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This is pretty much the same with every operating system. Ever looked under /etc or Application Data? They are usually strewn with files from every application ever installed.

And just because every other OS has it justifies it how, exactly?

Nice to see you bring it up.

The only reason I can see for not removing configuration files would be that I'm uninstalling an application in order to reinstall it, and therefore do not want to lose my configuration.

However, it shouldn't be that much of a problem making it optional to remove (or leave) configuration files.

I wonder what your directory structure looks like since it can make kids cry

EDIT: Not much fun for me in this year's WC. Denmark did not qualify and my other team lost to Equador... *sigh*

Edited 2006-06-11 00:20

The only reason I can see for not removing configuration files would be that I'm uninstalling an application in order to reinstall it, and therefore do not want to lose my configuration.

That is a very good point. However, there are times when you are uninstalling and want to get rid of a bad configuration as well; in other words, you want to wipe it completely before reinstalling. All OSes have a hard time with this, but Apple does indeed make it more difficult than others.

It doesn't justify it, I was just pointing out it wasn't a MacOS X specific problem and should be fixed in general.

Well, it's sometimes useful to have configuration data available for whenever you want to install the application again. With today disk capacity, and config's size, I don't know why should you wonder about it.

I think his real complaint is that it makes things messy to have tons of .files or .directories laying about that have nothing to do with installed programs, although I do like the fact that they're still around if I ever reinstall the program.

This is pretty much the same with every operating system. Ever looked under /etc or Application Data? They are usually strewn with files from every application ever installed.

Application data is like that, /etc isn't. You've probably meant home filled with .folders and .files:)

But even this is just in one place and easier to clean up. Apple does install apps into up to 7 different folders. Not even one is deleted when you throw app in trash.

@Thom:
1-9 all real, except you could name better ones than HDD light

btw. "it did what is was supposed to do: bring problems under developer's direct attention" best sentence ever, and do more of these trolling conquests, I for one agree that praising what works is pointless.

Edited 2006-06-11 00:47

# aptitude remove <package>
# aptitude purge <package>

- Felix

Edited 2006-06-11 00:45

Isn't the command apt-get purge package under Debian, for example, removing configuration files?

I must admit I never checked thoroughly if it did...

A lot of installers give you the option to remove all profile data when you uninstall it. I'm pretty sure any MSI installer should.

Yes but some OS allow to remove them. eg Debian Package System has a command option that removes _everything_ created by the package or throught the package. For eg a DB like MySQL that even includes the Databases

Get a better package manager. apt has a purge option to remove all config files so that nothing is left behind when you do an uninstall.

I think you can remove those files man....
Yeah, I am pretty sure you can...

True enough, but dotfiles remain in users' home directories, and these are not removed by apt, or anything else.

Unless you're careful you'll find that a Debian machine accumulates an awful lot of cruft as ~/.*. I tidy my desktop every few months just to have an idea of what is used and what is old.

Thing is dot-files exist in _every_ user's home. If you're the only user, it's fine to get rid of the user's dot-file, but if you're not the only user, it may not be appropriate. What about those users who decide to install to their home? The notice that their configuration magically was destroyed. Nope, can't do that. It's the same with every OS except BeOS and other single-user OSs.

You can use /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app to see disk activity. Fire it up, hide its window, right-click or control-click on its dock icon, and select "Show Disk Activity" from the "Dock Icon" submenu.

But "when your Mac becomes slow or unresponsive", to quote Thom, how are you supposed to fire Monitor.app up?

use MenuMeters
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/

sits up at the top, shows disk activity, ram usage, network activity, all very customizable and very handy for wanting to know when theres a lot of disk activity..

Just spotlight for the app and it'll bring up the prefs you can delete manually for now.
Or use AppZapper.;)

Pretty much all OS'es suffer from lack of consistency in look and feel, with BeOS/Zeta/Haiku, SkyOS, Syllable, AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS as possible exceptions (due to strict use of native toolkits - or porting foreign toolkits in a way so they use native toolkits).

For Linux it depends on the apps you need, and the themes you use. It is possible to make applications using different toolkits to have an almost identical look and feel. But it does require some work.

Lack of consistency in look and feel? Since I mostly use xterms, I dare say the look and feel is rather consistent ;-)

- Felix

Heh, that's of course a way to solve the problem

Windows has multiple themes (look at Office, WMP, Notepad, IE, an older app, etc) as well as OS X. Linux has this issue the least from what I've seen.

