The goal of the project was to use YDL 3.0 and included software for about a month to do the more ordinary things the author does with her iBook and G4: write articles, edit html, surf the web, print, listen to music, play some QuickTime or Real Media files, and transfer some files to/from a server. Read the full review at GUILinux.
A Noobie Spends Quality Time With Linux (YDL 3.0 To Be Exact)
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
yellowdog 3.0.1 works with the ibook g4, cause i put it on my ibook and it didnt work at all.
I really don’t get it. I own a Mac notebook and a PC desktop. So I have a mix of OSes all the time (I use Debian primarily, followed by WinXP for games and certain apps, and then OS X as my mobile) I don’t see why one would run something like YellowDog on a Mac.
I’ve had to work with a variety of UNIX systems (Linux, Solaris) from Mac OS X, and there are lots of interoperability there (whether it be ssh, vnc, scp, cvs, or what have you)! Especially if one downloads something like the Fink project, you can get access to lots of UNIX tools that run natively under OS X.
My bottom line is this: with such a beautiful OS like OS X that’s optimized specifically for your hardware, it seems to me a waste to waste the Apple Tax on hardware only to run something that isn’t optimized to run on it. Why not just get a (cheap) PC notebook and run Linux on that?
Hmph.
I can uderstand wanting to use a *ix OS on x86 hardware.. as the one we have works quite well.. But ive heard nothing but good stuff about OSX, so why replace a *ix OS with another, on PPC hardware? Why not install AIX if your going to swap everything around. no disrespect to Yellowdog.
Anyway.. I hope maxtor sent her new harddrives and she didnt buy new ones…. Other than that it was an OSX plug…
Lol.. i can tell you that if i forked over the cash for a mac i can see no conceivable reason to run linux on it.. maybe if i bought a ppc 975 direct from IBM that’d be a different story.
I agree completely. I believe Yellow Dog is targeted at the scientific computing market and not towards your average user. It’d probably be ideal for something like the Virginia Tech cluster, and they may be using it, who knows. Yellow Dog certainly seems to be the most well polished Linux distribution for PPC, but for desktop usage I can’t imagine using it over OS X.
I love Linux… I use it on all my servers, but as a desktop it’s really sub-par compared to OS X. It’d take a real desktop Linux zealot to squander any recent Apple hardware like that, especially their Apple portables.
I believe Yellow Dog is targeted at the scientific computing market
OS X is based on FreeBSD and NetBSD and is therefore just as good for scientific computing as linux. Unless you have an old mac that can’t run OS X I don’t see much use in Linux on mac honestly. But, each to their own I suppose. Some people will use linux anywhere they can regardless of it’s effectivness.
“The Virginia Tech cluster, and they may be using it, who knows.”
Believe it or not the 3rd fastest supercomputer is running on the Macintosh OS.
“and she doesn’t know anything”
The title says “Noobie”. And anyone that has not struggled with a *NIX for a few years is going to feel the same way about it. Its not ready for non-geeks yet. In some ways, it would have been cool for Apple to simply create the Aqua environment for all LINUX distributions, as a comercial product. They are making the same mistake they made years before, when they could have created the GUI for DOS. Wake up and smell your last chance Apple!
I really don’t get it.
– You might have gotten a Mac used. It might be a little too slow to run OS X, but linux will run plenty fast.
– You might be an IT professional trying to learn more about running linux on alternative platforms.
– Believe it or not, it’s easier to get some software to build and run on GNU/Linux than on OS X.
– You might not like antialiased fonts.
”I really don’t get it. I own a Mac notebook and a PC desktop. So I have a mix of OSes all the time (I use Debian primarily, followed by WinXP for games and certain apps, and then OS X as my mobile) I don’t see why one would run something like YellowDog on a Mac.”
I run Gentoo/GNOME exclusively on my iMac after Jaguar pissed me off to no extent. For some of us, responsiveness and functionality takes precedence over sexiness and looks.
”I’ve had to work with a variety of UNIX systems (Linux, Solaris) from Mac OS X, and there are lots of interoperability there (whether it be ssh, vnc, scp, cvs, or what have you)! Especially if one downloads something like the Fink project, you can get access to lots of UNIX tools that run natively under OS X.”
Using Unix tools on OS X just feels awkward to me. I hardly use OS X for administrative functions.
”My bottom line is this: with such a beautiful OS like OS X that’s optimized specifically for your hardware, it seems to me a waste to waste the Apple Tax on hardware only to run something that isn’t optimized to run on it. Why not just get a (cheap) PC notebook and run Linux on that?”
