WTF happened to our OS?
ok, so i'm reading through the genius bar area, and the OS X area, and i start noticing a trend.
OS X is hard to use. not impossible hard, but it's not easy. to me that doesn't matter all that much, i'm used to windows, but what about all the old school mac folks?
like partitioning your drive into different areas for the different OS'es, that's a joke! you shouldn't have to have a partition for OSX and another for OS 9 just to get things to work right.
and i have been less than impressed with the number of drivers for Mac hardware that support OS X too. this didn't bother me before because OS 9 was the shipping OS.
now all of the new iMacs are coming with OS X as the default.
dunno, just seems like i was walking down a dim hallway, and suddenly a light goes on and i realize this isn't my wonderful mac hallway, this is some bastardized Unix hallway.
yeah it's cool and all, but wtf ever happened to "drag the photoshop folder to the applications folder, there it's installed"
now i've got hidden files everywhere that show up in OS 9, stupid permissions to deal with on everything. shitty ass heirarchy that files default into.
OS X is a pain in the ass. and it took me this long to notice.
is it ever going to be as nice as OS9? i mean, just give me 9 with protected memory and i'd have been happy....
OS X is hard to use. not impossible hard, but it's not easy. to me that doesn't matter all that much, i'm used to windows, but what about all the old school mac folks?
like partitioning your drive into different areas for the different OS'es, that's a joke! you shouldn't have to have a partition for OSX and another for OS 9 just to get things to work right.
and i have been less than impressed with the number of drivers for Mac hardware that support OS X too. this didn't bother me before because OS 9 was the shipping OS.
now all of the new iMacs are coming with OS X as the default.
dunno, just seems like i was walking down a dim hallway, and suddenly a light goes on and i realize this isn't my wonderful mac hallway, this is some bastardized Unix hallway.
yeah it's cool and all, but wtf ever happened to "drag the photoshop folder to the applications folder, there it's installed"
now i've got hidden files everywhere that show up in OS 9, stupid permissions to deal with on everything. shitty ass heirarchy that files default into.
OS X is a pain in the ass. and it took me this long to notice.
is it ever going to be as nice as OS9? i mean, just give me 9 with protected memory and i'd have been happy....
Comments
It seems like OSX is forcing Mac users to sound like the PC users they've made fun of for years.
Pre-X PC user: "It sounds hard but it's really not and it's really cool once you get it working."
Pre-X Mac user: "You shouldn't have to be doing all this for something so simple."
Post-X Mac user: "It sounds hard but it's really not and it's really cool once you get it working."
Post-X PC user: "Yeah, that's what I've been telling you for years."
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: groverat ]</p>
Thus spake Steve, "People lust for my new iMac."
"But many await a price drop to more reasoable levels."
"Bah, this shall not be, I am most displeased with the faithful!"
"But why oh veganist balding hippy wannabe?"
"Every expo we make them wait, and they just wait some more. So be it! If the drones will not buy now, they will suffer my wrath. No more price drops! No more spec bumps! The tardy will do penance."
"Penance?"
"YES! When Mot begate G4, we attempted spec drops and the plebes were ungrateful."
"But..."
"SILENCE! Insolent geek! Now we will give them price bumps untill they learn to buy as I deem fit."
But sir, I don't think the computer indus..."
"ENOUGH! I can't deal with this any more, throw this moron in with Workerbee; fuel the jet, get me an Evian; send Jonathan some extra large benoit balls and tell him to meet me in the garden. Oh, and see if we can find another 1000 or so yogi-fliers to beef up the RDF."
"but but... sir
"BUT WHAT!?"
"The yogis can't fly with base stations lodged up there asses."
"Get them bigger benoit balls you idiot! You can't just ramp up production like that, you have to do it incrementally."
Yes sir, I'll pull another million ofrom R&D right away sir
<img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
[edit: This has the potential to be a really good thread. Let's hope it doesn't turn into a macnn-style 'debate' about OS X....]
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]</p>
I felt that way too about OS X so far and is why I continously, ad nauseam, rant that OS X is a half baked OS. We all SEE where its getting at, but it just AINT there yet.
I have vicious discussions with my PC friends as the backwardness of Windows... but now a days I have lowered my tone a bit because I am seeing that our own OS has MANY faults of its own.
Blah, lets hope 10.2 kicks ass, but Im guessing 10.3 (or whatever the next point upgrade will be) will be what we have been hoping for since the start.
<strong>I hear you and I've been thinking the same thing since the introduction of OSX. I refuse to run the command line, this is a Mac. Partitioning for swap space? Isn't this a Mac?
It seems like OSX is forcing Mac users to sound like the PC users they've made fun of for years.
Pre-X PC user: "It sounds hard but it's really not and it's really cool once you get it working."
