[OT] really?

[Eric Dunbar]

On 6/14/05, Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 10:54:47 -0400, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> > for Windows x86 tend to be of much higher quality than for Mac PPC.
> 
> I challenge you to name even one Apple-supplied driver that is of worse
> quality than its Windows counterpart.

IIRC there have been signficant problems with the graphics card
drivers over the years, oftentimes holding up releases of games which
were already into decline on Windows and still hadn't made it to Mac.

> > The reason they don't exist for Linux (with a few oddball exceptions)
> > is that Linux just doesn't constitute a large enough a paying base and
> > there are too many variants to support (I'd hate to take the support
> > calls of Linux computer "users" (i.e. don't know the first thing about
> > sudo)).
> 
> If you're talking about hardware drivers, that can only apply to
> vendor-supplied Linux drivers, which as a rule with some exceptions, are
> complete crap. Again, not using Linux does not make someone any more a
> paying customer than a Linux user, because use of the drivers tends to be
> free as in beer on any OS. Demand for such vendor-supplied drivers is very
> low not just because of Linux's market share, but for two more important
> reasons: First, few such drivers are open-source. Second,
> community-supplied open-source drivers are of much higher quality than
> vendor-supplied open-source drivers for Linux.

My original point was that switching to i86 for Mac OS X is a *good*
move b/c now vendors can write drivers for ONE CPU. Yeah, the system
calls they have to make might differ slightly but the principles will
be the same. When it comes to hardware optimizations they'll only have
to worry about ONE architecture. And, chances are Apple will provide
its own "wrapper" for driver manufacturers to simply take their driver
and recompile (or even just distribute if the wrapper is good enough).

> > Can you expand on "not affected the availability of non-free (as in
> > speech) codecs for Linux much."? Do you mean that these codecs *are*
> > available for Linux (there are MANY more codecs available on x86 Linux
> > than on PPC Linux)? Officially, unofficially? What?
> 
> The codecs available on x86 Linux but not PPC Linux are so precisely
> because they are non-free as in speech. That proves they exist, and
> therefore their availability has not been prevented. The vast majority of
> these codecs, by the way, are Windows codecs with Linux wrappers.

And, that's one of the things that a move to i86 will open up to Mac
OS X (and Mac other i86 OS) users. Though, I don't think wrappers/WINE
is where the real promise lie! Cross-OS compatibility should hopefully
start appearing.

> > I really do think you underestimate the psychological importance of
> > "Intel Inside" for computer users and coders. Mac may be widely known
> > *outside* of the Mac-computing community but PowerPC/PPC IS NOT!!!
> > Even for those who know PPC is a niche market, and not necessarily
> > associated with Mac.
> 
> PowerPC is not widely known among users outside of Mac, but the same is
> true of Intel Inside outside of Windows. Believe it or not, there are
> still computer users that have never heard of Linux, FreeBSD, or anything
> else that runs on Intel.
> 
> Psychological importance of Intel == Psychological importance of Windows

Not necessarily. Intel syn. computer. Windows syn. OS.

> > Even if the benefits from switching to i86 are no more than
> > psychological and speed (and I think there are more that come with
> > low-level x86 code compatibility) they're worth it.
> 
> Whether or not it's worth it is not something that can be measured, so
> everyone has to make their own determination of that.

I think there *are* measures that can show whether the move was worth it:
1. profit at Apple from i86 Macs; 2. number of new major apps that
appear for Mac OS iX; 3. number of new OSS OSes; 4. number of new Mac
users; 5. number of returning former Mac users; 5. total number of Mac
users (new and old).

> > Yep, that's a problem that's already been pointed out. The trade-offs
> > are minor though since Apple is quite good about keeping system
> > "closed" by default and patched (it's a hell of a lot easier to patch
> > an OS X system than YDL or even Ubuntu (though, Ubuntu is now
> > apparently testing an auto-update daemon)).
> 
> My comment was only intended to pertain to the use of Linux on Intel Macs,
> but the prospect of CPU-based attacks on OSX is worth exploring.
> 
> Keeping the system "closed" by default isn't exclusively due to Apple, and
> Apple never makes OSX as "closed" as it could be. Patches address
> vulnerabilities in the OS, not in the CPU.

They could close up a system completely but then it wouldn't be very
internet friendly ;-). (close = closed ports) As for buffer overflow
attacks and the likes... they'll be as successful on Mac OS iX as they
are on all the flavour of Linux (not very... and less so b/c of
Software Update).

> Ubuntu has dpkg and apt-get. What's easier than that?

<ahem> Drilling a hole in the head. Yum sucks even worse than
apt-get/dpkg but neither system is exactly the pinnacle of easy to
use. Synaptic is good and I don't know much about what Ubuntu is doing
with apt-get and their auto-updater (siimilar to Software Update).

> Apple's Software
> Update? (And don't say "Yes" until you consult some MUG FAQ about "Should
> I ever use Software Update?")

You seem to imply that Software Update isn't an effective system. Do
you care to expand on that (are you sure you're not a politician!)?

> > You are correct. I did say "Debian as the Debian distro of choice".
> > And, I meant what I said, no more, no less!
> >
> > Perhaps you're not familiar with the ecology of the Debian community?
> > There are a tonne of Debian-based distros based on the Debian
> > repositories. Ubuntu is itself nearly 100% Debian (unstable) except
> > that is has a different philosophy guiding its development and
> 
> It is because I know this that I said what I said.

Huh?

> > operation, and, Ubuntu appears poised to supplant Debian as the most
> 
> Most widely used among whom? Certainly not desktop users. Use of Debian
> itself is quite rare among Windows converts.

