IBM, a multibillion dollar/year company, much bigger than the one you work for, is investing heavily into linux to get it running on their mainframes, servers and workstations. As is Compaq, HP, Sun, hell, even Dell!
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Open source is usually just an excuse to ship broken software
Mozilla? CUPS? GCC? Apache? BSD unix? PHP? Gimp-print? The entire foundation of OSX is free software.
Here are some screenshots of a standards-based, linux desktop (GNOME):
Opening and editing MS .doc files perfectly in Ximian's OpenOffice:
Gnome also include Evolution, which allows Gnome users to use M$ Exchange servers for collaboration, something OSX is sorely lacking.
Gnome comes with Galeon, a Mozilla-based browser (that had tabs back before OSX even existed), Gnumeric, a spread sheet app, Evolution, an M$ Outlook-like mail reader and Exchange client, GPDF, pdf viewer, GIMP, image editor, and so on...
You can see why Sun has decided to make Gnome the desktop environment for future versions of Solaris.
The point is that all of this can be had for free, and runs on the hardware corporations already have. Switching from M$ to Apple would cost these corps many times what they are already spending, and they're trying to save money.
Though I don't think linux is as bad as inkhead says, it has a long way to go in user interface. I started off in Gnome and couldn't stand it for long term use, so I switched to KDE. It is nice, but half the apps do their own thing. Apps can't decide whether Copy should be Crtl+C, Alt+C, LeftMouse+RightMouse or not even have a key command. Konsole can't even paste from other apps as far as I can tell. And having just selecting text copy it? Ouchy. I know there are historic and other compatibility reasons for this (^C interupts and all bow to emacs) but it is annoying. And windows that can hide their titlebar above the screen and don't allow for dragging elsewhere.. and scroll bars on the left and top, and widgets where you can't tell selected from unselected, and contextual menus that put the cursor in a place to select so just popping one up and releasing does something, and the most miserable drag and drop I've seen since Windows 3.1.
Now don't get me wrong, I like linux and it gives me a lukewarm fuzzy feeling all over, but it still has a long way to go IMO.
What it has going for it is hype, and specifically hype among the people who can deploy millions upon millions of dollars worth of hardware and software. Any geek can tell you that the Linux conferences have been overrun by suits. Many of them are interested in something-that-is-not-Microsoft.
And IBM is more than happy to sell their clients whatever they ask for, especially if it requires a lot of support. IBM makes far more money off support than they do off hardware.
As for HPaq, the shop I work for has a Compaq Alpha and a big Compaq SAN. For the SAN we were shown the admin and access software for Windows, Linux, and VMS. The Linux software was the least featured, the second worst performing, and according to one of the Compaq guys, it took them over two weeks to get the last Linux install up and running. (We chose VMS - that is a server OS - and we were up and running that afternoon).
To criticize Linux is not to be "afraid of the future." That's a passive-tense cop-out. The future is what we make it. If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers. If OS X is a better client OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on clients. Going with an inferior solution just because it's "the future" is the same lemming behavior that put Windows everywhere. I have a working thesis that people get fundamentalist about platforms that are not in themselves remarkable as if to make up for them; there aren't many other reasons why the two great OS' would be Windows and Linux.
Linux is not useless by any means, but the zealotry surrounding it boggles my mind - and I'm accustomed to Mac users! It does not represent the open source methodology at its best, nor at its worst. It's "good enough." Haven't we had enough of "good enough" at this point?
. . . IBM, a multibillion dollar/year company, much bigger than the one you work for, is investing heavily into linux to get it running on their mainframes, servers and workstations. . .
I wonder whether IBM running Linux on the PPC will help make PPC hardware more popular in business? I imagine that applications ported to PPC Linux can then be easily ported to OS X. Just wondering whether this might help the Mac platform eventually? Anyone want to comment?
First of all...don't trip all over yourself assuming I am doing this. I am speaking from direct, day to day experience working with both platforms. I was NOT bashing Microsoft just because it was Microsoft. I was bashing the relative experiences of the products. I don't care if its from "Acme" and "Amalgamated". In my experience, one simply works better. Period.
I'm sorry but with all the 'colorful' adjectives you come off as just bashing it for the sake of bashing it. Tone it down a little next time maybe? :-)
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Okay. Fine. My comment intended to go deeper than skin, but we can discuss it this way too. First of all, this is your opinion. It may, in fact be an opinion shared by many in the business world. Then again, maybe not.
It is my opinion that Windows (the "classic" theme...which I use also to avoid the blindingly garrish "Luna" theme) is drab and boring.
I'm not saying it is the perfect theme, but I'm saying that it is better than the XP and OSX themes.
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Perhaps you are suggesting (and this is fine) that only the computer in the "gray flannel suit" should be considered "professional". I disagree. In my view "professionalism" is not merely about looks, but a host of things, including how well (or not) thought out something is. It is about how something behaves as much as how it looks.
True. Behaviour is an issue, but I thought that we were just talking about looks.
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So am I. I do office work. I develop software. I am a professional. I don't think Mac OS X looks unprofessional. At all.
I never said 'unprofessional'. I meant 'less professional'.
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Here again, you are using adjectives to describe your opinion. This is fine. Nothing wrong with that. However you seem to be suggesting the "professionally looking" vs. "un-professional looking" is something of objective fact.
Um, the way something looks IS objective. Unless you are stating facts about it, like 'this button is 12px from the left side and ... '.
[edit] : Errr ... I read that wrong. I meant subjective... hehe. My bad.
I'm not saying it is the perfect theme, but I'm saying that it is better than the XP and OSX themes...
I never said [OSX looks] 'unprofessional'. I meant 'less professional' [compared to Windows].
When I first saw OSX, I also had the "it looks less professional" reaction, even as I revelled in its Aqua-ness. However, perhaps we think that Windows looks professional just because it is the 'standard'.