I believe this is not really an issue. As far as the widgets behave and feel the same, people do not seem to dislike if they look different, but indeed they seem to appreciate it, and this seems to provide a useful differentiating factor for commercial apps.

What is irritating is when widgets feel different, i.e. you get inconsistent behavior when you click. For example, some KDE toolbar buttons require you to press and hold, Gnome buttons don't. Those are the inconsistencies that matter, and I'm not sure if Windows and OSX have them.

Um, how does Mail have its own theme.

The 'pill' buttons are used, where else in the OS?

http://www.resexcellence.com/mods_05/05-05-2005.shtml

though there is an easier way, i just can't remember the name of the app or script

"1. Very true. But it feels more "measured." I find that on OS X, things (almost) always take the same length of time. But when I use Windows, things feel very fast, but then roughly 5% of the time, things will just lock up for a second or so. "

Windows feels VERY pokey yo me. Try switching between the front window and a window behind it in XP. It can take 15-30 seconds. In OS X, it is often instant.

OSX window management feels very solid. Try opening 50 windows in XP and do the same in OSX. Then move the top most window quickly around. The redraw behind the top window is perfect every time, never misses a beat, where on XP it doesn't catch up to redraw and you get white trails from where the window was.

This is the advantage that OSX has, because if you want to move a window to the top, it just needs to switch window layers, where Windows does an actual redraw, which takes much longer. Compare this to screens on AmigaOS: They also switch immediately, because the switch operation is very fast for the hardware to do.

The wonders of Quartz.

Another thing is that the display is vertically sync'ed, so there is no visible tearing. When windows are small enough, they move around silky smooth, but when they get a little bigger, they wait till the next frame, rather than redraw immediately for some unprofessional looking tearing. That's what you get with utilizing 3D cards properly for window management.

Edited 2006-06-12 13:51

I could argue with your post in more ways than these but this is the point that really annoyed me the most for some reason.

-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)

How is the directory for Macs Users (/Users)harder than Windows Vista? Windows Vista's Users folder is IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE! Located at the ROOT of the drive.

And Linux's is acutally nested in another folder. Making it "harder" to find. At least Mac and Vista are at the root of the drive.

-The Desk Utility is less powerful than windows in managing partitions and volumes.

I actually think Disk Utility is more powerful than Windows utility. But I guess that's really subjective.

-No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows).

Simply install applications into "/Applications" then when you want to inventory your systems programs... navigate to "/Applications." There you go and inventory of your apps.

-No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)

Lock your screensaver. Apply screensaver to one of your Expose hot corners and there you go... an easy to use "Lock" funtion. There are other ways lock your session but this is the way I do it.

I could argue with more but these are the ones that irked me the most.

Sorry for being nit-picky.

JRM7

Edited 2006-06-11 00:50

The linux (sorry, most if not all unix) users directory is /home

How that is "nested in another folder" compared to /users on Mac OS X I really don't know.

Some items that may interest you:

- The directory location of users is /Users/username

- Check out Carbon Copy Cloner, I think it does what you want it to do and it's free.

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

- You can quickly lock your computer by setting a hot-corner to activate the screen saver (Desktop & Screensaver control panel) and forcing authentication when waking from sleep or screen saver (Security control panel)

-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)

I don't think /User/username is an obscure location. You can also easily access your own home directory with command+shift+h or ~

-No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)

You can use the undocumented shortcut command command+option+eject to sleep the computer

Not so obvious startup troubleshooter

Hold shift during startup will bring you to safe mode

"No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows)."

Oh, you're a funny, funny guy. Try doing your homework before posting.

Linux
rpm -qa

BSD
pkg_info

I think you mean on RPM based OS's like Fedora Core and Mandriva, Debian based ones use dpkg or apt-get and Gentoo uses Portage, there is no single standard in Linux

Irrelevant: each and every linux distro (with the exception of Linux from Scratch, and you can hardly call that a distro) has a Package list and/or database.

Some even have GUI interfaces to them.

Care to mention the equivalent in windows?

And before you pont to "Add/Remove Programs" please, remember that appearing there is completely depemdent on the whim of the installer.

The lack of a unified package format is exactly one of the worst problems of windows.

Try to update all the installed software on a windows machine... or even simply try to *discover* if there is an updated version for each of your installed apps...

