Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says GNOME is nice, KDE is fine and the forthcoming Looking Glass may be wonderful, but the best Unix desktop is the one in the Macintosh. Elsewhere Apple seeds Mac OS X Server 10.3.6 build 7R20 while Amazon leaks Mac OS X Tiger release date?
Mac Takes Honors as Best Unix Desktop; OSX Tiger Release Date
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
” ‘OS X makes it impossible to have more than a few windows open before it becomes difficult to find what one is looking for.’ ”
“Untrue today. Expose makes it trivial.”
‘Patches on top of bandaids. Rather than return to proper human interface guidelines, Apple had to implement something to make the existing UI useable.’
Actually, as a longtime Mac user who has recently started using Win at work, I prefer OS X’s windows-switching ability to Windows’, even pre-Expose. My earlier post in this thread…
Until three months ago, I had never used Windows for any length of time — just Macs, at home and work, OS 6-9 and X. Then I got a new job and was assigned a Win 2k laptop.
One of the biggest adjustments has been using the task bar vs. the dock. For me, at least, the task bar works well as long as you don’t have too many windows open. But I tend to have lots of windows open, so the task bar has all those little file icons in it and that makes it crowded and difficult to find things when I want to switch between windows.
The dock, OTOH, doesn’t automatically have an icon for every open window and therefore doesn’t get crowded. And because I’m used to switching between apps to switch between windows, the dock works better for me than the task bar for this chore. Plus, you can right-click an app’s dock icon to get a contextual menu of the app’s open windows and select one.
I also like how I can drag folders into the dock and right-click them to get a contextual menu of their contents, as well as drag files into these folders. If anyone knows of a way to replicate this in Win 2k, please let me know, because it’s a dock feature that I really miss and would love to have from 8 to 5.
And, I must say, I don’t like how Win has menus at the top of every window. Just seems to clutter things up and forces me to think for moment as to which menu bar I need to click on to get something done, whereas with the Mac OS I can go right to the top of the screen without thinking.
All this said, I realize that my preference for the Mac OS stems at least in part from having used Macs for so long and the resulting ingrained habits.
top end dual G5 can barely run OS X responsively with more than a trivial load
either responsiveness is or is not a criteria. On the one hand, you state responsiveness is slow, even on the top end G5.
Lack of responsiveness isn’t tollerable on a €2200 + system.
No matter how nice looking or some existing usefull or not gadgets.First thing i do when i have just installed a debian
linux box is compile the kernel and throw out all modules i don’t use.I wonder if somebody has allready overclocked a
dual G5 2.5 Ghz.
Lack of responsiveness isn’t tollerable on a €2200 + system.
Don’t believe it. It’s responsive on the 600 MHz iBook I’m using now, as well as on my Dual G5 at home. Just go into a dealer and try it.
Read the headline and weep, lindix.
Why should OS X users give thanks to Linux coders exactly?
Well for starters, how about the same people who created the Apache Web Server (That is fantasticly improved by Apple to enable by a click in a Prefrence window). Or maybe the coders behind bash & other shells. Or maybe we should forget all the hard working people behind all the open source projects that help make Aqua work as great as it does? Believe me, I apreciate all that Apple does, in terms of improving how these open source apps work. They seem to be the only company out there that can put a road map to these applications, and how they work.
I am not saying that Apple could not have done everything that OS X is without other players, but it would be ‘Year’s behind Longhorn’.
I just would like to credit every open source software coder, you will some day make this world less depended on Microsoft’s crap. You just simply need some direction for the future, that’s all =)
Also, how bout some credit for the people behind KHTML for helping Apple make one of the best Web Browsers of the whole industry.
Or is it wrong to credit hard working people for the things they do?
Oh, I see! By “Linux coders” you meant open source coders. I agree in that case. Because Apache, bash, tcsh, zsh, khtml, etc, are not precisely writen by “Linux coders”. And as far as I know, OS X users who do use these tools are not less grateful than Linux users or BSD users.
And what are the open source projects that make Aqua work as great as it does?
>> Well anyways… Everyone from the OS X community should at least give some thanks to coders for linux, if it wasent for them, our beloved OS X would be only half as great as it’s now. Thanks also to the BSD team for letting us use your layers for command line support
Quoting http://apple.com/opensource/
Apple believes that using Open Source methodology makes Mac OS X a more robust, secure operating system, as its core components have been subjected to the crucible of peer review for decades. Any problems found with this software can be immediately identified and fixed by Apple and the Open Source community.
>>Also, how bout some credit for the people behind KHTML for helping Apple make one of the best Web Browsers of the whole industry.
>>Or is it wrong to credit hard working people for the things they do?
One again quoting http://apple.com/opensource/
In addition, Apple uses software created by the Open Source community, such as the HTML rendering engine for Safari, and returns its enhancements to the community.