I had an interesting experience when I was on a long period of leave recently (to take care of my third child - praise to the Canadian government for allowing for parental leave for men too!), and had only my Mac at home. When I returned to work, I no longer thought my Windows GUI looked professional. "Cheap" and "dull" and "grey" were instead the adjectives that came to mind. Certainly cheap, dull and grey are not considered professional in most other contexts.
I wish I could get my office to hook up a Mac for me on the Office Windows network (technically possible???), but I know they never would.
Apple has a lot of senior Sun people from Sun's glory days and they *know* enterprise. they are just dipping their toes in the water and quietly start addressing key areas. Remember, Sun licensed and bundled NeXTSTEP on SPARC and ported OpenStep before Java took over. These same people are at Apple.
Watch and learn with 10.3 and 64bit and this will be the first foray into enterprise. besides their are markets that are not cross-over markets that have enterprise like requirements that Apple can play like BioInformatics for one, Government and Security (cocoa was big in NSA/CIA when it was neXT) as well as in-house development of financial derivitives apps.
besides, many unix developers will want to do OO Cocoa for several reasons and still tie apps into legacy Sun servers using SOAP, XML-RPC and other distributed messaging.
they have also hired enterprise people for sales and doing lots of enterprise tracks at WWDC.
I am not with apple just former sun guy doing openstep several years back.
When I first saw OSX, I also had the "it looks less professional" reaction, even as I revelled in its Aqua-ness. However, perhaps we think that Windows looks professional just because it is the 'standard'.
What's the definition of professional looking operating systems ? If the definition is that it has to look boring or bad to be "professional", then I love OS X "unprofessional" looks.
And how about windows XP? I don't think XP looks any more professional than os X, more like a kind of hacked-together toy GUI.
One more thing. People that thinks XP never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The "invisible menu" problem.
I had a meeting with vendors who provide data storage, colocation, ISP services (OC192s) and thin client solutions (and "Microsoft certified solutions"). I went office to office shaking hands, the CEO introduced me to the developer guys and the CEO said "this is the Mac publishing guy I told you about" and one UNIX guy said "Oh, you Mac guys hate me, huh?" (joking) and then he caught himself, and said, "Oh, wait, you guys are UNIX now, that's right", and then another developer chimmed in and said "Ya, I have a copy of OS X, it's pretty cool. Wow, a Mac with a shell. It's wild!", I mentioned FreeBSD and we all shook hands and agreed that OS X rocks. Then a network guy popped in and said how he loved the XServe, especially for the price...
What's the definition of professional looking operating systems ? If the definition is that it has to look boring or bad to be "professional", then I love OS X "unprofessional" looks.
And how about windows XP? I don't think XP looks any more professional than os X, more like a kind of hacked-together toy GUI.
One more thing. People that thinks XP never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The "invisible menu" problem.
I ran XP constantly as my only OS for over a year.... Don't tell me that XP constantly crashes. I ran a server on XP that had a 2 months uptime. The only problems I ever had with XP was that explorer would grind away trying to read metadata on incomplete Divx/XviD files and eventually eat up ALL cpu and make things laggy forcing me to kill/restart explorer. But OSX has these problems too. Mount a SAMBA share and then put OSX to sleep. Wake it up with no network connections and see how things work... (remember not to unmount the share before putting it to sleep). I've had more OSX kernel panics than XP BSODs ... granted most were related to SAMBA ... or SMB_FS. That's one area that OSX needs improvement. I hate how people senselessly bash other OSes just because "I had a problem with it so it must be crap", but you will tell the people that use the same logic against OSX that they are crazy or that they are so stupid for doing something wrong.
Also, if you read the quote he was agreeing with you would see that I said the 'classic windows theme' looks more professional than XP theme or OSX theme. Don't just start spouting off like a retard. Think before you type.
i don't know who told you linux was the future but they lied to you.
Linux is a joke. i work for a fortune 100 company. We laugh at linux. It belongs in the server room.
I agree that Linux is a better server than a desktop, but what about the embedded market? What about the Fortune 500 companies that use or invest in Linux? I'm sure that Fortune 100 companies know much better than Fortune 500 companies. If Linux belongs in your server room, then why do you laugh at it? Do you think that your servers are a joke? Does you boss not care about your servers and join in on your 'festivities'?
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There isn't a damn person who has bothered to design a stardized GUI or a decent one, they all remind me of that stupid winamp mp3 player.
Um. WinAMP is probably the most popular mp3 player ever. (iTunes is popular with Mac people, but 100% of Mac people is nothing compared to even 10% of Windows people.)
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Linux is a hack. The software is a hack. Open source is usually just an excuse to ship broken software, after all you'll just add if yourself if you need something.
If all the software is so broken, then why would you use it in your server room, as you stated above? Shouldn't yuou run your servers with an OS that you trust to work? If Linux is so broken then how can you trust it to work? I also forgot about MicroSoft's spotless record in regards to software bugs. Give me one software company that has never had to patch a bug...
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Most free software has horrible GUI. Even openoffice is just a nasty.
I'm sure that changing the GUI theme or adding to the source program to change the GUI is till cheaper than MS licenses. At the University that I used to work for they had to Pay twice for MS licences. They had two working XP keys for each Dell machine in the computer labs. Explain how much sense that makes.
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Our office would rather spend $500 on each computer installing the software that connects with the rest of the world and that our customers are running, rather than "beta" test and hack around linux.
Some companies would rather not waste the money. And 'beta' tesing only has to be a single machine that you try out the software on and make sure that it can connect to everything. Only a fool of an IT department would deploy software that was not tested to be able to work and connect to the network and server programs to the entire office to 'beta test' rather than making sure it all works on a single machine or a small set of machines first.
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Linux is a passing fad for the server room and nerds in closets. I can do anything better on Windows and OS X, and if it involves hosting we use something good like freebsd.
I thought that NetBSD was the most secure. I would value security if I was going to host something... Especially if I valued my job.
