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What about CoreImage, CoreVideo, CoreAudio & CoreData? How is linux technically superior to these services? CoreAudio is a very very low latency system, CoreVideo can layer several effects including 3D deformation, over HD video in real time. Linux doesn't even have equal quality graphics drivers.

That's why Macs have more users in the creative content world. Macs get the work done faster.

"If you think CoreImage, CoreVideo, CoreAudio & CoreData"
These are APIs lol, its not like the user would notice their (alleged) superiority.

"CoreAudio is a very very low latency system"
No more so than ALSA which is built into the linux kernel (being in the kernel makes it even lower latency)

"Linux doesn't even have equal quality graphics drivers."
True for some hardware, I benchmarked my nvidia card on UT2004 under linux and windows with the latest driver and they were always VERY close, sometimes linux even won. If someone is building a linux box and they want good 3d preformance, they know to use nvidia.

You have obviously have been reading apple's marketing pages a bit too much

I agree fully with the root comment, but I was just highlighting that people buy Mac hardware not because it's faster than Linux, but because they want OS X. Linux users look at figures too much and not at productivity enough.

"These are APIs lol, its not like the user would notice their (alleged) superiority."
It's not like Final Cut Pro speaks for itself or anything, no.

Edited 2006-05-07 16:25

or maybe in the linux world, performance == productivity...

there are many kinds of productivity in this world. and if we can get more true open standards used, it will not matter what os or platform people use as long as it can talk said standards. that way people can select the platform that cover their need...

but then there is a default human need to be king-of-the-hill in all areas, no matter if their hill is interesting for others or not...

> No more so than ALSA which is built into the linux kernel (being in the kernel makes it even lower latency)

Call me back when ALSA can play multiple audio streams. This *is* 2006, you know.

Oh, and ... you know nothing. Being in the kernel doesn't necessarily guarantee that something will automatically be lower-latency than an API that was designed with low latencies from the start.

ASLA supports software mixing (through the dmix plugin[1]) and hardware mixing[2]. I would expect most modern distributions to do the necessary configuration. I know from experience that manual configuration is a little byzantine.

[1] http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=DmixPlugin
[2] http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=Hardware%20mixing,%2...

Haha, you can't possibly think it can't.

I mean frick if it couldn't, out of all the "omg Linux is not ready for the desktop" arguments, it'd be close to #1.

Call me back when ALSA can play multiple audio streams. This *is* 2006, you know.

ALSA on Fedora Core 5 does that by default through dmix.

These are APIs lol, its not like the user would notice their (alleged) superiority.

Yes they are APIs, but they are very nice API's the likes of which simply aren't available in Linux. And while end users might not notice the difference, they notice the difference in the apps written with these APIs.

/* "If you think CoreImage, CoreVideo, CoreAudio & CoreData"
These are APIs lol, its not like the user would notice their (alleged) superiority. */

(rant)

Users Will notice the api's through superiority of applications, with applications such as Motion and Final Cut pro you get real time hd video effects, have you ever done any video editing on a pc? rendering effects can be painfully slow, on a Mac its done in REAL TIME, these api's add more versatility and power to image and video editing, to dismiss them is sheer ignorance.

ALSA does not support standard audio interface specificatios such as ASIO, I dont think i have EVER seen a linux box in a recording studio, whereas I've seen macs in 50% of the studio's i've worked in. These 'api's' allow developers to create software such as Guitar rig which are definately noticed by users.

I may come accross as a prime candidate for the jobs RDF, but I've used the majority of main stream operating systems for over 7 years, linux included, and I've not found one system that is as complete and robust as mac os x.

oh yeh ..... and mac os x can be slower at kernel level ....... thats a fact and no-one denies it


(/rant)

I can't argue with you about pure audio editing, but I do a lot of video editing on a Linux PC and I perfer to to Premier on the Mac. I use cinelerra: http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

ALSA seems to fufill my needs.
Of course, as always, to each his own.

---------That's why Macs have more users in the creative content world. Macs get the work done faster.------------

Like Pixar for example?

Actually, there's more users worldwide using linux than Macs. By Apple's own numbers, there's only 25 million mac users. There's more linux users than that.(not including servers, because linux has double digit share in that area)

A few years ago both Gartner and IDC were talking about how linux would overtake the mac as #2 OS by userbase somewhere in the 2004/05 time period. It's 06 now.

