“Jaguar is the desktop that Linux should have had. I mean, don’t get me wrong, KDE3 is very cool if you soup it up a bit, and I’m really enjoying GNOME2 on my actual cooker-based workstation. But OS X, and Aqua, have an elegance and refinement that KDE and GNOME are just lacking. […] Which leads me to believe that Linux has no future on PPC hardware as a desktop. Apple has that covered. Unless you’re absolutely against commercial software, you don’t need to use Linux.” Read Vincent Danen’s article. Vincent is a co-owner Danen Consulting Service and a Linux Mandrake employee.
A Linux PPC Developer Favors MacOSX Jaguar to Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
-nt
They actually post stories and reviews like this, without bias. I am tired of communities run by 600-lb men who sit in IRC all day and can’t stand for any opinion besides “XFree86/<insert window manager>” is the most elegant desktop on Earth. Face it. The Linux desktop needs work before it can truly exist.
It is pointless to compare OSX and Linux without any mention of the underlying hardware architecture that Apple tightly controls, nor the open interfaces that the whole Linux open movement aims.
That OSX is pretty, is also pretty obvious. Not the fastest OS either. That Linux is actually a raw and complicated ‘half baked potato’ as a desktop OS, should not need special addressing out of the CLI diehards.
The only problem the author has it’s that he happens to work in PPC for a Linux company. He is in a catch22 situation, there can’t be much future for Linux or any non Apple OS there, only for Apple, Apple, Apple, all PPC praise Apple, and he is in there, bad luck? The future for the cheapest OS, Linux, is in the cheaper and faster computers, no need to be a genius to arrive at the article conclusion.
Other than his actual bad luck, the point is that unlike that gorgeous beautiful slow and expensive Apple platform, Linux has a bright future on the desktop, and that future has already started without the author noticing, with the help of RedHat and GNOME2. OSX is a new OS in old hardware, very soon it will be old in old.
With employees like this one, no wonder Mandrake can’t convince its own shareholders to cash in, personal opinions are not always business wise. If you can’t say anything nice in public about your employer, just don’t say anything, or call it quits.
If you can’t say anything nice in public about your employer, just don’t say anything, or call it quits.
You’re not much into that freedom thing, are you?
Why is everyone shouting about the superiority of OSX to linux. AFAIK linux is far more usable at the moment for a single reason…WEB BROWSING. Currently OSX feels like a proof-of-concept os, its pretty , got some nice features..but incredibly slow/annoying for web browsing. How can it even be considered a valid solution right now? For example currently, linux running on ppc ibooks beats the hell out of osx running mozilla(even though X is *inferior* to osx’s UI engine).
Well, anyway. I’m just complaining about OSX’s inability to do something we all expect from a modern desktop.
You must be kidding. IE, Omniweb, and Mozilla are all quite usable on OSX, and in fact Mozilla, though it starts up slow, is the best of them all IMHO. Very quick and stable, with lots of options and capabilities. Have you used a mac at all since 10.0? Its ALOT better than it was at first.
Mandrake’s niche is all around general purpose desktop that is very well put together in terms of configuration and application functionality. Comparing like to like it is RedHat with much better defaults:
KDE vs. Gnome
Easier configuration
Slightly better app integration
More cutting edge
Buggier
OSX is delivering the business apps + the power of Unix. I love OSX; but there is no question that when you want to run Unix apps Linux works better than OSX does. There are huge problems with just downloading a tarball and compiling under OSX; and the result is these apps really need porting. Now within say 2 years given how favorably the Unix crowd is treating OSX its likely that app writers will start building their source and make files so that the heavy porting isn’t required. But we aren’t there yet. So there is going to need to be some PPC Linux support for heavy Unix users probably as part of a dual boot / virtual machine setup: (though Mach actually could support a virtual Linux machine with /proc file system and everything if Apple or OpenDarwin felt like doing the work). While I’ve never used Mandrake PPC I have used Mandrake x86 and I have used OSX / fink. Mandrake x86 offers a better pure Unix experience then OSX does.
OK what about long term? Well as Unix apps continue to improve and the Unix side of OSX continues to improve I have little doubt that within say 2 years average Mac users are going to start running some Unix apps. Mac powerusers are already starting to feel comfortable doing CLI stuff and most of them like some of the Unix apps.
So in the sense of Linux meaning Linus’s kernal its very likely he’s right. But really when people talk about Linux what they mean is GNU/Linux, Linux plus the whole collection thousands GPL/BSD licensed software. I see that continuing to grow and thrive on OSX.
Mandrake PPC could easily be a few CDs with a full software suite that you drop right into your OSX environment; a vastly improved and integrated fink. Who cares if the Linux kernal is driving it or not?
Vincent says it self: “Yes, it’s all eye candy”.
Now I’ll be back to my cheaper *and* faster hardware running *free* (like in freedom) software (Debian GNU/Linux).
Regards,
C.
Can you believe it? we don’t mess around with linux because we get money or fame…ooooh, big deception!. Most of us have mainly three reasons:
– We feel comfortable with everything inside at hand, yes even using the ugliest window manager.
– We have fun doing things for our favourite desktop, and no company is stealing our job, because it becames public stuff
– We think knowledge should or even must be free and available for everybody.
Companies are companies, and they will always be that, companies. We, (well we? there is not really a we) organize in individuals or in groups and groups are made up from friendship, not interests. Collaboration is spontaneus. Some people collect stamps for years, and nobody says all that effort is stupid or “face it! you will never have all stamps you want!” But, all that work will disappear after that person, and that won’t happen with our codes and projects. We don’t want everybody using Linux. We want people asking to use Linux and help improve it or exchange information or just have a laugh with the last Bgts joke. Is it that hard to understand?
