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File systems is totally boring to me. What am I missing?
So, I am running OS X, subjectively I must say that it just works and feels quite fast. What am I missing compared to Linux regarding file systems?

I know HPS+ is really old and that they had to add something to it to get all that images of the entire disk in Time Machine. And I heard that ZFS is coming, but should I really feel bad that I don't have one of the file systems that linux distros use? What would be better in my daily writing and reading on my mac?

Edited 2008-02-08 06:49 UTC

Very true. Hopefully, Apple can polish ZFS implementation for 10.6.

While FLOSS benefits from commercial success, it goes on irrespectively, particularly because its revenue stream is primarily tied to support services instead of licenses.

Which means that:

a) Those who don't have support or hardware to sell probably can't make money with FLOSS, unless they're gonna sell t-shirts or something. This would hurt most (if not all) COTS vendors and micro ISVs.
b) Do you think that those FLOSS companies who depend on support services as their revenue stream are going to make their apps easy to use so that you didn't need support to begin with? Probably not.

in response to b:

I truly don't believe, opensource companies will make their products harder to use: because of several reasons:

-: A lot of companies want support, so they can poke someone when something goes terribly wrong etc, not because their own experts can't work with the software

-: competition can use usability to create their products more appealing, (unless they suddenly all agree to generate equally bad products)

-: tech support already get's loads of phone calls about truly basic questions for the so-called user friendly software (ex: "Where's the 'anykey'?").

-: creating a steep learning curve, scares away a lot of users and potential developers etc
(currently I'm learning Cg and if nVidia made it difficult, I would never started learning it on my own)

Of course those are just couple reasons for a sane company, I've seen enough companies that do wacky stuff

A. means that you are not really important if you don't MAKE hardware. Think of the record industry and who makes money.. those who make songs are a dime a dozen and easily replaced, those who have connections to who owns the CD presses make a mint...for now.

B. Support is about fixing things... correctly. Again, I can buy all the parts to fix my car or plumbing at the discount store for cheap.. it doesn't make me a car mechanic or plumber though... those jobs are very much still needed and people still pay even though they could replace the parts on their own.

Think of how much harder Red Hat or IBM works for their money on support contracts making software something useful versus Microsoft that sells shiny discs to OEMs with almost no support or performance guaranteed. one is going away soon, guess which one.

Look at IBM or Asus for hardware. EeePC is cheap.. but somebody has to MAKE it. That several million dollars of sunk cost in machinery to make 1 unit. IBM big iron servers are even more expensive to make.. billions to make CPUs. Software like windows or linux is cheap (lots of labor but little capital cost), and OS has almost no value, unless you are Apple and use it as a marketing tool for your Hardware. In the old days, software was part of what made the computer "go". It was necessary, but hardware sales was the point. Stuff like eeePC is pushing the cost of hardware down so far only freely available tools are cheap enough.

Well, the fact that there are mechanisms to plug in the support should be good enough. If you make a format, you can certainly make the necessary plugin to make it work with Windows. It's a bit hard (but possible) with filesystems, but for codecs and image formats, the extensiblity story is pretty easy.

Thing is, for many people out there, the reverse would be more interesting, until Linux users are still "somewhat" less in numbers. The question never was whether plugins can be made or extensibility is hard or not. They [i.e. the Windows side] simply don't do it, because it's one of the ways to keep themselves afloat.

I disagree. To some degree, every OS has its disciples (or "true believers", if you will), who treat a particular personality (Gates, Jobs, Torvalds, etc) as some kind of Messiah. That kind of slavish devotion is clearly on view, and it's disturbing, cult-like behavior, in my opinion.

From the Wiki:

"Cult typically refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream, with a notably positive or negative popular perception. In common or populist usage, "cult" has a positive connotation for groups of art, music, writing, fiction, and fashion devotees, but a negative connotation for new religious, extreme political, questionable therapeutic, and pyramidal business groups. For this reason, most, if not all, non-fan groups that are called cults reject this label.

