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

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

#291

Post by ciparis »

rbanffy wrote: post #224
ciparis wrote: post #180

That's a pretty self-indulgent rant. I've got nothing against the ultimate decision by any means, but that decision is being rationalized -- and rationalized poorly. 8GB of RAM costs $39. If the OPs time is worth so little that they'd rather stew for 5-10 minutes every day waiting for repair permissions to finish, then that's simply their choice. FWIW, I haven't done anything like that on my 4GB MB Air since I bought…

8GB would reduce battery life and, in some computers, it's not even an option. My Dell notebook is maxed out at 4. And I don't want the extra memory because I prefer long battery life.

I honestly can't tell if you're serious or not :)

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

#292

Post by [deleted] »

lrvick wrote: post #39

This is fairly spot on. Apple makes really nice laptop/desktop hardware, but though OSX as been getting a lot better, it is still a terrible playschool excuse for a unix-based operating systems go when compared to *BSD or Linux. OSX is certainly a better choice for the pointy-pointy-clicky-clicky masses than windows by far, but we have chromeos and ubuntu for them now. Lets face it, OSX is made to suit the needs of p…

[deleted]

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

#293

Post by lrvick »

lrvick wrote: post #100
lloeki wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OSX is certainly a better choice for the pointy-pointy-clicky-clicky masses than windows by far. OSX is not, nor will it ever likely be made for serious hackers or sysadmins that actually care how things work at a low level This is an extremely short-sighted, elitist point of view. Stuff like DTrace are absolutely fantastic and quite low-level, and applications like Instruments are quite helpful. > like to > choose…

A well constructed reply. I probably will not be as organized but here goes: Certainly OSX is becoming a lot more open in some respects. There are clearly some people in Apple that have been trying to make some changes for a while, and I applaud that and hope to see it continue. The fact they ship with a lot of major open source tools makes me happy. Even on my side of the fence I will go as far as to say there are p…

*End paragraph 5 should read probably read:

This way no two kernels will map memory the same way, for added protection against many exploits which rely on stock memory mapping.

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

#294

Post by batista »

WayneDB wrote: post #144
batista wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried installing both Macports and homebrew, and some utils did not work, as whichever got put in the path first, confused the other. I suppose I could have made a seperate symlink directory, for just the binaries I wanted. Yeah, you could. Also, why install both? Anyway, welcome to software. It ain't perfect. You think it'll be better with Linux? I've had happen to me on Debian a few times, and lotsa times with…

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.…

Yeah, I'm just running Logic, Photoshop and Final Cut Pro for various projects, I mean those use very little memory, so what would I know...

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

#295

Post by dylanpyle »

omerta wrote: post #181
beloch wrote: post #3

Last July I bought one of the new Macbook Air's. The price for the hardware you got was unbeatable, and that was ignoring build quality! While previous Air's were anemic tarted up netbooks, the 2011 Air's were (and are) powerful enough for everyday use. There was just one problem with the Air however. Horrible Linux support. I'd been using Kubuntu happily for years. After looking at all the ugly dirty hacks people we…

All Linux distros I have seen look tacky and gaudy compared to OSX. I guess that's just your style, though.

I realize you're doomed to be downvoted into oblivion, but I have to agree - I had a tough time following someone whose logic is "OS X is pretty dated and ugly looking... it's back to KDE for me".

There are certainly fair points to be made about the inability to customize certain aspects of the window manager -- coming from a long-time linux user's perspective, it was one thing I immediately missed -- but I'm really not sure "ugly design" is one of the criticisms I could make.

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

#296

Post by paulgrins »

The author is absolutely right. People tend to like Macbooks and iPads for irrational reasons. This is what has been described the "reality distortion field". It's all marketing hype and Apple fanboys who make Apple what it is, the technology has nothing to do with it. The obsession with "Think Different" has brainwashed these vulnerable people.

The reality is that as an avid user of Macs since the old days when the Mac was the real "elite machine" back in the PowerPC days I can say that the new Mac OSX based machines are terrible and do not represent Apple's past level of quality. The new machines are consumer toys, not serious machines like they once were. The comment about a "McDonalds version of Linux" is true.

I actually ended up moving to Windows because around 1999-2000 Apple started moving into it's "Walled Garden" software model and they failed to embrace other hardware setups, this made the Apple too expensive and not nearly flexible enough for a real business/engineering user. At first Windows was a bit of a shock, but by the time Windows XP had arrived I forgot all about the Macs. Yes, the blue screens were annoying but Macs also crashed too. Microsoft has hit a home run in terms of how it generously treats Windows developers too!