Hi again
I am sorry, but I have to post this. OSNews is degrading in the Linux UI bitch and moan zone. Every day or at least once a week someone here is bitching about this and that is wrong with XFree vs. XP or OSX honestly. ENOUGH OF THAT ALREADY. Don’t you think the developers of KDE/GNOME and XFree knows already. I give you honestly that they don’t seem to be willing to do much about it, but that should change. People here and elsewhere should stop talking and do stuff. A couple of months ago I posted here about this very same subject and I got into contact with at least one guy interested in doing this right. OSS needs a better desktop, but to do that it needs a better engine and the legacy of X not longer has it. We need a proper (C++ or something like that) UI engine, which runs gives us the following:
-An Enforced! (queryable) Interface/Component seperation of Model (Data), View (Widgets, Dialogs, Renderers) and a Controller (Appserver running the commands coming from the application). This will together with centralized theming and coloring enforce GUI integrity starting at the API.
-An indexed persistence system for all data with a query able structure of MIME filter, that will return the data in the closest possible version of that which the application requires with FULL metadata streams for all datatypes. Yes the entire system’s applications should be FORCED to use this.
-All data including fonts go through the persistence API on the server hopefully guaranteeing that all this trouble with install locations, package format trouble and the like goes away.
-A Windowing enviroment building on the best found in XP, OSX, KDE, GNOME and even some Games today. Now I am no expert but there are alot out there. I am sure to find one who is at least willing to help.
-Usage of a adapter layer for X drivers but otherwise usage of OpenGL to render everything!!!
This can be done. Contact me for more information or discussion. I mean it
Almost nobody is so crazy to say that KDE or Gnome is a better desktop environment at the moment. But I wonder how he can come to the conclusion that Linux doesnt have a future on the desktop. Important for the future is the pace of progress, and not the current state.
What about the PPC based Amigas?
And AmigaOne and Pegasos running PPC linux also.
I’m glad someone in a noteable position said what I’ve believed ever since I first looked at Linux. What would be more welcome is for Mandrake itself, and the wider desktop community, to echo that position.
OS install, desktop, and installer, need standardising and slicking up to at least the same standard of quality and consistancy as Windows or OS X. Applications should also appear more consistant in appearance.
I don’t want to spend half my life learning how to do something when it’s the job of the OS and the developer to minimise the complexity and difficulty of achieving a task.
Linux to live, not live for Linux.
I’m glad someone in a noteable position said what I’ve believed ever since I first looked at Linux
I really think Mandrake is going to fire his ass. You can’t have empoyees badmouthing you, even if it’s somewhat true
Hi !
My point of view is thaht SuSE Linux (PPC or x86) is much suitable than Mac OS X Jaguar.
Maybe OS X is much user candy, more Windows-friendly, but the price is excessive.
You can get SuSE Linux for 80$ when Apple release its OS for 130 $ !
You can get Linux on different platforms unlike Mac OS X.
Why do we need to pay more if you can get a cheaper strong OS ?
Do you know thaht you can put Aqua style in KDE 3.x ?
On the PPC however, I don’t see it. I think what Apple has done with OS X is remarkable. I’ve played with SuSE on PPC, Mandrake, and YellowDog… OS X, with XFree86 running rootless and fink, wins hands down. I mean, what’s better than having KDE3 running on top of Aqua? Nothing! It’s a sight to behold.
Seems that he thinks there’s no future for Linux on PPC hardware, when he can access XWindow based desktops with OSX and have the best of both worlds.
Sorry, it pretty much looks to me that everybody in here lost the ground completely. How many people can use their Mac for pure enjoyment..? More than five?! – Most Mac users tend to be bound to things called Photoshop and alike – I don’t see how a discussion whether or not to use anything besides Mac OS can at all come to mind. This discussion is only valid for veeeeery few users, but you are pretending as if it would be a matter of general OS choice…. knock it off – if you happen to enjoy Linux and own a machine, do a 2nd install and it will be fine – apart from that it is the most senseless discussion I had to read in a while, even if Linux was 10000 times better.
GNU/Linux is about free (like in freedom) software. Closed source macox combines with xfree86 isn’t the best of both world. It’s just closed source with some freeware.
C.
Linux has absolutely no future on PPC hardware, unless Apple opens up its hardware, or Amiga gives enough competition to make the price goes down like the way x86 processors does.
Maybe a little trolling, but there a possibility that apple has no future in the desktop becuase of their ridiculous priced hardware and the ridiculous low performance of the motorola ppc compared with intel and amd.
C.
Since I started reading this forum regulary I have lived in costant amazement. No, really, I mean it.
How can someone compare Linux and OSX without mentioning the price factor? I am the only one here that cannot afford having more than one computer and cannot possibly think of spending the money Jobs is asking me for his OS? I am not being sarcastic, I really want to know.
“noone needs Linux on PPC hardware”. Great! Does it mean someone is going to give me a free copy of OSX? Can I write directly to Jobs? (OK, now I am being sarcastic)
Far from me the idea of ruining your perfect world were money issues simply don’t exist, but out there in a place called reality there are several firms and labs and schools etc. etc. that invested a lot on apple hardware (mainly because it was easier to use), here at my university alone we have a lab with 50 (yes, that’s fifty) not-so-old macs. The lab cannot afford a complete software upgrade — guess which OS is running on those machines now.
Eugenia: Vincent is a co-owner Danen Consulting Service and a Linux Mandrake employee.
There is no company called Linux Mandrake. The company is called Mandrakesoft, and the product Mandrake Linux.
Yes, you can mod this down now 🙂
My point of view is thaht SuSE Linux (PPC or x86) is much suitable than Mac OS X Jaguar.
Any version of linux has a long way to go before it can compete as a desktop OS.
Maybe OS X is much user candy, more Windows-friendly, but the price is excessive.
I’m willing to pay a little bit more for a better product.
You can get SuSE Linux for 80$ when Apple release its OS for 130 $ !
See above comment.
You can get Linux on different platforms unlike Mac OS X.
<sarcasm> Great. Wonderfull. </sarcasm>
Why do we need to pay more if you can get a cheaper strong OS ?