A group's populist cult status begins as rumors of its novel belief system, its great devotions, its idiosyncratic practices, its perceived harmful or beneficial effects on members, or its perceived opposition to the interests of mainstream cultures and governments. Cult rumors most often refer to artistic and fashion movements of passing interest, but persistent rumors may escalate popular concern about relatively small and recently founded religious movements, or non-religious groups, perceived to engage in excessive member control or exploitation."



I actually would prefer to deal with Torvalds than Gates or Jobs, because at least Torvalds speaks his mind. You know where he's coming from; whereas, I suspect that Gates and Jobs would come at you from the shadows. So, Torvalds may not be right much, but he is fundamentally honest.

Edited 2008-02-08 08:57 UTC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(disambiguation)

"Cult, a cohesive group of people **devoted to beliefs** **or practices** that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream."

Windows , Mac OS X and GNU/linux are mainstream OS ...

So not only are you not making sense , it's clear you and the author of this insulting garbage don't know the meaning of the word cult.

You need disciple to make a cult :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple

"A disciple is a follower and student of a mentor, teacher, or other wise figure. It can refer to:"

So all that you said here was just a justification for your baseless usual religious based themed insults and show a sign of clear deformation and of lack of education and of understanding on your part.

By your failed logic , incorect definition and missinterpretation , anyone who use an OS is a cultist ...

Seem to me that what you wrote here was just pure garbage.

You need to adjust your thinking a bit. That fact that we're talking about belief systems that revolve around mainstream products is irrelevant. Belief systems can revolve around ANYTHING. Gods. OSes. Marijuana. The occult. Animals. Golden calves. Pretty much anything you can think of. For example, David Koresh (leader of the ill-fated Branch Davidian cult in Waco Texas) considered himself a Christian and he regularly invoked Christian principles, but I don't think any sane person would claim that he was a mainstream Christian. His belief system went WAY, WAY beyond anything that Christians believe. That's what we're talking about here.



No, you misinterpreted what I wrote. I didn't say that anyone who uses an OS is a cultist. What I said is that there are people who treat personalities who produce operating systems as Messianic, and their belief systems are so warped (and outside the mainstream) that they self-associate their use of an operating system with a religion. We see it here on osnews.com all the time. People who can't accept ANY flaws in their particular OS. They're constantly turning things around, making it the fault of the person who finds problems, going on the attack, debasing other OSes, etc.

Edited 2008-02-09 18:14 UTC

You can pick from a variety of published definitions to suit your purposes. To say that there aren't cult-like individuals associated with Linux flies in the face of my own personal experience.

They're the people who mod down anything critical of Linux, or can't be honest about Linux's shortcomings. They're people who get *emotional* over a bunch of CODE.

There is also, definitely, a segment of the Mac world who are like this. Mac users who haven't modded me down already, I'm sure, know exactly what kind of users I'm talking about.

xBSD distributions are a little different. Most of the people who are *really into* one of the BSDs grumble under their breath (mostly at Linux users), rather than evangelize and rant. There may well be BSD zealots out there but I've never run into one. However, there are cults around certain personalities in the BSD world(s) - the DeRaadt-Stallman donnybrook brought them out of the woodwork.

There are *less* people, percentage wise, who are "cult like" about their OS, among Windows users. I think this is simply because as much as the term "Windows fanboy" is thrown around, most people use Windows as a path of least resistance in terms of hardware and software compatibility. Few Windows users have any problem complaining about its shortcomings. Few Windows users are actually enthusiastic about it *relative* to other things. Rather they tend to be unenthusiastic about competitive offerings. This is just my own personal experience and viewpoint so if there is some kind of Masonic Windows secret society of into Enochian magic and ruling the seventh Aethyr, let me know.

Undoubtedly, Linux meets my needs and wins by a such a wide margin for my purposes, that using anything else isn't something I've seriously considered (except for FreeBSD - I flirt with it occasionally, and you won't ever find me bashing it). I think more people should use Linux, but not *all* people. And I do think the circle-the-wagons mentality of some Linux users may hamper the cause, in the long run, of improving Linux.

