OS X vs Linux?

[EmaDaCuz]

Simply put -as it is clearly emerging from the replies- it depends on what you do with your PC.

I have been using Linux (Slackware and Arch) since 2002; I strongly believed that it could be the perfect desktop systems, and for me it actually was. However, as someone said, maintaining the system was a hell... I had major problem as an amateur music writer in finding a decent DAW, but I managed to that too. I switched to OSX in 2006, I found all I wanted from an OS. Eye candy, care for the details, snappy response, easy to maintain, tons of properly written software. Since then, Linux has been relegated to my NAS or to my desktop at work, when I have to run automated image analysis overnight.

It may sound lazy, but basically OSX wins because it is ready out of the box. You may like it or not, but I rather spend my time watching a movie or recording a song than configuring Flash or whatever else. And it is an addictive OS, once you try it you can't go back to anything else.

 

[scaredpoet]

So for the sake of my quesion i ask 2 things:
1) Leave windows out of this, it's not a free-for-all fight.
2) Be unbiased. We're at a mac forum, try to not cheer up for mac just because you like it.

So my question is: Why do you choose Mac over LInux?
I'm actually doubting if i should change over to Linux, as it seems to be made more for the programmer. (What i like)

My situation is this: at work, I deal extensively with linux servers. I also have a linux desktop and a couple of older laptops that had windows on them but I've since wiped and install ubuntu on them.

That said, my primary work computers are a 27 inch iMac, and a 13 inch 2013 MacBook air. Similarly, quite a few of my programmer and sysadmin coworkers do the same.

Why? Because I also work with a lot of non-tech people, who are mainly Windows based, as part of what I do. We share and co-write documents and use collaboration tools.

So, I need a UNIX/linux architecture that works well with our linux servers; a good UNIX command line, and suitably compatible tools that translate well with the linux machines. But, I also need MS Office. No, real MS Office. OpenOffice, LibreOffice and all the other FOSS alternatives are nice and all if you're working in a vacuum and only sending out PDFs. But when you have other coworkers who are using Microsoft Office on Windows systems, you NEED the real thing if you want your documents to look right on their systems, and vice versa.

(Incidentally, iWork is a little better at this, but not nearly there, either.)

I also need other tools: Adobe Connect, Adobe Creative Suite, VMWare view client, and Cisco Jabber for videoconferencing.

All of this means that I'd be jumping through a lot of hoops to do my job if I were on a linux desktop/laptop all the time. I'd probably have to run Windows in a VM constantly. Or, have separate linux and Windows desktops on my desk and shave to switch often between the two.

OR, I could use my Macs.

 

[kunaicode]

Well, you have to be kidding.

OS X is far superior to Linux, any distribution of Linux.

OS X is a great operating system, very integrated with the hardware it works on, very easy to use, very ergonomic and stable, and a joy to use. The user experience is just great and everything works out of the box. Plus, it has plenty of quality software to choose from.

Linux, on the other hand, is not half as polished as OS X. It may be stable and easy to use, but it feels unpolished. The user experience is not half as good. OS X is professionally designed to bring a good user experience. Millions and millions of dollars are spent on development of OS X to bring a polished user experience. That doesn't happen with Linux. There are plenty of distributions, and all of them, or nearly all of them, look amateur.

In addition, there is a lack of software for Linux. Most of them are open source, very amateur. The best web browser is Firefox, which has seen better days. And the best office suite is LibreOffice/OpenOffice, which is a deal breaker. And these are the best software available.

----------



Microsoft Office. No doubt about it.

The best operating system supporting this software is Windows, and this is the reason why I keep tied to Windows. But it's also available on the Mac.

If Linux had a worthy competitor (i.e., if LibreOffice/OpenOffice was as good as and as compatible as Microsoft Office), I would still prefer OS X. Linux is not ready for the desktop, and it will never be. There's a value in proprietary software, and open source will never be able to compete with things such as capitalism, private property and real money.

You have much to learn, young grasshopper. Also, calling world-class open source software "amateur" and assuming it's inferior purely because people develop it for the greater good rather than to get cash, cash, cash, cash, cash, and more cash, is nigh infuriating. I've had to deal with many people like you, and it's gotten very tiring over the years.

First of all, Linux has the most polished codebase of any operating system kernel in the world. Many sysadmins replace the standard toolchains they get with Solaris or BSD with GNU libc and coreutils, just because they're that good.

Linux, the kernel, is used on 9/10 supercomputers. IBM loves Linux, and is a standard contributor to the kernel. So is Oracle. So is Google.

By your definition, Oracle and Google are amateurs. Yep, they really look like amateurs, don't they?

I have to admit that yes, many desktop environments have looked "amateur" in the past. But unless you are stuck in 2002, you have no idea what you're missing out on. Visit this webpage and this one too and honestly tell me that Windows 8 looks better than the desktop environment that's pictured. Tell me that GNOME looks "amateur." Tell me all about how it's broken, buggy, ugly. Tell me how the icons look worse than iOS 7's.

