a question to you who know about stuff: what is the real difference between OS X and linux and are there any good reasons, except for the price of hardware and the "coolfactor" to run linux instead of OS X?
There are lots of reasons. Most won't apply to a 'typical' Mac user.
When I run linux I can do pretty much anything under the sun. Want to play with the latest development kernel? Go for it! Want to see if that pre-emptable kernel patch actually does anything? Patch it in and try it out! Arguably, there is more software for linux, and much more of it is free than there is in OSX-land (I mean OSX native software, not something that'll run under classic). I find linux+X much faster on my cube than OSX. Don't want transparent menus in linux, or transparent anything? Not to worry, most of that stuff is off by default . (I find it quite funny that people in OSX land complain about how slow things are, and there are all kinds of hacks to disable some things, in there are tons of KDE themes and whatnot that add all that stuff back in on linux ...).
With Mac OSX and apple, you're kind of stuck using what they give you. Not that that is neccessarily bad, but sometimes you just want to muck around with the guts to things ... OSX doesn't give you access to all the 'guts', especially not the cool 'guts' (yes, i realize that they can't very easily give out the source to say, quartz).
Remember how when the 733Mhz G4 came out, and a bunch of test said it wasn't much faster than whatever was before it? (I may have the Mhz rating wrong). Apple said it was because the software wasn't optimized for that particular flavour of G4... Well, with linux you can recompile pretty much every piece of software that it runs on, and optimize it (as much as possible anyway) for your processor ... Did apple ever optimize for that chip? Or your chip? Would you know if they did?
But ... (you knew there'd be a but). Why do I use OSX most of the time, while my linux box sits dormant? Well, for one thing my cube is nice and quiet and my linux box has at least 10 fans (heh), but it is a lot easier to do simple tasks in OSX. Surfing the web, reading email, simple shell scripts, some games ... is all pretty easy to do in OSX. I have gone through the kernel-recompile, mess with this module, etc hassle that can happen with linux when you want to add new hardware ... Although things like mandrake-linux make this a lot easier ...
For the most part, while OSX is "simpler" (from a user perspective), sometimes thats whats best. I wasted 3 CDRs trying to burn a CD in linux because i was making a stupid mistake. In OSX I just click on 'burn' in iTunes.
So, each has their advantages and downfalls ... I think OSX is great for most people, I think it would be great in a corporate desktop environment, for example. But, when you really want the latest, bleeding edge, gee-whiz-bang feature, you most likely want linux. Chances are someone who has your ancient video card or whatever already wrote a driver for it, and you'll be able to get all that older hardware to work. In the apple camp, you've gotta throw out all your older stuff and upgrade just to run X acceptably ...
<strong>Linux is free or it can be, it's open, and it's not proprietary.
OSX is none of these.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is only half true. OS X has the darwin project if you recall which puts the base of the OS out as open source. It is free as darwin, not free as OS X with Aqua. It is also not proprietary until you add in Aqua. So, OS X as shipped in the box from apple is all the things you stated. Darwin, OS X's guts sans GUI, is not any of the things you stated. And you can run XWindows on Darwin as well so you have a gui too.
Okay. I'm an electrical engineering student with a big 3d modeling hobby, and I don't like linux. I have run it, and it doesn't like to work. Hardware problem after hardware problem resulting is countless in-the-dark modifications of cryptic little files. I just want my OS to work and be able to do some UNIX stuff. I develop simple software to aid in problem solving: UNIX is nice for this. OS X adds a beautiful GUI on a fire-and-forget hardware platform. Plus I can run my favorite 3D modeling program(s) on it.
As a server, OS X server is replacing my Linux server. It was just too unreliable, giving me schtick far too often for my liking. OS X does the simple things I need to do without complaint.
[quote]Remember how when the 733Mhz G4 came out, and a bunch of test said it wasn't much faster than whatever was before it? (I may have the Mhz rating wrong). Apple said it was because the software wasn't optimized for that particular flavour of G4... Well, with linux you can recompile pretty much every piece of software that it runs on, and optimize it (as much as possible anyway) for your processor ... Did apple ever optimize for that chip? Or your chip? Would you know if they did?<hr></blockquote>
Actually, 10.2 is to be the first version of X that's compiled with Apple's super custom version of CC. gcc hasn't/is slow to update for the G4. So if you recompiled linux it wouldn't do anything for you unless you recompiled it with "applec" which isn't technically out yet.