When encounering problems with Linux, I have coupled together strings of profanity that astounded even me, and I am into profanity like some people are into microbrews or single malts - a connoisseur, so to speak, of the vulgar arts. So to surprise myself by a spontaneous outburst of filth, is quite a thing. (In the long run, this may be another positive side-effect on Linux. I must remember in those states of emotional pique to write things down for further use against, say, politicians and fellow motorists.)

But it's like a stormy relationship with both hatred and passion. Yes, this metaphor is stringing out into something disturbing, but I hope I have made my point. Linux has both *enraged* me at times, and charmed me to being weak in the knees, other times. Metaphorically - and yes I do mean *METAPHORICALLY* as in EXTREMELY ABSTRACT TERMS, so don't pick on me, Linux and I have great makeup sex.

There I said it.

But it's certainly not perfect. Someone wrote an article once (maybe posted here), called "All operating systems suck," and maybe, some just suck less, and maybe that's completely relative to the user. I have to agree with this.

Way too many people, for instance, have problems with wireless networking in Linux on Laptops, the smartass "I HAVE NO PROBLEMS, I DON'T KNOW WHAT *YOUR* PROBLEM IS" retorts notwithstanding. I still dread having to deal with CUPS, ever, especially in a mixed environment with SAMBA and Windows clients. Eric Raymond's rant about CUPS was spot on. When CUPS works, it works fairly well, but getting it to that state for me - and perhaps I am a complete moron - has been...let's say, a challenge.

It is the fact, however, that Torvalds is a bit of a jerk, that fills most Linux users with confidence. He doesn't fetishize his own OS, it's not a religious thing *to him*, he just wants great technology that serves his own purposes. This is a bit of a relief, not to speak for anyone else, for those of us who have seen the bizarre political and, okay, religious freak-outs by *certain* Linux advocates on mailing lists and webboards such as this one.

What would make all of us happier, no matter which OS we use, is to stop looking at this as some kind of war for the soul of the galaxy. Many of us are practical about something like an OS, but clearly, many others are not. If we can all just admit where our OS sucks (no one has a problem trumpeting where our OS of choice succeeds), everyone's desktop can get better.

I will say this though. Whatever my problems with it, my relationship with Linux hasn't been a ho-pimp one. I've been screwed by Linux (both in the good and bad way), but I've never, ever *paid* for the privilege. And that's one of the many of the things I like about it.

Speaking metaphorically, of course.

Oh god, I need some sunlight.

Agreed, but it makes me wonder why he basically showed a *shrug* response to Tivo's attempt to lock its devices.

How hard is it to get his name right?

That's the best you can come up with as a retort?

Wow...

Well, if they cant even get the simple basics right why should I bother coming up with something better?

Because complaining about spelling or grammar isn't interesting for the discussion.

I think it's the greatest trick the devil pulled to make people believe "Macs just work". If I have a look at one of the best known German support forums, there are about 46.000 entries in the XP + Vista forum and 23.000 in the OSX one. seeing how there are 20x more MS installations out there, I am not so sure whether OSX really just works. Also, I cannot think about a single Apple product that had its class action suit (or was close to it) for crappy hardware. The Mac people I know ask me about the same weird issues with their machines as the MS people do. I can see no difference. Well, actually I do: For Apple controls hard + software, and claims to "just work", things are not sooo great.

But there is probably also "20x" as many windows support forums.

Umm, try OSX Leopard server and see if it just works. In fact, go down the list at http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/ and find me one that works. Compared to Tiger, we could only get 1 of those features working properly (when we tried to use WPA+Radius for instance on the Airport extreme, all the clients only intermittantly connected), and only 2 or 3 we don't use in every day operations.


And yeah, hate to break it to you mate, but failure rates on specific Mac gear, such as laptops, is enormous. I know, I used to sell them. And what really tops it off, is that the moment you speak to apple about it, instead of them helping you, they start off with a massive sales pitch for an extended warranty (which is why the forums are so full).


And Vista is heavily underrated. Well, the scheduler is crap atm, and it does have a few issues at the moment, but it will get back on track.


