Why Yellowdog?

[Derick Centeno]

On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 19:47, Joel McCracken wrote:
> I've been a Linux fan since I've tried it. I really like its
> flexibility and the power a user has over his operating system. 
> 
> I just recently bought an Ibook g4, and I've downloaded and installed
> YDL 4. The sound didn't work as desired (I've been skimming this
> mailing list for months, and I've seen how to fix it), and there isn't
> support for airport extreme. 
> 
> Of course, Linux has its values. The ability to control your operating
> system is second to none. 
> 
> My problem is, I love OSX. Some of it is closed source, which is fine,
> but it is a quality OS, in my opinion. I don't have any pililosophical
> differences with Apple. OSX is easy to use, but one can do a lot of
> advanced things with it; my biggest joy is using gcc and vi.
> 
> So, I guess my question is, why use Linux over OSX?
> 
> Sorry if this has been discussed/answered before. Just flame me if it
> has :)
> _______________________________________________

Hi Joel:
Yes, the subject regarding OS X and linux has been discussed before.
And I really don't think you want to get flamed by the crowd which
attends here.  

However I have been told by very experienced persons, some of them also
have a lot of cash running around but that's a different point allowing
them to play with Apple's more expensive systems.  To a person they tell
me that because of the open source portion of the Mac OS X which lest we
forget is called Darwin and is almost pure BSD Unix, anything which can
be run in YDL can be run in OS X.  

Even better than that professionals familiar with Unix prefer BSD Unix
above Linux, amongst this other crowd Linux is a PC users idea of what
Unix is like, not Unix itself.  

It is true that if you want to muck around with an OS it is better to
muck around in Linux.  Not that it's easier, but because it is open
source you can replace it 24/7, and mess it up all over again.  I don't
believe anyone at Apple would be happy if you did that with OS X, let
alone anyone you live with at home.

Many can't afford Apple's newer systems for a variety of reasons or
cannot recoup the investment they made in the older systems they have. 
There is a large community of Mac users still running and using MacOS 9
or earlier; YDL allows us a sense of moving onward into a current OS
without being stuck.  Some even feel that OS X is catching up to where
we already are and there is no reason to use OS X at all.

If one is a programmer, the logic of coding can be worked on any machine
where gcc is available.  Old or New.  Sure Apple's new systems have
wonderful programming this or that tool, but many more programmers
learned to code without those bells and whistles.  And again to get the
bells and whistles someone's gotta pay for the hardware.  So most
groan... get to their coding and work on their projects and maybe
someday the VC (Venture Capitalist) will rain cash on their project
allowing them to get whatever then is current.  Prior to that time well,
one stays with whatever one has.  This is the group I'm a member of and
even if YDL 4.0 is optimized for more snazzy hardware, I'm gonna work at
hacking it so that it works on the box I have and publish the effort on
this list or the YDL FAQ website.

OS X on what I have will make turtles look like speed demons.  So for
the forseeable future it is YDL for me.