http://www.apple.com/switch/

http://technojunkie.org/berniec/ferrell_switch.html

frankly, I think these switch commercials are a joke. The arguments these people have are completely stupid.

"I don't get it" " I get the mac, I don't get the pc"

Thats cuz your an f'ing moron! There are 15 year olds hacking DVD encryption and you can't figure out how to bring up IE or M$ Word? ( I mention internet browsing and a word processor because these are basically the only 2 things these people will be able to do on the mac).

The problem, IMO, is that with pc's, there is a MUCH wider variety of applications and features and abilities to play around with and get curious about and because these people don't know WTF they're doing, they gotta muck with everything including downloading everything that has jpg or mpeg in the name and 2000 screensavers giving them all sorts of problems either because they don't know how to manage it properly or get nice little virus's to go with their cutsie little "Elf Bowling". If these people would stick with just browsing the web and typing their xmas lists and letters to grandma, they would have no problems.

Now when they switch to mac, they are basically locked into 5 applications with less stuff to muck around with and find it much more difficult to find things to download and play with keeping them out of trouble.

I could go on about this and I have before with a much better argument, but i'll stop now because I know i'll already have replies from mac users sticking up for their fisherprice pc's.

you´re right. you don´t get it!!!

So your explanation for how to use Wintel effectively for non-``expert''s is to only use two applications in order to keep your computer from crashing?

That's at least as stupid as not being able to express one's problems any better than ``I don't get it.''

I'll give you that there are fewer PoS freeware applications for Macs, but 90% of the real things that you want to do on Wintel you can do on a Mac, and a few that you can't. In addition, 90% of those things you can do by simply doing them. You don't have to dork with the registry to get your digital camera to work, etc.

Microsoft wants you to know how to change your oil, replace your brake rotors, and rebuild your transmission in order to drive your car. Apple wants you to know how to turn the ignition and put it in drive, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any brakes or tranmission there. They simply work without you having to dork with them.

Try actually using a Mac before you bash the hell out of them, next time.

I've used macs and also administered a company with about 30 of them. All mac users doing desktop publishing. Out of all the companies i've administered, i've never had as many issues as I had there. There might not be a registry to muck with, but there are TONS of applications that do not play well with all the others. Along with having to muck with memory allocation.

My explination for how to use "wintel" pc's was not to go downloading every link you find and mucking around with every setting just because it's there. To just use the pc the same way you are FORCED to use a mac, just open a browser and browse. Open a word processor and type.

MacOS 9 definitely had some issues that were almost all related to poor memory management. MacOS X fixes all of those issues.

My problem with your ``solution'' is that you can do as many things with a Mac as with a PC. Your intimation that the only things that you can do with a Mac are browse the web and word process is insulting, which is, of course, what you're trying to be. An A for effort.

The problem is that people want to do much more than that with a home computer. A Mac (with MacOS X) allows you to do those things without worrying about your computer crashing. Windows most definitely does not. And a Windows machine can easily crash just trying to get things that will just allow you to browse the web. I believe that there are numerous posts on this board about trying to get Flash to work.

Video editing is much much easier on a Mac. Wish I'd have gone that route, I still can't get decent editing with the PC and my buddy with the Mac is making DVDs all over the place... Granted the commercials are stupid, most are, but the Mac is more than a word processor and surfing machine...

I disagree, even, that the commercials are stupid. Stop thinking like a computer expert and think like an average consumer who wants to do computer-y things. All of the computer experts already have a likely unchangeable opinion on Macs. These ads are for the average consumers. I think that targeting your commericals that specifically makes a lot of sense.

The commercials show random ordinary people who proclaim in very simple terms why their Macs worked better than their Windows machines for them. Most people don't want to know how computers work. Many people don't have computer expert friends to fix things up for them. Many computer experts are tired of going to their friends' houses to do so.

You don't have to dork with the registry to get your digital camera to work, etc

If the camera comes with working Mac drivers, obviously...

Oops. Meant to point out that there are fewer pieces of hardware available for Macs than Wintels, in addition to software. Not to mention that you have to do some (potentially minor, like reading the box) research to discover this fact, too.

Good point.