Tell me, why not?

LibreOffice is a pile of junk. Yes, it is. GIMP is too bloated and hard to get around. Yes, it is. That doesn't mean these applications are amateur. People have invested far more time, and far more man-hours into building these apps than Apple, Microsoft, and Google combined. Code audits are exhaustive. The Linux kernel, if it would have been developed in a traditional environment of a company, would have cost $1,400,000,000 to build.

Yep. That pile of cash? Amateur.

That's just the kernel alone. The GNU sections that lie on top of the kernel would have cost about $4bn to develop. That doesn't even take into account all of the other desktop environments, userspace apps, and third-party efforts which would easily value over 50% of Apple's market cap.

I don't come here to preach the word of the Penguin. I have a PowerBook and a MacBook Air which I dearly love and run OS X on. OS X has its place. It's a beautifully designed and built operating system, and Linux still has a ways to go in terms of design.

But, as an open-source contributor, when people like you begin to call all of this back-breaking and tiring work, work that is done not for money but so that people can enjoy their computers without cost or licensing restriction AMATEUR, it makes my blood boil. What kind of world are we living in, when people who donate their blood, sweat, and tears to the public domain are called communists, and when people like Microsoft and Google who steal all of their users' data or cash, are praised like they're the second coming?

Whatever it is, I don't want to live in it.

Stay classy, MR.

 

[bradl]

I will say this, though.

The big thing that Linux would have over OS X would be portability. Older versions of OS X you could throw on PPC and be happy. Linux can run on just about any processor, from x86-based, to Sparc, to Alpha, to Mach and Mach64, RISC..

For grits and shiggles, back in the mid 1990s, someone ported the kernel to the IIe's architecture, and got it booting on a IIe. Made a great (albeit slow) Gopher and FTP server.

Again, there's a lot that I take from Linux, in being a Linux sysadmin.. but for home, OSX takes it.

BL.

 

[skaertus]

You have much to learn, young grasshopper. Also, calling world-class open source software "amateur" and assuming it's inferior purely because people develop it for the greater good rather than to get cash, cash, cash, cash, cash, and more cash, is nigh infuriating. I've had to deal with many people like you, and it's gotten very tiring over the years.

First of all, Linux has the most polished codebase of any operating system kernel in the world. Many sysadmins replace the standard toolchains they get with Solaris or BSD with GNU libc and coreutils, just because they're that good.

Linux, the kernel, is used on 9/10 supercomputers. IBM loves Linux, and is a standard contributor to the kernel. So is Oracle. So is Google.

By your definition, Oracle and Google are amateurs. Yep, they really look like amateurs, don't they?

I have to admit that yes, many desktop environments have looked "amateur" in the past. But unless you are stuck in 2002, you have no idea what you're missing out on. Visit this webpage and this one too and honestly tell me that Windows 8 looks better than the desktop environment that's pictured. Tell me that GNOME looks "amateur." Tell me all about how it's broken, buggy, ugly. Tell me how the icons look worse than iOS 7's.

Tell me, why not?

LibreOffice is a pile of junk. Yes, it is. GIMP is too bloated and hard to get around. Yes, it is. That doesn't mean these applications are amateur. People have invested far more time, and far more man-hours into building these apps than Apple, Microsoft, and Google combined. Code audits are exhaustive. The Linux kernel, if it would have been developed in a traditional environment of a company, would have cost $1,400,000,000 to build.

Yep. That pile of cash? Amateur.

That's just the kernel alone. The GNU sections that lie on top of the kernel would have cost about $4bn to develop. That doesn't even take into account all of the other desktop environments, userspace apps, and third-party efforts which would easily value over 50% of Apple's market cap.

I don't come here to preach the word of the Penguin. I have a PowerBook and a MacBook Air which I dearly love and run OS X on. OS X has its place. It's a beautifully designed and built operating system, and Linux still has a ways to go in terms of design.

But, as an open-source contributor, when people like you begin to call all of this back-breaking and tiring work, work that is done not for money but so that people can enjoy their computers without cost or licensing restriction AMATEUR, it makes my blood boil. What kind of world are we living in, when people who donate their blood, sweat, and tears to the public domain are called communists, and when people like Microsoft and Google who steal all of their users' data or cash, are praised like they're the second coming?

Whatever it is, I don't want to live in it.

Stay classy, MR.

I am sorry if I made you mad, but I just stated my point of view. It's not based on biases, but on actual experience.

I never said Linux was amateur. I said Linux looked amateur, and that's completely different.

I understand IBM invested one billion dollars in Linux in the past, and that other large companies have helped developing it. But then, IBM and Google and Oracle and so many other companies developed Linux not for the greater good, but for money. Money drives the world, whether idealists like it or not. And it's actually a good thing, because otherwise we would be stuck with trading goods. That's why Linux works so well in supercomputers. And Linux is unbeatable on that.