Edited 2006-05-07 14:29

Here is the problem with that comparison: there are only four major versions of OS X in use, and a significant portion of the userbase is on one of the two most recent. Saying someone uses "Linux" is absolutely meaningless, because there are just so many distros and versions of those distros. If there were 30 million people running Kubuntu, that would be different.

Things like Klik and Autopackage promise to bridge some of these chasms, but they are not wide-spread enough yet to count.

but most often the only diff between distro X and distro Y is a diffrent package manager and installer.

the rest are stuff like the linux kernel (very important, alltho there will probably be some patching diffrences), kde/gnome, firefox, thunderbird, gimp, evolution, and on and on and on. basicly its mostly packaging, the content is still the same...

belive it or not, but there is less variation then there is similaritys between the mainstream distros. reason for that is that all are based on 2-3 base distros and then have evolved from that.

"but most often the only diff between distro X and distro Y is a diffrent package manager and installer. "

Actually one thing that makes or breaks a distribution is what software versions the developers chose to use, and how much care they put into testing those. There are slight variations between distributions, but there are also significant personal touches and substantial differences in quality assurance from one distribution to the next.

That said, it's not fair to penalize Linux just because there are more versions of that than there are of OS X or Windows. At most only two or three different distributions (with a few rare exceptions) can be tied to one company. Distributors take the software that's already there and bundle it, the majority of the collaborative development work is done on a different level.

----------Here is the problem with that comparison: there are only four major versions of OS X in
use----------

Apple's peg of 25 million assumes OS9 and 10.

At least, I've never heard any spokesapple or jobs himself point out the difference.

If there were 10 mil OS10 and 25 mil OS9 I'm sure they'd have brought both up.

-----------Saying someone uses "Linux" is absolutely meaningless, because there are just so many distros and versions of those distros.----------

Not necessarily. If you read what I typed I didn't say "25 million mac os 10.2.2.1" users". I simply said "mac users".

So "mac users" vs "linux users" is a fair comparison in terms of userbase size. I suppose if you'd wish it, you could get specific and technical about this. OS10 vs linux 2.6(based distros) users, Suse users vs OS 10.2 users, Fedora vs OS 10.3 users, Ubuntu vs 10.4 users. But that's all... Isn't that a waste of time to get down in terms of those numbers?

Linux has zero foothold on the dektop yet the author acts as if it is somehow competing with Apple in that space.

Well, not to rain on your parade, but it's not like OSX has a foothold that much greater than Linux's.

So what if it's faster? its just meaningless if we are talking about desktops and not servers.

The problem is that Apple IS also making servers. Therefore, OSX's performance in that area is very important. Apple also targets OSX to schools and universities, and therefore scientific performance (incl. statistical research) is very important.

Not to mention he way pverstates the speed of OS X being an issue when it just isn't these days.

For you as a desktop user probably not-- but guess what, there's a whole world out there (really?), filled with people who DO care about this version of speed and performance.

"Not to mention he way pverstates the speed of OS X being an issue when it just isn't these days."

OS X is the most memory hungry OS I have ever tried. Consider that many Macs come with a default 500 MB RAM and that upgrades are very expensive, then speed can indeed be an issue.

Considering ram is hovering around 1 gig for $100 you are full of it.

Considering I can stick a piece of PC RAM in my current Mac and it works 99% of the time you are full of it as well.

Don't buy RAM from Apple.

He was talking specifically about statistical computing, not Grandma May's desktop. Linux and OS X do compete on the desktop in that space. Linux competes in it by virtue of its UNIX heritage (a lot of science/mathematics/engineering stuff moved to Linux because they already had *NIX versions), and OS X competes in it by virtue of its relatively recent move into scientific computing circles.

The G5 is pretty close to AMD64 in floating-point, if you use XLC/XLF 8.x. These compilers are not available on OS X. The old version of XLC (6.x) that does run on OS X is not appreciably faster than recent versions of GCC (GCC/PowerPC's FP performance has improved a lot since the early days of the G5).

But its ugly interface will decrease productivity.

Really? Is that why 90% of desktops are stilling running Fisher-Price MyFirstOS, erm, I mean Microsoft Windows XP? Because they want lower productivity?

Because they have no choice.