Care to explain and defend that statement? You're starting to sound
like a politician (or preacher or both) What makes you claim that
Debian is "rare" among Windows converts (95%+ of Linux users will have
come from Windows). What is the alternative? On Mac, I've only ever
seen serious reference to Ubuntu and YDL in the past year (and, even
then, Ubuntu seems to be expanding in terms of attention... though,
it's hard to distinguish between x86 and PPC)

> > widely used Debian-based distro. This does not say that Debian will
> > die. It will remain the gold standard upon which Ubuntu is based and
> > Ubuntu's changes will feed back into Debian's development. I also
> 
> That is true of any Debian-based distro, but Ubuntu's changes have an
> extra layer of management before they can get into Debian.

Not that much. IIRC many projects are starting to feed directly back
into Debian (b/c the Debian developers are also moving over to Ubuntu
which means that they can keep one project going for both OSes).

> > expect to see Ubuntu chew into the relative "market share" of other
> > distros, including MEPIS. DistroWatch shows that there's a phenomenal
> > level of interest in Ubuntu, but, that's not a 100% accurate measure
> > since those numbers can be inflated through a concerted effort on the
> > part of fan(atics).
> >
> > Time will tell which ones climb to the top. Ubuntu will definitely
> > become one of the "big boys".
> 
> It already has. Within the sub-category that is Debian-based distros for
> desktop users, Ubuntu and MEPIS are the big boys that should be measured
> against. There may be bigger boys that are either not Debian-based or not
> suited to desktop users, but that's a whole other discussion.

I think you're forgetting that Ubuntu is not just a desktop OS. It's
made waves on the desktop but it's no less mature on the server side
of things than any other Linux (and, that's where Linux (as a whole)
really shines). If I hadn't already invested a lot of time in learning
YDL I'd probably move my server over to Ubuntu.

That's an image problem that Canonical will have to overcome --
perhaps they'll want an Ubuntu Server edition to formally describe the
package set (right now there's a "server install" option ;-).

> > As for YDL vs. FC... don't know, don't care. As long as my server runs
> > Apache, Samba, AppleTalk, Webmin, Webalizer, Gallery and GNOME via
> > XDCMP (for experimentation) I'm happy (plus, I may start experimenting
> > with LTSP or FreeNX).
> 
> It is possible to do practically all of that under OSX, too. But ease and
> straightforwardness is what shapes preferences, and recommendations of
> distros to try are based on expected preferences.

Wouldn't you be able to do *all* of that under OS X (especially OS X
Server, with greater ease in some cases)? The reason I'm with Linux
for my server is for (a) the fun of knowing the insides of my server
and (b) cost ($0 is great when the hardware it's running on only cost
me $100 and I can happily add add'l components for free).

> > Apple has shown the model's value. In 1983/1984 they (including Lisa)
> > were "first adopters" with the Mac GUI. In 1987 they were early
> > adopters with high quality colour graphics (unseen except in the tiny
> 
> PCs had 24-bit color long before the Mac did, relatively speaking.

Did they *do* anything with 24 bit colour? I remember seeing an
Illustrator 88 demonstration back in, '88 :) (I was a young lad back
then) and it blew my socks off. I'd never *seen* anything like it.

The other thing that really commends Apple for what they did with the
Mac II and colour is that Mac System 5/6 in 1988 looked VERY similar
to the latest that was available in 2000 in OS 9, 12 years later, and
the only real difference between a Mac II and the G4 available in 2000
was speed, speed, speed and speed! Take a user from 1988 and put them
in front of the G4 and they'd know what to do. Take a user from 2000
and put them in front of the Mac II System 5/6 and they'll know what
to do *and it wouldn't look that different*.

> > niche of Commodore's world). The elimination of floppy drives in 1998.
> > Etc.
> 
> Is that a typo? Steve Jobs permanently eliminated floppy drives is 1988,
> not 1998. Or is that era now forgotten?

1988? They still had the Classic and Classic II in 1989/90 that came
with floppy drives only! 1998/08 = iMac G3/233 (Rev 'A'), first Mac
desktop without floppy. 1999 = B&W G3 and complete abandonment of
floppy drives on all Macs!

> > The iPod is a disposable consumer product that does one task, and one
> > task only! It's not like a computer.
> 
> "Disposable consumer product" is what describes a computer to people that
> only know Windows, and Apple sees a bit of wisdom in that.

I'll respond to disposable product in the other e-mail in this thread.
It is disposable, especially the iPod Shuffle (a bank is using them as
a give-away gimmick in Toronto... if you switch and close a chequing
account from a competitor and have at least one automated deposit
(e.g. pay cheque) or two automated bill payments set up for two or
three months you receive an iPod Shuffle).

> > Tiger is "proven" technology. 10.4 is little different from 10.3.
> > Moving to 10.0 WAS a major shift, however!
> 
> Only the technology that is inherited from 10.3 is proven. The new stuff
> is new.

That's a brilliant observation :). "The new stuff is new". Yeah,
there's window dressing that's changed, but fundamentally the OS is
still the same. There was probably less 3rd party app breakage b/t OS
X 10.3 and 10.4 than 10.0 vs. 10.1 or 10.1 or 10.2!

> > Didn't know which ones Apple had dropped support for. I'm guessing
> > that G3s may be next on the chopping block (perhaps Apple could use
> > graphics card size as its next discriminator?).
> 
> All of those were choices Apple had for the Tiger release, but their
> decision was not to do those things, proving that speculation as to what's
> next on the chopping block is useless.

It's a logical progression b/c it eliminates support and support
headaches for the oldest machines and deals with some of the "OS X has
a slow GUI" issues. Curious to see what'll happen next. Graphics card
< 16 MB? You're out of luck. Though, that's going to cause a lot of
confusion b/c people won't know their card size.

Eric.