Pre-X Mac user: "You shouldn't have to be doing all this for something so simple."
Post-X Mac user: "It sounds hard but it's really not and it's really cool once you get it working."
Post-X PC user: "Yeah, that's what I've been telling you for years."
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: groverat ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sorry, this is either ignorance or FUD.
You don't have to partition your HD to run OS X.
You don't have partition for swap space.
You don't have to run a command line.
These are all very optional things to do (I've personally had no desire to do the first two, and not had a single problem). And if you hate the command line with a passion (even just for troubleshooting), GUI apps exist for just about every command line function.
<sulking as I haven't recieved any in a while, damn you SJ...>
i'm talking about example like this though.
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000568"; target="_blank">system folder can't be modified?</a>
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000566"; target="_blank">login as root?</a>
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000565"; target="_blank">bootable OSX CD</a>
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000541"; target="_blank">command line usage.</a>
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000559"; target="_blank">Apache as an FTP server</a>
now, look through and read some of this advice and tell me that this sounds like a Mac user forum anymore. sure doesn't to me. it's a friggin PC/Unix one now.
i'm sorry, but when working on a Mac i want buttons. i want explanations. i want it to be simple. i don't want to have to explain to my parents that to share their images, they have to go in and set the user preferences to allow both of them access. i know it's more secure. it's also a pain in the ass.
so we've gained security, i didn't realize it was ever that big of a problem to be honest.
we've lost ease of use! doesn't anyone get how bad that is? is no one else scared by the fact that your mac is now no easier to use than a PC?
i've been playing around with my win2k server mahcine lately, and it's pretty friggin' easy to set up now. just read the help files and away you go. it's not intuitive, and i actually have to read the help files, but they guide me through no problem, and as long as i read them i'm just fine.
this is exactly what my Mac is like now. i can do almost anything is OSX, but i have to read the help files. it's no longer intuitive or straightforward. at least not to me.
dunno, just read through some of those links i posted. read the advice. read the questions. this does not sound like a Mac. if i changed the words "Mac OSX" to "Redhat Linux" you wouldn't notice anything wrong.
i bet you dollars to donuts though that if you took any OS 9 based thread and tried to pass it off as Linux advice, it would be glaringly obvious in seconds.
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: alcimedes ]</p>
I've never bothered partitioning drives for 9 and X either. Tried it, noticed no difference, decided it was a bunch of hooey.
Never use the CLI other than to learn a little about *nix here and there.
Most of the apps I've installed required nothing more than a drag over. Toast installer sucks, but that's Roxio for you, I guess.
The file system is different but no more difficult to use/learn/understand than classic was when I first started messing with it. I mean eac user gets their own prefs and library folders, as well as the music, video, pics, docs etc. Plus there is a system wide library and prefs folder. I really don't see what's so difficult about that.
I do agree that the whole permissions/priveleges thing is a bit much. A while ago, I backed up both user folders to a second drive then reinstalled the OS. Once it was installed I couldn't copy the items from the user folder. I got it done with FileExaminer, and I could've gotten it done with the CLI (if I knew how). But it wasn't Apple easy.
<strong>
i'm sorry, but when working on a Mac i want buttons. i want explanations. i want it to be simple. i don't want to have to explain to my parents that to share their images, they have to go in and set the user preferences to allow both of them access. i know it's more secure. it's also a pain in the ass.
so we've gained security, i didn't realize it was ever that big of a problem to be honest.
we've lost ease of use! doesn't anyone get how bad that is? is no one else scared by the fact that your mac is now no easier to use than a PC?
i've been playing around with my win2k server mahcine lately, and it's pretty friggin' easy to set up now. just read the help files and away you go. it's not intuitive, and i actually have to read the help files, but they guide me through no problem, and as long as i read them i'm just fine.
this is exactly what my Mac is like now. i can do almost anything is OSX, but i have to read the help files. it's no longer intuitive or straightforward. at least not to me.
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: alcimedes ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Could you give me an example of where you want buttons and there aren't any?
<strong>sorry, i should rephrase that. you don't have to do multiple partitions, but it helps.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So did booting from a RAM disk in OS 9. That trick wasn't exactly straightforward to implement either.
Really, has everyone already forgotten the array of wild hacks, third-party patches and workarounds for the old Mac OS?
[quote]<strong>now, look through and read some of this advice and tell me that this sounds like a Mac user forum anymore. sure doesn't to me. it's a friggin PC/Unix one now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The file permissions thing is genuinely obnoxious, and Apple has heard my opinion of their current design several times.
The command line is the same way. If you don't want to touch the command line, do the OS 9 thing and wait for someone to release a GUI utility. (They're much easier to write for OS X than for OS 9, in general.) If you don't want to wait, the command line is there.
