There have been many recent pieces written about how a resurgent Mac is a threat to Linux. This particularly hit fever pitch when Apple decided to jump ship to Intel CPUs. The notion that the Mac is either a short or long-term threat to Linux is wrong for a number of different reasons. 10 in fact.
The reasons listed are mostly fringe considerations. When the Mac moves to Intel, many of us Linux Desktop pioneers are going to shift to a dual/tri boot system, that will include, in the priority listed:
1. Windows
2. OS X
3. Linux
Applications will further support OS X growth, not Linux. Then the trickle down affect will take place, but this will take a few years in my opinion and, all the while, Linux will remain about 10 years behind the curve.
I hope I’m wrong.
Dual booting is for tools. After the switch I’m still going to have 3 systems, although I suppose I’ll shift Linux over to my dual G5s and use my new Intel Mac as my primary workstation.
Dual booting is for tools.
Ha! You should watch it guy, you sound a bit too hardcore for osnews. Your obvious skills and impressive hardware lineup might make people jealous around here. My poweredge xeons at work are even shaking in their removable drives!
All kidding aside, it would take a large erosion of microsoft’s userbase and market share for the home user to start switching over. Apple, or rather Steve Jobs’s computer compainies, have and will probably always limit themselves from the common user. Steve Jobs has a history of being more interested in the hardware, regardless of the price, since the early mac days. He’s had three of the most advanced operating systems(for their time) with the first MacOS, NeXTstep, and OSX. While he seems somewhat concerned about the software this time around, he still loves his hardware. People tend to care far less about that. Due to that, OSX isn’t going to be exposed to as many people as it would were it not for the hardware constraints.
As an aside though, I agree that Apple is just as bad as microsoft when it comes to their way or the highway. They just can’t force it due to their small market share and influence in the market.
When the Mac moves to Intel, many of us Linux Desktop pioneers are going to shift to a dual/tri boot system, that will include, in the priority listed:
1. Windows
2. OS X
3. Linux
I doubt that – as a competent Linux/Free/NetBSD user why would I want use Windows or OS X regularly anytime soon ??? – on the contrary, as desktop Linux becomes increasingly user-friendly, more and more users will find it to be accesible and sufficient enough for their needs.
You can tell that you haven’t spent much time on a Mac lately. As user of all 3 OS’s, I would say that OS X Tiger is in definitely in the lead in terms of friendliness, ease-of-use, with Windows XP and the various Linux desktop environments all vying for a distant second.
But even more important is the quantity and quality of the apps available for each platform. Now, OS X can run the vast majority of the apps available for Linux — but, in general, Mac users don’t use the open source apps, because the usabilty a native OS X app is *so much better*. Most open source apps are way over-engineered and under-designed, meaning that they are stable and full-featured, but they don’t look and feel good and require too much expertise for the casual user to operate.
What’s worse, you have the unspoken assumption that Linux is closing the usability gap. Now, I have used KDE and Gnome and I can attest that they have done a good job closing the gap with XP. But from Jaguar to Panther to Tiger, I think the usability gap between OS X and ALL other major desktop operating systems has gotten WIDER, even as the others (except XP) have also improved.
IMO, anyone who has the money and is looking for desktop/laptop other than a Windows PC should be looking at Mac. An extra $500 is not that much to pay for something that “just works”.
An extra $500 is not that much to pay for something that “just works”
That’s more than my 2 months salary
I have never seen a Linux user who would prioritise Windows above Linux on a dual boot machine. They would either switch to Linux as their primary (even only) OS shortly after trying it, or simply go back to Windows and ignore Linux.
Mac OS X is a tougher call. Anyone who has used Mac OS X knows that it makes a competent Unix workstation. Apple has even been very good with ensuring that the user can maintain their machine from either their GUI or the Terminal. For example: AppleTalk support is just another daemon, you can mount disk images or manage the netinfo database from the command line, and so forth. Apple has even included a fairly complete set of utilities which you would find on a more “traditional” Unix workstation (eg. awk, sed, perl, vi, emacs, cscope, etc., etc., etc.).
There are only four reasons I can see for prioritising Linux over Mac OS X: either the overhead of Mac OS X will drive you up the wall (Mac OS X chews up RAM like you wouldn’t believe), it is somewhat more difficult to maintain Mac OS X system than a *BSD system (then again, popular Linux distributions are getting pretty messy too), the existing package managers don’t have the rich selection of software available for Linux (though that will change with more users), or they take the principles of free software to heart (and there is nothing wrong with that).
MacTO
– IF that’s all you got against OS X, then you don’t got much.
1) I personally like the way OS X runs and uses memory.
But, first I had 1 gig, now I’ve got 1.5.
OS X keeps more memory, generally, Inactive memory available for a longer time. This just helps to increase performance. If you app is still running keeping inactive memory ready for re-use is a good thing.
OS X breaks down memory usage patterns into three catagories:
Wired, Active and Inactive. With no demands on memory Inactive memory makes total memory used looks high, but this is just a side effect of design for performance.
Right now my machine as Wired memory of 134 meg, and active memory of 295 meg. That’s pretty much NOTHING.
because an app with those toolkits will work on all major platforms. No more Winforms would be good for everybody.
There are some good reasons. Some reasons I got derided for in a recent discussion (Mac OSX porting/Linux porting -> more porting in general in both directions, helping both Mac and Linux).
But I think he’s missing one big thing: why try Linux as an alternative if OSX provides a better alternative? In the article there’s an implicit assumption that Linux is as easy to use as the Mac (both being easier to use than Windows) and hence just as attractive.
Most people for whom OSX is ideal when Windows isn’t are the kind of people who run away screaming from Linux once they have to configure something. “Linux is just as hard as Windows you just need to learn some new things” be damned; Mac has always been superior in discoverability.
And for most users, Linux performs these tasks just as effectively, if not as elegantly, as OS X does.
Oh the wishful thinking.
But I think he’s missing one big thing: why try Linux as an alternative if OSX provides a better alternative?
