OSNews questions if developers are flocking to the Mac. Just for anyone who wonders if that is the case, it just isn’t the case. When I install my system, I no longer tweak my xorg.conf, compile any drivers, or do any number of things everyone claims makes linux so hard. I fire it up, install some build tools, and I am good to go. As distributions continue to progress in usability, this will only be more-so the case.
- Polished 3D Accelerated Desktop? Check
- Drivers For All Hardware? Check
- 3D Icon Bar? Check
- Hotplug USB Devices? Check
- Plays Media (mp3 / avi / etc)? Check
- Girlfriend Uses It? Check
- Flash Support (youtube, dailymotion etc)? Check
- Seamless Windows XP Integration (Virtualbox)? Check
Pray tell, what in the world are most people doing where using Ubuntu is so much harder than a Mac?
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#1 by Jeff Hatfield on May 26, 2008 - 7:32 pm
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In a word, video.
Just try and find a *simple* way in linux to take some photos and put them to music with simple transitions and output to a DVD that can play in any DVD player.
I set my daughter up with Ubuntu Gutsy and when she came back from a vacation I tried to help her get her pictures into a slideshow on a DVD. I finally gave up trying to find an easy way to do it that would just work. Everything I tried had a bunch of complications and pain.
#2 by brian on May 26, 2008 - 7:55 pm
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I like the hardware. It has a nicer feel than the cheap plastic feel of IBM, Dell, etc.
*shrugs*
I do use both. Installing a *nix flavor on a mac pro is pointless since it possesses all the f/oss I’m looking for installed and ready to go. I don’t see it as an either/or issue. There’s a time and place for anything. Except perhaps Vista. ;P
#3 by Marius Gedminas on May 26, 2008 - 8:15 pm
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Try to plug in an external monitor?
Bug #1: you have to edit xorg.conf and set a larger virtual display size; bug #2: you have to patch the intel video driver and mesa to get compiz to run on a screen larger than 2048xwhatever, bug #3: you have to restart compiz manually almost every time you use xrandr, because compiz gets all confused and, e.g. stops redrawing half of hour screen.
I’m just saying, there’s a bit of work left to do.
Not that you could force me to use a Mac, Ubuntu is much more convenient, especially when it works.
#4 by Igor on May 26, 2008 - 8:47 pm
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@Marius: What? you have not use Hardy apparently.
OSX in my opinion sucks, video codes? what!!! it sucks in OSX, also, install and uninstall apps is so odd and unintuitive, even hard to do!. And please!, the Dock is not a good idea is a pain-in-the-ass.
I really believe that Web developers are switching to mac, because they are brainless!, they just wanna look cool.
Everything works in my Ubuntu out-of-the-box
#5 by Anmar Oueja on May 26, 2008 - 9:00 pm
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I have been using Mac OS X and Linux (Debian to Ubuntu) and I think for your masses, Mac OS X simply works. That doesn’t mean Linux doesn’t. I think if the Linux community would start duplicating effort, they would increase their speed and quality over all.
Unfortunately, saying that, doesn’t consider the labor of love Linux is and that is exactly what makes it soo awesome.
I love Mac OS X and believe we all have the social responsibility to use Linux because this way our future is in our hands.
I just wish Linux would consider one aspect of their desktop. Integration. If the interface would integrate well enough, people stop using soo many widget sets and stick with GNOME. This would make all applications function in a much clearer fashion.
#6 by Guillermo on May 26, 2008 - 9:55 pm
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I partially agree with Anmar, we do have a personal (first, then social) responsibility to use Linux; it’s a matter of personal freedom, and Mac OS X (or any proprietary/commercial OS for that matter) can’t give you that.
And we should also consider other advantages some Linux distributions have over commercial operating systems, before using Ubuntu installing any software implied I had to first find it, then download it, then install it, and finally I had to check every certain amount of time for updates, Synaptic (and everything that goes with it) is light years ahead of that system. Take that for ease of use.
Nonetheless, the mac still seems to be more robust, and in some aspects it’s still ahead of Linux (specially in relation to compositing). But all being considered, I wouldn’t return to the Mac as my primary OS, it’s just not worth it at a personal level.
#7 by krasov on May 26, 2008 - 11:09 pm
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“Drivers For All Hardware? Check”
rofl, may i suggest a correction?
Drivers for all the 5 hardware? LOL
#8 by Mackenzie on May 26, 2008 - 11:35 pm
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There’s drivers for all of my hardware…this thing’s had support for everything since Feisty. As of Gutsy, the resolution is right out of the box as well. It’s a Gateway MX 6920. Specs as follows:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8038 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
04:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
04:09.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
04:09.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
#9 by Matt on May 27, 2008 - 12:41 am
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Polished 3D Accelerated Desktop? Check as long as you dont need OpenGL application acceleration.
