Linked by Eugenia Loli on Wed 1st Aug 2007 20:09 UTC
Talk, Rumors, X Versus Y If you're a Vista-wary Windows user who would rather switch than fight, should you move to a Linux distro or Apple's OS X? InformwationWeek asked a Mac fan and a Linux advocate to lead a guided tour of each OS.
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RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X
by milles21 on Wed 1st Aug 2007 21:12 UTC in reply to "RE: Linux vs. OS X"
milles21
Member since:
2006-11-08

Here we go again with the you can run Linux on just about every piece of hardware. I am sure you can if you try hard enough, but damn a brand new T60p out the box ubuntu 7.10 fails without tweaking, Fedora 7 fails without google and tweaking, SUSE 10.2 completes but hell things don't work.

I am not bashing Linux but I am sure you can run Linux on a older system but it always appears that you have to run lats years model to install correctly. Anything else you hacve to fiddle sorry after 2200.00 I don't want to fiddle I want to be productive.

Welcome OSX, I will take it and my new Unix 03 certification and run with it.

Reply Parent Score: 6

RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X
by mesomaan on Wed 1st Aug 2007 21:35 in reply to "RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X"
mesomaan Member since:
2006-01-04

>>>ubuntu 7.10 fails without tweaking,

You do realize that 7.10 means October 2007. Why do you expect something planned for future release to 'just work'?????

Reply Parent Score: 8

RE[4]: Linux vs. OS X
by milles21 on Wed 1st Aug 2007 23:14 in reply to "RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X"
milles21 Member since:
2006-11-08

I do realize that I spoke of 7.10 That is because the t60p came out after 6.04. What I am saying is that it really is a pain when you have a hardware vendor such as Dell or IBM and you cannot upgrade the system without having to tweak and install this and that. However in the defense of Linux I recognize that the issue lies with the OEM's and that they could indeed select and configure hardware that has Linux ope n drivers out of the box. Or they could pre-install drivers and the way that they do with Windows.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X
by archiesteel on Wed 1st Aug 2007 22:44 in reply to "RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X"
archiesteel Member since:
2005-07-02

Here we go again with the you can run Linux on just about every piece of hardware.


Who said this, exactly? Anonymous Penguin said "you can run Linux on your existing hardware (normally)", which clearly does not imply that it runs on "just about every piece of hardware", while Bit_Rapist talked only of the x86 hardware he already had.

I am not bashing Linux


How do you explain the knee-jerk reply that misrepresented what the two previous posters had said, then?

it always appears that you have to run lats years model to install correctly


Appearances can be deceiving. The *smart* thing to do is to check if the hardware is compatible *before* buying it.

Welcome OSX, I will take it and my new Unix 03 certification and run with it.


Do you realize that you just criticized Linux for not running on all hardware, and then championed OSX? Surely you're aware that OSX runs on *less* hardware than Linux?

Look, all three big OSes have their advantages and disadvantages. These pissing contests are becoming quite tiresome...

Reply Parent Score: 6

RE[4]: Linux vs. OS X
by milles21 on Wed 1st Aug 2007 23:21 in reply to "RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X"
milles21 Member since:
2006-11-08

Do you realize that you just criticized Linux for not running on all hardware, and then championed OSX? Surely you're aware that OSX runs on *less* hardware than Linux


What I was saying that you clearly missed was that you can purchase a new system and have to tweak some Linux OS's to make run on that brand new system. I don't criticize OS X for it's lack of hardware support because I know that that is not the goal of OSX. However I do know that when I buy my macbook and go home and boot it up OSX recognizes all my parts in my macbook.

Also FYI constructive criticism is what I was supplying your interpretation was bashing that is why I made it a point to say that I was not bashing it. I use it on servers where I don't user OSX server as for the OS it is top notch once configured and tweaked. That does not remove the fact that in a server environment it took forever to get stable SATA support in major Linux distros when I had new servers already shipping with it. Therefor I prefer the power of unix in OSX on the mac hardware I don't see anything wrong with that.

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X
by anda_skoa on Wed 1st Aug 2007 23:31 in reply to "RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X"
anda_skoa Member since:
2005-07-07

....a brand new T60p out the box ubuntu 7.10 fails without tweaking, Fedora 7 fails without google and tweaking [...] Welcome OSX, I will take it and my new Unix 03 certification and run with it.


OSX on an IBM Thinkpad T60p? Now this is what I would call tweaking!

Reply Parent Score: 5

RE[4]: Linux vs. OS X
by apoclypse on Wed 1st Aug 2007 23:54 in reply to "RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X"
apoclypse Member since:
2007-02-17

Yeah, they forget to mention that OSX came pre-installed on their mac. People should really try to compare apples to apples (no pun intended). BTW, have they tried a vanilla install of windows on these machines, I've had issues with the images we have at work, the T60p has a lot of hardware, one of which I think is an ATI video chip.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X
by funny_irony on Thu 2nd Aug 2007 04:48 in reply to "RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X"
funny_irony Member since:
2007-03-07

I totally agree with you. With Linux, you must try to find out whether the distro can support the hardware.

Otherwise, you will end up installing 1001 distros of Linux and find the one that can work.

By the time you find one Linux distro that works, your hardware is obsolete.

Reply Parent Score: 0

RE[4]: Linux vs. OS X
by lemur2 on Thu 2nd Aug 2007 04:49 in reply to "RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X"
lemur2 Member since:
2007-02-17

I totally agree with you. With Linux, you must try to find out whether the distro can support the hardware.

Otherwise, you will end up installing 1001 distros of Linux and find the one that can work.

By the time you find one Linux distro that works, your hardware is obsolete.


FUD. Pure and utter FUD. You have been called on it.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X
by tpchur on Thu 2nd Aug 2007 04:54 in reply to "RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X"
tpchur Member since:
2007-02-12

Ummm. My T60p installed and runs ubuntu perfectly and I'm a new linux user so I have no clue on how to tweak it. I still love my G5 iMac though. It's still my main computer and it probably will remain that way for years to come.

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[3]: Linux vs. OS X
by psychicist on Thu 2nd Aug 2007 15:57 in reply to "RE[2]: Linux vs. OS X"
psychicist Member since:
2007-01-27

You are correct that this kind of things happens and it is largely a problem with quality assurance in the various Linux distributions.

Therefore for all the patching and breaking that the various "market leaders" are doing I'd rather have they thoroughly test their creations instead of putting out broken distributions that the end user has to patch and configure before it is usable.

I saw this kind of thing years ago and I'm sad that it's still happening when Linux should be a mature platform and not an everlasting playground anymore to at least cater to the mythical common user (there are developer/geek distributions for that such Debian unstable and Fedora).

A few weeks ago my dual-booted SUSE 10.2 installation even lost its network connection forever and that was the last straw to make me erase it and I will probably never run it again anymore despite its polish, userfriendliness and precompiled packages.

That's why I've been running Slackware for the last few years, one of the few distributions where quality is paramount even if there are not that many applications included. I have scripts and packages for all the things I tend to use and I'm very happy that it stays out of my way.

If this distribution was not around I'd probably be using Solaris or FreeBSD as my main operating system by now or even have (reluctantly ) bought a Mac. Debian and Ubuntu are also pretty nice and stable but not really to my liking. I will install either for anyone that wants any of them, though.

Reply Parent Score: 1