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The answer to Apple's gouging? Linux!

P

Pepzhez

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 23, 2002
161
1
How about we have a more constructive response to the piracy debate and the 10.2 pricing outrage?

It seems the best solution to circumventing piracy and forgetting all about Apple's new business scheme (gouging and even more gouging) is to forget about Apple's expensive and increasingly bloated OS and apps altogether. If we're going to use UNIX, why should we pay for it (again!) when free, entirely open source alternatives exist? I've already wiped OS 9 from my HDs and at this point, I'd really like to do the same to OS X. I know I am not alone in this - many in this and other forums have been saying the same thing. I agree that *nix systems are the future, but I really do not want it to be Mac OS X.

So who here feels similarly? I'm quite new to Linux, but the more I learn about it, the more I like it in every respect, and I'd really like to hear your thoughts on running Linux on PPC machines. I'm especially interested in anyone who has experience running both Yellow Dog and Mandrake. Which do you think is a better choice and why? Or perhaps you think there is a superior Linux PPC configuration? Also, what are your favorite/recommended Linux apps, and any other Linux PPC thoughts/observations you may have.

I'm trying to concentrate on the positive and constructive side of this issue - we really don't need diatribes against Linux's perceived shortcomings. Please no posts on how great Jaguar is/will be or "how-my-printer-wouldn't-print-with-Linux-therefore-Linux-sucks" or "Photoshop good, GIMP bad" and the like. I don't want this to degrade into a "my OS is better than yours" boasting/flaming party.
 
If you're so outraged about the price, what's wrong with Darwin instead of Linux?
 
Re: The answer to Apple's gouging? Linux!

Originally posted by Pepzhez
I don't want this to degrade into a "my OS is better than yours" boasting/flaming party.
Click to expand...

But isnt exactly that what your above post was?

Linux simply isnt suitable as an OS for most people. You cannot ask Joe Schmoe to learn the intracies of UNIX. We spent years trying to convince people to get away from DOS, why are we now saying its ok to go to pure UNIX?

Dont get me wrong, Linux is great; if you understand what you are doing. At least with OS X, you have to option of going as far into the UNIX as you want.

And you know what, if my printer doesnt work with Linux, then to me, Linux does suck. You cannot have a widespread OS if the stuff you buy at CompUSA/Future Shop/wherever doesnt work with it.

And why dont you want your Unix OS to be OS X? OS X is incrediblly powerful. Apple is moving towards OpenSource (see Darwin, OpenOffice, etc.). It looks incredible (Aqua, for all its slowness, is still MILES better than any Window Manager I've ever seen). All the key apps will be ported to it (this is the MAJOR fault with Linux). OS X is great. Give it some time, and you'll see why.
 
one side note to all this is that using OS X has gotten me intersted enough and given me the tools to start to get into UNIX.

So-called "power-Users" might crap on people who can't go stright from the command line, but the reality is that most people cannot.

PS. Apple isn't gouging, its charging you for a product or a service, take an economics class. This is how a business works. Apple's iApps are more than any other fo profit company that comes to mind does for its customers.
 
Originally posted by drastik

PS. Apple isn't gouging, its charging you for a product or a service, take an economics class. This is how a business works. Apple's iApps are more than any other fo profit company that comes to mind does for its customers.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Anyone familiar with the concept of a loss-leader?
 
Re: The answer to Apple's gouging? Linux!

Originally posted by Pepzhez

It seems the best solution to circumventing piracy and forgetting all about Apple's new business scheme (gouging and even more gouging) is to forget about Apple's expensive and increasingly bloated OS and apps altogether.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of irony in this post.

I think you might have missed a big portion of why Mac OS X is so good.

First off... of course, Linux is a good OS, and in many ways provides a great platform for servers... MacRumors is run on a Linux Server.

As a Desktop OS? It's a lot harder to justify... and yes, there are tons of people (esp on Slashdot) who use it as such... but here's the irony of this post...

Many Linux people are moving to Mac OS X. Why? Linux is tough to use as a desktop OS. Despite all the efforts, the install still is not very intuitive, quality apps are harder to come by and It's still not very easy to use.

Everyone says "oh, Linux, it's free"... the best quote I saw on Slashdot is this: Linux is free if your time isn't worth anything.

arn
 
if you want to use linux then use linux. in my experience it basically sucks as anything other than a server. OS X is a versatile OS. I have no problem paying for an OS that is worth the money, which Jaguar of course is.
 
Re: The answer to Apple's gouging? Linux!