Cost is one of the reason. OSX and other Mac products are quite expensive in Malaysia.
Cost is one of the reason. OSX and other Mac products are quite expensive in Malaysia.
Not really true. I’m in Malaysia, just starting out in the working world, yet I got an iBook and mac mini because they are they represent the best value for money. Expensive is only relative to your appreciation of its value.
You will get to test this theory next year when Apple switches to Intel.
At that point, you will say “I paid the most I could pay for one year of using Mac and now I have a machine worth nothing on the open market”.
Let us hope your year of Mac was worthwhile.
At that point, you will say “I paid the most I could pay for one year of using Mac and now I have a machine worth nothing on the open market”.
Let us hope your year of Mac was worthwhile.
what the hell are you talking about? I’m using the machine it does the things i need it too, with minimum fuss. My Macs are not going to suddenly stop working in a year (something i can’t say for my parent’s virus infested windows machine). Who gives a flying feck what else is on the market in the future, i bought it cause there is a job that needs to be done which it fulfills. It works now and it will still continue working tomorrow
He’s right except for saying there are a lot of IE only websites. The fact is there are fewer and fewer IE only sites nowadays – still a greater Mac market share with a default Safari will help with whats left.
All of this article is spot on. The only way that a resurgent Apple could threaten the growth of Linux on the desktop would be if Apple produced a free open source OSX not dependant on their proprietary machines – but then Hell might freeze over.
Yeah, people said the same thing about MacIntels in the first place.
Your opinion on the matter means every bit as little as mine.
That’s an excellent article – some insightful thinking there – in particular:
3) A Shift in Mindset.
For most computer users, a PC and Windows are one and the same thing.
For many users, Microsoft Office is also synonymous with Windows and the
PC, and they often use the term ‘Windows’ to refer to their
word-processor or web browser, or ‘Word’ to refer to Windows. For most
users, a computer and Microsoft are one and the same thing.
A major increase in the use of any alternate platform therefore breaks
the hegemony that Microsoft has. It will force a shift in people’s
mindset. They can’t simply think of a PC implying Windows, as an
increasing number of their friends have a PC which runs a non-Windows
platform. They can’t think of a word-processor being Word, as many home
users with Macs will use Apple’s word processor, not Microsoft’s.
4) Expanding the Comfort Zone.
I can’t prove it, but gut-feel tells me that any user who migrates from
Windows to the Mac will be far more comfortable in subsequently
migrating from an OS X interface to a Linux interface (KDE/Gnome). It’s
fairly self-obvious really: if you’ve discovered that a Windows
interface isn’t the only interface, if you’ve had to re-tool your mind
and muscle memory to shift to one alternative, any subsequent jump is
far, far less threatening.
But why would OS X users jump to Linux and not back to Windows? Well,
many of them might like the fact that they suddenly hit fewer bit-rot
problems on a non-Windows PC. They might like the fact that they hit far
fewer virus, spyware and key-logger problems now that they’ve moved away
from Windows. They might like the freshness of difference a
non-Microsoft platform and mindset brings. They might like the access to
several thousand free open source apps which have been ported to run on
the Mac’s X Window interface. There are many good reasons.
Time to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The mind, once expanded to the
dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.”
Regardless of why various new OS X users might jump over to Linux, it
seems likely that many of them, if they do decide to jump off the Mac,
are likely to try Linux before returning back to Windows.
Therefore, any increase in the Mac’s mindshare and adoption will also
raise those users’ comfort levels to perhaps try Linux.
5) Bursting Microsoft’s Momentum Bubble.
One of the reasons Microsoft ‘wins’ so often in the marketplace is that
the marketplace expects Microsoft to win. This therefore becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Anything which perturbs this process is a
serious threat to Microsoft.
If, suddenly, Microsoft has a one-in-three chance of losing a desktop PC
sale to Apple, the market will understand that Microsoft no longer
commands complete control of the desktop market. That market is now open
and in flux. It becomes easier for any alternative to play in this
fluctuating market and compete against Microsoft. Linux is the prime
alternative to gain in a fluctuating market, when that market perceives
that Microsoft’s momentum is impeded.
“Silly specifics” won’t erode Msft’s stranglehold…. – alot of the firepower is contained in the above 3 points
I agree with the author on some of the points, but have to disagree on the most important one:
But isn’t Linux less friendly than Mac OS X?
Perhaps. In some ways. But none that really matter to most non-technical
users. […] And for most users, Linux performs these tasks just as
effectively, if not as elegantly, as OS X does.
I’ve used Linux (and FreeBSD) in the past (about 3 years if you combine the two) and am now a user of OSX. It’s primarily because Linux and FreeBSD failed to deliver a positive desktop user experience (I say nothing against use as a server).
If something breaks on Linux, I have to figure it out myself. That’s great for you or me, since we have a skill set and a background that allows us to troubleshoot (and probably have extra computers around to browse the web for solutions when X or Gnome/KDE/etc won’t start).
Most people can barely use Windows effectively. Even fewer can fix it when it breaks. Do you seriously think that they’ll be able to handle the problems that come up in Linux… editing configuration files, changing file permissions, anything involving a command line?
Bottom line is that Linux is less friendly than Mac OS X or Windows, and until that changes, all of the other points (however valid) are irrelevant.
That’s a bad argument:
“Most people can barely use Windows effectively. Even fewer can fix it when it breaks. Do you seriously think that they’ll be able to handle the problems that come up in Linux… editing configuration files, changing file permissions, anything involving a command line? ”
Windows isn’t hard to troubleshoot simply because the problems are too hard for the average person to understand; it’s hard to troubleshoot because it doesn’t give you enough errors.
When I plug in a usb device on my linux box and it doesn’t pop up and work all I have to do is type dmesg and I get a great string to put into google and find the problem. Yea, that’s more than the average user should have to do: But it’s a lot easier to do that than start from nowhere when you plug your device into your windows box and it just does nothing. And yes, I’ve had that happen. On my Windows XP Pro SP2 machine I have to put the kbd and mouse in the same USB port; I don’t know why but if I switch ports they don’t work. The only place I had to try and start troubleshooting was trying stupid random things!