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linux is the halfass of everything. Half as good as most desktop systems and half as good as server enviroment freebsd or other *nix
If it's half as good then why is it out-pacing other UNIXes? Don't tell me 'because its free'. FreeBSD is free too. Next time that you want to make large claims and blast your mouth off offer something other than opinions to back it up. The 'because I say so rule' doesn't apply in the real world. And at least make a consistent arguement. Don't talk about how linux belongs in your server room, and then talk about it being a joke, unless you don't value the stability of your servers for some reason.
Originally posted by NETROMac One more thing. People that thinks XP never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The "invisible menu" problem.
One more thing. People that thinks OS X never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The Beachball 2.0.1 and 10.2.4 problem (http://users.wpi.edu/~phoenix/) I experienced first hand.
Boy, that was easy argument to make! If I type enough words it must be true.
I can make a more convincing argument but pyr3 has pretty much said it right.
give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The Beachball 2.0.1 and 10.2.4 problem (http://users.wpi.edu/~phoenix/) I experienced first hand.
You did realize that by having a different version CoreGraphics file than for what this was designed, the offset for the replaced bytes would likely be wrong and that you would destroy the file, right?
And you blame the OS for having problems after modifying this crucial system file (that is normally read-only) yourself?
Har har. I take it you never read any of my posts lambasting themes installers like this for Mac OS X.
At my previous job, our Apple gurus tried to push OS X in a big way. A single problem hindered rolling out Mac to PC for over 3000 Staff members.
You can't get your password to expire after 30 days!
Doesn't work with (Open)LDAP nor does it work when you synch against NT servers.
We even had a couple of Apple engineers you said they could write a special login for us.
Mangement refused as they said it should be part of the standard OS.
Apple doesn't want to move into the corporate business or it would have built some basic login security.
Even System V had more login security than Mac!
Dobby.
It is part of the standard system, simply setup a cron job that does the above task. It wouldn't exactly be a hard task for anyone who knows atleast a few lines of scripting.
As for expiring passwords after 30 days, how stupid is that? all that will happen is the moron will change it from mypassword to mypassword1, oh gee, what GREAT security that will provide.
The fact of the matter is that the machine is as secure as the luser sitting in front of the computer.
klinux: Like Brad said, you're giving Mac OS X the computer equivalent of an anal tear and expecting it not to bleed.
pyr3: OpenBSD is the most secure free beer/speech OS. That is assuming your sysadmin is competent. Also, Ximian Desktop looks really phat for home/office use.
What it has going for it is hype, and specifically hype among the people who can deploy millions upon millions of dollars worth of hardware and software.
There is hype surrounding linux, because it's free, secure, and stable, and the dominant OS is none of those things. And linux runs on virtually any hardware. From a developer perspective, whether you are developing a PDA or 64-bit workstation Beowulf cluster for gene-sequencing, you can leverage that, save money and resources, instead of a) reinventing the wheel yourself or b) buying Win CE/MX/98/NT/whatever.
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Any geek can tell you that the Linux conferences have been overrun by suits. Many of them are interested in something-that-is-not-Microsoft.
??? And... that's a bad thing?
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And IBM is more than happy to sell their clients whatever they ask for, especially if it requires a lot of support. IBM makes far more money off support than they do off hardware.
True. However, I don't see your point, as any other OS, especially proprietary ones such as AIX or whatever, is going to be harder to learn, more expensive (than free), and platform specific, and won't have the great free, online news/web support system linux has. Virtually every question I've had has been answered by google and a few ppc/linux forums (and we're talking some esoteric/technical/obscure questions here ). In a few cases, I emailed individuals and got responses. You can leverage that free support if you run linux, because a lot of other people also run linux.
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As for HPaq, the shop I work for has a Compaq Alpha and a big Compaq SAN. For the SAN we were shown the admin and access software for Windows, Linux, and VMS. The Linux software was the least featured, the second worst performing, and according to one of the Compaq guys, it took them over two weeks to get the last Linux install up and running. (We chose VMS - that is a server OS - and we were up and running that afternoon).
What your shop's SAN software has to do with the linux kernel, Gnu software in general, or popular desktop environments for unix-like OSes has me and every one here guessing.
And if it takes anyone two weeks to install any OS, they're incompetent or total newbies. Or incapable of reading instructions. Hours, not days or weeks, are required to install an OS; it just doesn't take 14 days.
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To criticize Linux is not to be "afraid of the future."
Agreed. However, his post was linux-phobic, belying his lack of any real hands-on experience.
"I used it once and it sucked" says nothing when you don't know how to use it in the first place. And he doesn't even claim he used it once. We fear what we don't know. And FYI, that's why I said he feared change, not the future.
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That's a passive-tense cop-out. The future is what we make it. If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers. If OS X is a better client OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on clients. Going with an inferior solution just because it's "the future" is the same lemming behavior that put Windows everywhere. I have a working thesis that people get fundamentalist about platforms that are not in themselves remarkable as if to make up for them; there aren't many other reasons why the two great OS' would be Windows and Linux.
"If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers."
How is BSD a better server OS? And Amorph, I'm simply asking, not implying that it's not.
My working thesis is that M$ is shrewd at business, and linux (free, stable, secure) is not a business, and is thus outside the sphere of influence of M$.
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Linux is not useless by any means, but the zealotry surrounding it boggles my mind - and I'm accustomed to Mac users! It does not represent the open source methodology at its best, nor at its worst. It's "good enough." Haven't we had enough of "good enough" at this point?
Keep in mind 'linux' typically means 'linux on x86'. What are PC users' other prospects?
I like OSX, but given the expensive, proprietary hardware (to say nothing of performance), and closed-source OS (unless you think of Darwin as a complete, viable OS in itself), I have no illusions of OSX becoming the new marketshare leader. And I prefer it that way; it lights a fire under Apple's ass to innovate and build a better mousetrap.
Isn't that great at living up to the hype. It has its uses, for sure, but the codebase leaves something to be desired, stability and security are OK, setup and maintenance are a pain, overall polish is lacking... it's not bad, and I'd prefer it to any MS OS in a heartbeat, but that's not exactly a compliment.
