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X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

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Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#71

Post by xentronium »

acdha wrote: post #51
ap22213 wrote: post #27

For me, OS X has increasingly become too difficult for use in development. For a while there, it was the best, especially with tools like homebrew. But, it's just become too much of a headache. Too often, I find myself wasting hours trying to get over small OSS compatibility hurdles. More and more, I've been finding myself picking up my 'other' laptop, firing up VirtualBox, and running Linux straight. I do miss the b…

I'm curious, what do you have problems with? For me it's been smooth sailing since around 10.5 or so - and the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools.

> the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools

Projects that assume OS X are even worse. Homebrew, for example, hardcodes gcc as gcc-4.2. I tried working with gcc-4.7 (which is ridiculously easy to install using homebrew), but so many build recipes broke, that I had to just give up and reset to apple-gcc-4.2.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#72

Post by derleth »

untog wrote: post #43
tomstuart wrote: post #4

Imagine if Apple removes [the floppy drive] itself in the next version of [the Mac], or decides [wi-fi] is the future and gets rid of [the Ethernet port]?

Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward benefits, though. Removing software, less so.

> Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward benefits, though.

What were those clear and straightforward benefits?

To the consumer, I mean; not to Apple.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#73

Post by [deleted] »

Zak wrote: post #64
xutopia wrote: post #24

What I find disturbing here is the expectation that they would include it. I was speaking to a Microsoft evangelist two years ago and asked him why it took them so long to release a new version of Windows. He essentially told me that Microsoft does the best legacy support in the world and wanted to ensure that every single piece of important software could still be installed and work with the new version. He also exp…

only developers and system admins would want it installed False. While I do make software and know how to handle situations like this, my other work is making light shows for concerts. I sometimes make use of a PC-based controller (Chamsys MagicQ PC) and recently had to borrow a Macbook to run it when I left my Thinkpad's power supply at a venue. The Mac version seems to be a port of the Linux version, itself a deskt…

[deleted]

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#74

Post by azar1 »

Zak wrote: post #64
xutopia wrote: post #24

What I find disturbing here is the expectation that they would include it. I was speaking to a Microsoft evangelist two years ago and asked him why it took them so long to release a new version of Windows. He essentially told me that Microsoft does the best legacy support in the world and wanted to ensure that every single piece of important software could still be installed and work with the new version. He also exp…

only developers and system admins would want it installed False. While I do make software and know how to handle situations like this, my other work is making light shows for concerts. I sometimes make use of a PC-based controller (Chamsys MagicQ PC) and recently had to borrow a Macbook to run it when I left my Thinkpad's power supply at a venue. The Mac version seems to be a port of the Linux version, itself a deskt…

the complicated series of steps here seems to be:

1. Get alert from OS that you need X11 to run this app.

2. Click link to get XQuartz

3. Install XQuartz

It's a one-time difficulty install that basically amounts to the same thing as a user installing Flash or Java on their computer. Just because some amount of users need something doesn't mean that Apple has to provide it.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#75

Post by derleth »

nicholassmith wrote: post #69
smackfu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple has a long history of removing what most users don't use. Apple has a long history of removing what they think users shouldn't use.

And they're generally right as well.

Tell that to jwz:

http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/07/apple-dicks/

The fact it was eventually resolved changes nothing about how idiotic the process to that point was.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#76

Post by nicholassmith »

derleth wrote: post #75
nicholassmith wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they're generally right as well.

Tell that to jwz: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/07/apple-dicks/ The fact it was eventually resolved changes nothing about how idiotic the process to that point was.

That was an app store thing, not a hardware decision.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#77

Post by derleth »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #61

Apple should remove Terminal.app and replace it with a stub that prompts you to install iTerm2.

Apple may well decide that the Macintosh should go back to being a Macintosh and remove Terminal.app period.

It's undeniably what Jobs would do.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#79

Post by untog »

derleth wrote: post #72
untog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward benefits, though. Removing software, less so.

> Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward benefits, though. What were those clear and straightforward benefits? To the consumer, I mean; not to Apple.

To an extreme example, the Macbook Air.

More generally, saving space, allowing you to add different things inside a laptop. I realise you could argue the same for hard disk space, but it's not anywhere near as limited.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#80

Post by ap22213 »

acdha wrote: post #51
ap22213 wrote: post #27

For me, OS X has increasingly become too difficult for use in development. For a while there, it was the best, especially with tools like homebrew. But, it's just become too much of a headache. Too often, I find myself wasting hours trying to get over small OSS compatibility hurdles. More and more, I've been finding myself picking up my 'other' laptop, firing up VirtualBox, and running Linux straight. I do miss the b…

I'm curious, what do you have problems with? For me it's been smooth sailing since around 10.5 or so - and the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools.

Yesterday, it was 'pip install matplotlib' (through virtualenvwrapper). Just a few days earlier, it was getting a dev version of paramiko to work with ansible.

Most likely, both were user errors of some sort, but instead of spending a few hours trying to wade through homebrew recipes, I just decided to boot up ubuntu.

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