In general, if you're compiling, never use gcc. There always tends to be a cc, which will almost always be a compiler optimized by the company for the platform it's being run on.
If you're willing to make the effort, Linux offers you a FAR more customizable experience, and a LOT of different features (even in the GUI arena). Its aesthetics are subjective, so I won't really bother with that. Also, if you're going to be running Unix software, it's far less of a hassle to do it on Linux than on OS X.
Serves different purposes, really, although a lot of the under-the-hood stuff is similar (but by no means identical).
I'm not exactly a full-blown lun1x geek, but I am surrounded by them in real life and online. I think that there are quite a few really valid reasons why Linux/*nix and Mac OS X consist of some different markets:
1. Price. Mac hardware is expensive, there is less of it to go around, it takes a lot longer to lose value. Mac OS X itself, as someone said, is not free, and at 130 bucks it is fairly expensive for a few CDs and a couple lame booklets with little to no technical value to a serious geek. Even Mac software is expensive.
2. Fully open-source. The entire operating system and drivers are all open source.. as well as just about all applications. So you can tinker, learn, contribute. Which leads to #3...
3. Hardware support. There is a ton more hardware supported for Linux... and there is a huge community devoted to making more support for more hardware. One could argue that this is because of the PC industry's hardware situation with so many vendors, products, and technologies, but still. There is a lot of hardware even for the closed-system Mac platform not supported by Mac OS X.
4. Support in general. This kinda goes along with the one before it as well. Linux being opensource and community-driven lends to a large group of people that are intimately knowledgeable in the inner workings of the system and hardware and whatnot, most all willing to help and contribute if knowledgeable enough. Think of how far Linux and the like have come all by themselves without huge corporate backing like Apple's, and with so many more obstacles to overcome like massive amounts of hardware to support.
5. The 'l33tness' factor. It's just a lot cooler to be able to recompile your own kernel and experiment with cutting-edge new open source software and say you've got a serious lun1x box that you painstakingly configured and installed and perfected and secured and can actually USE. This isn't just a positively l33t thing for *nix, it's a negatively l33t thing for Macs and the Mac OS, which began on the premise of being a system and interface that everyman could be capable of understanding easily. Point-click-ediots with pretty toys, that's what a lot of the 'l33t' community regards Mac users as.
6. Real abilities. This doens't apply to Linux as much as it does BSD or Slolaris, but... Mac OS X may be fine for users and piddly stuff, and Mac OS X Server might be fine for some schools or small businesses or whatever, but it is FAR from an enterprise solution, and this mainly has a lot to do with the hardware, but software is also a big part of it that is dependant on hardware. Go look at one of Sun's enterprise servers, like the E10K. There is no ?ucking way in hell Apple could ever compare to that kind of redundant, SERIOUS enterprise hardware. At least not as things stand. And I don't expect Apple to be implementing stuff like hot-reconfigurable 'system domains', up to 16 processors, 32 pci cards, HUGE interconnects with like 12GBps bandwidth, sixty four gigabytes of memory.. it sounds insane but when you're doing serious enterprise work a G4 with OS X, even Server, just won't cut it. Thus a huge market isn't even interested in becoming a point-click-ediot.
EIther the hardware is expensive or the OS isn't free, it can't be both. Why? Because if you buy that new expensive hardware, you get OS X for free. If you have to buy the OS, you already have a Mac. Don't convolute the two. Carry on...
<strong>I'm not exactly a full-blown lun1x geek, but I am surrounded by them in real life and online. I think that there are quite a few really valid reasons why Linux/*nix and Mac OS X consist of some different markets:
1. Price. Mac hardware is expensive, there is less of it to go around, it takes a lot longer to lose value.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Mac hardware might be expensive relative to the hardware that can run Linux, or any of the BSDs, or QNX, but have you priced an Alpha recently?
Depending on which UNIX you're talking about, Apple hardware either commands a steep premium or it's a rare value.