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There is hype surrounding linux, because it's free, secure, and stable, and the dominant OS is none of those things. And linux runs on virtually any hardware.
Right, but BSD is more free (the license is less restrictive than GNU's), more secure, more stable, and it ran on just about everything back when Linux was still stuck on x86.
What's it lacking? That wierd "hype" thing. I think Linux' initial attraction was that it required a lot of tinkering, which solicited interest and contribution; the mature BSD codebase just didn't engage people on the same level. And BSD was slowed down by the AT&T lawsuit (which turned out to be spurious). Before then, BSD was used in commercial UNIXen by Sun and Digital and IBM. It was mature and proven before Linux had a mouse driver.
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From a developer perspective, whether you are developing a PDA or 64-bit workstation Beowulf cluster for gene-sequencing, you can leverage that, save money and resources, instead of a) reinventing the wheel yourself or b) buying Win CE/MX/98/NT/whatever.
Whether you will save money and resources is an open question, since Linux can be difficult to wrangle. It might end up costing more if it proves temperamental, or if you take a performance hit (which happens), or if the toolset proves to be incomplete or spotty.
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True. However, I don't see your point, as any other OS, especially proprietary ones such as AIX or whatever, is going to be harder to learn, more expensive (than free), and platform specific, and won't have the great free, online news/web support system linux has.
Um, most of the proprietary OS' have lower learning curves than Linux does. The ones that don't have higher learning curves because they offer more. As for more expensive, again, it depends. We pay for OpenVMS because the support costs are basically nil: You boot it up, and tell it when to run backups, and where, and to which device, and it runs clean and blazing fast and stable until you shut the machine down however many years later. That's why VMS owns the uptime-critical market. So our support consists of a guy who we call in when necessary; he's billed us for maybe 8 hours in the last 7 years. So, for us, the license fee of VMS is worth the savings in support and maintenance. It costs a lot less than the salary for a technician. And, incidentally, since we've been a VMS shop since the mid 1980's, the learning curve is much lower than Linux' because it's familiar by now. Such things are always relative.
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What your shop's SAN software has to do with the linux kernel, Gnu software in general, or popular desktop environments for unix-like OSes has me and every one here guessing.
Because you're conflating things that have no relevance to each other in order to dodge the question. You can't run the SAN without administrative software. The administrative software runs like crap on Linux, because of limitations in Linux - in the core and elsewhere. This has nothing to do with "GNU software in general," particularly since GNU software in general adheres to a much higher coding standard than Linux does (even VMS ships with a number of open source programs, including some of GNU's), and free software under other licences is frequently held to a higher standard as well. And the generalization about "popular desktop environments for unix-like OS's" is just baffling. They aren't relevant to this particular point, which is that if the OS can't do a decent job of managing an expensive and crucial piece of equipment, who cares what the desktop environments are? This is something that Linux has always struggled with. It's almost there, but there are bits and pieces missing, or buggy, or poorly integrated. It's a good thing there's excellent free support, because you need it!
That said, except for some embedded UIs, exactly two UNIX desktop environments have impressed me: IRIX and OS X (I never really got a chance to play with NeXTStep, so I'll punt that one). This is irrespective of the platform the desktop environment is running on.
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And if it takes anyone two weeks to install any OS, they're incompetent or total newbies. Or incapable of reading instructions. Hours, not days or weeks, are required to install an OS; it just doesn't take 14 days.
First of all, this is not an OS, it's the management software for the SAN, which was the example I'd picked. Second of all, I've seen installs take days. It takes hours unless something goes horribly wrong, which happens a fair amount of the time.
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"If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers."
How is BSD a better server OS? And Amorph, I'm simply asking, not implying that it's not.
Fair enough. I'll point you to a hands-on report by a guy with years of in-depth Linux experience:
Note that some of the reasons simply come down to discipline: The folks behind BSD wait two years before declaring a codebase stable, so when you install a stable build of BSD, you can be pretty damn sure that the bugs have been worked out.
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My working thesis is that M$ is shrewd at business, and linux (free, stable, secure) is not a business, and is thus outside the sphere of influence of M$.
That's a good working thesis, and it's certainly a big reason why MS is afraid of free software in general. But the same arguments apply to BSD.
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Keep in mind 'linux' typically means 'linux on x86'. What are PC users' other prospects?
BSD, at least until the next hardware refresh in 3 years or less.
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I like OSX, but given the expensive, proprietary hardware (to say nothing of performance), and closed-source OS (unless you think of Darwin as a complete, viable OS in itself), I have no illusions of OSX becoming the new marketshare leader. And I prefer it that way; it lights a fire under Apple's ass to innovate and build a better mousetrap.
If what you want is a UNIX running KDE or GNOME there's no reason not to use FreeBSD or OpenBSD (or NetBSD), especially if you have a mix of x86 hardware. Darwin isn't really in the running, and it isn't intended to be. My own experience with OS X is that it's not near the pure BSDs in stability or predictability (which is not to say that it's bad).
But the "expensive" criticism really doesn't apply. Whether it's expensive depends on what you need. My band's web page runs on a Digital UNIX box. Digital UNIX costs a lot up front. On the other hand, the server's uptime and performance have been exemplary for the three years it's hosted us. If you pay upfront for something that proceeds to just run, and run well, and get work done with no fuss, you'll probably save money over an initially cheaper solution that ends up nickel-and-diming you to death, in staff time and costs, and in lost productivity, and (in the case of a free Linux hosting service whose server was unresponsive when I first went to look at it, and sluggish later) lost customers. (Longtime Mac users will probably recognize the TCO argument as an old friend ).
I should mention that I work for a nonprofit with a much smaller budget relative to its number of employees than most private sector companies have. We run a tight ship. And we do it by paying for software that we can just drop in and expect to work. Because of this, our IT staff is one part-time guy (he's full time, but he works on other things) and two students (who also work on other things) for a total of almost 60 people.
