Submitted by The company expressed concern that to the extent its minority market share has caused software developers to question Apple’s prospects in the PC space, developers could be less inclined to develop software for Apple products, and instead feel more inclined to devote their resources to developing software for the larger Windows market or growing Linux market. Here is the 10-K form in question.
There are less Mac OS X machines out there than desktop Linux boxes according to the latest 2005 IDC numbers, and yet Mac OS X gets 10X the commercial software support! It’s about time corporate America gives Linux some love on the desktop!
Can you please provide links to this data, as well as the previous years? I find that a bit hard to believe, especially as most market saturation numbers over the last couple of years showing Mac with a 2% – 5% market share lead over desktop linux.
Move a bit down the page:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Move a bit down the page:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
“If you are interested in some real market share numbers you can try: ”
No … its usual crap.
1) GNU/Linux system will report beeing windows when asked by statistics or web query , why ? Microsoft product tends to not support them at all , they dont even properly support there own backward versions.
2) Its a poll of **some** participating sites its not the majority of sites that report to it at all.
3) Globally , I dont think this poll reach 15% of the English online community , forget about the rest.
– Statistics are meaningless if theyre not from me
Marketshare are meaningless if there not from me
I am going to use what is best for me or whats availaible.
1) GNU/Linux system will report beeing windows when asked by statistics or web query , why ? Microsoft product tends to not support them at all , they dont even properly support there own backward versions.
Tell me of one linux distribution that does that by default. Firefox on my debian box surely reports itself as Linux.
2) Its a poll of **some** participating sites its not the majority of sites that report to it at all.
You will be surprised, but this is true for all surveys.
3) Globally , I dont think this poll reach 15% of the English online community , forget about the rest.
I’m sure your numbers are very accurate.
– Statistics are meaningless if theyre not from me
Marketshare are meaningless if there not from me
I am going to use what is best for me or whats availaible
okaaaayy….
“Tell me of one linux distribution that does that by default.”
They all do , its a question of setup. 95% of the problem with GNU/Linux come from amateurs who think they are pro’s who cant setup things properly.
“Firefox on my debian box surely reports itself as Linux.”
No , because Linux is only a kernel , probably GNU/Linux , what can I say you missed IP setup step … You did not setup your firewall properly to be protected , etc …
“You will be surprised”
No , not at all.
“but this is true for all surveys. ”
No , some survey actually do the leg work of including data and go look for many source to accomplish a result and will tell a margin of errors , so I will disagree with you that all survey are as pathetic and inconclusive as this one , in its nature survey are not a 100% report as its impossible to poll absolutely everyone.
“I’m sure your numbers are very accurate.”
I take the lowest numbers Microsoft will agree on globally.
“okaaaayy….”
what it means ? Everyone as statistics , Everyone as Marketshare reports , I trust only mine , Marketshare and Statistics are meaningless to the single user who whants its computer to work , they certainly dont care about GNU/Linux if its not availaible or installed on there PC when they come to use it.
Its really simple , really.
“Can you please provide links to this data”
http://www.macnn.com/articles/04/08/04/linux.overtakes.mac.os/&star…
http://idc.com/
http://idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=34390
Price $4,500.00
Google for it.
For me IDC report are crap as they only account for the “sales” of product and they cut the market in category and play with the numbers. One example is Microsoft windows they report as a 90% + Operating system , the highest it ever whent whas in the 1995 – 2000 period and it whas 81% , they have been loosing marketshare ever since to everyone ( Apple , BSD , GNU/Linux , OpenSolaris , Sun Desktop ) etc … .
“as well as the previous years?”
You will have to ask IDC Too. I dont see why last years would serve you as IDC is always innacurate even this year.
“I find that a bit hard to believe”
I am going to stay polite and make you think for a change.
1) Why is Microsoft so affraid of GNU/Linux
2) China , India , Africa , Brazil , Columbia , Mexico etc are all GNU/Linux territory ( read Government backing GNU/Linux ) , territory wich Microsoft would not consider until there recent “lite version”. whas the same. All the local language that people where avoiding are covered by GNU/Linux.
3) Its free ( as in both freedom and price ) to get you can start your own localized distribution with having to pay anyone anything as long as you use Free software.
4) More then 300 GNU/Linux distribution worldwide.
“especially as most market saturation numbers over the last couple of years showing Mac with a 2% – 5% ”
Mac is currently at 8% , Powerbook , Ibook and Mac mini and IPod + Itune. It never whas bigger then GNU/Linux , it just that in the US the number of shipping Apple are easier to track then the GNU/Linux ones. Globally , currently GNU/Linux is at 22% , Microsoft is at 58%.
What People tend to forget is that only 13% of the population have computers , its still an expansive product even in the richest country , the US is like 40 th in the population ratio who have computer and who are online with an 11% of population covered.
even with some computer in the 300$ range 300$ + 150$ internet connection is a lot for many people.
There is more people with cell phone then there are with computers.
Gnu/Linux is #1 in :
Super Cluster
Cluster
Education
All corporate server
All Webserver
All server category ( if not #1 really close #2 )
The last category is Desktop and its mostly due to people believeing the lies of Microsoft that they have a 90% + hold on the market.
Also the fact that some people who where given enormous amount of money to create the GNU/Linux desktop , diverted funds to other things ( Red Hat ) , Also those using it not contributing to GNU/Linux by offering there software for GNU/Linux ( Google , Ebay ).
Dont forget that the only real Competition on its own hardware that Apple as is GNU/Linux , because GNU/Linux given enough specs , data , time and a small amount of money will be made to run on any platform.
Apple make a new release every 3 years , Microsoft release a new release every 5 -6 years , GNU/Linux release something new every week and every day if your on the cutting edge, everyone can contribute to GNU/Linux.
– This year is a poor year for GNU/Linux its incredible compared to last year but its weak compared to next year.
> GNU/Linux release something new every week and every day if your on the cutting edge, everyone can contribute to GNU/Linux.
Sure, because it’s the only one “never ending beta operating system” in the world.
The things you call “something new” is bug correction or “feature” if you are using windows.
I would not call GNU/Linux Beta. Beta , crash destroy and will break something litterally. You obvioulsy dont know the meaning of beta , at all.
“The things you call “something new” is bug correction or “feature” if you are using windows.”
Microsoft Windows cant even do 1% of what the weakest GNU/Linux distribution offer by default. Read what I write , dont try to put your words and what you whant to read in my mouth.
Something new , for me , is something no one else as already and that which is not yeat ready to be deployed or conceived.
> Dont forget that the only real Competition on its own hardware that Apple as is GNU/Linux , because GNU/Linux given enough specs , data , time and a small amount of money will be made to run on any platform.
netbsd, openbsd…
Apple MAC OS X is a BSD. People dont replace there MAC OS X with NetBSD , OpenBSD …
i would… xml for system configuration files? i guess the folks at apple actually smoke more pot than i previously assumed (quite an accomplishment)…
Well Sun have gone done the XML route for some things in Solaris 10. So it could be they use the same dealer.
“There are less Mac OS X machines out there than desktop Linux boxes according to the latest 2005 IDC numbers, and yet Mac OS X gets 10X the commercial software support! It’s about time corporate America gives Linux some love on the desktop!”
Several problems with developing commercial desktop applications for the Linux market.
The perception the same people who refuse to pay for an operating system have zero interest in paying for a commercial application to run on it.
Open source thumpers wouldn’t touch it, unless you bundled the source code with it. (defeats the purpose)
On the Apple side of the fence, those users have money and are willing to part with it. (they always have)
Yeah, but what about the professionals that need to be able to hack on Linux on high-end workstations? Where’s Adobe/Macromedia?? What about all the big businesses that won’t switch to desktop Linux because of the lack of “Microsoft Office”? I know there is openoffice.org2 but they will complain about the lack of database compatiblity or Outlook exchange compatibility in Evolution.
Also, Linux on the desktop is not laughable! Anybody that I’ve seen who has tried a modern distro with either Gnome 2.12, or KDE 3.5 have been impressed. I have even convinced (without even trying) many of my Mac loving friends to dual-boot Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
Sure, you may have tweak it a bit, but I don’t know too many technology enthusiasts that want a one-size-fits-all, unhackable, almost fixed-function OS.
Yepp, used them both, not impressed. However, I am impressed of the Ease of use in BeOS and the flashy look in OSX.
It’s just something lacking in Gnome 2.12 and KDE 3.5…. hmm… what can it be? Oh, maybe the lack of great applications and the fact that the platforms it runs on is primarily for serveruse and not for desktop use? Maybe it has something to do that the platforms they run on suffer from lack of drivers and recompilations to the kernel is necessary when setting up sound etc properly?
Impressed is hardly the phrase I’d use… maybe promising, but that’s it.
Also another thing with both mentioned which stands in contrast to OSX. The fact that less is sometimes more!
Huuh?
When is the last time you used Linux and what distro was it. There is something in Linux for just about every skill level, now. I have used it for more that 6 years and find that hardware drivers/support is there for a huge number of devices and DON’T require a recompile of the kernel. In fact, I am using Suse 10 64-bit on my desktop now and didn’t have to hunt down a single driver for my onboard sound, firewire card, printer, scanner, TV card, video card, etc. I tried Windows XP 64 for about an hour and couldn’t even find a driver for an Epson printer (Stylus Photo 825) and had to go back to 32-bit XP for a while before wiping the partition clean and using the extra space for more Linux storage.
Now, I would really like to use OSX but, until Apple gets real and eases up on the hardware restrictions, I am going to have to wait. I am not about to buy a computer that will limit my options for an OS.
Ummm, the Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) is just a rehashed FreeBSD kernel, which is even more geared towards server use than the Linux Kernel is. Oh but I guess you just love defending a company that has to steal an open source kernel to make their own OS competitive once again. Does it just fly over your heads that the kernel is the hardest part of the system to update, maintain, etc. Once a company is freed up from that responsibility of course their gonna be able to make a pretty interface. The saddest thing isn’t even that they stole the kernel, but it’s the fact that each release of Mac OS X is just the newest version of FreeBSD’s -STABLE branch rehashed, not only that but they take from an open source community and don’t give anything back (well ecept the rehashed “Darwin” of course *rolls eyes* we REALLY need/want that), you want to call Microsoft shady and unoriginal? Look at your own “gods” first. At least Microsoft stopped at DOS, Apple just keeps on going. So lets see what that makes Apple..ummm hypocritical, ignorant, arrogant, lazy, and flat out annoying. Of all the groups, FreeBSD and Linux have the purest history; but sadly, they still have a ways to go before they can appeal to home users.
defending a company that has to steal an open source kernel to make their own OS competitive once again.
This sentence proves that you have no idea what you are talking about. Apple did not steal anything. They followed all the licenses for the software that they used and even went beyond what was required and released the kernel’s source. Also what this sentence shows is that you hate corporations and probably have an idealistic view that all programs should be open source. I am sorry that you feel this way but Apple did nothing wrong when they created OSX.
not only that but they take from an open source community and don’t give anything back (well ecept the rehashed “Darwin” of course *rolls eyes* we REALLY need/want that)
Oh I get it now. You want everything for free.
Apple did the bare minimum to comply with the license. If you are trying to suggest that apple is a wonderful contributer to open source software then you have listened to too many marketers screaming about khtml and darwin. The majority of apple’s software is not open source. People do want the freedom to edit and distribute the source code of many applications. That’s what make programs like firefox so great. You are totally correct that apple did nothing wrong when they released OS X. Apple however did almost nothing to warrant any love from the open source community. Linux is a competitor to all proprietary operating systems including OS X.
blah, blah, blah “people do want the freedom to edit and distribute the source code of many applications,” blah, blah, blah, “idealistic rant about competitor to all proprietary operating systems,” blah, blah, blah, “Linux, Freedom, lots of static,” blah, blah blah…
I’ve used OSX, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and applications from proprietary to “free,” including MS Office, Adobe Photoshop, Safari, Firefox, GAIM, Openoffice, tinyfugue, ad nauseum.
People do want, eh? I could give a damn about the “freedom to edit and distribute the source code.” I’m not a programmer, and don’t care to be.
Once I grew tired enough of Windows to seek something better, I tried Linux and quickly grew tired and bored with the “cheer for the underdog” flag-waving and moved on to FreeBSD and eventually found my way to OS X. Proprietary-ness did not make a difference to me about the usefulness of the operating system I used and the applications that are written for it. Insanely single minded fanatics have done more to drive me to OSX than any lack of “freedom,” on any other operating system.
What about creating a license that includes “freedom from fanatics?”
What about creating a license that includes “freedom from fanatics?”
Sound like it would only be available on Windows to me……
MSFT didn’t even have the sense to steal ANY modern kernel.
Actually I don’t hate corporations, they are the backbone of American (aswell as most other capitalist) society. What I don’t like is when a company is hypocritical and claims the opposition is “stealing all their ideas and just continues to copy them instead of paving their own way (as Apple constantly accuses Microsoft of; “the GUI was our idea”, “transparanent widgets, ours”, “desktop meta info search, it was in Tiger before Vista”, etc) when the entire core of their OS isn’t even theirs. I also don’t believe all programs should be free either, I think a large proportion of high quality software applications are hugely overpriced which in turn ostracizes a large proportion of non-professional developers, designers, etc but that in no way means I think they should be free, programmers need to earn a living as well. Also I understand the BSD license (software code can be reused however you see fit aslong as you keep the original copyright intact), but that doesn’t mean you abuse the hard-work of those people that offered up this code out of their own goodwill and then above all act arrogant about it.
Oh I get it now. You want everything for free.
No not really, I paid $300 for Windows XP Professional, $150 for Microsoft Office 2003, $100 for Paintshop Pro X, etc, so how does this show I want everything for free, the only free software I use is FreeBSD 6.0 and the software included with it. My only qualm is Apple is abusing the Open Source community, a corporation the supports it rather than leeching and abusing it would be soemthing like Novell, Red Hat, Corel, etc; companies that give back more than what they originally borrowed as appreciation and recognition of the authors hardwork. Anyways, I think my points been made, I’m out…
> the Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) is just a rehashed FreeBSD kernel,
actually, os x uses the mach microkernel.
Most computer users are not technology enthusiasts.
Sure, you may have tweak it a bit, but I don’t know too many technology enthusiasts that want a one-size-fits-all, unhackable, almost fixed-function OS.
One of my favorite sayings for OSX is “You can change that.” Every problem that one of my friends has had with OSX, I have made the above statement. They would say, I don’t like the look of aqua. I would then pull out shapeshifter and change that. The would say I don’t want the dock centered. I would then run another application and change it to be anchored on the right. They would say, oh I want to connect and disconnect my network using the terminal, and I would show them that is possible as well. Lastly a couple of my friends complain about the global menu bar. There is a little program out there that gets rid of even the holy global menu bar.
Basically OSX is just as configurable as Linux, works better, and doesn’t require tweaking for it to work.
I myself have tried Ubuntu and though it was pretty good looking, the fact that there was no wireless support for it made me immediately decide against installing it.
I also did not install ubuntu on my ibook. This is because apple decided to use Broadcom Corporation’s chipset for airport extreme. Broadcom Corporation does not provide technical assistance such as a driver development kit to parties interested in developing drivers for operating systems like Linux. It is for this reason that my next laptop will not be from apple.
I also don’t want to have to buy Microsoft office in order to edit .doc files. Neooffice looks terrible and is slow. Firefox is faster in ubuntu than OS X. Gaim is a better multi network IM application than fire. I have to pay to get a diagramming tool in OS X and dia is free for linux.
As much fun as putting the dock in the bottom left hand corner is, I’d rather not have to either pay hundreds of dollars for programs or deal with inferior software on OS X.
> Basically OSX is just as configurable as Linux, works better, and doesn’t require tweaking for it to work.
enable/disable global menu bar? change the look? i can do that in kde WITHOUT USING THIRD PARTY APPS!
and os x would require tweaking (probably requiring hundreds of third party apps) for me to actually enjoy using it… default kde settings are pretty good for me, and the few things i don’t like are easy to change in the kde control center…
There are less Mac OS X machines out there than desktop Linux boxes according to the latest 2005 IDC numbers, and yet Mac OS X gets 10X the commercial software support! It’s about time corporate America gives Linux some love on the desktop!
Yeah, why does WoW have a native OSX version, but not Linux? I’ll tell you why. Because support for every distro and configuration of a Linux desktop is a nightmare and so companies don’t want to touch it.
Apple is the only company that is able to put a real desktop on Unix. KDE and Gnome try, but they aren’t going anywhere.