But desktop Linux? For using at home? It's not even a contender. I understand that ZFS may be a much better file system than NTFS or HFS+, but that just doesn't make any difference for my day-to-day use. But the user interface does. Well, Linux looks good. Open source enthusiasts call it eye candy sometimes. Most open source enthusiasts fail to understand the difference between beautiful and functional. I remember when I used Compiz, and people on the Linux world thought it was the greatest thing on Earth. But it was not. It was beautiful, but very amateur. Because it added nothing to the user experience. It was just eye candy, and nothing else.

I understand that the interface, especially Gnome, has evolved a lot over the years. People on the Linux world seem to have finally understood the meaning of ergonomics, and that's a good thing. But Linux is still miles away from Windows and OS X in terms of user experience. It's not just the beauty. Linux may be beautiful, or may be configured to beautiful. But it's not enough. It's the ergonomics, the ease of use, the user experience. The magic. Linux lacks that. It's evolving, but definitely not there yet. And that makes all the difference in the world.

I know it's hard to compete with all the money spent by Microsoft and Apple. And IBM is probably not very interested in making Linux user-friendly for use in the desktop. Open source developers did quite a good job with Linux, considering the resources available. But it's hard to compete with the economic power of the big ones.

Said that, I could live with Linux itself, even if it's not as good as Windows or Mac. Its interface is not as polished, but it's usable at least. What really kills me is that most open source software is crap, like you said. I have a computer so I can do stuff. It's a tool. I am not a programmer, and few home users are. The program I use most is an office suite, and most people do the same. The most used office suite in the world is Microsoft Office, and nearly every company uses it. It's available for Windows and Mac, but not for Linux. I found OpenOffice and LibreOffice to be good pieces of software. Yes, they may be bloated, but they have several features. Actually, I guess LibreOffice would be the second best office suite available in the market today (I guess Corel is investing less and less in WordPerfect Office, which used to hold that position). It's quite a feature, and pretty impressive. However, it's not Microsoft Office. And if I have to pay the price for having Microsoft Office, I will happily do it, because I need it. My clients expect me to use it, and I have no excuse if I have any imcompatibility problem.

Then, if I need Microsoft Office (and so many people do), Linux is not even a choice. And I guess somebody who needs Photoshop for living would say the same thing about using GIMP.

Of course I wish Linux was great and perfect, and that open source software was a viable alternative for anything in the market today. But it's just a dream, and I'm tired of dreaming all these years without having anything concrete to rely on. After using Linux, I started to be happy about paying for software. Sorry.

 

[CarreraGuy]

For what it's worth I love Linux too, I had a (maybe false) sense of pride that everything running on my Slackware box was open source..

But when it came down to daily usability and business it fell short and fell short for me in a specific way: MS Office. My job at the time it was common to work with 50+ page shared documents in Word/Excel and would always be a PITA working with OpenOffice.

As skaertus mentioned: desktop Linux - as good as it may be right now doesn't cut it.

It boils down to $$, Microsoft did themselves and Apple a favor supporting Office on those platforms. But supporting Linux? From a business and tech-support angle, it could turn out to be a support nightmare. MS tech support is already mediocre at best.

 

[TheAnvil]

But desktop Linux? For using at home? It's not even a contender.

If you can stick with KDE for a month, you will find OSX crippling.

I understand that ZFS may be a much better file system than NTFS or HFS+, but that just doesn't make any difference for my day-to-day use.

You're thinking Solaris there. While a kernel module does exist, you will find it is quite far away from mainstream.

But the user interface does. Well, Linux looks good. Open source enthusiasts call it eye candy sometimes. Most open source enthusiasts fail to understand the difference between beautiful and functional.

I have been a linux user for the past 5 years. I started off with Gnome 2, and stuck with it till I tried the abomination [IMO] that is Gnome 3. I promptly switched to KDE after finding Xfce a little too lacking.

While KDE has borrowed heavily a lot from OSX, but it has also extended things. Dolphin (the file manager) is absolutely amazing in versatility and functionality, it will do everything and and it will do it well.
In this day and age, you can accomplish almost everything need in KDE fairly easily. You can configure just about anything and everything, and some people really dislike that.

I have used OSX very briefly (3 days?) a year ago, and I felt a little claustrophobic. The way Finder navigated, didn't make sense to me. I scoured google to figure out how to see hidden files. I found no tiling support???
I am sure I would have adjusted after a few weeks.

The big killers are the lack of MS Office, GIMP is a PITA, no Itunes... If these aren't deal brakes, you can happily live with Linux.
I would recommend anyone who is interested in tinkering with things and some spare time to try Arch Linux, the documentation is absolutely fansastic. Even if you don't stick with it, you would learn a lot. It is a rewarding experience.

 

[skaertus]

If you can stick with KDE for a month, you will find OSX crippling.