So what exactly is wrong with that? Oh wait they haven’t open sources Aqua/Quartz? Kind of the same way nVIDIA/ATI haven’t open sourced their technology?
Anyone who actually uses the Open Source apps on OS X knows where they come from, but can someone please explain to me why I’m a lamer because I use them in OS X?
I have a dual 1.8 GHz G5 and I’ve never come across any slow down at all, but then I’ve actually use a Mac so what would I know?
Never resized a window then ? Never noticed how all the menus have a slight (or not so slight) delay before they appear ? Never noticed that slight delay in Safari between hitting space and having the display scroll down ?
On my iBook G4 the eye candy effects are a little slower than on my G5 but then I am compaing Quartz Extreme on a ATI Radeon 9200 Mobile to a 9800 XT but on both machines no CPU is used.
That’s because it’s done on the GPU. It remains that the overall UI feels laggy to use.
Don’t believe it. It’s responsive on the 600 MHz iBook I’m using now, as well as on my Dual G5 at home.
Where to get these machines that Mac users buy….? Is there some store you can only get into as a card-carrying Apple fan where they hide the fast machines ?
I’ve got a 1Ghz iBook. It’s not responsive. I’ve used a dual 2Ghz G5 for a few days (but not a dual 2.5 outside of a store yet). It’s getting up there towards “fast”.
OS X however is uniformly and consistently like that. XP gets very very very bogged down very easily.
and the OS X UI is not so bad as to make it annoying…at least not on systems with good GFX cards (yes, Apple needs to upgrade all systems to 64 MB 5400s or better) because when I upgraded just my GFX card in my old Power Mac, menus began appearing instantly, and scrolling was smooth. window resizing was still laggy, and I think that OS X should use a frame resizer as a default or as an option for that. but I have see much worse than OS X on XP and Linux, and on good days, they have not been much better.
Patches on top of bandaids. Rather than return to proper human interface guidelines, Apple had to implement something to make the existing UI useable.
Expose *is* good UI. Certainly, it’s there to supplement something that wasn’t particularly good UI, but that’s not relevant to the fact taht Expose *is* good UI design.
Which would imply that NeXT was more efficient in providing virtually the same user experience.
If it provided virtually the same user experience, which it didn’t.
The file manager is the same (a return to the “Finder” experience came after massive protest from users), NeXT had a dock, NeXT was heavy on eye candy icons, and much of the way of doing things in OS X is based on how it was done in NeXT.
Yes, well, from 10,000 feet pretty much all GUIs look the same.
You are painting in such broad strokes as to make the possibility of any meaningful comparison about zero. It’s a bit like saying Windows and OS X are the same because they both have menus, a desktop and 32 bit colour icons.
You did: ” Hell, a top end dual G5 can barely run OS X responsively with more than a trivial load.”
I didn’t say it wasn’t a negative. My opinions on the lack of responsiveness in OS X are well known in this forum.
If the question is the best Unix desktop, either responsiveness is or is not a criteria.
Don’t move the goal posts. I wasn’t answering which unix desktop was the best (although I do think OS X takes that prize), I was answering the question of what OS X does better than anything else at the moment.
On the one hand, you state responsiveness is slow, even on the top end G5. On the other hand, omnivector claims that the GPU handles the eye candy stuff and responsiveness is not a problem.
I am not omnivector.
That only means that the 2002 model is “better” than the 2001 model. It does not mean that motorcycling as a whole has been improved, or that the 2002 model is demonstrably better than other pre-existing models. You could argue that water cooled V-4s demonstrably improved motorcycling, but altering the compression ratio and dampening rates for a smoother ride does not bring anything new to the table. Neither does OS X, and I argue that it does not match the user experience available five years ago.
Please stop trying to equate “new” and “better”. There is no rational definition of either word that makes them the same.
The question asked was not what OS X did that was “new” (although I think Expose qualifies).
The question asked was not what OS X did to improve the computing world, bring peace to the Middle East and solve global hunger.
The question asked was simply what OS X did better than any of its contemporaries. That it has only made largely incremental improvements on previous incarnations of technology to do those things better is irrelevant – so has everything else.
Your standards are stupidly – and I suspect hypocritically – high. By your measure there really hasn’t been anything “new” brought to the table in computing for a few decades.
So, I’ll turn the question on its head. Which product do you think is the technically superior example of the day ? Why ?
The question was about UI, as in “the best Unix desktop.” I’ve found that Enlightenment meets or exceeds the user experience of OS X (and certainly does not suffer from responsiveness issues on a 400MHz G4).
It’s been some time since I looked at E, but I don’t believe it defines much regarding the “user experience” – no common shortcut keys, no common dialogs or controls, no standard widget set, etc. Last I checked, E was nothing more than a Window Manager and a file manager, designed with the sole objective of being highly customisable (usually not something that goes hand in hand with a high quality end user experience).
