use a lot with my e-mail; but still, things are generally fast enough in OS X). Portage is indeed way better than fink, mainly because it doesn't make the stable - testing - unstable distinction like Debian does (yet it isn't hard to run all the *nix software I want in OS X). I don't feel like paying Apple what amounts to about 10% of the original cost of my iBook for the 10.3 upgrade (no not much money in the end, and if I were happiest using OS X most of the time, I wouldn't hesitate).

There are other little things, but in the end, two things triggered my going to Linux full-time on my iBook, and they happened around the same time. First, the 'straw' news aggregator got stable enough for me to survive without the absolutely wonderful NetNewsWire Lite in OS X. Second, I had a rare crash in OS X one day, and even rarer, checking the disk after rebooting with Apple's disk 'first aid' identified a problem that it couldn't fix, even after repeated runs, and even when I booted into single-user mode (text console only) and ran fsck from there; this, to be honest, made me lose a tiny bit of faith in HFS+, enough for me to feel more comfortable with ext3, which I know isn't perfect, but I've never had disk errors in ext2/3 that I couldn't fix with fsck (yes, I know about DiskWarrior, but I don't want to have to buy software to fix something that should be fixed by a built-in utility). Neither of these things amount to a reason to say that Linux is better; they just seemed to tip the balance just enough for me not to think about using OS X every day.

All that being said, OS X is a fantastic OS, and I'm really impressed with how Apple fused the BSD bits with their proprietary OS X bits on top -- fire up a terminal with your favorite shell, and it's thoroughly unix-y. Besides, iTunes is great, multiple network locations are a cinch, it's just about as stable as Linux, it is pretty (in spite of the lack of customizability), it's certainly easy to use, etc. etc. etc. I was able to work in OS X just about as efficiently as I do in Linux, and things like MenuMeters even made me not miss gkrellm too much! If I were forced to use only OS X, I wouldn't be disappointed.

So, I strongly recommend OS X to anyone and everyone, unless you have a near-pathological desire to tinker with everything on your system and/or use old hardware, or want to run only free (as in speech) software as much as possible. I guess those reasons, in the end, are the clearest expression of why I stick with Linux.

zojas · Post by **zojas** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 11:38 pm

I'm firmly in the camp that OS X's file systems suck. I've had to wrestle with fsck in single user mode in OS X about 5 times in a year. it's a pain because you have to turn journaling off before you can run fsck

so far so good, but it certainly makes me nervous. one time I got a file with overlapping extents. and of course it only reported the inode number. I had to use 'find -inum xxx' to find the file & delete it.

I'd take even the lowly ext3 over hfs+ any day. but better yet, I have reiserfs on my ibook in gentoo which is significantly faster (noticeably so for 'qpkg'). (just be sure to use at least a 2.4.22 kernel with reiser).

gsfgf · Post by **gsfgf** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 12:22 am

i like OSX. I don't have a mac (i'm waiting for the G5 powerbooks) but i like the OS. OSX runs most linux apps as well. When i get my mac i'm gonna try OSX and gentoo with Mac on Linux and see which one i like. Either way i can ge tthe best of both worlds.

chrispy · Post by **chrispy** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 12:49 am

retribrute wrote:It's a total (insert any cursing word here) ripoff of gnome! gaah....

the truth is the other way around. look at early versions of gnome and tell me who ripped from whom.

rant starts->

What I don't get is why people always find something to say about OSX. Ok, it is not perfect, but no OS is. Linux on the desktop has no consistency, copy/paste doesn't work everywhere, X is fast but lacks the niceties of Quartz, the CLI is still too much present for average joes to consider switching from windows. (I personally like to use gnome, but I'm not representing everyone's opinion)
Apple makes all the choices for you IF you decide to buy a Mac and run OSX. No one is fscking forcing you to run OSX on a Mac, nor forcing you to buy a Mac in the first place.

Apple is about integration, harmony and the fact that you can concentrate on what you need/want to do, and not about making the stupid buttons look green instead of blue, or the menu bar in the middle with blinking lights instead of at the top.