It’s not a bottom line buddy. I can show you points of friendliness failure for OS X as well; and yes they’re better because Apple works very hard to make sure that things work and they have a lot more controlled environment (assuming you don’t try and CLI admin like I’ve done).
If you don’t know how to administer a system you’re not going to be able to do it. The only reason most things are “easy” in Windows is because outside vendors have gone to the effort of writing frontends for every print/camera/webcam/etc device they make. If you did the same for Linux it’d be “easy” too.
So I guess you could say that today, practically, windows use is easier. But it’s not Windows; it’s third party frontends. Frankly, Windows administration is often a confusing mess of quirks between different versions. Wanna get rid of those startup apps? Use `msconfig`! Oh wait, you’re on Win2k. Wanna delete that virus file? Ok, reboot and hit f5 a lot while Windows loads, then select…. Wanna be the full system user? Ok, you need to edit your sticky keys startup program to load explorer.exe (I haven’t tried this one yet)…
Anyway, I agree with much of what the article says. I don’t know how much drastic flee from OS X there’d be but I’m certain that his last statement is absolutely correct. My worst nightmare is replacing the Wintel monopoly with the Mactel monopoly.
Although I agree that linux is not as user friendly as Windows and MacOs, I disagree on the reasons why.
When I needed to change the mtu on my Mac and windows machines, it was nothing like obvious. Most people faced with a computer problems are helpless, regardless of the platform. Linux and OSX don’t break that often, and that’s the advantage.
Where linux lags unforgiveably behind is installers for desktop apps and hardware management. I know that Mandrake, Debian and others are better than some but there are plenty of software FOR linux out there, that you can’t install without knowing your cli and linux basics, like RSSOwl and iPodder. There I agree with you.
In the article, there is only point 3 that I agree to and that alone won’t change anything.
Everyone is saying it here and elsewhere: adopt a single package format for third party apps and make it possible to provide binary drivers that work on all the distros used by 80% of linux users, in short make it a platform. Then it might not win, but at least it can compete.
If the Linux community wholeheartedly cooperated and made the platform ISV friendly, Microsoft would have real competition.
With the many hundreds of incompatible distros we have today, it is only some strange chaotic event that will give Linux a chance to be a choice for a normal user’s operating system.
As it looks today, the Linux community is very fractured and Linux has embraced the “eye candy” school of ease of use. Which is to say, there has been no profound improvement in a long time. But the dialogs are really pretty.
There’s a single standard package format, people have been complaining about autoconf for years.
There actually appears to be a Linux ABI project, it has a patch for 2.4 kernels (google linux abi); but I believe Linus has specifically rejected ABI’s:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/1758/print
I think I’ll put this quote in for ya’ll:
“It’s not going to happen. I am _totally_ uninterested in a stable ABI for kernel modules, and in fact I’m actively against even _trying_. I want people to be very much aware of the fact that kernel internals do change, and that this will continue.”
Now, Linus has accepted being wrong before. But I doubt many on this forum are going to find themselves challenging him in a kernel development argument and winning; and I don’t think the man cares about how it could help adoption rates.
But, I bet if you wrote a linux ABI wrapper that you keep up to date you could even get it included into the kernel. And then binary only ABI’s could be built for the wrapper!
Or you can just sit here and argue. Don’t tell me to do it though, I’m one of those “Crazy” people who believes in source distribution.
Actually, you wouldn’t even need it to be a module. You could ship it as public domain and then anyone could use it as part of their installer (like Nvidia does, but they maintain their own wrapper).
And I bet when you finish, you might even attract a few extra binary drivers. And I mean a few.
In the end, I think porting their frontends is more work than porting their drivers. Especially for the stuff that really doesn’t work in Linux.
Anyone who is so dead set against making a usuable platform must have some sort of ulterior agenda.
I assume you’re referring to Linus.
You should read the link, Linus cites tendencies for buggyness as the reason he hates binary distributed drivers. I can’t say that I blame him, mostly because I don’t know if he’s wrong
.
Anyone who is so dead set against making a usuable platform must have some sort of ulterior agenda.
1) That’s not exactly an earthshaking revelation. Anyone who goes to the trouble to write their own kernel has some sort of agenda. If they don’t freely admit that, the agenda probably falls into the “devious” category.
2) His opinion of what constitutes a “usable platform” as it relates to his project trumps yours by a large margin.
Howdy all, me again…
Think a little as to what could happen if Mac OS X were to enter the x86 market un-tethered to Apple hardware (which will not occur, mind you). Well, firstly, I’d imagine that a fairly good chunk of Microsoft’s monopoly would be flung away to new computer shipments with Mac OS X, but that would likely to be short lived knowing Microsoft’s aggressiveness.
In any event, that will not occur. Major OEMs will probably never be able to replace Windows unless they offer Apple some pretty juicy reasons to allow the OEMs to use thier software (and support it themselves). In addition, the narrow hardware support will scare OEMs away, as most do not have any teams for driver creation.
So, what will happen in reality?
1. Mac OS X, Intel-based computers will be Apples…
2. Someone will crack the boot-rom lockout.
3. The boot-rom lockout crack will become embedded into
….a dynamic boot manager, likely to be lilo and the
….other open source boot loaders, such as Haiku’s
4. Early adopters will actually purchase Mac OS X at
….stores, giving Apple likely an imperceptible gain
….in ‘market share’. The ISOs will be available on
….the internet within hours.
5. I will download all required data, as will probably
….many thousands of others to play with OS X on our
….home computers next to Windows and Haiku/Linux or
….whichever AltOS/Combo currently running at that
….time.
6. Apple will modify the OS to be more specific with
….hardware and not boot on systems that are not 100%
….Apple-supported components. They may even do this
….pre-emptively.
7. Crackers will crack ISOs removing this limitation,
….but will always remain a step or two behind.