[quote]<strong>we've lost ease of use! doesn't anyone get how bad that is? is no one else scared by the fact that your mac is now no easier to use than a PC?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I work with a PC 8 hours a day. My Mac is not only easier to use, but more so since OS X. I prefer the way the filesystem is organized (much less spelunking) and I can pretend the UNIX layer doesn't exist - until I get a hankering for using it. Software installs are much less painful, and the interface, while a bit slow, is seamless and straightforward. Multitasking and threading are superior.
Mileage varies, etc.
[quote]<strong>this is exactly what my Mac is like now. i can do almost anything is OSX, but i have to read the help files. it's no longer intuitive or straightforward. at least not to me.
dunno, just read through some of those links i posted. read the advice. read the questions. this does not sound like a Mac. if i changed the words "Mac OSX" to "Redhat Linux" you wouldn't notice anything wrong.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Of course not, because nearly all of the threads you linked to are addressing OS X's UNIX layer. You don't have to learn it, but it's there if you do. It looks like the people starting the threads do, so I don't see the problem. The same people would probably be installing a Linux distro on another partition and dual-booting. OS X makes UNIX a lot more accessible than that, for those who want UNIX.
Remember, if there's something that could be solved via the command line, and you don't want to do so, you can always wait for someone else to write a GUI solution. Just like OS 9.
[quote]<strong>i bet you dollars to donuts though that if you took any OS 9 based thread and tried to pass it off as Linux advice, it would be glaringly obvious in seconds.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not if it was a thread about Tenon's web server.
That has a lot to do with the (painfully obvious) fact that OS 9 didn't have UNIX shells available. It has nothing to do with how easy OS 9 or OS X is to use. If you're implying that OS X is as hard for a new user as Linux is, then you've never used Linux.
Are we griping because we have an OS that gives us so many more chances to use our computers in different ways? Would we rather have these things stripped out just so we don't ask about them? The things that OS 9 could do, OS X can do (mostly). There are a few rough spots, no doubt, but they will be ironed out. As for these forums sounding like UNIX fora, fine with me. At least we can all learn something.
I've seen far more of this in OS X than in OS 8 or 9. The last time that this was commonplace was during the 7.1 days. I think nearly half, if not more, of my apps didn't have an installers.
Don't think of it as a straight hallway, think of it as a circular building with a hallway around the perimiter. Things work nicely out here, you have big windows with beautiful scenery to the outside.
However, there are a few entrances to the inside of this place, but there are no windows with pretty scenery to admire. If you want to muck around in this dark area, you are more than welcome, but it's not necessary.
That's the great thing about this place. Most people are happy working in the nice outside perimeter of the facility, and that's fine. Lots of bright, talented people working all day in this nice setting. But, if you feel like getting your hands dirty in the real "guts" of the OS, turn down one of the dark hallways and into the UNIX room.
Choose your own adventure.
On a 466MHz G4, a 400MHz iMac DV and now a SuperDrive LCD iMac.
Actually, on the new iMac I'm yanking 9 completely off. Screw it.
My only beef with OS X is how they removed the AirPort Software Base Station thing (which is really handy...AND saves a fella $300).
I don't use a computer to "geek out" or screw around with terminal code or whatever. I'm never going to deal with anything other than Aqua, so all that other stuff isn't an issue for me.
I've slid into the OS X gradually and cautiously over the past 6 or so months. Now with my new iMac at home (and the fact I don't have or use a printer, scanner, digital camera, etc. and therefore am not in a "waiting for OS X drivers" dilemma), I see no need to even HAVE OS 9 at all.
I've embraced the new OS X at home...and as soon as we have Photoshop 7, some specific printer drivers here at work and a few other specific things, I'll be happy to start using it full-time at work to.
I hope 10.2 does address the speed/response thing though. And the Software Base Station, pop-up folders, labels and a few other nice (and USEFUL) OS 9-era features.
But overall, I'm very pleased and comfortable with everything.
#1 with a bullet: file permissions. i have now spent three days trying to explain to my parents how this works. they are still working on it. i don't think they should have to go in and change the damn file permissions on everything they create/download/install just so other people can use them.
at least something like a general area where any files within a folder will have universal access. that would go a long way. you want other poeple to be able to use them, put them in there.
[quote] I prefer the way the filesystem is organized (much less spelunking)<hr></blockquote>
and make the file locations obvious. for example, i rip my Smashing Pumpkins CD. then i want move the files, check the file size etc. so i go to find them.
where did they go? Macintosh HD/users/alcimedes/documents/itunes/smashing pumpkins/greatest hits/
that's 8 directories before i find them. iPhoto is no better. Macintosh HD/users/alcimedes/pictures/iphoto library/2000/01/01
that's nine before i find the files. and i have no idea where that folder heirarchy came from.
it's convuluted and confusing. some of the images are buried 12 folders deep. i'm sorry but that is not a good way to have your files set up. not a good default, especially not on an iMac.
