“Using Mac OS X is like touring a land of fabulous ancient treasures – with a tourist authority that’s still busy renovating them, and that hasn’t quite completed the infrastructure. The sights can be breathtaking, but the roads are potholed and incomplete, and sometimes you have to get out and push.” Read the review at TheRegister. More than 100,000 copies of OS X 10.2 are sold worldwide during its first weekend, and 50,000 people visited company stores Friday night, ZDNews reports.
The Jagwyre Review; Its Sales Break Apple Record
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I just bought an iBook for school so i can’t wait to try jag out.
I’ve been running OS X on a Wallstreet Powerbook, which can be bought for around $700-$1000. I do web based development and and also software development. Most of my day to day interactions with this machine are influenced by usability factors as opposed to raw CPU cycles. For example my dialup speed is more a problem than the browser itself. MySQL, Perl, gcc, IE, MS Office, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, all on the same machine running native. What do you guys do with all of those extra CPU cycles?? Games, Guassian blurs?
Lots of changes in 10.2, which will eventually bring the UI responsiveness to an acceptable level. Windows and 9.2 are still snappier than OS X , but OS X is doing a lot more to display the UI than 9.2. I look forward to what Apple has in store for us. Many of their innovations have put a smile on many of our faces, and raised the bar on what we expect from the user experience.
Apple delivers when it comes to the user experience.
-b
I’d like to buy my fiance Jaguar for her 400Mhz Blue/White G3 tower. Assuming it has the stock video card (Rage 128?), should I first buy her an video card upgrade to take full advantage of Quartz Extreme or just tough it out with what’s already in there?
>>I’d like to buy my fiance Jaguar for her 400Mhz Blue/White G3 tower. Assuming it has the stock video card (Rage 128?), should I first buy her an video card upgrade to take full advantage of Quartz Extreme or just tough it out with what’s already in there?<<
I personally would recommend it!
Haven’t seen you around in a longtime, where you been??
I have ordered Jaguar for my new Mac at work. I look forward to trying it out.
On a side note, there are always articles on OSNews about Apple and then there are always the posts that go along with them that claim Apple is slow, unresponsive, and so on.
In the week or so since I begain using an Apple machine, I’ve noticed something interesting. My PC may or may not run faster than my Apple; I can’t tell. However, when it comes to productivity and ease of use, the Apple wins hands down. So I have to ask myself, is it more important that I can spend 5 hours on a project on a PC which has higer benchmark results, or spend half that time using well thought out tools on a well thought out environment even though Apple lost some benchmark competition?
To me the answer was simple and I will be ordering a Mac for home use shortly. The price is higher than a PC, but my time is worth something as well.
10.2 runs excellent on my PowerMac 533. Very repsonsive and all my apps work fine. I’ve noticed more of a speed increase on older Macs. My friend has an iMac 333 with a 128 megs of ram and it runs very well. I’m sure this version will help more people with older Macs make the transition. I haven’t had to use OS 9 or Classic in months. I am sure it will only get better from here and I can’t wait to see what’s ahead.
” What do you guys do with all of those extra CPU cycles??”
http://www.distributed.net
—
http://islande.hirlimann.net
I have a G4 with a PPC 350 sitting in my closet..I ran OSX for a week or so, but eventually decided to switch back to Linux due to the performance issues. Should i give the Jag release a try?
..all the time with Mozilla 1.1, I don´t get it. Back to IE. Maybe it´s because osnews is too good it confuses the browser 😉
My only problem with Mac OS X 10.2 is iChat. Not only is it as buggy as hell, it is not nearly as customizable as I would like. For instance, there are only three possible settings for people: Available, Away, and Idle. There is no Away and Idle, so it someone is away and idle, you can’t check their away message. On the topic of away messages, mousing over the person’s name is the way to check them. Which is very elegant, but it only works fifty percent of the time. And when it does work, the away message is given in a single line, which can span the entire screen sometimes. Another problem I have is with the address book integration. I personally like seeing people’s screenname. But if a person is on my buddylist and in my address book, it will only display their full name. Other little things are like not being able to see how long someone has been online. But the greatest complaint is that it is just plain buggy. People on the buddylist show up as idle when they are away. Or offline when they are online. And the menu item and buddylist display different people on and off. This has become quite a rant, but I am really looking forward to version 1.1. I bet it will be here in less than a month. And just maybe someone from Apple will read this. Until than, I am running iChat and Adium at the same time.
