Powermac G5 Cautionary Tale...

[bunnspecial]

I think that z970mp is grasping at the straws.

Excuse me? No real reason to boot powerful operating systems over flaky, sad excuses of computer software such as Windows? Well... Here's one. http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/software-technology/difference-between-dos-and-unix/ And another. https://www.pcworld.com/article/206692/5_things_linux_does_better_than_mac_os_x.html One more. https://itsfoss.com/linux-better-than-windows/ I could do this all day.

So, you post 3 articles to support your case-one of which compares to DOS(???) to Unix(let's take a moment to mention that OS X IS Unix) and one of which compares to Windows(something which was never discussed).

The one that compares to OS X is, I would say, poorly researched and draws its conclusions on shaky premises.

1. Making every user an administrator by default is probably a bad idea, but none the less a system is only as secure as its weakest link. In the hands of an incompetent user, Linux can be just as insecure as anything else.

2. Yes, OS X can't be customized as much as Linux-I will concede that. Still, that's kind of a weak argument IMO considering that a fair bit is available for OS X already and most folks will be completely happy with the stock UI of whatever OS they are using. If that's really a make or break deal for you, Windows is probably a better choice than even Linux...

3. OS X runs on properly specced Apple hardware. That's not an argument...

4. I don't know what planet the author is living on, but my up-time on OS X is usually in the hundreds of days and down time is almost always due to necessary software updates. BTW, I have used every version of OS X/macOS but have extensively used Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mavericks, Sierra, and High Sierra. The only truly unstable one I've found was Cheetah(10.0).

5. That's the same argument as #3. Since 2013, updates to the latest version OS X/macOS have been free. BTW, not all Linux distros are free...

And, a few other independent points

1. If you need MS Office, there's not an alternative to it. If your boss expects you to be able to read/manipulate MS Office files without critically changing the formatting of them, "Sorry, I don't support Microsoft and/or Apple" doesn't fly and will be a quick way to the unemployment line. Everyone I know who uses Linux as their primary OS at work eventually ends up with either a Windows or OS X VM to run Office because neither OpenOffice or LibreOffice will cut it for them.

2. What's the Linux FOOS alternative to Adobe Lightroom? For that matter what replaces Adobe Illustrator and InDesign? BTW, I periodically evaluate Gimp and anyone who thinks it's a viable alternative to Photoshop-at least for still photography-is deluding themselves(although Lightroom does 95% of what most still photographers need). Even for folks who don't want to get tied into Adobe have Apple Camera Raw in macOS/OS X and it's a million times better than the RAW converter in GIMP when used in Photos...

3. There IS software that will only work on Linux(I use vNMRj regularly-the old payed version only ran on RHEL and I never got around to checking if it would run on CentOS-I haven't checked into what the FOOS version requires). It's in the minority, though, and there is a lot of software that requires OS X/macOS or Windows. The fact is-if you have specific software requirements you run them on the required OS. A lot of software these days is both macOS and Windows, with some also coming in a Linux version, although there's also still plenty that's Mac only or Windows only(and a very few things that are Linux only).

4. Linux can still be a nightmare to get working on certain Apple hardware, and it will be interesting to see how long the major distros continue supporting weird cases like 32-bit EFI computers with 64 bit processors(such as the MP 1,1 under discussion).

EDIT:

It looks like OpenNMRJ(the FOOS replacement for VNMRj) is available in a version ready to be compiled for OS X. So, now I don't even have to mess around with a CentOS VM to run it

Of course, if I were actually running a spectrometer I'd need an RHEL workstation with a copy of VNMRj 4.2 from Agilent(or an older version from Variant or Agilent) but this makes life a LOT easier for anyone who wants to do offline processing.

 

[z970]

I think it was also Lion that made you have to exert additional energy to get to your Library folder inside your Home folder.

I believe if you highlight the "Go" option in the menu bar, and then hold down "Option", your Library folder in Home should appear.

By the way, congratulations on becoming a macrumors Core. That's a cool subtitle.

Just putting it out there, but if your Mac has 4GB or more of RAM then El Capitan is the best “Modern” (post-Snow) version of OSX imho.

Personally, I like Mountain Lion the best. It's like a fusion between Snow Leopard and newer releases of OS X, and it's pretty fast too. Mavericks slowed a lot of things down, and everything that came afterward visually looks like it was made for children.