If your idea of working with a computer is about changing the UI, get a el'cheapo x86 box at the local store, put linux on it and make your GUI look like pinball machine, I don't give a damn, heck it might be cool. But if you buy a Mac to modify OSX then you are just throwing your money out the window.

The choices have been made for you to focus your efforts on what you want done; you know, WORK like something you do for the school/uni or for your job. I turn on my mac, I launch Dreamweaver, do my thing and I just need to worry about how to design my page, not to rearrange the shape of the toolbar to make it look pretty for a damn screenshot. If you feel the need to modify the Apple GUI, then it is clearly not for you. period

<-end of rant.

ozonator · Post by **ozonator** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 3:30 am

zojas wrote:so far so good, but it certainly makes me nervous. one time I got a file with overlapping extents. and of course it only reported the inode number. I had to use 'find -inum xxx' to find the file & delete it.

This is exactly the problem I had, and the same solution I used. As frustrating as such errors are, it's somehow reassuring that it wasn't just me.

As for interface, chrispy's got it right -- Apple's priority isn't about giving users total control, but about making decisions for them about what's good for a UI, and in general about how a person uses a computer. It's been this way for ages; just think of the human interface guidelines, or the one button mouse. This could have turned out to be bad, but this is a job Apple does very well. Consider, too, the consistency among the 'iApps' -- for example, if you know how to organize songs in iTunes, you can sort bookmarks in Safari. Even though the OS X GUI isn't ideal for everyone, or if it's not exactly how you or I would configure Gnome to our liking, there's little dispute that it's easy enough for most people to use, consistent enough across programs, functional enough to get work done efficiently, and attractive enough to make people happy to use their computers. No, I'm not about to give up Fluxbox for Aqua, but as someone who provides some computer help to friends and relatives, I see how quickly people become comfortable with the MacOS. And further proof of this success is also a nice side-effect for me: once their machines are set up, I don't hear from the Mac users much.

Unne · Post by **Unne** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 3:44 am

I'm trying to convince my parents to get a Mac as their next computer, because I think it'd be good for someone who just wants to sit down and use their computer once every couple days to do this or that. For me though my computer is a toy / hobby, so Linux > OSX for me. My experience with OSX wasn't too great. At work someone left a CD in the drive and logged off a computer (or something like that), and the CD wouldn't come out, and it took about a half hour to figure out how to get the thing out (holding down some random keys while rebooting? God only knows). At my high school we only had Macs, and that kind of ridiculous crap was so common that I can barely stand to look at a Mac any more, but for someone like my parents who want to have things just work without any effort, I think it can be good. Better than Windows, anyways.

The other thing I dislike about OSX of course is the price tag. A bit much for my budget when I can get better things for free or far less money.

zojas · Post by **zojas** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 3:47 am

I always recommend apple for those who just want to read email & surf the web. for those kind of people, every thing they need is included.

JHuber · Post by **JHuber** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 4:15 am

I use my OS X ibook for everything. I manage UNIX, MAC, Novell and windows servers with my ibook. i have no need for any other OS. the GUI is more customizable than some of you give it credit for. OS X is solid. it really is. it is as good as any other *NIX i have ever used. it is great for home users, office users and power users. in fact any OS is as long as the "user" knows how to use it to its full potential.

smith · Post by **smith** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 4:26 am

I have had an ibook for about 2 years.. and I can honestly say I would rather have my toes smashed with a hammer then actually try to do work on it.

ghotirsd · Post by **ghotirsd** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 6:11 am

smith wrote:I have had an ibook for about 2 years.. and I can honestly say I would rather have my toes smashed with a hammer then actually try to do work on it.

Maybe the problem is that your 'book is 2 years old.