I've used KDE, and it felt even less polished than Gnome. Of course it gives you more freedom and everything, and you can do whatever you want. But it lacks the ergonomics of Windows and OS X. KDE, like Gnome, not designed to naturally fit the cognitive abilities of people like Windows and OS X are. And that's my main complain about Linux on the desktop.

You're thinking Solaris there. While a kernel module does exist, you will find it is quite far away from mainstream.

No. I'm thinking Linux. While Solaris uses ZFS, which was developed by Sun after all, Linux may use it as well.

I have been a linux user for the past 5 years. I started off with Gnome 2, and stuck with it till I tried the abomination [IMO] that is Gnome 3. I promptly switched to KDE after finding Xfce a little too lacking.

While KDE has borrowed heavily a lot from OSX, but it has also extended things. Dolphin (the file manager) is absolutely amazing in versatility and functionality, it will do everything and and it will do it well.
In this day and age, you can accomplish almost everything need in KDE fairly easily. You can configure just about anything and everything, and some people really dislike that.

I have used OSX very briefly (3 days?) a year ago, and I felt a little claustrophobic. The way Finder navigated, didn't make sense to me. I scoured google to figure out how to see hidden files. I found no tiling support???
I am sure I would have adjusted after a few weeks.

The big killers are the lack of MS Office, GIMP is a PITA, no Itunes... If these aren't deal brakes, you can happily live with Linux.
I would recommend anyone who is interested in tinkering with things and some spare time to try Arch Linux, the documentation is absolutely fansastic. Even if you don't stick with it, you would learn a lot. It is a rewarding experience.

I agree that KDE may be more functional and allow you to do several things OS X can't or won't. I wish OS X gave me more freedom too. But, as I said, my complain about KDE, Gnome, and Linux in general, is that they don't feel natural and intuitive as Windows or OS X. I may be wrong, but the Linux world, for me, seems to be packed with developers, programmers, engineers and other hard sciences specialists who just fail to see the value of addressing design and ergonomics in a professional way. That's why I can't live happily with Linux. I tried. Believe me. I've tried over ten different distributions. I found none of them to be as comfortable as Windows or OS X. And it's not a matter of getting used to. I found OS X comfortable the first time I tried it. And the same happened with Windows 95 and with the new interface of Windows 8. But I never managed to get used to KDE or Gnome. I wish I did.

On the software side, having to rely on OpenOffice or LibreOffice is a deal breaker for me. I need Microsoft Office. I know LibreOffice is great, especially for a free program, and I used it when the buggy Microsoft Office 2003 corrupted my files. But, as good as it may be, it's still not the market standard, and I need the market standard for professional reasons. So, even if I found Linux to be the world's greatest thing, I would still not be able to use it as my only operating system.

 

[kunaicode]

I've used KDE, and it felt even less polished than Gnome. Of course it gives you more freedom and everything, and you can do whatever you want. But it lacks the ergonomics of Windows and OS X. KDE, like Gnome, not designed to naturally fit the cognitive abilities of people like Windows and OS X are. And that's my main complain about Linux on the desktop.



No. I'm thinking Linux. While Solaris uses ZFS, which was developed by Sun after all, Linux may use it as well.



I agree that KDE may be more functional and allow you to do several things OS X can't or won't. I wish OS X gave me more freedom too. But, as I said, my complain about KDE, Gnome, and Linux in general, is that they don't feel natural and intuitive as Windows or OS X. I may be wrong, but the Linux world, for me, seems to be packed with developers, programmers, engineers and other hard sciences specialists who just fail to see the value of addressing design and ergonomics in a professional way. That's why I can't live happily with Linux. I tried. Believe me. I've tried over ten different distributions. I found none of them to be as comfortable as Windows or OS X. And it's not a matter of getting used to. I found OS X comfortable the first time I tried it. And the same happened with Windows 95 and with the new interface of Windows 8. But I never managed to get used to KDE or Gnome. I wish I did.

On the software side, having to rely on OpenOffice or LibreOffice is a deal breaker for me. I need Microsoft Office. I know LibreOffice is great, especially for a free program, and I used it when the buggy Microsoft Office 2003 corrupted my files. But, as good as it may be, it's still not the market standard, and I need the market standard for professional reasons. So, even if I found Linux to be the world's greatest thing, I would still not be able to use it as my only operating system.

Okay. Thanks for clarifying. I just hate it when people make baseless insults on any OS (including Windows and OS X) without even using it, so I'm glad yours are genuine complaints.

Yes, KDE and Gnome have a ways to go in the way of user-intuitiveness. Paradigms that have been accepted in OS X and Windows still haven't been implemented, and some UI paradigms blatantly violate Fitts' Law.

But I will say one thing: If you're a bit technically inclined, you can actually install Office on Linux. It's not a trivial task, but it isn't very difficult either. All you need is access to a Windows machine.

I agree that it isn't ready for the mass market yet. But, to be honest, I kind of like it that way.

 

[skaertus]

Okay. Thanks for clarifying. I just hate it when people make baseless insults on any OS (including Windows and OS X) without even using it, so I'm glad yours are genuine complaints.