Oh, but they do have a choice: I'm referring purely to the default theme on XP. They can use the Win2K interface without downloading, resizing, installing, paying for, typing, or learning anything. But they don't use it.

why is the KDE team cloning the XP interface down to every last details

They are? Strange. The buttons on the Keramik titlebars are smaller, there's a more tasteful font, a less garish shade of blue, and now the Plastik interface is the default instead. Not very clonelike at all.

It's because it works fine.

I didn't say it didn't work fine. I said it looked like crap.

If you ask me which Linux desktop environment I prefer (between GNOME and KDE) i'll say KDE. If you ask me which interface I prefer (out of all of them) I'll say Aqua or Enlightenment.

"If it's so fisher-price then why is the KDE team cloning the XP interface down to every last details? It's because it works fine."

This is also why most linux users use GNOME. Just look at most distros most of them use GNOME as the default
(good bye karma)

This is why i stoped useing KDE 2 years ago and started useing GNOME

(good bye karma)

Well, THAT certainly deserves a modding down. I won't do it, though; make of that what you will.

Certainly, people have a right to make their desktop look like they want it to look. Nor am I "trying to patronise people". I'm simply pointing out to the person who started this thread that I don't see how the Mac makes one more productive.

Addendum: I reread your comment, and now I see which comment you were objecting to.

Well, I'm sorry but I DO think the XP interface looks childish. Very. And it's especially disappointing and surprising, considering that I actually think the W2K interface looks very professional. If you have a particular liking for XP, or you simply object to my comment, then I'm sorry, but that won't change my opinion. Equally, however, I don't expect you to change yours.

----------But its ugly interface will decrease productivity.--------

That depends on who you ask. The interface isn't all that far behind OS10, and it's ahead of windows.

The whole point of upgrading hardware is to get increased performance.(and productivity)

Some of us upgrade software for increased performance.(and productivity)

Performance and productivity are linked, believe it or not.

I agree about OOo though, it needs massive work.

you're coming off as a troll.

anyhow, I don't know how you define productivity, but personally I've found that the prettier and more distracting the interface, the less "real" work I often find myself getting done. especially since the emphasis on looks tends to mean less of an emphasis on ergonomics (osx is terrible for having more than 4 xterms open at a time I've found. ok ok, that's not really something important to say a graphics designer perhaps...). that's why I'm (currently) using OSX at home where my computing needs are much more light and less production oriented, whereas at my work, it has to be linux. even more particularly, with an extremely spartan, but _highly_ efficient and ergonomic window manager, in my case, wmii http://wmii.de/

Hmmm. I don't find that at all. I work from home 100% and use my mac to most of my development, then push it back to my XP or Redhat machine at work to test. I COULD set up the equivalent environment here on my mac (apache, OAS, etc.) but I am just too damn lazy.

I have seen no decrease in my productivity and am so "mac os x-ized" that I have trouble when I switch back to Windows or even linux for any amount of time.

I guess it is just what you are used to. The pretty interface, as you put it, is nice on the eyes.

"But its ugly interface will decrease productivity."

That's a troll, no two ways about it. Linux isn't ugly, I like the look of KDE much better than that of Windows or OS X, and I'm sure many Gnome users could say the same about their favourite desktop environment. If you think Windows or OS X is prettier that's fine, it's subjective; however, saying Linux is ugly is absolutely flamebait.

"it's notebook, do you want to use it for intensive computing that run for a week?"

When the Linux wifi drivers for my laptop support wep or wpa, then I'm replacing Windows simply because I like Linux better. Believe it or not people are entitled to like Linux, whether you like it or not.

"OOo needs 10 years to catch current features of iWork"

That's more flamebait. Right now OO.o is competing with Microsoft office in the home and business markets, MS Office is a giant, and OO.o is progressively taking away from it. iWork is a simplified approach to an office suite which Joe Average can use for basic office tasks. Even KOffice is more powerful than iWork (which is why I'm surprised Apple didn't port it).

While I agree OOo needs massive work to catch up to anything, GNOME Office and KOffice are far ahead of iWorks IMO. I'm able to be much more productive with their suites at least.

"And to preempt the typical response: Not everyone is a musician, movie-maker or graphic artist."

And not every one is a geek who wants to run on linux.

Not everyone who uses Linux is a geek, don't be ridiculous. I provide ubuntu linux installation and tech support for people from all walks of life.