8. Even hobbiests will begin getting a little strained
….and will eventually let the excellent AltOS be.
….Some more wealthy hobbiests will buy Apple machines
….and run their fav OSes on them in dual-boot.
9. Apple sales start to climb slowly as the hobbiests
….start to convince friends and family to use Apple ….hardware, software, and also have Windows. Reason?
….Less virus and spyware problems.
10. Growing sales of Apple computers upsets Microsoft,
….and Microsoft orders the porting of all of the
….Windows-based malware/virus/crap to Mac OS.
Think #10 is unlikely? Well, McAfee (a very large anti-virus company) admitted to creating most of the world’s viruses… And they are still in business. Of course, they also claim that none of those viruses were ever spread over the internet… sure…
Anyway, the best thing that will come out of this all for AltOSes is that Apple could become more popular, creating more problems, and making Linux/Haiku look like knights in shining armor. But.. then what happens? More viruses and Spyware to the AltOSes.. so then it goes bad.
But there will always be smaller AltOSes that are superior that we can move to for safety and security by obscurity.
–The loon
Think #10 is unlikely? Well, McAfee (a very large anti-virus company) admitted to creating most of the world’s viruses… And they are still in business. Of course, they also claim that none of those viruses were ever spread over the internet… sure…
I’d like to see a source for that. I remember the original one and only Dr Solomon posting on Slashdot, pointing out how insulting it was to anti-virus vendors to suggest they make viruses.
While all the intellectual stuff is great, it will not matter if Macs continue to be priced at the very top end of the market.
I do have great hopes for Mac on Intel, but it all depends on Apple improving the value of their offerings — offering more hardware/features for your money vs. the SlowerPC models.
Additionally, for many PC users, Mac is very hard to use. For instance, you need to use custom Applescript just to do “full screen” on Safari. Mac is not the usability nirvana that Apple claims. This lack of authentic usability vs. eye candy will also catch up to Apple in a bad way. So Apple needs to take one release of the OS and do for usability what Tiger did for performance and smoothness.
BTW, here is the Applescript if you need it — at the bottom:
http://www.apple.com/applescript/safari/bookmarks.html
In sum, unless Apple fixes the pricing and the usability, there will be significant limits on long term growth.
And the same applies to Linux. If the usability and simplicity are not improved, the OS has no future outside of the server room. No matter how much you think it will in your head.
Additionally, for many PC users, Mac is very hard to use. For instance, you need to use custom Applescript just to do “full screen” on Safari. Mac is not the usability nirvana that Apple claims.
You are confusing featureset with usability. OSX software does usually have fewer features than the windows or linux equivalent but is usually much more accessible and standard to the platform. One thing that I have noticed with free software on other platforms is that they tend to focus on adding features. They hardly ever design the options pane at all if they even make one!
As a side note, OSX is designed to be used where you can see more documents and such on the screen at once. This is why there is no maximize button.
I did say, “for many PC users”.
Unfortunately, and I mean that, Windows/PC is what everyone already has.
If Apple wants more people — average people — to switch, they need to make OS X easier to use.
The “green button” simply does not work in any intuitive manner. “Fit to content” is capricious and depends on the application for what it does vs. “maximize window to screen” is absolute. Learn it once and you are good to go. It is one of those little things that Windows got right and Mac got wrong.
http://www.actsofvolition.com/archives/2004/january/themysterious
To require the average user to download script to maximize a Window… sounds almost like Linux 😉
I much prefer zoom to maximize. I *hate* it when a program (mostly java applications) maximize instead of zooming to the most efficient size. I would especially hate maximize on a 20″ monitor.
There’s nothing *wrong* with either method, however. It’s a personal preference.
Well, my girlfriend has is ibook 12″ from a month now. It took her 3 hour to understand and use effectively his computer (apart for samba. I just set her some shortcut).
She was never annoyed with safari not maximizing himself, now she do it the same way on my Windows computer…
Most user don’t care about this kind of things, they just want that it works, and that’s it.
Younger people typically adjust more easily than older users. For the bulk of the world — an aging population outside of the third world — they will not adjust as easily nor understand why something appears broken.
It requires a certain humility to make computers work for the customer vs. argue your customer is wrong and needs to relearn everything. I do not believe Apple has this humility.
I do hope Mac on Intel expands the user base for Mac to the point where the number of narrow-minded Mac fanatics becomes a very small percentage of Mac users. That would be the first step in making the Mac usable for more people.
How this all affects Linux will be interesting. If Linux offers an easier path for those people coming from Windows, then it may find some more niches. Of course, apps and install/config/maintenance are the main weaknesses of Linux. If the basics are not solved, Linux will stay in the server room.
And maybe that is a good thing. Mac is certainly a better desktop platform vs. Linux for most people (not Linux fanatics) and rather than confuse the market with 100’s of Linux distros, choosing between Mac and Windows may be the most effective way of educating consumers about dekstop choice.
Macintosh is the most expensive, (and will continue)
Windows is less expensive (and will continue)
Linux, BSDs, are least expensive (and will continue)
Support of course is an argument, but the free softwares also have free and evolving documentation. If the company’s paying for your training and implementation, there are different costs, but the free’d softwares do have free’d documentation, which can enable self-training at low cost..
The economic factors may not be a problem for you but they can be for many..and that gives the advantage to the FOSS operating systems.
Still missing that point. First off the current crowd in the Linux/BSD world isn’t going to just ditch Linux and buy a Mac. They might experiment with an Apple, but they grew up in Linux/BSD.
Linux and your BSD are free (liberty and price) and do not require a new PC to run on them. Your aging 98 or XP box and quickly be setup with Ubuntu to utilize those resources.
Both OSes have their strong points (OSX with consistent design, Linux and BSD with plethera of free software and developers). The days of the “One OS fights all” are over, we should stop trying to think in this paradigm.
My Boot order
1. Linux
2. OS X
3. FreeBSD
4. Windows…. maybe….
=)
:-p
OS X and even Windows is a far superior experience than Linux. Your everyday shmo isn’t going to be installing it any time soon, and due to support issues, PC builders won’t either.