Yes, KDE and Gnome have a ways to go in the way of user-intuitiveness. Paradigms that have been accepted in OS X and Windows still haven't been implemented, and some UI paradigms blatantly violate Fitts' Law.

But I will say one thing: If you're a bit technically inclined, you can actually install Office on Linux. It's not a trivial task, but it isn't very difficult either. All you need is access to a Windows machine.

I agree that it isn't ready for the mass market yet. But, to be honest, I kind of like it that way.

Thanks for understanding. Some people in the Linux world seem very biased towards operating systems, and treat Microsoft and Apple as evil beings, when they are just companies engaged in their own businesses. Some of these people usually refuse to accept the weaknesses of Linux (and other open source software), and that, in my view, is one of the main factors that prevent it from getting any better. I am glad you're not one of these people.

Said that, the only ways I know of installing Office on Linux is by means of a virtual machine, or using Wine or CrossOver. I've tried these solutions, and they added a lot of bulk to the system, as they somehow run Windows or at least part of it on top of Linux. So, it's far from ideal.

 

[bradl]

Said that, the only ways I know of installing Office on Linux is by means of a virtual machine, or using Wine or CrossOver. I've tried these solutions, and they added a lot of bulk to the system, as they somehow run Windows or at least part of it on top of Linux. So, it's far from ideal.

WordPerfect for Linux!

/me runs and ducks for cover

BL.

 

[Renzatic]

Then, if I need Microsoft Office (and so many people do), Linux is not even a choice. And I guess somebody who needs Photoshop for living would say the same thing about using GIMP.

I've been using Linux for a few months now, and while most of your complaints are currently being addressed (it's starting to actually look good, become more user friendly, and get better software support), it's the lack of Photoshop that just flat out kills me.

Every time I bring it up, everyone always says "use GIMP, it's about the same". NO IT'S NOT! I'll be honest with you here, the GIMP...it kinda sucks. While it can do roughly 75% of the things PS can do, it can be most goofy, ass backwards, ill thought out piece of software I've ever used. I call it the ultimate "engineer designed" piece of software. Where everything works as intended, but doesn't work smoothly.

Like entering text. You go in, set up the font you want to use (which you have to enter manually, it doesn't have a nice drop down menu), set your font size, then click on the entry field, and...BAM...all your settings have been reset to the default. You go back to reset them and go back to the entry field, and BAM x2...they've gone back to the default again. You have to type your text out first, highlight, THEN change it to get things they way you want them.

Then there's the BS about "exporting" to other file types. It's not like in PS, where you can save it out as a .psd, or .png, or .jpg all from the same menu. No. It only "saves" as .xcf files. If you want to make it another file type, you have to "export" the .xcf file.

And speaking of saving files. It's kinda dumb how it brings up the save-as dialog box, and has the text highlighted, but when you go to type in what you want to name it, it starts searching through your files. Nope. You have to click on the text entry field first, because it defaults to the file browser.

The whole thing is death by a thousand papercuts. As many nice things as there are about Linux, GIMP, and the complete lack of Photoshop, are the things that'll end up pushing me back to Windows or OSX.

Anyway, I know this was only sorta on topic, but it was close enough to enable me to go off on a good rant.

 

[bradl]

I've been using Linux for a few months now, and while most of your complaints are currently being addressed (it's starting to actually look good, become more user friendly, and get better software support), it's the lack of Photoshop that just flat out kills me.

Every time I bring it up, everyone always says "use GIMP, it's about the same". NO IT'S NOT! I'll be honest with you here, the GIMP...it kinda sucks. While it can do roughly 75% of the things PS can do, it can be most goofy, ass backwards, ill thought out piece of software I've ever used. I call it the ultimate "engineer designed" piece of software. Where everything works as intended, but doesn't work smoothly.

Like entering text. You go in, set up the font you want to use (which you have to enter manually, it doesn't have a nice drop down menu), set your font size, then click on the entry field, and...BAM...all your settings have been reset to the default. You go back to reset them and go back to the entry field, and BAM x2...they've gone back to the default again. You have to type your text out first, highlight, THEN change it to get things they way you want them.

Then there's the BS about "exporting" to other file types. It's not like in PS, where you can save it out as a .psd, or .png, or .jpg all from the same menu. No. It only "saves" as .xcf files. If you want to make it another file type, you have to "export" the .xcf file.

And speaking of saving files. It's kinda dumb how it brings up the save-as dialog box, and has the text highlighted, but when you go to type in what you want to name it, it starts searching through your files. Nope. You have to click on the text entry field first, because it defaults to the file browser.

The whole thing is death by a thousand papercuts. As many nice things as there are about Linux, GIMP, and the complete lack of Photoshop, are the things that'll end up pushing me back to Windows or OSX.

Anyway, I know this was only sorta on topic, but it was close enough to enable me to go off on a good rant.

Actually, I have to say that this is completely wrong.