Yep - I get this viewpoint from my parents, and some of my less technical siblings. Mum always used Macs, but then someone got her a new PC when one Mac finally died and now we need to visit and rebuild it every 6 months or so. And she installs nothing - just uses Word, Excel and Photoshop.

My kid brothers breaks their PCs regularly and need assistance.

MS products have finally become so crap (at stability and ease-of-use, before we get into the flamewar zone) that I already have one brother onto Linux and Mum is tempted - not because she has geek tendencies, but because it is easier. She won't need to phone me up and be talked through regedt32. She won't need to reinstall drivers for the scanner/printer/camera. And she is quite happy to go to StarOffice because it does what she needs and doesn't bugger about with things.

Okay I'm very biased against MS, and I'm a Mac incompetent, but I'd still prefer a Mac to a Windows PC. Especially as MacOSX is one of the "good" OSes. As opposed to the moral evil that is the MS Borg.

> I've used macs and also administered a company with about 30 of them....i've never had as many issues...

Ditto. I administered a 100 PCs and 10 Macs once, and the Macs were my problem children. They had more errors than the PCs, and the errors were much more arcane. Even when I failed fixing a problem and we called in experts, they couldn't fix them all the time either. I wasn't anti-Mac before that job, I am now.

My problems with Apple is that they have ALWAYS claimed they were easier to use and have less problems, and it has always been a complete lie. Now Apple says OS X is better, and Apple says it is easier to use, but I just don't trust Apple's claims anymore.

btw, OSX is just *nix (BSD?) with mac's GUI. Of COURSE it's going to be more stable than both mac OS and windows.

So therefore, bringing up OSX is not submissable in this discussion because it is not the true mac os I have issues with. It is not their own OS.

MS products have finally become so crap (at stability and ease-of-use, before we get into the flamewar zone) that I already have one brother onto Linux and Mum is tempted - not because she has geek tendencies, but because it is easier. She won't need to phone me up and be talked through regedt32. She won't need to reinstall drivers for the scanner/printer/camera.

Are we talking about Win9x/WinME here, or real operating systems like Win2k and WinXP ?

It's hardly ``just *nix with mac's GUI''. That is, it's more than just that. And the GUI is totally redesigned from MacOS 9 and before.

The Unix is Darwin, which is based largely on FreeBSD, and there's some Mach in there as well.

erm yes - good point. I was just feeling ranty, and didn't really provide the opposing view regarding 2000.

(I still dislike XP though)

(I still dislike XP though)

Thankfully you can make it look, largely, like Win2k again...

I don't really see how that's a vast improvement.

Are we talking about Win9x/WinME here, or real operating systems like Win2k and WinXP ?

A very good point. All anti-Win or pro-Mac people seem to run on the assumption that every single version of Windows is exactly the same, and bad. While I'm not a fan of Windows XP, the Professional version, in my experience, is almost as stable as Win2K.

As for me, it's Win2K on a Dell that I've been screwing with for a year and a half. It's no longer recognizable as one of Dell's machines. in 18 months, it has crashed exactly twice. And I am referring to real crashes here. Not one little freeware program that's not guaranteed to work not working. One crash was under WinME which came installed on it. I got rid of that quick. Home editions of MS OSes will always be utter crap. The other crash, under Win2K, was my own fault. I applied a Service Pack before upgrading certain hardware drivers (which I had received warnings from software to do), and it happened that the old drivers were not compatible with the Service Pack. And that wasn't a difficult fix.

I learned on Windows machines in high school; a trade school. Our lab was PCs, while the whole of the rest of the school was Mac. So I had a chance to play with Macs, too. I didn't like the feel of them back then, but now I have somewhat more justifiable reasons. Specific pieces of software and hardware being one of them.

Aside from that, Macs have always been like a home appliance, in my view. Plug it in and use it; don't mess around, and you shouldn't have problems. While this may be great for some people, I like to mess around.

So that means either Windows or one of countless version of Linux to me. But *nix OSes have always been intimidating to me, and so I'd need a strong reason to justify switching. My current machine is quite stable.

So I don't like Macs because of exactly what they try to be. The computer that you just plug in and it works (usually). I generally like things in nice neat little packages, but also do like a number of features (empeg comes to mind).