Depends also on what you define as "do work on it".

avenj · Post by **avenj** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:19 am

chrispy: of course nobody is forcing anyone to use one OS or another. Why should that prevent us from discussing the pros and cons of the two? If you really don't want to see people mentioning OS X cons, don't read the thread.

filerba · Post by **filerba** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:31 am

I used macs for years and one thing I discovered was that those things you can't customize are often set up the best way anyways. I know that people differ, but Apple does put a lot into their interface research. When they introduced Documents and Applications folders, it took me a couple of years to start using them, but I eventually realized that that way really was better. I only got to use OS X for a few months, and the new column view mode in the Finder was a little difficult for me to adapt to but I kept using it because I figured Apple probably knew what they were doing.
You should also realize that Apple is in a fascist period right now. Every so often they make big reforms a cut down on the number of options the user has, but the configurability eventually creeps back in. It's kinda like the complete regulation of the economy during WWII that snapped the US out of the Depression.

chrispy · Post by **chrispy** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:43 am

avenj wrote:chrispy: of course nobody is forcing anyone to use one OS or another. Why should that prevent us from discussing the pros and cons of the two? If you really don't want to see people mentioning OS X cons, don't read the thread.

where did you read that I don't want to see people mentioning pro/cons of OSX ? to my eyes, "themability" should not count as either a pro or a con. This ain't making your computing experience better, nor does it make an os less usefull. Things like Expose or Firevault on the other hand is what I would call a feature (wether good or bad...), a point that can be compared to another system.

Furthermore, I clearly stated in the beginning of my post that OSX is not perfect. And I'm the first one to admit so. Things like the not so great Preferences Panel or the super-long booting times (on a 1ghz TiBook with 1gig of ram) are things that really need improvement.
The NFS support is slow and prone to crash, the lack of GUI interface for the logs sucks, the Terminal.app still lacks simple stuff like mouse support, the inability to use the keyboard to navigate in dialog boxes drives me nuts, and the list goes on...

BUT, to say that an os is not as good as another simply because it "lacks" the ability to change the shape of the button is not constructive criticism, nor a serious argument. That's all I meant in my previous post.

zhenlin · Post by **zhenlin** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 9:05 am

zenlunatic wrote: *Aqua has no themability and system fonts cann't be changed. This sucks. Who are apple to say that font choice is confusing or against good UI? Fuck that! I want my freedom, thank you.

Part of the Mac experience. One Look and Feel for all Macs.

*Having the menubar at the top seems like a good idea in theory because it's less for users to think about or whatever, but honestly it's just annoying to have to look at the top of the screen all the time.

Fitt's Law: Larger targets are easier to obtain. The top of the screen is infinite in height, so it is infintely easy to obtain.

*Sure certain things "just work" when you plug them in, but so can those things "just work" on a well developed distro, using apps liek the awesome gphoto2.

True. By your logic, is Mac OS X a well developed OS?

*The dock is kinda nice because you can quickly locate apps and you can dynamically move them around. Having apps stay open in the dock until you quit is dumb IMO. It wastes RAM and if Panther really were fast, loading times would be null and it wouldn't matter. It's not really a new idea, just a different implementation of a paradigm of modern GUI's. Doesn't make your life any easier or using your computer easier. They just invented it to advertise and sell it.

Hmm, keeping an app open until you quit is one way to reduce loading times. Like QuickLaunch on Windows for IE, Mozilla and OpenOffice. Relaunching apps from cache seems quite fast too.

*Safari is just another browser, but I do personally like how hovered links are shown in the URL insertion bar instead of the status bar as well as loading progress. GTK could easily add this though, which means it's not worth using the OS over.

Hmm, really? But the thing is - are you willing to wait for your favourite app/toolkit/library to copy that feature - or do you want to use the platform which introduces new features to the masses often?

Of course, I didn't see your traditional 'it isn't Free' argument... Did you miss that?

zhenlin · Post by **zhenlin** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 9:12 am

zojas wrote:so far so good, but it certainly makes me nervous. one time I got a file with overlapping extents. and of course it only reported the inode number. I had to use 'find -inum xxx' to find the file & delete it.

Finding path names from inodes is hard. Ask anyone who had dealt with implementing such a system for an inode-based FS.

On the other hand, I'm quite sure HFS+ is pathname oriented. Maybe it had to do with the design of fsck.

Mystilleef · Post by **Mystilleef** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 11:58 am

Macs are overpriced and overhyped. It's funny how people talk about getting the job done on Macs. What job? Macs can't handle the load a typical Linux box would easily handled.