I have been able to save directly to PSD, XCF, PNG, and many other formats with GIMP, especially with making the textures I have for aircraft repaints that I have done over the past 14 years. I can still do it with the version of GIMP I have for OS X.

Fonts are a product of X at that point, and what you make available to X and xfontpath. No manual entering of fonts needed for it, especially if all the fonts you put into X are available to GIMP.

I think the issues you are having with GIMP have more to do with the Window Manager you are using with X than GIMP by itself. I'd examine that, and if you are not finding it to your liking, change it.

BL.

 

[Renzatic]

Actually, I have to say that this is completely wrong.

I have been able to save directly to PSD, XCF, PNG, and many other formats with GIMP, especially with making the textures I have for aircraft repaints that I have done over the past 14 years. I can still do it with the version of GIMP I have for OS X.

I just tried this out. If you go to Save/Save As/Ctrl+S, you're forced into saving it as an .xcf file. Even if you try renaming it as a .gif, .png, .jpg, or .tga file, it'll give you a version mismatch error. The only way you're able to save as other file types is to use Export/Export As/Ctrl+E.

Fonts are a product of X at that point, and what you make available to X and xfontpath. No manual entering of fonts needed for it, especially if all the fonts you put into X are available to GIMP.

No, I'm not saying you have to install and/or lead Gimp to the font inside the window manager, I'm saying that it doesn't give you a nice pulldown menu to browse through. When you bring up the text editor, it'll show your font and point size along the top. If you want to use something besides Sans, like say, Lucida Grande, you go to the font entry bar, type "lu", and it'll bring up all the fonts that start with "lu" to select from.

...but that's not the big issue. The big issue is how it'll reset back to Sans & 18px when you click on the text entry field. It does this EVERY. SINGLE. FREAKING. TIME. No matter if I'm editing the text directly on the image, or I'm using the standalone text editor.

After testing it out just to be sure, I should rather say it'll switch back to whatever font and size is currently active in the text entry field, which is Sans/18px by default. If I've got Myriad Pro 24px active, and I change it to Liberation Sans 32px, when I click back into the entry field, it'll change back to Myriad Pro. I can't just change and type, I'll have to highlight then change some of the text I've already got to enable a new font. It's annoying.

 

[bradl]

I just tried this out. If you go to Save/Save As/Ctrl+S, you're forced into saving it as an .xcf file. Even if you try renaming it as a .gif, .png, .jpg, or .tga file, it'll give you a version mismatch error. The only way you're able to save as other file types is to use Export/Export As/Ctrl+E.



No, I'm not saying you have to install and/or lead Gimp to the font inside the window manager, I'm saying that it doesn't give you a nice pulldown menu to browse through. When you bring up the text editor, it'll show your font and point size along the top. If you want to use something besides Sans, like say, Lucida Grande, you go to the font entry bar, type "lu", and it'll bring up all the fonts that start with "lu" to select from.

...but that's not the big issue. The big issue is how it'll reset back to Sans & 18px when you click on the text entry field. It does this EVERY. SINGLE. FREAKING. TIME. No matter if I'm editing the text directly on the image, or I'm using the standalone text editor.

After testing it out just to be sure, I should rather say it'll switch back to whatever font and size is currently active in the text entry field, which is Sans/18px by default. If I've got Myriad Pro 24px active, and I change it to Liberation Sans 32px, when I click back into the entry field, it'll change back to Myriad Pro. I can't just change and type, I'll have to highlight then change some of the text I've already got to enable a new font. It's annoying.

I've never had that happen to me with any version of GIMP. May I ask which distribution you are using? Because that doesn't sound right. Again, I've solely used Slackware for my distro. My main reason for that is that there are only two main software distributions that use the raw source for the binaries in their packages:

1. Slackware, which compiles them directly from the source, and
2. Gentoo, which compiles them for you at the time of software installation.

Every other distribution adds their own tweaks and patches into that version the version of the program they have (In Redhat/Fedora/CentOS' case, they will take new patches that make up a newer version of a program and attempt to backport them to the version they use in their distro). When Slackware didn't include GIMP in its distro, I always compiled it from source, and again, I've never seen what you have described.

BL.

 

[skaertus]

I've been using Linux for a few months now, and while most of your complaints are currently being addressed (it's starting to actually look good, become more user friendly, and get better software support), it's the lack of Photoshop that just flat out kills me.

Every time I bring it up, everyone always says "use GIMP, it's about the same". NO IT'S NOT! I'll be honest with you here, the GIMP...it kinda sucks. While it can do roughly 75% of the things PS can do, it can be most goofy, ass backwards, ill thought out piece of software I've ever used. I call it the ultimate "engineer designed" piece of software. Where everything works as intended, but doesn't work smoothly.

Like entering text. You go in, set up the font you want to use (which you have to enter manually, it doesn't have a nice drop down menu), set your font size, then click on the entry field, and...BAM...all your settings have been reset to the default. You go back to reset them and go back to the entry field, and BAM x2...they've gone back to the default again. You have to type your text out first, highlight, THEN change it to get things they way you want them.