Until some company or group of people take a hold of the operating system from the kernel on up and put out a real desktop then Linux as a mainstream desktop operating system is going nowhere.
Five years from now Gnome and KDE will be all but forgotten.
“Yeah, why does WoW have a native OSX version, but not Linux? I’ll tell you why. Because support for every distro and configuration of a Linux desktop is a nightmare and so companies don’t want to touch it.”
I’ll vouch for this one to some degree. But I disagree fully with the rest of the parent poster’s comments.
First off there are games published for the big three, such as ThinkTanks which as far as I can tell is published by GarageGames (www.garagegames.com). I’ve run it in Windows and it ran very smoothly, I read a review if it running in OS X and aside from a few minor glitches the reviewer loved it. I then tried running the demo in Ark Linux and it had several visual distortions, it seemed to skip frames even though I have a good nvidia card and the drivers and the sound was absolutely awful.
Why? Well, Linux is capable of running games rather well actually, for example Planet Penguin Racer, Armagetron and Solarwolf; however, all those games are open source, they work perfectly in just about every distribution because they are compiled from source for those specific distributions. ThinkTanks had software packages as minimum requirements which I’m assuming means that it wasn’t statically linked to all it’s dependencies, this may be a mistake on the publishers part. But either way it shows that it is either difficult to get a game to work on most distributions, or maybe game publishers just don’t know how to properly publish games for Linux and don’t want to go to the trouble yet.
It’s not so much a direct matter of how many users there are per platform, I don’t know whether there are more Mac or Linux boxes being used as home machines, but either way the reason Mac ports are more common is because it’s one single operating system and there are no distributions to worry about. There is one unified entity behind the entire OS and so Apple can make sure that later versions of OS X are compatible with the older software, therefore from a developers perspective Mac OS X is far easier to develop closed-source software for than Linux is.
Celerate,
Re: “Linux is capable of running games rather well actually, for example Planet Penguin Racer, Armagetron and Solarwolf; however, all those games are open source, they work perfectly in just about every distribution because they are compiled from source for those specific distributions. ThinkTanks had software packages as minimum requirements which I’m assuming means that it wasn’t statically linked to all it’s dependencies, this may be a mistake on the publishers part. But either way it shows that it is either difficult to get a game to work on most distributions, or maybe game publishers just don’t know how to properly publish games for Linux and don’t want to go to the trouble yet.”
Commercial game designers can and have ported games to Linux. Quake 4 and Doom 3 are good examples. There’s also the use of either free Wine to run games not ported to Linux or using commercial Wine such as Cedega which does play a wide variety of games.
As for the open source games you commented on the one thing you fail to mention is that open source games offered on Linux distributions such as SUSE Linux are not demos (trial versions).
To enlighten you I’ve included a games related link for Linux users http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75640
Rofl, your statements have nothing to back them up. You claim that KDE and Gnome try but aren’t going anywhere. Where did you get that idea? Have you even used KDE or GNOME? They are far better than they used to be and are improving all the time. You just pulled that statement right out of your ass. Secondly Gnome and KDE will never be forgotten as long as it remains open source and people contribute to it.
>Because support for every distro and configuration of a Linux desktop is a nightmare and so companies don’t want to touch it.
ever heard of opera? how about macromedia’s shockwave flash player?
Ever heard of Adobe+Macromedia (the same these days of course). If they were that much behind it the whole CS/MX suites would be on Linux by now.
<em>There are less Mac OS X machines out there than desktop Linux boxes according to the latest 2005 IDC numbers</em>
Meaningless. Look at any statistics for any non-Linux focused web site. Mac hits outnumber Linux hits. And both Mac hits and Linux hits seem to be growing at the expense of MS-Windows hits.
There are less Mac OS X machines out there than desktop Linux boxes according to the latest 2005 IDC numbers, and yet Mac OS X gets 10X the commercial software support! It’s about time corporate America gives Linux some love on the desktop!
Duh. People like getting paid. Linux devalues commercial software efforts. You reap what you sow.
This statement is taken out of context. Linux is NO threat to Apple, but as a responsible business, they have to cite potential concerns in their SEC filings. If anything, LINUX is a gateway drug to show people how much better life is if you can break the Windows habit. But once you make that paradigm shift, why not go all the way to a premium alternative?
Linux has one major, huge, and immense advantage that OSX will never ever have: the fact that it runs on just about any computer that can also run Windows. When a company wants to switch away from Windows, they’ll see two pictures: one where they only need to buy software/licenses, or one where they need to buy hardware and software.
You do the math.
And no, the switch to Intel ain’t gonna change that.
Sure it will, when companies are looking at new hardware they will seriously consider mac hardware as you can run anything on them.
Funny, but I actualy agree with Thom.
Nah, AMD over Intel any time. Performance and price wise
Having two OSes on one company desktop would only mean trouble. Just as even posing the option. Administrative wise.
/*my biased view here*/ Personaly, I will still avoid Apple just as I did. Maybe even more now than before (now at least I have a good excuse). Last thing I would like to support is half-assed non-native apps that run trough some emulator just because they supposably run. Just as I didn’t support wine I will avoid even giving option like this on Apple. And Apple will loose the only factor why my customers were buying it. It was faster for runing Photoshop, which will be now runing on same hardware and all difference went to wasteland. So why even considering commercial platform which has only a small minority. With Linux and OpenSolaris (I’m not a fan of this one) at least there is cost benefit as Thom pointed out. With OSX just another commercial platform and introducing incompatibility
Couple of things.
First, Companies wouldn’t be running more than one OS on the system (this is not what I said), they have the option to of running OSX on it which they could not do with any other hardware, as well as being able to pop Windows or Linux on it.
Second, Photoshop is actually optimized for OSX. Photoshop’s higher performance on Macs is not because of hardware.
Whatever, what large corporation is going to replace thousands of their $250-a-piece discounted Dell boxen with Intel Mac minis or flat-screen iMacs? Get serious.
Just because you are too short-sited to see this doesn’t mean its not a possibility.
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/
“And no, the switch to Intel ain’t gonna change that.”
Well, it might. It might drive them to open the hardware. It will give them the ability, which beforehand they didn’t have. Now if they decide to go after corporates, they do at least have a product they can release. Just take out the locks.
I wouldn’t totally rule it out.
i agree with you as long as they will stay closed source on the hardware they will always be second or third best ,they definitly need to look at openning there self to the rest of the X86 market or else all they will get is a bunch of old MACppc user switching to MACX86 but those that all ready have X86 machine that arnt mac compatible wont start running to the store to switch to a MACX86 just because mac is now using X86 they will want mac to run on there allready bought X86 machine ,i think it would have been a way better move if they would have switch totally to X86 hardware and not just to specific X86 hardware then yes ,then alot of people would be thinking about switching to macos when vista is going to arrive ,i know that i would be happy to try macos on my computer ounce its going to come out but no way am i going to buy a new computer just to try MACOSX so ill probably stick with vista wich will run on my current machine
You Said: ” they’ll see two pictures: one where they only need to buy software/licenses”
Better be said: ” they’ll see two pictures: one where they only need to buy software + Support”
Why Linux Support: Try to tell an average kownledgable person that he needs to open konsole and run “su” and then enter root password and switch to “/sbin/init 3” to log off the X server; then he needs to run “sh nvidia_xx.xx.xx.run” if we consider all developmental packages are installed and then “reboot”; and then logon to his account and then to open the konsole again and be super user then to run “kwrite /etc/xorg.conf” and edit the Horizontal Frequency to 30-92 kHz and Vertical Frequency to 24-85 Hz and to add the mode 1920×1200 and to make the default color depth to 24 bit and then other things………All this just to enable my Viewsonic Monitor to work with the Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 or Xandros 3.0.2 Business Edition and any other Commercial(not free)Linux distros
This is only for the Graphics to work!!! What about the sound did you hear about modprobe or adding “snd_ess_load=YES” to the kernel
Beside Don’t forget that there are some very common cards that will not fuction because their manufacturers does not want to support it go to ATI web site and check if they give you dirvers for All in Wondor 7500 card.
I guess the consumer got my point
Why Linux Support: Try to tell an average kownledgable person that he needs to open konsole and run “su” and then enter root password and switch to “/sbin/init 3” to log off the X server; then he needs to run “sh nvidia_xx.xx.xx.run” if we consider all developmental packages are installed and then “reboot”; and then logon to his account and then to open the konsole again and be super user then to run “kwrite /etc/xorg.conf” and edit the Horizontal Frequency to 30-92 kHz and Vertical Frequency to 24-85 Hz and to add the mode 1920×1200 and to make the default color depth to 24 bit and then other things………All this just to enable my Viewsonic Monitor to work with the Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 or Xandros 3.0.2 Business Edition and any other Commercial(not free)Linux distros
What graphics card do you have? Linux graphics configuration for me has been pretty much “plug and play” since SuSE 9.1 (which is what, almost two years old?). Plus, as long as we’re making the comparison to the Mac — let’s be fair. You didn’t buy that machine with Linux already installed, did you? Yet, I bet you bought your Windows or Mac machines with those operating systems installed. Look at the kind of .plist editing folks are doing trying to get OS X x86 running on their random hardware. Is comparing the complexity of OS X on a machine not designed for it any less fair than comparing the complexity of Linux on a machine not designer for it?
This is only for the Graphics to work!!! What about the sound did you hear about modprobe or adding “snd_ess_load=YES” to the kernel
I use a Linux desktop every day (it actually gets more play-time than my Mac lately), and I couldn’t begin to tell you what the latest mechanism is for module loading. I remember modprobe.conf years ago, but I haven’t had to mess with that for ages. Again, if you bought your machine with Linux on it (or if you built your machine — built it with Linux in mind), you wouldn’t have had to do any of that.
“needs to open konsole and run “su” and then enter root “….password and switch to “/sbin/init 3” to log off the X server; then he needs to run “sh nvidia_xx.xx.xx.run” if we consider all developmental packages are installed and then “reboot”; and then logon to his…..”
This is the discourse of religious abuse. There is no point rationally correcting him. Of course, everyone knows you don’t have to do any such things. The poster probably knows it as well. That’s not why he posts this stuff.
Its for two reasons. Rather as you could find hard line Euro communists spouting off in similar ways back in the days of the Soviet Union. The first is to show solidarity with fellow members. The second is, if we keep saying this stuff, some people may we hope believe us. Or at least think we have some reason, any reason, for our otherwise apparently crazy attitudes.
Please note: I am not saying that all Mac users are in the camp of the cultists. They are not. I am not saying that Linux is as good a choice for the graphics pro as the Mac. It isn’t. Though Windows probably is. I am just saying, when people descend to this level of misrepresentation, probably knowingly, there is no point in correcting them rationally. They aren’t interested in rational discourse on this particular subject.
They are probably also very nice people, and quite interesting and rational on other subjects….
“Again, if you bought your machine with Linux on it (or if you built your machine — built it with Linux in mind), you wouldn’t have had to do any of that.”
Wrong, The monitor is an external peripheral that might not be well configured to the preinstalled Graphics Card and the pre Configured xorg.conf file.
Let me give you an example If you buy a workstation from IBM like “Intellistation A” with Redhat Enterprise Edition WS 4 + Update2, it will work on the monitors that IBM sells; Suppose I have a 23″ wide screen monitor available, I will not trash it, I want it to work with the newly bought system. Now Linux all distros, Solaris 5.11 and AIX 5L are the ones which are so technical compared to windows or mac to allow this to happen automatically.
I bet you have a desktop with low resolution like 1280×1024 or even 1600×1200 running on the preconfigured drivers (No OpenGL,no 24-bit, no Full Scene antialaising,no stereoscope, no nothing advanced; which is OK for the Internet, which is OK for simple text editing) but this is not the case of all the people on this planet who needs their machines to do more than average.
Try to use Alias Maya (a DCC app) on any Linux machine you configured and you will understand why you should be installing dedicated graphics drivers and 2 monitors and go through the horrible configuration.
This horrible and difficult configuration is good for support technicians because they can make money from like me, but it is not acceptable for normal users.
Don’t get me worng I love linux and I use it and I configure it for many customers and I know how horrible is to get it woking without deep knowledge.
when someone talks about his experience, he/she must kown that his knowledge is limited by his level, and that another world of complexities exists around him and he should not deny it even if he cannot/are not willing to see.
Hraq,
Re: “Wrong, The monitor is an external peripheral that might not be well configured to the preinstalled Graphics Card and the pre Configured xorg.conf file.
Let me give you an example if you buy a workstation from IBM like “Intellistation A” with Red Hat Enterprise Edition WS 4 + Update2, it will work on the monitors that IBM sells; Suppose I have a 23″ wide screen monitor available, I will not trash it, I want it to work with the newly bought system. Now Linux all distros, Solaris 5.11 and AIX 5L are the ones which are so technical compared to windows or mac to allow this to happen automatically.”
You’re correct when saying the monitor is an external peripheral device that may not be detected properly by the OS. Though this is the same for any OS (Linux, Windows, OSX, etc). From experience I can tell you that I have had better hardware Plug & Play success with Novell (NLD/SUSE Linux) than with Red Hat (RHEL/Fedora Linux). Novell’s hardware support has been increasingly better with each release. For example I have a Daytek monitor for one of my workstations which was difficult to get configured even on Windows XP Professional. I was at the point of selling it till I installed SUSE Linux 10 which not only recognized the monitor correctly but also configured it with the default setting recommended by the manufacturer. The same has been true for other devices such as my HP All-In-One PSC 1510xi, Bluetooth devices, etc.
Regarding RHEL 4.0 I haven’t tried it mainly due to my LAN is running SUSE Linux not only because I find it more user friendly but when I did a comparison of Novell vs Red Hat I found Novell to be cheaper in overhead cost. Really though what ever works for you then use it. No one is telling you to switch to Linux or a particular distribution. We can only suggest something based on our own experiences.
Re: “bet you have a desktop with low resolution like 1280×1024 or even 1600×1200 running on the preconfigured drivers (No OpenGL,no 24-bit, no Full Scene antialaising,no stereoscope, no nothing advanced; which is OK for the Internet, which is OK for simple text editing) but this is not the case of all the people on this planet who needs their machines to do more than average. Try to use Alias Maya (a DCC app) on any Linux machine you configured and you will understand why you should be installing dedicated graphics drivers and 2 monitors and go through the horrible configuration.”
Why would you presume the previous poster is using Linux to only surf the internet or write documents? Also “Alias Maya” has never needed to run at 1280×1024 resolution. Maybe you’re confusing that resolution requirement with older releases of XSI (prior to 5.0). As for running dual monitors with Maya I’m a Maya user for several years and haven’t found it absolutely necessary or even a requirement by Alias to run dual monitors just to use Maya. I do admit it is more productive if dual monitors are offered by a studio to speed workflow in the pipeline whether you’re an animator or editor. You’re issue with dual monitor support really is the responsibility of graphic developers (ie: NVIDIA, ATI, 3DLabs), not Novell, Red Hat, etc. Though even with this minor drawback several major studios are using Linux in their pipeline due to cutting overhead cost as well performance and stability found when running applications like Maya on Linux.
Reference:
1. DCC = Digital Content Creation.
2. NLD = Novell Linux Desktop. See http://www.novell.com/
3. SUSE Linux 10 http://www.opensuse.org/
4. RHEL = Red Hat Enterprise Linux. See http://www.redhat.com/
5. Fedora Linux http://fedora.redhat.com/
6. “Software for 3D/2D Artists, Designers, etc” http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53452
Edited 2005-12-11 20:46
This is about the first smart remark I’ve read on OSNews in months. I couldn’t agree more, since I myself made the switch to Mac through Linux, and I wish I would have bought a Mac 5 years earlier.
Premium Alternative? I like Linux, I haven’t yet tried a Mac, but I don’t at all expect to like it any more than Linux from what I’ve seen.
You’re assuming one solution is what everyone wants, a software monoculture so to speak. If that were true then people wouldn’t be working on Linux or BSD any more now that OS X is available. I know several people who use all three operating systems, they all have different preferences but only a fraction of them preffer OS X over Linux based on the OS alone (and not cost, these guy’s can afford Macs).
A world with only one OS to choose from is a very crappy world, especially if that OS is kept behind closed doors so no one can see how it works and how they can modify it to their liking.
>A world with only one OS to choose from is a very crappy world, especially if that OS is kept behind closed doors so no one can see how it works and how they can modify it to their liking.
Yes, because today, every mom and child in the world are recompiling their windows kernel and tuning their OS with command line tool.
Ho wait, in fact not. They just doesn’t care. They just want something working out of the box because THEY ARE NOT power user.