Because running OS X on the hardware she listed is an emotional torture, despite endless myths about OS X optimized for Macintosh hardware – if that even exists. As painful as this may sound, Linux runs better on many Macintosh hardware than Apple’s own Oses.
Last time I checked, Apple used gcc to compile more than half of their software. So, I don’t understand where this “optimized for Mac hardware” myth stems from. In fact, if I purchased a G5 today, chances are I’ll be baptizing it with Linux. Of course, I would encourage you or anyone else to do that, but I’m just emphasizing that for some of us OS X isn’t the holy grail.
1. Realplayer and Quicktime just don’t exist. Xine and mplayer can play these with the w32codecs, but these don’t work under PPC. Talk to Real and Apple. Also, flash isn’t going to happen for linux unless Macromedia come to the party. Again, talk to them.
2. The point on stupid naming conventions (Sound Mixer instead of Volume Mixer/Control) is a very relevant one. While I have no problem with people being imaginative with the way they name their programs, would it be to label it as what it is in the menus? Eg. k3b – CD Writing Program (I think KDE already does this).
3. Re the filesystem. On a properly set up distro, you shouldn’t have to deal with the filesystem outside of your own home directory. And if you want to go poking about in the guts of the system, then expect to learn the names of the various directories. This isn’t Windows, or OS X, it’s Linux, deal.
4. I agree with your sentiment on a graphical program installer. The argument is that this is what Lindows does. I also understand there’s a project under way somewhere to allow double-click install of debian packages. To be fair, this is getting better. However, the wide-spread adoption of a common third party package/install system (for the install of non-OSS software) would go a long way to fixing this problem). I’d also be happy if the various functions of apt/dpkg/rpm/emerge/whatever where moved into libs to allow the creation of proper GUI tools, rather than the hack that is screen scraping of CLI tools.
Various distros dropping the rpm format wouldn’t hurt either.
5. Sound. She’s right. Sound works under Linux, no question. However, it’s setup is still a biggy in it’s almost complete lack of intelligent defaults. Defaulting volumes to 50% for Master/PCM/Midi/CD would go a long way to fixing the many issues people seem to have with this sort of thing. Dropping the CD playing into a lib, that could handle both analog and DAE digital output wouldn’t hurt either.
But, “god is in the details” and “nothing is trivial.”
This is probably the best quote from the author. I’ve just spent about two solid days working on a fairly simple snmp-rrdtool graphing web tool for a client (Yes, I’m trying to get it released under the GPL, but it depends on what the client says) done in php. It works. But, it’s probably going to take me another week before it’s finished. I’m going to spend a huge chunk of time on documentation, coding in escape codes, handling stupid user inputs, packing it intelligently, and so on, and so on. And that’s just version 0.1.
yesterday i recieved an imac i have ordered for one of my customers (imac g4 1ghz). it looks nice and was very easy to set up. but to be honest: mac os x is just not made for me. i don’t like it.
it may look nice and whatever… but i feel more home on linux or *bsd or on the windows platform. but maybe i would need to work more on it, to get more comfortable on it. but just working 1 day with it and eaven installing and using ms office on it, did not give me that feeling of being “home”.
however… i 100% respect someone choosing an mac. but what i don’t understand is: how can someone buy an expensive mac and then install linux on it? what is the point of that? why not buying an x86 compatible computer or just an ppc computer other then the mac (if they exist)?
“A word about the Find File function. I’ve asked it to try and find Abi Word, XMMS, triplegear.jpg, triple gear.jpg, triple_gear.jpg, wallpaper, wall paper, and YDL.rtf and it has found none of those files or folders. Ever. Even when I tell it to start with / and include all subfolders. This is quite annoying, because I’ve created some nice wallpapers on my G4, and I’d like know what directory to put them in so I can select them the next time I decide to change wallpaper. In Win 9x, I found out where the wallpaper lives by searching for a particular pattern by name. In OS X, I typed “wallpaper” in the Find dialog box and arrived at my destination. The Find File function under Linux (and I had the same experience with Corel) consistently finds two things: jack and squat.”
(I find these compares with other OSes disturbing)
Anyway, you do know files are CaSe SeNsItIvE? Because if i find for “xmms” i find it in /usr/bin. Which is plain logic according to standard hier. Your other comments about the hierarchy (/bin vs /usr/bin) also do not shine throught that you know about the hierarchy. Either you have not read the documentation about that, or there was none.
Well here’s a good basics for *NIX, somewhat IRIX centralized but still good: http://futuretech.mirror.vuurwerk.net/admin
Look if you don’t want something _different_ than what you’re used to then stick with what you’re used to because something like this _is_ different.
