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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)

#281

Post by desireco42 »

tikhonj wrote: post #220
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.

I will check it, thank you. However what I was talking is a little more customization then that. If it is dev build, it should link to github, start with zsh etc.

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

#282

Post by NathanKP »

With regard to memory usage in OS X I have never had any issues with my current iMac. I have 8 GB of memory, and despite very heavy usage (Safari/Chrome/Firefox for browser testing, Coda as IDE, Tower for Git management, Skype, Terminal, iTunes, MySQL Workbench, occasionally MAMP) I rarely see any swap usage. Currently my swap used is 2 MB.

(I must say that I am still using Snow Leopard. I refuse to install Lion because it is pathetic compared to the much more efficient Snow Leopard. I have installed it on my other Mac machine and am not impressed.)

Interestingly the most memory hungry program on my computer is Chrome. It seems to spawn a ridiculously huge number of processes:

    Google Chrome 137.9 MB
    Google Chrome Helper 29.5 MB
    Google Chrome Helper 7.7 MB
    Google Chrome Renderer 123.5 MB
    Google Chrome Renderer 36.7 MB
    Google Chrome Renderer 46.8 MB
    Google Chrome Worker 26.6 MB
    Google Chrome Worker 26.2 MB
That's a grand total of 7 processes and over 400 MB of memory for just three tabs. As much as I love Google Chrome its a little ridiculous.

iTunes is the second worst offender: 300 MB. I have a pretty large library, but its not that large. Perhaps it does some very rigorous caching.

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

#283

Post by encoderer »

bwarp wrote: post #125
meepmorp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive spilled - in separate instances - water, coffee, and baby formula into my MBP keyboard, and had no problems, except with the formula, which made the keys sticky. So presumably I'm so lucky I ought to be winning the lottery at least once a week.

Google for "macbook fire" and look at Google images for some other unlucky ones. Yes you are lucky because you spilled from the top which it's obviously at least slightly better at handling. If the base gets even slightly wet, boom.

"No hyperbole, the design is simply dangerous." "If the base gets even slightly wet, boom."

Right. No hyperbole.

But what you said before is that the notebook in your story was sitting in a puddle of water, 10ml seeped in, and then when you turned it over, you heard "crackling, smoke, etc."

An electrical short, yes. But not an explosion.

Sure, if the cathode comes into contact with water, that's a big problem. But the battery itself is well sealed. Your criticism seems to be half baked here:

When you say their design is "dangerous" that sounds like you're saying its dangerous to the user. That it will cause injury.

But your real criticism is that you can't "isolate the power." That is, the sealed case makes the battery dangerous to the machine: You turned the machine over, and logic boards, still hot with power, shorted when the water hit them.

But the implication that it's dangerous to consumers just doesn't make sense: Removable or not, if the lithium comes into contact with water, you've got a problem.

Moreover, I think it's disingenuous when you pull the "I'm an expert" card and then provide editorial analysis: Of course if you google you'll see the bad "unlucky" macbooks that got wet. The people who are "lucky" do not post pictures of a pristine, dried-out computer. There's a selection bias there.

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

#284

Post by lrvick »

lloeki wrote: post #156
lrvick wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I probably will not be as organized Fear not, as your reply is perfectly organized to me :-) It is all the more interesting because it goes to the point I willfully chose not to make in my previous comments, namely that Mac OS X (in its current form at least) is unfit for most server roles. I think that there is a use case for SOHO and that even then it needs improvements to seriously tackle that area. For develope…

This discussion will probably result in full blown blog post of my own as well.

Thanks for helping me be a bit more balanced. :-)

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

#285

Post by wvs »

jakobe wrote: post #103
hazov wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Open activity monitor, and check which applications use a lot of memory. (Look at the "Real Mem" column). If your computer frequently freezes, the problem is mostly a specific application (Virtualbox comes to mind), not just Mac OS X itself. 4GB are more than enough for casual browsing.

The private memory column is likely a better measure when looking for memory hogs.

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

#286

Post by CoffeeDregs »

I run Debian unstable on a quad-core T520 since our servers run Debian testing and everything Just Works, but most of the developers in my shop run Mac OSX and they have endless it's-not-quite-Linux problems: installing MySQL fails because the build thought that it was a fat binary or that it was 32-bit-but-the-libraries-were-64-bit; Mac OSX system paths are kinda weird; or homebrew installed a binary in a bizarre directory.