[quote]<strong>2. Fully open-source. The entire operating system and drivers are all open source.. as well as just about all applications. So you can tinker, learn, contribute.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Less-than-rigorous control over this tendency has left Linux with a suboptimal organization at the high level, and a lot of pretty bad code. BSD has fared a lot better as far as the quality of its codebase is concerned. The AT&T-derived UNIXen are not truly open source (you get the source code after you fork out big $$$ for the license); OS X 's open-source kernel looks generous in comparison.
[quote]<strong>Hardware support. There is a ton more hardware supported for Linux... and there is a huge community devoted to making more support for more hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
On the other hand, their definition of "support" can be pretty minimal.
[quote]<strong>Think of how far Linux and the like have come all by themselves without huge corporate backing like Apple's, and with so many more obstacles to overcome like massive amounts of hardware to support.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's also true of BSD, but then there's Solaris, OSF/1, AIX, HP/UX... the UNIXen with massive corporate backing. These are also very well supported and (for the most part) lavishly documented.
Also, Linux has had huge corporate backing for some years now, since IBM threw their immense weight behind it. Sun seems to have discovered a fondness for it, and Apple (yes, Apple) contributed a lot of work to the Linux source tree before they settled on a BSD-derived OS.
[quote]<strong>5. The 'l33tness' factor. It's just a lot cooler to be able to recompile your own kernel and experiment with cutting-edge new open source software and say you've got a serious lun1x box that you painstakingly configured and installed and perfected and secured and can actually USE.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That last part seems to be the least important.
It's also much less true of the enterprise UNIXen, where the basic goal is to get a machine up and running and not worry about it again. You don't generally go wantonly recompiling the OS on a SPARC, nor would a SPARC owner stand for having to recompile the kernel (and debug it!) in order to get Solaris to recognize a PCI card.
[quote]<strong>This isn't just a positively l33t thing for *nix, it's a negatively l33t thing for Macs and the Mac OS, which began on the premise of being a system and interface that everyman could be capable of understanding easily. Point-click-ediots with pretty toys, that's what a lot of the 'l33t' community regards Mac users as.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They felt the same way when they thought they were l33t for using DOS, and I can't repeat most of the opinions that contemporary UNIX hackers had of DOS.
[quote]<strong>6. Real abilities. This doens't apply to Linux as much as it does BSD or Slolaris, but... Mac OS X may be fine for users and piddly stuff, and Mac OS X Server might be fine for some schools or small businesses or whatever, but it is FAR from an enterprise solution, and this mainly has a lot to do with the hardware, but software is also a big part of it that is dependant on hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Linux is completely out of the running here as well, for the time being. That will probably change somewhat with the corporate support it's getting, but I think IBM and Sun are grooming Linux as a Windows client/workgroup server replacement, not an AIX/Solaris replacement. With a lot of polishing up, it's well enough suited to that task. But so is OS X.
[quote]<strong>Go look at one of Sun's enterprise servers, like the E10K. There is no ?ucking way in hell Apple could ever compare to that kind of redundant, SERIOUS enterprise hardware. At least not as things stand. And I don't expect Apple to be implementing stuff like hot-reconfigurable 'system domains', up to 16 processors, 32 pci cards, HUGE interconnects with like 12GBps bandwidth, sixty four gigabytes of memory.. it sounds insane but when you're doing serious enterprise work a G4 with OS X, even Server, just won't cut it. Thus a huge market isn't even interested in becoming a point-click-ediot.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They might not want to run OS X (or Linux) on their big iron, but that doesn't rule out OS X (or Linux) for the smaller machines that have to talk to the big iron.
Really, not everyone wants UNIX for their big hardware either. For the really big hardware, and for applications where uptime is absolutely critical, not even the most robust UNIXen are up to the task.
Yeah, I agree to those concessions.. And I knew I would end up confusingly mixing the truths of Linux and that of the enterprise server, which are realistically two different worlds right now. But I thought the author would have done better to compare Linux and other Unices to OS X, since they are just as close (and far away) in this kind of comparison.
interesting ideas. for the general user (who is that? Mr. Joe?) is he not better of with os x than with linux - programmes like photoshop, office, quark etc work with os x (at least soon), and as far as i have understood, compiling a unix/linux program to fit with os x is not that difficult.