Quality.
Do you know thaht you can put Aqua style in KDE 3.x ?
Yeah. And using window blinds I can put an Aqua style in windows. IS their a point to that statement or do you not understand that a skin that looks like Auqa is not Auqa. I can also use window blinds to make windows look like BeOS. But it’s not BeOS. It just apppears to be BeOS, but you still have the windows GUI – it just got a new coat of paint.
Do you know thaht you can put Aqua style in KDE 3.x ?
Hmmmm
Lets see
1) Liquid is much more ugly that Aqua, at least the Jaguar Aqua. The text on the buttons, for example, is barely readable, and totally ugly.
2) The UI still sticks to the normal KDE one. Yeap, it isn’t anything like the real Aqua.
3) Okay, I finally got the guts to say this. Aqua is ugly to me. But Liquid is god damn ugly. Mosfet, I like Pixie Plus, but Liquid is the worse imitation of Aqua I ever seen!
Everyone says that apple controlls the hardware too much. This is true if you look at it as they are the only making of apple hardware, but just because they don’t have fifty mobo companies making mobos for them doesn’t mean Intel and AMD don’t controll hardware on the x86 side, I mean when Intel releases a new chip “standard” the mobo companies change and the same with AMD. The only difference is that there are two companies controlling the x86 side and that you have to sort through a lot of crap PC products to find the good ones.
“I really think Mandrake is going to fire his ass. You can’t have empoyees badmouthing you, even if it’s somewhat true
”
If the comments were made on his own time and based on publically available information, isn’t he entitled to have and express an opinion without restriction? Last time I checked a company bought my time not my life. Not trying to start an argument with that, just pointing out something that should be considered before anyone starts getting hasty.
I certainly don’t think less of Mandrake because one employee put forward an opinion that wasn’t covered in marketing spin. Neither Linux nor Mandrake Linux is perfect and it’s a pleasure to see someone directly involved with it express a credible opinion.
…
As for the earlier comments by another poster about Linux being “free” and people developing it to scratch some itch, some people have to face up to some wider issues. Linux can enpower people. But, it can only do that if is useable and useful. Eliteist attitudes that disenfranchise the end user don’t help anyone and will only serve to marginalise Linux.
The advantage of Linux is that it’s competing from below. Microsoft and Apple used to compete this way against the old mainframe model. Sun was the low-cost competitor to the Lisp machines and Unix boxes. Now they’re all high-end compared to Linux.
No computational law forbids Linux from looking better.
But good interfaces will take a while in coming. I imagine once Ximian’s done with Mono will things start happening. But I am really an outside observer, who has more experience with non-Linux unix, so ymmv.
actually, he is right about the elegance & refinement, it seems that linux developers just don’t care enough about these bits.
i’ve recently found a bug (or mis-behavior) in xfree that cause opaque drag performance to suffer. i’ve make a test patch for kwin and emailed both xfree developers & the kwin developers.
got 0 replys from both. (a few people on kde-devel tried it though, and like it…)
aviv
and i don’t see what the fuss is… i never have used linux because of the state-of-the-eye-candy accessibility-enhanced application-rich gui. thats not what linux is about. ok, i also dont spend all my time on the command line, and i quite like kde, but i do usually have a few xterms open. linux is about the power and freedom you get from an OS and applications which are infinitely customisable and because of this complexity they might lose something on the speed/usability/stability front…
when is everyone going to realise that the linux desktop isnt ready and, in its current form, may never be ready for the mainstream.
You must be kidding. IE, Omniweb, and Mozilla are all quite usable on OSX, and in fact Mozilla, though it starts up slow, is the best of them all IMHO. Very quick and stable, with lots of options and capabilities. Have you used a mac at all since 10.0? Its ALOT better than it was at first.
My only beef with the OS X version of the multi-platform browsers is that their font rendering is sub par for the platform. Mozilla/Netscape is the worst offender followed by IE. Perhaps I’m spoiled by OmniWeb, but I’ve never gotten the same readability out of the IE/Mozilla browsers as I have with the same browsers on Windows. For the IE/Mozilla browsers the order of graphics engines (best to worst) for readibilty would be: Windows, X, Aqua. For OS X, the order of browsers (best to worst) for readibility would be: OmniWeb, IE, Mozilla/Netscape.
i am both a linux (intel hardware) and a mac user. i use both machines at home. which do i prefer? if it hadn’t been for macosx i would have gone the full way with linux. i was really frustrated with os 9 etc. my first computer was a mac classic so i felt ‘some loyalty’ towards the mac – but it was close to breaking point. OS x was a godsend – espeically since it is unix based. I loved using osx – the interface + launchbar (i think launchbar is a much more useful product than watson – i have both)
… but . i am getting frustrated with the lack of UI responsiveness – not the end of the world but it’s frustrating (okay – so i am using the Pismo G3) I am also having problems connecting to my isp – keeps loosing the connection. These are all frustrating issues. I am hopg that 10.2 will fix some of these issues – (can’t wait for 10.2).
However, in the back of my mind, i keep thinkg that linux is the way to go to create a web desktop. i feel it’s more web friendly – this is just my belief – so now i mainly use linux for my web development. The mac maybe a ‘better desktop’ but i feel linux has greater potential for creatg and using web applications/services.
parv
If you have the BIG money Apple (as the monopoly on Mac hardwar) charges for their slow G4s AND wants to impress people, go ahead and use Jaguar. Or better, wait until IBM comes to the rescue in October, maybe with the Power4 the OS X will be useable.
If you want to just work… I still think that, now and for a long time, Linux will be the best choice.
OS X is ALL about eye-candy, but it’s slow to the death. It treats excellent silicon pieces like the G3 and the 603/604 as a piece of crap. My PowerMac 5500/250 works beautifully with GNOME 2, much faster than any OS X-powered machine.
KDE and GNOME looks like “half-assed”? Great! If you don’t like it, go ahead and buy yours, or help them.
