Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X) • Hacker News Board

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#211

Post by 4ad » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

pooriaazimi wrote: post #151

Terretta wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do happen to have an 8 GB machine, and almost never reboot (only reboot for OS updates). I run half a menu-bar full of resident helper apps, like Dropbox (a big one), Fantastical, ScanSnap, Xmarks (another big one), Transmit (another big one), Evernote, and more. I also keep Apple Mail running, mapped to a half dozen Gmail IMAP accounts. I have "geek tool" updating my desktop with iCal appointments and various ps o…

I'm skeptical about your little script (though I too have a lot of heavy apps open all the time and almost never reboot, and certainly have never, ever had any memory-related problems whatsoever). My MBP has 8 GBs of RAM, and this is what Activity Monitor tells me: Free: 2.19 GB Wired: 1.01 GB Active: 3.70 GB Inactive: 1.08 GB Used: 5.80 GB but, you scripts gives me: 2598.480 MB Why is that? Isn't Active kinda analog…

The script is wrong, it simply adds the RSS of processes together, but physical pages are shared between many processes.

Active is not like RSS, what Activity Monitor calls real memory is RSS.

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#212

Post by calloc » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:29 PM UTC

hazov wrote: post #96

4ad wrote: post #44

What an uninformed rant. When someone rants about memory usage it is usually a sign he knows nothing what he is talking about. On virtual memory systems with on-demand paging that use shared libraries and where all file system I/O is mmap(2) based, memory is managed in a very different way than what most people expect. It's understandable, most people don't know and don't have to know what virtual memory is, even if…

Okay, I really think you know much more about memory management than the writer of the original post, the question for me is using chrome with a few tabs (8 for example) and Dropbox besides the default applications I face huge slowdowns (the system becomes unresponsible for a few minutes), the same happens with Safari, for a system that was described for me as "it just works" this really sucks. This with 4GB of RAM i…

I've never had this happen, and I run Mac OS X on a MacBook Pro 5,5 with 4 GB's of RAM (core2duo at 2.33 Ghz). This laptop is from the mid-2009's.

My default set of apps that I run:

1. Safari 2. Mail.app 3. Terminal.app 4. Adium 5. Twitter 6. iCal 7. X11 8. MacVim 9. GitX 10. Activity Monitor

I have no slow-downs and I regularly compile the entire companies code-base on this little machine. Sure it isn't fast compared to some of the newer monsters out there, but I have had no issues with slow downs what so ever.

That being said, I don't use Chrome, and I don't have DropBox on my work laptop.

I keep hearing about people having really bad slow downs and I just don't understand it. Mac OS X has never been anything but "Just Works" for me.

11:29 up 69 days, 17:34, 11 users, load averages: 1.38 1.24 1.18

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#213

Post by sciurus » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:30 PM UTC

mikemcquaid wrote: post #110

lloeki wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) You could also create some wrapper scripts setting the path, or have someting inspired by virtualenv handle it, or maybe different terminal profiles. Those breakings really are edge cases. 2) Don't put them in the PATH. They're prefixed with 'g' so you can make an non-prefixed alias for your interactive shell, and use the prefixed variant in your scripts if need be. If you write portable scripts you're either usin…

Homebrew does have binary packages (we call them bottles). I'm the guy who implemented the feature and I am realising that as I didn't shout very loudly people don't realise that it exists. For example Qt has a bottle: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula... The reason we aren't doing this for more packages is basically people power and hosting (as I'm not sure Sourceforge would be happy we ho…

Hundreds of organizations donate mirror space to linux distributions (e.g. http://www.debian.org/mirror/list). I'm sure some of them would provide space to homebrew.

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#214

Post by calloc » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:40 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #71

My first reaction was "Linux developer prefers developing Linux software on Linux - News at 11". However, I suppose there is more to it than that. The issue is that the fact OSX is Unix under the hood is merely an implementation detail and always has been. I'd much prefer it if Apple used a solid, up to date Linux distro under the hood, but they don't. To me using the Unix system in OSX feels a bit like using Cygwin…

That UNIX environemnt works perfectly well for me as a software developer and I don't see how it compares to Cygwin in ANY way shape or form. All my favourite tools are there and I can install more using homebrew. I build server backend software on Mac OS X and deploy on FreeBSD and soon Linux, I've never had an issue. Cygwin is COMPLETELY different, man is that crap a pain in the balls.