I call troll. This isn't the case. Period. You want easy package management? Use a debian distro. While I don't know if the average person should know enough to do this, if you however know about "-O3 -ffast-math -march=Opteron" it means you should be smart enough to do a tad bit of research (plus, can you recompile your adobe/ms apps?). It's rather easy, especially if you're an Osnews reader, to realize that Ubuntu is meant for simplicity. So, perhaps you could instead apt-get install the programs listed. Even synaptic for simplicity, or the new "add-remove programs" applet in Ubuntu Dapper when it comes out.

I agree there's some work involved, but at the same time, the programs are all free. Everything has a price. Nothing is so free as to require no effort AND no money AND no work.

"Think different' (to use a good apple term). That's all Linux requires. So to answer your sentence "Linux is only free if...you're willing to think different."

Where you see 'too many options/programs' we see true freedom.

Should you decide it's too frightening you're free to remain back in, well, 1984.

you must have read an article about how one waste the time in his journey finding best mp3 player/manager by trying 16 applications.

What if you don't like the only app you have access to, or it doesn't do the one thing you want? If you try to force the same solution on everyone. someone somewhere is going to want to break out. That is the lesson of dictatorships.

YMMV. Amarok on Gentoo is horrid, never works (and before anyone chimes in, mostly stuff on Gentoo *does* work). On SuSE, however, it is a thing of beauty and (hopefully) a joy, forever.

How is someone to choose an mp3 player on, say windows? I know for a fact there are far more than sixteen.
OH! The BEST? I think that the same problem would exist elsewhere. Windows Media? iTunes? Real? Winamp? Etc.?


The 1984 reference was one back to the Apple Superbowl commercial of some fame. The year was 1984 and it was a reference to Orwell's novel of the same name. Google it if you care to understand my point.

OOo is 10 years behind? Really? 10? That's a number you just yanked out. Completely baseless.

Those of us in the FOSS world don't need to pledge allegiance to a single man. You're missing the point again. While all Apple fans must follow the cult of Jobs (again, satire. I'm not saying apple fans are a cult per se only again trying to illustrate a point), FOSS users are free (that damn word keeps coming up...) to follow whomever they wish - or nobody. RMS does not speak for all of us...or even most of us.

You've got a lot to learn before you'll be in a place where you can comment on such matters and maintain any shred of credibility.

"I will give Apple one thing: it knows how to market its gear and has found a niche among people that value aesthetics over productivity."

You have got to be kidding me. I used Linux for two years, and have now been using OS X for a couple of months. I can already get things done faster in OS X than Linux.

I have never had to wait an hour for a software package to compile on OS X. Other than the few Unix apps I have installed on OS X (I think three of them actually) through fink, I have never used the command line (and I could have used fink commander to install them had I wanted to). I get a much better Office Suite, that doesn't take 15 seconds to start every time. I'm sorry, but it's pretty sad MS Office 2004 starts faster on my G4/400MHz that I bought used than OpenOffice 2.0.1 does on my Athlon XP 3000 running Linux.

For any person who has never used a command line, installing any software not included in your distro's package manager is a PITA. I don't have to ./configure, install some missing libraries, ./configure, install more missing libraries, ./configure, whoops, that library isn't in the database, scour the internet for some obscure missing library, ./configure, gcc begins spitting out errors, time to give up or go and start posting bug reports.....etc, ad nauseum. The longest program install on OS X was about 4 minutes of Photoshop, as opposed to 2 hours for some crappy Linux app that ended up being buggy and useless in the end. A crappy OS X app takes me about a minute to install, and even less time to uninstall.

Take your grandma and stick her in-front of a Linux box and an OS X box, give her an iPod, and see which computer she gets it running faster on. Hell, try Windows in that test too.

I installed Linux for my Mom, my Aunt and my Grandpa. They all used it for on average about two days. My Aunt then bought her first Mac, my Mom and Grandpa are back on Windows.

And let's not even get into the whole drivers thing. I never did get my scanner working in Linux, it took me about 2 minutes on OS X. Sound on my PC is an absolute pain in the ass in Linux, but on my Mac it works out of the box.

Is this Linux's fault? No, its the hardware manufacturer's fault. Do end users care who's fault it is.....nope. Does it still lower my productivity....yes.

So yep, those are my thoughts on the matter, from someone whom has used OS X for a far shorter time than Linux. I left Linux and went back to Windows, and later OS X, simply because I wanted to get more work done on my computer, not less. Not everyone cares enough about computers to take the sheer amount of time required to master Linux, and I really wish people would start understanding that.

