Linux Format forums

Re: Linux better than Macs???

JohanM — Mon Apr 04, 2011 7:59 pm

Author: JohanM

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 7:59 pm

In my 3 years of experience with Mac OS X (on a Macbook) and linux (Ubuntu on a desktop) I must say, that despite how much I love opensource, a Mac is more userfriendly and stable. Both are much better than Windows.
It remains however that with the money you spend on a Mac you can get twice the hardware for a linux box, or for half the price you will have similar hardware.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

Rhakios — Fri Feb 11, 2011 6:51 am

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 6:51 am

alan404 wrote:

But you are very very locked in, and long term it's expensive (no one thinks long term - until "you must upgrade to the latest version of itunes to play this file" -- Your version of OS doesn't support this version of itunes" -- "Your mac doesn't support this version of OS").

Poor example? iTunes is free to update and the latest version runs on the PPC PowerBook I recently passed on to my brother. As for Operating System updates, you can usually get away with skipping at least one major revision and they aren't that expensive compared to some proprietary operating systems I could mention, neither do they release crippled versions aimed at poorer users.

Quote:

I don't know if it's a myth, but someone once told me an iTunes update once contained the line
rm / temp
instead of rm /temp
And yes wiped hard drives for an hour or two after release until they noticed! I bet some swear words were uttered.

Not heard of that one, but you might want to look at iPhoto11 upgrades for tragic user experiences.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

alan404 — Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:09 pm

Author: alan404

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:09 pm

I have to admit to being a bit envious of my wife running Keynote, Bento, and EasyDraw, whose Linux equivalents look clunky to say the least. You may say it's eye candy, but she's the last person on earth to be taken in by that, it just all seems very quick and efficient to me - her students in a nice Bento database with photos. But you are very very locked in, and long term it's expensive (no one thinks long term - until "you must upgrade to the latest version of itunes to play this file" -- Your version of OS doesn't support this version of itunes" -- "Your mac doesn't support this version of OS").

I don't know if it's a myth, but someone once told me an iTunes update once contained the line
rm / temp
instead of rm /temp
And yes wiped hard drives for an hour or two after release until they noticed! I bet some swear words were uttered.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

dictatorofzanzibar — Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:47 am

Author: dictatorofzanzibar

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:47 am

I am a linux user who recently purchased a new Mac laptop. While there are advantages to either OS, I will admit objectively that I like the way Mac OS is heading. I am glad to have the Mac feel and still have Unix peaking its head out here and there. I'll add that OS X can pretty much run X and linux applications, while vice versa is a different story. But really, who would ever need to run OS X applications on linux...?

I think it's worth mentioning that as I type this an install of Mac OS 9 is finishing up on an old iBook I have. Though not based in Unix, OS 9 blows linux out of the water when it comes to old PowerPCs.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

khakilang — Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:32 am

Author: khakilang

Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:32 am

The only thing I don;t like about Mac is the vendor lock in and their price structure. It may be a cool machine but its highly overprice.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

PLan — Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:13 pm

Author: PLan

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:13 pm

M-Saunders wrote:

In the last five-ish years I've had zero Linux kernel crashes, and just one on the Mac -- both are very reliable systems.

Similar experience with the Mac here (which oddly enough I switched to after multiple crashes with Windows). It just works, and lots of popular software vendors support it.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

RedWillow — Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:39 pm

Author: RedWillow

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:39 pm

M-Saunders wrote:

Hehe. What happened?

As DM hasn't answered yet, I can tell you my experience - with an install I was about to wipe anyway. I had a number of windows open just to see what would happen. When the rm -rf / had finished everything still seemed OK. The mouse pointer still worked, but as I moved it around and clicked on things the whole thing fell apart until, iirc, I was left with just the wallpaper.

The other "fun" thing you can do is:

Code:

sudo shred -vzn 0 /dev/sdax

... where sdax is your root partition. It's much slower, which adds to the drama. It has the same effect as rm -rf / with the desktop slowly disintegrating before your eyes as the system zeroes out the root partition from under its own feet.

Even Windows doesn't allow you to "format C:\" anymore.

Spoilsports!

Re: Linux better than Macs???

wyliecoyoteuk — Wed Oct 13, 2010 11:41 am

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 11:41 am

ollie wrote:

What utter drivel ... social engineering is OS agnostic. In Linux people have been told to do "sudo rm -rf /" to fix problems - guess what this means! No more data on the hard drive

On the other hand, it does present a solution to problems, albeit a rather more final one than most people would like

Re: Linux better than Macs???

M-Saunders — Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:27 am

Author: M-Saunders

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:27 am

Very poor piece. The 'price' and 'customizability' points have some truth, but the bit about reliability is ridiculous. In the last five-ish years I've had zero Linux kernel crashes, and just one on the Mac -- both are very reliable systems.

Dutch_Master wrote:

ollie wrote:

rm -rf /

I actually used that command once... On an old P-II that needed to be reinstalled anyway

Hehe. What happened? I think I did that years ago for fun, before a new distro installation. Reminds me, a couple of days ago I saw that the OpenBSD libc isn't stripped by default. One strip command later and... well, time to reinstall OpenBSD!

M

Re: Linux better than Macs???

Dutch_Master — Wed Oct 13, 2010 5:06 am

Author: Dutch_Master

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 5:06 am

ollie wrote:

rm -rf /

I actually used that command once... On an old P-II that needed to be reinstalled anyway

Re: Linux better than Macs???

ollie — Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:53 am

Author: ollie

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:53 am

Katherine Noyes - Computerworld wrote:

With Apple, on the other hand -- as with Windows -- social engineering is painfully easy. Just convince the user to click on something, and away you go, with the castle keys in hand.

What utter drivel ... social engineering is OS agnostic. In Linux people have been told to do "sudo rm -rf /" to fix problems - guess what this means! No more data on the hard drive

Important: Don't run the above command. It means - with root level privileges, remove all files and folders starting at the / level and work recursively through all folders and files and if there are any problems forcibly remove those files and folders.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

RedWillow — Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:32 pm

Author: RedWillow

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:32 pm

Rhakios wrote:

Only three of which have any measure of truth to them.

True. The other two contain these extraordinary pieces of drivel:

Quote:

With Apple, on the other hand -- as with Windows -- social engineering is painfully easy. Just convince the user to click on something, and away you go, with the castle keys in hand.

Quote:

Systems crashes and downtime are pretty much a fact of life when you're a Mac user,

Perhaps someone should tell Computerworld that they need to get a competent technician to look at their iMac. Sounds like dodgy RAM to me.

Re: Linux better than Macs???

Rhakios — Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:26 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:26 pm

Only three of which have any measure of truth to them.

Linux better than Macs???

Bazza — Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:31 pm

Author: Bazza

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:31 pm

Hi all...

Some of you may have already seen this...

The pointer says it all...

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9190340/5_things_that_Linux_does_better_than_Mac_OS_X