<strong>interesting ideas. for the general user (who is that? Mr. Joe?) is he not better off with OS X than with linux?</strong><hr></blockquote>
You know what, of course he is. You're right.
That gives me a different idea for a reply to this thread... Instead of Linux vs. OS X.. it's more like, why Linux and not OS X.
Easy answer. Linux users are very unique, geeky, often quite intelligent and tinker-oriented people. They like using stuff like Linux. And a large portion of both those serious tinkerers and just playful tinkerers and the curious just use whatever hardware they have laying around, or extremely CHEAP hardware, they don't want to spend two grand on something to put some half-baked open-source operating system that may or may not fully support all of their hardware flawlessly, or take a bunch of work to make it do so. Thus, Linux is the only option.
<strong>If you're willing to make the effort, Linux offers you a FAR more customizable experience, and a LOT of different features (even in the GUI arena). Its aesthetics are subjective, so I won't really bother with that. Also, if you're going to be running Unix software, it's far less of a hassle to do it on Linux than on OS X.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Far less of a hassle? Maybe about 30 seconds less setup time. There's an X11 app, of which I forget the name, that makes running pure unix on OS X quite simple, and even transparently above the Aqua environment.
[quote]Easy answer. Linux users are very unique, geeky, often quite intelligent and tinker-oriented people. They like using stuff like Linux. And a large portion of both those serious tinkerers and just playful tinkerers and the curious just use whatever hardware they have laying around, or extremely CHEAP hardware, they don't want to spend two grand on something to put some half-baked open-source operating system that may or may not fully support all of their hardware flawlessly, or take a bunch of work to make it do so. Thus, Linux is the only option.<hr></blockquote>
Most really big CS geeks I know think Linux is trash. They all use BSD. Of course, all of the CS profs I know run OS X. Linux is NOT the only option.
Actually, 10.2 is to be the first version of X that's compiled with Apple's super custom version of CC. gcc hasn't/is slow to update for the G4. So if you recompiled linux it wouldn't do anything for you unless you recompiled it with "applec" which isn't technically out yet.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Really? I thought Apple was rolling a bunch of PPC optimizations into the gcc 3.x source tree.
I'm not sure if Apple has ever had their own compiler. They've used MrC (which I think is a Moto compiler?) and even CodeWarrior sometimes.
[quote]<strong>In general, if you're compiling, never use gcc. There always tends to be a cc, which will almost always be a compiler optimized by the company for the platform it's being run on.</strong><hr></blockquote>
On the other hand, if you want your code to be more transparently portable, and performance is not critical, use gcc. Even if you don't avail yourself of the (useful) extensions it offers, you can count on the fact that the same code will compile anywhere on gcc, regardless of platform. The cross-compiling capabilities are also useful.
Even carefully-written ANSI C(++) has to be tested on the various cc's, though, because they have variously different or incomplete standards support, and optimization techniques. But if you go to the trouble, you do get a major performance boost. DEC C on OpenVMS flies.
[quote] In general, if you're compiling, never use gcc. There always tends to be a cc, which will almost always be a compiler optimized by the company for the platform it's being run on.
<hr></blockquote>
Um, You're kidding right? Did you mean something different? cc IS gcc on Mac OS X...
[ernie@powermac ernie]$ cc -v
Reading specs from /usr/libexec/gcc/darwin/ppc/2.95.2/specs
Apple Computer, Inc. version gcc-934.3, based on gcc version 2.95.2 19991024 (release)
Comments
When I run linux I can do pretty much anything under the sun. Want to play with the latest development kernel? Go for it! Want to see if that pre-emptable kernel patch actually does anything? Patch it in and try it out! Arguably, there is more software for linux, and much more of it is free than there is in OSX-land (I mean OSX native software, not something that'll run under classic). I find linux+X much faster on my cube than OSX. Don't want transparent menus in linux, or transparent anything? Not to worry, most of that stuff is off by default
With Mac OSX and apple, you're kind of stuck using what they give you. Not that that is neccessarily bad, but sometimes you just want to muck around with the guts to things ... OSX doesn't give you access to all the 'guts', especially not the cool 'guts'
Remember how when the 733Mhz G4 came out, and a bunch of test said it wasn't much faster than whatever was before it? (I may have the Mhz rating wrong). Apple said it was because the software wasn't optimized for that particular flavour of G4... Well, with linux you can recompile pretty much every piece of software that it runs on, and optimize it (as much as possible anyway) for your processor ... Did apple ever optimize for that chip? Or your chip? Would you know if they did?