>>In the week or so since I begain using an Apple machine, I’ve noticed something interesting. My PC may or may not run faster than my Apple; I can’t tell. However, when it comes to productivity and ease of use, the Apple wins hands down. So I have to ask myself, is it more important that I can spend 5 hours on a project on a PC which has higer benchmark results, or spend half that time using well thought out tools on a well thought out environment even though Apple lost some benchmark competition?
To me the answer was simple and I will be ordering a Mac for home use shortly. The price is higher than a PC, but my time is worth something as well.<<
This is exactly my feelings. I have been using Windows machines for years (on top of Sun machines) at work for my side projects on top of my main job (procedure development, software development, mimic development, flow charts, etc…, etc…, etc…) and when I bought my TiBook G4 for work purposes (mainly due to only having 2 PCs in the workcenter, everything else was Sun workstations) and there is no room and not enough PCs to go around 2-5 people in the workcenter daily who all have some sort of project that needs to get done, a lot of us bought laptops to kill 2 birds with one stone, mobility and convenience! But I have found my productivity increase in most areas where I was able to redue my workload due to simplification of how things are done from an OS level as a whole. Yes I can get work done on Windows, Solaris and etc… but I guess it’s true that Mac OS just stays out of your way.
People may beg to differ and experience something else, but that above is what I have experienced thus far!
>>..all the time with Mozilla 1.1, I don´t get it. Back to IE. Maybe it´s because osnews is too good it confuses the browser ;-)<<
I’ve had the same problem (I’m using it now)… actually I haevn’t since I cleaned out some of the profiles (files) and replaced them with new ones, give that a try, but try and keep your bookmarks!
Eugenia,
I noticed that your menu in Mozilla is slow from the picture… I just tested myself and it seems plenty fast for my, but then again I am on my TiBook G4 (at work) and using OS X! It doesn’t draw the menus as fast as other applications, but the difference is so small that I don’t a see any problem with it!
>>I’ve had the same problem (I’m using it now)… actually I haevn’t since I cleaned out some of the profiles (files) and replaced them with new ones, give that a try, but try and keep your bookmarks!<<
as soon as I posted the above it crashed… D’OH!!!
hmmm… I guess I’ll have to look deeper into this one 🙂
I always find it amusing when productivity increases when using OS X. It is such a broad generalization that you might as well not have said anything in the first place. If a job on Windows takes 5 hours and on Mac OS X only 2.5 hours then I really wonder how that is possible.
At least you are happy with your OS. I just don’t see the point why you have to congratulate everyone who agress with your opinion and tell people who think otherwise to switch.
>>I always find it amusing when productivity increases when using OS X. It is such a broad generalization that you might as well not have said anything in the first place. If a job on Windows takes 5 hours and on Mac OS X only 2.5 hours then I really wonder how that is possible.
At least you are happy with your OS. I just don’t see the point why you have to congratulate everyone who agress with your opinion and tell people who think otherwise to switch.<<
It’s not an OS X thing, it’s also an OS 9 thing, a BeOS thing, an Amiga OS thing, helk even a Linux thing (if they feel that way about it)! You Windows users get too emotional when other people beg to differ on Windows ease of use! It may be hard reality to swallow, but no point in avoiding the facts/opinions of others!
Who’s saying I am a Windows user? And you didn’t say anything about my original concerns. I get emotional, but not because you beg to differ. I am questioning your sweeping generalizations.
Personally, just for myself, I doubt that Mac OS X is easier to use because the only limit in MY productivity is the speed at which I can type or move the mouse. I am not going to say this is true for everyone.
It’s not an OS X thing, it’s also an OS 9 thing, a BeOS thing, an Amiga OS thing, helk even a Linux thing!
Not sure what you mean by that. Maybe that Windows is the least productive one of all these OSs?!
>>I am questioning your sweeping generalizations.
Personally, just for myself, I doubt that Mac OS X is easier to use because the only limit in MY productivity is the speed at which I can type or move the mouse. I am not going to say this is true for everyone.<<
It’s more than just typing and moving the cursor around, it’s flexibility of the OS overall, the way of doing things. Problem is, people have different habits on how to get things done. I being from both the Windows and Mac world saw that I had greater flexibility in Mac OS, than in Windows… it’s just my opinion. But there are things in Windows that make it more appealing like the contextual menus, but then some of Apple’s functionality gets you around that obstacle! BeOS actually has functionality habits of both Windows and Mac OS (with a little Amiga OS in the mix from what I hear), and I have to say that BeOS is probably the most flexible and functional OS of all, but I am currently not running BeOS here in Europe (my BeBox is back home in the US).
