[Discuss] os x = poop?

[Dr. Anthony Gabrielson]

Hi Eric,

I like OS X because it works for me.  The OS is long term stable and doesn’t begin to flake out after a year+ of development. I do not need to focus on installing software and getting things that should work out of the box to just work. I also really like Xcode - it is much nicer than Eclipse which generally feels like a toy to me. This is not to say that Apple’s software has remained as stable it was in years past. OS X 10.10 crashes about as often as Linux for me these days - 10.6 was significantly more stable.

I like Linux but for the most part I have greater issues with it and often need to fight for functionality - namely it doesn’t just work. This problem is magnified by staff members new to linux - they always need to fight with OS configurations to work. Personally, having to fight for functionality worked when I was younger, but I have higher expectations today. Lately I run a mix of Debian and Ubuntu and package management is a pain and only getting worse. For instance, after about a year one Debian box got progressively worse (after significant development) and needed to be completely rebuilt. At that time apt refused to install packages. Personally, I think ELF needs to evolve to address some of these issues - namely default support for multiple architectures would be really nice. The documentation and awareness for packages needed to just build 32 bit on x86 is itself remarkably poor.

I can give Linux a few pluses. Cross compiler setup has gotten much easier in the last five years or so and a few good ones are even in the Ubuntu repos. I also think Docker is pretty cool, with additional integration it could replace current package management since everything could be within the container.

With that said, to each their own. I’m sure Ubuntu will run great on the mini.

Anthony

> On Feb 11, 2015, at 8:50 PM, Anthony Gabrielson <agabrielson at icloud.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Eric,
> 
> I like OS X because it works for me.  The OS is long term stable and doesn’t begin to flake out after a year+ of development. I do not need to focus on installing software and getting things that should work out of the box to just work. I also really like Xcode - it is much nicer than Eclipse which generally feels like a toy to me. This is not to say that Apple’s software has remained as stable it was in years past. OS X 10.10 crashes about as often as Linux for me these days - 10.6 was significantly more stable.
> 
> I like Linux but for the most part I have greater issues with it and often need to fight for functionality - namely it doesn’t just work. This problem is magnified by staff members new to linux - they always need to fight with OS configurations to work. Personally, having to fight for functionality worked when I was younger, but I have higher expectations today. Lately I run a mix of Debian and Ubuntu and package management is a pain and only getting worse. For instance, after about a year one Debian box got progressively worse (after significant development) and needed to be completely rebuilt. At that time apt refused to install packages. Personally, I think ELF needs to evolve to address some of these issues - namely default support for multiple architectures would be really nice. The documentation and awareness for packages needed to just build 32 bit on x86 is itself remarkably poor.
> 
> I can give Linux a few pluses. Cross compiler setup has gotten much easier in the last five years or so and a few good ones are even in the Ubuntu repos. I also think Docker is pretty cool, with additional integration it could replace current package management since everything could be within the container.
> 
> With that said, to each their own. I’m sure Ubuntu will run great on the mini.
> 
> Anthony
> 
>> On Feb 11, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Eric Chadbourne <eric.chadbourne at icloud.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I’ve been using a mac mini for the last few months and I must say the hardware is nice but the software is pretty bad.  Push notifications in Safari (yuck), iCloud hiccuped when I moved from gmail to protonmail, iCloud can’t backup by directory by default, the default email client is very slow, their Xcode IDE is merely adequate, their server products blow, you really can’t change the look significantly, by default it can’t read many other file system formats, case insensitive terminal, iTunes can’t read free codecs, etc.  I am very unimpressed with the software.  With so much cash behind them one would think they could write good code but no.  It really sucks.  My Ubuntu boxes are so much more stable and have more features.
>> 
>> Anybody here like OS X?  Why?  I’m not trolling.  I’m curious.  Why would somebody want to use this terrible piece of proprietary poop?
>> 
>> Eric C - the one who is googling how to install Ubuntu on a new mac mini.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at blu.org
>> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>