Come back when Linux is as nice to use as OS X.
I wonder if the guy has even a slight knowledge of Linux
I beg to differ with the comments above. I think Linux is a threat to OS X and not the other way round. And for the following reasons.
– Price: Linux is way cheaper than OS X and cousins
– Evolution: Linux is evolving at a pace a commercial/proprietary vendor can only dream of. Look, at the Linux desktop today, outside OS X’ eye candy, Linux has about the same level of stability, performance and usability. In fact, today, Linux has a better kernel and better performance. In the Eye Candy department, Linux is rapidly catching up to OS X. In fact, I’m willing to bet 3 years from now, Linux would have surparsed OS X in the Eye Candy department.
– Performance: No brainer, Linux rules here.
– Reputation: Today, Linux is the new face of Unix and has a better reputation.
– Applications: Linux has a lot more applications than OS X will ever dream off. Debian has about 15 000 applications and counting.
-Resources: Apple will never have the human and intellectual resources available to Linux. That’s why Microsoft can’t sleep well at night. Do you know how many people work on the Linux kernel alone?
-Variety: No brainer, Linux wins.
-Price: Did I mention it is Free?
You got to be smoking crack to think Linux is under threat. I’m sorry, you can’t compete with the price, freedom or the resource or mindshare that Linux has today.
With regards to usability and ease of use bullocks, every software comes with a learning curve. OS X is no more harder to use than Windows or Linux is. I put my girlfriend right in front of OS X for the first time, and all she did was curse all day. In fact, she wished Windows had all the eye-candy without the retarded OS Xish way of doing things. I put this same person behind GNOME, and guess what, she loved it.
OS X is aesthetically appealing and many of its apps are well designed, but to say it is intuitive, easy to use and the assorted Apple indoctrinating PR people throw around here without even thinking is becoming pathetic.
OS X has an unforgiving learning curve, especially if you are coming from Windows. In fact, you probably have to unlearn all your Windows habbit to use OS X. You call that easy to use?
What is this great OS your talking about ?
Usabilty, stability, performance, applications…
Definitely not one of the one hundred distros I have tried for the last 6 years…
This so convenient to mod people down…
Are you really suggesting that my post was totally irrevelant ?
Saying that linux is better in terms of usability, stability and applications than OsX is just BS.
Just face it. I don’t say it will always be that way but please try to be a little more honest with yourself.
“- Applications: Linux has a lot more applications than OS X will ever dream off. Debian has about 15 000 applications and counting. ”
I’m sorry, I gotta correct this:
Debian has 15,000 packages. Of which probably 6-10,000 are libs and lib-dev’s (headers).
I beg to differ with the comments above. I think Linux is a threat to OS X and not the other way round. And for the following reasons.
– Price: Linux is way cheaper than OS X and cousins
– Evolution: Linux is evolving at a pace a commercial/proprietary vendor can only dream of. Look, at the Linux desktop today, outside OS X’ eye candy, Linux has about the same level of stability, performance and usability. In fact, today, Linux has a better kernel and better performance. In the Eye Candy department, Linux is rapidly catching up to OS X. In fact, I’m willing to bet 3 years from now, Linux would have surparsed OS X in the Eye Candy department.
– Performance: No brainer, Linux rules here.
– Reputation: Today, Linux is the new face of Unix and has a better reputation.
– Applications: Linux has a lot more applications than OS X will ever dream off. Debian has about 15 000 applications and counting.
-Resources: Apple will never have the human and intellectual resources available to Linux. That’s why Microsoft can’t sleep well at night. Do you know how many people work on the Linux kernel alone?
-Variety: No brainer, Linux wins.
-Price: Did I mention it is Free?
You got to be smoking crack to think Linux is under threat. I’m sorry, you can’t compete with the price, freedom or the resource or mindshare that Linux has today.
Good post – I agree with alot of that.
In fact, today, Linux has a better kernel and better performance. In the Eye Candy department, Linux is rapidly catching up to OS X. In fact, I’m willing to bet 3 years from now, Linux would have surparsed OS X in the Eye Candy department.
An example. I have Fedora Core with KDE installed as DE. I grabbed a OSX theme called baghira and customized to look like a real Mac OSX complete with Aqua theme. I added Engage to mimic the icons. The result is a complete clone OSX desktop with one click mouse. Then I asked my sister to try that desktop. She was impressed with the customization. Overall, eye candy is not a clear advantage for Apple anymore.
I’d like to see a screen shot of your font sizes.
On Big Apple advantage is single pixel wide fonts are NOT the DEFAULT on the apple platform. Sometimes it’s about long work hours and less eye strain.
At most font sizes on digital LCD monitors, ClearType on Windows offers the most legible font display.
Legible screen display is the number one thing I wish Linux and Mac OS X did better.
And since releasing ClearType to the public would save billions of dollars in health care costs and perhaps trillions in productivity losses, Microsoft should make ClearType public domain. If only Microsoft were not evil, that is.
“At most font sizes on digital LCD monitors, ClearType on Windows offers the most legible…”
Clearly, you either work for Microsoft and/or you’ve never actually seen Mac Fonts.
I have worked with Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 quite a bit on high quality DVI LCD monitors. And the font display is crap compared to ClearType on Windows XP.
Mac fonts are barely competent at larger point sizes. But at small point sizes, they are like crayons compared to the fine calligraphy of ClearType.
The color management and display calibration of OS X is much better than that of Windows XP. But the fonts unfortunately are very poor quality.
And no, I don’t work for the crooks in Redmond.
I suppose if you stick your nose 4 inches away from the screen Clear type and single pixel fonts might look good.
However, at normal distances the normal windows fonts have gotten to small and too thin. So thin that there isn’t sufficient contract from the surrounding background. The race to high resolution screens and possibly Microsoft not getting the scaling correct is a serious problem.
