A Linux User's OS X Experience

51–52 of 52 posts

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#51

Post by carlosrg » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

Terrible post IMO. I've been using both OS X and GNU/Linux (Arch) for several years (OS X since 2006, several GNU/Linux distros since ~2000), so I think I can weigh in. I'll quote a few interesting parts.

> Be customisable

Valid reason. But he perfectly knew he was getting a proprietary OS, not Arch.

> because if you follow the Unix philosophy, each component is modular and replaceable

Who told him OS X follows the Unix philosophy? Also I don't understand the obsession with applying the Unix philosophy to everything. Give me a good full-featured browser and email program, keep your Surf (http://surf.suckless.org) and mutt if you want.

> Make it easy to compile, test and run any kind of software I'd like

Yes, like you can do already on OS X since forever. Obviously if you're going to do Linux kernel development OS X is not ideal and I think everybody can agree on that one. But for UNIX/POSIX software it's pretty much the same. You can get GCC from MacPorts and I guess Homebrew too, pretty much any version you want, if you don't like Clang (which is the default compiler in FreeBSD too btw).

> Be transparent in its workings, be easy to understand in principle

100% agreed on this one.

> Should be a separate entity. It should not rely on some third-party service in order to function properly. If I can't access the internet (or choose to airgap the machine eternally), it should be possible to run all of the software I'd like (and to use all of the features I'd like to) without needing access to online services.

I really don't understand this one. This is OS X, not Chrome OS. You don't need an Apple ID to update the OS itself. You can get programs from the internet or your favorite package manager without ever logging in with your Apple ID on the App Store.

> A package manager is useless if it doesn't manage all of the packages on a system

I wouldn't call it "useless", but I guess if you prefer a package manager for everything then MacPorts/Homebrew are not for you.

He then mentions that OS X has a "horrible development environment" without giving any actual reason, and mentions too "filesystem pollution" because OS X separates most GUI tools from the BSD tools (so he considers a logical separation between the BSD subsystem and the rest of the system "pollution". I think it's the opposite).

The post is a series of exaggerations and inaccuracies mixed with actually valid criticism.

Re: A Linux User's OS X Experience

#52

Post by foxhill » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 1:06 PM UTC

yay, another rant into the OS wars. and like all of them, flawed from the outset - this guy is happy with Linux or BSD, and nothing will ever top that.. alas, this is not the final flaw in this article;

swipey bullshit - can be disabled. explore system preferences.

why customise perfection - bullshit with a hint of straw man. OS X is not perfect, i think there are few people that claim that. perfection would preclude any more work on the OS. want GCC? install it. it's not hard. proof,

        % uname && gcc --version
        Darwin
        gcc (GCC) 4.9.2
        Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
        warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE

botched package management - OS X doesn't have a native one, yes. in my experience, they all suck. and for someone that wants to know everything that's going on, i'd be surprised if he didn't build from source for everything.

horrible developer workflow - what? firstly, it's so similar to linux, what is he talking about? i don't know any OS X users that build on a virtual machine, unless they are wishing to replicate the exact running environment of a system. in which case, people do that on linux too.

filesystem pollution - aha! the first almost valid complaint! although it's in a compliment sandwich kind of format - bullshit, valid complaint, more bullshit. System is for OS X internals resources and libraries. Library is common resources for applications. done.

but here it comes, a valid complaint! yes! HFS+ is terrible. apple very nearly did switch to ZFS a long time ago, alas it fell through for some unknown reason. shame. HFS+ is case sensitive, although the default option for Apple is to disable this behaviour. whilst i do not like this, when you consider that they're aiming for windows converts.. well..

hardware - all EFI firmware is proprietary. apple don't have an open-source update tool, but so what? most UEFI motherboards have an auto-updater built into their firmware. good luck finding the source for that.

this guy loves linux. so stick with it. have your hidden partition of OS X on a removable drive (because you can do that) for firmware updates. or use a regular laptop. the article had as much content in as an article titled "i ate a faal curry.. and it was too spicy for me!"

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