On Feb 7, 2004, at 17:40 , Matthew Hunter wrote: > > I've been trying to keep my nose out of this, but UNIX can run on > PCs. A "PC" is a hardware platform, or more accurately, a > widely-produced, mostly-compatible hardware platform based on the > x86 architecture and IBM's original thrown-together "personal > computer". Been there, done that. Running Linux was my bread & butter for years, and in fact, I had to fight to run Linux instead of Win NT 4.0 at a job where I was doing UNIX programming for a living, go figure. I've matured to the point where I know all the low-level crap that I want to about UNIX, and have long passed the point where I care to muck around with UNIX internals on a weekly basis. I _can_ do that if I want to on Mac OS X, but I don't _have_ to, which is a major improvement. And, user-land stuff in Linux/FreeBSD is a nightmare. If I never have to try to keep up with library X so I can run a decently stable version of applications Y and Z (that rely upon different minor versions of library X), I will be happy. In fact, I've recently had to do some X11 programming for Mac OS X (for work, not by choice), and therefore had to install GTK+ and a ton of other libraries just to get a newsreader to install. I swear I had to fix about 10 different libraries just so they would compile, and no they weren't porting problems. They were just your run-of-the-mill open source project problems: things half-implemented and that in a completely broken way. > Don't sneer at PC users; the hardware platform wasn't exactly a > miracle of original design, but these days it isn't bad at all, > and the price is hard to beat. There are hardware platforms I > would want more -- I think the PowerPC processors are better > designed -- but I'm not willing to pay more in order to be locked > into the Mac operating system. Price is hard to beat, but I use my computer to make money, not to make the computer work. In fact, I now (because of Linux) HATE mucking around with endless configuration files to tweak something just so it will work. One benefit of Mac OS X (and Windows) is that the environment is rather standard (for Windows, I mean for a given flavor), so I don't have to recompile a bunch of stuff just so it will work properly. Installing software via drag & drop is so much nicer than any mechanism in any Linux distro (RPM, dpkg, tgz) or having "DLL Hell" and registry problems on Windows. > Sneer at Microsoft users all you want; they deserve it. > > I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both > before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user > interface always makes an effort to get in my way. I can see how > people whose business is not working with computers like them, > but I can hardly stand to use one for more than a few minutes. > I feel pretty much the same about windows. My buisness is not only working with computers, but also helping other people work with computers. Of course there are annoyances; you will find them on any platform. For me, the annoyances in Mac OS X are just that: annoyances. On Windows they were crippling and on Linux were merely tedious to the point of disgusting. And, most of the features of Mac OS X are configurable, since a lot of people like to customize their machines to the nth degree. You just need to do a little research on the platform, or buy an O'Reilly book or two (Mac OS X Hacks, for example, though all of this info is available for free on the web, if you want to do a little legwork). And don't try to argue that you wouldn't have to do any research on another UNIX system to do the same amount of customization: you're right. You'd have to do a lot more research through much worse documentation and be told "read the source code" a couple of dozen times if you have any questions. > Strangely enough, I'm one of those users for whom UNIX > (specifically, Linux) gets the interface *right*. If someone > would get their act together and release an open-hardware, > PowerPC based system optimized for Linux, I'd be there in a > heartbeat. Well, you do have roughly seventy gajillion interfaces to choose from, so I guess you've got me there. After messing around with the 30th interface that STILL doesn't work the way you want to, it gets tiresome... I, myself, progressed this way: WindowMaker -> Enlightenment -> IceWM -> BlackBox -> WindowMaker -> Sawfish -> Fluxbox -> WindowMaker; even though WM didn't do everything I wanted, it was good enough. Anyway, all this to say that while choice is good, if most of the choices are worse than getting poked in the forehead with a sharp stick, it's not good anymore. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com