But ... (you knew there'd be a but). Why do I use OSX most of the time, while my linux box sits dormant? Well, for one thing my cube is nice and quiet and my linux box has at least 10 fans (heh), but it is a lot easier to do simple tasks in OSX. Surfing the web, reading email, simple shell scripts, some games ... is all pretty easy to do in OSX. I have gone through the kernel-recompile, mess with this module, etc hassle that can happen with linux when you want to add new hardware ... Although things like mandrake-linux make this a lot easier ...
For the most part, while OSX is "simpler" (from a user perspective), sometimes thats whats best. I wasted 3 CDRs trying to burn a CD in linux because i was making a stupid mistake. In OSX I just click on 'burn' in iTunes.
So, each has their advantages and downfalls ... I think OSX is great for most people, I think it would be great in a corporate desktop environment, for example. But, when you really want the latest, bleeding edge, gee-whiz-bang feature, you most likely want linux. Chances are someone who has your ancient video card or whatever already wrote a driver for it, and you'll be able to get all that older hardware to work. In the apple camp, you've gotta throw out all your older stuff and upgrade just to run X acceptably ...
OSX is none of these.
<strong>Linux is free or it can be, it's open, and it's not proprietary.
OSX is none of these.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is only half true. OS X has the darwin project if you recall which puts the base of the OS out as open source. It is free as darwin, not free as OS X with Aqua. It is also not proprietary until you add in Aqua. So, OS X as shipped in the box from apple is all the things you stated. Darwin, OS X's guts sans GUI, is not any of the things you stated. And you can run XWindows on Darwin as well so you have a gui too.
As a server, OS X server is replacing my Linux server. It was just too unreliable, giving me schtick far too often for my liking. OS X does the simple things I need to do without complaint.
Actually, 10.2 is to be the first version of X that's compiled with Apple's super custom version of CC. gcc hasn't/is slow to update for the G4. So if you recompiled linux it wouldn't do anything for you unless you recompiled it with "applec" which isn't technically out yet.
In general, if you're compiling, never use gcc. There always tends to be a cc, which will almost always be a compiler optimized by the company for the platform it's being run on.
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: Splinemodel ]</p>
Serves different purposes, really, although a lot of the under-the-hood stuff is similar (but by no means identical).
1. Price. Mac hardware is expensive, there is less of it to go around, it takes a lot longer to lose value. Mac OS X itself, as someone said, is not free, and at 130 bucks it is fairly expensive for a few CDs and a couple lame booklets with little to no technical value to a serious geek. Even Mac software is expensive.
2. Fully open-source. The entire operating system and drivers are all open source.. as well as just about all applications. So you can tinker, learn, contribute. Which leads to #3...
3. Hardware support. There is a ton more hardware supported for Linux... and there is a huge community devoted to making more support for more hardware. One could argue that this is because of the PC industry's hardware situation with so many vendors, products, and technologies, but still. There is a lot of hardware even for the closed-system Mac platform not supported by Mac OS X.
4. Support in general. This kinda goes along with the one before it as well. Linux being opensource and community-driven lends to a large group of people that are intimately knowledgeable in the inner workings of the system and hardware and whatnot, most all willing to help and contribute if knowledgeable enough. Think of how far Linux and the like have come all by themselves without huge corporate backing like Apple's, and with so many more obstacles to overcome like massive amounts of hardware to support.
5. The 'l33tness' factor. It's just a lot cooler to be able to recompile your own kernel and experiment with cutting-edge new open source software and say you've got a serious lun1x box that you painstakingly configured and installed and perfected and secured and can actually USE. This isn't just a positively l33t thing for *nix, it's a negatively l33t thing for Macs and the Mac OS, which began on the premise of being a system and interface that everyman could be capable of understanding easily. Point-click-ediots with pretty toys, that's what a lot of the 'l33t' community regards Mac users as.