Anyway can you tell me what’s kept behind closed doors in Mac OS X while his base is open source ?
> I know several people who use all three operating systems, they all have different preferences but only a fraction of them preffer OS X over Linux based on the OS alone (and not cost, these guy’s can afford Macs).
Funny, I noticed that every time someone is arguing about something, all the people around him think like him, use the same OS, like the same flavour of ice cream.
> No … its usual crap.
Just as your IDC link indeed.
Edited 2005-12-10 20:45
Duffman stop showing yourself to be a fool. Most modern Linux Distros do not require any form of software/kernel complilation. They are for all extents and purposes install straight from the box.
There is no need for a mom and pop user to have to resort to command line tools or compiling. Linux has progressed from your view of it and will continue to grow in usability and functionality.
“Duffman stop showing yourself to be a fool.”
I greatly doubt that Duffman himself believes it.
“>A world with only one OS to choose from is a very crappy world, especially if that OS is kept behind closed doors so no one can see how it works and how they can modify it to their liking.
Yes, because today, every mom and child in the world are recompiling their windows kernel and tuning their OS with command line tool.
Ho wait, in fact not. They just doesn’t care. They just want something working out of the box because THEY ARE NOT power user. “
Wow that is complete flaimbait, I said a world with only one OS would be a very crappy one, that isn’t an attack on Windows, in fact it’s quite the opposite as without Windows there would be less choice.
Besides that, technical users are the ones that evangelized computers to the rest of the home user market in the first place. Those technical users are still around today and they do know how to compile kernels, they also still make up a significant percentage of people with computers at home along with the younger generation of “geeks” who possess the same knowhow. In fact “geeks” usually have several computers and they appreciate all sorts of software whether proprietary or open source. For those that aren’t geeks they could choose any OS they want, that’s where the ability to choose comes in. They could even use Linux as there are plenty of good Linux distributions out there that can go through the entire life cycle of each release without requiring the user to use a command line, as long as the company that makes the computer chooses supported hardware which there is plenty of if you care to look.
Then there’s companies that already use open source software in their products, and the best part is that they can do so freely. Did you know that at one point Red Hat was advertising on their web page that Sony’s PlayStations (I can’t remember if it was the PSone or the PS2) were using Red Hat Linux and OpenGL? Did you also know that there are several devices that use Linux as an embedded OS and that many developer kits for such devices are built on Linux. If companies had to rely on Microsoft or Apple products they would have to pay royalties, thus increasing the prices when OSS software works perfectly for their needs and is free.
My comment was not an attack on Mac OS, nor was is an attack on Windows. My comment clearly stated that having only one OS would suck (that could be any OS including Linux), and I was right about saying that it would especially suck if it was a closed source OS because then people wouldn’t have sample code to look at and learn from for the development of another OS or the improvement of that first OS.
“Anyway can you tell me what’s kept behind closed doors in Mac OS X while his base is open source ? “
The only part that is open source is darwin and a few other minor components, the rest, which is essentially what makes the difference between any unix clone and Mac OS X is closed-source. The kernel is based off FreeBSD and it really isn’t significant compared to the rest of the OS. The proprietary code that went into the graphical system and the applications that run therein are what really makes OS X what it is, the rest of it is essentially just a kernel and standard command line shell not much different than what you can get for BSD or Linux.
“> I know several people who use all three operating systems, they all have different preferences but only a fraction of them preffer OS X over Linux based on the OS alone (and not cost, these guy’s can afford Macs).
Funny, I noticed that every time someone is arguing about something, all the people around him think like him, use the same OS, like the same flavour of ice cream. “
Actually there are several differences between myself and my friends, and no we don’t like the same flavour of ice cream. Just because you dissagree with what I have to say doesn’t mean I made it up. When your argument comes down to this I know your desperate.
“> No … its usual crap.
Just as your IDC link indeed. “
Nice try, but that quote isn’t from me.
And this is comming from a guy with a registered account which is easy to keep a positive score with (given the free + points on every comment you post for having a registered account), but still has a negative score. I wouldn’t be worrying about my credibility if I were you.
“This statement is taken out of context.”
No , its a financial statement , GNU/Linux is impacting the sale of MAC OS X and will do so even more in the futur , so they list it.
“Linux is NO threat to Apple”
You mean GNU/Linux , Linux is the kernel. GNU/Linux is in many things , it aims to be a free ( as in freedom ) software platform , from wich people can use to power there hardware , Thats MAC OS X income territory for computers.
There is another thing people tend to forget GNU/Linux is backed by companies , There is two companies wich hold most of the computer patents , IBM and Apple . in the futur many GNU/Linux company will try and acquire Apple simply for the patent portfolio they have in order to give them an advantage or simply for the software portfolio and engineering team.
” If anything, LINUX is a gateway drug to show people how much better life is if you can break the Windows habit. ”
One of GNU/Linux aim is to replace proprietary software and traitor software , boith of which Apple Mac OS X is made of.
“why not go all the way to a premium alternative?”
Apple is inferior to GNU/Linux. Gnu/linux is a 14 year old who is against a 20 year old (windows ) and a 30 year old ( Apple ) who are doing war against it , GNU/Linux already won , it survived where many others have failed.
GNU/Linux is mostly built by volunteers and contributors. Take out Apple income , apple fall , take out one GNU/Linux company , there is 300 + to fall back on …
Apple is not a replacement for GNU/Linux at all.
This statement is taken out of context. Linux is NO threat to Apple, but as a responsible business, they have to cite potential concerns in their SEC filings. If anything, LINUX is a gateway drug to show people how much better life is if you can break the Windows habit. But once you make that paradigm shift, why not go all the way to a premium alternative?
And it would be based on a number of ‘if’s’ as one could say, *IF* the linux desktop community could get their shit together instead of having countless ‘summits’ where geeks and nerds argue religiously that their technology is better than others, then perform countless forks because of the collective immaturity of programmers and their zealotry, then maybe there is a possibility for it to become viable for the desktop.
If software developers in the ISV world pull the collective finger out of their ass and helped make the *NIX desktop possible, again, I doubt this would happen – Adobe, the company who has a programme who declares that PowerMac is dead, then suddenly turns around along with company claiming that ‘he was misquoted’ – again, I doubt the network of ISVs will be willing to make a change.
Its all based on ‘worst case scenario’ and ‘if we don’t do anything’ – just as Microsoft listing Mozilla and Linux a threat, they’re not an IMMEDIATE threat, but based on the assumption that a number of positive things DO happen, then yes, it could possibly be a threat, be it highly unlikely.
WTF are you talking about? Love on the desktop? C’mon! Linux should PROVE itself in the desktop arena. By being innovative, usable and solid. Not by just being GNU/Linux.
Personally, I think that GNU/Linux has proven itself quite often in the desktop area, by now. I always loved working with GNU/Linux, but now, quite a lot more than some years ago, I feel an immense growth in my productivity when working with, say, a GNOME or KDE desktop, even more compared to Windows XP because there, after all, still is the power of an Unix-like operating system the desktop is tightly integrated into (that’s what separates Linux from Mac OS X IMHO).
I don’t see no problem in solidity or usability of current Linux desktops. However, I doubt the ability of those projects to be innovative. Why? Because everyone is looking at MS Windows or Mac OS X, because probably no one out there actually would _accept_ a desktop too much different from those systems in both look and feel. And that’s where I have to agree, Linux should be given some love on the desktop, the world needs room for new desktop ideas which aren’t dominated (dictated?) by the concepts promoted by and implemented in Windows. As long as there’s no room for that, every free desktop environment will just have the choice to either be a copy of Windows or be abandoned and forgotten.
Edited 2005-12-11 09:40
Isn’t linux that already?
The short blurb of an article doesn’t really state that Apple feels the squeeze from Linux … it says that Apple feels the squeeze from “competitors, such as Windows and Linux.”
Which is more of a competitor in the real desktop world? Linux, or Windows? In the real world it is Windows.
All in all, Linux doesn’t stand a chance in competing against OS X on the desktop, so Apple need not worry about losing developers there.
One thing I’m really enjoying about the Mac platform since switching to it is that sheer amount of creative and useful little freeware applications around. It seems that most of these developers are just like-minded Mac enthusiasts with some programming talent, and they go off and write these applications that I’m really thankful for. These people aren’t going to disappear any time soon. Most of them laugh at the suggestion that they move to Linux.
The short blurb of an article doesn’t really state that Apple feels the squeeze from Linux … it says that Apple feels the squeeze from “competitors, such as Windows and Linux.”
Look at the article more carefully, as it says: the larger Windows market or growing Linux market.
If it’s growing from 1% to 2% that doesn’t say much. I could describe that gain as “Linux adoption increases by 100%!”
😉
How’s that for sensationalism?
Actually the lack of real freeware apps on the Mac is one thing I really don’t enjoy about it, compared to linux (and yes I use both). Mac develepors seem much more inclined to make their stuff as either commercial, demos for commercial, or shareware. And no, shareware does not count as free…
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx to see how wrong you are
Commercial dont count in the context discussed by Anonymous (IP: 67.21.72.—), Shareware is not the same thing as freeware and freeware is not the same thing as free software.
There is probably more so called software for Apple , they just dont come from or with Apple. They also tend to be lite or incomplete version with very few features.
You just dont discuss what he is talking about. if you did :
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/fink.html
would have been your answer.
No real Mac user is interested in console-based software, or software that has to work under X11, doesn’t integrate, feel, or look the same as other OS X software.
Also, no real Mac user really cares about whether his software is really “Free”, shareware, or just freeware with a BSD/MIT/whatever license. People use certain software because they want to get a task done with minimum hassle, not because it fits a silly ideology that some Free-software nuts have tried shoving down everyone’s throats.
Free as in cost, my friend.
See the start of the URL I gave ” APPLE.COM ” , cant be more real mac then that , its not because you see a screenshot that its going to give you any insight on what FINK is , its a *project* that make Open Source package tailored to work specifically . integrate , feel and use the look of MAC OS X.
Your not answering a real MAC user according to your futile categorization of what a rela mac user is , your answering someone who claim that there aint that much free software on MAC OS X hence why he is not using it, the URL you gave just show him as right.
“People use certain software because they want to get a task done with minimum hassle”
They use certain software because thats what they know or whats availaible.
“not because it fits a silly ideology that some Free-software nuts have tried shoving down everyone’s throats. ”
silly ideology die on there own , there is no need to oppose it , to fear it , to rant about it , its silly … Wich tend to proove that you dont know the meaning of the word you use and add to that the fact that you dont know or understand the subject you discuss at all.
GNU/Linux is not forced on anyone , People use it because it work for them and they make it run on other architecture to learn and because there able to do it and its also legal to do so.
There is nothing free as in cost made by Apple , what you use you paid for it if it came from Apple.
I aint your friend.
GNU/Linux is not forced on anyone? Hah. As if. Look at yourself.
You obviously don’t know what Fink is, though you’ve provided the link to it yourself. Fink is a package manager for a lot of open-source software for OS X. Think ports from FreeBSD, or portage from Gentoo. It doesn’t modify the software to feel/look/behave like native OS X software. That which runs under X11 will still run under X11, and still look/feel/behave like ass.
http://packages.debian.org/stable/allpackages to see how wrong you are 🙂
Yeah, I use a real operating system on my iBook though …
Oh here we go again: If I were to cut into my private life spending hundreds of hours developing an app that the world would find useless, I am still not allowed to charge money for it? This classic belief seals Linux’ fate that it’s going to remain a platform served mainly by fat ugly geeks who are in uni, dateless, and living with their parents and have plenty of time on their hands to fiddle making ‘cool open-source tech demos’ and nothing particularly relevant or useful for the masses as they have zero business acumen!
Linux’ fate that it’s going to remain a platform served mainly by fat ugly geeks who are in uni, dateless, and living with their parents and have plenty of time on their hands to fiddle making ‘cool open-source tech demos’ and nothing particularly relevant or useful for the masses as they have zero business acumen!
Classic. Absolutely classic. A wonderful mixture of ignorance, invective, prejudice and snobbery. Why not accuse them of shopping at Walmart while you are at it? And of eating TV dinners? And of driving Chevys? Or not liking quiche? Or drinking instant coffee instead of latte? Or living in Nebraska?
Anything irrelevant and (at least in the author’s very odd world view) denigratory, will evidently do.
Even though you may not, Apple is feeling the pressure from linux. Same goes for windows.
Sorry to tell you this but linux is a viable desktop platform.
Yeah, and I’m Mickey Mouse.
How do you know Apple is feeling the pressure? Did Steve Jobs call you and tell you “We fearz0r teh Lunix!”? Come on. Linux doesn’t work for the average user, no matter how many stories Linux enthusiasts invent about switching their grandma over to it.
Your grandma uses e-mail and looks at knitting web sites. That’s it. Mac users does a whole hell of a lot more.
Hi Mickey Mouse.
Ahhh your coming off as one of those mac nut cases now that think everything about a mac is special.
Another attempt to mindlessly differentiate the mac crowd by saying that people who use macs do a hell of a lot more. Nice to know that mac users are beings sent from the computer gods to do who knows what with their special computer hardware made by the same manufacturers that are constructed from circuitry from the heaven’s.
If its anything i hate about the mac community, its their pompousity. Mac users are not special and if granny got a mac, and used it for email and looking and knitting web sites….. she is still a mac user.
Apple has recognized linux as a competetitor. The article says that. It has recognized that linux is growing, getting better, and is getting somewhere. A company that doesn’t fear its competetiors is a company that doesnt exsist. Apple sees linux trickling into it’s domain. The company may not shift its entire infostructure, or even be more innovative to work harder, but it does recognize what linux is doing and it will be in the back of their minds.
And yes steve jobs did tell me that personally, in much the same way that every mac user told you that they do “a whole hell of a lot more”.
The day that Linux is as good looking, stable, supported, easy-to-use, and headache-free that OS X is, is the same day that I will post a public apology on every single Linux forum that I have trolled.
So you pretty much never.
I’m assuming that you have trolled your fair share of forums.
Yeah, every now and then. 🙂 I’ve been thinking about joining the GNAA, because Slashdot is a festering pool of shit.
Sure, it makes sense that someone like you wouldn’t like slashdot. You can’t really troll there like you do here. Given that it has such a large amount of members, the insightful and witty comments tend to get modded up fairly quickly, while the trolls such as yourself get modded down almost instantaneously.
Not really. They just keep an eye on it, wisely.
And Linux is, indeed, viable. Not yet practical for most people, I’d say.
What little freeware Mac apps? Every “little” Mac app I come across costs $9 – $20, and it’s usually to add the ability to configure some option that’s already configurable on any standard Linux desktop.
Then you obviously aren’t looking hard enough. Right off the bat I can name the following OS X apps that I couldn’t live without: Adium, VLC, Colloquy, Azureus, Limewire, iStumbler, Pref Setter, Monolingual, TinkerTool, Smultron …
PS: Who wants to bet money that Moullineuf will investigate the licenses behind each one of those and go on a frothing rant about how some of them aren’t truly Free? 😉
vlc, azureus, and limewire all run on quite a few other platforms… adium is IMO crap, i’ve never heard of colloquy, istumbler, monolingual, and smultron, and i bet pref setter and tinkertool would be completely irrelevant on a non-mac platform…
What’s your point? I named some free software that many Mac users rely on to disprove the fact that there is no useful free software on the Mac platform.
Whether or not you like it is irrelevant.
I really love the mac plateform. My house is even PC to Mac numbers, but find myself on the Mac more.
I write this on my Fedora Core 3 Laptop. The benefit of Linux is that I have good, quality apps (like Mozilla, Open Offic, xmms, xine, Helix, etc) but without the security concerns.
No viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, etc. I know what’s running on my computer anytime with top or ps, and when I have a “weird” problem I want to solve, I can write a simple, powerful script to do whatever I want in perl/php/bash/python.
Mac has most of these advantages, but doesn’t have the open platform. Also, I can reboot my FC3 laptop in XP when I want to play games, such as GTA3, WoW, Sims2, etc. without any major fuss or hassle.
I run Linux 95% of the time, and Windows for games. From time to time, I’ve been known to click on a known virus just to watch it not have any effect, and updates are hassle-free! (`yum -y update` run nightly via crontab)
I’ve thought about a Mac, and maybe I’ll get one for my wife, but I’m just happy, and been so since around the year 2000, with Red Hat Linux.