Each to his/her own… you use what you like and I’ll do the same 🙂
It’s more than just typing and moving the cursor around, it’s flexibility of the OS overall, the way of doing things.
For me it is not. And that’s why I posted my first message. I still have to find out why something in OS X can save me 2.5 hours of a 5 hour job. But I guess I will never hear the answer to that.
At least you backed off a little bit. Just keep in mind that because you might be more productive on OS X not everyone else is. All I am asking is to not make generalizations.
>>For me it is not. And that’s why I posted my first message. I still have to find out why something in OS X can save me 2.5 hours of a 5 hour job. But I guess I will never hear the answer to that.<<
You’ll have to find that out on your own! People’s experiences are always different!
>>At least you backed off a little bit. Just keep in mind that because you might be more productive on OS X not everyone else is. All I am asking is to not make generalizations.<<
I never said that everyone is, but remember Windows falls under the same quote (contrary to what people say)!
I really like that review. In contrast to most of the other 10.2 reviews I’ve seen so far, this is not just braindead “it’s new, it’s better – and oh look! Drop shadow mouse pointer!” but it also tells you what’s wrong with 10.2. Don’t try and tell me 10.2 was perfect – every MacOS forum in the net tells me different.
I hope to get my copy of it in the September ADC mailing – and I am not excited nor thrilled. I expect it to be just an update, nothing else. Suppose it’s going to be faster but not fast.
And the Dock stillsucks. Ask Tog.
I like that guy. He is right on with most of his comments. Too bad he took his money and went on a cross-America tour or something like that. I miss his column.
There are many things wrong – and right. In a way I don’t understand why Apple made it so difficult for users to switch. I am sure there must have been other ways. They not only changed the OS but also the GUI. When I saw the first Rhapsody screenshots I got all excited. I liked the old OS 9 interface. It looked good and not too flashy, unlike the new one. It provided the power of Unix in a nice shell.
Years of HCI research went down the drain with the introduction of Aqua. A lot of things got lost during the transition. It will take a while until Apple will lead in that area again – if ever.
What also puzzles me is Apple’s constant comparison with Intel PCs/CPUs. That is even more evident now with the switch campaign. To me the new OS (including machines) is purely geared towards consumers and maybe some professionals. On the PC side there is emphasis on more things than just the consumer. I don’t think that OS X is made for heavy-duty servers. Windows offers more in this area. So, Apple is going after only a part of the Intel/MS empire. Maybe they don’t have enough resources, I don’t know…
A nice twist to a possible Apple strategy would be to offer Macs as second and third PCs. Let dad have his PC, mom and the kids have their iMacs (other variations possible). Who says you can’t live in both worlds? A lot of people drive minivans and have a sedan. It seems to work for them. Maybe Apple would gain more users if they didn’t focus that much on trying to convert everyone.
Years of HCI research went down the drain with the introduction of Aqua. A lot of things got lost during the transition. It will take a while until Apple will lead in that area again – if ever.
Amen. 🙂
You know, it’s really strange: Before OS X, Apple and Mac fans told you how important the UI was and how the MacOS UI made up for its technical problems. Judging from that point of view, MacOS with a stable Unix core would have resulted in the perfect OS. However, Apple exchanged the UI with the release of OS X, and that leaves me wondering: Is the OS 9 UI still better and OS X is worse (my opinion) or was the OS 9 UI so bad that it needed to be replaced too? If the latter is the case, why did all those Mac fans use OS 9 before, when it had such a bad UI and such a bad kernel?
I like the author’s metaphor he uses in the first paragraph. I use OS X, XP Pro and Linux every day. I think he’s got things about right as to what needs to be done yet in OS X. If I was stranded on a desert island (and had internet access <g>) and had a choice of which OS and programs I could have, I’d choose OS X because it’s the most fun to use.
As to how Apple got to where it is now with OS X, well, simply put, Apple was desperate.
I think Tog is a pain. He wants to banish the Dock and put the Control Strip back in – the biggest pita component ever in Mac OS Classic. He’s living in the past.
its simple…. BeOS, on PowerPPC or Intel, Like driving a porsche, while evryone else is driving a Bettle.
: o )>
HarjTT
I can’t belive you would pay $100 for a minor increment when the OSS community do most of the work anyway. Really you make me laugh.
< For me it is not. And that’s why I posted my first message. I still have to find out why something in OS X can save me 2.5 hours of a 5 hour job. But I guess I will never hear the answer to that.
