If Apple needs a better filesystem, they should consider HAMMER from DragonflyBSD. It's BSD-licensed, unencumbered by patents, and way more sophisticated than HFS+.
OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#22I think a lot of technical mac users would be better off at least trying a switch to Ubuntu or one of the minimalist variations thereof (xubuntu). A lot of the reasons those people switched to OSX are evaporating and Linux as a desktop or laptop development environment has improved hugely. If you're using vim or sublime you don't even need to change your editor.
Here are the reasons I switched to OSX: - Image installers (.dmg files) and complete installers (.pkg files, that bring dependencies with them). I have never seen either of those fail, ever. I have seen installations from .tar.gz -> ./configure && make && make install fail countless times. This is the number one reason for me, and it's so much more important than anything else that I have trouble thinking of other re…
What the heck are you doing messing with ./configure && make && make install? Are we back to 1998? apt/yum/emerge/[random package manager] are there for a reason.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#23oh, the irony. one line he says that he's a clever user that understands business, the other line suggests that what apple should do is change the filesytem. can you picture it? tim saying "one more thing to excite you" and announce a new filesytem instead of, say "Siri on your desktop"? I image 95% of the user base thinking "you updated the WHAT?!"
Which is why it is better to explain the benefits, not the features.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are the reasons I switched to OSX: - Image installers (.dmg files) and complete installers (.pkg files, that bring dependencies with them). I have never seen either of those fail, ever. I have seen installations from .tar.gz -> ./configure && make && make install fail countless times. This is the number one reason for me, and it's so much more important than anything else that I have trouble thinking of other re…
Agreed. We've got them on Windows too - .msi files :) The main advantage of standalone packages is I can choose whatever version of package XYZ I want and push it out rather than being stuck with the package version the repository ships with until either the maintainer updates it or you patch it yourself or argue with some shoddy backport.
To me the main advantage of standalone packages (thanks for reminding me of what they're called) is that they just work (to borrow a phrase from Apple's fan club).
Having to solve installation/compilation/dependency issues is just a waste of time, when those problem don't need to exist at all (things can just be packaged with all dependencies and dumped onto another machine).
I also like the fact that .dmg files are self-contained installers that don't touch any files outside of the ApplicationName.app folder they install to. So that to uninstall something installed from a .dmg file all you need to do is delete the ApplicationName.app "file"/folder.
There's nothing advanced that Mac OS X is doing here. See the Ruby Enterprise Edition installer for how nice the world could be if only there were a change in the way most people think about distributing software in the Linux world. REE installs to its own folder and doesn't touch any system files; it also needs very little from the system besides the compiler (so no dependencies afaik). That's why it just works every time I install it. Now contrast that with ImageMagick.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are the reasons I switched to OSX: - Image installers (.dmg files) and complete installers (.pkg files, that bring dependencies with them). I have never seen either of those fail, ever. I have seen installations from .tar.gz -> ./configure && make && make install fail countless times. This is the number one reason for me, and it's so much more important than anything else that I have trouble thinking of other re…
What the heck are you doing messing with ./configure && make && make install? Are we back to 1998? apt/yum/emerge/[random package manager] are there for a reason.
Hey sergio - I missed the memo saying that's an outdated way of installing stuff. Must be because I keep coming across instructions that have me doing that. :)
Anyway, my point is that the very existence of a package manager is already misguided. Applications should be standalone (even the ones I install from source should just bring the libraries they depend on with them, instead of relying on a third-party program (the pkg manager) to make their application installable).
If programmers would package their applications like Ruby Enterprise Edition packaged itself, there would be no need for a package manager, and everything would install without fail every time.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#26I think a lot of technical mac users would be better off at least trying a switch to Ubuntu or one of the minimalist variations thereof (xubuntu). A lot of the reasons those people switched to OSX are evaporating and Linux as a desktop or laptop development environment has improved hugely. If you're using vim or sublime you don't even need to change your editor.
I use ubuntu at work and osx at home. Ubuntu used to be amazing, and I still think it's good open source development platform, but the amount of time I've spent fixing drivers or fighting with unity has meant that it has cost me a lot more than osx.
Then there is the abomination that is unity. They really hit the mark there, making a window manager for netbooks. Cause everyone in their target market uses a netbook, right?
I think they should have stuck with gnome 2, polished it, and targeted programmers as their core users.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
What the heck are you doing messing with ./configure && make && make install? Are we back to 1998? apt/yum/emerge/[random package manager] are there for a reason.
Hey sergio - I missed the memo saying that's an outdated way of installing stuff. Must be because I keep coming across instructions that have me doing that. :) Anyway, my point is that the very existence of a package manager is already misguided. Applications should be standalone (even the ones I install from source should just bring the libraries they depend on with them, instead of relying on a third-party program…
I'm not sure I could survive on OS X without homebrew. I kind of like customizing my packages with a package manager.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey sergio - I missed the memo saying that's an outdated way of installing stuff. Must be because I keep coming across instructions that have me doing that. :) Anyway, my point is that the very existence of a package manager is already misguided. Applications should be standalone (even the ones I install from source should just bring the libraries they depend on with them, instead of relying on a third-party program…
I'm not sure I could survive on OS X without homebrew. I kind of like customizing my packages with a package manager.
REE's installer is interactive; if all installers were interactive (with a fallback flags system for non-interactive execution) then you would be able to customize them without needing a third-party program (homebrew).
Thew fewer third-party programs necessary to install an application, the easier it is to install and the less likely there will be errors. That is empirically true (based on my experience installing things on all 3 major OSs).
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#29I think a lot of technical mac users would be better off at least trying a switch to Ubuntu or one of the minimalist variations thereof (xubuntu). A lot of the reasons those people switched to OSX are evaporating and Linux as a desktop or laptop development environment has improved hugely. If you're using vim or sublime you don't even need to change your editor.
I don't think Linux has gotten any better on the desktop since 2007 or so. Hardware support still isn't perfect, sleep/wakeup still isn't perfect, battery life is still lower than on OS X/Windows, 3D acceleration is still iffy. It's a total disaster.
If you want it to work well you do have to be picky about hardware still, but there are absolutely entire systems that, out of the box, are well supported by linux now. My Toshiba z830 was nearly perfect out of the box for linux. Basically is most of the stuff in your computer is made by Intel you're probably golden.
This isn't really any different from OSX in that there is literally only one hardware platform on which that OS is supported out of the box.
Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed] I've never had problems with sleep/wakeup (except bugs in the firmware). Battery life is equal if not better than under windows. Developers rarely need 3D acceleration, and for most webgl demos and games the intel open source driver does just fine.
I don't think you can disprove anecdotal evidence with more anecdotal evidence.
If the claim is "it sucks universally because of my anecdote," "it works fine in my anecdote" is actually a perfectly valid rebuttal.