Mac OS X v. Linux (Was: Re: Ubuntu Boot Up Logo)

[Magnus Therning]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 06:33:27AM -0500, Jacob Walch wrote:
>>**Mac OS X is a beautiful example of what can be done with a Unix-like
>>OS! It is an accessible, usable, and stable tool that offers users a
>>Unix-core with all its advantages and disadvantages.
>
>I have a Mac (A newer style I-Mac), and, although it is "beautiful," it
>doesn't offer all of the advantages that I get with Linux.  Perhaps the
>most obvious disadvantage of the Mac compared to Linux is the lack of a
>real task bar.  Sure, you have the Dock, but it doesn't list every
>single window the way the task bar does in KDE or Gnome (I use KDE).
>When I was actually using my Mac (it's collecting dust at the moment),
>I would often find myself having to minimize one window at a time just
>to get to the one that I was after.  Also, multiple desktops are
>indispensible.

Did your Mac not have the nice "temporary tiling" of windows? I've
always wanted to try it, I'm not sure I'll like it, but it sure looks
cool :-)

>There are other advantages as well, however.  One of the biggest
>advantages is apt-get (or Synaptic or Kynaptic) for updating and
>installing programs.  Although I'm sure that quite a few FOSS programs
>are available for Mac OS, they are surely not as numerous or as easy to
>install as the ones for Linux (Yes, I'm aware that not all linux
>distros use apt-get).

Fink is an APT based collection of FOSS for Mac. There is also something
based on the BSD ports system if I'm not mistaken.

The packaging system in Debian (and therefore Ubuntu and other
Debian-based distros) is amazingly good compared to what you find in the
most popular commercial OSs. Having to manually uninstall a program just
to upgrade to a newer version is ridiculous I think, and still that is
how Windows seems to expect users to behave. It's simply silly that
software packaging isn't provided by the OS, instead it's up to each and
every software package to provide its own crappy solution.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                    (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
magnus at therning.org
http://therning.org/magnus

Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

The law does not allow me to testify on any aspect of the National
Security Agency, even to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
      -- General Allen, Director of the NSA
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