Then there's the BS about "exporting" to other file types. It's not like in PS, where you can save it out as a .psd, or .png, or .jpg all from the same menu. No. It only "saves" as .xcf files. If you want to make it another file type, you have to "export" the .xcf file.

And speaking of saving files. It's kinda dumb how it brings up the save-as dialog box, and has the text highlighted, but when you go to type in what you want to name it, it starts searching through your files. Nope. You have to click on the text entry field first, because it defaults to the file browser.

The whole thing is death by a thousand papercuts. As many nice things as there are about Linux, GIMP, and the complete lack of Photoshop, are the things that'll end up pushing me back to Windows or OSX.

Anyway, I know this was only sorta on topic, but it was close enough to enable me to go off on a good rant.

GIMP should definitely be a deal-breaker for those who need Photoshop. It is badly designed. It doesn't have all the features. But what I've heard from people in the professional market is that GIMP doesn't have the proprietary stuff such as Pantone colors. The professional media/design market is a very expensive market, and developers cannot expect to compete without having real money to pay holders of intellectual property rights which are known as standards.

 

[bradl]

GIMP should definitely be a deal-breaker for those who need Photoshop. It is badly designed. It doesn't have all the features. But what I've heard from people in the professional market is that GIMP doesn't have the proprietary stuff such as Pantone colors. The professional media/design market is a very expensive market, and developers cannot expect to compete without having real money to pay holders of intellectual property rights which are known as standards.

And yet GIMP was used in movies such as Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, Little Nicky, Dr. Doolittle 2, Grinch, Sixth Day, Stuart Little and Planet of the Apes.

Personal preference for what you want to use, but you can't say that it isn't ready for primetime, especially has been used by Hollywood.

BL.

 

[Renzatic]

I've never had that happen to me with any version of GIMP. May I ask which distribution you are using? Because that doesn't sound right. Again, I've solely used Slackware for my distro. My main reason for that is that there are only two main software distributions that use the raw source for the binaries in their packages:

1. Slackware, which compiles them directly from the source, and
2. Gentoo, which compiles them for you at the time of software installation.

Every other distribution adds their own tweaks and patches into that version the version of the program they have (In Redhat/Fedora/CentOS' case, they will take new patches that make up a newer version of a program and attempt to backport them to the version they use in their distro). When Slackware didn't include GIMP in its distro, I always compiled it from source, and again, I've never seen what you have described.

BL.

I'm not using a distro specific rev, rather I'm getting it off the Otto Kesselgulasch PPA, which offers the latest stable version (currently 2.8), along with a few of the nicer extras as a bonus.

I've used the version off the Ubuntu Software Center, and most of the problems I found in the PPA rev were there as well. Save As/Export As, for instance, was something added by the core GIMP team, and has been fairly controversial from what I've read. I guess they wanted it to match Blender in the way that it saves .blend files by default, and exports other file types. That's something all 3D editors do...but not image editors. There, it only makes for a more convoluted experience.

In a 3D editor, you're only occasionally gonna be exporting to a different file type. An image editor? You'll be going either/or constantly, and it makes more sense to do it from one place, rather than making it two separate but similar processes.

 

[skaertus]

And yet GIMP was used in movies such as Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, Little Nicky, Dr. Doolittle 2, Grinch, Sixth Day, Stuart Little and Planet of the Apes.

Personal preference for what you want to use, but you can't say that it isn't ready for primetime, especially has been used by Hollywood.

BL.

As far as I know, CinePaint, which is a fork of GIMP, was used in those movies. Of course it is possible to use GIMP, or a modification of it, for movies.

Note, however, that GIMP or CinePaint is not the standard software in movie-making technology. Software like Avid Media Composer or FinalCut Studio are the market standards, and they are not available for Linux.

In fact, films such as the Harry Potter series may have used CinePaint, but they did not use only CinePaint, but other movie-editing software as well. Therefore, as such commercial software is not available for Linux, one could not have produced the Harry Potter series based on Linux alone.

In addition, print media is something different. if you need to print something, then the color accuracy is important. As you may know, printers use the CMYK color model, and screens use RGB. As far as I know, GIMP fails in this area, but I'm not an industry professional with deep knowledge on it.

 

[Sophie.]

I generally prefer OS X because for me the UI is very import and the Aqua environment seems to be the best laid out and importantly the most fluid, polished and visually pleasing environment I've used, I've tried KDE, Cinnamon, GNOME3, Unity. None of them seem to have the same fluidity.

2) I prefer OS X because like BSD it tends to be much less fragmented and is just one integrated OS that isn't just a bunch of various software packaged around a kernel. On a hardware level, I would refute what others claim about the software-hardware integration as I've seen OS X run (albeit illegally) on non-Apple hardware at the same speed and stability if not faster than on genuine Macintosh hardware.