And let's not even get into the whole drivers thing. I never did get my scanner working in Linux, it took me about 2 minutes on OS X. Sound on my PC is an absolute pain in the ass in Linux, but on my Mac it works out of the box.

I got Kooka up and running without configuration on Kubuntu on x86/HP Scanjet and PPC/Epson. My sound problems went away with the 2.6 kernel. The Macally iShock II joystick that requires a driver in OS X (and a new driver because the first one ate 80% or worse of all the CPU cycles)? Recognized, by name and model, out of the box in Kubuntu's Joystick control panel (all architectures).

Sounds to me like you're describing a distro from 2 years ago.

"For any person who has never used a command line, installing any software not included in your distro's package manager is a PITA. I don't have to ./configure, install some missing libraries, ./configure, install more missing libraries, ./configure, whoops, that library isn't in the database, scour the internet for some obscure missing library, ./configure, gcc begins spitting out errors, time to give up or go and start posting bug reports.....etc, ad nauseum. The longest program install on OS X was about 4 minutes of Photoshop, as opposed to 2 hours for some crappy Linux app that ended up being buggy and useless in the end. A crappy OS X app takes me about a minute to install, and even less time to uninstall. "

What an extraordinary, alas all too typical, rant. I have installed many many applications not in my several distributions. They fall into two categories, the very common ones which are in the format of your distros package manager, such as apt or rpm. They just install, about in the same way that Windows apps install, and once in, they work.

Then there are the far smaller number of specialist apps that you have to compile. And here I have always found that the usual recipe of configure, make, makinstall works fine. No, not always, not with the reliability of rpm or apt, but you have to consider, you are installing, free, apps of a range not available on any other OS. So it is not surprising you don't have flawless automated installation of absolutely everything.

Anything mainstream, you certainly do.

Also, when I have compiled, it has usually been on a 5 or 6 year old Athlon, not hugely equipped with memory. A half hour is an extraoardinarily long time for this. Mostly its a matter of the magical two minutes the writer finds so important.

Linux has its disadvantages, so does Windows, but it is not a contribution to the debate to go around making stuff up. I mean, an equivalent rant about OSX would probably be starting with the one button mouse...

That would not be helpful, would it?

It's not only about raw performance, it's also about technical support, configurability, compatibility and usability, all these things together. Apple offers a great package to educational market and researches and they can always add more nodes...

If you can explain why many educational establishments get up to a 15% to 20% failure rate of Macs, and why it takes Apple and any Mac engineer an absolute eternity to do anything over even Dell's support, I'm all ears. If anyone else could support Macs besides Apple then Apple's support contracts would be cancelled overnight.

It's not only about raw performance, it's also about technical support,

I've been using Apple Mac servers in my currently location for about 18 months now.
So far the technical support that they have provided is considerably sub par.
We had been using the OSX system as a mail server, and after a reboot, it failed to get passed the "grey apple logo". We contacted Apple's corporate support, their only offerable solution was to re-install the OS from scratch and restore mail from a backup.
I'm sorry, but I don't consider that support.
In the end we chose to take the drive and place it in to another OSX system, and try and read off of the drive, which worked.

I hear a lot of shouting regarding user support, and so far, I don't see any thing from the likes of Apple, that provides technical people with any advantage. Possibly for poorly qaulified in house technical support departments it is sufficient...

configurability, compatibility and usability, all these things together.

As others have mentioned, apple's idea of "usability" is not appreciated by a reasonable number of people, I included.

I was working with OSX for a few months, as a desktop, and I just couldn't accept the methods they proposed I used for working. As some one previously has mentioned, it just doesn't work when dealing with multiple xterm windows, which as a sysadmin is what I spend most of my time doing.

For some it may be more usable, but certainly not for me (and the amount of user support requests we got for OSX compared to Windows would suggest that the average user certainly didn't find it more intuative).


Apple offers a great package to educational market and researches and they can always add more nodes for example to arrange them into a Xgrid and leverage any performance issues.

Personally I'd rather see my educational institutions getter value for money, then being able to throw more money at a poor solution, and be able to over come limitations in that way.

Just as Apple provide Xgrid, there are clustering solutions within the linux world, that I believe should be able to do the same.

It's just not about "My OS runs XYZ faster so it must rule the world!!!"

And equally it's not about "My OS is pirdier then yours, and as such rules the world!!!"...