For second: /usr/share/wallpapers on my box, does the job. How did i find that out?
I opened kcontrol (K Control Center), went to background, wallpaper, and did browse. Is that hard? No. That’s _logic_ if you ask me.
Also it could be put into ~/.kde/share but that’s exactly that, your choice. You could have just made a directory and copied the files over, then used kcontrol. So, why angry? Sorry but that is not the OS it’s fault.
# updatedb && locate wallpaper
Would have done the job too. Provided that ie. “kdewallpapers” is installed. If you do find multiple times it’s better you make a DB (with updatedb) and search into that DB. Faster and better for HDD lifetime. Again, such is a basic thing which should be explained in a manual which you bought; either you haven’t read that clearly or the manual is imo a bit incomplete regarding that.
Just in case, the first time i used MSDOS and MS Windows (95, 2.0 i deleted immediately after i noticed it took up 75% of my HDD and didn’t like it anyway) i didn’t understood a fuck of it either, and had to find out a lot of stuff too. I actually had to read the manual about “dir” syntax and had to call someone for it.
Bottomline: you can’t expect that something new works perfect like YOU want without any experience.
And what you complained about could all have been done in KDE really easy (make a directory for wallpaper and select that, find a file or binary)…
PS: What happened with some posts in here?
Unfortunately, new users to Linux trying to learn it from a graphic user interface perspective will get burnt before long. The CLI, in my opinion, still remains the most effective way of learning and using Linux. Perhaps, because in Linux, the GUI is primarily and extension of the CLI for many applications.
It is also unfortunate that many people approach and judge Linux based on Windows and Macintosh. Even Macintosh is different from Windows, and Mac users clearly need to adjust their frame of mind when using OS X, for instance. However, when people judge Linux, they judge it with closed minds expecting Linux to behave just like their favorite OS.
Linux is different, and it is for several valid reasons. I, especially, bring this up because the author goes on ranting about how the file system structure under Linux is different from that under Macintosh. However, she failed to mention that the file system under Windows is also different from that under Macintosh too. When she switched to the Mac, didn’t she have adjust her manner of thinking?
A little adjustment with regards to Linux is called for, and I don’t think that’s asking for too much since she had to do a lot more adjusting when switching from Windows to Mac. She also mentions discarding the CLI for reasons that are purely subjective and selfish. It is synonymous to me requesting that jet fighter planes should be abolished because I can’t fly them. Unix users can not overemphasize the value and power of the command line interface and tools.
And if she wants to harness the power of Linux as a user, she had better damn well learn how to use it, and do so effectively. Yes, you don’t need to learn that on Windows. Yes, you don’t need to learn that on Macintosh. But Linux is neither of them. As such it calls for an adjustment.
Finally, Linux is not for everyone, at least as it stands today. You would only harness the full power of Linux if you know what your are doing and why you are doing it. By fate or history, Unix in general was targeted at knowledge and power users. People who take joy in tweaking, customizing and solving problems in unique ways. While Linux today is a capable desktop environment as Windows and Macintosh are, it doesn’t mean everyone can or will use.
I’ll categorize the author among the groups of people using Linux for the wrong reasons. Many of use don’t use Linux because it is better than Macintosh and Windows or vice-versa, we use it because we believe in freedom. I certainly do want to have a generic desktop not because I’m elitist, but because I’m different. I’ll end with a quote that sums up my rant, “Linux is user friendly, it is just picky about its friends”
I run Gentoo/GNOME exclusively on my iMac after Jaguar pissed me off to no extent. For some of us, responsiveness and functionality takes precedence over sexiness and looks.
Uhh… you don’t get it. The question is ‘why to use a mac to run anything which can run on a much cheaper non-mac’? Why do you use an iMac instead of some PC bargain if not for the OS that doesn’t run on the latter?
A guess is – you need a Mac OS for something.
Uhh… you don’t get it. The question is ‘why to use a mac to run anything which can run on a much cheaper non-mac’? Why do you use an iMac instead of some PC bargain if not for the OS that doesn’t run on the latter?
A guess is – you need a Mac OS for something.
Well there are reasons. Some people prefer the PPC architecture over the x86 architecture for technical or personal reasons. Some people admire and appreciate Apple’s attention to detail and exquisiteness with regards to hardware design. No doubt the G5 looks sexy and it’s hardware specification are impressive. Some people dual boot OS X for proprietary software they just can’t get on Linux. I’m sure I’m there’s a lot more I’m not mentioning. But the reasons are plentiful and varied.