Apple hasn’t exactly been hospitable to developers for the Mac. There are only 2 apps that Apple hasn’t replaced yet and that’s Office and Photoshop (Aperture is close). They have all the iApps, Safari, etc. If they were in Microsoft’s position right now they’d be in court for a monopoly/anti-trust hearings. They kicked MusicMatch and Audion off the platform back in 02 because of the iTunes popularity. Microsoft won’t provide an update to WMP 9 for Mac and provide the DRM necessary for media content, probably because Mac users hated WMP 9 and just about everything MS has created, except Office for Mac. Plus, iTunes now provides everything, so it isn’t worth it. Hardly anyone can make drivers for the platform because Apple continuously modifies the stacks with every 10.x release.
Apple hasn’t exactly been hospitable to developers for the Mac. There are only 2 apps that Apple hasn’t replaced yet and that’s Office and Photoshop (Aperture is close). They have all the iApps, Safari, etc. If they were in Microsoft’s position right now they’d be in court for a monopoly/anti-trust hearings.
However, according to Mac enthusiasts, since you can apparently uninstall Safari and the iApps, then it becomes ok to kill off competition by bundling products with your OS. In other words, if you could *really* uninstall Internet Explorer and WMP in Windows, then nobody would apparently have a problem with Microsoft’s bundling (except for Real and their ilk, who would rather bitch and whine to the government about what Microsoft is/is not doing, instead of concentrating on making a decent product that people would actually want to use.)
Edited 2005-12-10 19:02
Well, the major trouble with Windows is the fact that you cannot uninstall IE, WMP and so on. You can hide them to some extent, but you cannot uninstall them. That’s the major problem seen from user point.
Personally MS could bundle whatever they want, as long as I can uninstall it if I want to.
There is however a court ruling from 1994 (I think, or 1993) where Microsoft promises not to bundle applications with Windows. This is ridicolous in my mind but is likely to be (ab)used by commercial non-opensource competitors.
Well, the major trouble with Windows is the fact that you cannot uninstall IE, WMP and so on.
Right… That explains the huge success of Windows XP N.
Well, that was completely unrelated to my post, but the fact XP N has failed is because people don’t know about it.
Just like many people today believes WMP is the only player for Windows and have forgotten that WinAMP exists (the latter being the better player).
My post was about how people would react to MS bundling software and had nothing to do with virtually unknown versions of XP.
Well, FCP is WAAAY better than e.g. Adobe Prmeiere. That’s probably why premiere is defunct.
I think “iPhotoshop” would be a hell of a product.
The Audion developers simply gave up and moved on to what they were strong in (and have my money for FTP, by the way.) Don’t know about MusicMatch, but Apple didn’t tell them to leave.
Mac users wouldn’t hate WMP so much if it wasn’t such an obvious afterthought on the part of Microsoft. Our viewing preferences are dictated as much by the content providers as anybody else’s are, so support for Windows Media 10 would be a great boon. However, MS’s philosophy is they’d rather you use Windows for all your Windows Media needs, anyway; giving away a quality product for free on another platform just isn’t in their philosophy.
Hello dickhead – Microsoft FAILS to update their software because their software is of such POOR quality – their Microsoft MSN Messanger had a memory leak which you could fly a 747 through – leave the damn thing overnight and watch the memory usage rocket up; solution? people choose either AdiumX or Fire.app.
Windows Media Player? again, bloated, slow, frame dropping POS – and the alternative? Videolan, and 8.4MB download and is the swiss army of video players, again, so where is Apple ‘taking market share’ – it seems that the OSS world is doing most of the damage.
As for MusicMatch and Audion, they CHOSE to leave the platform; the simple fact of the matter they CHOSE to leave because they COULDN’T compete with iTunes, because iTunes was a superior product – for them, what is easier, fix up a product so that it is of a decent quality OR simply leave the space and pander to the Windows users who are used to crap quality programs?
As for drivers, bullshit; there is a logical reason for this, but hey, as a goose steping anti-Mac lemming, you know jack about the situation, and why it took Apple a while to introduce KPI’s to MacOS X.
As for anti-trust, you don’t have a damn clue about anti-competitive legislation, so may I suggest that you just back on your little scooter and bugger off back home to your über tweaker Windows XP machine that is chocked to the brim full of activeX spyware, tweakware, fanware and ever other ware that exists on the Windows platform.
By the way people, here [1] is a direct link to the 10-K filing at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Do a search on that page for “third-party software developers.” There’s the meat.
[1] http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000110465905058421/a0…
Good to know you’ve met most of them then
.
By using a Unix base point, Apple is well positioned to minimize any harm by developers moving from Mac to Linux as the App can be made to run on the Mac desktop anyways.
Yes, the experience might not be as good , but Apple will never lose a “killer app” completely. And, Apple has the resources to integrate the Linux apps better if they need to.
I’ve thought this for a long time, and still do. Apple will be making money for a long time yet.
I really don’t believe Apple and Linux are competing for the same market, the Linux market is more geared towards servers, appliances, and fixed use coorporate desktops (I know they go for the home desktop as well but this is not a revenue generating endeavor, hence proprietary software manufacturers would not jump on board for this). Apple is geared towards the creative crowd that dosen’t care about anything except that the os works.
Don’t get me wrong, if Adobe started offering its products for Linux, Apple would likely feel the pinch, however I don’t think this is going to happen any time soon (maybe when the Linux desktop is elegant enough for graphic designers and videographers to look at out of the box).
The creative crowd is hardest to please. It is easy to make an os functional, not nearly as easy to make it elegant.
Hmm… Adobe is already offering some products on linux and the rest is on the way.
When it comes to graphic designers and videographers this is one of the areas where Linux actually is strongest. So that sentence you came with doesn’t make sense at all. Sounds like you haven’t seen a recent linux desktop
Personally I don’t think Apple will suffer from switching to Intel, nor do I think it will harm Linux. It will most likely harm Windows no doubt. There are no desktop ready OS’es yet, but OS X is definitely the one who are most close to that target, so it must somehow make a dent in windows user base. Unless the price gets way too high.
About adobe, I found it interesting that just a short while ago I received a survey from Redhat in conjunction with Adobe asking me all sorts of questions about what use I’d have for Adobe products ported over to linux, and how much I’d be willing to pay for them.
Sounds to me like there’s some testing the water going on there on someone’s end.
When it comes to graphic designers and videographers this is one of the areas where Linux actually is strongest.
Riiight… And the strongest area for Mac OS X is the server market. Are you in twilight zone or something?
Mac OS X as server? Yeah right. Right now Mac OS X is a joke considered as a Server OS, while Darwin it self actually works pretty well as a server.
I never said Linux was stronger than Mac OS X in regard to graphic designers and videographers, but that it was one of the areas where linux was strongest.
Linux has a much stronger base amongst graphic designers and videographers, than it has among Joe Average and his friends. That’s what I meant with my comment. And not your obviously flawed interpretion.
>When it comes to graphic designers and videographers >this is one of the areas where Linux actually is >strongest.
Oh man. What a great laugh! Thanks.
BTW, substitute “server” with video and graphic designers above and then go get a clue. LOL.
A little clarification here. Linux dominates the film industry. Apple and Adobe are by far the more popular choice in the printing and audio/video editing crowd.
Don’t get me wrong, if Adobe started offering its products for Linux, Apple would likely feel the pinch, however I don’t think this is going to happen any time soon (maybe when the Linux desktop is elegant enough for graphic designers and videographers to look at out of the box).
Which wouldn’t happen even if Adobe provided it; graphic development dosn’t occur in a vacuum, and if the hardware they use as part of the job can’t interact with Linux, then the whole point of having Adobe running on Linux will be pretty much moot.
Right now, Linux is an ugly POS and same goes for Solaris in regards to desktop/workstation – there isn’t the userfriendliness there as to allow an user to plug in and it ‘just works'(tm) out of the box; the fact that there is no nice easy to use installation routines that don’t turn into a ‘find the dependency’ which is more remonicent of ‘find the fish’ the fact that the dependency doesn’t exist because the application you use relies on an OSS component that stopped being maintained 2 months after the product you purchased, was released.
Which wouldn’t happen even if Adobe provided it; graphic development dosn’t occur in a vacuum, and if the hardware they use as part of the job can’t interact with Linux, then the whole point of having Adobe running on Linux will be pretty much moot.
It could happen and it could be Adobe providing it. Adobe is notable as being one of the major software vendors participating in the LSB Desktop project. They’ve experimented with linux before, and have even used Qt as one of their development frameworks.
Sure, there’s some specialized hardware and applications that DTP and graphics designers use, but some of the more general ones like scanners, tablets and color printers are supported. Most people using things like Photoshop are simply producing graphics work that is sent off to professional shops anyways. The bar isn’t that high for these people.
It’s sort of like when the Apple crowd used to make fun of Windows because they only had Corel. When Adobe started focusing on Windows, that was dismissed because nobody would use Windows for graphics work. Right. Adobe on Windows didn’t displace Apple in the print shops or high-end publishing/graphics world, but it certainly did in quite a number of corporate marketing departments. Enough that Windows users became their largest user base. That’s the sort of thing that desktop linux is focusing on.
Though in fairness, any gains linux would make with Adobe would probably come at Microsoft’s expense, but then that wasn’t the point of your argument. You were simply saying Adobe on linux would be moot.
Right now, Linux is an ugly POS and same goes for Solaris in regards to desktop/workstation – there isn’t the userfriendliness there as to allow an user to plug in and it ‘just works'(tm) out of the box; the fact that there is no nice easy to use installation routines that don’t turn into a ‘find the dependency’ which is more remonicent of ‘find the fish’ the fact that the dependency doesn’t exist because the application you use relies on an OSS component that stopped being maintained 2 months after the product you purchased, was released.
Ah, yes, the typical FUD. Linux is ugly. Linux is complicated. Linux doesn’t support hardware.
Calling it an ugly POS is both narrow-minded and elitist, that’s the same attitude that allowed Windows to blow right by Apple in a market they arguable created and owned. GUI’s don’t matter, I won’t even bother discussing how customizable both Gnome and KDE are, because it’s purely subjective anyways and has no place in a rational discussion. If it was all about the GUI, Apple would not only likely own the market, they would never have lost it in the first place.
The dependency hell issue is mostly brought up by people that haven’t taken the time to learn how to use their distro properly. The LSB ensures a standard set of libraries are installed.
Mozilla, Macromedia, Sun, Adobe, Opera and Skype, among many others, all release linux applications that can be downloaded and installed with little fuss or muss on any standard distro. It’s not as painful as many people want it to be.
You can always find examples of where linux will be weak or unstable; it doesn’t support this, it doesn’t support that. But the same holds true for Windows, despite it’s established base people still have problems with applications or hardware support. And OS X users are not without their own issues either, application problems, hardware problems, instability, crashing.
It’s pointless to criticize a platform for what it can’t do, every platform has it’s faults and weaknesses, and most people are more concerned with what it can do instead. A properly developed linux distribution running on supported hardware using standard supported applications is just as stable and usable as an equivalent XP or OS X desktop.
The issues and complaints mainly arise from people using experimental / less-supported distros, unsupported hardware, incompatible third-party apps etc. Sure this is an issue, but it’s also a WIP, linux support is growing by leaps and bounds thanks both to the community and to the ever increasing number of vendors beginning to take a very serious look at it.
Rather than criticize linux, I would consider it a major feat that it has achieved the level of functionality, compatibility and support that it has. Apple has the tightest control over their platform specifically to ensure that ultimate “Apple experience”, and even they can’t produce an issue-free platform, so in light of that I’d say linux is pretty phenomenal for what it can do and how it can do it and in the number of ways it can do it.
It could happen and it could be Adobe providing it. Adobe is notable as being one of the major software vendors participating in the LSB Desktop project. They’ve experimented with linux before, and have even used Qt as one of their development frameworks.
Yeah, kinda like Framemaker, and the fact that they almost got it out the door then pulled back – they’ve been doing that for years, so don’t make me laugh in thinking that Adobe gives a tinkers cuss about Linux – they’re like IBM, willing to give it lip service to get a better deal with Microsoft, just like HP.
You think that IBM would hang around Linux if Microsoft suddenly offered them OEM copies of Windows 2003 at $1 per licence? heck no, they’d would suddenly become the worlds biggest fan boy, just as if Adobe were offered incentives, I doubt they would consider moving to Linux (Making their products available on Linux).
Sure, there’s some specialized hardware and applications that DTP and graphics designers use, but some of the more general ones like scanners, tablets and color printers are supported. Most people using things like Photoshop are simply producing graphics work that is sent off to professional shops anyways. The bar isn’t that high for these people.
Which are not fully supported; so what if a printer can print, it doesn’t change the fact that the colour correction is up the shitter, the fact that the colour mixing isn’t correct, the fact that it can only print to a certain resolution – please, Linux is great on the server, but lets not be as optimistic in thinking it is the panacea to the Windows woes.
It’s sort of like when the Apple crowd used to make fun of Windows because they only had Corel. When Adobe started focusing on Windows, that was dismissed because nobody would use Windows for graphics work. Right. Adobe on Windows didn’t displace Apple in the print shops or high-end publishing/graphics world, but it certainly did in quite a number of corporate marketing departments. Enough that Windows users became their largest user base. That’s the sort of thing that desktop linux is focusing on.
Where is this ‘mass movement to Linux”? come on babe, tell me? where are all these HUGE companies and HUGE software houses saying, “well, Linux it he future, I better get my desktop software over to it!” – it isn’t happening – that is the reality.
Though in fairness, any gains linux would make with Adobe would probably come at Microsoft’s expense, but then that wasn’t the point of your argument. You were simply saying Adobe on linux would be moot.
I said it woudl be moot because it isn’t the panacea to getting Linux on the desktop – linux and unix in general need ALOT of work, and I’m sorry, summits, orgies, wiki’s and so forth aren’t goign to do it; sitting down and mapping out a complete operating system from Kernel to GUI is the only way it can be done, but no one in the UNIX or OSS world is willing to make it happen.
Mozilla, Macromedia, Sun, Adobe, Opera and Skype, among many others, all release linux applications that can be downloaded and installed with little fuss or muss on any standard distro. It’s not as painful as many people want it to be.
HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! where are they? can I purchase Adobe Photoshop? how about Macromedia Shockwave?
[slaps head] oh, THATS right, when Linux fanboys talk about applications, they talk about freeware plugins and useless addons, silly me, I’m an idiot Mac user who actually wants to use his computer for more than just surfing the net.
The dependency hell issue is mostly brought up by people that haven’t taken the time to learn how to use their distro properly. The LSB ensures a standard set of libraries are installed.
Bullshit, the only distro that comes to close to decent depency resolving is Debian, and even then, its based on the assumption that you’re first connected to the internet, and secondly that you know how to use apt-get and so forth – which Joe End User doesn’t and shouldn’t need to use; it should just work(tm)
Ah, yes, the typical FUD. Linux is ugly. Linux is complicated. Linux doesn’t support hardware.
Calling it an ugly POS is both narrow-minded and elitist, that’s the same attitude that allowed Windows to blow right by Apple in a market they arguable created and owned. GUI’s don’t matter, I won’t even bother discussing how customizable both Gnome and KDE are, because it’s purely subjective anyways and has no place in a rational discussion. If it was all about the GUI, Apple would not only likely own the market, they would never have lost it in the first place.
Come back when I can plugin an iPod to a linux box and it syncs up all nicely. Tell me when when I can hook up a camera to a linux box and something as easy to use as iPhoto arrives on Linux. Tell me when Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, AdiumX, Macromedia Stuid 8, Filemaker, Roxio Toast, Stuffit, and numerous other titles come to the Linux platform.
Until those EXACT applications arrive, I don’t want to hear a bloody thing from you; I use my computer to get things done, not to tweak and dick around with things; my life is way to short trying to debug the half assed attempts by OSS programmers, and I’m sure that is the case for most end users.
they’re like IBM, willing to give it lip service to get a better deal with Microsoft, just like HP.
IBM has invested over a billion dollars in Linux. That’s not lip service, any way you cut it. IBM programmers are working on many aspects of Linux, from GCC to GNOME. HP made more than $2.5bn from their Linux products and services last year, and IBM made more than $2bn. These aren’t lip service products.
You think that IBM would hang around Linux if Microsoft suddenly offered them OEM copies of Windows 2003 at $1 per licence? heck no, they’d would suddenly become the worlds biggest fan boy
Check IBM’s product lineup. You won’t find Windows on anything but the low-end x86 servers. All of the mid-range and high-end stuff (the POWER-based machines) are AIX, Linux, or a custom OS (like i5/OS). You think IBM would ditch their high-end Linux machines so they can take $50 of the price of low-end servers? Remember, IBM doesn’t have a home PC division, cheap Windows licenses are relatively useless to them.