The thread shouldn't be a flame war. It should be a list of people's opinions. But while I'm here, let me just point out that I can't stand people comparing Macs to Windows. I'd give an anology if I could dream one up, but I don't feel that people are justified when the compare an entire machine (including OS and hardware) to someone else's operating system. PCs can be just as easy to use as Macs. PC does not equal Windows.

So let's not flame about which is better. One person has his/her reasons for using Macs; others have their reasons for using Windows or *nix. There's no point in trying to convince someone that the choice they thought about and made was wrong, simply because someone else says it is.

a PC can be very stable...you just have to know what you're doing...you all seem to be experienced computer users...

now i'm no computer genious, but i built my own system, and made sure to keep all my installs clean and not to fill my computer with junk...and it runs great...on XP. I think PC's are very easy to mess up...but it's usually not their fault...

i would switch to mac if it wasn't so hard (or costly) to upgrade hardware (by hardware i mean processor, RAM, etc.)

See now I like this reply. As much as i'm complaining about macs, I know they have their place *cough*K1classroom*cough*. The reason I get upset is these commercials. The commercials are pushing people complaining that they "don't get" or can't use windows, or the fact that it keeps crashing. And that switching to a mac solves all hte problems and is so much easier. And my comment to them is that they are mucking around with apps/settings too much in windows that they will not be able to muck with on the mac, so of course their brand new $3000 toy won't crash.

My favorite one was a guy that I think said he was an IT Administrator. Now come on. I'm not buying his story one bit. Ever tried managing appletalk? I have, it's not pretty.

The commercials show random ordinary people

Who all happen to look like they are under the influence of cannabis.... Yep, that's the target market for Macs!

(Disclaimer: I love Macs and think they're easy to use. I just thin the Switch campaign is ridiculous.)

my comment to them is that they are mucking around with apps/settings too much in windows that they will not be able to muck with on the mac

Do you really think that your grandma (replace this with the owner of the computer you're constantly going over to fix) is dorking with the registry or replacing hardware drivers? No. Other than those things, which I'd consider ``under-the-hood'', what should allow you to make your computer less usable? IMO, nothing. But Windows becomes less usable even if you do nothing but run the same single program over and over.

Ever tried managing appletalk?

Ever tried managing IPX/SPX? It's just as big a PITA.

Oh, and I'll never speak ill of the man who made The Thin Blue Line. You've got to respect anyone who can really change the world in a positive manner, especially while disguising it as entertainment

Plus, how can you go wrong with a device known as the Interrotron?

We have exactly one Mac (Power G4) in my group, and its for video editing. The capabilities of that machine are just awesome. We never have problems with it, compared to the Windows boxes. Of course, we admin the Mac, but IT admins the Windows machines... go figure. Our SGI boxes give us the least amount of trouble (except for when hardware goes down - then it gets ugly quick), but we admin those ourselves also.

Just because the style is great, doesn't mean the substance is.

The switch commercials are really annoying to me. I know the audience they're speaking to, and that's my mom. What's the problem? She has a Mac at work, and has nothing but problems.

Plus, I just want to slap some of those people "I'm so-and-so, and I saved Christmas!" UGH! How annoying. Besides, that particular one was a bunch of crap. As if you don't have to download drivers for a Mac. I have and I don't even own one! I hooked up somebody else's camera to my PC for a 20 minute demonstration, and it only took about 2 minutes to get everything installed. That father of the girl in that commercial is an idiot.

Both systems can have their incompatabilities, but I don't have annoying people trying to sell me PC products. **

-edit-
**and no, I don't count Steven

You know, it's not a good idea to taunt the admins favorite platform

Anyhow, I agree with the additude you have with the switch commercials. They seem silly to me, but are addressing the consumer market, and not the techie market. (The techies have commercials like what CDW is putting out).

But I don't agree with most of what you say about the platform. First, let me draw a very clear line. Mac OS 9 and below sucked. Back in the Windows 3.1 days, the platforms were at the same tech level. But the Mac OS never really advanced much beyond that. Mac OS X, being a merger of Nextstep, BSD, and some new technologies, is a completly different beast from 9. X is the main reason I decided to switch.

I mention internet browsing and a word processor because these are basically the only 2 things these people will be able to do on the mac).