Re: the typos — Like I said, it was a salvaged old draft and despite re-reading it several times … mistakes still crept through — even past an editor. (And perhaps they provide some more insight into my distaste for the CLI where a typo [as a friend of mine discovered when he hosed his system folder in OS X earlier this week] can be fatal.)
Re: the cost — I purchased the iMac for $250. Hardly pricey. A cheap experiment that fit on my desktop.
Re: why Linux — I wanted to try and teach myself a new OS. Going from Windows to MacOS X was a lot of fun (and not always easy). And I learned a lot from YDL, really, I did. I learned that I just don’t have the patience to put up with it or any OS that’s as diamond in the rough. I don’t work for my OS, My OS must work for me.
Re speed issues: “Figwit” (as I named that iMac)is alive and well and running 10.3 and boots it in 50 seconds. My DP867 with more than a gig of ram boots 10.2.8 in 50 seconds. (I predict a 30 second boot time when I get 10.3 on there this weekend) My fastest YDL boot was 70 seconds.
Re case sensitivity and searches: I know that *nixes are case and space sensitive. But I also know that I named my file (allcaps) YDL.rtf because I could see it sitting in my directory. I would type YDL.rtf into the search function and it *still* wouldn’t find the file. I was looking for a file that I knew exactly where it was, and the Find function *still* couldn’t find it. Which gave me quite a laugh, truth be told.
In the end, the parts of the the OS and Programing that were right, the coders got *really* really right, but there’s still a lot of cruft.
In the mean time, for my *nixy goodness, I’ll stick with OS X. It gives me the least hassle of any OS I have ever used. (And I remember cp/m, okay?
)
-Katherine-
I stopped reading when he claimed CLI based installation of software was like DOS. You see, DOS was not a networked OS by default, most people had to put in a floppy and run setup. Pretty easy to do if you ask me.
If you honestly find typing any of these:
pacman -Sy package
apt-get install package
emerge package
If you really find that harder than driving to CompUSA, buying software, and putting in the cd harder. Well my friend, you’re one backwards dude.
I understand fear of the good old fashioned configure, make, make install. But seriously, having thousands of packages right at your easy disposal to install; this is heaven.
*sigh* Mac users.
Well, after reading your article, I think I’ll stick with OS X.
I too was thinking of getting YDL, but I just haven’t got the time to fiddle with things that should be functional out of the box but aren’t.
Secondly, the fact that there is NO Quality Assurance department at Microsoft is the reason I hate MS Software and Languages. Gates backing of SCO is a prime example. When the company CTO is thinking of ways to kill Linux, instead of ways to Improve it’s products, you get a second rate product.
It looks like Linux needs a GUI Architect in charge. Linux, as a server is great because you’ve got Linus overseeing the Core’s development.
This is Apple’s strength, there’s real evidence Steve uses OS X.
And complains and gets fixed the stuff that doesn’t work, before I get to touch it.
Thanks for saving be the buck and a lot of time.
I can actually see your argument when it comes to revitalizing older Macs. It’s a good way to keep nicely-designed but technically “slow” hardware viable.
But when I was at LinuxWorld in NYC, I saw an Apple section where lots of Linux users were showing off YDL or Debian PPC on their shiny, new Powerbooks. And I was just wondering, with a retail tag of $2000, why would you do that?
I run Jaguar on my semi-old 500Mhz Powerbook G4 (15″). I find its responsiveness to be quite excellent. Then again though, the only reason I bought that used notebook was for access to a word processor for writing and doing work (and learning about OS X for fun).
Anyway though, when I referred to optimizations to the hardware, I meant it in this respect:
Apple knows that the number of machines running Mac OS X is relatively small (either Powerbooks, iBooks, G4s or G5s, all Apple-built), so it’s quite easy to code optimizations for that hardware. In addition, ease-of-use becomes much better because everything is supported “out-of-the-box.”
Despite everything being compiled with GCC, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that an OS targeted to specific hardware is going to end up working better than more generic OS/userland tools that are then recompiled for PPC.
And your dismissive statement, “Using Unix tools on OS X just feels awkward to me” is a little odd to me. Why does this bother you? It may be awkward, but beneath all that eye-candy and GUIness is a Unix core, so why not take advantage of it (rather than repartitioning, dual-booting, etc.)
But it’s all your choice. I’m actually glad in a way that Apple doesn’t get all upset when people choose to run something other OS X on their hardware. Different strokes for different folks. But if OS X runs well (like on those shiney new Powerbooks), I don’t see the reason for using YDL or any other Linux distro.