I beg to differ with YOUR comment. I think the score is more like is:
-Price: Linux is cheaper for both hardware and software. The hardware is commodity and the software is free. I’ll just give you that one. Advantage: Linux
-Evolution: I would argue that OS X is evolving faster than any other desktop operating system. Where is Spotlight for Linux? What distribution has an equivalent to Expose that works out of the box?
In fact, today, Linux has a better kernel and better performance.
Very debatable. Darwin is based on BSD, which many will argue is more stable than the Linux kernel. Oh, and Darwin is open source.
In the Eye Candy department, Linux is rapidly catching up to OS X. In fact, I’m willing to bet 3 years from now, Linux would have surparsed OS X in the Eye Candy department.
Will they also catch up in the font department? Every time I install a new distribution of Linux, the eye candy has improved (it beats Windows in the eye candy department at this point), but the fonts still look bad. OS X comes with about 100 fonts that Apple actually licensed from commercial type companies. Given that commercial type companies are unlikely to give their fonts away for free, I still see that as a major problem for Linux going forward.
Advantage: OS X
-Performance: What kind of computing are we talking about here? Linux is extremely performant on the server, but be aware that OS X makes full use of the graphics accelerator (via Quartz) for everyday desktop operations (including all that eye candy). Last I heard the projects to deliver the same funtionality to Linux were just getting off the ground. Advantage: OS X
-Reputation: Linux has a reputation, deserved or undeserved, as being “not ready for the desktop”. You can go to any college town in the USA and see kids happily typing papers and syncing their iPods with their iBooks. Advantage: OS X
-Applications: Many of the desktop applications that run on Linux can be compiled and run on OS X. But, in many cases, you would never want to do so, because of the design and consistency you find in native Mac apps. And Mac still has far more commercial desktop apps than Linux does. Advantage: OS X
-Resources: Apple has an army of developers working full-time on OS X, and it gets a free boost from the open source community because Darwin is BSD-licensed. A good number of the people developing for Linux are making sure that Linux supports every single piece of hardware on the planet. Apple has no such requirements. Advantage: OS X
-Variety: Linux has far more variety, which is why it loses. The word ‘Linux’ means almost nothing as far as what the user experience will actually be. Until somebody comes up with The One True Desktop Distibution, Linux’s desktop penetration will be severely limited. Advantage: OS X
-Price: We covered that already. I could actually argue this point, based upon retraining costs, etc., but I would wind up supporting sticking with MS Windows.
OS X is no more harder to use than Windows or Linux is. I put my girlfriend right in front of OS X for the first time, and all she did was curse all day. In fact, she wished Windows had all the eye-candy without the retarded OS Xish way of doing things. I put this same person behind GNOME, and guess what, she loved it.
The reason that your girlfriend found GNOME easy to use is that GNOME borrows heavily from Microsoft Windows, whereas OS X actually has a different design. Was she actually using Expose? As a first-time Mac owner, I find my Windows XP machine at work more and more annoying as time goes on, mostly because of the lack of Expose and Spotlight.
Hey, I love Linux. I work with 25+ different Linux servers at work. I just think that for those of us who can afford it, Mac is a much better deal for the desktop.
The reason that your girlfriend found GNOME easy to use is that GNOME borrows heavily from Microsoft Windows
GNOME is moving farther away from the usual Windows brain damage with every release.
Off-topic rant follows.
“GNOME is moving farther away from the usual Windows brain damage with every release.”
And with every release, comes a different set of apps. Seriously. Which window manager does it use now? Which web browser? These (among other things) never stick around for more than a few releases before being jettisoned for some other apps with questionable improvements in usability or performance. Sure there’s not much difference between web browsers in the first place, as ar as basic fuctionality goes, but why do these guys insist on changing the world all the time? It’s madness!
And dont get me started on the depedancy nightmare inherrent in GNOME. The fact that mozilla and/or firefox (the complete working browser packages!!!) are required dependacies for whatever the GNOME branded web browser du jour is… I just don’t have the words.
The GNOME community is also facing being split down the middle based on disagreememnt s between Red Hat (the biggest distro backing the desktop) and the GNOME developers over what technology should be the future of GNOME development (the GNOME devs favor Mono, whereas Red Hat for unspecified reasons is dead set against it).
KDE has been getting more functional, standardized and mature with every release, while GNOME backers fight amongst themselves, and constantly re-invent the wheel, for as many different reasons as there are committers.
Boys love their toys, that’s for sure.
Which window manager does it use now?
It’s been metacity since GNOME 2.0 was released several years ago.
Which web browser?
Epiphany has been the official browser for a similarly long time.
These (among other things) never stick around for more than a few releases before being jettisoned for some other apps with questionable improvements in usability or performance.
Care to point out more examples of this?
Slight correction: Metacity became official with the release of GNOME 2.2, though it was in wide use very shortly after 2.0 came out. Epiphany became part of the project with GNOME 2.4.
Gnome has been Metacity for several years and is still Epiphany.
Intel-based Apple laptops will make an excellent high-quality Linux laptop.
Not sure I agree with all the points in the article, but it was an interesting read anyway.
Personally, I moved from Linux/FreeBSD on the desktop to OS X as Apple have managed to produce something that combines a robust BSD UNIX core with a consistant and powerful desktop UI. I can run my UNIX apps and utilities, Macintosh native apps and utilities, and I’m a happy guy as a result. I know quite a few UNIX developers who have also made the transition to OS X from Linux and BSD for the desktop. My Linux and BSD systems have been moved back to server roles where they excel over OS X.
OS X also provides a flexible and well-designed alternative to Windows on the desktop, so I know quite a few people who are non-technical and have made the switch from Windows.
OS X is doing well because it bridges the gap between the alleged user friendliness of Windows and the more technical power Linux and the BSDs offer. On the one hand it’s appealing to people who don’t really understand technology, but also those who are power users. So it’s not unusual that it is grabbing users from both spheres of the market.
People who buy a mac for the first time when Apple switches to Intel aren’t going to dual-boot. They will find out that Windows really does suck and the software on the mac is better designed and more thought through on that design.