Drivers For All (older?) Hardware? Check but is the quality always good? Video drivers without 3d, or proprietary drivers that do require fiddling.
3D Icon Bar? Check. Meh
Hotplug USB Devices? Check
Plays Media (mp3 / avi / etc)? Check, really well!
Girlfriend Uses It? Check
Flash Support (youtube, dailymotion etc)? Check, so so
Seamless Windows XP Integration (Virtualbox)? Check (also wine)
#10 by troll on May 27, 2008 - 1:40 am
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1. Mac has the codecs mp3 ready installed and if something is missing you wont get any philosophical crap talk – just install the missing ones.
Also has problems with some drivers and compositing.
2. Flash support – yeah, via a wrapper system that sometimes goes haywire
3. OmniGraffle. There is absolutely nothing equivalent for Linux. It is alone good enough reason to switch to Mac.
4. iTunes (the web shop) included. Really works. People do care about this, as iTunes is a rather well working concept and hassle free for the users. Plus, the iPods have sold plenty.
5. Polished image. Open source projects have no idea of how to polish the final product. For instance the startup sequence of most distributions is plain horrible. Screen resolution changes (monitors pop up information boxes and flicker), color themes change, text in traditional text mode passing by, … Yuch. small things like that really do matter.
6. Better IM clients. For instance Pidgin is just plain usability disaster. Been waiting for the Telepathy based applications to replace it for years now, but it seems to take ages. (Integrating seamless high usability communications tools for both home and corporate environments would be THE killer feature of the Linux.)
7. You can get Office 2008 for Macs. The user interface is very usable, and it allows the user to focus on the content creation instead of fiddling manually with the formating tools for endless hours to create something actually good looking. OpenOffice does not manage that. They even dropped the ball entirely for 3.x, the test versions are just as horrible as 1.0 was in usability terms. (That is especially shame as there IS a complete redesign of the interface available. It is more usable, looks better, slightly original, and extremely well thought. It’s called Flux by the way. But nothing like it will land before 4.x, which will take some 5 years lol)
#11 by Bertrand on May 27, 2008 - 2:38 am
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Drivers for all hardware: Kind of check, but you know as well as I do that Mac as it easy on this one, they deal with their own hardware. Linux deals with most hardware, but don’t try anything too exotic….
As for USB devices, then again, it’s kind of hit or miss (sometimes it doesn’t work at all, sometimes it works half the time, like the integrated card reader on my Dell XPS M1330).
But then again, Linux has come a LOOOOONG way in terms of polish, and I would like to thank you all, the devs, for devoting so much of your time to make our computer experience smoother and smoother over time. I, for one, really appreciate it.
#12 by timri on May 27, 2008 - 4:43 am
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Suspend/Resume has never worked for me.
#13 by mh on May 27, 2008 - 8:03 am
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I think fonts and graphics render better, and the overall look is better on Macs. GNU/Linux looks pretty good, just not AS good.
I’ve been using Debian based systems since 1997 on my other box, and it does look and work great. Thanks to all the developers for their hard work.
#14 by Jorge Martinez on May 27, 2008 - 10:00 am
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Ubuntu:
Plug in hdd video camera and it opens up directory with random files that can’t be opened, no sort of naming, but on Windows/Mac, regular movie editing is supported.
Plug in a small 4×6 photo printer — try to print photos as expected, won’t work.
Applications are missing, I can’t run GoToMeeting, Visio, etc?
Both have blurry fonts as of the Hardy release (gnome terminal), so Ubuntu no longer wins here.
Simple photo management, F-Spot hangs and crashes NON-STOP, gthumb is ridiculously crappy
No iTunes
No quicken/quickbooks
No suspend/resume without my display going all bright white and burning out pixels (yes, I love it when this happens to my laptop, linux rocks!)
Sorry my life is more than just using Vi in gnome-terminal. I would be freaking thrilled if I could do the above. No, I don’t have a Mac and no I don’t have any Windows in the house on my 6 computers in the house all running linux–regular Debian, Ubuntu lost me on the workstations with the broken ass font in gnome-terminal in hardy, been using Debian as my main system since 1996 or 1997 anyway.
Luckily, most of these problems aren’t Ubuntu’s fault, it’s simply because there’s no market for Linux users and the software shops pretty much ignore us. Quickbooks for Linux? FREAKING SOLD. At home usability? I wish. whatever.
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