“What about the PPC based Amigas?
”
Eyetech announced that they hope to ship their PPC motherboard for
Linux during October.
The board has all the usual connectors (except Firewire), onboard
sound and ethernet, and an IBM 750CXe G3 CPU at 600MHz.
It’s very expensive, but if you buy all the rest of the computer at PC
prices it will cost less than a Mac and probably have more drive bays.
The price includes a license for AmigaOS 4.0, which is expected to be
released at the end of this year.
http://www.eyetech.co.uk
They also plan to offer a G4 board nextyear, and will trade in the G3
board for a new one.
“The board has all the usual connectors (except Firewire), onboard
sound and ethernet, and an IBM 750CXe G3 CPU at 600MHz. It’s very expensive…”
I am impress! For the price of the board, you can get a full Athlon XP 2000 system that will be twice as fast, run all popular software if needed (Windows) or run a more recent version of Linux.
I can’t understand how Eyetech want to do business.
So, when is eugenia going to post screenshots of 5 menus open at the same time under OSX?
Well I think Linux have bright future on desktop though it’s coming slowly. If you dont belive me just check
http://www.directfb.org/screenshots/gimp.png
Now what do you think?
>>So, when is eugenia going to post screenshots of 5 menus open at the same time under OSX?<<
It doesn’t happen under OS X, I already tested it and the menus draw fast enough to please the average user!
Since I started reading this forum regulary I have lived in costant amazement. No, really, I mean it.
because price has NOTHING to do with quality, or usuability. it has a big something to do with your wallet, but NOTHING to do with how well a product works.
Well I think Linux have bright future on desktop though it’s coming slowly. If you dont belive me just check
http://www.directfb.org/screenshots/gimp.png
Now what do you think?
You are kidding, right? If that is the future of the Linux desktop I am glad I am not part of it. This desktop is just plain useless and unusable. What’s up with all the transparency stuff? I wonder how people would work on their real desktop if paper was somehow transparent and you could see through fifteen layers of documents and notes. I don’t understand the obsession about making everything transparent. I hate it. It might come in handy sometimes, like in the case of transparent xterms, but to make everything else transparent is just awful.
Anyway, I saw that screenshot before. It is just GIMP running on DirectFB. It does not solve any of the problems with the Linux desktop as we know it. It might be a bit faster and more responsive since it is not running in X. However, running GIMP, a program with a horrible user interface, in the fram buffer doesn’t improve the desktop experience a bit.
the major difference between the two (except for the eye candy, which seems to now be a negative thing on this board) is that OS X will always have better office, multimedia and mainstream internet apps. and those three things are what desktop users use most. we can talk all we want about the OS, but if it doesn’t run the app you need it’s no good (look at BeOS). trust me i know, i’ve been a mac user a long time and almost had to jump to windows a few times to do what i needed to do.
OS X will have the Adobe apps, Quark (sometime!!), MS Office, iPhoto, iCal, iMovie, quicktime, flash, quicktime, java & javascript, eudora, AOL, etc. — the type of apps that regular people need to do their work or have fun at home. Linux has some similar products but will not have the app support that OS X does. That’s just the pecking order right now (and has been for years) for mainstream apps – windows, mac, linux . The thing that has changed is with OS X, the line between mac and linux has greyed considerably and allows for much easier crossing.
to answer some of the standard complaints here:
–yes, the jaguar upgrade price hurt a bit . and nothing will ever be as affordable as linux. but apple’s OS pricing is usually much more fair than MS. look at the 5-seat family pack for $199. and apple purposely doesn’t copy protect their OS’s (not even an install code), showing that they are not out for every penny of revenue from OS’s
–mac hardware is getting beat by PC’s at the moment, but that can change. the megahertz myth is real – a dual 1Ghz G4 can hang with the fastest PC, but apple does need some help here. don’t just look at 3.6ghz (intel) verse 1.2 ghz (PPC) and think the intel is 3x as fast. all macs are dual-processor now and OSX is being optimized in every rev.
–cost between the desktop platforms is about the same in my book, once you factor in quality of build, style, and resale value. things like quietness, easy upgradeability, and built in options (firewire, dual monitor support, gigabit ethernet, huge drives, dvd-r, etc.) on the laptop side, apple’s are actually cheaper spec-for-spec.
you out of the us fellas need to get the feel of ‘grammar’.
no one will take you seriously in the us if you CAN NOT SPEAK PROPERLY OR FORM REAL SENTENCES.
KEEP USING LINUX- LIKE IT ALL YOU WANT- I STARTED WITH RED HAT 4.2- and now i havent touched that machine since i started running osx. why fight with the desktop, when it can actually help you. i can burn cd’s, dvd’s, edit the movies for that, etc. with sound. i burned a dvd start to finish in 30 minutes with sound, music, and mpeg video that was readable in every dvd player i took it to. when the AVERAGE computer user can do that on linux, it will APPROACH what the mac os x can do. go crawl back under the rock ‘from out of under which you have crawled at a previous date’. (sic)
rajan r said: “Linux has absolutely no future on PPC hardware, unless Apple opens up its hardware, or Amiga gives enough competition to make the price goes down like the way x86 processors does.”
rajan r, sometime last week someone said that your posts here for the past several months have associated you as being a forum troll. Since then I’ve been analyzing your posts and have come to the conclusion that that individual was right. What the heck was the above statement supposed to mean? Linux has just as much future on PPC as it does on x86 (more so if you ask me considering the fact that the x86 processor is so inferior to nearly everything else on the market… especially all risc-based processors… *motorolla’s shortcomings asside*
In response to the following comment: “Do you know thaht you can put Aqua style in KDE 3.x ?” Rajan r said,
“Hmmmm
Lets see
1) Liquid is much more ugly that Aqua, at least the Jaguar Aqua. The text on the buttons, for example, is barely readable, and totally ugly.”[/i]
As if Aqua is ugly anyways… (although you are correct that Licquid is a poor rip off of Apple’s beautiful user interface
“3) Okay, I finally got the guts to say this. Aqua is ugly to me. But Liquid is god damn ugly.”