3. What of iPod, iTunes (for Windows), etc.? Is iPod the "trojan horse" for Apple? Is Apple trying to (slowly) redfine what the personal computer is? Will iPod gain more CPU power and software capabilities? Will it becoms something you could plug a monitor and keyboard into and boom! you have a computer?
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IBM, a multibillion dollar/year company, much bigger than the one you work for, is investing heavily into linux to get it running on their mainframes, servers and workstations. As is Compaq, HP, Sun, hell, even Dell!
Open source is usually just an excuse to ship broken software
Mozilla? CUPS? GCC? Apache? BSD unix? PHP? Gimp-print? The entire foundation of OSX is free software.
Here are some screenshots of a standards-based, linux desktop (GNOME):
Opening and editing MS .doc files perfectly in Ximian's OpenOffice:
Gnome also include Evolution, which allows Gnome users to use M$ Exchange servers for collaboration, something OSX is sorely lacking.
Gnome comes with Galeon, a Mozilla-based browser (that had tabs back before OSX even existed), Gnumeric, a spread sheet app, Evolution, an M$ Outlook-like mail reader and Exchange client, GPDF, pdf viewer, GIMP, image editor, and so on...
You can see why Sun has decided to make Gnome the desktop environment for future versions of Solaris.
The point is that all of this can be had for free, and runs on the hardware corporations already have. Switching from M$ to Apple would cost these corps many times what they are already spending, and they're trying to save money.
Now don't get me wrong, I like linux and it gives me a lukewarm fuzzy feeling all over, but it still has a long way to go IMO.
What it has going for it is hype, and specifically hype among the people who can deploy millions upon millions of dollars worth of hardware and software. Any geek can tell you that the Linux conferences have been overrun by suits. Many of them are interested in something-that-is-not-Microsoft.
And IBM is more than happy to sell their clients whatever they ask for, especially if it requires a lot of support. IBM makes far more money off support than they do off hardware.
As for HPaq, the shop I work for has a Compaq Alpha and a big Compaq SAN. For the SAN we were shown the admin and access software for Windows, Linux, and VMS. The Linux software was the least featured, the second worst performing, and according to one of the Compaq guys, it took them over two weeks to get the last Linux install up and running. (We chose VMS - that is a server OS - and we were up and running that afternoon).
To criticize Linux is not to be "afraid of the future." That's a passive-tense cop-out. The future is what we make it. If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers. If OS X is a better client OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on clients. Going with an inferior solution just because it's "the future" is the same lemming behavior that put Windows everywhere. I have a working thesis that people get fundamentalist about platforms that are not in themselves remarkable as if to make up for them; there aren't many other reasons why the two great OS' would be Windows and Linux.
Linux is not useless by any means, but the zealotry surrounding it boggles my mind - and I'm accustomed to Mac users! It does not represent the open source methodology at its best, nor at its worst. It's "good enough." Haven't we had enough of "good enough" at this point?
Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R
. . . IBM, a multibillion dollar/year company, much bigger than the one you work for, is investing heavily into linux to get it running on their mainframes, servers and workstations. . .
I wonder whether IBM running Linux on the PPC will help make PPC hardware more popular in business? I imagine that applications ported to PPC Linux can then be easily ported to OS X. Just wondering whether this might help the Mac platform eventually? Anyone want to comment?
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
First of all...don't trip all over yourself assuming I am doing this. I am speaking from direct, day to day experience working with both platforms. I was NOT bashing Microsoft just because it was Microsoft. I was bashing the relative experiences of the products. I don't care if its from "Acme" and "Amalgamated". In my experience, one simply works better. Period.
I'm sorry but with all the 'colorful' adjectives you come off as just bashing it for the sake of bashing it. Tone it down a little next time maybe? :-)
Okay. Fine. My comment intended to go deeper than skin, but we can discuss it this way too. First of all, this is your opinion. It may, in fact be an opinion shared by many in the business world. Then again, maybe not.
It is my opinion that Windows (the "classic" theme...which I use also to avoid the blindingly garrish "Luna" theme) is drab and boring.
I'm not saying it is the perfect theme, but I'm saying that it is better than the XP and OSX themes.
Perhaps you are suggesting (and this is fine) that only the computer in the "gray flannel suit" should be considered "professional". I disagree. In my view "professionalism" is not merely about looks, but a host of things, including how well (or not) thought out something is. It is about how something behaves as much as how it looks.
True. Behaviour is an issue, but I thought that we were just talking about looks.
So am I. I do office work. I develop software. I am a professional. I don't think Mac OS X looks unprofessional. At all.
I never said 'unprofessional'. I meant 'less professional'.
Here again, you are using adjectives to describe your opinion. This is fine. Nothing wrong with that. However you seem to be suggesting the "professionally looking" vs. "un-professional looking" is something of objective fact.
Um, the way something looks IS objective. Unless you are stating facts about it, like 'this button is 12px from the left side and ... '.
[edit] : Errr ... I read that wrong. I meant subjective... hehe. My bad.
Originally posted by inkhead
Linux is a joke.
If Linux is such a joke then why is MS taking it so seriously?
You have obviously a lot of experience with Linux to be able to tell if its so useless. When version(s) have you used.
Dobby.
Originally posted by pyr3
I'm not saying it is the perfect theme, but I'm saying that it is better than the XP and OSX themes...
I never said [OSX looks] 'unprofessional'. I meant 'less professional' [compared to Windows].
When I first saw OSX, I also had the "it looks less professional" reaction, even as I revelled in its Aqua-ness. However, perhaps we think that Windows looks professional just because it is the 'standard'.
I had an interesting experience when I was on a long period of leave recently (to take care of my third child - praise to the Canadian government for allowing for parental leave for men too!), and had only my Mac at home. When I returned to work, I no longer thought my Windows GUI looked professional. "Cheap" and "dull" and "grey" were instead the adjectives that came to mind. Certainly cheap, dull and grey are not considered professional in most other contexts.