I am not a windows expert but I have spent a year on NT as a programmer and a signifigant amount of time working up data in grad school. I found that it took about three times as long to do identical tasks on the Wnidows box as on the Mac 9.2 box. I’ll give a couple examples:
It all came down to the number of keystrokes and mouse clicks were far grater on the windows box. Everytime I openned a file in excel I had to navigate the filesystem to get to the directoy of interest. (BTW windows and Linux (KDE) have terrible UI’s for openning a file.) Then to copy data from excel into DeltaGraph I had to do a “paste special” which required clicking on the edit menu, followed by selecting a dropdown which gave me a dialog box where I would have to select the data type each time!!!
In contrast on the mac, open file (apple-o) select file, copy data (apple-c), paste data (apple-v).
In regards to the cut and paste fiasco, I guess its not in M$’s best interest for non M$ applications to be able to seamlessly integrate with M$ applications. In contrast, it appears that the Apple OS handles cut and paste which makes inter-application interation much more seamless. I think there is a real conflict of interest there with microsoft creating productivity applications and the operating system. In the end the user looses.
Explorer (file browser) is terrible. Get a clue! Hierichal browsing doe not scale well at all. It takes forever to find anything everytime I am forced to use it. As soon as you get lots of items at one level, or deep in a hierarchy its impossible to use.
I am also disgusted by M$ file selection box everytim I see it. Its another example of a terrible design that KDE has also adopted. Apple has addressed the hierarchical browsing very effectively in their finder, using a cascading list like structure. Check it out, I’ll bet we see most others adopt it also. Its used very effectively in Watson and was around in the Next OS.
Everything listed above is a total productivity killer for me. In all fairness, I’d really need to spend a lot of time to figure out how to get around these problems. I am sure its possible to throw in aliases here and there. Perhaps I could get around a little easier if I did this. I doubt I could do any thing about the poor integration between different software vendors.
One other thing, integration between apps and general usability of Mac apps went down after W95, because most vendors rewrote their applications on Windows and then ported them to the Mac. So cut us some slack, were still a little bitter about this. =)
Its all in good fun,
-b
They just did an intel/pc FULL port of the OS!
But alas… Apple biggest strenght is… loosing markets…
Cheers…
>>They just did an intel/pc FULL port of the OS!
But alas… Apple biggest strenght is… loosing markets…
Cheers…<<
!@#$%^&*?
And the Dock stillsucks. Ask Tog.
Hmm, this is the same guy who opposed keyboard shortcuts on the grounds that they slowed down productivity. Yeah.
I bought & read his UI book in the early 90s. Biggest waste of money in my life.
I don’t disagree that the Dock sucks; matter of fact, I can’t believe how bad it is. IMHO Apple shouldn’t waste developers on things like iChat; they should develop a useful, uncluttered Dock.
All the same, all this whining about dumping the old UI strikes me as the lament of someone accustomed to one way of doing something who hate the principle of changing more than the change itself. I like OS X’s UI MUCH better than the old Mac UI. That thing was just bizarre. But, I was accustomed to an Amiga, so of course I would think so.
Apple needs to port to x86 and Hammer ASAP. They will double there OS market share in about a week. Charge $300 for it and $129.00 for the PPC version. Lets see 5 million copies in 6 months, that translates into $1.5 billion in 6 months.
OKay so m aybe my figures are optimistic but the return is incredible.
>>Apple needs to port to x86 and Hammer ASAP. They will double there OS market share in about a week. Charge $300 for it and $129.00 for the PPC version. Lets see 5 million copies in 6 months, that translates into $1.5 billion in 6 months.
OKay so m aybe my figures are optimistic but the return is incredible.<<
People don’t want to pay $200 for XP much less $300 for OS X, or any other OS for that matter!
You can forget the x86 pipe dream and Apple, it’s not going to happen!
Oh my… where to begin…
<<<…That is even more evident now with the switch campaign. To me the new OS (including machines) is purely geared towards consumers and maybe some professionals.>>>>
Um, err, ok… consumers, yes… some professionals, try again, how aboutlike many professionals from a variety of disciplins. Remember, for the most part, OSX can do what linux does and can do what windows does, something neither of the other 2 systems are able to claim.
<<<On the PC side there is emphasis on more things than just the consumer. I don’t think that OS X is made for heavy-duty servers. Windows offers more in this area.>>>
OSX is based upon freebsd/mach. Hotmail, the company Microsoft acquired, couldn’t be migrated off free-bsd for over 2 years, past their target conversion date because NT couldn’t scale… they basically had to triple the amount of servers to handle the same load. Oh and don’t forget that these Windows servers need to be rebooted every few days as part of their routine maintenance. I’ve seen production linux/bsd/solaris servers run for over a year without a reboot (doesn’t say much about patch management for these examples, but it does say a lot about system stability).