I can't help but wonder: since all the WMs are adopting Apple's desktop experience, are the multi-touch gestures worth the minor-but-frustrating lack of compatibility? I use Gnome3 and, while I complain about X,Y or Z, it's basically the same as Mac OSX.

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

#287

Post by brdrak »

nailer wrote: post #252
technomancy wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying it just works is certainly not the case. I said if you spend a little time scoping these kinds of things out up-front, it's very easy to get a machine on which it will work without issues. Obviously if you found a machine lying around the office and tried to load an OS on it, your chances of it working well are not going to be as good. You can't just load OS X on random hardware and expect it to work either.

After 10 years of Linux desktops, including purchasing a laptop with low-performance hardware just because it used entirely OSS drivers, I still has issues with basic things like multiple monitor support (it worked, but only when I disabled compositing, which makes redraw suck). Sorry, from my personal experience that still isn't true, as much as I wish it were.

I've been using dual monitor setups at home and at work for a few years now through several hardware builds, both desktops and laptops first using Ubuntu, then switching to Debian Testing for a rolling distribution about a year ago (after finally realizing I love the latest software, but don't want to spend time to upgrade/rebuild every 6 months to keep up with Ubuntu's release schedule or deal with the hassle of installing everything from source). I've been using Nvidia cards with the nvidia driver and dual monitor support has been fantastic for me.

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

#288

Post by dekz »

NathanKP wrote: post #282

With regard to memory usage in OS X I have never had any issues with my current iMac. I have 8 GB of memory, and despite very heavy usage (Safari/Chrome/Firefox for browser testing, Coda as IDE, Tower for Git management, Skype, Terminal, iTunes, MySQL Workbench, occasionally MAMP) I rarely see any swap usage. Currently my swap used is 2 MB. (I must say that I am still using Snow Leopard. I refuse to install Lion beca…

mmap+shared libraries. Don't put so much faith into what Activity Monitor tells you about processes and their Memory Usage.

Even so, having free memory gives 0 performance.

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

#289

Post by kristopolous »

kristopolous wrote: post #272
i386 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I find it a difficult to believe that Apple would release a laptop that would catch on fire if you spilt a cup of coffee on it - I suspect your story has been sprinkled with a touch hyperbole. Evidence, please :)

Macbooks catching fire is kind of what they are good at, just do a little google-fu: The Powerbook 5300 was recalled because some batteries caught fire on the assembly line. (1995) The batteries, manufactured by LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea, could overheat and pose a fire hazard, according to the CPSC. The recall affects laptops sold since January, which contain batteries produced last December. Approximately 28,000 b…

Great, so someone explicitly asks for evidence that Apple would release laptops that caught on fire, I provide 3 examples, Directly Answering the question; then I get downvoted.

Maybe I didn't provide references. Here's the references, most with the official statement from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The powerbook 5300 was explicitly recalled, by Apple, for the short-circuit problem. Reference:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/15/technology/laptop-batterie...

http://news.cnet.com/Apple-woes-continue/2100-1001_3-211692....

http://books.google.com/books?id=R7zgbMJM3vwC&pg=PA10&#3...

2004 recall, same problem:

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml04/04201.html (Problem: An internal short can cause the battery cells to overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers.)

2005 recall, same problem:

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml05/05179.html (Hazard: An internal short can cause the battery cells to overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers.)

2006 recall, related problem:

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06245.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Fire-threat-spurs-...

http://www.macworld.com/article/52084/2006/07/recall.html

This is precisely what he asked for, and now I've included references. But really, if you guys don't value facts, research, and actual answers, then to hell with it. Why do I try? Might as well hang out on Digg.

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

#290

Post by hristov »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #183
hazov wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can't directly answer the question but I get the feeling most memory issues have to do with an individual's use of their system, and not the system itself. I have a 2009 iMac and a little netbook running Xubuntu. The iMac has 4gb RAM and the netbook just a single gig RAM and not even 2ghz processor. The netbook doesn't slow down on me while the Mac is prone to freeze ups. I Could say "Linux is better than my Mac be…

The parent told you he was using Linux and the Mac the same way.
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