Which are not fully supported; so what if a printer can print, it doesn’t change the fact that the colour correction is up the shitter, the fact that the colour mixing isn’t correct, the fact that it can only print to a certain resolution
There are Linux systems that will print as well as a Windows one. It might not work on your random hardware, but if you’re a professional, you’ll buy the hardware to match the software, not the other way around.
Where is this ‘mass movement to Linux”? come on babe, tell me? where are all these HUGE companies and HUGE software houses saying, “well, Linux it he future, I better get my desktop software over to it!” – it isn’t happening – that is the reality.
It is the reality in your ignorant little world. If you’re a 3D artist, you can take your pick of Houdini, SoftImage XSI, Maya, Pixar’s RenderMan, or a number of other tools. If you do video compositing, you can get Apple’s Shake for Linux.
In the movie industry: Dreamworks uses Linux, Disney uses Linux, ILM uses Linux, Weta uses Linux, (all on the desktop and on the server) and Pixar used Linux on the desktop until Jobs moved them to OS X (though they still use Linux on the server).
In the engineering/scientific computing market you have: Matlab, Mathematica, Pro/Engineer, UniGraphics, ABAQUS, most of ANSYS’s stuff, NASTRAN, Fluent’s CFD stuff, and literally a boatload of more specialized programs. And of course, most of your custom scientific codes are a recompile away on Linux. Hell, it’s easier to just name the important stuff that doesn’t run on Linux: CATIA, though there are constant rumors of Dessault having a Linux version hidden away.
EDIT: The above list is not a definitive one by any means! Most of these programs are just ones I’ve heard of in the aerospace market. There are similar lists of programs for other engineering fields. There are many EDA tools for Linux, for example. I’m not qualified to list which ones are major and which aren’t, so I won’t.
Actually, the interesting thing is, the more you spend on the software, the more likely there is to be a Linux version. If you work in an industry where your software package costs as much as your car, there is a very good chance that there is a Linux version of what you need. What’s missing are lower-cost, higher-volume stuff: Photoshop, AutoCAD, 3D Studio MAX, Lightwave, etc.
In the context of the above, your several paragraphs of ranting seems kind of silly, so I won’t bother replying to it.
Edited 2005-12-11 08:46
So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system, and that I should go off and simply put up with the fact that none of my much required applications will never exist on Linux.
Sorry, thats plain stupid, and thank god shareholders don’t allow IT types within a 100 metre radius of decision making – computers are about making end users lives easier, and it doens’t matter a tinkers cuss as to whether a 20,000 dollar application is available on Linux, it isn’t going to fix the fact that suzy homemaker can’t copy her photos from her digital camera to a nicely laid out photo application – that is the situation.
But hey, like you classified he, I’m a ranting idiot who doesn’t have a clue; I a complete f*ckwitt who would be better of knocking himself off and releiving the world of the heavy burden of having me existing!
Kaiwai,
Re: “So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system, and that I should go off and simply put up with the fact that none of my much required applications will never exist on Linux.
Sorry, thats plain stupid, and thank god shareholders don’t allow IT types within a 100 metre radius of decision making – computers are about making end users lives easier, and it doens’t matter a tinkers cuss as to whether a 20,000 dollar application is available on Linux, it isn’t going to fix the fact that suzy homemaker can’t copy her photos from her digital camera to a nicely laid out photo application – that is the situation.
But hey, like you classified he, I’m a ranting idiot who doesn’t have a clue; I a complete f*ckwitt who would be better of knocking himself off and releiving the world of the heavy burden of having me existing!”
What Rayiner, was doing was clarifying for yourself and others that there are software alternatives for those considering switching to Linux whether for private or enterprise. He actually did a very good job at explaining the various markets that can be successful switching to Linux. As for your comments about digital photos and syncing an iPod it’s a clear indication that you’re either ignorant when it comes to current Linux distributions and software or just attempting to spread FUD.
As for your comment about shareholders not allowing IT personelle to make business decisions I think you also lack knowledge regarding business practices. After all shareholders typically are not in board meetings and the CEO or director usually makes the financial decisions. If the business is smart they will seek information from IT personelle regarding software/hardware changes for the business as this will likely help the business succeed. As for making end users lives easier this is what IT personelle do as the employee is not installing software, the Administrator and IT personelle are. Having spoken with several IT Administrators I have been told they are surprized how well Linux distributions like SUSE Linux have progressed both on the server and desktop. There is little if any need to use the terminal to execute commands as most things are now accessible in user friendly GUI tools with straight forward instructions.
I don’t really have anything to say about your last paragraph except that it seems to be a reflection of yourself, your knowledge or lack there of.
What Rayiner, was doing was clarifying for yourself and others that there are software alternatives for those considering switching to Linux whether for private or enterprise. He actually did a very good job at explaining the various markets that can be successful switching to Linux. As for your comments about digital photos and syncing an iPod it’s a clear indication that you’re either ignorant when it comes to current Linux distributions and software or just attempting to spread FUD.
And it is pretty obvious that you’ve never ran your own business and actually consulted with end users; for these end users, their computer is a piece of equipment that is suppose to make themselves more efficient with the limited amount of time they have at their desposal each day.
It isn’t about megabytes, gighertz, and so forth, its about setting up a computer as to allow them to complete with their work in the most efficient way possible – and I’m sorry, although I can do everything I want on a UNIX system, it isn’t going to change the fact that Mary the secretary interests aren’t on relearning skills, but getting her work done for her boss, as quickly and accurately as possible.
I’m sorry, if I went into one of my clients businesses and said, “lets throw all your Windows based software out the window, along with your skills, and retrain you to use Linux!” there would be a collective glance in my direction followed by a jocular laugh by all who heard – that wouldn’t a decision based on a business case, that would be simple a knee jerk zealot reaction to the existance of Windows on the desktop.
Like I said in reply to another person here, it may suit YOU but for the vast majority of end users, it isn’t a solution; when applications become available that are required, from the software vendors they purchase their software off, then sure, maybe they’ll move, but until the software becomes available, the businesses will be for ever more wedded to their Windows machines.
Edited 2005-12-11 23:29
And it is pretty obvious that you’ve never ran your own business and actually consulted with end users;
Do you want to know what’s blindingly obvious? You are completely bonkers and need help. Seek it out before it’s too late. You are just flaling around using “arguments” that proves nothing or are downright bogus.
for these end users, their computer is a piece of equipment that is suppose to make themselves more efficient with the limited amount of time they have at their desposal each day.
right, but you forgot, “at the lowest cost”. Mac doesn’t fit in there, and Windows sure as hell doesn’t after the virus, spyware and maintainence costs have been factored in.
It isn’t about megabytes, gighertz, and so forth,
Who claimed it was? Totally a red herring.
its about setting up a computer as to allow them to complete with their work in the most efficient way possible – and I’m sorry, although I can do everything I want on a UNIX system, it isn’t going to change the fact that Mary the secretary interests aren’t on relearning skills, but getting her work done for her boss, as quickly and accurately as possible.
Are you claiming Mary the Secretary can’t do mail from a linux box? Would she be so incompetent that she couldn’t fire off a mail from kmail? Or write some letter in OpenOffice? You are seriously underestimating Mary. You are also completely forgetting what this article is about. It’s *not* about how things are today, but potential threats that apple management sees in the *future*.
I’m sorry, if I went into one of my clients businesses and said, “lets throw all your Windows based software out the window, along with your skills, and retrain you to use Linux!”
First of all. If a company saw that it would be worth it, that’s exactly what would happen. Secondly, nobody claimed that’s how it would be, except maybe some overheated people that dreamed up “the year of the linux desktop”. Thirdly, as I said above, you are seriously underestimating the “peons” (using your contempteous perspective). The transition from Windows to a linux desktop isn’t nearly as painful as you try to make it seem, and probably not harder that switching from one version of Windows to another. Or are you saying that a Windows user would be more confused by switching to a KDE or Gnome desktop than they were from going from win3.11 to win95 or from 2000 to XP(with the lunatic theme)?
Like I said in reply to another person here, it may suit YOU but for the vast majority of end users, it isn’t a solution;
True zealotry speaking. Tell me what *does* ordinary users need besides wordprocessing, webbrowsing, printing, email and plug and play with their digital cameras? I don’t know any *ordinary* users that do much more than that on their computers, and if you think an ordinary user can’t manage those tasks on a modern linux distribution you are raving mad. At worst it’s no harder than it is in windows.
when applications become available that are required, from the software vendors they purchase their software off,
lalala, what magical software are we speaking of, for ordinary users? Games? It will come eventually, and is indeed already available to a greater extent than people realize.
then sure, maybe they’ll move, but until the software becomes available, the businesses will be for ever more wedded to their Windows machines.
Businesses will probably be the first to move on, geeks and friends of geeks not counted, for security reasons, as well as not being tied to consumer applications that are not likely to be ported any time soon. It has to some extent already begun in schools and public institutions.
Do you see that light in the end of the tunnel? It’s a slow-moving freight train, and it’s headed for you. If I were you, I’d start running.
So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system,
No, he’s saying that just because you can’t figure out how to make an ipod work with linux doesn’t mean the vast majority can’t. I suppose that if I went onto a random Apple forum I would be unable to find any posts from users that ran into issues with iPods and iTunes in OS X? It just works perfectly for everyone, nobody ever has a problem? ‘Cause if that’s not the case, we better write off OS X as being a viable platform, using your discerning criteria.
and that I should go off and simply put up with the fact that none of my much required applications will never exist on Linux.
Linux doesn’t work for you, everybody gets that by now and nobody really cares. The fact that you personally can’t get your applications for linux is irrelevant to the big picture. Who’s forcing you to switch?
Sorry, thats plain stupid, and thank god shareholders don’t allow IT types within a 100 metre radius of decision making – computers are about making end users lives easier, and it doens’t matter a tinkers cuss as to whether a 20,000 dollar application is available on Linux,
Which shows just how ignorant you and most of the other Mac-zealots are of how business decisions are made. IT decisions are made based on business requirements for the company, not making people’s lives easier.
IT decisions are not made in a vaccuum, and zealous extermist opinions such as yours don’t last in those environments. They’re derived from business cases. A decision to migrate from Microsoft would inevitably cause pain, inconvenience and new training-requirements for any company doing so, but if it’s being done then the decision was made on the long term return on such a strategy. This is where Apple’s weakness is as a business destkop, a migration to Apple from Microsoft would require forklifting platforms to a vendor with even deeper lockin than Microsoft. Ain’t gonna happen. Doesn’t matter how many of your favorite apps run on OSX, businesses don’t care. Maybe you do, but businesses don’t.
If a company decides they’re going to move from Windows, or Office or Exchange to alternative, it doesn’t matter a rat’s ass to them that the employees might be inconvenienced, as long as the business can continue to function.
And sure, if a business can’t continue to function by migrating platforms or applications, then that business would not be migrating. Nor would anyone fairly expect them to.
it isn’t going to fix the fact that suzy homemaker can’t copy her photos from her digital camera to a nicely laid out photo application – that is the situation.
I don’t know why you have such a difficult time with the simplest things. I plug my Canon cam into my laptop’s USB port, it’s immediately recognized and Digikam pops up to download and organize my photos. Digikam is a very good photo manager, BTW. Nothing fancy to install, no wrestling with third-party apps or drivers, it was all supported OTB. If you’re really having difficulty with it, call up suzy homemaker and she’ll be able to step you through it, it’s just that simple.
But hey, like you classified he, I’m a ranting idiot who doesn’t have a clue; I a complete f*ckwitt
Well, if the shoe fits…
who would be better of knocking himself off and releiving the world of the heavy burden of having me existing!
Dude, life’s too short to get your shorts tied in a knot when people don’t share your heavily-biased opinions. Have you considered a vacation, peeling yourself away from your Mac and maybe unwinding a little…?
No, he’s saying that just because you can’t figure out how to make an ipod work with linux doesn’t mean the vast majority can’t. I suppose that if I went onto a random Apple forum I would be unable to find any posts from users that ran into issues with iPods and iTunes in OS X? It just works perfectly for everyone, nobody ever has a problem? ‘Cause if that’s not the case, we better write off OS X as being a viable platform, using your discerning criteria.
That simply isn’t the case; I know how to setup an iPod with Linux, same with Solaris and FreeBSD – that isn’t the issue; what I am simply saying is that for the average user, it isn’t up to the task; thats not to say that somehow MacOS X or Windows beat it by a long shot, because they have flaws too – its the simple fact that they get alot of the small things right.
As the saying goings in the IT field, it isn’t the large expenive problems that cause grief, but the small little things that when added up, really annoy the users.
Linux doesn’t work for you, everybody gets that by now and nobody really cares. The fact that you personally can’t get your applications for linux is irrelevant to the big picture. Who’s forcing you to switch?
I’m not saying that it isn’t ready, I’m simply laying out a case that for the vast majority of cases, linux isn’t ready; for a home user, it isn’t ready, for a first time computer user, it isn’t ready, for a graphic artist who relies on a complex combination of software and hardware, it isn’t ready.
NOW that isn’t to say that it isn’t ready for say, my mum, who currently runs Slackware on her IBM A51 desktop (and old AMD based machine) – its all setup and ready to work out of the box with KDE – she loves it, it boots directly into the desktop and she can do everything that she wants on it – couple that with OpenOffice.org and she’s a happy camper.
So yes, there are instances where Linux can work as a desktop, just as one could setup FreeBSD as a desktop solution or infact, any operating system for that fact. Its about assessing the users requirements and using the best tool for the job – and in the above instance, it was Linux.
Which shows just how ignorant you and most of the other Mac-zealots are of how business decisions are made. IT decisions are made based on business requirements for the company, not making people’s lives easier.
You obvious have had no role in software and hardware procurement; the goal of IT procurement is just like any other capital expediture, to make the employees more efficient, thus increase productivity, and lower costs.
And thus it goes right back to my comment about the $20,000 application, great, for a small niche, that $20,000 is great, by for the vast majority of desk jockeys, its not going to change the current dearth of applications on Linux – and to a lesser extent for MacOS X.
Ultimately, it is the applications that choose the platform; people make decisions on which platform to use based on the applications they require to do a job, if the required applications aren’t on a particular platform, they ultimately have to go with the one that does, and 9/10, it’ll be Windows.
‘m not saying that it isn’t ready, I’m simply laying out a case that for the vast majority of cases, linux isn’t ready; for a home user, it isn’t ready, for a first time computer user, it isn’t ready, for a graphic artist who relies on a complex combination of software and hardware, it isn’t ready.
NOW that isn’t to say that it isn’t ready for say, my mum, who currently runs Slackware on her IBM A51 desktop (and old AMD based machine) – its all setup and ready to work out of the box with KDE – she loves it, it boots directly into the desktop and she can do everything that she wants on it – couple that with OpenOffice.org and she’s a happy camper.
So yes, there are instances where Linux can work as a desktop, just as one could setup FreeBSD as a desktop solution or infact, any operating system for that fact. Its about assessing the users requirements and using the best tool for the job – and in the above instance, it was Linux.
Ok, I’ll agree with all of those points. Frankly I don’t feel linux is there yet for home users either, but my opinion is that properly configured and deployed, it’s perfectly usable for the average business worker as long as the applications are there.
You obvious have had no role in software and hardware procurement; the goal of IT procurement is just like any other capital expediture, to make the employees more efficient, thus increase productivity, and lower costs.
Actually, I’ve been involved in IT channel sales for several years now and have been involved in evaluation, procurement and deployment processes many times over.
I agree with your point, but the only thing I would differ on is what makes employees more efficient from a business point of view. Ease-of-use isn’t always the factor, and training/development costs play into any sort of business decision. My own company uses a hideously unfriendly ERP system that everybody universally hates using, but was chosen because it provided exactly what the company was looking for in terms of global integration, backend reporting and pricepoint that weighed more heavily against sleeker, easier-to-use but less-capable alternatives. To this day, the ERP system is still universally despised. But for our grief, the company has seen the major gains on the backend from an operational and finance point of view that justified it. (At least, that’s what they claim.)
So my point was that linux deployments would not be put off until they reach a point where they are as transparently capable to use as comparable XP or OS X systems, they’ll be deployed once the company ascertains that they can achieve any sort of gain (operational, budgetary, scalability, whatever their particular objective) against whatever the cost is for such a transition/migration. For some companies the math will work, for others it will not. Either way they’d be reckless to decide one way or the other without undertaking a proper study and evaluation, cost-benefit analysis etc.