I really don’t like Sierra and don’t care much for HiSi, but El Cap improved massively upon Mavericks and Yosemite in terms of performance and general quirks. Snow Leopard is still the finest of the lot though.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[eyoungren]

I believe if you highlight the "Go" option in the menu bar, and then hold down "Option", your Library folder in Home should appear.

By the way, congratulations on becoming a macrumors Core. That's a cool subtitle.

I actually, at some point, entered a terminal command that forces Yosemite to show the Library folder. It shows a bunch of other junk too, but I'm not too often in my Home folder (usually just the folders inside my Home folder) so I'm okay with that.

The Core title comes at 18,500 posts (I think). Took a while.

Thanks!

 

[swamprock]

I actually, at some point, entered a terminal command that forces Yosemite to show the Library folder. It shows a bunch of other junk too, but I'm not too often in my Home folder (usually just the folders inside my Home folder) so I'm okay with that.

The Core title comes at 18,500 posts (I think). Took a while.

Thanks!

El Cap is definitely the sweet spot for machines that it's supported on. My Mac Pro 1,1 (well, 2,1 flashed) will never be able to go beyond it, but it's a sweet OS. It's the Tiger and Mountain Lion of this era

I like the 6502 title myself. It's my favorite processor for assembly language programming, even moreso than the Z80 (which I am more familiar with)

 

[z970]

Off-topic (like most of this thread), but is anyone else having trouble changing their profile picture? I've tried 3 different browsers on 2 different operating systems, and every time I try uploading a different picture, it just reverts to the previous picture cropped all the way to one side.

I wonder if this could be a site bug?

 

[pl1984]

Alright, for one, I realize I've got a historical tendency to not pay enough attention to title bars while posting, but most Macs are regarded as well-built machines compared to the competition. Save for several exceptions, like the first G5s.

And iMacs. And MacBooks. And MacBook Pros. Apple's hardware is nice but I'm not convinced it's as well built as you'd have us believe.

And? The point remains that Daniël claimed that Linux distributions "offer quite literally no advantages to Mac or even Windows.", which is just factually false. Therefore I am pointing out an undeniable advantage that although both Linux and OS X benefit from, disproves his claim that Linux distributions offer no advantages whatsoever to even Windows, for crying out loud. One (technically two) is built off of an objectively superior platform over the other, which makes a difference if you're commonly in the command line, which many people are.

Modern Windows is not DOS. It's not reliant on DOS nor is it not built on DOS. It is its own operating system. If you are going to engage in this discussion I suggest you first understand the subject matter.

Hardware is irrelevant. You could run OS X on a Windows PC if you wanted to, and Macs use off-the-shelf internals, making them nearly identical to a regular computer, internal component-wise. It's really up to what you already have on hand, not to what you have, period.

I think his point is that if you want to run Linux using a PC makes more sense.

So he isn't negative, and I'm a fanboy. Really.

I didn't see anything he wrote that was negative towards Linux. The most negativity, if you want to label it as such, I could find is he was negative about running Linux on Macintosh hardware. I say you need to read it without your fanboy glasses because you appear to be lacking objectivity about what he wrote. A characteristic of someone who is a fanboy or on the defensive.

Most of the content that made up his post was based off disinformation, inexperience, and opinion, all stated as-a-matter-of-fact. Yes, my post had its share of bias and opinion, but not as prevalently. He sounds like he's either never used it before, or has only had bad experiences in a couple of examples, then promptly decided to go back to his known operating systems and badmouth all Linux desktop distributions.

What, specifically, in that post was misinformation / experience? Opinion, yes, I think it's his opinion running Linux on Macintosh hardware makes little sense.

I recommend you follow your own advice. This time without the apologist glasses.

Please elaborate.
[doublepost=1530984797][/doublepost]

Off-topic (like most of this thread), but is anyone else having trouble changing their profile picture? I've tried 3 different browsers on 2 different operating systems, and every time I try uploading a different picture, it just reverts to the previous picture cropped all the way to one side.

I wonder if this could be a site bug?

Try using DOS (sorry, couldn't resist)

 

[eyoungren]

Off-topic (like most of this thread), but is anyone else having trouble changing their profile picture? I've tried 3 different browsers on 2 different operating systems, and every time I try uploading a different picture, it just reverts to the previous picture cropped all the way to one side.

I wonder if this could be a site bug?

It only accepts images of a specific size, both pixels and kilobytes. If your image is not within those parameters it defaults to the last image that was that size.

Find out the size of your current image (download it), size your new image to that size (make sure it's not more in kilobytes than the image you downloaded), zero out your avatar by choosing no image and saving and THEN try uploading the new image.

