[NCLUG] Re: Thoughts on Linux Users

[Paul Hummer]

Preface:  this isn't meant to be a flame of any type.  I own a Mac, as 
does my wife.  I'm of the mind of Howard Moskowitz, who you'll learn 
about in the link I posted on list a while ago, in that choices are 
good.  However, there are some things that should be pointed out.
> 1. I got tired of maintaining the OS internals myself. It was a real 
> pain to try out a new program and have to compile it from scratch and 
> then find out that I needed to install 10 new libraries or a new 
> kernel just to be able to try the program. Then I'd find out that 
> installing the new kernel broke some previously working functionality, 
> like my wireless network adapter driver.
The only time I compile something from scratch anymore is when I wrote 
it.  I stopped ricing kernels a long time ago.  Since you've been using 
OS X since Panther, I think you should try out the new Gutsy or Fedora 
8, both which came out within the last month.  yum and apt are two 
things that make them quite superior over Windows and Mac.  Every time I 
use a Mac or a Windows machine, I wish I had something as robust as 
either yum or apt.
> 2. I'm still frustrated when trying to browse certain websites with 
> the Linux version of Firefox. For example, Best Buy and Circuit City 
> have menus that are supposed to pop down in front of the flash 
> animation, but instead they just disappear behind the flash. And 
> forget about viewing quicktime movie trailers on Linux.
Just tried this, and the both work for me.  As a web developer though, I 
will say that Linux browsers aren't the hardest platform to develop 
for.  Safari for Mac is (Safari for Windows doesn't render pages the 
same as the Mac counterpart).  Quicktime, yea, you have a point.  
However, there's a reason YouTube is so popular.  They have videos 
playing in a format everyone can see.  Even when I was a Windows user, I 
hated having to go download Quicktime.
> 3. I wanted better integration between applications, and better 
> compatibility with MS-generated documents, like Word, Excel, and 
> Powerpoint. When I click on an attached Word document in an email, I 
> want it to open in MS Word.
Thunderbird opens documents in OpenOffice just fine here.
> When someone sends me photos in an email, I want to be able to add 
> them effortlessly to my photo collection. And if I want to edit video 
> from my camcorder, insert photos from my camera, and add a soundtrack 
> and DVD menus and burn it to a DVD, I shouldn't have to know things 
> like how to convert from DV to MPEG2. It should just happen automatically.
There are tons of apps that do this now.  I do it at least once a month 
to send DVDs of my family to my brother in Taiwan.  Shoot, even k3b has 
SOME support (not menu design, but media conversion)
> 4. I'm required to use a Linux workstation at work (running RHEL4), 
> and it's irritating that I can only change screen resolutions, 
> rotation settings, or color depths if I have the root password, which 
> I don't.
Your sysadmin can set up the required privileges for you.  While it may 
sound silly, the whole "default user permission" thing varies between OS 
schools of thought.  Default OS X still requires the "root" password to 
perform many operations, and Windows just gives you the equivalent of 
NOPASSWD:ALL in /etc/sudoers. Those default settings alone are quite the 
religious war.
> 5. Also at work, my particular USB flash drive isn't recognized on my 
> RHEL4 box, but it works just fine on a coworker's box even though it's 
> got the same OS. What gives?
Is it the same hardware?  We had this problem with SuSe at a former 
employers, even though the boxes were the same Dell machines, ordered 
two months apart.  Turns out they weren't the same hardware after all...
> 6. Even though the GUIs available for Linux have come a long way in 
> the last 10 years (like Gnome and KDE), in my opinion they're still 
> behind something like the GUI on a Mac.
Like, multiple desktops?  Maybe the UI effects?  I've heard this 
argument many times, and I'll admit that many things with OS X "Just 
Work" but let's not put Apple out to be the most original.  They just 
take the idea someone else had a put a little polish on it.
> I still use Linux on my old autonomous robot. I've got handmade 
> wire-wrapped PC/104 cards stacked on a single board computer and an 
> investment of time in the corresponding programming code I developed 
> for them. However, I'm considering using a Mac mini in my next robot 
> (with everything connected via USB). The beauty of using a Mac is that 
> it's a derivative of BSD UNIX under the hood, so it's like having a 
> Linux box that I can pay someone else (a.k.a. Apple) to maintain for me.
I also have hobby robotics.  I would seriously suggest you stay away 
from the Mac, from one roboticist to another.  Apple wouldn't really be 
"maintaining" it at all, and it's not a great open platform (I tried 
with my Mac mini, becomes quite difficult).  If you want BSD, go with BSD.
> Also, since VMWare Fusion for Mac came out, I am now able to run 
> Windows XP applications in "Unity" mode so that they run "rootless" 
> and just become native windows on the Mac OS X desktop. I can even 
> install multiple Linux distros (like Ubuntu 7.10 and Debian 4.1) 
> inside virtual machines on my Mac, so I can get the best of Mac, 
> Linux, and Windows.
Agreed.  As a web developer, I've got to see the same page in many 
different browsers.  Unity mode is this shizzle.
> Oh, and there's also a budding development effort called "MacPorts" 
> that aims to put lots of Linux/UNIX apps on the Mac. Check out 
> http://www.macports.org (formerly http://www.darwinports.org). It uses 
> the port command and apt-get. And I can't forget to mention fink 
> (http://finkproject.org).
Fink was broken more than it wasn't for me.  MacPorts has been okay, but 
it also feels neglected sometimes.
> I'm sure I'm not going to talk you or anyone else into getting a Mac 
> if you don't already have one, but I wanted to share my own reasons 
> for having made that transition.
"Not the right Pepsi, but the right Pepsis"  Reminder:  I don't want to 
flame, but I wanted to just point out the linux is a CONSTANTLY changing 
animal.  Shoot, I get a new Ubuntu every six months (and the upgrades 
actually work, even for my customized setup)