I can't count how many times I've crashed my iMac because I was running too many resource intensive programs. On my linux box, I run several servers, ftp, apache, in addition to more than 10 applications, and the box hums along nicely. Not to mention that I run each of them on seperate workspaces.

Macs are good for one thing though. Prettiness. Apart from their multimedia applications and the formidable PPC CPU architecture, Macs are a pretty toy.

People say Macs are unified. But so also are the two defacto desktops on Linux, GNOME and KDE. GNOME and GNOME apps are probably the most unified, well integrated and most predictable desktop environments I've used. Easy to use and simple.

I think people's zealotry for Macs is more superficial and religious than it is functional. If you are into multimedia, video editing and production, sound editing and prodcution, then get a Mac. Otherwise just stick with your cheap and high-load, functional Linux box. With regards to handling high load, Linux wins hands down.

How about customizability? I mean using a box designed for you, not the general public. I mean using an environment streamlined to your needs, your tastes, your preferences, your moods, your creativity and your working patterns. I mean an environment you look forward to using.

Dude, you are better of with Linux than with any other OS, if you are one of those people, like me, who believe products should be designed to fit their needs and not the other way round. If your not a professional artist, video or sound engineer, you have no business with a Mac. Except of course you have money to waste. If so you would do no wrong with a Mac. It's also great to have alternatives. I do agree that some Mac apps are much more polished than anything you'd dream about on Linux(especially with regards to multimedia).

<edit> Oh, I forgot to mention Macs are dog slow. I haven't used the new G5s though.

chrispy · Post by **chrispy** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 1:13 pm

Mystilleef wrote:Macs are overpriced and overhyped. It's funny how people talk about getting the job done on Macs. What job? Macs can't handle the load a typical Linux box would easily handled.

I can't count how many times I've crashed my iMac because I was running too many resource intensive programs. On my linux box, I run several servers, ftp, apache, in addition to more than 10 applications, and the box hums along nicely. Not to mention that I run each of them on seperate workspaces.

was that on OSX ? I pretty much doubt it, This sounds like OS9 which is no way very skillful at handling memory.

appart from the fact that you are trolling very much on purpose, I just wanted to focus back on the original subject : Linux vs OSX
it's not Linux vs Mac.

-Unification : yes, one desktop environment. That's what OSX proposes. You are free to run X11 on your Mac with kde if you please. But you cannot take away the fact that all mac apps work the same way on all macs, simply because they run on a standardized OS.

-Prettiness : I prefer to have a pretty interace that I can forget about rather than one I always think about changing/tweaking.

-Crashing : as I said earlier I doubt you experienced crashes on OSX. the memory management is the same as on FreeBSD, which is by no mean weak or deficient. on the other hand, OS9 and earlier are a total catastrophe regarding that issue.

-Zealotry : I'll give you that one. Mac users, myself included usually are pretty strong about defending the qualities of their machines. However it is not entirely false either. As you point out, multimedia has traditionnaly been a Mac asset, but I'll challenge you with a G4 1.25ghz and a decent amount of ram on server tasks anyday.

-Price : yeah yeah yeah, the never old "I can build my pc from parts at 1/10 of the cost of your Mac" argument. This has been debated to death, and clearly I'm never going to be able to convince DIY guys otherwise. Just try to build a machine that is THAT functional and that looks as good from parts and we'll do the math.

-Customizability : you know, some people prefer to find something pre-built that corresponds to their needs rather than scratching their heads and try to build the computer themselves. Not everyone has your / our technical skills and/or the time to do so.

-Slow : true. but unless you spend your days compiling packages or running ultra complex matlab stuff, it doesn't make a real difference for surfing the web, writing your resume, listening to music or running a webserver.

So, what's your take on the integration of the iApps ? anything similar yet on Gnome ?