Wrong. Out of the box, I can do more with my Mac then I can with my Windows box. iPhoto is my sole photo managment program, and all I had to do to set it up was plug in my digital camera, and hit import. iMovie has been used by a friend to create a rough cut of his movie in very little time. He's now considering Final Cut Pro once it's in full production. iTunes, well, it's used more by me then any media program was on the PC. If I wan't already set in my media managment ways due to the empeg, I'd probably use iTunes all the time for that. At this point, these are the apps that allow me to get multimedia work done without worying about getting the process to work right. Owners of a DVD burner in a Mac enjoy the same simple, but powerful iDVD to create DVD movie discs. And once I'm done getting work done, I can tinker all I want by either adding software similar to TweakUI, or by playing around in the terminal application, giving me a direct path to the Unix core. Once I get bored with that, I can come back and get some web development done. I open up my favorite editor, code some PHP, hit save, and use my browser to test it. The difference between my PC and Mac here is that I never had to upload the file for testing, I simply let the built in Apache do the server PHP rendering. When I do finally want to upload the site, I yet again just open a terminal session and run SCP. (As most servers I work with now do not allow FTP).

I now have my G4 cube at work, and it is used for everything I need. It integrates decently with the network (though Services for Unix on the Windows 2K servers would allow me to authenticate with the Active Directory as well).

If these people would stick with just browsing the web and typing their xmas lists and letters to grandma, they would have no problems.

My grandmother only does these things on her PC, but somehow it still implodes from time to time. Why? Well with the great insecurity that IE is, she simply clicks on a normal looking web link to cause all kinds of chaos. Or she reads an innocent looking e-mail, and yet again has a massive virus infection. If I could switch her to a Mac, I would in a heartbeat. Then, a simple lesson in not typing your admin password unless you know why it's being asked would solve so many problems if these type of viruses ever made their way to the Mac. (Mac OS X follows the general guideline that no user is logged in as an admin. They simply authenticate a process under sudo if necessary).


Now when they switch to mac, they are basically locked into 5 applications with less stuff to muck around with and find it much more difficult to find things to download and play with keeping them out of trouble.

www.versiontracker.com. Enough said there...

I know i'll already have replies from mac users sticking up for their fisherprice pc's.

Hey, that term around here is reserved for describing the Windows XP native interface

I don't have annoying people trying to sell me PC products.

``Dude, you're getting a Dell''-guy isn't annoying? And, if possible, the new ``interns'' are worse.

Don't forget the recent Gateway ads that remind me of browsing the web. As far as I can tell, they are simply the same banner ads placed around most of the screen, then a small video and cheezy music depecting some unrelated activity.

Thank god for PVR. I can skip all commercials, and simply watch the switch parodies online

``Dude, you're getting a Dell''-guy isn't annoying? And, if possible, the new ``interns'' are worse.

PSSST! Check out the end of my post. it was edited before you replied

Besides, Dell is selling to the same audience as Apple is. Are we to assume that technophobes need highly annoying morons to sell them their computers?

For some reason, Steven read as Steve Jobs to me, and I didn't quite get what you were saying. Now I do.

In reply to:

---

First, let me draw a very clear line. Mac OS 9 and below sucked.

---

nuff said

Hehe, okay, fair enough

I have seen those switch commercials. I find them to be a little biased(understandably because they are Apple).

I don't have a problem with the ease of use of MAC and such but I find it difficult to switch to a platform that supports very few games.

Here is a movie done by a gaming group that makes fun of the Apple Switch commercials. It is located at:
http://www.pibmug.com/files/gamerswitch.mov

I find it amusing that it's a Quicktime movie. (Assuming, that is, that it's bashing Apple somewhat. I can't view it since I'm in front of a Solaris machine right now.)

I like the fact that I tried sending a link to the apple commercial with the girl who looks high to a friend, who owns a brand new ibook. It's a quicktime movie, about a mac commercial, hosted on the apple web site. I also sent it to a bunch of other friends with windows pc's.

Guess who was the only person who couldn't get the movie to play?

But Windows becomes less usable even if you do nothing but run the same single program over and over.

I guessing you meant "stable" rather than "usable" (cos it's kind of hard to see how a system couple become less usable by running an app multiple times).