I wish I could get my office to hook up a Mac for me on the Office Windows network (technically possible???), but I know they never would.
Watch and learn with 10.3 and 64bit and this will be the first foray into enterprise. besides their are markets that are not cross-over markets that have enterprise like requirements that Apple can play like BioInformatics for one, Government and Security (cocoa was big in NSA/CIA when it was neXT) as well as in-house development of financial derivitives apps.
besides, many unix developers will want to do OO Cocoa for several reasons and still tie apps into legacy Sun servers using SOAP, XML-RPC and other distributed messaging.
they have also hired enterprise people for sales and doing lots of enterprise tracks at WWDC.
I am not with apple just former sun guy doing openstep several years back.
Originally posted by Chinney
When I first saw OSX, I also had the "it looks less professional" reaction, even as I revelled in its Aqua-ness. However, perhaps we think that Windows looks professional just because it is the 'standard'.
What's the definition of professional looking operating systems ? If the definition is that it has to look boring or bad to be "professional", then I love OS X "unprofessional" looks.
And how about windows XP? I don't think XP looks any more professional than os X, more like a kind of hacked-together toy GUI.
One more thing. People that thinks XP never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The "invisible menu" problem.
I had a meeting with vendors who provide data storage, colocation, ISP services (OC192s) and thin client solutions (and "Microsoft certified solutions"). I went office to office shaking hands, the CEO introduced me to the developer guys and the CEO said "this is the Mac publishing guy I told you about" and one UNIX guy said "Oh, you Mac guys hate me, huh?" (joking) and then he caught himself, and said, "Oh, wait, you guys are UNIX now, that's right", and then another developer chimmed in and said "Ya, I have a copy of OS X, it's pretty cool. Wow, a Mac with a shell. It's wild!", I mentioned FreeBSD and we all shook hands and agreed that OS X rocks. Then a network guy popped in and said how he loved the XServe, especially for the price...
I got one of those beasts in the basement - 640 k twin 5.5" floppies and about 8 Mhz of beastin' power!!
And it only weighs 50lb!
Originally posted by NETROMac
What's the definition of professional looking operating systems ? If the definition is that it has to look boring or bad to be "professional", then I love OS X "unprofessional" looks.
And how about windows XP? I don't think XP looks any more professional than os X, more like a kind of hacked-together toy GUI.
One more thing. People that thinks XP never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The "invisible menu" problem.
I ran XP constantly as my only OS for over a year.... Don't tell me that XP constantly crashes. I ran a server on XP that had a 2 months uptime. The only problems I ever had with XP was that explorer would grind away trying to read metadata on incomplete Divx/XviD files and eventually eat up ALL cpu and make things laggy forcing me to kill/restart explorer. But OSX has these problems too. Mount a SAMBA share and then put OSX to sleep. Wake it up with no network connections and see how things work... (remember not to unmount the share before putting it to sleep). I've had more OSX kernel panics than XP BSODs ... granted most were related to SAMBA ... or SMB_FS. That's one area that OSX needs improvement. I hate how people senselessly bash other OSes just because "I had a problem with it so it must be crap", but you will tell the people that use the same logic against OSX that they are crazy or that they are so stupid for doing something wrong.
Also, if you read the quote he was agreeing with you would see that I said the 'classic windows theme' looks more professional than XP theme or OSX theme. Don't just start spouting off like a retard. Think before you type.
Originally posted by inkhead
i don't know who told you linux was the future but they lied to you.
Linux is a joke. i work for a fortune 100 company. We laugh at linux. It belongs in the server room.
I agree that Linux is a better server than a desktop, but what about the embedded market? What about the Fortune 500 companies that use or invest in Linux? I'm sure that Fortune 100 companies know much better than Fortune 500 companies. If Linux belongs in your server room, then why do you laugh at it? Do you think that your servers are a joke? Does you boss not care about your servers and join in on your 'festivities'?
There isn't a damn person who has bothered to design a stardized GUI or a decent one, they all remind me of that stupid winamp mp3 player.
Um. WinAMP is probably the most popular mp3 player ever. (iTunes is popular with Mac people, but 100% of Mac people is nothing compared to even 10% of Windows people.)
Linux is a hack. The software is a hack. Open source is usually just an excuse to ship broken software, after all you'll just add if yourself if you need something.
If all the software is so broken, then why would you use it in your server room, as you stated above? Shouldn't yuou run your servers with an OS that you trust to work? If Linux is so broken then how can you trust it to work? I also forgot about MicroSoft's spotless record in regards to software bugs. Give me one software company that has never had to patch a bug...
Most free software has horrible GUI. Even openoffice is just a nasty.
I'm sure that changing the GUI theme or adding to the source program to change the GUI is till cheaper than MS licenses. At the University that I used to work for they had to Pay twice for MS licences. They had two working XP keys for each Dell machine in the computer labs. Explain how much sense that makes.
Our office would rather spend $500 on each computer installing the software that connects with the rest of the world and that our customers are running, rather than "beta" test and hack around linux.
Some companies would rather not waste the money. And 'beta' tesing only has to be a single machine that you try out the software on and make sure that it can connect to everything. Only a fool of an IT department would deploy software that was not tested to be able to work and connect to the network and server programs to the entire office to 'beta test' rather than making sure it all works on a single machine or a small set of machines first.
Linux is a passing fad for the server room and nerds in closets. I can do anything better on Windows and OS X, and if it involves hosting we use something good like freebsd.
I thought that NetBSD was the most secure. I would value security if I was going to host something... Especially if I valued my job.
linux is the halfass of everything. Half as good as most desktop systems and half as good as server enviroment freebsd or other *nix
If it's half as good then why is it out-pacing other UNIXes? Don't tell me 'because its free'. FreeBSD is free too. Next time that you want to make large claims and blast your mouth off offer something other than opinions to back it up. The 'because I say so rule' doesn't apply in the real world. And at least make a consistent arguement. Don't talk about how linux belongs in your server room, and then talk about it being a joke, unless you don't value the stability of your servers for some reason.