But I can agree on one thing, Linux, especially with KDE4 (which appears to have dumped the final Linux annoyances such as ARTS which were holding it back), definately will see a climb upward, provided people don't start becoming too political about it.

>He also doesn't use much desktop software. Actually he
>doesn't use much software at all that most people use.

How do you know THAT??

He may not _develop_ desktop software, but how do you come to the idea that he doesnt use every-day software at all?

Isn't it more common for a port to be changed to run on the system it's ported to, rather than changing the system so it can run the port?

Well According to Gabe, Valve wanted OS X to make chances to accommodate it's port of Half Life 2 simply because OS X is not good to develop for. So it's either one or the other, I dont see game devs saying the same thing about Linux, it's just OS X from what I read and been told is so damn closed in that respect, they even have nvidia drivers from Apple, no AA or AF controls, it's very weak for gaming.

Edited 2008-02-08 09:48 UTC

That was the best line of the story...

Linus thinks that the Linux kernel is an operating system. That's why he always talks about "Linux" operating system, instead of "GNU/Linux".

If you agree with Linus, then upgrading the Linux OS to a newer version is, indeed, a trivial task that is quite invisible to typical desktop users. Especially users of the "rolling release" type of distros can upgrade the Linux kernel among other package upgrades that their distro provides without paying any special attention to it. The Linux kernel gets then automatically upgraded the next time they boot their computer.

With reference to the last couple of kernel upgrades, I'd have to disagree with you. Myself and quite a few others have ended up with unusable wireless equipment after what changes have been made to the new kernel, and I can think of a few times in the past when the userland has needed fixing after an upgrade.

You're right. KDE and Gnome do add abstraction layers that make the unterlying OS (nearly) invisible, so you can use and administrate your system no matter if it's running Linux, BSD or Solaris. On the other hand, this kind of comfort is something you usually pay with speed and response because each additional layer does need certain amounts of CPU cycles or memory.

This is nothing bad per se, but it's worth mentioning. Because today's computers are extremely overpowered, this should not be a problem. :-)

Ah yes, and problems... they occur as soon as you leave the path of KDE or Gnome, maybe you want to use a nonstandard (e. g. German) language or if you need to install something that is not part of KDE or Gnome and does not integrate with it. Of course, this is something you are completely free to do, and you can do it without major problems (just imagine this setting under "Windows" or Mac OS X).

But Linux, as well as the UNIX OSes, provide excellent means of diagnostics if a problem occurs, so if you are willing to fix the problem, you get many hints from the OS. And even if you don't want to bother with the problem, you can assist a friendly community to help you, telling them more than just the obvious "Nothing no works!" :-)



Maybe it is a strange fact, but... computers aren't easy. They have never been and won't be within the near future. Complex tasks usually involve complex operations. But still, strange people have strange expectations... :-)

But I completely agree with you. Even today, when Linux does belong to the most advanced OSes, it's still a bit picky about its users. Even the best GUI solutions don't seem to be able to compensate this fact completely, but they do a good job getting more interest towards Linux and similar "excentric" OSes. Finally, KDE and Gnome still depend on the interfaces that the OS provides to them. It's just a question how much abstraction and filterin they add, and if the (intended) complexity of the OS is or should be visible or at least be usable to the user. Dumbing everything down may be a solution for certain kinds of users, but it definitely isn't the ultimate solution. Because if the OS should be invisible, all OSes would have to share certain standards, and I think this is something we won't see very soon.

If you haven't tried Linux recently, you are not really in a position to comment.

Do yourself a favour, and get hold of a recent-release Linux distribution LiveCD. It will run just fine on almost any PC including Macs (you can even get a variant for non-Intel Macs). If you really want an apples-for-apples comaprison, run it on a PC or Mac tested to work by some other party ... Dell, HP, System76, Zareason, ASUS EEEPC or Lenovo can set you straight there.

A Linux distribution LiveCD will boot from nothing straight into a fully working desktop (fully populated with normal desktop applications, including Office suite) on such a michine, without you having to enter even one single click to configure it. Menus, Windows, mouse, system tray, icons & file manager will all work in a way that is entirely similar to a Windows or Mac desktop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_cd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gnoppix-0.8.1beta5.png

The epitome of the "try before you buy" concept.