Ultimately, it is the applications that choose the platform; people make decisions on which platform to use based on the applications they require to do a job, if the required applications aren’t on a particular platform, they ultimately have to go with the one that does, and 9/10, it’ll be Windows.
Again, absolutely agree. I’m not one of the zealots that thinks linux could or should be forklifted in everywhere, I don’t even hate Microsoft, I just think linux has more viable opportunities than people often think, that’s all.
“So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system”
As I’ve already pointed out, iPods do in fact work out-of-the-box with a Linux system. Please stop spreading this particular bit of FUD. Thanks.
So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system
My iPod works just as well in my Linux machine as it does in my Mac. I didn’t do anything special to it either, I just plug it in and a folder pops up on my desktop. I didn’t even have to install drivers for it like I did in Windows.
and that I should go off and simply put up with the fact that none of my much required applications will never exist on Linux.
If you’re required applications don’t exist on Linux, then its not a good idea for you to switch. Nobody is telling you that it is. What people are saying is that for a lot of people, the required applications do exist, and switching is perfectly tenable. The only apps I need are a good Lisp and C++ compiler, Matlab, and a web browser. Linux suites my needs just fine. Apparently, it suits the needs of ILM’s artists (among many other people) just as well. You’re pretending like you’re situation is the only one there is, and completely missing the point of the article — which is that in a lot of the markets in which Apple sells computers (media and scientific computing), Linux is a perfectly viable alternative.
computers are about making end users lives easier, and it doens’t matter a tinkers cuss as to whether a 20,000 dollar application is available on Linux
It does if that’s what you run on your computer!
it isn’t going to fix the fact that suzy homemaker can’t copy her photos from her digital camera to a nicely laid out photo application – that is the situation.
1) Why is Susie Homemaker any more important than Bob the Mechanical Engineer?
2) What exactly is wrong with GNOME’s photo tools, or F-spot? They’re no replacement for Aperature, but they do a perfectly good job handling photos.
Stop the Fud.
1. You don’t have to recompile the kernel to get sound working.
2. Blankly stating that there are no good applications is not an argument, it’s just trolling.
3. Lack of drivers. Boyo, but you like be? And guess what, linux supports a lot more hardware than OSX ever will.
4. And about the platform, that simply bs. Btw., take a look what runs under the hood of OSX.
yep, lets face it Mac fans are as into thier FUD as Microsoft……
I know one that will happily critisise the usability of Linux, despite the fact he has never even seen it run.
This was foreseeable as Apple choose to move away from its installed and loyal base of users and developers alike the PPC and into the Wintel platform machines. Who is then going to dev any stuff for the Apple computers as it not sure of to what platform Apple moves to at her liking then?
http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=.apple.com&position=limited&loo…..
As they use mac os X and solaris. So what ?
The only here that want to see only one OS on earth are linux users. The others doesn’t care, they just use what they need for their purpose.
>When it comes to graphic designers and videographers this is one of the areas where Linux actually is strongest. So that sentence you came with doesn’t make sense at all. Sounds like you haven’t seen a recent linux desktop
<
I use Linux execlusevely at home (kde 3.5) (I have for a couple years) and about 25% of the time at work, I am very familiar with the current state of linux.
I was really refering to the big revenue generators Photoshop and Premiere (the product line) and all plugins that tie into that.
I appologize, I should have been more clear.
If you are familiar with any video editing software for linux on par with premiere and Avid, please enlighten me, I would be happy to spend the money on it.
Aaahh… that’s what you meant
Well, I know of no proprietary applications in the same economical league as Photoshop and Premiere, nor do I know any easy-to-use applications with the same functionality on all levels.
But if you’re willing to use open source applications and solve your tasks by combining these applications, then you can get the same functionality. You will however be forced into CLI.
Isn’t the point this: that Photoshop is a totally different animal for professional use than the Gimp. The Gimp doesn’t come close, partly because of the plug-ins that are available for Pholtoshop, of which every pro has a huge collection. From that point of view, because Photoshop is not (yet) available for Linux, Linux is not suitable for graphics professionals.
There may also be some reason to believe that, at equivalent clock speeds, Photoshop on PPC is faster than Photoshop on x86. Though, to find equivalent clock speeds you almost have to look in the antiques market these days.
However, Photoshop on Windows is fully the equal of Photoshop on OSX. This is the fatal blow. If you have tens of plug-ins that are X specific, you may not change right away. But wait till you find yourself being asked to buy new hardware, identical to what you can see on the market, for double the price, next time you want to upgrade.
If Photoshop ever comes out for Linux, this will not be the fatal blow. Just as there are still many fundamentalists denying evolution, so there will be lots of the faithful still chanting that Apple is better. But it will put tight boundaries around the cult, and it will start to wither.
Prediction: it will become more vocal and shriller as it does so.
Photoshop plugins can to a certain extent be used in Gimp.
But no doubt that the lack of a 100 percent true Photoshop clone or application for Linux does reduce the numbers compared with what it could have been. But it’s getting better all the time.
Personally I don’t care much. Linux has a larger desktop base than Mac, and many of these users are graphical designers and/or videographers and their likes.
Photoshop on Windows is in my mind no more fatal to Mac than a Gimp on Windows or a Photoshop-clone on any system.
Photoshop isn’t all it’s made out to be. But of course if you have many plugins for Photoshop you won’t switch the platform. You’d lose your tools if you did, and nobody does that (I hope).
Re_re,
Re: “If you are familiar with any video editing software for linux on par with premiere and Avid, please enlighten me, I would be happy to spend the money on it.”
Recommend seeing my post “Software for 3D/2D Artists, Designers, etc” here http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53452 For former Adobe Premier users a NLE such as MainActor would be something of interest which supports film industry file formats such as ILM OpenEXR. For those familiar with higher end editors like Smoke which is also ported to Linux there’s others like Piranha HD. An open source NLE called Jahshaka is currently in developement but very promising and then there’s Cinelerra which recent release supports H.264 codec and is also sold on turnkey edit systems for studios interested.
Somebody stated that Apple hasn’t offered a competitive product to OfficeMac, but there is.
Cleverly hidden behind some educational looking packaging is Appleworks; word processing, database, drawing, painting, presentation and yes spreadsheet, which can read and write MS word and excel files, all for a mere $79. Free on a lot of new Mac’s too boot.
So for the rest of us who don’t need absolute 100% Office compatability, it’s pretty hard to beat at that price.
I have it, its a nice little works package, the database is nice, its worth all of $80, but if you want a serious office package, its either OO or Office. No way is this a contender.
“if you want a serious office package, its either OO or Office. No way is this a contender.”
Having used appleworks I have to agree. Appleworks is a joke compared to these two.
> So for the rest of us who don’t need absolute 100% Office compatability, it’s pretty hard to beat at that price.
i dunno, if 100% ms office compatability doesn’t matter, koffice is pretty nice, and $0 beats $79 by quite a bit…
Sounds to me like, with these comments, Apple is readying its justification to the shareholders for releasing OS X to run on commodity boxes. I can’t think of any other reason to put such alarmist statements in there, especially with Mac shipments and OS X sales being though the roof lately.
Sounds to me like, with these comments, Apple is readying its justification to the shareholders for releasing OS X to run on commodity boxes. I can’t think of any other reason to put such alarmist statements in there, especially with Mac shipments and OS X sales being though the roof lately.
They’re not alarmist statements, it’s just full disclosure. All US-listed public companies (and many other jurisdictions as well) are required to fully disclose legitimate business risks, whether market-based, competitive etc. Marketing people might like to spin, but CEO’s that sign off on these statements are accountible by law. If Apple suffers poor performance down the road for reasons that should have been reasonably anticipated but weren’t disclosed, there would be not only grounds for a lawsuit and SEC intervention, but the potential for prison-time for the executives, thanks to SOX.
There could be a hundred reasons why linux shouldn’t be considered a threat to Apple, but they’re irrelevant as long as at least one reason exists as to why it should.
Frankly, I consider this a non-story. As much as I like to prop desktop linux (wherever it can be rationally justified
), especially if I can do so by poking at the Apple hype ballon (wherever it can be rationally justified 
), there’s nothing here. There was similar hoopla raised with one of Microsoft’s SEC filings that had to claim pretty much the same thing. Hasn’t changed anything. We already knew Microsoft considered linux a threat the moment their marketing people started talking about how it wasn’t.
IMHO, I think Apple should continue primarily focusing on the consumer market and digital media, because that’s clearly their strength and where OS X has a serious advantage and linux is probably most disadvantaged. Linux needs to focus efforts on the enterprise desktop if it’s going to gain more traction in terms of vendor recognition and application support. The rest will follow…
Perfect
Mac has a Unix underpinning, and they made a stab at Java cooperation when they came out with OS X, altho their follow-thru has been lacklustre. They should make a serious stab at incorporating GTK+ with Cocoa, or a similar effort, to make applications inter-operate on both Mac and Linux far better than they do. Join forces, don’t compete.
“They should make a serious stab at incorporating GTK+ with Cocoa, or a similar effort, to make applications inter-operate on both Mac and Linux far better than they do. Join forces, don’t compete.”
It would be great if apple decided to join forces with GNU/Linux. Unfortunately in order to do this apple would have to start opening up the source code to it’s applications. Apple’s two main open source technologies, Darwin and KHTML, do not have big open source followings. KHML is used by a few KDE developers and Darwin is basically ignored unless you are writing a driver for OS X. The open source community would join apple if apple just took steps towards open source software. Unfortunately apple has only made 2 very small and insignificant steps and they have since slowed down.
>> pple’s two main open source technologies, Darwin and KHTML, do not have big open source followings. KHML is used by a few KDE developers and Darwin is basically ignored unless you are writing a driver for OS X.
Uhm… you do know the KDE guys made KHTML and apple just took it to use for their Safari webbrowser, right?
it’s not an apple project, they just use the code (they do give back, however, I wouldn’t really consider them KHTML devs)
Well, considering that Apple version is more of a fork, there is nothing stopping KDE developers from grabbing the Webkit, hunting through and copying out the parts they like.
It will probably shatter your world view, but linux is indeed strong in these areas.
For example Madagasacar (by Dreamworks) was produced on linux workstations and rendered with linux servers.
This isn’t so hard to understand mostly they are render farms and just using raw CPU power. Most OS’s can handle this system but why pay for one when Linux can do the job just as well.
RDMS (i mean proper ones Oracle/Sybase etc) are on Linux and BEA’s stuff is OK so it is gaining ground fine in the server room.
In the big companies Linux will never get on the desktop until there is a valid alternative to Exchange – not that silly SUSE one.
Apple sells computers into the consumer market where the requirement is for Email, IM, Web Browser, Music Player and lite use of office applications. The main advantages Apple have in this space are really nice design, MS Office and iTunes. If you can live without Office and dont mind your computer ugly looking, cheap and fast then Apple are starting to wear thin. Two reasons developers should hesitate are.
Who will buy the commercial software?
Apple will be your main competitor.
Do you have any clue about what a K-10 is?!
Nothing to see here! Really!
— meianoite
This is a financial document that companies use to lay out their prospects and issues. It is quite often also used as a sort of disinformation to keep things on an even keel. If you think Apple is concerned aobut Linux thing again.
The technology is definitely in place for Apple to start having to worry about Linux, at least in the workstation market. Linux workstations have already made massive inroads into the 3D graphics and scientific computing markets, and the video processing market is up next.
With regards to the desktop, things are a bit different. Apple exists today only because of the mindshare they built a decade ago. In a market almost completely dominated by Windows, people are willing to buy Apple machines because the name has made it an “acceptable” alternative. Linux doesn’t have that kind of mindshare. On Joe users desktop, Windows and Mac will probably remain the only two alternatives, for the forseeable future. On the corporate desktop, things are a bit different. Despite what Mac users will tell you, GNOME is within spitting distance of matching OS X on the GUI front. In a corporate environment, the organizational issues with Linux vendors becomse less of a problem (you pick one vendor and only deal with them), and the various issues of software availability are a lot simpler (most office tasks have applications available on Linux). In this market too, Linux is going to be very stiff competition for Apple, and indeed, will likely easily beat it, given that the Linux image is much more “business-like”, thanks to IBM and Novell, than the Apple’s.
given that the Linux image is much more “business-like”, thanks to IBM and Novell, than the Apple’s.
That’s an interesting point I haven’t thought about.
I am mostly neutral in this debate (don’t care much for desktop linux or OS-X86), but I would like it if Linux on the desktop did achieve some milestones towards better usability. Three things I lack: in most window managers it is hard to set up some accessibility features, like larger mousepointers. I know I can download alternative pointers that are a bit larger, but the instalation process is still a bit out of the potential of the average computer user. And also, those “larger” pointers are still too small for some people with visual disabilities.
The second thing would definitely be better backwards compatibility of applications vs. environments. An application compiled for linux 3 years ago should definitely be still runable on a contemporary Linux distro, without having to chase down dependancies.
Finally (and I know this may not be important to many), a much better sound support with poliphony, multiple streams and MIDI.
I have been using linux 50% of the time lately. Mostly terminal apps, but from time to time also UI. Yes, it has come a long way. And with names like Novell and IBM, it definitely has a bit of a corporate aroma to it.
This is quite funny, watching the vigours efforts of the faithful to deny reality.
The fact is that the various linux distributions are getting better and better every day. Compare a KDE based distribution 5 years ago to a modern one, and tell me the proprietary operating systems have seen any way near that amount of advancement. From where I sit, the distributions are increasingly reaching the point where they are good enough for even non-tech people. Just from my own perspective I’ve seen several non-tech people dropping windows and switched to some version of linux, usually ubuntu (no, they didn’t install it, but how many non-techies install windows or OSX?), and many more technically inclined people to other distributions. This is happening every day, faster and faster, as the distributions and applications get better. The point is that linux is “Good Enough(TM)” for if not all people, then at least a lot of them. And the amount of people it’s good enough for only grows continually.
The reply on this from the faithful usually is “That’s not true! Linux sucks! It won’t ever be as good as $SYSTEM”. I’ve got news for you. It doesn’t matter if $LINUX_DISTRIBUTION never gets as good as $PROPRIETARY_SYSTEM, as long as it’s good enough people will use it. They are certainly *NOT* going to shell out for a Mac, or indeed anything else, if they can get something for free that is perfectly adequate for their needs, like browsing the web, writing letters, using email and getting pictures of their digital camera.
Whith such growth as the linux desktop has there will eventually be commerciall offerings because wherever there is a market, there is money to be made. And competing with Microsoft, Adobe et al, isn’t really an option for smaller players. However if a new market opens up where the big guys refuse to go for some stupid reason, it’s another game. Which is probably why they will go there, because they don’t dare leaving it to would be competitors. I think we are just seeing a waiting game right now, with some catious toe-dipping going on.
Apple would be morons if they didn’t see this coming or tell shareholders about the potential risk.
>Compare a KDE based distribution 5 years ago to a modern one, and tell me the proprietary operating systems have seen any way near that amount of advancement
Maybe because 5years ago, desktop linux was a total joke, and now it’s just a joke?
in all honesty id say that desktop linux is a lil past the joke stage and its more into the probable level.
I’ll say in 2 years it will be at a level where it matches propietary systems. That will prolly be when gnome 3 and kde 4 stabalize. in 5 years ill say linux will be well within the definately level for being a desktop OS.
Its growing, leave it at that. For me using fvwm and gnome has proven to be very efficient (either equally or greater that propietary alternatives).
“I’ll say in 2 years it will be at a level where it matches propietary systems. That will prolly be when gnome 3 and kde 4 stabalize.”
I heard that Linux will be ready for the desktop in the next 2 years since 1998! And the argument was always: wait for the next version of gnome/KDE.
Linux is not ready for the desktop not because of a technical issue but mostly marketing and lack of single distribution or a full standard for distributions. No commercial Linux distribution is really interested by a standard.
The problem is the people who get overly excited and say “this is the year of Linux on the desktop!!1!!!!”. Other people, who are more level-headed, realize that it is a slow process and that the competition is also moving forward.
You have to be blind to say that the Linux desktop has not made great strides in the past few years. And just like Microsoft finally made Windows stable, fast and usable, so too will Linux eventually become more user-friendly (being already fast and stable). There are a lot of people who ARE interested in making Linux a good OS to use on the desktop and the fact that there are distros tuned just to that end ([K]ubuntu, Mandriva, Linspire, for example) and the fact that there have been a lot of improvements added to the kernel and system libraries that are geared towards desktop functionality is evidence that this movement is firmly in place.
I heard that Linux will be ready for the desktop in the next 2 years since 1998! And the argument was always: wait for the next version of gnome/KDE.