I wasn't commenting on that, I was just bringing up the fact that there are multiple package management schemes in use with Linux, I didn't mention windows because the parent post didn't either, and I didn't want to, as I was just addressing the point that there is more to the linux world than redhat. Please put your Anti-MS troll hat away

Can forget

ls -l /var/log/packages

in Slackware.

Can't* rather, heh.

I agree on 1, 5 and 7, but others are not important to me; but I can add this

-The Desk Utility is less powerful than windows in managing partitions and volumes.
If you mean Disk Utility I think that it does it's job done, but yes it could be better

-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)
Uhmm it's /Users/username a obscure directory location?

-No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows).
Yes this is true

-no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load that can be integrated in the Dock, which is necessary to give you clue of what is going on in the system in case of a problem or slow down.
There is a third party app called menumeters for this

-Directory Cloning is impossible, unlike TrueImage cloning for both windows or linux partitions which clone directories rather than sector by sector that consumes alot of space and time. (on 160GB HDD with 6 GB used space cloning mac will require 160GB uncompressed or 80 GB compressed because it doesn't include a directory based cloning but rather sector by sector cloning

Like someone pointed out there is carbon copy cloner for this

"no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load that can be integrated in the Dock, which is necessary to give you clue of what is going on in the system in case of a problem or slow down."

Run Activity Monitor and right click the dock icon and take your pick. I run it on startup.

"No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)"

Run Keychain Access, select preferences and tick "Show status on menu bar" to get a padlock with which you can lock your screen with a single click. You need not have Keychain Access running after you've completed this step.

{quoted for numbering}
1. The Desk Utility ...

2. Directory Location of Users are obscure. ...

3. Networking Tools must be more concentrated...

4. No inventory system for installed applications...

5. No capability to change keyboard combinations with many applications of OSX...

6. no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load...

7. Directory Cloning is impossible...

8. Not so obvious startup troubleshooter...

9. No way to lock your session very quickly...
{/quote}

1) Since I don't use Win, I can't compare Disk Utility, but it's never lacked a feature I need.

2) Ditto what everyone else has said.

3) Part of the reason Networking is a tad complex is because it supports multiple concurrently-configured interfaces *and* multiple network configurations, e.g. one setup for home and one for the office.

4) The System Profiler utility, which is part of OS X, will inventory installed applications (regardless of location), frameworks, system extensions, etc.

5) System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts lets you change shortcuts for any application.

6) Try the MenuMeters freeware.

7) Disk Utility can do both block- and file-level cloning, and if you use the command-line utilities that drive Disk Utility behind-the-scenes, you get fine-grained control. Read the man pages for the following utilities: diskutil (formatting tool), hdiutil (disk image utility), and asr (Apple Software Restore, a capable cloning tool). Furthermore, it is not correct that making a block-level image of a disk will use tons of space -- empty space is not saved. There are also many GUI third-party utilities for file-level directory and disk cloning, as well as the various GNU utilities (like ditto and rsync/rsyncx) that come with OS X.

8) Boot up holding the Shift key.

9) What others have said.

but if you're having problems with an application, the people you should blame are not Apple, but your application vendor, and their unwillingness to adequately support their software on your said platform.

If apple bothered informing ISV's about upcoming changes and possible breakages then this would be a valid point, but instead they like to surprise everyone by completely switching architectures so Adobe, for example, has to scramble to release Photoshop for the Mactels.

Edited 2006-06-11 00:24

If apple bothered informing ISV's about upcoming changes and possible breakages then this would be a valid point, but instead they like to surprise everyone by completely switching architectures so Adobe, for example, has to scramble to release Photoshop for the Mactels.

Oh pulease, how many times must Apple say, "move to xcode" - they repeated it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, oh, and did I mention again?

If people wish to lynch someone, its the product managers at Adobe would would rather reward themselves with large pay packets then investing those profits back into their products.

One does not need to be a soothsayer to see the eventual move by Apple to another platform given the issues they were having with their existing suppliers, and the lack of competitive offerings for their laptops.

Apple have *clearly* labelled parts of the OS that are depreciated (Quickdraw), and the frameworks one should move to; if someone right now chooses to write their applications using Quickdraw rather than Quartz 2D, whose fault is that? Apple, who have clearly stated where they are going with MacOS X technologies, or the company who chose to ignore Apples advice.

Sorry, it may sound "flying blind' but considering that Apple has NO vested interest in people moving to Xcode (by way of profit streams since the IDE is free), one needs to assume there is something else that Apple has planned.