If you are taking about Win95/Win98/WinME then I absolutely agree with you, they are all festering heaps of old junk. We started of with a poor base and just kept adding layers of crap.

However, exactly the same can be said of MacOS < 10. I used to manage 200+ Macs and their installs degraded in exactly the same way Windows did before it became a "real" OS. Just using them hard day in, day out would leave you after a year or so with a subtly broken OS install that needed reinstalling (as did the Win9x boxes and to a lesser extent the NT4 ones).

Win2k and WinXP are good, solid, stable operating systems. As I am sure MacOS X is also, it looks like an excellent bit of kit.

When it comes down to it I choose my OSes for the task they are suited to and for the software that is available for them. I use Linux for my DNS/mail/static web servers; because it just works and if something is broken I know 99% of the time that the breakage is sitting in a plain text file, wating for me to fix it.

I use Win2k for my webserver that runs my dynamic web pages; because I want to write them in ASP and ASP.NET, as that is what I do for a living.

I use Win2k for my desktop machines because they are stable and they run the software I need; VID, VS.NET, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project etc

I use WinXP on my laptop because it does everything Win2k does for my on my desktop, but also suspends and resumes at a break neck speed.

If MacOS X had the software available that I use everyday then I would probably take a serious look at it, but it doesn't. Unless there has been a dramatic change over the last three years the version of Office for the Mac is not as good as the Windows version, because it is slower and less stable. And the chances of the development tools I use becoming available on the Mac are very slim.

For the same reasons, although I love it so, I would never dream of running Linux on the desktop. It does not have, and is never likely to have, the software I require in a desktop enviroment.

I salute all you MacOS X users, keep up the good work...

Baseline for my comments. MAC OS less than or equal to 9 all suck (except for the pop and click sounds in 9, which rock). Windows less than or equal to ME (with the exception of 95b, which RULES!!) sucks.

I administer PC's and one Mac. When there is a problem with a Mac, I work on it as if I've never used a computer before. I don't know how to do anything and I have to rediscover everything for the first time. Sure, it takes longer, but it doesn't suck. It's just different.

Unfortunately, the UI is sevearly deficient. I'm a keyboard shortcut guy. I never touch the mouse because it's simply too slow. Yet on a Mac, I am forced to use a mouse for everything.

There still remains the fact that Mac is crippled. Mac users are happy with what they have because they don't realize the functionality that's been taken from them. How does iMovie compare to Premiere? Ok, I can make a home DVD in a few minutes on iMovie, but can I tweak all the whack video options that Premiere lets me? Options I can't even think of are in Premiere. Maybe I'll want to use them some day. They are there. Mac? They are gone.

Unfortunately, the UI is sevearly deficient. I'm a keyboard shortcut guy. I never touch the mouse because it's simply too slow. Yet on a Mac, I am forced to use a mouse for everything.

Somewhere in system preferences (sorry, not at my Mac right now), is the ability to turn on a feature that gives about everything the ability to be activated via the keyboard. Command-Tab switches between programs just as Alt-Tab does in Windows, etc...

There still remains the fact that Mac is crippled. Mac users are happy with what they have because they don't realize the functionality that's been taken from them. How does iMovie compare to Premiere? Ok, I can make a home DVD in a few minutes on iMovie, but can I tweak all the whack video options that Premiere lets me? Options I can't even think of are in Premiere. Maybe I'll want to use them some day. They are there. Mac? They are gone.

iMovie is free. It comes with every copy of the OS sold. Premiere on the other hand is an expensive software package. And most new computer users will not spend $500 on a program, then who knows how much more for proper training to take advantage of all those wiz bang features Premiere has over iMovie, when all they want is some basic transitions, titles, and easy editing. If they do, they can buy Premiere on the Mac, or buy Final Cut Pro.

Windows offers Windows Movie Maker out of the box. It sucks. Checking my version here, I don't even have an Undo option, or the ability to save as a standard file type. Nor any transitions, or titling abilities.

>is the ability to turn on a feature that gives about everything the ability to be activated via the keyboard

Holy crap, are you serious?! That makes that G4 cube SO much more attractive. Unix, amazing native graphics, a cool discontinued box, AND keyboard commands would actually sell my hardcore PC a$$ on a Mac.