<<A nice twist to a possible Apple strategy would be to offer Macs as second and third PCs. Let dad have his PC, mom and the kids have their iMacs (other variations possible).>>> Guess your wife and kids wear the pants in the family, hense they get the very powerful unix boxes and you get stuck with a kiddie system.
Okay, MANY professionals, ALL of them, I do not care. The point is, it is only part of the potential user base.
Having Mach and FreeBSD does not mean it is a decent server operating system. Bringing up that lovely Hotmail example is not going to change a thing about Windows being used as a server operating system. Mac OS X lacks many server features that are in Windows and other operating systems. Plus, the hardware has the same problems.
About the third part of your response: I do not have kids. And the only thing I would buy my wife right now is an iMac because I simply cannot afford anything else. Calling iMacs “very powerful Unix boxes” is a bit of a stretch as well.
I am running my Windows .NET Server “kiddie system” just fine. If I want a powerful Unix box I will get FreeBSD, which I like a lot. Too bad that people can’t express why they would like Apple to go after more than just its traditional user base.
>>Mac OS X lacks many server features that are in Windows and other operating systems. Plus, the hardware has the same problems.<<
Would you care to enlighten us on those ‘lack of features’?!
All the same, all this whining about dumping the old UI strikes me as the lament of someone accustomed to one way of doing something who hate the principle of changing more than the change itself.
I was expecting that….
I can assure you that I am not one of those. The Mac I am typing this on is my first Mac, and one of the reasons I bought it was OS X. But when using OS X and OS 9, OS 9’s UI felt better instantly where OS X.1 appeared not only sluggish but also unconfortably bloated and not nearly as well-thought and mature as OS 9.
This impression hasn’t changed in the last 10 months, even though I am using OS X more than OS 9. It is not a matter of getting used to.
>>Mac OS X lacks many server features that are in Windows and other operating systems. Plus, the hardware has the same problems.<<
CatBeMac >>Would you care to enlighten us on those ‘lack of features’?!<<
1. SMP support – limited to 2 CPU’s
2. LVM support – no
3. Quota support missing?
4. slow unreliable file system (and no it does not matter when you get UFS – now is not available)
5. no Novell emulation
6. no support for ECC RAM
7. no built-in hardware support for RAID5 (software RAID does not count)
8. very limited software (example: no RDBMS, Zeus?)
9. for Apache – no virtual hosting
10. LDAP server (not only authentication)
My 12 old daughter has on her FreeBSD installed SAMBA. But it does not make her using REAL server. I am sure that soon MacOS X will catch up. But for now hardware/saftware wise Apple is far from it (MS using BSD is as good as Apple running Solaris). And no MacOS X is not FreeBSD so you can not say that capabilities of these two are comparable. The fact that you are Solaris/Mac/Win? user does not mean that you can run (i.e. properly configure) these OSes. So please leave servers alone and concentrate on desktops. I do not understand from where come the idea that having pieces of BSD/Mach kernel and installed SAMBA/Apache makes Mac a server (“home/family” servers are not real servers).
MP
CattBeMac: You can forget the x86 pipe dream and Apple, it’s not going to happen!
CattBeMac, you are basing your ideas on how is it impossible that Apple start becoming a beige box reseller for Dell. Sure, IBM is coming up with something in October to present it to everyone, but I doubt that would help Apple
1) Apple tries NOT to give any hints to their customers on what’s their next move. Why? Then everyone would wait and get the next thing coming down the lines – something like what is happening with AMD. IBM is showcasing its new “desktop” processor way before Apple had unveiled it.
2) No matter what, until Apple opens the hardware market (which is next to impossible), it doesn’t make any economic sense for IBM to push its processos faster and faster in comparison with PCs. So,
3) It would make much more economic sense in the long term to move to x86. Why? x86 prices are always going down.
The problems that might arrise is
4) Binary compatiblity…. it seems Apple didn’t care about that too much when it released Jaguar, right? But anyway, just like the way Apple transition itself from 68k to PPC, it could do the same.
5) The lack of image – just like they do now with G3s and G4s, they could always rebrand Intel’s or AMD’s processors, and it would be just as easy to compare products now as it would be if they transition itself to x86. Plus, with extra clock speed, it could attrack more dumb customers.
