[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

Sat Jun 21 21:50:26 EDT 2008

Technically, Mac OS X has an awesome display server. It also has a really
nice sound subsystem. They control their hardware and hence they have really
good device/firmware support. They also have out of the box support for a
lot a open source applications and fink/opendarwin help bring the rest to
the table. Very importantly, they have the confidence of commercial shops
who know that they can target Mac OS X for making money over desktop and
productivity software.

On the other hand, there are a few cons as well. It follows the "one size
fits all" perspective -- there are not many customization options... (that
"one size" however, is really very well done). I also didn't like the fact
that their programs usually seem to consume a little too much memory.

I guess gnome and KDE have covered good grounds with consistency. X11 is
making strides... and pulseaudio/jack are making strides too... the biggest
hinderance I think is that Linux moves very fast and in unexpected ways and
that seems to inspire less confidence in commercial shops to write a product
for it, esp. given the low market share it enjoys right now. Its really a
question of migrating the product over to newer technologies when previous
technologies die out. Linux sound in particular has seen _too many_ APIs of
late.

To draw an analogy, I know that there is active interest in the kernel
community to _not_ follow a stable API.
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense.html
That can work very well for the *kernel* given the fast pace in which
hardware moves.
However, it seems to me that it may not be such a good thing for the
userspace. After all, we really want commercial vendors to invest time and
money in infrastructure code natively running on Linux and see the benefits
of that infrastructure being free and cross platform. Its probably too much
to ask them to invest in unstable APIs, participate in a community (it does
come with political restrictions, vs say licensing from another firm) and at
the same time base their business model on giving away their software for
free.

Ritesh

On 6/21/08, Tim Jowers <timjowers at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Really good discussion. What does Mac do that Linux does not? Vice versa?
>
> Thanks,
> TimJowers
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Matthew Pusateri <
> mpusateri at wickedtrails.com> wrote:
>
> > Life's too short to be a windows admin, and I love linux, but I have
> > two macs now and love them as well.  I recommend macs to non geeks b/c
> > it all just works!  Why do I have a macbook, b/c it just works.  And
> > their is more mainstream ISV support for  mac's than linux.  Case in
> > point, I did my taxes this year on my mac, Don't remember seeing Turbo
> > Tax or Taxcut versions for Linux.  It was only in the last year or two
> > that the Mac versions of those programs came out.  Most of what people
> > do, email, pictures, word processing, web browsing the mac does really
> > well with little retraining.   apple-C to copy versus control-C.  It's
> > not that hard to make the switch.  And I say again, I love Linux, but
> > it's still hard for the average user when things go wrong.
> >
> > Matt P.
> >
> > On Jun 18, 2008, at 12:06 PM, William Sutton wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I've been a Linux user since way back in the Red Hat 4.1 days (my
> > > mentor
> > > was the great Mark Spencer).  I've used Red Hat 4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.x,
> > > 9, ES
> > > 2.x, ES 3.x, Gentoo, Debian Etch, and made a passing stab at
> > > Mandrake.  I
> > > cut my teeth on Solaris, and have decent familiarity with AIX and HP-
> > > UX as
> > > well.  I've used Windows 3.1, 95/98, 2000, XP, NT 3.1, and NT 4.  I've
> > > used Mac OSX.  I expect my experience is fairly common with other
> > > people
> > > on this list, but I wanted to give a little background anyhow.
> > >
> > > On the *NIX UI side, I've used olwm (ick), fvwm2 (not so bad, but
> > > not eye
> > > candy), KDE 1.x and 2.x, Gnome (and the later Sawfish extended
> > > variants),
> > > and Enlightenment.  I'm presently an E .16 user.
> > >
> > > On the Windows side, I usually install Cygwin, Virtual Dimension, and
> > > TweakUI so I don't feel completely powerless.
> > >
> > > I've been a web developer, part-time systems administrator, and
> > > professional Perl programmer (UNIX when possible, Windows when
> > > necessary).
> > >
> > > My wife (accounting by trade, Windows by experience) is picking up
> > > E .16,
> > > although my screen edge desktop flip annoys her.
> > >
> > > I refuse to support Windows for family members other than her.  I
> > > don't
> > > have the time or desire to mess with the broken morass that is
> > > Windows in
> > > any flavor.  I've also come to the point where I don't much want to
> > > support Linux for myself when I get home in the evenings (it's too
> > > much
> > > like work, and work belongs at the office).  When people ask for my
> > > recommendation, I tell them to get an Apple (I recently purchased a
> > > MacBook Pro for myself).
> > >
> > > *NIX support for major software packages is better than it was when I
> > > started out 10 years ago (OpenOffice has been a godsend), and I
> > > think that
> > > is due to recognition of Linux as a major player in OS space.  I think
> > > it's nifty that Dell is selling Ubuntu preinstalled, and that Ubuntu
> > > (and
> > > derivatives) are making a case for a consumer-ready Linux PC.
> > >
> > > Microsoft is helping as well by releasing Vista and killing XP
> > > support.
> > > Nobody I know who has OS knowledge is buying Vista systems because
> > > it is so
> > > horribly broken.  A co-worker of mine who let his wife get a Vista PC
> > > despite his knowledge that it was broken told me that much of the
> > > slowness
> > > comes from Vista DRM that encrypts and decrypts data as it passes
> > > through
> > > the various OS layers.  Combine this with the fact that one cannot
> > > run XP
> > > on most of the new Vista hardware due to driver issues, and choosing
> > > Microsoft looks like an even worse idea than at first glance.
> > >
> > > Given the Apple price points for hardware (expensive), and the
> > > Microsoft
> > > brokenness, I see great opportunities for a consumer-ready Linux
> > > PC.  That
> > > said, I'm sticking with my MacBook :-)
> > >
> > > William Sutton
> > >
> > > On Wed, 18 Jun 2008, Owen wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 12:56:16PM -0400, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> > >>> I don't recommend Linux.  Why would I recommend Linux to a typical
> > >>> user
> > >>> who wants to do simple tasks that OS X and Vista both do so well and
> > >>> require no specialized training or support with?  I especially don't
> > >>> want everybody's brother calling *me* personally to support their
> > >>> Linux
> > >>> system when it can't get on the net or "runs really slow" (as every
> > >>> computer seems to do over time.)
> > >>
> > >> I know this is different to installing Linux as a primary OS for a
> > >> novice user, but for the past few years when family come to visit for
> > >> extended periods, I set them up to login to my Linux box rather than
> > >> dual booting into Windows, and they have had 0 (as in zero)
> > >> problems so
> > >> far.  And that is a Gentoo box, not your super friendly latest
> > >> Ubuntu or
> > >> Fedora release. It started because I had no time to sit and install
> > >> updates for Windows and all the little bits of related software
> > >> that get
> > >> installed to make it useful, rebooting countless times along the
> > >> way ...
> > >> I just setup my desktop to log them automatically, started a browser,
> > >> pointed them to the computer and ran out the door to work. No
> > >> questions,
> > >> no problems.  Seems like progress from a few years ago to me.
> > >>
> > >>> If you put your personal politics and preferences aside, you have to
> > >>> admit that Linux, Mac OS X and Vista are all very powerful and
> > >>> capable
> > >>> operating systems.
> > >>
> > >> Hmmm ... that must be why my wife is almost begging me to replace
> > >> Vista
> > >> with XP on her new Dell laptop. And I get the feeling that her Vista
> > >> laptop with a more powerful processor, more memory and newer
> > >> components
> > >> runs noticeably slower than my older laptop running XP. Seems like
> > >> progress to me. :-)
> > >>
> > >> Owen
> > >> --
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> > >>
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