That’s strange, because KFind (aka “search files” in the K menu) does work perfectly here:
http://www.bofx.net/kfind.png
It uses find, because i didn’t update the DB w/updatedb after the creation of the file. What did you used when trying to find that file?
“named my file (allcaps) YDL.rtf”
YDL.rtf is _not_ all caps. That’s both with capitals and small ones. What version of KDE was it? Also KFind (at least my version — 3.1.3) has an option to ignore CaSe SeNsItIvE and a Help option on the right bottom. Have you tried either of these?
You also managed to evade all my other points; 2 about documentation (hierarchy, updatedb/locate), the mkdir point (which can also easily be done in Konqueror), the KControl/wallpaper point, …
I stopped reading when he claimed CLI based installation of software was like DOS. >>
(Stops reading and hikes up skirt.)
Nope, I’m still a woman.
😉
And athough going installing software in DOS is completely different than in Linux
a:
is still a command prompt for a CLI interface.
Well, I certainly had a better experience with YDL on my older iBook. I agree that OS X 10.3 and YDL 3.0 provide about the same user experience in regards to speed, but having the fullsuite of KDE programs at my fingertips on the Mac was pretty nice.
The review *is* dated. That nasty Open Office copy and paste bug was fixed long ago.
YDL was a smooth install and pretty much everything worked. It supported Mac features like laptop sleep and the various function buttons. There’s a learning curve for newbies, but Linux on Mac hardware is a terrific combination.
are NOT reviews.
they are “my trials and tribulations, trying to go from a completely distro ignorant newbie, to someone with a little experience”
eugenia can do a distro review. she’s installed all the main distros, and knows how to accomplish the common tasks.
the author of this story would struggle on any distro.
step out of your click-click-click world for a bit.
-a mac user since 1985
named my file (allcaps) YDL.rtf”
YDL.rtf is _not_ all caps. That’s both with capitals and small ones.>>
Sorry, if I was unclear — I was typing in the 5 minutes before I had to leave work for the day so I didn’t have time for a re-read.
I think of files as name+type =Filename
I meant that I put the name part of the Filename in allcaps.
Just to clarify — I know that YDL.RTF and ydl.RTF and YDL.rtf and ydl.rtf and all other permutations are different Filenames.
I knew to type YDL.rtf and not ydl.rtf in the find box.
And no, I have no idea what version of KDE I had — the one that came with YDL 3 is the one I used. Other than my download and install of RealPlayer, I never installed anything else in YDL.
You also managed to evade all my other points; 2 about documentation (hierarchy, updatedb/locate),>>
I read the book and it didn’t do a very good job of explaining the file heirarchy of Linux, and since the names of the directories themselves don’t do the best job of explaining what’s in them … see where I’m coming from?
Right now in the terminal of this machine I can see I’m in /Users/kadymae
Which is exaclty what these things are called in the GUI
So, if I go to the terminal and type cd /Applications
I’m in the Applications directory, and once again, the names at the CLI level mirror the GUI and make it clear what’s in a folder.
But once again, what’s a /bin? (Well, I know, now, and that exchange was funny.)
the mkdir point (which can also easily be done in Konqueror)>>
Are you talking about making a folder? I did that in the GUI no problem.
, the KControl/wallpaper point, …>>>
I didn’t want to make a new wallpaper folder. I wanted to put my files in the existing wallpaper folder so I could have it all in one place. But I never could find the freaking wallpaper folder despite searching for several permutations on the name of my current wallpaper, even when logged in as root. So you can see why I started to get so frustrated.
asking people why they run linux on a mac/ppc is like asking people why they use linux on a pc/x86 instead of windows. its because some people love linux more than os x and windows, its a personal opinion.
I would not compare pc/x86 and mac/ppc. I am not aware of an mac/ppc you can buy, without Mac OS X. But I have serval PC’s build and buyed without any OS at all on it.
But I understand, that someone likes Linux more then Mac OS X. But why are then they buying an Mac/PPC? Are there not any other PPC systems, without Mac OS X?
If there are other PPC systems available (not from Apple), then I can understand someone choosing Linux as their OS. But for an iMac? I think x86 is much cheeper then an iMac.
However… you are right. It is all about personal opinion and PPC with Mac OS X is an fine system and an PPC with Linux is as well an nice system. Both of them can do the job. I was just surpriced, that’s all.
I used to run Linux… then I bought a used mac on ebay and never looked back. I like Linux, and I wish it all the best, but I’ll take my iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, Quicktime player, Safari, and countless other third party apps like Quicken, MS Office, Dreamweaver, and games like UT2003, RTCW, Halo, and tons more, not the mention the beauty of OSX itself.
