[NCLUG] Re: Thoughts on Linux Users

[Chad Perrin]

On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 10:04:37PM -0700, Daniel Herrington wrote:
> 
> I've been a Linux user for about 12 years (I got started with  
> Slackware, when it took a ridiculous number of floppies to install  
> everything). Recently, I've moved from using a Debian Linux box as my  
> main machine at home (for about 6 years) to using a Mac for most  
> things (beginning when Mac OS X Panther came out), and Linux on  
> occasion. Here are some of my reasons:

Debian was my favorite Linux distro (still is, really) just before I made
the switch to FreeBSD as my OS of choice.  I arrived at Debian through a
fair bit of experience with a number of distributions, and none of them
suited my needs and preferences to the degree that Debian did.
Eventually, though, Debian wasn't really cutting it for me either --
which is what finally prompted me to get off my lazy bum and try out a
flavor of BSD Unix.


> 
> 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.

I haven't compiled anything "from scratch" that I didn't write myself
since Debian started carrying ndiswrapper in official package archives.
That was way back when Sarge was the new Testing, by the way.  My
experience is that the commonly exclaimed fear of compiling applications
is blown way the heck out of proportion.  How often have you actually
needed to do so -- and how often was this for an application that you
could have gotten (or at least gotten an equivalent for) on some other OS
without having to jump through similar hoops?

I would have to compile AHWM (my current WM of choice) myself if I wanted
to use it on Debian, but there are other options that are close enough so
I wouldn't have to deal with that hassle if I didn't want to -- and
neither MS Windows nor MacOS X has *anything* like AHWM.

(Luckily for me, AHWM is in the ports tree on FreeBSD, so I don't have to
deal with compiling from tarballs to get it.)


> 
> 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.

I don't have the problem with Best Buy and Circuit City that you have,
but then again I'm not testing it on a Linux-based machine.  I'm using a
Linux Flash plugin with a plugin wrapper on the FreeBSD native Firefox
install.

I haven't tried viewing Quicktime movie trailers lately.  I have no idea
how well that works.  I know that it's easy to get at least some kind of
Quicktime support with MPlayer on FreeBSD, and there's a Firefox browser
plugin for MPlayer -- but I haven't tested it on 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. 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.

I do not run into any particular inconvenience in these areas, though
judging by what you've said here my convenience requirements are somewhat
different from yours.  For one thing, I find huge office suites
tremendously inconvenient no matter which office suite it is and no
matter what OS I'm using at the time.  I'm also quite skeptical of the
security effects of many automatic behaviors that are taken for granted
by most MS Windows users.


> 
> 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.

This is not an RHEL problem, as far as I'm aware.  It should be fairly
trivial to grant such abilities to an end user.  Have you spoken with IT
about that?


> 
> 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?

I don't know.  There isn't enough information provided for me to really
come to any conclusions about what's causing the problem -- even to tell
you whether I think your problem has anything at all to do with the
choice of OS.  I've seen similar issues on MS Windows systems.  While I
have some experience with MacOS X, I don't have enough to expect to have
run across that particular issue, so I can't even comment in any
substantive way on anecdotal evidence of the superiority, inferiority, or
equivalency of Macs in this matter.


> 
> 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.

I find that the eye candy available with Compiz Fusion makes both Aqua
and Aero look like last century's fads.  I also find that the eye candy
in all three cases is obnoxious and largely irrelevant to my needs,
speaking only of my personal preferences of course.  I also find that the
examples of GNOME and KDE configurations that mimic Vista and MacOS X are
surprisingly difficult to identify as being other than the "real thing"
without checking what's actually in their respective application menus
and the like.


> 
> 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 find the three tons of "you're not allowed to touch this" wrapped
around the BSD Unix core really gets in my way.  I guess our preferences
differ in this matter.


> 
> 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.

I like the applications I have available to me without importing any from
other OS platforms, with the notable exception of World of Warcraft.
That can be installed on Linux at least (and, I keep telling myself, I'll
find out how easily on FreeBSD too, "very soon"), and actually provides a
better gaming experience on Linux-based systems than on MS Windows, at
least in my experience.


> 
> I probably won't give up Linux completely (for the foreseeable  
> future), but it's definitely more of a "if you break it, you own all  
> the pieces" kind of OS. And Linux is a good platform to keep alive  
> for Mac users, because Linux apps can be ported fairly easily to the  
> Mac, since the Mac has GCC and X11 and the corresponding libraries. I  
> use Gimp all the time on my Mac, and I'm appreciative of the Open  
> Source community for putting in all the hard work to make that possible.

One of the reasons I prefer something like FreeBSD is very closely tied
to the "if you break it, you own all the pieces" idea:

Whether I break it or not, I own it.

There isn't a whole lot else that can compete with that, for my tastes.


> 
> I know my situation probably doesn't match anyone else's exactly, but  
> for my purposes, a mixture of Mac/Linux/Windows is best. Of course,  
> as they say, "your mileage may vary."

Indeed.  My previous comments should not (at least for the most part) be
taken as an indictment of your preferences or a disputation of the
importance of your unique needs.  They simply explain my perspective and
my own unique needs, somewhat -- at least, I hope they explain it
somewhat.


> 
> If you haven't done it already, I'd recommend going into an Apple  
> Store or a Best Buy and sitting down in front of a Mac. Go into  
> Applications/Utilities, open up a Terminal, and start typing Linux/ 
> UNIX commands on the command-line. Try out different shells (tcsh,  
> bash, ksh, etc.). Try perl, rsync, ssh, cron, or curl. Try find and  
> mdfind (metadata find). Use "open filename" to open a file in its  
> associated application. Launch PhotoBooth, iTunes, and iPhoto. Give  
> GarageBand, iMovie, and iDVD a try. Download Firefox for Mac, or  
> Camino. Look at the Parental Controls in Account Preferences. Try out  
> the built-in Text-to-Speech. Try out Front Row with the IR remote.

I've used Macs professionally (last time, 2005), and I've played with
them in stores since then.  I simply don't like the things.  There is a
definite "my way or the highway" approach to interface and environment
design in the MacOS X philosophy of computing, where "my" is from the
perspective of Apple.  If that matches up with your own preferences and
needs, great.  If not, you can make changes -- but then you're back to
"if you break it, you own all the pieces", and I don't really see any
return on investment to get a Mac and eschew the native environment in
favor of building a faux Linux/Unix on top of it.

In fact, if I were to ever "see the light" about the horrible one-button
mouse, I'd probably buy a Mac laptop, wipe the drive, install OpenDarwin
on it, and build my preferred environment the same way I do with FreeBSD.

There are some things about OpenDarwin that really appeal to me (like the
kernel architecture, theoretically speaking), in fact -- but there's
nothing I like enough about it right now to offset the things I dislike
about the hardware design and "hermetically sealed" philosophy behind it,
or the relative lack of software support (contrasted with FreeBSD).


> 
> 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).

I think that's great, and can't wait to see it mature.  In the meantime,
FreeBSD does what that promises to do eventually, right now.


> 
> 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.

As I pointed out, my major issue with getting a Mac (other than the fact
that I find some of Apple's business practices quite odious) is that the
hardware doesn't suit my tastes as well as a good Thinkpad.  Even if I
did get one, it wouldn't be for MacOS X -- it would just be for an
OpenDarwin platform.  We obviously have different priorities when it
comes to a computing environment.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Leon Festinger: "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him
you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions
your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."