6) I can’t think of anymore, can you?
anonymous – Bert: Um, err, ok… consumers, yes… some professionals, try again, how aboutlike many professionals from a variety of disciplins. Remember, for the most part, OSX can do what linux does and can do what windows does, something neither of the other 2 systems are able to claim.
There are many things Linux has than Mac OS X doesn’t. For one, does Mac OS X have anything like Gentoo. Exactly.
Same goes for Windows. I’ll leave that to Glenn, but there are many things you can do in Windows that you can’t on Mac OS. And gaming is the biggest.
anonymous – Bert: OSX is based upon freebsd/mach. Hotmail, the company Microsoft acquired, couldn’t be migrated off free-bsd for over 2 years
Mac OS X is based on Darwin, which doesn’t go through as much stress as FreeBSD. It is very different from each other, and all Apple is doing now is syncing the APIs for that Darwin apps may run on FreeBSD and vice versa.
So you have to provide more proof on how Mac OS X could actually perform in demanding tasks. Besides, Hotmail took so long to migrate because both FreeBSD and Windows NT is very different and the people behind Hotmail know more about FreeBSD than Windows NT. There would be too much glithces if Microsoft pushes Hotmail to change too fast.
anonymous – Bert: I’ve seen production linux/bsd/solaris servers run for over a year without a reboot
I have seen the same with Windows NT 4.0, never seen Windows 2000 nor .NET Server is much action.
CattBeMac: Would you care to enlighten us on those ‘lack of features’?!
The lack of good SMP support (maximum of two processors supported) and no virtual hosting on Apache is what I could think of right now.
MP: But for now hardware/saftware wise Apple is far from it (MS using BSD is as good as Apple running Solaris).
Speaking of Solaris, I remembered once the controlversy when someone founded out one of Microsoft servers uses Solaris…
Granted, OSX is not as mature as other *nixes, and is not as feature rich as Windows. It is important, however to differentiate hard limitations from “out of the box” and current implementations. Taking some of your examples:
Apache – virtual hosting by name is available out of the box, by IP address requires a kernel module.
SMP support – current implementation is 2 cpu’s, this is not a hard limit as darwin can scale to 8, in current base.
RDBMS – MYSQL, Protesque are running now. As far as enterprise level, yes but oracle will probably be releasing. They have just ported their developer tools to osx….
File system – sucks a$$. Apple please FIX IT!
RAID five – IDE RAID5 implementations are available.
LDAP – Authorization services are available through attribute queries but would be performed by the application. LDAP is not a NOS like NDS or AD, it’s a repository.
I truly look forward to the development of OSX. Right now it’s my prefered workstation. I’m hoping in a few years it will be my prefered server.
<<<I have seen the same with Windows NT 4.0, never seen Windows 2000 nor .NET Server is much action.>>>
Um, err, bull!@#. And idle servers do not count. I have never seen this, and have worked in environments with thousands of servers.
As for the hotmail issue, the issues MS faced were not porting issues but platform stability/scalability.
Gentoo, you’ve got to be kidding. While their apt-get/ports implementation is nice, it is not a feasible platform in an enterprise environment (lack of enterprise monitoring and back-up solutions, extremely expensive implementation – given labor costs, no ISV support, no OEM support, no straight vendor support, etc…). The ~5% performance increase yielded by full local compiling does not justify the costs. This is not about some geeky kids play machine. This is about the real world where you have budgets and deliverables. As an asside, take a fairly simple/common production need. Try getting an ssl accelerator to work on Gentoo…
When you get older you will learn that it is much more important to be correct then it is to be right.
>>1. SMP support – limited to 2 CPU’s
2. LVM support – no
3. Quota support missing?
4. slow unreliable file system (and no it does not matter when you get UFS – now is not available)
5. no Novell emulation
6. no support for ECC RAM
7. no built-in hardware support for RAID5 (software RAID does not count)
8. very limited software (example: no RDBMS, Zeus?)
9. for Apache – no virtual hosting
10. LDAP server (not only authentication)<<
Sound more like preferences than requirements, but it seems ‘bert’ summed up the list for you!
>>My 12 old daughter has on her FreeBSD installed SAMBA. But it does not make her using REAL server.<<
So what is a real server, though I agree people hosting web pages from a desktop PC would not be considered a server, but Microsoft sure counts those in their claims of marketshare!
>>I am sure that soon MacOS X will catch up. But for now hardware/saftware wise Apple is far from it (MS using BSD is as good as Apple running Solaris).<<
Apple does have a ways to go and won’t get there overnight!
