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A Linux User's OS X Experience

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Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#21

Post by jfb »

awinder wrote: post #13

Man there's a lot of FUD in that article, but this one in particular: I mentioned this earlier, but most developers use virtual machines in order to properly use OS X. The very notion that your operating system is so lacking that it is easier to just run a virtual operating system to fill the gaps shows you that there is clearly something very wrong with this model. No, the reason to run a virtual machine is that I'm…

Or clang, OpenCV, boost, ocaml, &c. All of which build and run natively, and are no less well packaged and accessible on OS X than they are from any Linux distro, short of nixos.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#22

Post by justuk »

epmatsw wrote: post #4

>But as a scientist and as a programmer, I will never understand why people enjoy such childish things. This is why we end up with software that is painful to use.

It's a usability mindset thing. Apple's software is great if you can live within their vision. Microsoft aims at everyone from newbie to an elite power user. Linux, well, you can do anything you want but it's on your head if you screw it up (or it screws itself up).

To view it from a political perspective, it's a scale from authoritarian (Apple) to libertarian (Linux). Those who are used to surviving on their own probably don't appreciate the rules (like putting up with superfluous visual effects).

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#24

Post by pdpi »

mattkrea wrote: post #5
542458 wrote: post #3

I'm not quite sure what the point of this article is. He's quite clearly not the target market, and is shocked and enraged by this. This is clear right from the get-go: >Be customisable. I want to be able to replace any part of the system I would like So you're going to use a closed-source OS that's notorious for enforcing homogeneity wherever possible? >Be transparent in its workings Again, so you're going to use a…

Yeah, he seems to completely miss the idea that Macs are meant for the everyday person.. particularly with that can't modify system files bit.

He also misses the part where Macs are perfectly fine for a wide range of developers (I almost said 'most' but there's plenty of people out there writing code in environments I'm no authority on).

If you're a kernel hacker, then yes. I imagine it's shit. But writing Go works fine, despite his protestations to the contrary. I'm also happily running GCC in parallel with Clang. And a ton of other programming environments too.

Problems like the lack of a package manager are more of an easily-solved annoyance than they are a fundamental flaw. The problems I've had with HFS being case insensitive were more the fruit of people doing stupid shit on case sensitive file systems than they were fundamental 'sky is falling' problems.

All in all, this reads like someone trying to emulate one of Linus's shitstorms, while missing the fact that Linus gets away with it because his ranting is usually backed by pretty substantial arguments.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#25

Post by martin-adams »

privong wrote: post #19
zongitsrinzler wrote: post #8

For me OSX gives one very clear advantage over Linux. Time. Running Linux I found myself constantly wasting time on fixing WiFi card drivers, etc after every update. I don't have time for that shit. A Macbook may be more expensive out of the box but the extra time I can spend on stuff that is important (and fun) is worth it.

Out of curiosity, when did you experience the issues with the drivers and such? I know that was a problem in the past (and I fought with it as well), but for at least the past 4 years, I have found linux to work "out of the box" on several machines, without any fiddling of that nature. I suppose there could still be some problematic hardware, but lately, I have found linux to be much quicker to get up and running. I…

My colleague has lost about 2 days in total due to Ubuntu updates killing her Ethernet connection at every update. This was about 2 months ago.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#26

Post by Phr34Ck »

hur dur. I'm gonna use this thing that I know it's not for me and I'm gonna cry about it anyway.

Different things behave differently (shocker). You're not gonna like Y after using and getting used to X for god knows how many years.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#27

Post by mangecoeur »

Ianvdl wrote: post #12
542458 wrote: post #3

I'm not quite sure what the point of this article is. He's quite clearly not the target market, and is shocked and enraged by this. This is clear right from the get-go: >Be customisable. I want to be able to replace any part of the system I would like So you're going to use a closed-source OS that's notorious for enforcing homogeneity wherever possible? >Be transparent in its workings Again, so you're going to use a…

Is transparency and customisability really so fundamentally incompatible with closed source software? The fact that the source code is not available does not prevent the availability of clear documentation detailing system functionality (whether or not you can verify whether the two correspond is another argument). Detailed documentation can allow for customisability by swapping out closed-source defaults. I agree th…

Well it's not really clear what he was hoping to modify in OSX that found impossible to change. Many of the settings mentioned are readily toggled off, you can install most linux software (Homebrew is necessary, i readily concede that without it OSX packaging is a problem), I'm not really sure what he wants apart from that. Not sure what he means by "developer workflow"...

Maybe it was more UI customization - there are definitely things which would be nice to tweak which are not tweakable, although there are a good range of apps and plist hacks to do so too. Mostly get the feeling he was primed to dislike it and, surprise surprise, disliked it.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#28

Post by MatthewWilkes »

I can't really imagine a client describing "I want to be able to replace any part of the system I would like, and it should be easy to replace" as an exceptionally simple requirement and being taken seriously. In fact, I think only some open-source operating systems even come close to that goal.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#29

Post by JosephRedfern »

rosser wrote: post #15

Angry nerd is angry. Less flippant response: So OSX doesn't work for you. Bummer, I guess? I switched from Linux to OSX after I found I was spending more time fucking with configs to get simple things like Skype working than I did actually working . Bummer for me, huh? Fortunately, there was another system out there that satisfied my needs. And I didn't even have to write a rageface blog post about how sucky the one…

Arch is clearly the OS of choice for dragon-fighting free thinking Athiest scientists who don't have time for artsy pursuits and their associated mind-numbing animations.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#30

Post by Intermernet »

zongitsrinzler wrote: post #8

For me OSX gives one very clear advantage over Linux. Time. Running Linux I found myself constantly wasting time on fixing WiFi card drivers, etc after every update. I don't have time for that shit. A Macbook may be more expensive out of the box but the extra time I can spend on stuff that is important (and fun) is worth it.

I see this argument a lot, yet I have not spent one second customizing a linux driver for anything in the last 8 years.

Maybe, if I'm running games or 3d software, I'll update to the proprietary drivers, but I've not touched anything else (wifi or otherwise) in a very long time.

What hardware are you having problems with?

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