This says more about your sense of aesthetics than it does about Apple’s user interface.
I use x86 Linux and I must say that I would never use a desktop like that. It’s too busy and too cluttered. Really, I don’t need to see everything transparent.
I can see running Linux PPC on an old Mac, but why would anybody buy a new Apple computer to run Linux on when you can buy a PC to run Linux on, which is more powerful and much cheaper? That’s why I think Linux PPC has no future on Apple machines; it has nothing to do with OS X.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
1. No capitalization.
2. Ending sentences with prepositions. (“…i took it to.”)
3. Rambling sentences that need to be divided. (esp. burning the dvd)
If you want to criticize others’ grammar, learn it properly yourself.
but to do that it needs a better engine and the legacy of X not longer has it. We need a proper (C++ or something like that) UI engine, which runs gives us the following:
-An Enforced! (queryable) Interface/Component seperation of Model (Data), View (Widgets, Dialogs, Renderers) and a Controller (Appserver running the commands coming from the application). This will together with centralized theming and coloring enforce GUI integrity starting at the API.
-An indexed persistence system for all data with a query able structure of MIME filter, that will return the data in the closest possible version of that which the application requires with FULL metadata streams for all datatypes. Yes the entire system’s applications should be FORCED to use this.
-All data including fonts go through the persistence API on the server hopefully guaranteeing that all this trouble with install locations, package format trouble and the like goes away.
-A Windowing enviroment building on the best found in XP, OSX, KDE, GNOME and even some Games today. Now I am no expert but there are alot out there. I am sure to find one who is at least willing to help.
-Usage of a adapter layer for X drivers but otherwise usage of OpenGL to render everything!!!
And how does X prevent or hinder this? Before you start getting people together to design a full GUI system perhaps you should start understanding the layers as they exist. Most of what you want has nothing to do with X.
What you want to widget specific applications tied to a windowmanager which is based on the same widget set. That sounds a great deal like Gnome/GTK. The other thing you seem to want is a database filesystem like you have on VMS or MVS. There are projects in Linux to do this — but in general most users do not support moving to these structures so there is a political as well as a technical issue. If you know how to code pick a piece of one of those projects and help out.
They actually post stories and reviews like this, without bias.
I’m not so sure that’s true.
I am tired of communities run by 600-lb men who sit in IRC all day and can’t stand for any opinion besides “XFree86/<insert window manager>” is the most elegant desktop on Earth. Face it. The Linux desktop needs work before it can truly exist.
Why is that any less valid or any more deserving or ridicule than you sitting there all day holding an opinion that, “the Linux desktop needs work before it can truly exist”?
A more accurate and honest thing for you to say would be that you don’t like Linux as a desktop. I, and many others, use it as a desktop all the time and it suits us quite nicely, so saying, “The Linux desktop needs work before it can truly exist”, is not a correct statement.
GNU/Linux is about free (like in freedom) software. Closed source macox combines with xfree86 isn’t the best of both world. It’s just closed source with some freeware.
Darwin is open source. You can go to http://www.opendarwin.org and download it. You can even run it on your x86 box. The only things that are closed source are in the higher levels that is the Mac specific things.
does anyone who has a little bit of independent thought considered a troll? If I had a choice to be either a zealot who acts like a sheep in a big hurd, or be a troll who has independent thoughts, I would be a troll.
Would you people just grow up and shut up if you don’t have anything intelligent to say?
quit your fscking bitching. they’re OPERATING SYSTEMS, nothing more. save your time and energy for something more worthwhile. in the end, there’s no perfect os. it’s whatever works best for the user. sure, windows/mac os are easier to use than linux. sure, linux might be nicer under the hood than macos/windows and sure, macos might look better than windows and linux – but it’s still up to the user. that said. stfu.
I wish they would have taken that ‘extra’ month debugging.
i have an english degree from a highly accreditied university (private, jesuit…anyone who knows KNOWS…)
i can converse on any level you would like—
BUT i only capitalize in emails WHEN I WANT EMPHASIS.
works, huh? in the ‘down and dirty’ world of email, what use is formatting? if you can understand what i write, why add excessive and unnecessary keystrokes (shift) that will only open me to the ravages of Carpal sooner?
rest assured, if you needed to analyze a hanging participle, or a way to avoid same, i would be your man.
so yes, i am able to school you in english. i simply choose to remain understated so that ‘the great unwashed masses’ will not roll their eyes back into a glassy state after two sentences that are over-blown, over-done, and over their (use to paying attantion for 1 minute- length of TV commercials) heads. communication at its finest…email….NOT.
if we ever meet in person, you will find me well-spoken, well-read, and well-mannered. at times on the internet, i am none of the above
good day and regards to you, sir..
> What about the PPC based Amigas?
And AmigaOne and Pegasos > running PPC linux also.
AmigaOne? I’m still waiting to see it. Let me know when there is one. Things have been too quiet in “Amiga Land” lately. In
the past 15 years I’ve owned 5 Amigas, but, God love ’em, I
don’t think they are going to make much of an impact. They’ve
let the market practically evaporate down to nothing. The
landscape of computer technology has changed dramatically
since 1985. I just don’t think Amiga will pull it out again.
Well, you could save yourself from “Carpal” a lot more effectively if you didn’t write useless and off-topic messages in the first place. Just because you went to a “highly accredited university” doesn’t mean your English is good.
After sifting through what remotely seemed like a tirade in English, without the benefit of grammatical glue, I felt a need to comment on some of the more blatantly inaccurate assertions made by Anonmac.
I will refrain from inserting remnants from the original post due to its incoherent nature.
First of all, it is suggested that Anonmac used RedHat Linux since version 4.2 until OS X came out. Then he/she switched to OS X. That speaks volumes regarding the quality and usability of RedHat since Anonmac obviously used it successfully for several years.