Originally posted by NETROMac One more thing. People that thinks XP never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The "invisible menu" problem.
One more thing. People that thinks OS X never crashes are deadly wrong. If you have it running long enough, have a few apps up and running, installing and uninstalling applications now and then, give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The Beachball 2.0.1 and 10.2.4 problem (http://users.wpi.edu/~phoenix/) I experienced first hand.
Boy, that was easy argument to make! If I type enough words it must be true.
I can make a more convincing argument but pyr3 has pretty much said it right.
Originally posted by klinux
give it a few days and it will eventually f*ck something up. An example: The Beachball 2.0.1 and 10.2.4 problem (http://users.wpi.edu/~phoenix/) I experienced first hand.
You did realize that by having a different version CoreGraphics file than for what this was designed, the offset for the replaced bytes would likely be wrong and that you would destroy the file, right?
And you blame the OS for having problems after modifying this crucial system file (that is normally read-only) yourself?
Har har.
Originally posted by dobby
Most Corporate IT's have heard about Apple.
At my previous job, our Apple gurus tried to push OS X in a big way. A single problem hindered rolling out Mac to PC for over 3000 Staff members.
You can't get your password to expire after 30 days!
Doesn't work with (Open)LDAP nor does it work when you synch against NT servers.
We even had a couple of Apple engineers you said they could write a special login for us.
Mangement refused as they said it should be part of the standard OS.
Apple doesn't want to move into the corporate business or it would have built some basic login security.
Even System V had more login security than Mac!
Dobby.
It is part of the standard system, simply setup a cron job that does the above task. It wouldn't exactly be a hard task for anyone who knows atleast a few lines of scripting.
As for expiring passwords after 30 days, how stupid is that? all that will happen is the moron will change it from mypassword to mypassword1, oh gee, what GREAT security that will provide.
The fact of the matter is that the machine is as secure as the luser sitting in front of the computer.
pyr3: OpenBSD is the most secure free beer/speech OS. That is assuming your sysadmin is competent. Also, Ximian Desktop looks really phat for home/office use.
Barto
inkhead has a point. Linux just isn't that great.
Isn't that great at what?
What it has going for it is hype, and specifically hype among the people who can deploy millions upon millions of dollars worth of hardware and software.
There is hype surrounding linux, because it's free, secure, and stable, and the dominant OS is none of those things. And linux runs on virtually any hardware. From a developer perspective, whether you are developing a PDA or 64-bit workstation Beowulf cluster for gene-sequencing, you can leverage that, save money and resources, instead of a) reinventing the wheel yourself or b) buying Win CE/MX/98/NT/whatever.
Any geek can tell you that the Linux conferences have been overrun by suits. Many of them are interested in something-that-is-not-Microsoft.
??? And... that's a bad thing?
And IBM is more than happy to sell their clients whatever they ask for, especially if it requires a lot of support. IBM makes far more money off support than they do off hardware.
True. However, I don't see your point, as any other OS, especially proprietary ones such as AIX or whatever, is going to be harder to learn, more expensive (than free), and platform specific, and won't have the great free, online news/web support system linux has. Virtually every question I've had has been answered by google and a few ppc/linux forums (and we're talking some esoteric/technical/obscure questions here
As for HPaq, the shop I work for has a Compaq Alpha and a big Compaq SAN. For the SAN we were shown the admin and access software for Windows, Linux, and VMS. The Linux software was the least featured, the second worst performing, and according to one of the Compaq guys, it took them over two weeks to get the last Linux install up and running. (We chose VMS - that is a server OS - and we were up and running that afternoon).
What your shop's SAN software has to do with the linux kernel, Gnu software in general, or popular desktop environments for unix-like OSes has me and every one here guessing.
And if it takes anyone two weeks to install any OS, they're incompetent or total newbies. Or incapable of reading instructions. Hours, not days or weeks, are required to install an OS; it just doesn't take 14 days.
To criticize Linux is not to be "afraid of the future."
Agreed. However, his post was linux-phobic, belying his lack of any real hands-on experience.
"I used it once and it sucked" says nothing when you don't know how to use it in the first place. And he doesn't even claim he used it once. We fear what we don't know. And FYI, that's why I said he feared change, not the future.
That's a passive-tense cop-out. The future is what we make it. If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers. If OS X is a better client OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on clients. Going with an inferior solution just because it's "the future" is the same lemming behavior that put Windows everywhere. I have a working thesis that people get fundamentalist about platforms that are not in themselves remarkable as if to make up for them; there aren't many other reasons why the two great OS' would be Windows and Linux.
"If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers."
How is BSD a better server OS? And Amorph, I'm simply asking, not implying that it's not.
My working thesis is that M$ is shrewd at business, and linux (free, stable, secure) is not a business, and is thus outside the sphere of influence of M$.
Linux is not useless by any means, but the zealotry surrounding it boggles my mind - and I'm accustomed to Mac users! It does not represent the open source methodology at its best, nor at its worst. It's "good enough." Haven't we had enough of "good enough" at this point?
Keep in mind 'linux' typically means 'linux on x86'. What are PC users' other prospects?
I like OSX, but given the expensive, proprietary hardware (to say nothing of performance), and closed-source OS (unless you think of Darwin as a complete, viable OS in itself), I have no illusions of OSX becoming the new marketshare leader. And I prefer it that way; it lights a fire under Apple's ass to innovate and build a better mousetrap.
Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R
Amorph:
Isn't that great at what?
Isn't that great at living up to the hype.
There is hype surrounding linux, because it's free, secure, and stable, and the dominant OS is none of those things. And linux runs on virtually any hardware.
Right, but BSD is more free (the license is less restrictive than GNU's), more secure, more stable, and it ran on just about everything back when Linux was still stuck on x86.