I love my Mac just the way it is.
My bottom line is this: with such a beautiful OS like OS X that’s optimized specifically for your hardware, it seems to me a waste to waste the Apple Tax on hardware only to run something that isn’t optimized to run on it. Why not just get a (cheap) PC notebook and run Linux on that?
—–
You’re question can be answered with an equally subjective question:
Why install such a bloated, slow, eye-candy-loaded closed-source operating system such as OS X on such a beautiful piece of hardware such as an Apple notebook?
Weather you want to admit it or not, some pro-Apple folks hate the OS but love the hardware.
I love using Linux on Mac desktops but it is a real PITA to use on a laptop because it’s only got one button which must be extended with bindings.
I’m glad someone understands.
/usr stands for universal system resource [someone correct me if I’m wrong]. It is where your user’s software applications reside. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/lib is short for library. Your software’s libraries are usually stored here. Do not tamper it. You have no business here.
/bin it stands for binary. It is basically an executable binary. The executables to your software applications are stored there. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/dev short hand for devices. All your hardware devices are stored here. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/etc can’t remember what it stands for. It is where your global configuration files are kept. As a n00b, do not tamper with it. But as you begin to understand Linux your can alter configuration files. ****Warning you might need to use the CLIWarning****
/boot is the boot directory. It’s usually where your kernel is stored. That thing called linux is stored in that dir. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/mnt is the mount directory. Unix has it’s weird way of using devices, you need to mount devices, like Floppies, Cdroms, Dvds to use them. More on that when you learn how to use Linux.
/sbin system binary directory. This where executables used by your system are kept. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/root superuser or administrator directory. This is your sys adminis directory. He/she is a special user that has the power to do anything on a Linux/Unix system. For now don’t touch it.
/var don’t bother about what this is now. It where files that frequently change in size are stored, your email for example. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/tmp stand for temporary directory, as the name implies it’s for temporary stuff. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/proc a mini file system. Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.
/home your home directory. Play as you wish in it. In Linux, everything you want to do should be done from here. You can do anything you want to here. Create new folders, download stuff from the internet, save your MP3s, watch quicktime movies(Yes, you can do that on Linux), listen to realplayer(Yes, it works on Linux), etc.
As user, especially a new user, you should touch or tamper with anything outside your /home directory. Everything you do should be in your /home directory. Yes, I know it’s different from Macintosh or Windows, but it is so for security reasons.
For more on how to use Linux, read the introductory materials below.
http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/toc.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html
You see Linux is different, but there is usually a reason behind everything. You also need to get rid of the “click click click” mentality if you want to harness the power of Linux. Good luck.
If you don’t have time for all that, by all means stick with OS X you are not ready for Linux. Oh, and one way or the other, you’d have to learn how to use the cli. I’m really sorry.
A new user is going to have to go outside of /home, unless they are extreemly lucky to have all drivers installed corectly and have all the software they will ever want installed by the distro. Its 2004 the fact I have to edit any config file by hand or install software via CLI is way outdated. I’ve been useing linux for about 6 years now, I know how to use the CLI. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to depend on some software I want/need to be in apt-get I should be able to goto a website download something double click and install without worrying that I have the latest libs to run it. the directory setup in linux is a total mess like /bin dont forget about /usr/bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin. and countless others, the most bin directories i’ve seen in a distro was 30 something. Im not saying the CLI has no use, its very usefull for server access. People have been useing computers for many years without ever touching a CLI, and yet they are still able to do whatever they want. When most people see that they have to use a CLI, they are reminded of DOS and think “WTF this thing is so outdated” remember most people have no need or want to run a server, or write software or anything else the CLI is usefull for.
I highly doubt you have used Linux for 6 years. You sound more like you have been using it for a few weeks.
You can belive what you want. I started useing linux on and off starting in mid 97″ with slackware. I remember having to boot into windows then back into linux to get my pnp isa soundcard to work (isapnp was very little help then) editing pppon and pppoff to get online. Once I had everything setup and played around a bit getting doom 2 to work, I thought “this is pritty cool in a few years it will be better then windows” now its 2004 and after countless distros and insted of messing with my sound card and modem, its my video card and printer. and once its setup and I manage to get ut2003 to run I think “Im sure in a few more years it will be better” I spend about 1/4 of my time with linux mostly trying out new distro’s my current fav. distros are pclinux and lindows only becouse they work out of the box (on my computer anyway) I hate useing the cli, mostly becouse every distro has thier own way of doing things, and my very poor memory I have a hard enough time trying to spelling english words much less the format of lilo.conf grub and XF86config. with a gui I can keep clicking untill I find the settings I need
That was a really nice and clear explanation of the Unix file system. I wish the book had something that straightforward and useful.