More importantly, and inaccurately, Anonmac makes the following assertions:
Linux can’t burn CDs
Linux can’t edit movies with sound (or do other sound related tasks)
Linux can’t burn DVDs
Programs like XCDRoast, cdrecord, Toaster, etc. all allow you to burn CDs under Linux.
Programs like Cinelerra are excellent for capturing and editing movies, with sound, under Linux.
Linux can burn DVDs.
Anonmac’s suggestion that OS X has anything to do with how fast the DVD hardware can burn a disc, and that Linux couldn’t offer the same results given the same hardware is also laughable.
Finally, Anonmac says when the average computer user can do the items above using Linux, it will approach what OS X can do. Don’t misunderstand; I think OS X is an excellent operating system. However, to compare it to Linux in such a shoddy and inaccurate way is wrong.
i like this site a lot (beautiful design), but this thread, and a few of the recent ones, are starting to beg for a little moderating.
I just had to comment on this one. Not so much the artciel itself, but this ongoing war of ideals between Linux and Mac OSX users. Here’s a little about myself… I spend roughly 8 hours a day installing and configuring Linux-based servers for small companies in my area. As a network consultant, I am always recommending Linux for many different customer needs, and I’ve always been able to fill those needs nicely. I used to primarily base my work around microsoft’s solutions, but I learned that Linux is a much better and cost-effective solution.
After switching to Linux entirely for about a year, using it as a desktop and as a tool for my work, I discovered Mac OSX. I bought an iMac with a copy of OSX just as something to play around with and see just how powerful its unix underpinnings are. That iMac purchase has turned into a PowerBook purchase and I now use it as my primary workstation. The thing that is so great about it is the fact that I can do so many “normal”, “non-geeky” stuff with it like make photo albums, make movies, organise my MP3s, etc. and still get the “geeky” things like being able to troubleshoot some Linux server from my home rather than going on site to access the machine or something like that.
The fact of the matter that I have learned is this: even though we want to standardise everything, it just won’t happen. I hear so many open-source zealots (and they are just as bad as us mac zealots) say that if everything was open then everything would be better or some nonsense like that. It just can’t happen that way. Most open source developers write programs or patch existing ones so they can better suit their own needs. Now when you have thousands of open developers doing this, you can get a pretty good outcome for a product that can suit most people. But you never really have customer demands to meet and I’m betting the majority of you don’t worry about if making an icon look a certain way is going to make your customers like your product much better.
I believe strongly that there is a definite place for open source software, that is for the greater good of technology, but I also believe that we need companies who can taylor their software to our tastes and likes and needs. If KDE floats your boat, that’s great! I personally like KDE. That iMac that I bought runs YDL with KDE and I use it mainly so I can keep up with the cool software that is only available for linux. If you like Macs, that’s great too. They all can basically do the same things. The only difference is that Macs do it one way, and Linux with xfree and KDE or GNOME, and windows, all do it a different way. It’s not a bad thing at all. But when we can learn to have some tolerance for each other, and consider the fact that we CAN all play on the same playground, and work together, then open source software and proprietary siftware should all be able to help each other out.
As far as my ideals go… I absolutely love it when I get to set up a network that uses Linux as the backbone and Macs as the desktops. Nothing else in my work gives me more joy.
I read with awe at the utter lunacy of the commentary above. It’s obvious that this forum has degenerated into first a Linux Uber Alles site, and then a theological debate about how many of Linus Torvfald’s angels can dance around inside the kernel of whatever flavor of Linux the particular debater thinks is GOD ALMIGHTY!
Blunt facts that you are all ignoring… Linux is a small hope for the techno-weenies who prefer to use archaic CISC based technology now creaking along in it’s fourth decade. Windows is a bad copy of just about everything else out there, a Unix wannabe that ain’t really delivered on any promise since Bill Gates stole Q/DOS from it’s auhtor many years ago.
Yes, there are PPC based Linux’ available, but who cares. The end user wants to *USE* the computer, not spend all of his time downloading and compiling iffy code and fiddling with the innards to force the whole touchy thing to function against its will.
Until you guys wake up, smell the coffee and deal with reality (It ain’t 1970 any more, YUTZ!)… I will go home and actually accomplish something useful on my Mac OS X based system that you guys are spending so much time trying to poo-poo away.
Good luck… SUCKERS!
Just curious. I have several Linux friends. I have many Mac friends. It seems to me the Linux friends are constantly taking the OS and their hardware apart and trying endless combinations. This is a generalization, but almost all of them seem to prefer the computer to people. My Mac friends are always trying to see what new and interesting things they can do or create on the Mac to promote their work and themselves. I think we have two philosophies working here. Lately I’ve noticed some of my Linux friends trying to find out information about OSX without making it seem like they’re really interested. Hmmm…I wonder.
Don’t really want to participate here (reading all this nonsense already took me half an hour, that’s exactly half an hour more than it was worth) but quickly state my opinion on the topic.
If people like Mac OS X, that’s great. Everything that opens the market is good for _every_ competitor so I say more power to them. The competitor of free software isn’t Apple right now, it’s Microsoft. We need to get some marketshare from them, 10 to 20 percent would be perfect.
But of course we also observate what Apple is doing, because for the very very unlikely situation that Apple overruns Microsoft, we need to be prepared to compete with Mac OS.
Some people might not realize this, but an Apple monopoly would be worth than a Microsoft monopoly. A closed system on closed hardware isn’t exactly how I want to see the future of computing.
So if you think Mac OS X suits your needs better than GNU/Linux, than this is great for you but not the issue right now. Linux does _not_ need to compete with Mac OS atm. For me free software isn’t about crushing any competition, it’s about making sure that nobody depends on a single vendor like Microsoft.