It all comes down to choice. I chose to have a powerbook so I could just do the simple things without thinking about them, and do my work (you know, the thing I am paid for) with ease.
No doubt I probably could do the same on a x86 laptop with linux. But I cannot afford the time that would be required to make things work as well as on my TiBook. When I travel, I need things to work without tweaking for longer than it would take me to wake my mac from sleep.

ozonator · Post by **ozonator** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 2:34 pm

Mystilleef wrote:Macs are overpriced

This isn't true, or rather, it isn't exactly true. Apple's biggest problem in appearing reasonably priced is that they don't make inexpensive machines that do not necessarily come with a monitor. Consider building a P4 box with quality parts all around -- brand name RAM, solid case, etc. -- and adding a good quality monitor, high-end CRT or LCD. Either an eMac or an iMac is then competitively priced, at least here in Canada, given that Apple's machines generally use good quality parts. This is not to say they're cheaper, but they're close enough that a person would feel more likely that they're getting their money's worth. And, of course, if you customize a standard configuration, the inflated cost of options at some Mac dealers (Apple Store included) can tip the balance away from competitive pricing, as it does with Dell ($CDN 300.00 for 512 MB of RAM? come on). But in general, if you want an inexpensive machine for typical computer use, Apple is competitive, not to mention costs over the long term, things like lower maintenance cost (not applicable for tinkerers like us, but important for some) and lower power consumption.

Here's the rub, though: if you want an inexpensive Mac, and want to choose your own monitor, or even your own keyboard and mouse, either to get something cheaper or something else you might prefer (say, a big monitor), you're out of luck. The only machines that Apple sells without monitors are the PowerMacs, and those are marketed more to professionals than the average home user. That's why a person can say they can get a wintel box for less -- they compare with a PowerMac, because they don't want the monitor choice that's forced by the cheaper Macs. This is unfortunate for Apple, and has consistently been the case for years. (They dropped the ball on the Cube, for example; that would have been an exception to this rule, and should have been priced between the iMac and the PowerMac, but it was about as expensive as a similar PowerMac.) It's frustrating to have to tell someone that no, Apple doesn't make a cheap machine with which you can use your old 19" monitor; that surely costs them business, and makes Macs seem much more expensive than the alternatives.

As for laptops, I certainly disagree that Apple's models are overpriced. The iBook is terrific value, especially when compared with other sturdy, small, light, long-battery-life wintel laptops (not the 6+ lb. slabs that tend to be the least expensive models). And, the PowerBooks are certainly competitively priced with wintel laptops of similar quality and specifications.

<edit> Oh, I forgot to mention Macs are dog slow. I haven't used the new G5s though.

This, clearly, depends on what you're running and what you expect. For everyday applications, I have no problem with the 800 MHz G3 in my iBook, laptop-speed disk included -- programs open quickly, I'm able to do my work efficiently. You might make a case that OS X is resource-heavy -- it is, and Gentoo on the same hardware is noticeably snappier. But even on my GF's 400 MHz G4, OS X is plenty fast for typical use; I don't ever feel that I would be more efficient if it would run faster. Such things are highly subjective, of course; it's hard to know what hardware to compare to what, and it depends on what software you want to run. (The distributed.net client? That G4 will whip just about anything. But for other things, raw MHz in an x86 can win.) But, to say they're "dog slow" is misleading, unless you mean "dog" as in "greyhound".

Mystilleef · Post by **Mystilleef** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 3:38 pm

-I'm glad you agree with me on most of my points. However, somewhere in the mist of your arguments, you labeled me a troll. I find that amusing.

-I use Jaguar on the iMac. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to the best of my knowledge that qualifies as OS X.

-I use one desktop environment on Linux namely, GNOME. There have been occasions where I've tested out XFCE4 to mention but a few. I used to be KDE fanatic prior to my maturity into GNOME. I believe you and I as OS users both use one desktop environment, so I don't see your point. Of course, I have an edge. If tomorrow GNOME bores me or exasperates me, I have an alternative desktop environments to choose from. That's a plus.

-After using an environment for I while it gets boring and monotonous. Even changing the desktop background can spice things up a bit for me. If I can change window decorations, widget styles, workspace number, the better. My environment needs to be in tune and streamlined to my needs. I don't accept other peoples default. I think I'm old enough to know what's good for me and what's not. Or what works and what doesn't. But I also think I'm among the minority. So you win here.