3) Generally more expansive software support, Linux systems have a wealth of free software (free software is good!) but in my experience Open Source software usually tends to be multi-platform and so I can usually find an OS X version of any software I want from Linux. On top of that OS X also has its own array of software, a lot of it being the more professional end proprietary stuff which is a bonus if you want it.

HOWEVER there's things I don't like about OS X that I do like about Linux such as:

1) OS X just seems to be plain bad in comparison for anything 3D (application support aside) even in Mavericks the OpenGL is still quite out of date at only version 4.1, and the drivers themselves aren't that good because in all benchmarks between Linux and OS X that I do, Linux always beats OS X by a sizable margin. This doesn't really matter though if you don't game or run 3D applications. It is kind of my peeve though as I wish Apple would put get serious with graphical improvements.

2) Lack of any software package management, with OS X your choices are pretty much download .dmg/.pkg/source from the internet or use the App Store. Whilst most linux distributions have package management systems that allow you to quickly install software from repositories with a single line (e.g sudo apt-get install vlc). And even if your distribution doesn't have one, you can just install one. That's something I miss when on OS X.

3) OS X just feels less customizable generally, maybe I'm wrong there, maybe that's the trade off for a well integrated system, but it's still jarring at times, the terminal in Linux just seems to have many more functions than the one in OS X.

4) Hardware compatibility, with Linux you generally nowadays have quite a high degree of compatibility for most hardware, especially if you use a well known distribution like Ubuntu, and I wish I had the same freedom to just plug in whatever GPU I wanted with OS X. (Although I am running a non-Macintosh EVGA GTX 670 in this machine so Apple do seem to be supporting more and more hardware even if they don't ship it by default in their hardware).

 

[balamw]

2) Lack of any software package management, with OS X your choices are pretty much download .dmg/.pkg/source from the internet or use the App Store.

Homebrew and the earlier MacPorts/Fink projects are good options for most of the same stuff you'll find available in a linux distro/package manager.

OS X mostly self-contained .app bundles are what makes most package management unnecessary on OS X.

B

 

[Sophie.]

Homebrew and the earlier MacPorts/Fink projects are good options for most of the same stuff you'll find available in a linux distro/package manager.

I've tried Homebrew before but I wasn't quite sure what it exactly did, I couldn't seem to find any formula for applications.

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

I refuse to choose - I use both.

My paid gig is to develop software for the linux platform. When I first started this job I exclusively used a linux desktop and was pretty happy with it. I did have interaction issues with all the non-developers who all used MS office on Windows.

So, I got a laptop running windows to do email and documents. This did not make me happy. I know some people love windows - and more power to them - but for me it I find it quite unpleasant at times. In order to use my windows laptop to talk to my linux boxes I loaded cygwin, which I found buggy and clunky.

I bought an iMac at home for the family to use and all of us really liked it. I found myself using the iMac to connect back to work to talk to my linux boxes more than I did the company supplied windows laptop - because it worked better for that purpose and I just found it more of a pleasure to work with.

At that point I told my IT guy to get me an MBP fully loaded. I have VMWare running on it with both linux and windows VMs. I also have MS office on it so I can interact seamlessly with the non-developers here.

I still go back and forth on a daily basis. There are some things that OS X does better than linux and there are some things that linux does better that OS X - and some things that OS X can simply not do at all - such as talk to serial ports - still widely used in the instrumentation world. And - sadly - some vendors who refuse to acknowledge that there is any OS other than windows.

 

[Micky Do]

I just wanted something I could use

So for the sake of my quesion i ask 2 things:
1) Leave windows out of this, it's not a free-for-all fight.
2) Be unbiased. We're at a mac forum, try to not cheer up for mac just because you like it.

So my question is: Why do you choose Mac over LInux?
I'm actually doubting if i should change over to Linux, as it seems to be made more for the programmer. (What i like)

The first computers I used were the first Macs back in 1985. After I left university in 1987 I had no reason to use a computer for many years. When eventually I did use one, I had to do battle with Windows 95 or 97. Then it was XP, which I still use on the computers of work.

When I came to need my own computer I wanted no more to do with Windows. There was some talk of Linux around, but I didn't find out much about it. I wanted to go back to Mac, and when the Mini came out it was the machine I wanted.

 

[techwarrior]

As most posters have suggested... Linux is great for server solutions. For the desktop, OSX without question.

Main attractions are the "It just works" factor. Little tweaking necessary, but much is possible. Commercial SW for the MAC is nearly as good as Windows in terms of selection, generally better in terms of usability. My experience with Linux (Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu and others) have been mixed on user apps. Some are great, many are so so, some are horrible. While that can be said of any platform, generally Mac apps are a better experience all around.

I am in the guts of Linux all day long (usually accessed via Mac Terminal). The last thing I want to do when getting home is tinker with my computer, I just want it to work, and without virus/malware worries of Windows (main reason for switching years ago). Yet, with Mac's Unix underpinnings, I can get my command line fix when I need it.