91–100 of 304 posts
Most importantly, there is a weird anti-Ubuntu sentiment around their efforts to build a better user experience that is making even less likely that developers are going to rally around Linux anytime soon.
Missing a killer feature here, at least for me: High-DPI support. No environment on Linux deals with high-DPI adequately yet. Between that and the other big one mentioned in the article, multitouch trackpad support, there is simply no way I can compromise. There isn't really anything else tying me down to OS X, but those two are huge. They're the only major changes I've seen in my workflow and desktop experience in t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this article really fails to mention the superior build quality of the MPB, which I think is one of the biggest reasons they are popular
I really did look around at OEM laptops when I was deciding what to buy. I wanted a laptop which would run Unix, but besides of Dell I could not find any. I was afraid that Chromebook would not have provided the hardware I wanted and I did not to pay extra for Windows license, which I'd never use anyway. After that, I think there were still Lenovo Yoga 2, Samsung Series 9 and rMBP on my list. However, after reading a…
I think shortly we will see the monopoly that Apple has on high end well designed laptops will come to an end.
I've used OS X at work for the past 2 years and I completely disagree that OS X is nice for developers. I've had a lot of issues that I wouldn't have had if I was using a GNU/Linux distro like Debian. Major issues with GCC after certain updates, outdated GNU software like bash, brew is barely acceptable as a package manager (can't hold a candle to dpkg/apt), and I have to go to websites to get the installers for most…
When OS X came out, Steve Jobs promised an OS that would cater to pro users as well as amateurs. He literally said so in one of his keynotes. But around 2006, Apple started focusing on the upcoming iPhone and downprioritized OS X development. Nowadays it's all about making OS X more and more like iOS. They no longer care about pro users.
Case in point: If you're doing pentesting you need a machine that stays silent when connected to a network. With OS X you always have mDNSResponder blaring out. Prior to 10.6 you'd just solve this with a simple "launchctl unload" and be done with it. From 10.6 however, unicast DNS resolution was moved into mDNSResponder, so you need to keep it running or you lose the ability to resolve anything in the DNS. Of course it's possible to filter the multicast DNS announcements with pf, but it turns out that mDNSResponder will occasionally resolve various apple.com and Akamai addresses and that can't be disabled.
Same with IPv6 link-local addressing, it used to be possible to disable it completely, now that's no longer possible because they've dumbed down the UI. And when you use WiFi, OS X will regularly send 802.1X EAPOL messages out. That can't be disabled even with pf because pf doesn't filter on layer 2. Under these circumstances I find OS X to be unusable for pentesting.
And don't get me started on the laughable HFS filesystem and the non-existence of a package manager.
I think there are additional reasons MacBooks are more popular. Certainly you can't ignore the bandwagon effect. All the cool kids have MacBooks. I'm not saying that's why everyone owns one, but you can't discount it as a reason. Also, the hardware is really nice. I know I'm making Stallman cringe when I say it, but Apple makes products that are enjoyable to use. And if you're going to use the Apple hardware, OS X is…
I think today you'll be cooler not using a mac... Herd mentality causes the non mac user to be the new 'individual free thinking anarchist'
I believe that the inflection point for the beginning of Apple being cool was when they announced OS X, and the other inflection point was maybe around the iPhone 3GS.
I think there are additional reasons MacBooks are more popular. Certainly you can't ignore the bandwagon effect. All the cool kids have MacBooks. I'm not saying that's why everyone owns one, but you can't discount it as a reason. Also, the hardware is really nice. I know I'm making Stallman cringe when I say it, but Apple makes products that are enjoyable to use. And if you're going to use the Apple hardware, OS X is…
I think today you'll be cooler not using a mac... Herd mentality causes the non mac user to be the new 'individual free thinking anarchist'
Unfortunately, what could you use besides a Mac? An X1? They aren't that great. I wish for just one PC laptop that gets trackpad right. Just one!
Adobe OS. Take the Linux kernel, systemd and command line tools. Put a great gui on top. With Creative Suite and Open Office. Steam for games. Be prescriptive with the hardware re drivers. No crapware/bloatware (though Adobe have been guilty of this). Give developers the ability to make money with apps/content via purchase, subscription or ads.
He is correct about the availability of the development environment - back then the home user had to use Linux (or BSD) to get a Unix-type environment. Since MacOS has a NeXTSTEP core, this is no longer necessary.
I go to a lot of Android meetings and presentations, sometimes hosted by Google. Most of the people are using Macs, I'm kind of the odd man out with my System76 laptop running Ubuntu. It may be a generational thing, I'm in my 40's, many of the people there are in their 20's.