As long as I don’t get email attachments in “Apple’s native office format” or websites start to lock everyone out who isn’t running “Apple’s Megabrowser”, it’s fine with me. A 50/50 situation between Microsoft and Apple would already be a much better situation than what we have right now.
I think that the Unix community needs to get beyond all the subtle differences (of pure religion) and work together to gain this marketshare. You’ll never have to worry about Apple, because of what you said above, but the Unix/Linux community could take advantage of Apple in a way that could benefit all. I bet you normal folks hasn’t even heard of ‘Unix’ until now since Apple has waving the battle flag. Yeah they probably heard of Linux, but probably didn’t put 2 and 2 together. One thing is for sure, Microsoft knows that the Unix/Linux has the big guns, and if the community finally figures out how to get those big guns to work together, Microsoft will be in for a big surprise!
As for Apple’s marketshare… I have talked to other Mac users about this and most agree that if we can get 10% and keep it steady, then Microsoft can keep the rest! Though this is not what Steve Jobs wants I’m sure!
I think Linux has a big future on Apple hardware. With the underpinnings of OS X the open source movement is thrust into users radar screen.
I for one have become very interested making my next Mac purchase a dual boot Linux/OS X machine for political reasons and to keep my options open.
Someone earlier questioned the idea of buying new Mac hardware just to put Linux on it. I didn’t buy a Mac just for that, but I somewhat regretted my purchase (impulse buy) so I take comfort in knowing I can just slap Linux on it and justify the expense… somewhat.
Probably when I buy my next Mac (looking at the Power Mac at this time) I’ll probably slap a dual boot with YDL! I was going to do that with my TiBook, but I don’t see any reason in it at the moment!
You may be Jesuit-schooled, but I never would have guessed it from your ability to understand what I wrote. Maybe if I quote your two emails, the contradiction will be clearer:
1. no one will take you seriously in the us if you CAN NOT SPEAK PROPERLY OR FORM REAL SENTENCES.
2. i simply choose to remain understated so that ‘the great unwashed masses’ will not roll their eyes back into a glassy state after two sentences that are over-blown, over-done, and over their (use to paying attantion for 1 minute- length of TV commercials) heads. communication at its finest…email….NOT.
You want me to tolerate your grammar mistakes; fine. Pray tell: why should I take you seriously?
BTW, this isn’t email. I understand your point all the same.
This is not meant to be a flame…I’m just curious…
Does XFree suck less on a Mac since there’s less video hardware to support? (I’m not talking about XonX rootless run on top of Quartz…I’m talking about raw hardware X)
No offense but XFree can be pretty sucky if your hardware isn’t supported right…and don’t tell me get a better graphics card…(I’m a student and they pretty much required us all to buy Gateway Solo 1450 laptops which include the *very crappy* i830m graphics chip)…the really frustrating thing is that my graphics card is *half-ass* supported…meaning that i can either run in 640x480x16 or 1024x748x8…not fun for linux…and i know that a certain commercial graphics company has a fully supported server (i’ve tried the demo)…i’d almost consider buying it…but it costs 100 bucks…
-bytes256
I know this sounds like it has nothing to do with X, but it has, you see taking the way I proposed in my preliminary design (and you haven’t seen all of that yet) would take away the possibility of having GTK, Qt and so on. Only one toolkit using interfaces and component querying would be supported. What I am think of doing is taking the idea behind X and Fresco and roll in some mediasupport, modern component architecture, advanced vector based rendering systems based on OpenGL/SDL or something like that, and solve the whole application and data (including fonts) by making the rendering server into an application server. I believe that a multithreaded component based system inspired by or possibly done together with the Fresco project is the way of the future for a next generation Linux focused desktop. It is broken now, because of a few subtle but glaringly obvious fault now. I am not forcing this on anyone, but I think with a few dedicated guys and pragmatism we can get this done within 3-4 years to a functional desktop. Now apps take time and maybe we will be forced to support a compatibility toolkit for KDE and Gnome, but I will not make any compromises on my design to do that.
DF: Everyone says that apple controlls the hardware too much.[…]
You aren’t getting it…
Apple’s hardware isn’t open because they control what goes in and what doesn’t. For example, just say ATI says “Apple sucks”, the next iBook and TiBook would just come with NVidia GeForce 2 Go, and ATI looses all the Mac market.
Also, controling the hardware also means like, just say I want a quad processor G4 machine with Quaddro4 or ATI Fire. Could I get it? Nope.
Hank: My only beef with the OS X version of the multi-platform browsers is that their font rendering is sub par for the platform. Mozilla/Netscape is the worst offender followed by IE.
IE 5.2 font rendering is quite good, and the same goes to Mozilla 1.1.
parv: i am also having problems connecting to my isp – keeps loosing the connection. These are all frustrating issues. I am hopg that 10.2 will fix some of these issues – (can’t wait for 10.2).
The modem problem is a hardware problem rather a software one.
Jean_J: I am impress! For the price of the board, you can get a full Athlon XP 2000 system that will be twice as fast, run all popular software if needed (Windows) or run a more recent version of Linux.
I think you should blame Apple, who made IBM and Motorola sign agreements to sell PPC processors to them cheaper than their competitors.
Besides, they are targeting current classic Amiga users who want something that is Amiga and modern. Perhaps if Eyetech gives Apple enough competition the price would go down and the speed up.
wheeny: Well I think Linux have bright future on desktop though it’s coming slowly. If you dont belive me just check
http://www.directfb.org/screenshots/gimp.png
Wow, someone who thinks Linux sucess on the desktop is placed in eye candy, obstuctive eye candy at that.
Jodin: the major difference between the two (except for the eye candy, which seems to now be a negative thing on this board) is that OS X will always have better office, multimedia and mainstream internet apps.
It has better Office. Yes. It has better multimedia apps. yes. It has better mainstream Internet apps? Nah. The only Internet app i can think of that isns’t available on Linux is Watson. IE sucks on the Mac, same with Omniweb (curreent stable releases), for example.
