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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)

#261

Post by cahuk »

bad_user wrote: post #59
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…

3) g++? that's not in homebrew... He probably meant GCC, which does have recipes in Homebrew. Homebrew started taking off, and in my case Just Works This is the first time I ever heard anyone saying it. In general Homebrew did a good job for me, but it did break on me a couple of times. And when it did, fixing it caused me a lot of stress, because in the end it's really not much better than " ./configure && make && s…

gcc and g++ are part of Xcode. That's the reason you have to install Xcode before you can use Homebrew.

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

#262

Post by whichdan »

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.

Do you know how much power 4gb vs 8gb of ram draws? I've heard this before but always wondered how big of a battery drain it is.

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

#263

Post by dredmorbius »

Bud wrote: post #227
mrich wrote: post #89

Regarding hardware quality: "...why there's no PC manufacturers that would have the same overall quality of the hardware." In my experience, business ThinkPads beat MacBooks by a mile for working (e.g. programming). I am surprised to see so many coders use MacBooks. Thinkpads have better ergonomics, are more robust and better performance/configurable hardware (e.g. RAM).

This is a content-free comment. You claim ThinkPads have better ergonomics, but you say nothing about why. You say they are more robust (more robust than a solid aluminum shell? Not in my experience), but you don't back it up. You claim better performance and say something vague about RAM, which is similarly unsubstantiated. The IBM has a vastly inferior, smaller, less responsive trackpad, inferior display, inferior…

In my list, generally preferring Thinkpad over Mac:

Better keyboard feel and layout. Especially if you're used to PC/Unix keyboards.

Trackpoint. I vastly prefer this to a trackpad (and generally disable trackpads in BIOS).

Cooling/airflow. Mac's sealed design is nice, Lenovo's gets the heat out (and the dust in, sigh).

Thinklight.

To Mac's benefit:

Magnetic breakaway power connector. Sheer genius.

Illuminated keyboard. Kind of neat.

CD slot (not on Airs, obviously). I'm always accidentally opening my CD drive on my Thinkpad. Some way to lock the damned thing would be nice.

Displays -- I've been consistently impressed by the brightness of Apple displays, if not the aspect ratios (I prefer Thinkpads generally here, though they're converging on Apple's standards).

And in 10+ years of lugging Thinkpads around, I've had few if any hardware/robustness issues. One screen that pixilated badly after a fall onto the street in my satchel, replaced by IBM. Otherwise, nada.

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

#264

Post by vacri »

dagw wrote: post #246
calloc wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't understand why people purchase Mac OS X based computers then want to run GNU coreutils on top of it Because only Apple has figured out how to make and sell great laptops running Unix at a (relatively) reasonable price and where all the hardware and drivers just works out of the box. If I could have bought a computer as good as the macbook Air in every way, but with Linux instead of OS X and guarenteed zero dr…

How does the Lenovo x-series compare for you, where does it not measure up? I was recently at a linux conference and probably about 60-70% of delegates had either an Apple or a Lenovo laptop.

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

#265

Post by cpleppert »

I have a Macbook Air and a windows desktop that runs all my test browsers and a linux VM through virtual box. I use VNC to test everything on the browsers I have installed on the windows box and additionally run databases on the linux VM. Super smooth, I have never had any performance issues at all. Modern CPUs are more than fast enough to really do any type of development on as long as you have the ability to offload the occasional compute intensive tasks.

I also only have 4GB on air and yet I can't remember when switching to an application wasn't instantaneous even with 20+ applications open. I won't go back to running Vmware on the laptop, so much faster as a virtual desktop.

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

#266

Post by cahuk »

I had a similar memory problems with my 2011 iMac. It had only 4 GB of RAM. The machine started pretty fast to filling up my swap. After it started paging out the machine was unusable for some minutes. I don't know if this is true but I think the HDDs in the 2011 iMac are not that good.

I upgraded the memory to 12 GB. Since then working on my iMac is a lot easier.

But the troubles are still there (from time to time). A few days ago I ran Virtualbox and Parallels Desktop 7. I had a 5 GB big swap, the machine started paging out and it slowed down. I had to quit some apps to solve the problem.

So I have to agree with the author of the article that Lion has a weak memory management. Apple must fix this. Running a 12 GB of RAM machine and getting a sluggish machine?

I think that if I would install an SSD my iMac would be a lot faster. Also the paging out.

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

#267

Post by mellifluousmind »

technomancy wrote: post #203
mellifluousmind wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the way how OS X keeps data cached in the inactive memory is based on the assumption that you are going to re-use the same app within reasonable amount of time. With the current behavior/performance response (without knowing exactly how Apple engineers implemented it), it really feels like a giant garbage collection system that takes age to free up its own memory with no real sense of concept that if…

> So why the heck I use Mac still? Because of the driver support is still far better than Linux. I feel like this is a stereotype that just won't die. Yes, up till a few years ago you might have to do some poking in /etc to get things working, but as long as you spend a few minutes looking up basic background info before you buy those problems just don't happen these days. I haven't had to edit a config file to get h…

Well, I would say yes, Linux has come a long way to be much more mature and much more usable than before.

However, up to this date, it is not without issues, especially on laptop hardware. Remember that Lenovo ThinkPad T400 from a few years ago? Well, the level of stability from a popular distro, such as ubuntu, has been quite up and down. One release (like 11.04), I had trouble with it booting up and playing nice with dual graphics mode. Today, with 11.10, it is much better. How about that shiny Acer AspireOne 722 netbook? You should check the online thread. There are still discussions about how to prevent freeze up and etc. All these little quirks here and there are the reason why I would still run OS X.

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

#268

Post by 5teev »

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.

After noting my rather older MBP with 8GB RAM was outperforming my new iMac, I spent $16 for 4GB of RAM (doubling the total to 8GB); the iMac's performance improved immeasurably. By far the best bang for the buck on OSX is maxing out the RAM. (Well, at least until I can afford a solid state drive of adequate size.)

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

#270

Post by kristopolous »

ghz wrote: post #259
lloeki wrote: post #23

Inactive memory is not an OS X specific, and it's actually implemented in a number of other OSes, including FreeBSD. > when it's on disk, it definitely is not made active quickly. If an application is unloaded then many operations need to be taken to initialize stuff, reading the disk for various stuff, processing some data, allocating memory (which will be zeored out, then initialized with whatever struct and data t…

I am sure things are simpler if you pay to stay on the latest version of MacOS, but pick up a laptop that has an old version of MacOS (as I did last week) and try to install a modern version of python on it without reaching for your credit card and/or signing up for all sorts of accounts/development programmes. Is it too much to ask to be able to install gcc on a machine that someone has paid > $1000 for? Search for…

If you want the free version of Visual Studio, you go to a web page (http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-ed...) and click on the download link. You don't need Windows installed, or need to be signed in or have special software on your machine to download the file.

If you want the free version of Xcode, you first need a mac. Now you need a mac with a recent OS. Ok, good, go to the web page, click on the "App Store" link. Make an account in "App Store" then hand over Your CREDIT CARD information. Great. Now it will download through the app store. Click on "Purchases" to see the status.

Microsoft doesn't need to know who I am and doesn't even care if I'm on Windows but Apple wants me on a newish mac and then hand over my credit card before I can get their IDE. Really? Ridiculous and almost intolerable.

But that's how they roll.

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