What is the most popular Linux OS for desktops/laptops/netbooks? I don't trust self-reported statistics, so my best source is the sixth (according to Alexa) most popular site on the Internet( http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOpera... ). It's logs show that Ubuntu is the #1 Linux desktop, and Fedora is the #2 Linux desktop. Fedora only has about a 17% advantage over Linux desktop #3, SUSE, but Ubuntu has a huge lead over Fedora and all the other Linux desktop distros combined. There are over 100 Ubuntu desktop installs for every Fedora install.
So on some level, you're stuck with Ubuntu if you want a user-friendly Linux distro. When Ubuntu came out, they were very innovative in some areas, especially ease of use. I don't know how many times in the past prior to Ubuntu that I've had to manually set my X-Windows configurations so as to get X working, this is now gone. Only seven years back, Red Hat wasn't even using package handlers like yum in an official sense. Ubuntu helped push things forward in an area that had been ignored for a long time.
On the other hand, as I said, you're kind of stuck with Ubuntu. Canonical is not that friendly with its upstreams, it makes forks which are probably unnecessary and then doesn't even really maintain them well. Ubuntu's bug reporting system has gone way downhill - reported bugs tend to just sit in the launchpad queue until some Canonical administrator closes it after a few months due to lack of interest - "upgrade to the new version". Ubuntu's latest version not only has the "close window" button on the top left (as opposed to the more common top right) of the screen, they now modified the code so as that you can not change it to the right. So in a way it's becoming more like MacOS with an inability to tweak the system.
Also - Ubuntu comes out with a new version every six months. I just upgraded to 14.04, the April 2014 release. The python library to deal with RDF in python is rdflib. On Ubuntu 14.04 the package is python-rdflib. They use rdflib version 2.4.2, which was released in May 2009. We're now up to rdflib 4.1.2, and Ubuntu is shipping with this version of the library which is five years old. This goes back to the theme of Ubuntu being disconnected from its upstreams. I have been doing spreadsheets in Gnumeric and those have broken in several places with my recent system upgrade, one bug of which I reported which is still sitting in the queue.
A few months ago I got fed up with Ubuntu and installed Debian on one of my disk partitions thinking I might switch over. Debian did not recognize my network card, nor did it recognize my wireless network card. This is the kind of problem I had with Linux 20 years ago - it is often why I would choose FreeBSD for a machine install over Linux back then.
I understand how this is open source and I can do work to fix my own problems in a variety of ways. I do this though, and have done this - from sending bug reports, to sending patches and updated packages based off those packages. When distros have good relationships with their upstreams, and a decent bug tracking system, this process works well. Nowadays, Ubuntu overwhelmingly dominates the Linux distro market but many of its processes are broken in terms of an open source ecosystem. They seem to be more focused on an integrated desktop/mobile user environment than anything else at the moment. Yet in many ways they're the only game in town since they seem to at least be able to recognize network and wifi cards without difficulty.
Time goes and when was needed to buy another computer, I couldn't find any good reason to buy another mac. And a great reason to not use: it's not free (as in speech).
I've used OS X at work for the past 2 years and I completely disagree that OS X is nice for developers. I've had a lot of issues that I wouldn't have had if I was using a GNU/Linux distro like Debian. Major issues with GCC after certain updates, outdated GNU software like bash, brew is barely acceptable as a package manager (can't hold a candle to dpkg/apt), and I have to go to websites to get the installers for most…
I use a macbook, but agree with you. Unfortunately as a piece of hardware it seems to me virtually unrivalled, the latest internal components are available to new machines promptly, they have great displays with loads of real estate, long battery life, very good manufacturer support and the 13" is a superb, thin form factor for travelling with. I run a cluster of Linux VMs on it using vagrant so it's just my browser,…
What you will find is a lot of people repeating the claim about Apple hardware and the OS. A belief based it seems on one fact - they are happy with their Mac and haven't used anything else for ages, so how can other computers possibly be as good.
We know also that the glowing Apple logo proudly displayed by too many DJs, speakers at conferences, and certain movies and TV shows, is an effective marketing campaign. Ever-present, hitching a free ride on whatever is taking place on stage. This matters, it's not like a Marshall logo on speaker stacks, it's more prominent, center stage, often the only light source in frame.
I wish more presenters and performers opted out of the glowing marketing campaigns of the equipment they use. The brand of your equipment is not the reason why you're up there presenting.