Jodin: –mac hardware is getting beat by PC’s at the moment, but that can change. the megahertz myth is real – a dual 1Ghz G4 can hang with the fastest PC, but apple does need some help here. don’t just look at 3.6ghz (intel) verse 1.2 ghz (PPC) and think the intel is 3x as fast. all macs are dual-processor now and OSX is being optimized in every rev.
Still, i could get a SMP system from Intel, and beat the SMP systems from Apple. :-). OS X is now heavily multi-threaded, but a lot of applications, like MS Office and AfterEffects, aren’t that multi-threaded.
Pico: Linux has just as much future on PPC as it does on x86 (more so if you ask me considering the fact that the x86 processor is so inferior to nearly everything else on the market…
x86 is cheap hardware. Linux is making massive headways in third world countries modernizing like China, India, Indonesia etc. If they can’t afford Windows, could they afford a Mac, or a Eyetech AmigaOne? Doubt it.
If you read all my post, you would see that I have said Linux has a lot of potential in emerging markets. Simply because Linux is free. These people come from no computers to desktops with Linux, Linux is better than nothing.
So, pico, you are the forum troll, not me. Back up your points. Linux is wining because of its price tag, face it. It has a 30% growth in the world market.
Pico: especially all risc-based processors… *motorolla’s shortcomings asside*
This is soooooo old. Newer PPC processors aren’t pure RISC, as they have some CISC features, and new x86 processors aren’t pure CISC as they use some RISC features.
Pico: This says more about your sense of aesthetics than it does about Apple’s user interface.
It is my sense of opinion. I don’t quite like photorealitic icons – so I’m a troll suddenly? I absolutely hate those grey-white strips, I’m a troll? Wow.
Get a life, troll.
Camel: I can see running Linux PPC on an old Mac, but why would anybody buy a new Apple computer to run Linux on when you can buy a PC to run Linux on, which is more powerful and much cheaper? That’s why I think Linux PPC has no future on Apple machines; it has nothing to do with OS X.
Oh no, Camel! In Pico’s eyes, you are now a troll! *gasp*.
BTW, I agree.
jbolden1517: Darwin is open source. You can go to http://www.opendarwin.org and download it. You can even run it on your x86 box. The only things that are closed source are in the higher levels that is the Mac specific things.
Darwin is free. OS X is mostly non-free. Plus, Darwin through the GNU hippie eyes is also non-Free.
Borborygmus: Blunt facts that you are all ignoring… Linux is a small hope for the techno-weenies who prefer to use archaic CISC based technology now creaking along in it’s fourth decade.
Linux runs on more than CISC-based processors. Plus, RISC is 3 decades old, big deal.
Borborygmus: […]since Bill Gates stole Q/DOS from it’s auhtor many years ago.
Microsoft bought QDOS from a Seattle company and later on hired all their employees. Doesn’t exactly sound like “steal”.
Borborygmus: The end user wants to *USE* the computer, not spend all of his time downloading and compiling iffy code and fiddling with the innards to force the whole touchy thing to function against its will.
Most Linux PPC distros don’t force users to do that. Distros like SuSE, Mandrake and YDL are quite good. Besides, you are a great spokeman for “end users” in general. Did you know that all Linux users are “end users” as well?
I read with a certain voyeuristic fascination on the threads here in this forum <grammar impaired, Amerikan is not my first language>
I suspect not everybody will want or like Linux, because of the perceived hippie/DIY/socialistic nature of Linux. Also true i suspect, not everybody will like MacOSX/Apple because of the perceived elitist/ignorant/Simplistic nature of the OS or underpowered Hardware.
But as Scott McNealy said recently in a ZD Radio Interview during Linux World about MacOSX, he said that he wished MacOSX well, the issue isn’t about Solaris or Linux versus MacOSX, the issue is about Open Standards (Linux, MacOSX, Solaris etc) versus Closed (Microsoft). In June, Oracle’s Larry Ellison responded to a Q&A about Oracle 9i Apps Server market share versus BEA apps server, he said that BEA is “on our camp”, again we see the Open and Close argument.
So to me, as a Mac User in a Solaris and Linux-dominated company, it is a matter of personal choice and respecting each other for their choice. As long as there is an Anti-LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) coalition out there, we should stay focus and make sure we cooperate on Standards, and we compete on Implementation.
in many sense, you have to give credit to Mac OSX users, they doan really have much of a OS choice when they chose the Apple HW (see what i mean : http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/344.html)
laxx
ps. what i really want to see in the switch advertisement: http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/346.html
Well, I’m not a CLI guy. I not even into programming nor networking. But I thought the great thing about linux was that, instead of a pretty OS, it was a powerful OS. And now I see that having Apple released a both pretty and powerful OS it looks like afterall the bottom line is geeking around the command line and feeding the geeks ego instead of having powerfull OS that can keep up with demand. Surely OS X is not a perfect OS but it sures looks like the best comprise between elegance, power, stability and user oriented features (not just the interface but the actual core system – Darwin). It’s not free but then again what is free? Microsoft wants to give you a free OS… Free from competition that is. And linux comunity gives it a great hand focusing on OSX critisizing instead of publicly state NT/XP limitations. Just thought I could share an opinion of a non-geek guy who happened to stop by.
“- We think knowledge should or even must be free and available for everybody.”
What a joke of a comment. What about the finest capitalistic society in the world? One makes money from one’s knowledge. It is up to the person if they want to make if free or make some money off it. Don’t tell me I have to give you what is in my head for nothing – or I will claim to know nothing.
And who is the “we” crap? You and every progressive simpleton in the world – a dangerous lot!
Quite listening to every liberal you bump into – think a little. Making indefensible statements makes me not believe anything you wrote. How do you make a living giving it all away with nothing in return?
i really laugh about how you are all arguing BeOS did all this on PPC hardware long before OS/X and Linux PPC became serious contenders, SMP, threading Pre Emptive Multi Tasking, Clean GUI and Clean API,