Linux is not ready for the desktop not because of a technical issue but mostly marketing and lack of single distribution or a full standard for distributions. No commercial Linux distribution is really interested by a standard.
Yes, you’re exactly right. Something others don’t seem to understand. It’s just random events that caused Gnome and KDE and random distros. If there had been something like BeOS, but on the linux kernel with some GNU tools 5 years ago, Linux on the desktop would have far surpassed Mac in home market share right now. But there is no “one” home desktop distro. I know people hate to hear that, but that’s what it takes to really be significant. ISVs need something to target. The OSDL somewhat understands parts of this now, but not the whole picture.
The real story though is that XP is good enough for most people on the desktop. Most people don’t care about source code or some so-called freedom; they just want to get things done. So in the current situation Linux has to be a whole lot better than the other offerings. And I just don’t see that with Gnome and KDE.
The business desktop is a different story. If OpenOffice shapes up then Solaris, BSD, or Linux can make a decent office desktop.
I wish Google or someone else with deep pockets (Shuttleworth just wants to do the same old Gnome and KDE thing), would mix it up and at least do something different. That might sound contrary to what I said earlier, but at this point in time in Linux’s history there doesn’t seem to be an alternative solution.
And the zealots might think that Linux and GNU and KDE/Gnome are going to be relevant forever because its open source, but think again. Actually, the greatest strength for Linux is its driver base.
So when you look at the desktop you have to look at the big picture and realize that developers want solutions and not chaos, but if its not significantly better than the other offerings then its hard to get the traction for one thing to take off. It’s as much about marketing and hype as it is technical features.
I also believe that linux should be trimmed down to 3 or 4 distros. 5 max
Which ones would u choose.
Id say slackware, gentoo, redhat, [k]buntu
there u go 1 source based, 1 rpm based, 1 based off gnome, 1 based off kde, and one with a user controlled package management system.
The rest should go away =) =). Bleh but if the bsd’s are already the
I heard that Linux will be ready for the desktop in the next 2 years since 1998! And the argument was always: wait for the next version of gnome/KDE.
Yes, and modern Linux distros are way ahead of Windows 98, which many people are happily still runing. My opininon is that there are a few issues here and there but the KDE is at least as good as Windows XP.
If Windows did not have the advantage that nearly all hardware has drivers written for it, then Linux would be well ahead.
Using XP Pro at college, and Win2K3 and Gentoo Linux with Gnome 2.10 at home, I dare say Linux on the Desktop more than matches Windows.
We still have some distance left in certain areas to match Mac OS X, but already now this is a very close race.
But matching Windows is a non-issue. We’re ahead of Windows.
This is very true, its also my experience installing Linux for people. It works as well on the desktop, and looks as well, and is as well accepted, as the alternatives, and I would include OS X.
There is a really interesting social issue, rather than a technical issue, here.
All somewhat fanatical religious movements have some group, not necessarily the most objectively threatening, which is regarded as peculiarly dreadful. For Wahabis, it appears to be Shias. In 16th century Europe, for many, it was the Anabaptists. For the Russian orthodoxy, it was the Trotskyites. And so on.
For the members of the Apple cult, it appears to be Linux. Heaven knows why, but it drives them into a frenzy of misreprentation, denial, abuse. Why they do not feel this way about Windows, or Be, or Amiga, or Solaris, it is probably futile to ask. As anonymous says, it is very funny to watch, as well as a bit sad. All this tired stuff about Linux really being a server package, about compiling the kernel.
You should not reply by telling them to look at it. That’s a terrible insult. Of course they cannot look at it, because they risk being tainted. You cannot rationally correct them, because it was an emotional not a rational reaction in the first place. It was based on deep wants, not rational appraisal or acquaintance with the facts. You would not tell people with a religious aversion to beef or pork to taste some. Don’t tell the Apple lot to look at other systems. It will feel similar to them.
My explanation is a religious one. I guess the other explanation might be that there are lots of paid shills, but that cannot be true. It seems to be so deeply felt.
Well, as anonymous said, dream on.
Bogus.
I find it insulting that Mac users are so often referred to as some kind of cult– it’s really the Windows folks that are cultists. They cling to their tired old platform years after any reasonable person would conclude it’s too obsolete to fix.
Most Apple people I know, including myself believe OSX > LINUX>> Windows.
It has been a while that I have met a real windows zealot. Most of the windows users I know use it because their job forces them to or they need it for a specific program or to play games.
Mac zealots on the other hand rarely question apple or Steve jobs. They want to root for apple because they see it as the underdog against Microsoft. I know this because I used to be one. Having previously drank the apple cool-aid I can testify that there is a cult like following to apple.
The OS X > Linux thing is debatable. I think most people would agree with the statement, but its a matter of culture, not technology. If Linux was owned by a single company, they could dictate standards and package releases and ship them on known-to-be-compatible hardware (for which they have driver programming specs!), and Linux could easily be as good as OS X.
The thing is, its the very fact that Linux is not owned by a company that is allowing it to compete in the present market. Competitors to Microsoft (like Be), died out because they could not sit in the trenches for the decade it took to make inroads against Microsoft. Apple stayed, because it was there before Microsoft, and because Microsoft allowed them to. If it weren’t for the open source community, Linux would never have survived long enough to become a competitive system.
Thus, a simple characterization like “OS X is better than Linux” is misleading. For a very specific market segment — home desktop users, this is probably true. The computing world, however, is a lot bigger than that.
i think your comment is pretty cultist to ,personnaly i am a window user but i wouldnt mind using mac on my machine but know way am i going to go and buy another computer just so that i can run mac when i am sure that if apple would be a bit more openned minded about hardware it would run perfect on my hardware and this is the difference i can run linux on my allready owned machine and i can run window most of the software that i need is available for my machine and lots of different alternative are available for my machine but mac no run my hardware run my os (true linux runs on mac hardware but its not because mac wanted it its because mac decided to use the same base to build osx)as for software yes some third party software are available and its worth noting that those are from big name such as adobe and macromedia and microsoft etc ,etc but the thing is that those are for most of them if not all available for windows plateform and another thing is that alot of X86 user like the option of choosingwhat hardware they put in there machine ,ok ,ok it comes to the expense of some sometime buggy driver but its never as bad as it seem a good example of that are Ati driver i have a radeon 9800pro Aiw and i have went true about all the version of cat driver that exist and i must say yes some where abit slower or had not as good IQ then it previous version but nothing to go crazy about or yes i did have that modem that stopped working when winxp came out but hey its only a 5$ modem nothing to go crazy about
also i have a cousin who is working in animation a niche that as and is still said to be a place where Mac OS reing supreme ahhhhh the wonderfull world of multimedia you can allready imagine yourself going into one of those company and see all those imac and g5 all over the place well actualy its true there is alot of mac in those place and i would have to say about 97% of there comp are the rest been most of the time linux server running in some closet somewhere in the office but he and a few other of its friend have always told me that there damn mac machine where crashing just as much as the win machine that most of them had at home.
so the thing is this make mac more opennned minded about hardware and i am sure you will see more win user drift toward mac but keep it close and people will yes ,cling to their tired old platform
as for the “reasonable person would conclude it’s too obsolete to fix.” this is my only harsh comment ill have about your post how abnoxious and presumtuos to say so ,my father in law a a first gen P3 with a fsb of 100 and i gave him 256mb of ram to add it to its allready existing upgrade of 256 he made and he is not clingning to its obsolte plateform is plateform is doing all he need to do and he went true the horrible win98/me era with it and then he switch to 2k and now he is running xp on it with great enjoyment and without and i must say after using is machine each time i went to is placethat for is need and use this machine is far from obsolete
how another thing
“Most Apple people I know, including myself believe OSX > LINUX>> Windows.”
Most X86 people i know, including myself believe My machine >and wathever i want to put on it in whatever order i please.
I think if we all realised that we are in the presence of a religion, not a consumer computer choice, we would be more tolerant of it, we wouldn’t expect its adherents to have a rationality they plainly lack, and perhaps we could persuade the members to stop being so evangelical about it on the grounds of simple politeness.
Reading these threads is a bit like talking to Old Guard communists. You don’t know whether they really believe that the Hungarian Proletariat really wanted the Russians to go in, or the Czech Proletarial wanted them to overthrow Dubcek, or that there is no poverty and superb health care in Russia, or that the Ukraine famine never really happened.
But you don’t really care, either…..
I have reluctantly come to the conclusion, reading this and similar threads over a long time, that you cannot believe anything Mac users say, either about their own platform or any other.
Of course its a cult. It has an infallible leader, who is generally believed to make no money from it, despite his gargantuan stock options, a party line, an enemies list, a belief that its members are different and special.
You hear the same brainwashed assertions from them all the time, straightforward denials of known facts. You can see all that in this thread, from LIP’s assertion that Mac users somehow use their computers differently, to the crazed misinformation about what it takes to install and run Linux. Earlier on OS News you had equally crazed misinformation about the prices of Apple hardware versus other hardware.
It has been Jobs’ peculiar genius to make what is mostly a simple consumer goods purchase the object of a cult, to have grown enormously rich while doing it, and to have at the same time persuaded his followers that he is selflessly doing this for no compensation. It is a cult.
It didn’t use to be. It started out as a company making wonderful computers, way ahead of its time and the competition But its what it has turned into.
Seems to me Bill Gates has more of a cult following than Steve Jobs. And I think we are all adults here– we all know both guys make money doing what they do. But Jobs has a much more difficult task ahead of him: he has to convince millions of people that computers can be fun and reliable.
in InfoWorld.
He bitched and moaned about hackers taking OSX and trying to run it on commodity PCs.
He said developing for Linux “was like a walk in spring rain” or something compared to OSX development, so the hackers were going to make all the OSX developers homeless.
He’s an idiot. He was also insulting to Linux developers.
The fact of the matter is that Linux will eat Apple’s lunch (except in the niche artistic markets where Apple’s graphics programs rule) along with UNIX and Windows over time. There’s nothing stopping Linux developers from matching and exceeding Apple’s ease of use. It may take a long time, since Linux developers aren’t operating according to Apple’s specific HIG, but it will happen eventually.
Worse for Apple in the short term is the simple fact that Linux already runs on just about any commodity box, whereas Apple intends to try to maintain their monopoly on what hardware OSX will run on.
That is a guaranteed recipe for failure in the marketplace. Obvious, really.
So the article gets a “Duh!” from me.
Yeah, why does WoW have a native OSX version, but not Linux? I’ll tell you why. Because support for every distro and configuration of a Linux desktop is a nightmare and so companies don’t want to touch it.
Please explain the ports of Quake4, Doom3, UT2004, Neverwinter Nights (to name a few) to Linux then? They seem pretty distro neutral to me. What you are stating in your comment sounds like a poor excuse for developer laziness if it were true.
Please explain the ports of Quake4, Doom3, UT2004, Neverwinter Nights (to name a few) to Linux then? They seem pretty distro neutral to me. What you are stating in your comment sounds like a poor excuse for developer laziness if it were true.
Do they really get the same level of suppport as the Windows version?. I really doubt it. Even id’s staff has admitted more than once than Linux version is more a gift and an experiment to make quality portable code than anything else.
I agree with the original poster: fragmentation may be not so big deal for free software projects, but right now although you can find examples – vmware, adobe reader, id’s titles… , the platform itself is quite hostile to commercial software.
When it comes to games i would mention cedega….But oh man did that application go to crap.
Mabey the linux platform as a whole may be commercial software. I dont know. I do know however that it is hard to blame it on the linux distro hell. Distros dont vary that much where applications cannot be easily ported between them. If that was the case, then we wouldnt have a distro hell. Distros vary for package management/default setup/ and init scripts. There isnt much more difference between them.
It’s just something lacking in Gnome 2.12 and KDE 3.5…. hmm… what can it be? Oh, maybe the lack of great applications and the fact that the platforms it runs on is primarily for serveruse and not for desktop use?
I disagree: there are some GREAT applications for Gnome and KDE. As a KDE user, I’ll focus on the latter (but the same could be said of Gnome): amaroK (better than iTunes), K3b (one of the best, easiest CD/DVD burning apps around), Konqueror (best file/web/whatever browser around, period).
Not only that, but KDE as a Desktop Environment is on par with OSX. It is a true Desktop platform, not a server one, from autocompletion to advanced file open/save dialogs, from kparts to kio_slaves, KDE 3.5 compares favorably with OS X.
Maybe it has something to do that the platforms they run on suffer from lack of drivers and recompilations to the kernel is necessary when setting up sound etc properly?
Pure FUD. I run with the standard Kubuntu kernel on my laptop and sound functions just fine.
There’s enough room for all OSes, let’s avoid attacking alternatives to justify one’s own insecurities, shall we?
I disagree: there are some GREAT applications for Gnome and KDE. As a KDE user, I’ll focus on the latter (but the same could be said of Gnome): amaroK (better than iTunes)
iTunes is hardly a good benchmark when comparing audio players (easy to use, but a bloated monstrocity, just like MusicMatch and the rest of their ilk). Still, I’ve heard great things about this app … I need to check it out.
K3b (one of the best, easiest CD/DVD burning apps around)
No arguments here.
Konqueror (best file/web/whatever browser around, period).
This is the one I have a problem with. If you’re only counting file managers with an integrated web browser (that whole ‘convergence’ thing, I guess), then I’ll give this one to you. But in the realm of file managers, I’ms sorry .. but Directory Opus mops the floor with Konquerer
Edited 2005-12-11 00:22
All in all, Linux doesn’t stand a chance in competing against OS X on the desktop
That is highly debatable. I’ll say that KDE, Gnome and OSX all compare favorably to Windows XP, but against each other it’s mostly a question of preferences – unless you’re a zealot for any of the three, that is…
“That is highly debatable. I’ll say that KDE, Gnome and OSX all compare favorably to Windows XP, but against each other it’s mostly a question of preferences – unless you’re a zealot for any of the three, that is…”
I’ll say it all comes down to what APPLICATIONS you need to run. APPLICATIONS dictate what OS runs every single time.
That is a great post. So true…
IDC is not a “Linux-focused” web site.
Linux doesn’t work for the average user, no matter how many stories Linux enthusiasts invent about switching their grandma over to it.
Linux works very well for the average user, it’s the Windows “power users” that have a hard time adapting to it.
I’ve introduced quite a few people to a pre-configured Linux desktop, and it took them very little time to be productive with them. And no, I did not invent them. Perhaps you should open up your mind a little more and realize that Linux (or rather KDE/Gnome) is a capable operating system, and spend less energy dumping “poo” on it.
You should also consider changing your username. I know Thom has offered it to you before. Keeping it as is is just being immature, IMO.
Linux indeed is not Id guess so much a threat to Apple or Windows – I think people support Linux because they agree with the OSS goals.
But Windows is indeed very much a threat – with Vista Windows will actually have a sexy GUI – well kinda – as Microsoft – wouldnt it be soooooh tempting to bring out stylish sexy MS “custonm” look PC’s.
Microsoft cant kill Linux because it is not a company but Apple … it will be interesting to see what Microsoft will do ?
I’m still expecting that they have a big surprise up their sleeve for Apple.
I still dont get why Apple changed to Intel.
They will be fighting against Microsoft … ohoe .
Apple’s marketshare is small because they want to. There’s nothing wrong with that; they choose to sell less computers but be more profitable than say, Dell.
Unless they expected Microsoft to rule the other 95% of the market forever (and I’m starting to think that’s exactly what they want) they had to know this was coming.
Apple’s marketshare is small because they want to. There’s nothing wrong with that; they choose to sell less computers but be more profitable than say, Dell.
Unless they expected Microsoft to rule the other 95% of the market forever (and I’m starting to think that’s exactly what they want) they had to know this was coming.
Don’t know why this is marked down to -2. If you read Michael Porter, you see that profitability as a function of market share is U shaped. You have high profitability at very low share, and high profitability at very high share. It happens for different reasons. In the low share segment, you have high pricing power and a niche customer base. At the high end, you are down the experience curve and have economies of scale. It is when you are in the middle that you suffer. As he says, not differentiated but different.
So as a matter of business strategy, it is perfectly rational to choose a niche and stay with it, and it may well be that this gives a better risk adjusted return on shareholder funds than trying to go up the market share curve.
Because the risk is, you won’t get all the way there.
The difficulty in the present context is that the Apple people applaud the results of the strategy – niche volumes, high profits, while not being willing to admit explicitly what it actually is. So they get into all kinds of intellectual contortions about what is a threat to what, Apple on the corporate desktop and so on.
Lets be clear: this strategy means that OSX cannot be a threat to Windows, and probably cannot have much or any effect on Linux takeup.