 

[z970]

It only accepts images of a specific size, both pixels and kilobytes. If your image is not within those parameters it defaults to the last image that was that size.

Find out the size of your current image (download it), size your new image to that size (make sure it's not more in kilobytes than the image you downloaded), zero out your avatar by choosing no image and saving and THEN try uploading the new image.

I know that, and I've done everything, but I tried uploading something I KNOW works, but even that won't register.

Try it yourself. I think there's something wrong.

 

[bunnspecial]

And now I can quit worrying about a CentOS VM for offline NMR data processing...

 

[AphoticD]

I would go with El Capitan on the iMac 6,1, only no one has figured out how to make GPU acceleration work on the 7600 GT, meaning it'd be almost unusable. It does run very nicely on a 2006 Mac Pro with an aftermarket GPU.

That’s fair enough. I wouldn’t torture myself trying to use OS X without graphics acceleration. That’s an experience we should not need to endure unless it’s on a beige box from the 90s.

Mountain Lion is a fine version as well, it's just not supported by much in 2018. And obviously El Capitan will eventually reach the same fate (already has with Apple Xcode / iWork / iLife, as apparently supporting two older versions of MacOS with current apps is too much work for a multi-billion dollar company).

The planned obsolesence is one of those blatantly obvious jabs to draw blood, just like taxes and insurance. It keeps most users in a state of anxiety about “needing” to upgrade to new hardware before Apple pulls the pin on security updates. As if an old Mac is a ticking timebomb otherwise.

It is a healthy reminder that our brand of choice is just that, a commercial brand.

I read an article yesterday stating that amongst millennials, Apple holds the number one spot as the most “intimate” brand in terms of emotional connection, nostalgia, loyalty, etc

Again, another healthy reminder that I’ve been played like a 1980s Casio electronic piano keyboard...

 

[redheeler]

I read an article yesterday stating that amongst millennials, Apple holds the number one spot as the most “intimate” brand in terms of emotional connection, nostalgia, loyalty, etc

On the iOS side, and I suspect that is where most of these millennials are coming from, things are different. Unlike what's happening with the Mac, Apple is adjusting the support period to the increasing capability of older hardware, and the decision to support the same devices plus optimize performance with iOS 12 was by far the right one to make.

Though you could speculate it was mainly done as a response to the class-action lawsuits alleging poor performance on older devices, and even a rival brand (Samsung) bashing poor performance on the older iPhone 6, I'm sure it also strengthens brand loyalty with many iPhone users.

But, what about the smaller percentage of Apple's customers with more Macs than iOS devices? Well, it's good that Linux exists as an option for our increasingly-capable older hardware. Or unsupported methods for installing newer versions of MacOS on certain older hardware (my preference when possible). Or even Windows for those who absolutely need current versions of Microsoft Office or Adobe CS and a stable environment with regular security updates. Because otherwise it can easily be called premature forced obsolescence by software...

 

[pl1984]

But, what about the smaller percentage of Apple's customers with more Macs than iOS devices? Well, it's good that Linux exists as an option for our increasingly-capable older hardware. Or unsupported methods for installing newer versions of MacOS on certain older hardware (my preference when possible). Or even Windows for those who absolutely need current versions of Microsoft Office or Adobe CS and a stable environment with regular security updates. Because otherwise it can easily be called premature forced obsolescence by software...

I consider the application developers to be key to a Macs longevity (or not). If they would continue to support older operating systems then older systems would be viable longer. What I have observed, more so with the Macintosh, is developers who quickly abandon older OS versions. Even if Apple drops a model from the latest macOS version a system will remain viable as long as applications support the last OS version that model supports.

 

[bunnspecial]

I consider the application developers to be key to a Macs longevity (or not). If they would continue to support older operating systems then older systems would be viable longer.

Apple themselves is something of the source of a lot of this. You start seeing support for older OSs drop off when Apple deprecates them from Xcode. You can the dilemma this puts the developer in, as they obviously want to compile for the latest versions of macOS, and it's a lot of work to have to maintain a separate version compiled on an older version of Xcode just to support an ever-diminishing market share(plus for mass-market applications like Chrome or Firefox that may not necessarily be installed by computer-savvy users, you don't want to have to deal with different builds for different OSs).

We were fortunate that we got security updates up through last year for Firefox 45 ESR, which runs on 10.6.