What's it lacking? That wierd "hype" thing. I think Linux' initial attraction was that it required a lot of tinkering, which solicited interest and contribution; the mature BSD codebase just didn't engage people on the same level. And BSD was slowed down by the AT&T lawsuit (which turned out to be spurious). Before then, BSD was used in commercial UNIXen by Sun and Digital and IBM. It was mature and proven before Linux had a mouse driver.
From a developer perspective, whether you are developing a PDA or 64-bit workstation Beowulf cluster for gene-sequencing, you can leverage that, save money and resources, instead of a) reinventing the wheel yourself or b) buying Win CE/MX/98/NT/whatever.
Whether you will save money and resources is an open question, since Linux can be difficult to wrangle. It might end up costing more if it proves temperamental, or if you take a performance hit (which happens), or if the toolset proves to be incomplete or spotty.
True. However, I don't see your point, as any other OS, especially proprietary ones such as AIX or whatever, is going to be harder to learn, more expensive (than free), and platform specific, and won't have the great free, online news/web support system linux has.
Um, most of the proprietary OS' have lower learning curves than Linux does. The ones that don't have higher learning curves because they offer more. As for more expensive, again, it depends. We pay for OpenVMS because the support costs are basically nil: You boot it up, and tell it when to run backups, and where, and to which device, and it runs clean and blazing fast and stable until you shut the machine down however many years later. That's why VMS owns the uptime-critical market. So our support consists of a guy who we call in when necessary; he's billed us for maybe 8 hours in the last 7 years. So, for us, the license fee of VMS is worth the savings in support and maintenance. It costs a lot less than the salary for a technician. And, incidentally, since we've been a VMS shop since the mid 1980's, the learning curve is much lower than Linux' because it's familiar by now. Such things are always relative.
What your shop's SAN software has to do with the linux kernel, Gnu software in general, or popular desktop environments for unix-like OSes has me and every one here guessing.
Because you're conflating things that have no relevance to each other in order to dodge the question. You can't run the SAN without administrative software. The administrative software runs like crap on Linux, because of limitations in Linux - in the core and elsewhere. This has nothing to do with "GNU software in general," particularly since GNU software in general adheres to a much higher coding standard than Linux does (even VMS ships with a number of open source programs, including some of GNU's), and free software under other licences is frequently held to a higher standard as well. And the generalization about "popular desktop environments for unix-like OS's" is just baffling. They aren't relevant to this particular point, which is that if the OS can't do a decent job of managing an expensive and crucial piece of equipment, who cares what the desktop environments are? This is something that Linux has always struggled with. It's almost there, but there are bits and pieces missing, or buggy, or poorly integrated. It's a good thing there's excellent free support, because you need it!
That said, except for some embedded UIs, exactly two UNIX desktop environments have impressed me: IRIX and OS X (I never really got a chance to play with NeXTStep, so I'll punt that one). This is irrespective of the platform the desktop environment is running on.
And if it takes anyone two weeks to install any OS, they're incompetent or total newbies. Or incapable of reading instructions. Hours, not days or weeks, are required to install an OS; it just doesn't take 14 days.
First of all, this is not an OS, it's the management software for the SAN, which was the example I'd picked. Second of all, I've seen installs take days. It takes hours unless something goes horribly wrong, which happens a fair amount of the time.
"If BSD is a better server OS (and it is, by miles), it should go on servers."
How is BSD a better server OS? And Amorph, I'm simply asking, not implying that it's not.
Fair enough. I'll point you to a hands-on report by a guy with years of in-depth Linux experience:
http://chesterforums.keenspot.com/viewtopic.php?t=50202
Note that some of the reasons simply come down to discipline: The folks behind BSD wait two years before declaring a codebase stable, so when you install a stable build of BSD, you can be pretty damn sure that the bugs have been worked out.
My working thesis is that M$ is shrewd at business, and linux (free, stable, secure) is not a business, and is thus outside the sphere of influence of M$.
That's a good working thesis, and it's certainly a big reason why MS is afraid of free software in general. But the same arguments apply to BSD.
Keep in mind 'linux' typically means 'linux on x86'. What are PC users' other prospects?
BSD, at least until the next hardware refresh in 3 years or less.
I like OSX, but given the expensive, proprietary hardware (to say nothing of performance), and closed-source OS (unless you think of Darwin as a complete, viable OS in itself), I have no illusions of OSX becoming the new marketshare leader. And I prefer it that way; it lights a fire under Apple's ass to innovate and build a better mousetrap.
If what you want is a UNIX running KDE or GNOME there's no reason not to use FreeBSD or OpenBSD (or NetBSD), especially if you have a mix of x86 hardware. Darwin isn't really in the running, and it isn't intended to be. My own experience with OS X is that it's not near the pure BSDs in stability or predictability (which is not to say that it's bad).
But the "expensive" criticism really doesn't apply. Whether it's expensive depends on what you need. My band's web page runs on a Digital UNIX box. Digital UNIX costs a lot up front. On the other hand, the server's uptime and performance have been exemplary for the three years it's hosted us. If you pay upfront for something that proceeds to just run, and run well, and get work done with no fuss, you'll probably save money over an initially cheaper solution that ends up nickel-and-diming you to death, in staff time and costs, and in lost productivity, and (in the case of a free Linux hosting service whose server was unresponsive when I first went to look at it, and sluggish later) lost customers. (Longtime Mac users will probably recognize the TCO argument as an old friend
I should mention that I work for a nonprofit with a much smaller budget relative to its number of employees than most private sector companies have. We run a tight ship. And we do it by paying for software that we can just drop in and expect to work. Because of this, our IT staff is one part-time guy (he's full time, but he works on other things) and two students (who also work on other things) for a total of almost 60 people.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
3. What of iPod, iTunes (for Windows), etc.? Is iPod the "trojan horse" for Apple? Is Apple trying to (slowly) redfine what the personal computer is? Will iPod gain more CPU power and software capabilities? Will it becoms something you could plug a monitor and keyboard into and boom! you have a computer?
now i would definitely like that.