>>And no MacOS X is not FreeBSD so you can not say that capabilities of these two are comparable.<<
I never said that, but here is the kicker… the OS is Unix (based) which means like any other Unix (based) OS is configurable! Let’s take OSes that are not server OSes in perspective;
DOS – definitely not a server OS (not even for networking), it was meant for the single desktop
BeOS – falls victim to that of DOS, but it does support up to 8 CPUs!
NT – yes definitely, its roots go far back as VMS (which was an excellent and preferred server/networking OS). Though NT’s registry has a lot to be desired when it comes to modification verses System Libraries in Unix!
UNIX – from day one had the network in mind, yeah definitely can be a server OS, and pretty much dominates the webserver market at this time!
>>The fact that you are Solaris/Mac/Win? user does not mean that you can run (i.e. properly configure) these OSes.<<
Now do you honestly think that my company would spend $10,000 (per workstation) for Ultra 60s so I can be a user (maybe some office productivity or something) running Solaris, that is what we have Windows for! I program on these machines. I work in the space industry, which my job requires a multitude of things including programming, monitor and control of ground equipment, spacecraft and global networks, etc… I’m a weird breed in this business and I am expected to ‘adapt, overcome’ which is what my job is all about!
>>So please leave servers alone and concentrate on desktops.<<
Unfortunately my job has to deal with servers, so I can’t take your advice 🙁
>>I do not understand from where come the idea that having pieces of BSD/Mach kernel and installed SAMBA/Apache makes Mac a server (“home/family” servers are not real servers).<<
Of course it’s all based on what your requirements are. Take this link below as an example of what a server can be;
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19164.html
And this server doesn’t have any of what you said above!
It is interesting how everything anyone says goes up in a puff of smoke when you only ignore him enough. Of course it is only “preferences.” Don’t admit that important things are missing that would make OS X a good server operating system.
Also, in my opinion OS X is not really Unix-based. What is so “Unixy” about it? It has a Mach kernel, a modified one, too. Sure, it has a BSD layer on top, but I can put that on Windows as well and nobody would call it Unix-based.
Bert focuses on 5 issues out of the 10 that were presented (which isn’t even an exhaustive list of missing server features as well). Since he debunked 5 of them, seemingly, OS X is a good server OS now. Ignorance is bliss.
The same happens when someone mentions that Linux is not a good desktop OS. The usual answer: “I use it as my desktop, so it is a good desktop OS.” Sure. “I use OS X as a server, so it is a good server OS.” Sure.
CDN,
Who decides what is a good server OS verses a bad one, hmmm?! It’s almost like saying what’s a good religion verses a bad one?!
>>Also, in my opinion OS X is not really Unix-based. What is so “Unixy” about it? It has a Mach kernel, a modified one, too. Sure, it has a BSD layer on top, but I can put that on Windows as well and nobody would call it Unix-based.<<
A micro kernel verses a mono kernel doesn’t decide if it’s Unix based or not! Unix is more than just a kernel!
You have your old timers (Unix Gurus) who say that Windows isn’t a good server OS due to inflexibility in the CLI and the registry, that’s their opinion and nothing more. If the OS can handle the tasks that a server requires (and not what software runs on it… what a lame argument) and does it efficiently for the purpose it was intended, then the points above are moot! Is Mac OS X Server ready for the enterprise (the crown jewel in the server space) probably not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good server OS, just like Windows, it’s growing and maturing as well!!!
I kinda agree with Stew. Jaguar is NOT that good of an upgrade. OS X is still too bloated and the finder is buggier now. I got windows that can’t close in the Dock. And they broke a lot of apps. I have problems with Norton Anti-Virus, Live Update, etc…
I would never go back to Mac OS 9. But they need to fix these huge speed problems. I mean a G3 500MHz is a slow processor. Windows XP runs on a Pentium II processors and THAT is slow. Either open up the Aqua interface for external programmers to help Apple fix things up or dedicate more people to the task.
>>Windows XP runs on a Pentium II processors and THAT is slow.<<
Thats right runs on them SLOW! Helk not even WinNT or Win2k can run efficiently on those doorstops! I’ve seen XP in action on the average laptops here, and XP is not exactly what you call fast on a mobile Pentium processor, even the ‘START’ menus draw slow, though you can disable that ‘Win98’ fluid feature to act more like the menus from ‘Win95’!