I'm sorry, but as a developer, I would assume that Apple knows more about their own product line up than I do, hence, if they advise their developers to use a particular API or move to a particular development suite, there is obviously a reason behind it.

Edited 2006-06-11 01:26

So you're saying if you use OS X, there is only one development environment, one that is also available on one OS, and that has a lot of flaws that make it difficult to use for large projects. I'd rather just continue what I've been doing that be forced to change my entire development style, and continue developing just for Linux and Windows. Its way too hard to develop on OS X given that their is only one IDE. When there is a monopoly in software, it tends to suck, as it does in this case IMO.

Well, don't like using Xcode, then use Netbeans, which has native plugins to allow one to work on C/C++ code, don't like that, there is always eclipse too!

Oh, and pulease, 'Xcode doesn't work for large projects' is the same crap that people pull for Microsofts IDE's, but some how Borland's IDE is any better? I'm all for 'this product is better', but its absolute horse shit to say Xcode isn't ready.

Xcode isnt' ready for those who refuse to move; those who try and work through the mirade of possible excuses one could use as to avoid moving to a new IDE; the fact is, it is ready, there are vendors RIGHT NOW using Xcode for their 'large projects' and experience no problems, just like there are people in Corel, who use Borland for their Corel Wordperfect Suite, which, I would say, isn't a piddly little project.

Oh pulease, how many times must Apple say, "move to xcode"

And I imagine you would similarly support Microsoft if they began disclaiming compatibility unless you move all your development to .net/managed code/C#/whatever.

If people wish to lynch someone, its the product managers at Adobe would would rather reward themselves with large pay packets then investing those profits back into their products.

In Adobe's shoes, I'd hardly be eager to bust my behind to accomodate yet-another-Apple-direction-change - especially less than half a decade since the last one, and especially when Macintosh users represent a shrinking portion Adobe's income.

And I imagine you would similarly support Microsoft if they began disclaiming compatibility unless you move all your development to .net/managed code/C#/whatever.

Oh bullcrap; if Microsoft came out tomorrow and said, "our next version of Windows after Windows Vista will drop Win32 support, so start moving your applications to WinFX", isn't that a clear enough hint to migrate?

In Adobe's shoes, I'd hardly be eager to bust my behind to accomodate yet-another-Apple-direction-change - especially less than half a decade since the last one, and especially when Macintosh users represent a shrinking portion Adobe's income.

What a load of horse crap; there has been NO CHANGE in the direction of Apple; MacOS X is the default OS, and XCode is the default development environment since Xcode first arrived on the scene; Adobe has NO excuses for their laziness.

Oh, and MacOS X isn't a 'shrinking' amount; in their consumer products YES, but in their professional range, they're either growing to maintain its market share or increasing in some areas.

Sorry, but when you shipments are growing in double didgets, you're saying to me, that through some divine intervention that magically Apples marketshare of Adobe sales don't go up with their over all computer shipments?! I find that hard to believe.

Oh, and given that Apple haven't even shipped a PowerMac Intel version yet, lets wait and see what happens.

Apple was encouraging the move to Xcode for users of CodeWarrior, a dead product. They did not push people currently using RealBASIC, which did make the Intel move.

In 2003, Apple was pushing Xcode. In 2004, they noted at several sessions that Metrowerks was not staying up to date. At WWDC 2005, they announced the new architecture, and that a move to Xcode was mandator.

You cannot tell me that a sensible developer was unaware a year ago that Metrowerks was effectively out of the Mac business. Staying with CW at that time was a calculated risk, and a risk that Adobe lost.

I suspect that Apple would have been quite pleased were Metrowerks to have a new release of their compiler that did Intel, but Metrowerks is dead, dead, dead, and everyone who owned a copy knew it.

As far as the 'What if Microsoft did it' FUD, the argument is specious. A more equivalent situation would be if Microsoft started warning people that, say, Visual Studio would produce Vista binaries, and a major vendor had stuck with Borland C++ from the early eighties. When your tool vendor goes under, you have to move if the OS does.

Scott

Mail keeps all interesting metadata in a SQLite database (for very fast queries), but keeps the full message bodies in separate files to keep user data from being corrupted/lost if the database file is corrupted.

I have a mac mini core duo with 2GB RAM set up to dual boot Windows XP. OS X and Windows XP on this same box have equal snappy. That is to say, they are very VERY snappy.

My old G4 mini didn't really have teh snappy, especially when you would right-click on something there was an annoying delay before the menu appeared, but the new intel core duo is as snappy as I can imagine an OS being.