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Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon vs. Mac OS X Leopard
Posted by
Zonk
on Thursday December 13, @06:31PM
from the who-is-king-of-the-jungle dept.
from the who-is-king-of-the-jungle dept.
walterbyrd writes "Linux magazine has up a decent article comparing Gutsy Gibbon to Leopard. 'The stereotype for each OS is well known: Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time. Both have come a long way in a short time, and both make excellent desktops. So we have two great desktop operating systems out at roughly the same time. Let's see how they stack up against each other.'"
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Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon vs. Mac OS X Leopard
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Oh god (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh god (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh god (Score:5, Funny)
Just remember...there's no such thing as "nowhere to go but up", especially in software. No matter how bad it is, it's possible to make it worse.
Microsoft proves that all the time!
Re:Oh god (Score:5, Funny)
That's what people said about XP.
My Macbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My Macbook (Score:4, Insightful)
I should have to sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg-plow to get a GUI, ya know? Yet, it's nice to know I can if I have to.
I don't think either OS is poaching much from the other's pool of users.
Re:My Macbook (Score:4, Insightful)
OSX is designed to run on Macs.
If I came out with a new CPU and wrote an operating system around it, yeah, I bet it'd run pretty well there, too.
</fanboy>
Re:My Macbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My Macbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you sometimes have to work around things on exotic hardware, very new hardware, or if you're trying to do something very specific that is outside the mainstream. In order to get a system that 'just works', you have to buy hardware that's known to work well on Linux. That's it. Stick with hardware that's been around a bit or has vendor support (like Nvidia graphics cards). Get an Epson or HP printer (and install Stylus Toolbox [sf.net] if you have an Epson printer). Use the well-supported Connectix Webcams. Get a scanner that's known to work with SANE. You get the idea. If you follow these guidelines, you will find that Ubuntu 'just works' every time. Or, if you're not quite so ambitious, go out and buy a machine that has Ubuntu pre-installed. Dell sells them.
Unfortunately, people don't realize this and then dismiss integration issues as Linux being 'too immmature.' That's crap. If all your hardware is known to work well under Linux, you won't run into these integration issues.
Re:My Macbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you sometimes have to work around things on exotic hardware, very new hardware, or if you're trying to do something very specific that is outside the mainstream. In order to get a system that 'just works', you have to buy hardware that's known to work well on Linux. That's it. Stick with hardware that's been around a bit or has vendor support (like Nvidia graphics cards).
The first sentence seems to contradict the others... and the implication that Linux 'just works' on any hardware that's not 'exotic' or 'very new' is laughable.
I mean i like Ubuntu and everything, i've used it (and several other varieties) fairly extensively, but there are still a lot of things that don't work. WPA encryption didn't work on my not-new and not-exotic wireless card, or any of the different but also not-new and not-exotic wireless cards of the two people i know who've played with Ubuntu at work. ATI video cards are also not new and not exotic, so that arguement doesn't really apply there either. Couldn't figure out how to get my HP printer to work (maybe it ultimately would have if i was smart enough, but jeeze), and although i did eventually get my sound card to work it took about 2 hours of trouble-shooting and research and locating and re-compiling drivers and so on, et cetera et cetera
It's clear that OS X kind of cheats by having a small pool of 'blessed' hardware that it's explicitly designed to run on, so it isn't really fair to compare Linux in general to that particular set-up. But let's be serious, it is not a 'just works' system on common hardware yet.
Re:My Macbook (Score:5, Insightful)
"you have to buy hardware that's known to work well on Linux" is not necessarily the same as "my not-new and not-exotic wireless card, or any of the different but also not-new and not-exotic wireless cards" due to that.
Re:My Macbook (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that having to buy very specific devices in order to achieve a usable system does not make Ubuntu an 'it just works' operating system on common hardware; at best it makes it an 'it just works' operating system on restricted hardware, in the same vein as OS X. Given the discussion in this article comparing the negatives of Apple's 'closed' system to the beauty and freedom and elegance of Linux's 'open' system i think this is relevant (unless you are the type of person who can write your own drivers). Linux is, again like OS X, definitely not a viable option for many many people unless they want to go out and buy specific hardware for it.
Re:My Macbook (Score:4, Insightful)
If the GUI of OSX fails, you get dropped to a commandline shell, i have had this happen to me when the videocard in my G4 wasn't seated properly, also OSX will not try to run the gui if it doesn't detect a videocard (like in a server).
What linux does need, is a "recovery mode", where it loads a minimal X using vesa or generic vga drivers and lets you reconfigure it properly (this is exactly what windows does with safe mode).