-I don't care what people tell you. Jaguar has frozen on me on several occasions, even when I'm not working on it. A few days ago I was shocked to discover apple knew about this problem and planned originally only to fix the problems I was experiencing. They released a bunch of security fixes and patches the other day. I'm yet to install the fixes and security patches on Jaguar. But it's clearly not as reliable as my Linux box. And most definitely can't handle Linux' load. Oh, please let's not talk about servers. Linux reputation as a good low-medium range server speaks for itself. In my mind, Linux will always be a better server than OsX is. I wouldn't dare using Jaguar as a server. God forbid! I haven't tested or tried the server versions of OSX. But I doubt I'll be doing that anytime soon. Again, it's overpriced for what Linux can do.

-It's expensive period. You can argue all you like. But for the kind of stuff I use my computer for, it's just overpriced.

-iapps are lovely. Very professional quality and very nice and fun to use and just outstanding. There are, however, gnome apps that provide equal functionality for most of the iapps do. They are as intuitive, easy and fun to use. For a free product, the gnome apps are more than impressive and satisfactory. I wish I could kiss the devs who devote their spare time to it.

Indeed, it comes down to choice. But I also think common sense is a better reason for using an OS. Like I said earlier, if you are a multimedia professional, I highly recommend MacOS X. If all you do is listen to music, browse the web, chat, write reports run a home based webserver, and you happen to be a home user, you have no business with the Macs, except of course you are lured by their prettiness and cool looks and you have the cash to burn.

Macs (by Macs, I mean the hardware and OS) are clearly targeted to multimedia professionals than they are to home users. Instead I'd recommend you order nephew to run over to purchase Lindows, Lycoris or Xandros and help you install the whole OS for you. Oh, and don't worry about configuring stuff with those distros. Stuff just works, like you put it.

-Again I'm not saying make OSX sucks! Far from it. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense purchasing a Machine just because it looks good, or pretty. Prettiness hardly gets the job done. From a price/performance analysis, Linux wins hands down. It's cheaper, it more flexible, it's more robust, it's scalable, it doesn't force you to upgrade paths, and from it's core, it's designed to handle unimaginable workloads that home users will never have the need for. Which further lays credence to its stability.

Macs on the other hand are designed with prettiness first and foremost in mind, before anything else. That's understandable especially considering the fact that there targeted audience are multimedia folks who are artistically oriented. Unfortunately, I'm not. If Macs were cheap or OS X was ported over to x86, I wouldn't mind owning one. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

-Finally, because MacOS X evolved from Unix doesn't make it as robust or as stable as its older Unix clones *BSD and Linux. Apple is still new in Unix land, which is evident by the slew of security fixes and patches that they've released for their OS X over time. Compared to FreeBSD and Linux developers, the Apple folks are Noobs with regards to Unix and are likely to make mistakes or implement things that are non-Unix-like. I don't take OS X as serious Unix clone as compared to Linux or *BSD, partly because of Apple inexperience with Unix, and the fact that some of the features I find useful in Unix are absent in OS X natively. {hint env variables, file system, powerful scripting tools via cli, text base configurations etc}. Yes, I know I can run X in OS X and what not. But there is nothing like doing it the real way.

Linux vs OS X. No brainer Linux.

JHuber · Post by **JHuber** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 12:15 am

OS X is bringing *NIX to the masses, providing a user freindly interface for your common user. isnt this what we all want to happen? sure there are always going to be power users who want more, i know i always will. but you simply have to be happy that apple is bringing a UNIX based desktop to people who dont even know what unix is.

as for the comment about apple having to release security patches, last time i ran BSD or gentoo for that matter, there have been updates every day for just about every package, fixing holes and bugs. so i dont buy into that theory.

One of the best things about apples OS's is the compatability between apple products, that you simply do not get in any other enviornment. I had the task of upgrading about 700 Powermac g3's, different flavors of i macs and emacs with os X this summer. in a windows world i would have to make different images for every different machine and then woory about hardware differences so users dont get BSOD's. you know how many images i had to make for several different kinds and generations of macs? 1. thats it. load the image, name the computer and i was done. sorry but no way it gets easier than that.

macs have made my life easier. sure i run gentoo and windows at home cause i enjoy working on my systems. but when things need to work all the time and need to be fixed easily, give me a mac.