I know Kaiser has written some about the possibility of TenSixFox, and if I understand him correctly it's not on the table right now. Still, since the Mozilla source code is open source, I wonder if someone will take it on. I would if I actually knew anything about programming...

 

[Amethyst1]

Personally, I like Mountain Lion the best. It's like a fusion between Snow Leopard and newer releases of OS X, and it's pretty fast too. Mavericks slowed a lot of things down, and everything that came afterward visually looks like it was made for children.

Can you elaborate on where Mavericks is slower compared to Mountain Lion? Having gone straight from Snow Leopard to Mavericks (not counting a short trial of Lion which had me revert to Snow Leopard), I'm genuinely interested.

 

[pl1984]

Apple themselves is something of the source of a lot of this. You start seeing support for older OSs drop off when Apple deprecates them from Xcode. You can the dilemma this puts the developer in, as they obviously want to compile for the latest versions of macOS, and it's a lot of work to have to maintain a separate version compiled on an older version of Xcode just to support an ever-diminishing market share(plus for mass-market applications like Chrome or Firefox that may not necessarily be installed by computer-savvy users, you don't want to have to deal with different builds for different OSs).

Very good point I hadn't thought of.

 

[z970]

Can you elaborate on where Mavericks is slower compared to Mountain Lion? Having gone straight from Snow Leopard to Mavericks (not counting a short trial of Lion which had me revert to Snow Leopard), I'm genuinely interested.

Applications took longer to launch (ESPECIALLY Preview), maybe System Preferences was more sluggish, and Finder dragged its feet.

This was in late 2017 / early 2018, so my memory isn't the freshest. But I know Mavericks was less desirable than ML.

 

[bunnspecial]

FWIW, my MP 1,1 is still running Mavericks and it's fast enough that no one believes it's actually 12 years old. I've been happy with it there for 3 years now.

My only real issue with Mavericks is that it's a work computer and Mail quit working when we switched to Office365 for mail. I also can't run Office 2016 on it(needed for a version of Outlook that will work with Office365) so I'm stuck with the piggish Office365 web app.

I was supporting a few Mavericks users at work who were there for their own reasons(one was due to a version of Parallels) when things switched it caught us all off guard.

I love Mavericks, though. In addition to my MP at work, I run it on my MBA 2,1. It's a nice combination of actually being respectably fast on that machine but also supporting a lot of current software(namely Firefox). I'll also say that in the places where I'm using it, I find it MUCH better. In particular, I find its memory management a lot better than ML, and that's critical on systems like early MBAs.

With that said, when you venture into running without GPU acceleration, ML is definitely the lighter OS and will seem faster. That's mostly the case with GMA950-based graphics, which were used on earlier MacBooks, Minis, and low end iMacs. These stopped at Lion officially, and Mavericks is too much for the GMA950.

 

[z970]

Was Preview excruciatingly slow to launch?

 

[bunnspecial]

I use Preview constantly on every version of OS X, and I've not noticed it being at all slow to launch or to load any documents in Mavericks.

 

[z970]

What was your 1,1's specs?

 

[bunnspecial]

My 1,1 that I still use every day is dual quad 3.0ghz, 16gb RAM, Geforce 8800GT.

With that said I ran Mavericks for a while on my Macbook Pro 8,1 and 9,1 when it was current and never had any complaints. It's also installed on my MBA 2,1 now, which is the lowest spec system I've run it on and I have zero complaints about Preview or any other program.

As I said, I find that Mavericks is a big boost over ML in particular on the MBA because memory management is better and that starts to become really important when you have 2gb of RAM.

 

[redheeler]

As I said, I find that Mavericks is a big boost over ML in particular on the MBA because memory management is better and that starts to become really important when you have 2gb of RAM.

I actually found the memory management in Mavericks to be quite bad on my MacBook Air 2,1. I would boot the system to find the 2 GB already full, before I even had a chance to start opening apps, and the memory pressure graph would quickly turn orange.

One of the updates to OS X Yosemite (10.10.3 I think) brought an improvement.

 

[z970]

I had the same specs as you, only mine was a 2.8. ...Come to think of it, it should be faster regardless of a 200mhz speed difference because it's a 3,1, which includes newer chipsets, faster FSB, faster memory...

Actually, I have to agree with @redheeler. I believe Mavericks was slower on my 2012 nrMBP than Mountain Lion was, as well.

Maybe it was a bad install? But if it was a bad install, surely it wouldn't affect load times of all things. And then again, this is Apple. I thought they don't do bad installs.

Maybe your mileage will vary based on which machine you use...