Re:My Macbook (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My Macbook (Score:4, Informative)
Intel produced the ACPI specs, and people implemented those specs into linux/bsd/etc even before there was much ACPI supporting hardware...
Microsoft implemented ACPI too, but not quite according to the specs...
Hardware manufacturers follow microsoft's implementation, and use microsoft's dsdt compiler etc, instead of the standard intel one. And ofcourse the specs aren't published for the broken microsoft implementation.
End result is that ACPI works fairly poorly almost everywhere. If you have a laptop that still supports APM suspend on linux usually works pretty well (i always used apm suspend on my older thinkpads), modern windows no longer supports apm at all (and amusing things happen if you install ibm's apm suspend drivers on xp).
Re:My Ububook (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if I could get Gigasampler or any of the Native Instruments synths or samplers to work in Linux...
I don't really care for the whole "Jack" audio engine thingie, which seems pretty kludgy, and it took a good while for me to figure out what it wanted from me, but some of the open source music apps that came with Ubuntu Studio are definitely for real, once you get past the fact that they didn't have some big corporation pouring money into making them look slick. After Christmas, when I've got some disposable cash on hand, I'm going to check out some of the professional, non-free (as in "expensive") music applications that are starting to become available.
No, it's not as smooth as Leopard, but it's getting there. And now that Eve-Online has a Linux client, I don't care if Microsoft ever fixes Vista. I just don't need it.
Re:wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Hang on, you originally implied that with Linux, you didn't have to install third-party applications. So, it turns out you do have to manually install applications.
Where is this feature on a Mac? Well, www.versiontracker.com would be a start. And that helps you decide what to install. On Linux, how does a new user decide which package to use? A package manager in itself is not going to help much. Most Mac apps are extremely simple to install (usually drag-n-drop to applications folder) - so I don't see how that is any more difficult than installing using a package manager.
How does having a package manager equate to applications being "automatically installed", as you imply in your earlier post?
Tell me - what application bundle does do 100% of what every user wants to do with their computer? There are certainly plenty of things I want to do that I can't under Linux. Hell, there are tons of things that I want to do, that I can't do on any platform, because those applications simply haven't been developed yet.
Utter horseshit. under Linux, you can't even get many types of app - for example, there are no Photoshop-class image editing apps, and no professional video editing apps. Frankly, your contention is ridiculous. Consistency of quality and usability is also much better with Mac apps. If a new user chose a Mac or Linux app at random, it's likely that the Mac app is of better quality and usability. Having a ton of average-to-poor apps available hardly compares to having many first-class apps available.
Re:wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S:
The point of my posts was not to say that the Mac is superior in every way, or has all software covered. My point was that the way that the "finding and installing applications" argument was presented was too simplified, and out of touch with reality. It's not a task that something like a package manager can solve. It requires social solutions, like support networks, and reliable software review sites.
The other thing i disagree with is the idea of "the average user." I don't think such a person exists. If so, I've never met him. Most people have their own interests and tastes, and don't want to be constrained by what's "average." I think it's this attitude that stops many people from trying new things. I think some of these average users are pushed into that role, because of talk about "complex or specialized" software. What is special to one person, is normal to another. If you grew up playing a musical instrument (and having never used a computer) then music composition software might seem completely normal to you - but seem weird and specialist to somebody else. Likewise, Excel is considered "normal" software by many - but if somebody has never had any need for a spreadsheet, it wouldn't really make any sense to them.
I think the "average user" is a myth that should be abolished. It's insulting to both people and software. It's the kind of thing perpetuated by the corporate world, who want every employee to fit a mold, and for everybody to use the same thing.
factual errors. (Score:4, Informative)
both UNIX- based
OS X Leopard *is* certified Unix (r). Ubuntu (and Linux) is not based on original AT&T Unix code nor is it certified Unix. It is a unix-like kernel.
Re:factual errors. (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not! Were you asleep for the whole SCO lawsuit thing?
Re:factual errors. (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux, BTW, is proud of this, and it also helps when they get sued by stupid copyright trolls like SCO. Linux is UNIX reimplemented from scratch, and thus, technically, is not UNIX but Unix-like.
I tediously explain this to every one of my employees when I'm training them on using their new Ubuntu laptop.
And then I tell them, "But basically, it's Unix."
Re:More importantly is how they are vs Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows has a monopoly on a software method of jury rigging a bunch of hardware from different manufacturers into something resembling a modern computer. Apple turns the computer into something more resembling a television.