We will see a migration of PC-only wares to the mac-plateform like we haven’t before. Where the people go, the software will go. It’s just like that!
Has anyone run Yellow dog on a Mini?
My boot order is: 1. Linux…that’s it.
Anyway…I think that Apple has tied the success of OS X to the OSS world sufficiently that Linux will benefit from growth of OS X, and vice versa. They are going after different markets, primarily.
Regardless, I think the new level of strength in the numbers OS X is showing (and Linux as well, to a degree), will, at least, keep MS honest.
Maybe.
The thuth is: MacOS X has no importantance outside USA for domestic users and it has no importance for corporate use (except for graphic design companies and some other niches).
Linux has much more probability to be used as windows alternative for business desktops and servers because it is free as US$ 0 and it can be used with any PC. MacOS X will need an Apple-made computer (even with a normal Pentium 4 CPU).
Linux is also becoming the only viable alternative of development countries to not send millions of dollars to american proprietary software companies (and Apple is one of them) and the only hope to give opportunity to poor people have a legalized computer. Linux can also make possible have national software companies, even making proprietary software to run in top of a free platform like GNU/Linux.
Linux is freedom and MacOS X is a prision worser than windows prision ! OK, MacOS X is cool but this is the less important factor to non-american people.
I can’t see Joe Average home user dumping their current Wintel machine to purchase a Mac just because it’s running on Intel. What will change? Apple has made numerous attempts at the attracting new customers with the translucent iMac’s, the funky iMacs, the mini Mac etc. Didn’t work. They no doubt gained incrementally, but it’s hard to see where an Intel processor will succeed where innovative design and functionality hasn’t. There will be people attracted to the new systems, especially having heard good things about OS X, but I can’t see it happening as a massive migration.
Dual-booting? Well, there was always VirtualPC for people who needed it. But another problem is that many of those Joe Average users are running Dell / HP / other big name brand home PC’s where their version of Windows is licensed to the machine. What happens when they insert their OEM Windows CD into their shiny new Intel Mac to setup dual-boot? Nothing, because that copy of Windows won’t install on a different platform and according to the MS license agreement, they’re not permitted to. So they resort to using a cracked copy of Windows, or having to purchase one. Where’s the gain?
Let’s not forget the cost. Intel Mac’s are not going to become bargain basement. They will stay at the north end of the price spectrum, because a) The Mac brand carries high value and b) They have an existing market that has already been conditioned to pay a premium for Apple products, they’re not going to undercut their own value. I’m not knocking Apple or their customers for this strategy (in fact most companies would be envious of building that sort of brand value), just pointing out that in business being profitable and successful doesn’t always mean winning business at all costs.
And I don’t think anybody is expecting Apple to release OS X for the masses to install on existing Wintel hardware. Remember that one of the reasons OS X is such a stable, powerful platform is because there’s a high degree of hardware control as opposed to having millions of hardware/chipset/accessory combinations that can invariably lead to the flaky stability/driver support that can plague both Windows and Linux in many circumstances. A modern linux distro installed onto a machine with properly supported hardware is just as stable and useable as WinXP or OS X under the same conditions. If Apple has to open OS X up, it would be at the mercy of third-party hardware manufacturers producing substandard drivers, and they could start facing some of the same misdirected criticism MS / Linux et al. face for faulty hardware support from other manufacturers.
So where will OS X leave Linux? As far as I can tell, exactly where it is now. Won’t help or hinder it. Enterprise deployment is what will boost and accelerate linux, not the consumer market.
But let’s not forget that any and all of this is pure speculation anyways, until Apple releases some sort of product roadmap or further announcements… and we know that won’t happen.
1) OS X
2a) VirtualPC /Windows in a window
or
2b) VirtualPC / Solarisx86 in a window
or
2c) VirtualPC / Gentoo in a window.
in Non of these VPC /OS environments will I read email or surf the Internet, and my machine will be behind a firewall/airport network. So, Work OS’s will only be used for work.
OS X will be used for Fun / Family computing / and MS Word / Excel because the Mac OS has the BEST most READABLE fonts in the UNIVERSE.
Hey, Why not? Everybody else is doing it.
1. FC4
2. Plan 9
3. Solaris Express 6/2005
4. Windows XP
I disagree on so many fronts. Linux is 10 years away from being a threat to anyone. Open source is great, but there are too many distros and too many people throwing in features that nobody wants and it make a crappy cluster forked situation. He makes the comment linux comes with 5000 apps out of the box…that is about 4500 apps too many. as far as running XP on apple hardware… yeah, maybe it would be technically possible… maybe… no one could/can get XP to run on my SGI 320 Visual Workstation, stuck with 2000 (or NT – Yuck) even though it uses an intel processor, no one makes an XP driver for the chipset…. although, it seems someone could have made a patch, maybe not, maybe the architecture will be different enough to make it impossible or highly impractical. Sure they are using the same CPU as a Windows box, but what about chipsets, drivers for said chipsets, if they are made specifially for apple who knows if drivers will ever emerge…. but in anycase, who would be stupid enough to want to run XP on apple hardware? you have OSX! which is 2 times better than XP (and 1.5 times better than linux). plus you will be spending double $$ for a box to run XP than you will have from any other manufacture with the same performance levels. why pay $2500 for an apple box to run XP, when you could spend $1200 for a dell that would probably outperform it? OSX is the best OS out there, it converted my from a linux user (of 10 years) and a Windows user for even longer. OSX has taken me away from using 2 OS’s instead of living in a dual boot XP/Linux world, I am living in a OSX world and LOVE IT. It’s not about the hardware, I love the hardware design or apples products, but that’s not why i buy them, it’s all about the X!
Linux is no threat to OS X.
Linux is in a partnership with OS X.
OS X could be considered a Training OS for Linux, ease people into the Unix Environment, “O, it’s not so scarry after all”. and if I can’t handle it I can IGNORE it.
OS X enables you to have fun and explore.