Then working on a web development project I was forced to use Linux in the server environment. I can tell you, Linux blew me away. There's a real reason that IBM and Oracle are using Linux as their base OS's. Linux is the OS for engineers and now I use it for desktop along with Windows XP. Steve Jobs ripped off Linux and then broke it to make it into a toy device with OSX and iOS, both some of the worst OS's ever made.

My chart is as follows...

Mac OS-X and iOS = toys for consumrs...

Windows XP and 7/8 = serious business tools...

Linux and Unix = engineering tools for scientists...

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

#297

Post by batista »

tikhonj wrote: post #241
calloc wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's users are not people that dive into the command line. Apple's users are people that open the App Store and have their "package management" solution.

Well, if Apple's users aren't the sort to dive into a command line, then most developers aren't Apple users. Also, have you seen any modern, user friendly Linux distros (e.g. Ubunutu)? You never have to dive into the command line there and yet it has nice package management that just works.

Well, if Apple's users aren't the sort to dive into a command line, then most developers aren't Apple users.

Well if you have been to any developer's conference, you'd have deduced that most developers are Apple laptop users.

It's just that they don't bitch about any package that breaks.

Some of us also use a virtual machine like Fusion for an isolated environment if we want to do development with a Linux userland, we don't pile one on top of OS X and its' BSD core, and don't expect a volunteer effort like brew with 2000+ packages all sub 20K people use to work perfectly.

(The guy in the other comments said he manages multiple Macs (a sysadmin guy) and had troubles with installing the same packages to all, etc. Presumably also different OS versions. That's a slightly different problem.)

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

#298

Post by paulgrins »

The author is absolutely right. People tend to like Macbooks and iPads for irrational reasons. This is what has been described the "reality distortion field". It's all marketing hype and Apple fanboys who make Apple what it is, the technology has nothing to do with it. The obsession with "Think Different" has brainwashed these vulnerable people.

The reality is that as an avid user of Macs since the old days when the Mac was the real "elite machine" back in the PowerPC days I can say that the new Mac OSX based machines are terrible and do not represent Apple's past level of quality. The new machines are consumer toys, not serious machines like they once were. The comment about a "McDonalds version of Linux" is true.

I actually ended up moving to Windows because around 1999-2000 Apple started moving into it's "Walled Garden" software model and they failed to embrace other hardware setups, this made the Apple too expensive and not nearly flexible enough for a real business/engineering user. At first Windows was a bit of a shock, but by the time Windows XP had arrived I forgot all about the Macs. Yes, the blue screens were annoying but Macs also crashed too. Microsoft has hit a home run in terms of how it generously treats Windows developers too!

Then working on a web development project I was forced to use Linux in the server environment. I can tell you, Linux blew me away. There's a real reason that IBM and Oracle are using Linux as their base OS's. Linux is the OS for engineers and now I use it for desktop along with Windows XP. Steve Jobs ripped off Linux and then broke it to make it into a toy device with OSX and iOS, both some of the worst OS's ever made.

My chart is as follows...

Mac OS-X and iOS = toys for consumrs...

Windows XP and 7/8 = serious business tools...

Linux and Unix = engineering tools for scientists...

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

#299

Post by jakobe »

ruediger wrote: post #242
jakobe wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you are treating Mac OS as if it was a Linux distro. If you want the Linux experience, with package managers and command line utilities and X11, then Mac OS is not a good choice. Package managers with automatic dependency resolution are a typical feature of a Linux installation. But they go against the core principles of Mac OS X. Software on Mac OS X is distributed as self-contained packages, tha…

No, I'm treating OSX as a UNIX. It is advertised as such. I know that you can use the app bundles. But they are only useful for GUI applications. I usually run applications like octave or gnuplot from the terminal or other applications (e.g., Emacs).

It doesn't matter if MacOS is advertised as UNIX or not. Technically, it is UNIX.

The practical issue is that you are using GNU programs written with the Linux/GNU operating system in mind. Of course this experience is sub-par on the Mac, because neither the Octave- nor the Gnuplot-developers see Mac OS X as their primary market.

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

#300

Post by yason »

I also once spent a year or so trying to rebuild in OS X what I had working in Debian/Ubuntu until I just gave up and went back. The lure of the "Unix inside" was good but didn't fly far in reality. And no, an operating system doesn't get to dictate my desktop when I have under my belt 20 years of experience on it. But the h/w quality is good, I must say--though compatibility with Linux isn't, obviously.
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