But then there's the issue that they are DISGUSTINGLY overpriced. Thousands for one of those things. Sure, the G4 Powerbook is a sweet piece of hardware, but it costs SO much. Heck, all of it does.

The one other nice thing I can say about Mac is their tech support really supports. I totally jacked my PowerBook at work and they stayed on the phone for probably an hour and a half to fix the problem. What happened? I set some network setting checkbox that completly locked me out of the network settings. Why? I disabled authentication and it wanted to authenticate before it would let me get to the settings screen to re-enable authentication. Support had me trash some system files and have them rebuild from scratch. It was actually an easy fix that I like to know, as an admin. Now I'll just trash system files and let them rebuild when my Mac craps on me.

Holy crap, are you serious?! That makes that G4 cube SO much more attractive. Unix, amazing native graphics, a cool discontinued box, AND keyboard commands would actually sell my hardcore PC a$$ on a Mac.

Heh, if all it took was that, cool. I'll look up how to enable it tomorrow. One warning though if you get the cube. Don't put it in a high traffic area. I've had mine put to sleep 10 times, and turned off once thanks to people walking by my desk, and feeling the need to touch the top, including the power button.

The Cube is what sold me overall on Small Form Factor boxes. I wish Shuttle engineering could come close to what the Cube had. I'm still debating what processor upgrade I want for the Cube to keep it a viable computer for a few more years.

I think I remember coming across a thread here a few weeks ago about building your own mac... some parts were not easy to find but it could be done for a relatively low amount of money - comparatively speaking to buying a new system.

Drakino - you made the point about the nice small form factor of the cube. I used to make fun of the cube but when I found out how small it was, I changed my viewpoint. If it has been one advantage the Mac has had is its control over the engineering that goes into the box (this can also be a disadvantage when it comes to serviceability and upgradeability for us geeks & gearheads). I have had my eye on the Shuttle boxes for a while, and someone showed up at our lan party with one, they are very nice and sleek and still offer a high degree of upgradeability - but will never be as small as a cube.

I speak mainly as a PC guy - but I had my start with Macs, and although I've periodically been known to poke fun at them after I built my first PCs - I had a fondness for hacking system 6.5, and system 7 when it came out. Before Regedit, there was Resedit. My teachers at school (I was in high school at the time) did not particularly appreciate me replacing certain files and the mouse pooping on the screen in the middle of class.

All I can say is this, and it was summed up a few posts ago... you use the platform and OS that suits your purposes. I've been warming up to the idea of building a box to run OS X possibly... but I may never replace my PC. Macs don't play current games, and aren't terribly lan party friendly, but I like the thought of running my email on a Mac. Besides, I am immersed and happy with my current, stable w2k setup. Sure, some of the Mac commercials are dumb, and although, IMO, the Imac is an eyesore - it was an excellent piece of marketing and changed the way computers were and are sold and marketed.

I still like this one Gateway commercial I saw, "Dude, you still getting a Dell?" "Mooo"

I have had my eye on the Shuttle boxes for a while, and someone showed up at our lan party with one, they are very nice and sleek and still offer a high degree of upgradeability - but will never be as small as a cube.

While I like the size of both the Shuttle and Cube, the biggest advantage to me was the noise. The Cubes only source of noise is the hard drive. (this is the same for the last gen CRT iMacs) The Shuttle on the other hand sounds noiser to me then my old tower if I run CPU intensive apps, since it sits on my desktop, and does not have the worlds best fans inside it.

Forget the cube, i want a cobalt qube. I'm not sure what I'd do with it exactly, but I've always been a fan of strange linux hardware. Someday I'll have a netwinder and a mark 1 to fill out the collection.

Matthew

if you want to play, just play.
i don´t think using a Mac for games is a good idea.
if you want to play use a pc, you´re 100% right.
thats what threre for!!!

by the way, if you look at the quality of the QuickTime movie - well welcome to the pc world

this would have been a cool case to have. Too bad the guy isn't making them.

Here ya go, keyboard access in OS X.

I've had a PC since '97, before then I was using real computers, that's Acorns for the uninitiated . I've only ever had my PC to fail to the point where I had to reset it once, and that was because of my WaveFinder. I will admit I've never used a mickey mouse, OS it's always been NT4 and in the last couple of years, 2K.