6. Real abilities. This doens't apply to Linux as much as it does BSD or Slolaris, but... Mac OS X may be fine for users and piddly stuff, and Mac OS X Server might be fine for some schools or small businesses or whatever, but it is FAR from an enterprise solution, and this mainly has a lot to do with the hardware, but software is also a big part of it that is dependant on hardware. Go look at one of Sun's enterprise servers, like the E10K. There is no ?ucking way in hell Apple could ever compare to that kind of redundant, SERIOUS enterprise hardware. At least not as things stand. And I don't expect Apple to be implementing stuff like hot-reconfigurable 'system domains', up to 16 processors, 32 pci cards, HUGE interconnects with like 12GBps bandwidth, sixty four gigabytes of memory.. it sounds insane but when you're doing serious enterprise work a G4 with OS X, even Server, just won't cut it. Thus a huge market isn't even interested in becoming a point-click-ediot.
<strong>I'm not exactly a full-blown lun1x geek, but I am surrounded by them in real life and online. I think that there are quite a few really valid reasons why Linux/*nix and Mac OS X consist of some different markets:
1. Price. Mac hardware is expensive, there is less of it to go around, it takes a lot longer to lose value.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Mac hardware might be expensive relative to the hardware that can run Linux, or any of the BSDs, or QNX, but have you priced an Alpha recently?
Depending on which UNIX you're talking about, Apple hardware either commands a steep premium or it's a rare value.
[quote]<strong>2. Fully open-source. The entire operating system and drivers are all open source.. as well as just about all applications. So you can tinker, learn, contribute.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Less-than-rigorous control over this tendency has left Linux with a suboptimal organization at the high level, and a lot of pretty bad code. BSD has fared a lot better as far as the quality of its codebase is concerned. The AT&T-derived UNIXen are not truly open source (you get the source code after you fork out big $$$ for the license); OS X 's open-source kernel looks generous in comparison.
[quote]<strong>Hardware support. There is a ton more hardware supported for Linux... and there is a huge community devoted to making more support for more hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
On the other hand, their definition of "support" can be pretty minimal.
[quote]<strong>Think of how far Linux and the like have come all by themselves without huge corporate backing like Apple's, and with so many more obstacles to overcome like massive amounts of hardware to support.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's also true of BSD, but then there's Solaris, OSF/1, AIX, HP/UX... the UNIXen with massive corporate backing. These are also very well supported and (for the most part) lavishly documented.
Also, Linux has had huge corporate backing for some years now, since IBM threw their immense weight behind it. Sun seems to have discovered a fondness for it, and Apple (yes, Apple) contributed a lot of work to the Linux source tree before they settled on a BSD-derived OS.
[quote]<strong>5. The 'l33tness' factor. It's just a lot cooler to be able to recompile your own kernel and experiment with cutting-edge new open source software and say you've got a serious lun1x box that you painstakingly configured and installed and perfected and secured and can actually USE.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That last part seems to be the least important.
It's also much less true of the enterprise UNIXen, where the basic goal is to get a machine up and running and not worry about it again. You don't generally go wantonly recompiling the OS on a SPARC, nor would a SPARC owner stand for having to recompile the kernel (and debug it!) in order to get Solaris to recognize a PCI card.
[quote]<strong>This isn't just a positively l33t thing for *nix, it's a negatively l33t thing for Macs and the Mac OS, which began on the premise of being a system and interface that everyman could be capable of understanding easily. Point-click-ediots with pretty toys, that's what a lot of the 'l33t' community regards Mac users as.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They felt the same way when they thought they were l33t for using DOS, and I can't repeat most of the opinions that contemporary UNIX hackers had of DOS.
[quote]<strong>6. Real abilities. This doens't apply to Linux as much as it does BSD or Slolaris, but... Mac OS X may be fine for users and piddly stuff, and Mac OS X Server might be fine for some schools or small businesses or whatever, but it is FAR from an enterprise solution, and this mainly has a lot to do with the hardware, but software is also a big part of it that is dependant on hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Linux is completely out of the running here as well, for the time being. That will probably change somewhat with the corporate support it's getting, but I think IBM and Sun are grooming Linux as a Windows client/workgroup server replacement, not an AIX/Solaris replacement. With a lot of polishing up, it's well enough suited to that task. But so is OS X.