Then there’s that whole been in development since the mid 90s and still a beta thing.
The only (current) “unix desktops” I’ve used that I’d even consider “desktops” are OS X, KDE and GNOME. However, if you’re the typical unix user who thinks a GUI is only good for fitting more console sessions on the screen, then I can see how many of the nice features of those three – and/or Windows – might be lost on you.
Well, since you’re going to use words like “stupidly,” and “hypocritically,” I’ll decline to continue the conversation. Although I’ve been a hardcore MacOS user since 1994 (System 7.0), one of the least enjoyable parts of the Mac experience has been the other users. When challenged to justify their complete allegiance to Apple (even though Apple makes it clear it is all about money), Mac users often justify instead their reputation as zealots.
Good luck with your OS X. Oh, anyone notice that Apple makes more money selling iPods?
I have a dual 1.8 GHz G5 and I’ve never come across any slow down at all, but then I’ve actually use a Mac so what would I know?
Never resized a window then ? Never noticed how all the menus have a slight (or not so slight) delay before they appear ? Never noticed that slight delay in Safari between hitting space and having the display scroll down ?
— NO not at all like I said it speeds along.
On my iBook G4 the eye candy effects are a little slower than on my G5 but then I am compaing Quartz Extreme on a ATI Radeon 9200 Mobile to a 9800 XT but on both machines no CPU is used.
That’s because it’s done on the GPU. It remains that the overall UI feels laggy to use.
— Feels fine to me!
LET ME SAY IT AGAIN I FEEL NO LAG/SLOW DOWN AT ALL WHEN I USE OS X.
Well, since you’re going to use words like “stupidly,” and “hypocritically,” I’ll decline to continue the conversation.
Well, when you’re saying OS X is the same as NeXT and also appear to be holding it up to some impossibly high standard (while implying that Enlightenment is already there), I’m not really sure there are other adjectives more appropriate.
Although I’ve been a hardcore MacOS user since 1994 (System 7.0), one of the least enjoyable parts of the Mac experience has been the other users. When challenged to justify their complete allegiance to Apple (even though Apple makes it clear it is all about money), Mac users often justify instead their reputation as zealots.
*blink*
I point out 3 things OS X does better than anyone else, while also criticising it for other things and that makes me a Mac zealot ?
— Feels fine to me!
LET ME SAY IT AGAIN I FEEL NO LAG/SLOW DOWN AT ALL WHEN I USE OS X.
I’m happy for you. Personally, I find it annoyingly unresponsive on anything but top-end G5 hardware.
” There is a little KDE feature I regret sometimes: the little contextual menu displayed when you released your mouse at the end of a drag and drop (does that exist yet?), giving you choice between copy, move, or link the file: no different behaviour, no additionnal shortcut to learn. That was good.”
This is annoying, because you’d have to choose every time you do drag-and-drop. On OS X the default action with dragging and dropping is moving if it’s on the same volume and copying if it’s to a different volume.
Hold OPTION while dragging and you always get a COPY
Hold COMMAND while dragging and you always get a move (the original will be deleted if it’s from one volume to another)
Hold OPTION+COMMAND and you always get an alias (which is similar to a symbolic link, there also exists a free plug-in for the Finder’s contextual menue, to give you a “symbolic link” option)
Too me my G5 feels perfect, but to be honest the only thing my G4 feels slow compared to is the new G5. I’ve never had the Beach Ball of Death on my G5, I wish I could say the same about my G4 but I can’t. The G4 compares very nicely to an Athlon XP2700+ I have running Linux in the house (for general day to day use). I have to say I find KDE/GNOME to be laggy on that box, but they are nothing compared to the random disappearance and lock up of apps on Windows XP (at work).
“LET ME SAY IT AGAIN I FEEL NO LAG/SLOW DOWN AT ALL WHEN I USE OS X.
I’m happy for you. Personally, I find it annoyingly unresponsive on anything but top-end G5 hardware.”
Ever since Panther I haven’t felt any laggin or slowing down on my Mac either. Maybe you should try to use your G5 with more than 128 MB of RAM (hint, hint). But joking aside. OS X is a RAM hog, that’s for sure, but then again RAM is cheap give it 512 MB or more and you’ll be happy. Ever since I’ve popped in 1GB of RAM in my PowerBook this thing has never been lagging again (1GHz G4, 17″ PB).
I feel that OS X is quite responsive for my needs on a G4 450 MhZ with 1 gig memory. I very rarely see the beach ball, except in graphics Photoshop and iPhoto. All other apps don’t seem to have a need to amuse me with the beach ball. So I can only assume that taking my own advice and stuffing as much RAM in that I could afford for the correct way to go. I also changed the ATI Rage AGP for a Radeon 9000 with 128MB memory on board, have’t regretted that.
Those are all the hardware “updates” to a second-hand G4 Powermac.