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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

#81

Post by mjwalshe »

smallsharptools wrote: post #30

This is just stupid. Who copies text from one terminal to another. You are missing the entire point of the command-line and piping. This is clearly a novice who just wants easy access to X11 because he does not know how to use the command-line tools properly. I manage remote FreeBSD servers with just Terminal. It is perfectly fine. And I never copy and paste text in terminal windows.

what a single terminal window? having multiple xterm windows is a godsend for admins.

and being able to select and past with just the mouse is a realy usefull.

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

#83

Post by gmac »

jwbaker wrote: post #38
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…

That certainly does not justify the installer removing X11 from a perfectly working Mac.

My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that an 'upgrade' is really a fresh installation, with your user data migrated across afterwards. In that context it's not really a 'removal' as such -- and it's hard to see how else they'd do it.

I'm actually glad they made this change. In the past, XQuartz was sometimes ahead of the officially distributed version, which could be messy. Now they're the same thing.

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

#84

Post by duaneb »

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.

Their reorganization of XCode into an app bundle was really, really annoying and, frankly, makes zero sense; making the command line tools an extra download makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers (as opposed to general purpose ones).

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

#85

Post by ap22213 »

danbee wrote: post #48
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…

Couldn't you just run VirtualBox on your MacBook Pro?

I could and have. But, the performance of VirtualBox on my 2011 Lion-based MBP seems much worse than on my windows box (with comparable hardware). I have a task on my todo list to investigate.

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

#86

Post by Someone »

neverm0re wrote: post #54
mikeash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it's possible to install the technical apps, I don't really care whether they ship with the system. I don't imagine many technical users would care, although I could be wrong. You never got a compiler with Mac OS X without downloading and installing one separately, and many other tools people like to use have to be downloaded separately too.

It actually always came on the install media up until very recently.

Also until very recently, users bought the OS on DVD and installed it on gigantic hard disks.

Now, Apple optimizes for distribution over the Internet and installation on SSDs. That is also why Mac OS X no longer ships with that printer driver DVD.

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

#87

Post by super_mario »

ctdonath wrote: post #50
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #39

I wonder if Apple risks losing its technical (i.e. programmer) users. If OS X stops feeling like a UNIX-like OS to technical users, and they move away, OS X may receive less attention from developers. And that won't be good for the platform.

Apple went to great lengths to get OS X validated as a full-on UNIX. To what degree do developers in general confuse UNIX itself with good-riddance mis-associations therewith which cause unnecessary friction against modern development? (Can we drop vi already? fine paradigm unto itself, but counter to any other 21st-century UI...)

Except vi is part of POSIX specification and hence you can not be certified UNIX without it.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/toc.htm

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

ctdonath wrote: post #50
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #39

I wonder if Apple risks losing its technical (i.e. programmer) users. If OS X stops feeling like a UNIX-like OS to technical users, and they move away, OS X may receive less attention from developers. And that won't be good for the platform.

Apple went to great lengths to get OS X validated as a full-on UNIX. To what degree do developers in general confuse UNIX itself with good-riddance mis-associations therewith which cause unnecessary friction against modern development? (Can we drop vi already? fine paradigm unto itself, but counter to any other 21st-century UI...)

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

jws wrote: post #44
Camillo wrote: post #18

The X11 that Apple provided with OS X was nothing but a snapshot of whatever XQuartz version was current when that version of OS X went GM. In other words, we are now getting the exact same product, but with more timely updates. It takes a special brand of cluelessness to see that as a bad thing.

It's a good thing. X11 has joined Flash and Java in the ranks of "stuff third parties maintain". RSS removal is a different animal. Statistically speaking, no one used it (except you and me of course) but 10 minutes of app shopping and I've got a better solution running. Much better.

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by wiredfool »

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.

Smaller, lighter machine.

I had one of the first machine where they dropped the floppy. There were 2 or 3 times that it was a real pain, and the rest of the time, it just didn't matter.

Eventually, I went back to a machine with a floppy, but I wound up using zip drives instead, since the floppies were so damn small (capacity).

(BTW, that's the Powerbook 100 and 5300 I'm referring to above, but I did have a duo 230 and 2300 around that time too.)

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