Ok Bert I give you 2
1. for RAID5 hardware
0.5 for RDBMS – PostgreSQL is but MySQL is not (does not support transactions and triggers)
0.5 LDAP server – LDAP directory Services like iPlanet or Solstice?
0 – no Oracle is not yet available
0 – no Darwin does not count ( can you sell product (Mac) based on its future characteristics?)
For heavy load DB you need something like ECC RAM not SDRAM or DDR RAM. There is more about hardware suitable to build server and it has nothing to do with architecture it is rather quality/durability of installed components (very expensive) designed for servers.
No I am not making any unusual requirements. Server market is very hard, much harder than desktop. So it seems that current MacOS X server is at the early beta stage. We will see how it is going to develop.
CattBeMac – DOS as server? well I remember P2P LANtastic from Artisoft. Nooo that was fun.
BeOS – no BeOS never was intended to be a server ( and it has nothing to do with MS in this case) TCP stack was bad. Maybe now is better?
And the link you recommended – I haven’t read it (no time) but it looks like Web appliance, nothing peculiar.
What makes server: “The Power to Serve”?
MP
Dude I am called by people as being a pro-mac person. But let’s get real here: It’s too slow and the hardware is not the problem.
If I can run W2K server on an older Pentium 233MMX with 256 megs RAM then I can surely run Jaguar on a 1 year old iBook with 640 megs RAM.
>>PostgreSQL is but MySQL is not<<
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/mysql.htm…
>>0 – no Oracle is not yet available<<
hmmm… thats funny, it seems available to me;
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/index.html?1439925.html
>>0 – no Darwin does not count ( can you sell product (Mac) based on its future characteristics?)<<
How does Darwin not count? It’s there, what more do you want!
>>For heavy load DB you need something like ECC RAM not SDRAM or DDR RAM. There is more about hardware suitable to build server and it has nothing to do with architecture it is rather quality/durability of installed components (very expensive) designed for servers.<<
Apple is not the only one not building servers without ECC RAM, so what’s your point?!
>>( and it has nothing to do with MS in this case)<<
Never said it did, that was your assumption!
>>If I can run W2K server on an older Pentium 233MMX with 256 megs RAM then I can surely run Jaguar on a 1 year old iBook with 640 megs RAM.<<
Well I imagine you should be able to run Jaguar on a year old iBook… I’m still running OS X 10.1.5 on a 3 year old iMac G3 without any problems, yeah 10.0 was slow and I complained all summer about it, but since 10.1, those slow days are over!!!
CDN,
I agree with you that OSX server is not quite ready for real enterprise integration and definately not ready for big iron production. Re-reading my original post, I could see how this may be misconstrued. I was really just underscoring its heritage.
To be clear, OSX is just as much Unix as Linux or any of the bsd’s. It may not have all the tools you and I require for production operations, but they will come, and quickly at that.
Personally, I’m extremely impressed with OSX, relative to the time it has been in users hands, it is progressing very well.
Well I imagine you should be able to run Jaguar on a year old iBook… I’m still running OS X 10.1.5 on a 3 year old iMac G3 without any problems, yeah 10.0 was slow and I complained all summer about it, but since 10.1, those slow days are over!!!
Yes it is currently running Jaguar BUT no speed improvements at all. Scrolling upsing mouse is still slow, resizing is still too slow and apps don’t move faster around the screen while being dragged. And the mouse pointer speed is still too slow. I haven’t seen NO improvements at all.
>>Yes it is currently running Jaguar BUT no speed improvements at all. Scrolling upsing mouse is still slow, resizing is still too slow and apps don’t move faster around the screen while being dragged. And the mouse pointer speed is still too slow. I haven’t seen NO improvements at all.<<
Well I’ll find out soon enough… mine copy is on the way!
First of all I was joking about these numbers I would give. Second, I did not say that MySQL is not abailable for Mac I sed that it is not RDBMS. And no it is unwise to put developer,s release into production. This is for DEVELOPERS you know?
And last but not least: relax! Who knows what next in the server market.
MP
>>This is for DEVELOPERS you know? And last but not least: relax! Who knows what next in the server market.<<
No worries, you haven’t dissed Mac OS X server really… you said it had promise 🙂
me hopes so 2!
CattBeMac: Apple is not the only one not building servers without ECC RAM, so what’s your point?!
Name a major server maker that doesn’t use ECC RAM or push it. Or use some other equilivent.
>>RE: Name a major server maker that doesn’t use ECC RAM or push it. Or use some other equilivent.<<
Depends on who you consider ‘major’… Dell strikes me first because their competing servers to Apple’s has no ECC RAM!