Originally posted by Pepzhez

So who here feels similarly? I'm quite new to Linux, but the more I learn about it, the more I like it in every respect, and I'd really like to hear your thoughts on running Linux on PPC machines. I'm especially interested in anyone who has experience running both Yellow Dog and Mandrake. Which do you think is a better choice and why? Or perhaps you think there is a superior Linux PPC configuration? Also, what are your favorite/recommended Linux apps, and any other Linux PPC thoughts/observations you may have.

I'm trying to concentrate on the positive and constructive side of this issue - we really don't need diatribes against Linux's perceived shortcomings. Please no posts on how great Jaguar is/will be or "how-my-printer-wouldn't-print-with-Linux-therefore-Linux-sucks" or "Photoshop good, GIMP bad" and the like. I don't want this to degrade into a "my OS is better than yours" boasting/flaming party.
Click to expand...

I ran linux as my primary desktop OS for about a year. Three words for ya: not worth it.

I still use linux as a server. Its great. The linux kernel is faster than Mach and the platform itself has been around a while and is very stable and secure.

The whole reason I am willing to pay for OS X is because I want a good desktop OS. It is worth paying for. And I am used to paying for updates. Every computer maker does it. Sun, MS, Apple (in the days of Classic), everybody! So far I've payed for OS X once. From the features that Jaguar has, it will be worth the price.

Linux just doesn't cut it for me in the desktop arena. If you want my advice, SuSE is probably the best linux out there for PPC. And KDE 3.0 is probably the best window manager out there for linux.

Taft
 
I'm switching to a mac just so I can use OSX. I've been using linux for..maybe two years now. I would consider myself reasonably experienced, but I still have trouble with some aspects of the os. Linux has a reeeally steep learning curve which doesn't make it viable for most users. MacOSX is a gorgeous OS, and it's very well engineered. Apple has a reputation for being quite user friendly. Whenever someone suggests that linux should be more user friendly there's always someone who scoffs and says power should preceed ease of use, but I believe that unless you can easily and efficiently do what you need to do all the extra power means nothing. I'm an avid supporter of Linux, but it's still not fully capable as a desktop os because of it's amazingly steep learning curve.
 
I have to second the call for SuSe. Very nice install. KDE is a nice change from windows. But (and I know this is oging to start trouble) it did lock up frequently ..I finnaly got it fixed but on a clean install I expected a little better then that . Play with it for a month or so . Wrtoe a few apps, got bored.

I personally can't wait to get my hands on my first Mac (since my Se ) with Jaguar. Every chance I get I run to CompUSA and play with X just to remind me what I'm in for. Come on 17" iMac!!
 

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price?

Last time I checked the 10.2 upgrad was $19.99. That covers shipping, packaging, marketing, etc. The full product is $129.99. and the student pricing is $69.99.

$19.99 is not that much.... get over it

$69.99 is not that much ether when it comes to Software... get over it


$129.99 is kind of expensive but so are computers and so are Macs. Apple is not a meals on weels program. They do have investors like me to answer too. WinXP pro is $299.99. Things could be much worse.... so get over it.


I agree with Arn. Linux is a great OS and make a great server. I use it at work for several servers in my almost totaly Solaris envionment. But, Linux is not much of a desk top.

We are MacHeads here. We buy and use Macs. Apple harware is some of the best on the market. Mac OS has been and has coniuned to be one of the best OS's on the market. OS X is the most powerfull and butiful Mac OS to date. If we wanted cheep then we would buy an eMachine and download RedHat 7.3 off some university mirror site. But... I'm a Mac head so at home... nothing but pure OS X for me.

-evildead
 
I happen to agree with almost all that has been said here . Certainly my thus far limited experience with Linux immediately taught me that OS X is easier to install and use, is a lot nicer looking, etc., etc. I never did say that Linux is better. What I am attempting to explore is the Linux option on PPC, that is all. Many have been saying the same - for various reasons - so it seems worth having a thread about.

I am not asking Joe Schmoe to learn UNIX; I never said Linux was for everybody - it's not. But some of us have the skills and patience (maybe - the install was a teeth-grinder even for me) to experiment with it, explore what the possibilities are. What's wrong with that?

Look, I don't know where this will go for me. Perhaps I will end up deleting the Linux install from my Mac in one week, or maybe I'll decide I love it so much I'll put it in all my machines. Or maybe I'll find it's sufficient just to run xFree86 for MacGIMP. I don't know at this point.

One impetus for me to learn about Linux is this: I'll soon acquire a dual Athlon box from a liquidation sale and NO WAY do I want to run Windows on it.
 