[quote]<strong>Go look at one of Sun's enterprise servers, like the E10K. There is no ?ucking way in hell Apple could ever compare to that kind of redundant, SERIOUS enterprise hardware. At least not as things stand. And I don't expect Apple to be implementing stuff like hot-reconfigurable 'system domains', up to 16 processors, 32 pci cards, HUGE interconnects with like 12GBps bandwidth, sixty four gigabytes of memory.. it sounds insane but when you're doing serious enterprise work a G4 with OS X, even Server, just won't cut it. Thus a huge market isn't even interested in becoming a point-click-ediot.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They might not want to run OS X (or Linux) on their big iron, but that doesn't rule out OS X (or Linux) for the smaller machines that have to talk to the big iron.
Really, not everyone wants UNIX for their big hardware either. For the really big hardware, and for applications where uptime is absolutely critical, not even the most robust UNIXen are up to the task.
[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>interesting ideas. for the general user (who is that? Mr. Joe?) is he not better off with OS X than with linux?</strong><hr></blockquote>
You know what, of course he is. You're right.
That gives me a different idea for a reply to this thread... Instead of Linux vs. OS X.. it's more like, why Linux and not OS X.
Easy answer. Linux users are very unique, geeky, often quite intelligent and tinker-oriented people. They like using stuff like Linux. And a large portion of both those serious tinkerers and just playful tinkerers and the curious just use whatever hardware they have laying around, or extremely CHEAP hardware, they don't want to spend two grand on something to put some half-baked open-source operating system that may or may not fully support all of their hardware flawlessly, or take a bunch of work to make it do so. Thus, Linux is the only option.
<strong>If you're willing to make the effort, Linux offers you a FAR more customizable experience, and a LOT of different features (even in the GUI arena). Its aesthetics are subjective, so I won't really bother with that. Also, if you're going to be running Unix software, it's far less of a hassle to do it on Linux than on OS X.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Far less of a hassle? Maybe about 30 seconds less setup time. There's an X11 app, of which I forget the name, that makes running pure unix on OS X quite simple, and even transparently above the Aqua environment.
[quote]Easy answer. Linux users are very unique, geeky, often quite intelligent and tinker-oriented people. They like using stuff like Linux. And a large portion of both those serious tinkerers and just playful tinkerers and the curious just use whatever hardware they have laying around, or extremely CHEAP hardware, they don't want to spend two grand on something to put some half-baked open-source operating system that may or may not fully support all of their hardware flawlessly, or take a bunch of work to make it do so. Thus, Linux is the only option.<hr></blockquote>
Most really big CS geeks I know think Linux is trash. They all use BSD. Of course, all of the CS profs I know run OS X. Linux is NOT the only option.
[ 04-09-2002: Message edited by: Splinemodel ]</p>
<strong>
Actually, 10.2 is to be the first version of X that's compiled with Apple's super custom version of CC. gcc hasn't/is slow to update for the G4. So if you recompiled linux it wouldn't do anything for you unless you recompiled it with "applec" which isn't technically out yet.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Really? I thought Apple was rolling a bunch of PPC optimizations into the gcc 3.x source tree.
I'm not sure if Apple has ever had their own compiler. They've used MrC (which I think is a Moto compiler?) and even CodeWarrior sometimes.
[quote]<strong>In general, if you're compiling, never use gcc. There always tends to be a cc, which will almost always be a compiler optimized by the company for the platform it's being run on.</strong><hr></blockquote>
On the other hand, if you want your code to be more transparently portable, and performance is not critical, use gcc. Even if you don't avail yourself of the (useful) extensions it offers, you can count on the fact that the same code will compile anywhere on gcc, regardless of platform. The cross-compiling capabilities are also useful.
Even carefully-written ANSI C(++) has to be tested on the various cc's, though, because they have variously different or incomplete standards support, and optimization techniques. But if you go to the trouble, you do get a major performance boost. DEC C on OpenVMS flies.
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Um, You're kidding right? Did you mean something different? cc IS gcc on Mac OS X...
[ernie@powermac ernie]$ cc -v
Reading specs from /usr/libexec/gcc/darwin/ppc/2.95.2/specs
Apple Computer, Inc. version gcc-934.3, based on gcc version 2.95.2 19991024 (release)