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OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

macobserver.com

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Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#41

Post by shadesandcolour »

stormbrew wrote: post #2

I 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.

Oh I don't know about that. One of the great things about using a Mac is that you get a POSIX compliant operating system without having to mess with things too much. At the very least Ubuntu is not the way you want to go. The Linux environment has certainly improved, but the reasons people picked OS X haven't exactly evaporated.

Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#42

Post by jmhain »

rayiner wrote: post #4
stormbrew wrote: post #2

I 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.

Sorry, but it sounds like you just haven't used Linux on a desktop since 2007. Honestly, I can't remember having any hardware support issues since around 2009, and I've been through a lot of machines.

Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#43

Post by jmhain »

anko wrote: post #26
stormbrew wrote: post #2

I 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, r…

You should give GNOME 3 a shot. It's really matured into something great. As of 3.8, it feels just as polished as OS X to me, and more usable.

Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#44

Post by johncoltrane »

stormbrew wrote: post #2

I 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 did the switch at home three years ago after close to twenty years of Apples. My transition from design to dev certainly helped.

Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#45

Post by ishbits »

stormbrew wrote: post #2

I 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's the problem. This morning I applied some updates (yum update) to my Fedora workstation (not a laptop) and now Gnome is failing to start due to a video driver issue. I can fix this, I've been using Linux on the desktop since 1996. But I don't want to fix this.

This is on a fairly modern desktop built with Linux in mind and a slightly older NVidia card. It should just work.

I also have a Mac laptop and am more and more leaning that way, as it removes many of the issues that get in my way in the Linux world. Sure it introduces a few more, like using MacPorts or something to get my tools installed. Perhaps jumping into a VM when I'm working on that 5-10% of the code that is Linux specific. But overall that is less time taken away from my day than a broken update (and I'm not even talking about a release update).

I'm pretty sure that in a few months my workstation will be Mac as well, with a powerful headless Linux box in the closet or something like that - where Linux works best. I never, ever have issues with my non-graphical linux installs.

Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#46

Post by 1SaltwaterC »

innguest wrote: post #14
stormbrew wrote: post #2

I 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…

> To do otherwise is to suffer a whole day trying to install ImageMagick

Sure, you could do that, or issue [pkg-manager] install imagemagick. It took me yesterday around 15 seconds to install imagemagick without even leaving iTerm. Even brew knows that.

Re: OS X 10.9: A downward spiral or a new hope?

#47

Post by 1SaltwaterC »

innguest wrote: post #24
pointyhatuk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> to uninstall something installed from a .dmg file all you need to do is delete the ApplicationName.app "file"/folder.

AppCleaner / AppZapper / AppDelete / CleanApp / etc beg to differ. A lot of packages leave a lot of crap behind that doesn't get removed with the .app directory itself.

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