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#215

Post by msisk6 » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:40 PM UTC

bermanoid wrote: post #200

Terretta wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do happen to have an 8 GB machine, and almost never reboot (only reboot for OS updates). I run half a menu-bar full of resident helper apps, like Dropbox (a big one), Fantastical, ScanSnap, Xmarks (another big one), Transmit (another big one), Evernote, and more. I also keep Apple Mail running, mapped to a half dozen Gmail IMAP accounts. I have "geek tool" updating my desktop with iCal appointments and various ps o…

I do happen to have an 8 GB machine, and almost never reboot (only reboot for OS updates). Here's what I don't understand - why would anyone in their right mind purchase a $2000 laptop and then not spend the 20 minutes and 100 bucks to max out the memory on the thing? It's the easiest thing in the world to do, and basically means you never have to worry about memory usage again.

No kidding. I just put 8GB into my '09 MacBook Pro and it was $45. That's insanely cheap -- just max your system out and don't worry about it.

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#216

Post by rbanffy » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #179

semanticist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Apple don't provide these package management tools, volunteering third-parties do. Apple are never going to provide Linux-style package management tools because the market for them is minuscule compared to Apple's real market: normal people. For normal people, there's the App Store.

It may not have started out that way (but it may have, I'm not sure), but MacPorts is an Apple hosted project: http://www.macosforge.org/ What they don't host is the source or compiled versions of any of the packages in the MacPorts repository - potentially for the same reason they include no GPLv3 software in their OS.

It would be perfectly safe for Apple to offer the resources required by the MacPorts project to function adequately.

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#217

Post by Caballera » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:48 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #189

4ad wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but no, you're just illustrating the problem I've mentioned. In a virtual memory system with on-demand paging, memory mapped I/O, shared libraries and copy on write pages even measuring and interpreting memory stats is very difficult and subtle. The "real memory" column is resident set size, a completely useless metric for the problem at hand because of many reasons. One reason is that much of the physical pag…

I do understand how memory works on modern systems, and I agree that Activity Monitor can still be used as a blunt tool. My system (MBP, 4 GB of RAM) works beautifully most of the time, but I noticed that sometimes when I went to a new tab in Chrome, there was a multi-second delay. I opened up Activity Monitor, went to a new tab, and noticed that my disk activity had spiked. I figured that the memory system was swapp…

Yep, I checked out my Activity Monitor and the Flash Plugin was also the culprit, using over 890mb of RAM. I'm running Firefox with multiple tabs (5), Chrome with multiple tabs (7), pages, X-Lite, Adium, mail and thunderbird and 4GB of RAM with no problems.

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#218

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:51 PM UTC

calloc wrote: post #206

WayneDB wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you generally wanted a Mac in order to install large quantities of third party unix software... Most software developers that use OS X just want a decent GUI on top of Unix. So yeah, they do generally want a Mac in order to install large quantities of third party Unix software. Do you install Debian/Ubuntu etc and then go change the system, say, Python? Yes. I have had no problems with it. You're doing it wrong.…

I am a software developer and I use Mac OS X. I develop Unix backend server systems. I use Mac OS X as my primary build platform, then actually run on top of FreeBSD. I use homebrew for almost all of the dependencies that I have, there are one or two that I compile by hand. I've not had any issues. Best of all, I don't need the g* stuff to do my builds. I am perfectly happy with clang and the BSD tools available. I d…

[deleted]

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#219

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

bwarp wrote: post #11

I've had a few Apple machines over the years (mainly as test machines and toys). I've had two MacBooks, one MacBook Pro, an iMac and a couple of Mac Minis. I have nothing now other than a cheap second hand desktop PC (and some cash in pocket!): I agree with the build quality - they are good quality as in good materials and good fit. However, with my EE cap on, the designs themselves are bad and are quite dangerous. W…

Funny they did a development comparison (sparcstation 2 could run sunos4 but i'm not sure)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGBoJjfMuAk

Did you use a different way under SunOS4 ? it seems a lot of boilerplate on the video (apple bias I guess)

Re: Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

#220

Post by tikhonj » Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #139

I can only applaud the author for switching to Linux. Developers using Linux will develop for Linux and we will all be better off. What exactly reasons are, are of less importance. I really tried several times to switch completely and it's not easy. My bigest gripe is that even with graphics acceleration firefox and chrome are still sluggish in certain aspects and also productivity shortcuts are missing on linux. I t…

You should check out OpenSUSE which lets you specify which packages you want when you're installing it. You just select the appropriate categories like "Web Development" and it installs a selection of appropriate packages.