Originally posted by Pepzhez

I am not asking Joe Schmoe to learn UNIX; I never said Linux was for everybody - it's not. But some of us have the skills and patience
Click to expand...


we are not your support group...you really don't need to share any of this with us...if you wanna use linux, then do it...
 
For those people who like Linux, but are not ready to give up the Mac OS (like myself) make sure you check out fink.sourceforge.net

Fink is awesome, It uses the debain dpkg installer to install all sorts of precompiled *nix binaries. Pretty much everything that comes in the standard linux distros is available. A nice fat pipe to download it is handy, but you can by an inexpensive cd that will let you get it installed. A great feature is that they actually keep uptodate with security and bug fixes.

The downside to some is that it requires you to use the CLI to install everything (if you don't know what a CLI is, you probably won't like it ;-)

Some of the pieces of software that I want to see improved are:
GPG -- I need mail and file encryption soon. The interface is barely usable and it is very difficult to import keys, my trust-db is still f***ed up.

Actually, that is about it. Ethereal is critical for my job and it runs beautifully. I have a dedicated linux box at work, and I can run VMWare for Linux on it with WinXP as the VM, and then (and this is the cool part) set my X-Display for my XDarwin, and run Win XP on my Tibook better than Virtual PC.

Darwin is pretty much the way to go now for Linux on a Mac (actually it is BSD, and not Linux at all). Darwin has the best support for hardware, since there are developers who are actually paid to do things like write drivers for it.
 
Gentoo

Just a suggestion for anyone looking for a powerful linux distro for the ppc. Gentoo is a source based distro that allows the user to customize his/her system however they deem fit. The software packaging system is called portage and it's really simple to use (works out dependancies by itself if I'm correct), and the software is compiled according to your own system's specifications for better performance. This distro is for moderately experienced users however (use a disk with a bootable kernel to access your system's hardware and setup filesystems, compile your own kernel, and so on).
 
When was the last time apple charged for an OS upgrade ?

let me see...

March 2001 - OS X

October 1999 - OS 9

October 1998 - OS 8.5

July 1997 - OS 8

I really don't see why people are crying about paying for jaguar, a "paid for" upgrade seems due to me.

All those people who think they deserve it for free apart from the unfortunate ones who bought a mac just before MWNY are probably the same kind of people who've probably refused to ever pay for an OS upgrade on the grounds that apple had pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection in the Lisa OS and until they "finish off" the Mac OS by including it they're going to be hard done to every day of their life.

Not trying to put anyone down here, I can understand being pissed off with Apple if you've bought a new mac this year and have to shell out the full retail price for jaguar. For everyone else, assuming all you're apps have upgrades for the new OS, is the price worth it every 18 months or so when each release improves on the last one in leaps and bounds ?

I think so, especially with all the new features in jaguar. For me the only thing holding me back from buying it the day it's out is that I'll still be booting into OS 9 to use the majority of my software for some time to come so I plan on waiting a while before I buy it. Maybe even going the whole hog and buying a new mac at the sametime, getting the best of both worlds, more speed and erm.. more speed :D
 
didnt know that

I was going to order the Full version anyway. I like to have a Disk with the full version. I'm a student still (STILL) so I can get the student pricing on it. Even if I had to pay $129.99, It would still be better than $300.00 fo XP
 
Linux is too complicated, therefore the price of OS X is justified for it's quality and ease of use. I use to use Linux regularly, but got tired of it; now it is just a hobby.
 
Don't have the time to make Linux work

Linux is a great server O.S. just like UNIX. However, when I come to my machine, I don't want to figure out how to make the GUI work or which GUI to use for a certain application, I want to use my machine. It's the same reason for which I gave up DOS and Windows. I've used UNIX at work, so opening a shell and typing commands and writing scripts is no big deal either, when necessary.

Mac OS X works, consistently. If I had a dual processor AMD or Intel machine, I'd be paying $299 to use WinXP Pro, so $129 is cheap, especially considering all the other goodies. I think you'll all wonder how your machine got along without Jaguar.
 
jeeeez!

gosh you people, tsk tsk tsk, if its such a big deal put it on your credit card and pay it off 10 bucks a month, even though interest will kill you!, beyond that 129$ is not bad at all, or here's an idea find someone who goes to a univ. and get them to purchase it for you for 69$ or use one of those upgrade coupons that comes with your computer to get it for 19.95 :)
 
I'm downloading SuSE Linux 7.3 PPC of their ftp server right now.

My general plan is too pick up an older tower or laptop from a private school that is liquidating their stuff and put both X and Linux on two partitions.

I want to experiment with Linux a bit, with the understanding that as it is right now for the novice users, it's not quite there as a desktop OS.
 
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