I for one have never seen so many Linux and Windows users switch to Mac as I’ve seen this year. I for one used to be on Windows XP and Ubuntu for the desktop, now I almost only using Mac OS X. I’ve seen Debian-die hards and real hackers switch from Linux to Mac OS X and can only conclude that it is Apple threatning the Linux on the desktop dream rather than the other way around.
Today, Linux is for servers and I believe that the only distro in position to change that is Ubuntu. Heck, a couple of years down the road there will basically be three desktops for average Joe worth considering: Windows, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu.
What’s really happening is that Mac OS X and Linux is threatning Windows.
From the linked article it’s apparent that Apple seems to be realizing consumers are not blind idiots and neither are ISV. When Apple first leaked the information it decided to go from PPC to x86 it seemed to be for good reasons though later it was made known that Apple was to strictly focus on running OSX on Intel systems only. Also their intentions to continue the method of locking OSX to systems sold solely by Apple did not seem to go over well with the public. Now as a consumer I like having the choice what software I install and on what hardware. Most businesses do not upgrade hardware every year and neither do most home computer users. By offering consumers flexibility to install software on current hardware it is more attractive and less costly. By locking a consumer to just buying from Apple in reality only benefits Apple which has done little to benefit the consumer. SUSE Linux for example like several Linux distributions can be either purchased with technical support from the developer or downloaded and installed for free whether for personal use or business. It runs on a variety of new and legacy hardware as well supports both x86 (Intel and AMD) and PPC. Linux developers such as Novell and Red Hat will not force you to buying systems from them and will not lock the OS to one system. Having a wide variety of software to choose from whether commercial or open source and being able to install it on current systems is what most consumers want. By ignoring what consumers want Apple is the one that seems blinded by an idiology that is out dated. Unfortunately if Apple doesn’t change their business model the company will either continue to remain a small niche market or lose what little market share they currently have.
Edited 2005-12-11 07:26
The naysayers can say what they want, but they cannot change reality. I’m posting this from an Ubuntu Breezy desktop. After some jiggering (actually, just following the instructions), I got xcompmgr working with NVIDIA’s latest drivers. Let me tell you — it’s slick. Window movement is butter smooth, and the overall quality of rendering is noticeably sharper than on my Mac (that might just be a graphics card issue). There are still issues (notably, less than clever resize synchronization and lack of synchronization to vblank), but the technology is still young. The interesting thing is that when Vista and Leopard launch this time next year, Dapper + 1 will be out, and will have this technology standard. That’s going to make the desktop race very interesting indeed. It might not change the market share numbers (market share has little to do with quality, as any Apple user knows), but the technology race will be one to watch.
First If you are considering buying a computer then you are belonging to one of following groups :
1.Consumer
2.Prosumer
3.Small Business Owner
4.Medium/Enterprise Business Owner
for the consumers the best machines to consider is “apple mac mini-To Apple iMac” you need not worry about the hardware compatiblity or the viruses and the complexities of linux and window. So MAC is #1 here
For Prosumers the story is different but all the platforms are important. Windows, Linux/GNU, FreeBSD, Solaris, Unixes,… But MAC is the best if the software you like is supported So MAC is at the top but not alone
For Small Buisness Owners:
Mac is the best BUT will not get ground due to the low amount of written Business Applications (I don’t mean office applications but I mean Accounting Software, Billing Software,Time Logging Softwaer, Customer Relations Management Software, Custom Database Software,…etc)
For Enterprise and Medium:
Mac has a small chance to flourish, Unixes (IBM AIX, Sun Solaris)at the high end while Windows at the middle and Linux at the lowest end. Remember the windows cannot support more than 8 Clusters on their dataCenter or Enterprise versions and that their clusters are not performance oriented but rather redundancy oriented.
The fear will begin to Apple only if a huge OEM starts to support and Program for Linux like HP or Dell.
Current Richest Linux OS Professional Developers are Redhat and Novell Both has a Market Capital of around 8 Billion $ which is nothing to compare to apple which has 63 Billion market Capital. I said only Redhat and Novell because these are the only supported OS currnetly available when you buy from a decent manufacturers like IBM and Sun they will not sell you Mandriva, Xandros or others on their workstations
Companies that need to worry about their situations are those who only focus on Software or Hardware alone not Apple which support their hardware with their their own software if possible; such a company will never die.
I’ll say it all comes down to what APPLICATIONS you need to run. APPLICATIONS dictate what OS runs every single time.
Not necessarily. Because I’m a real victim of “vendor lock-in,” I have to use Microsoft Office. However, I can run that under Apple or under Linux (with WINE/Crossover Office). Therefore in this case the application – because it can be run on multiple platforms – does not dictate the OS.
I don’t use mac and neither should you. Mac is on the way out – even cool aid server Steve (Blow) Jobs knows this. That is why he dropped PPC for Intel – unfortunately that is probably a bit to late. After he did this it was trully amazing seeing how the “faithful” started to say Intel was good enough. They turn and change lipservice like a roach that has been exposed. Soon there gum drop OS will be exposed for all it has going for it – the shiny, cool, factor – totally cool – me spends 5K for top of the like apple to run gum drops.
Isn’t the point this: that Photoshop is a totally different animal for professional use than the Gimp. The Gimp doesn’t come close, partly because of the plug-ins that are available for Pholtoshop, of which every pro has a huge collection. From that point of view, because Photoshop is not (yet) available for Linux, Linux is not suitable for graphics professionals.
That depends on what you mean by “professionnal”. If you simply mean someone who uses it for work, then you’re mistaken. Not everyone who uses photoshop professionnally needs the large collection of Photoshop plug-ins. I would know, there are plenty of people who use “vanilla” Photoshop at my company (I work for a game developer).
I’d say the vast majority of people who use Photoshop at work could just as easily use Gimp (once they got used to the new interface).
Of course, this discussion is kind of moot, since you can use Gimp on Windows and Photoshop on Linux (using WINE/Crossover, which has been used professionally by film studios such as Disney Animation).
Come back when I can plugin an iPod to a linux box and it syncs up all nicely.
I can do that right now with my Kubuntu Laptop and amaroK. I even get a little iPod (or iPod-like) icon on my desktop.
Tell me when when I can hook up a camera to a linux box and something as easy to use as iPhoto arrives on Linux.
Digikam and Gphoto are as easy to use as iPhoto.
I’ll add:
– OpenOffice
– Crossover Office
– All those Loki games
It’s quite easy for a commercial vendor to package software for (nearly) all different Linux distros. You just need to statically link to local libraries.
Main Actor is pretty good, actually, and not that expensive.
Piranha is excellent, but a bit pricey!
There is an actual talk about the dharma project (porting cocoa and developers tools to windows) so Apple,extend it, open up cocoa and fund the gnustep project, and grant software for the three platforms (especially OSX if you want new software to be developed for your platform)
This stroy appeared at first to be something about developers, but has as usual become a
“Actully I quite like my Mac”
“MAC ZEALOT!!”
discussion, with all the usaul stuff about proprietry vs oss etc. without ever actually getting into a discussion about the difference between developing for Windows, Mac or Linux.
As someone who just likes to occasionally have a stab at developing, I have to say that I find the bundled development tools that come with OSX way superior to anything available in Linux. The powerful simplicity and mature elegance of the Cocoa api is consistent across the entire, system in a way that Windows and Linux cannot hold a lighted candle to.
Of all the systems I’ve tried programming on, OSX is without doubt the cleanest and most intuitive platform I have ever come across. The ease of development is remarkable, and this is something that cannot be overlooked when it comes to developer platform choice. Not the politics, not “how much different hardware it supports”, but the sheer practicality. In short, how productive you can be.
There is no doubt that Cocoa is the best development platform and OSX therefore. But there’s a small thing that bugs me all the time – ObjC. To see what I mean, check this link out http://rentzsch.com/papers/loveHateObjC about +/- of ObjC.
Regards
“So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system”
My parents just got an iPod (I would prefer a samsung HD player myself, to go with my samsung flash player) so first thing I did was sit down with it and get it to work on my computer (debian).
gnupod worked fine (though command line based). Amarok worked fine too, a nice GUI based music player/ipod song syncher. No possibilities for transferring video though. gtkpod on the other hand transfers music and video just fine.
I am able to create ipod compatible video with ffmpeg (command line, buteasy to create a frontend for it). I’m not sure how to load photos onto the ipod yet, but I can do pretty much everything else.
full disclosure: I had to use a cvs version of gtkpod for video transfer, which involved compiling and such, which average joe will never do. Given time though, video capable gtkpod (and amarok) will be in an apt repository or in click n run, or xandros networks or whatever. Someday.
btw: the max resolution for videos on the new ipod is not 480 by 480, it is 480*480 pixels (230400), so a 608*256 video will work. Not that the screen can show all that detail, but it helps with video out
Anyway, the video ipod didn’t come out all that long ago, and I can already use it with linux. O course there is a slight delay. To be expected when apple uses some weird format and database. Don’t blame linux for apple’s decision to use an undocumented database format. This is precisely why I would prefer a samsung, where (like on my flash player) I can treat the thing as a mass storage device, copying songs and whatnot over using explorer/finder/konqueror/nautilus *and then listen to them*. Not like ipod, where files you copy over for backup/transport cannot be viewed/listened to.
(some, not all of) Samsung’s stuff can be used by any OS that can use a USB stick while Apple and most others require some proprietary software (iTunes, WiMP10) for transferring songs that you can then listen to. No damn reason. And Samsung’s play ogg
(“who cares!” shouts the crowd of Joe Users. I sure as hell do, so I’ll leave you (and my parents) to your ipods).
(edit added my reasons for preferring samsung players, and criticism for proprietary formats for mp3 players. Sone Walkman Bean, I’m looking at you..)
Edited 2005-12-11 11:42
On Linux Every package comes with its own library and even its own programming language. Like for example I add gnome art, suddenly I find I have RUBY on my machine in addition to PYTHON, TCL/TK, PERL, SCHEME, C++ and Java.
Every clique of developers use and build their own tools.
The only worse people are Apple with C, C++, Applescript, Objective C, Java, Cocoa and Carbon.
Or Microsoft with C, C++, C#, VB, Java. WIN32, MFC, DCOM, .NET etc
What would happen if someone used just one or two languages and stuck with them.
Stop using computers, that will show them!
[Typing this on my LTSP terminal in Xinerama mode running off a Debian server]
I’ve recently bought a 12″ iBook. So I guess I am in one of those famous ‘switcher’ groups. Disclosure: I don’t have an ipod, so this is not a ‘halo’ purchase.
FWIW, I spend my working life on Solaris, Linux, and ‘BSD servers, creating internet-enabled bridges and gateways to legacy systems, typically mainframes and minis (the latter are mostly AS400s, although there are a few exotics, like NORDs and the like).
Since I work in a terminal environment, I have a separate machine for VPN connections to my clients. This is a Windows box, running win2000 and using the Cisco VPN client.
The damn thing is stable. It never crashes. It performs well, and I don’t have to bother much with it, since I mostly just SSH to the particular server and work there.
So what the **** made me plonk down the cash for an iBook? Well, form factor was one. Price was the other. For the configuration it is exceedingly reasonable (just upped the RAM to 1G, and a 60G hard disk).
But, what it came down to was a more visceral thing. I looked at the boxes, compared with the R5x notebooks (IBM/Lenovo), and finally just plain liked it more.
The OS wars are irrelevant to me. I’ve made a living since the mid eighties working with *NIX and never liked the Windows programming model much. I’ve had the luxury of not being forced to work with it.
When OSX came out, though, I became interested in Macs again. To me it had the right amount of usability in the desktop, while enabling me to work as effectively as possible without it being in the way. Nice.
The only thing that bugs me is case insensitivity. What were they thinking…?
For me, a power user & developer, OSX delivers the candy when I want it, and gets out of the way when I want it to. And I actually like the way they’ve integrated the ‘single location of apps and config files + the rest’, even though it took some getting used to compared to the classical /etc structure.
Hmmm…. zealotry sucks, but I must admit that it’s the first machine that I’ve ever given a name. I don’t know how they do it, but it really does give you that ‘aaawwwww, ain’t it cute’ effect.
So far Apple has done a terrific job in my little part of the world. If they keep it up I guess I’ll remain loyal.
Who would’ve thought it…..?
So what you’re saying is basically I’m a stupid idiot who should just jolly well put up with the fact that my iPod can’t work out of the box with a linux system, and that I should go off and simply put up with the fact that none of my much required applications will never exist on Linux.
I’ve not got an iPod, but there’s certainly an iPod tab in Rhythmbox, so I guess it’s there for a reason. My wife’s MP3 player pops up a folder with its contents when she plugs it in.
Sorry, thats plain stupid, and thank god shareholders don’t allow IT types within a 100 metre radius of decision making – computers are about making end users lives easier, and it doens’t matter a tinkers cuss as to whether a 20,000 dollar application is available on Linux, it isn’t going to fix the fact that suzy homemaker can’t copy her photos from her digital camera to a nicely laid out photo application – that is the situation.
Hmm, when I insert my digital camera a dialog pops up and asks if I want to import them into a photo application. I click yes, and it does it. That’s on Linux, so the reality doesn’t sound like what you paint it to be.
This is all without installing any drivers as well.
I’ve used all three of the main OSes at one time or another. Each one has good and bad points. However, the notion that Linux is about to unseat Apple is way off the mark. Where I live, Apple products are niche products marketed as Made in California chic with a high price to match. Linux has no consumer presence here at all. You cannot buy it in a shop anywhere and no retailers sell PCs with Linux pre-installed, so it might as well not exist. This situation will take years to correct, if ever that happens. OTOH, you can go into hundreds or possibly thousands of stores and buy an Apple product on the spot.
If you’re a computer enthusiast with broadband then, yes, Linux may make sense. But for 99.9% of consumers, if you can’t buy it at retail then you won’t be using it. And that excludes Linux’s negative image – nerdy, difficult, etc – among non-users who have heard of it. Even if you are keen on Linux, as I am, the snobbery, elitism and sheer immaturity of too many parts of the Linux world is a pain in the neck.
The notion that Linux is free in any sense means little or nothing to Joe Sixpack who’ll gladly buy something worth buying, at a fair price. But it means everything to retailers and distributors who simply aren’t going to touch a product they can’t make money out of. Paradoxically, the fact that Linux is cost-free may turn out to be the biggest reason that Linux can never become a mass-market product.
I know this statement wasn’t directed at me but i’ll bite.
>I bet you have a desktop with low resolution like 1280×1024 or even 1600×1200 running on the preconfigured drivers (No OpenGL,no 24-bit, no Full Scene antialaising,no stereoscope, no nothing advanced; which is OK for the Internet, which is OK for simple text editing) but this is not the case of all the people on this planet who needs their machines to do more than average.
Try to use Alias Maya (a DCC app) on any Linux machine you configured and you will understand why you should be installing dedicated graphics drivers and 2 monitors and go through the horrible configuration. <
I run a configuration very similar to what you explain here on my linux workstation. 3200×1200@85 dual 21″ monitors, 24bit, full opengl the works, you know how long this takes me to set up? about 5 minutes.
In addition to that I also run a similar setup on my linux powered multimedia box that i play all my movies and music off of except it’s 2048×768 and the second monitor is a tv out.
Point is, if you buy the right hardware, these things are not difficult to do. and twinview (nvidia cards) is exceedingly easy and fast to set up. (documentation all over the net, hard to miss it)
I appologize if this is off base, I didn’t read all the previous comments.
Edited 2005-12-11 15:45
Mac is a more expensive investment than linux, no that can’t be it.
Obviously the author of the article is not familiar with SEC filings. If he was he would have found a similar paragraphs in each and every filing from Apple.
Publicly quoted companies are required by law to express all potential risk to their business however small or remote they are as part of a full disclosure to current and potential shareholders.
This is quite standard and you will find this type of “risks” paragraphs in any filing posted by public companies.
A tempest in a teapot if I ever saw one, or more precisely incompetence from the writer of the article.
This flamewar has been deemed pointless and stupid. Couldve led to some good debates but the linux and mac camps are way to fanatical at time.
This whole discussion is utter crap.
People are different individuals with different needs. If a certain OS with a certain app works for you, then fine, use it. That does not mean it is better for everyone else in the world.
I myself have used Microsoft operating systems from 1985 to 2001, then switched to Mac OS9 and later OS X, for both private and business use. This has worked fine for me and I am happier than ever, doing more in less time with more fun.
Does that say Apple and Mac OS X are better than anything else? No. For me they are, but not necessarily for the world.