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In OSX, much of what you just mentioned lives in the System or Library files. I opened both of those on day one, took a look at some of the filenames and realized that I should close those folders and never come back.
A new user is going to have to go outside of /home, unless they are extreemly lucky to have all drivers installed corectly and have all the software they will ever want installed by the distro.
Naturally, all commercial Linux distributions do that for you. Look for a good one and make sure your hardware and electronic devices are properly supported.
Its 2004 the fact I have to edit any config file by hand or install software via CLI is way outdated.
You are just being silly here. You don’t need to edit configuration files to install software in Linux. You don’t even need a CLI to do that either. Nonetheless, the CLI is an effective part of using Linux deal with it.
I’ve been useing linux for about 6 years now, I know how to use the CLI. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to depend on some software I want/need to be in apt-get I should be able to goto a website download something double click and install without worrying that I have the latest libs to run it.
I’ve been running several operating systems for years now. I’m tired of having to hunt for software via their websites, download to my desktop, click here, click there, just to install it. I’d rather just install software via a single command without the need to launch my browser, surf the Internet, or worry about whether the file I’m downloading is not a virus, spyware, trojan or what have you. In fact, I can’t imagine how people can be so productive having to go through all those hooplas to install software. Oh, you should see what they have to go through the have their system up to date. Don’t get me started on that.
the directory setup in linux is a total mess like /bin dont forget about /usr/bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin. and countless others, the most bin directories i’ve seen in a distro was 30 something.
What distro was that? Really, I could care less if there were 5 million bin directories on my system. I don’t spend my day looking at or counting the bin directories on my system. If you think Linux’ file system is a mess, have a look at OS X’.
Im not saying the CLI has no use, its very useful for server access. People have been useing computers for many years without ever touching a CLI, and yet they are still able to do whatever they want. When most people see that they have to use a CLI, they are reminded of DOS and think “WTF this thing is so outdated” remember most people have no need or want to run a server, or write software or anything else the CLI is useful for.
There are tasks a user can do more efficiently using the CLI as compared to the GUI. Installing software is one of them. Users shouldn’t have to go through countless steps to install software or upgrade their system. A single command will always remain more efficient than several hundred mouse clicks.
The future of computing is going to be a hybrid of CLIs, GUIs, VUIs, TUIs and other UIs, the mordern Unices like Linux just happen to be ahead of their time. Heck, even Apple that once shunned and cursed the CLI, are now eaten their own words and including it in their operating systems. If Apple, the GUI doyen, made such a choice, your arguments hold no water.
Hey, nobody says you have to use a CLI. Nobody says you have to use Linux either. I just think that for a user to harness the power of Linux, a firm understanding of basic CLI tools is essential. However, I know people who use Linux that don’t know what a terminal is. Unfortunately, I also happen to be the one who administrates their system by keeping it up to date and secure.
That was a really nice and clear explanation of the Unix file system. I wish the book had something that straightforward and useful.
Thank you. Some of your points remains valid. The fact that you had to go through all those obstacles to use Linux is unacceptable. And that has been one of my pet peeves with many commercial linux distribution, many of them only serve to destroy/taint Linux’ image with their half baked solutions.
Nobody should have to pay money to have the installation process crap out on them. It doesn’t happen with windows, it hardly happens with OS X, why then should such Commercial Linux distros over look such basic user trivialities?
Clearly YDL has a lot to do and improve upon. Just do me a big favor, write bug reports and nag the hell out of them. Also provide them a link to your review. I doubt many businesses like bad publicity.
Why install such a bloated, slow, eye-candy-loaded closed-source operating system such as OS X on such a beautiful piece of hardware such as an Apple notebook?
Bloated. This term is thrown around like confetti at a wedding. I’ve come to the conclusion that people who use it don’t have any clue what it takes to make software. If an application has a lot of code, chances are it needs it. You can argue that it has unessary things maybe, but that’s a different argument. Notice that as KDE and GNOME gain more and more functionality that they are also now become *bloated* as you put it?
As for OS X, from a design standpoint it looks very nice. Granted I don’t know the internals in detail, but in general it’s farily well known: FreeBSD/NetBSD + Next(mach) mix and matched. If anything, Linux is more *bloated* as you put it due to the fact that is comes by default with a bazillion features. Sure, you can trim it down, but let’s compare apples to apples here, ie, consider a default Redhat install (or YDL in this case).
Anyways, the point is quit using the word bloated. It’s a non-precise, derogatory term that really means nothing.