Apple aren't better than Windows when it comes to freedom and monopoly. Far from it, MS has always been the lesser evil, that's why they succeeded in the marketplace. Apple is a bullet dodged that is currently ricocheting back.
Re:More importantly is how they are vs Vista (Score:5, Interesting)
Computers are cheap because Compaq reversed engineered the IBM PC and fought the battles against IBM. MS did supply the OS, but this was the essential issue. Compaq still had to come up with a legal BIOS, which is did. One has to imagine they could have come up with an OS as well. In any case, this started a boom, lead by the likes of pheonix technologies, to create a clone market.
In the midst of this, Apple kept it's original mission to supply a good competing computer. The architecture was different, which meant it did not IBM software, and therefore most people went with the cheap clones, which happened to have MS DOS. Those that were not attached to IBM, went to other machines. Apple competed in an environment that included many different platforms. Apple did not compete in the IBM PC market. It just had to keep prices and quality high enough so that people who were not satisfied with IBM PC market, and were looking for a better choice, would include Apple in the search.
It is a anachronistic mistake to assume the state of the world in 1980 was similar to the state of the world today. It was a much more dynamic time with competition sparking genuinely interesting innovations. Unix was still a big player, and ATT developed a Unix microcomputer which was really cool. Apple did not kill this machine, MS did not kill this machines, cheap clones did, which happened to often run MS DOS, as MS Windows was still quite a joke.
In fact in the midst of all this, Apple was a good citizen. The machines could run CP/M, for example. The machines could boot without a DOS, and one could load any number of options. The machine could buy EEPROMs. Later, when the machines were powerful enough, and the chips included a PMMU, Macintosh user could run Unix.
What most people focus on it the Linux connection, which is philisophically opposed to the Apple philosophy. open standards, build your own box, do everything yourself, which is where we were in the 70's. This philosophy has it's place, but is not the entire world. Apple machines could run *nix, and a damn sight better than most of the PC junk, but the code is not there. Likewise, in every story about *nix, some fool always complains that *nix won't run because some driver does not exist, or it takes forever to set up. That is the whole point!. *nix is a build your own system. It offers the ultimate flexibility, but at a price. If you need a driver, write it. That is was OSS is all about!
In the end we lost a lot of good functionality due to the MS shenanigans, but also gained some accessibility. Apple is part of the old culture, which has it plan. MS is quickly becoming the Nouveau riche neighbor you wish would move away. At some point *nix will mature, and run well, and at that time it will support all the cool hardware, not just the cheap hardware. MS does a good job supporting cheap hardware. Apple does a good job supporting mid price systems. *Nix needs to find it's own niche.
Re:More importantly is how they are vs Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
It boils down to this: "Apple turns the computer into something more resembling a television." That's exactly right, and framing it as a Bad Thing(tm) is not unexpected, but certainly ludicrous. Linux wouldn't have gotten off the ground on Apple machines, no. That would be contrary to the computer-as-an-appliance model.
Under no contorted version of reality would Apple ever be the sole vendor of computers. If everyone followed the Apple model, you can be absolutely certain that Linux would have a better hold on the marketplace. Getting the hardware and software from the same people (IBM, Apple, Amiga, SGI--the "dinosaurs") would have ensured that some cross-compatible development would go on; a common reference design for low-end competitors to cut costs, and customizable for each vendor.
Most computer resellers wouldn't have had the resources to develop an end-to-end solution on their own; the thought of using something free and not having to get in bed with another corporation would have clearly been desirable. Microsoft won because it got there first, not because it is or was the "lesser evil" (are you kidding me?!). Microsoft solved the problem of manufacturers having to do their own OS and support, making it cheap for them to enter the market. There was no such thing as Linux; there was no cheaper option, so they sucked it up and signed on with MS. It was the cheapest, easiest path.
If the other model had succeeded, you'd see all kinds of companies jumping at the chance to have a free OS that they could have tweaked to their desires, and be beholden to Microsoft for security, connectivity, or making their products functional. It's the detached expectations that created the 800-pound gorilla. If each company were expected to develop and sell a wholly working product like Apple does, the budget brands would be using Linux to do it, and there'd be no OS monopoly--just several different OSes that worked together.
Here's a video version of the article (Score:5, Funny)
Gutsy indeed!
Re:Here's a video version of the article (Score:5, Funny)
From TFA (Score:1, Redundant)
Well, that's one way of putting it. Then again, perhaps "One is UNIX, the other is like UNIX" would have been more accurate.....
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Informative)