#2 OS X is not ready for prime time: i'm also ticked because i feel that OSX was installed as the default while still half baked at best. who here has not had to boot into OS 9, or classic mode since switching to OS X? i have apps. that need classic mode, and i have hardware that won't work in OS X. part of the problem is other software/hardware companies haven't written drivers. part of it is apple's fault.
my kodak digital camera has a USB card reader that comes with it so you can transfer files. but it doesn't work in OSX. i have to boot into OS 9, then the card shows up, copy the images off, then boot into OSX and import them into iPhoto. that sucks. i have a USB HP printer that won't install. some stupid error message. why can't apple just make drivers for this stuff? it's pretty basic, run of the mill hardware. nothing weird or on the fringe here. and none of it is more than a year or so old!
can you explain to me how the mac is easier to use when you have to boot into two different OS'es just to import your damn digital camera pics?
OS X is short on software and drivers. while i fully expect that to change in the future, the fact remains that it is now a shipping OS, and these types of things shouldn't happen.
what would we have said if 1 year old hardware no longer worked with the new version of Windows? we would have laughed our asses off at stupid windows users and the crap they have to put up with. now i'm in that same boat, and i don't really like it.
so i guess it's only two things that really tick me off. well, two that i can think of right now. but i do think they're serious problems, and are very UnMac-like.
edit: let me ask this then. what would you be happier with? OS 9 with protected memory, or OS X the way it is now?"
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: alcimedes ]</p>
<strong>
and make the file locations obvious. for example, i rip my Smashing Pumpkins CD. then i want move the files, check the file size etc. so i go to find them.
where did they go? Macintosh HD/users/alcimedes/documents/itunes/smashing pumpkins/greatest hits/
that's 8 directories before i find them. iPhoto is no better. Macintosh HD/users/alcimedes/pictures/iphoto library/2000/01/01
that's nine before i find the files.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're navigating from the top level. That's OS 9 thinking.
[quote]<strong>and i have no idea where that folder heirarchy came from.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's nothing new. You had no idea where OS 9's came from either.
[quote]<strong>can you explain to me how the mac is easier to use when you have to boot into two different OS'es just to import your damn digital camera pics?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Can you imagine a transition of this magnitude going off without an awkward transition period? Windows has had far worse over a much longer time (95->NT->2000).
Apple's in a bind, because as long as they make OS 9 the default, there's no real incentive for other companies to get OS X drivers out the door. By making OS X standard, Apple is lighting a fire under the likes of Epson; but the tradeoff is that there will be a period when there's just not much available. Especially if you have older peripherals. There's no porting drivers from OS 9 to OS X. The driver model is totally different (and much better). The kernel is totally different (and much better). OS X drivers are a 100% pure rewrite. Given that a bad driver can take down OS X (or any operating system), they have to be written carefully and tested thoroughly.
[quote]<strong>OS X is short on software and drivers. while i fully expect that to change in the future, the fact remains that it is now a shipping OS, and these types of things shouldn't happen.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But they always happen. The only way to really get people to develop for your new OS is to ship it standard, just like the only way Apple could get people to ship USB peripherals was to ship USB standard - and nothing else. There will be a period where there are not many apps, just like there was a period when there were hardly any USB peripherals for your new iMac. It's inevitable.
Considering that OS X actually has a pretty good suite of apps at this point, we're not doing badly. NT was a wasteland for much of the first year of its existence.
[quote]<strong>edit: let me ask this then. what would you be happier with? OS 9 with protected memory, or OS X the way it is now?"</strong><hr></blockquote>
OS X the way it is now, largely because adding protected memory to OS 9 would break so many applications (and drivers!) that you'd be having the same compatibility problems, and you wouldn't have any of the other advantages that OS X brings to the table.
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
Of course, I'm still ONLY using OS 9 -- and for good reason.
I tried the OS X route (and that was back at 10.0.1). I decided then, "Mmmmm, no. I can wait a while."
Thanks everyone for validating my thoughts.
I can't remember where I read it (DAMN!), but Apple has said that OS X's way of doing things is easier for new users. From the context (WISH I COULD REMEMBER WHERE I READ THIS!!!). it seemed like they had done tests (many people don't believe Apple tested Aqua or any of OS X at all
Now, one thing you (in general) must conede is that OS X is adding stuff that's just not simple. Take file permissions. That wasn't easy on 9 either (the concept I mean). If you want permissions, they must be implemented somehow, right? Some stuff is just plain complicated (relatively speaking).
Basically, the change sucks for people that are die-hard Classic users, but it's (supposedly) better for people who have never used computers before.