@root
It’s nice that you have explained the file-system in a quick way, but =>> “Do not tamper with it. You have no business here.”
This shows immediately the admin attitude.
Suddenly someone stands behind my shoulder and looks what I’m doing and if this is acceptable. Shudder, shudder 🙂
Everyone is treated equal…as a complete noob.
“The future of computing is going to be a hybrid of CLIs, GUIs, VUIs, TUIs and other UIs, the mordern Unices like Linux just happen to be ahead of their time. ”
I doubt this.
I don’t see any advanced user mode in my dvd player and neither in the car I drive or the coffe machine I use.
I’m not an admin but a miserable db developer and so I lack the day in day out contact with the office end user of our system.
But I’m often surprised how few things the people in even XP know.
Somewhere I’ve read the term “illiterate”.
As someone involved 16h/day with this stuff you are surprised and suddenly realized that you have the same attitude towards your car.
For me this is true.
I don’t mind(more or less) how the car works but it should be easy to use and it should drive in 99% of the cases.
So a computer user thar knows 10 commands in word and 5 in Internet Explorer will never accept any change to more advanced command instructions.
My boss finds it even strange that I use Opera and not IE.
I will never show him vim.
@bloated
Well I recently installed some linux flavours and the Kde themes are so eye-candy that my Imac with Jaguar gets disgusted.
That is imho a stupid grown-up reason(I disgust cake cause its to sweet but I love chocolate).
Why must it always end in a mine-is-longer-than-yours dicussion??
Sure OSX was slow but Apple improves – surprisigly – every release with a small speed bump.
Sorry for the bad english…
>I don’t like is Microsoft’s predatory business practices and overpriced software.
>I purchased a copy of YDL plus the manual for $60. I believe in paying a fair price for the software I use and supporting further development and improvements.
I believe that in capitalist society a market defines a fair price for the software. Besides, I just helped two of my friends replace their 4 years old computers with new ones (bought for $400 with Pentium 4, 256 MB RAM and CD-RW). New boxes run Windows XP just nicely. Guess what: my friends paid about $55-$60 for their copy of Windows and I did not have to struggle making it work on $400 computer.
>To that end, in late July I acquired a Blueberry iMac 350 off of eBay, upped the ram to 320mb.
From what I see on eBay that purchase could cost close to $250-$350 for used computer plus memory upgrade. My friends got new boxes for similar price. OS price included.
>The Windows XP registration scheme was the last straw.
>The (YDL) Help menu gave no actual help but directed users to a website. The website said that if I had purchased technical support I could log in now… While waiting for my membership to go live…
Wait, and you complain about Windows XP registration? The one where after you turn on computer it politely asks you to permit it register your computer with Microsoft- and you never hear from it again?
I am going to spare you and not even talk about ease of use of Microsoft support Web site and its KB.
>If YDL 3.0 and the included software are representative of what the typical “desktop” or personal install of Linux has to offer users, then I think that “almost but not quite” sums up my total experience.
Scared of Linux zealots, aren’t we? Well, don’t be: it is 2004, you can tell the truth.
The truth is: Linux on desktop as of today is pathetic. It can try to beat Windows XP but comparing to OS X it is a sham.
Apple successfully demonstrated that OpenSource where self-directed developer scratches his own itch means nothing and will reach nobody- only end user should be the boss. The future of desktop is the way Apple goes: user is the final owner, not developer. User makes decisions, developer makes living coding and selling software to user.
No one needs crap and ‘free’ attached to crap does not make it less crap. Many people can pay $120 every second year for the really good OS, or $60 for mediocre one, but they are not willing to waste their precious time struggling with ‘Freedom OS.’
Apple doing it right: take technically good product available for free, force own paid developers to add eye candy and do other very boring jobs like writing consistent GUI, preparing proper documentation, doing testing, having real (not virtual) customer support- and you have a superior product that you can sell for fair price: the price market is ready to pay.
Because of that, recommendation for my Mac oriented friends: stay with OS X, upgrade hardware if you must or buy new- you can not afford to play with Linux on desktop, especially on really good desktop: Mac.
“I don’t like is Microsoft’s predatory business practices and overpriced software. The Windows XP registration scheme was the last straw.”
I don’t understand why anyone with a deep interest in presenting useful objective information to the masses would start a so called “review” with this statement. As if proof that she is a Microsoft hater lends more credibility to her “review” of YDL.
Perhaps a more apropriate title would have been “My Rants About YDL as a Noob Microsoft Hater” Again a good example of the difference between true IT professionals and everyone else.