Are you on glue? Seriously! What does Linux offer to the average computer user that Darwin does not (note I said “Darwin” here specifically)? Answer me honestly, and don’t spout off some pointless prattle about how Linux runs on some of the world’s largest supercomputers (with the help of, and *heavy* modification by the engineers of supercomputer companies, as this is irrelevant to the topic of average users).
Both are open source systems, and run damned near all the same software. Both have low latency audio subsystems and some meause of realtime capabilities (niether OS offering “hard” reltime). Both OSes have the standard assortment of commandline utilities, and GUI goodness as well. Both run on PowerPC and Intel hardware.
Darwin also (when part of the full, standard Mac OS X system) is easy to use for newbies while retaining all of the fuctionality that power users expect, while also allowing you to run not only standard Unix software, but also a large variety of commercial programs that many people (think they?) need to get things done.
Linux does not.
Linux is capable of some great things, but calling Mac OS X a training OS for Linux is an outright joke.
Sniff the vapors less often and you’ll think more clearly.
A larger support community.
Binary module loading.
GNU Utilities (I’m sure Darwin, like many BSD’s, has them as an option).
You’re right though. Mac OS X is a training OS for Mac. However, Mac OS X does at least mean people building applications with Unix in mind instead of with Windows in mind.
Well, I did list three other points against Mac OS X. As for the memory: if you have a couple of buckets full of it, that’s great for you. But not all of us are swimming in memory, particularly those of us with iBooks and PowerBooks. My model includes the shipped 256 MB, which is barely enough to run the Finder and Safari. Throw another decent sized application on top of that, and you can hear bits swinging to and from the disk. Not great for performance. Sure it’s easy to upgrade the critter, but it is far cheaper to toss Linux on it and watch it immediately speed up for most use.
chris@brittney:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 182172 178668 3504 0 20116 90352
-/+ buffers/cache: 68200 113972
Swap: 289160 30924 258236
And I’m running kde (linux not OS X)
. I just closed about 5 webpages (gtk index, enormous page), kdevelop with about 12 files, and glade; which is prolly why I’m dipping into swap.
Apart from Eye Candy, OS X has nothing on Linux. And today, with a little effort, you can get all the OS X eye candy you want on Linux.
In terms of price, performance, functionality, portability(hardware), scalability, openness and variety, and *gasp* freedom, Linux wins hands down. Apple has a lot to be worried about.
Not to mention Linux is evolving faster than OS X can ever dream off.
I doubt Linux is ready to take on Microsoft on the desktop right now — it’s just still far too fragmented; more projects need to get “naturally-selected” out of the OSS ecosystem, which will take many years yet.
Also, adoption of Linux by the general consumer would represent a very different change not only in technology, but in various economic and social factors, which I’m not sure the general western market is ready for.
However, Linux is a very viable solution in developing countries, such as China, India, Russia, and Brazil, and I believe that it’s here Linux’s pentetration in people’s homes will be strongest. Then after growing up around Linux-based systems, an entire generation of Linux programmers will emerge on to the market, which at that point will likely be more open source than ever, and a greater spirit of collaberation/cooperation will allow Linux development to have the coordination it needs to create a seamless user experience.
So basically, the Linux desktop is ready for us; we’re just not ready for the Linux desktop
Companies and developers still need to learn deeper lessons of coordinating software development, and I see that mentallity coming from the developing world’s IT revolution rather than from the established companies of the western market today.
…caught up in the Apple reality-distortion field. I feel sorry for him.
This is totaly insane. OS and Office applications is like bread and butter. Must have. Therefore they shall always cost zero dollars. To pay for an OS or Office application today is madness.
So you pay 500$ to get Mac OS X. A system that is a wanna be Unix. You lose all your control the system spec sucks.
So why in earth switch to that.
Forget it, This will never happen until Apple releases his Quartz Extreme for Linux.
X11 needs to go away, X11 is obsolete and slow.
Anyone who actually knows the technology behind X11 and what the Xorg folks are doing knows this is total BS.
A new software acceleration framework mentioned here before (Exa) accelerates RENDER, which is what Cairo uses so with GNOME 2.12 and GTK+ 2.8 we have good software acceleration there and with nVidia’s RenderAccel option in their driver you get full hardware acceleration of your GNOME desktop. If you don’t have an nVidia card and don’t want to use software acceleration you use the Glitz backend for Cairo which uses OpenGL to do it’s drawing. Either way, GNOME 2.12 will have hardware acceleration of all (GTK+) drawing operations.
It might be that people who are fed up with MS would switch to OSX instead of Linux, but that is not very likely because OSX will support much less hardware than most Linux distro’s.
Second, the Most Important Thing for spreading software would be, that you can get it from your Neighbour if it is not pre-installed. And let’s face it, OSX sucks at being pirated, and it will not get pre- installed on the Dell’s and HP’s. Linux is much better in this regard, although it still has the chicken- egg problem: It is not in widespread use, because your neighbour does not have it, so it does not become used widely.
Third, why should Linux be in danger just because some desktop users do not switch to it who optherwise would? Linux lives mostly from the tinkerers, the geeks and programmers who make it better. People who switch from MS to Apple do so mostly because they want to get AWAY from Windows, not to get to Linux. Them not having in the Linux User Pool is no real loss.
I would like to see a world in which the desktop operating system market is split into some 20% of Linux, 20% of OSX and the rest can stay at Windows. That would ensure driver development for most hardware for all 3 systems, and MS would not be able to embrace and extend the standards.
For most computer users, a PC and Windows are one and the same thing.
For many users, Microsoft Office is also synonymous with Windows and the
PC, and they often use the term ‘Windows’ to refer to their
word-processor or web browser, or ‘Word’ to refer to Windows. For most
users, a computer and Microsoft are one and the same thing.
Man, is this ever the truth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked, “What word processor do you use?”, only to hear the reply “Windows”. Or, “Where did you save that document?”; “Oh, I saved it in Word.” Anything that any alternative platform can do to break people out of this monolithic mentality will be of benefit.