No learning curve whatsoever.

Oh, BTW, it will also be able to read and write to a Windows NTFS filesystem if you ask it to. Do a bit of google research about a "System rescue CD".

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Edited 2008-02-08 01:45 UTC

Please stop spreading ... statements being not exactly true. Linux-based OSes are still complex, unfriendly and just like other OSes geting more and more bloat every year. Compare memory requirements of Live-CD installers of recent four versions of Ubuntu. Now it is at least 320 MB as far as I remember. And dont talk about things like Fluxbuntu, because things like that are even more useless and unfriendly and re-implementation of Windows 3.1 Program Manager-style interface could be far more useful than those "right-mouse-button" interfaces like Fluxbox.

And what changed in last ten years in user configuration ? Are you certain that I can configure - for example - USB Irda port - without invoking command line and compiling from sources ? Vistaish eyecandy in Ubuntu (unstable and bloat) and similar distros are only thing that changed in LinuxOS user experience in last ten years. And I assure you - I know what I talk about. I tried things such Red Hat 7.0 or Corel Linux those days. Did you?

So nothing changed in Linux world. Except memory and processing power requirements. Let him to use his Mac if he like it. It IS better than any Linux.

Edited 2008-02-08 13:39 UTC

Ubuntu 7.10 is far superior to OS X Leopard 10.5.1.
I don't say that lightly, I love my Mac, but it has now been surpassed.

Windows was long ago, and Vista is playing catch-up, but Linux is light-years ahead of everything else.

Now, instead of trying to shoot down the last post with your lame attempts at shilling, you should actually do what the guy said, and download a live-cd and give it a go...

dziekuje

I already have more than 150 Linux-related DVDs and CDs in my collection. And talking about trying out - recently I tried to install DirectX 9.0c in Wine (there are some howtos about it) and it failed. Since that moment I started to wonder how can I get rid that stack in some ecological-friendly manner.

No - what he is saying is that the kernel itself is invisible to the user (or as good as it's possible to be). What you are referring to are userland applications, which are NOT part of the kernel.

I personally think Linus is right, hfs/+ isn't the best file system, but it is old, and it is relatively stable. Apple already has long term intentions to use ZFS, so they know hfs etc has limitations.

Linus is absolutely spot on with is comments about proprietary operating systems - their primary design is to lock you into that platform - that is not a good way to design an operating system imho. You only have to look at how well Linux as a whole plays with other file systems, bootloaders, how well it ports to different cpu architectures etc. It's open. OS X and Windows are not open, never have been, and never will be.

Dave

Well, I just had to say that you got the slashes all wrong So, it's probably not exactly easy...


(Just so you guys know, I understand the parent was being sarcastic, I just thought I couldn't ignore the joke there)

so THAT'S why i couldn't get it work!

thanks for the tip!

Yeah, apparently he's trying to run it on the file ./megaultrahax0rbin, since the \ tells bash to quote the next character. Those switches are freaky too -- he uses -l three times.

Seriously, just do 'mkinvsbl -lnxorya /mega/ultra/hax0r/bin /chomp'.


More seriously, how invisible linux is depends a lot on what you define as linux. The kernel is fine for invisibility; the only thing I've ever done to it is add drivers (modprobe coretemp and e1000), and you have to do that with windows too (you just use a friendly GUI and it takes longer, and you have to do it a lot more often). If you define it as GNU/linux, with most modern DTEs it's still pretty invisible as long as you stick with normal desktop use. If you define it as everything that comes with the system, then there are bits you probably want to look at (like the window manager).

And Linus wasn't talking about the window manager. If he wanted that to be more nearly invisible, he wouldn't be using KDE.

Click on Synaptic and look for "OS Invisibility Applet". Highlight and click apply. Then just right-click on the panel, Add to panel->OS Invisibility Tool".

Click on the invisibility tool in the panel. Then click OK to confirm, and you're done.