We were forced to use Mac's at school and I've f**king hated them ever since, they where expensive (initally black and white then later colour), slow and crash happy. Aldus pagemaker sucked ass, Computer Concepts Impression Publisher Plus for Acorn was miles better and much cheaper too. Once my Dad finally got round to buying a decent printer (ie. not a 9 pin dot-matrix) I could finally turn my back on the computers at school. Except for the occaisional, nothing better to do at lunchtime hack into their crap At Ease frontend. Sorry, but I would never buy a Mac, expensive pieces of 'fashionable' furniture. I like my computer to serve a useful purpose instead of looking 'cool'.

Aldus pagemaker sucked ass

Aldus ownz Quark!

Tell us how you really feel...don't hold back now.


-Zeke

well being a network admin for a network with NT, 2K, and XP... I gotta say XP has a few issues of it's own.... along with 2K. I do still prefer Microsoft from a different standpoint however... See when I was at art school (before I became a tech) we had MAC's shoved down our throats with arguments like "Macs are simply better at graphics" and "better at mixing sound"... I'm sorry adobe for MS works just like adobe for Mac throw in a 200 dollar video card and that argument simply holds no water... Now we have a few macs at work.. I gotta say I'm impressed they look cool and they serve their purpose. It's just like anything, you have to choose whats best for you, nothings outright better, like the people that argue that Linux is better then MS, at what? Hardcore geek value? maybe, they both have strong points, but I tried to get into that and got tired of having to compile everthing I installed after downloading the libraries and searching for hours for instructions on how to do it (although I have to admit I just put familiar and opie on my Ipaq), Linux isn't for me... Hat's off to people that can use it effectively... Basically it's all about what you want

got tired of having to compile everthing I installed after downloading the libraries and searching for hours for instructions on how to do it

It has to be rather obscure stuff if apt-get install [package name] doesn't do it.
Once in a blue moon I'll have to do ./configure; make; make install, but it isn't very often. I'll gladly take that before dll-hell...

But then again I have both a Linux machine and an XP machine...

/Michael

Yeah, sorry about that, you can only stand a Mac hosing your essays so many times.

I hear that!

-Z

Actually... sound and video drivers... I went back last week and tried redhat again... pretty cool til I tried getting to a webpage that I needed a plugin for... wasted another 2 hours just trying to get plugins that I had no clue where to get or how.... then again I have very limited knowledge of Linux maybe I was totally missing where and how to install the stuff. But that was kinda my point I've never had too many problems on windows that I couldn't fix, but throw me into linux land and I'm lost... It's just not for me.

I'll gladly take that before dll-hell...

Remember back before Gnome, when Linux didn't have its own version of DLL hell (SO_PURGATORY?)?

You'll want one of the earlier ones then, before they were bought and f**ked over. Now they seem to be flaky, unstable boxes which just happen to look cool.

Remember back before Gnome, when Linux didn't have its own version of DLL hell (SO_PURGATORY?)?

Okay, for the uninitiated, would you mind explaining how Gnome created DLL Hell?

DLL Hell is, to me, the following situation:

Program1: Graphics viewer. Requires common graphics library vA.B.C
Program2: Graphics editor. Requires common graphics library vD.E.F

In Windows, there is the potential for DLL hell here, because there is only one version of "CommonGraphicsLibrary.dll" (more likely CMGFXLIB.DLL or something) in %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32. If that version is vD.E.F, it should theoretically be backwards compatible with vA.B.C, but if it's not, you've got a problem. Worse, if you installed Program1 after you installed Program2, and the installer doesn't behave right and "downgrades" the library, Program2 is broken. This is my understanding of DLL Hell.

In this example, Gnome or no Gnome, there is no DLL hell. /usr/lib/libpng.so.A will be used by Program1, and /usr/lib/libpng.so.D will be used by Program2.

How exactly did Gnome create DLL hell in Linux? It seems to me there's always potential for "Dependency Hell" anytime you do dynamic loading of libraries, just beacuse there's always a chance you've got a stray version of the library somewhere. Is there something GNOME is doing with regards to shared objects that I'm not familiar with?

Hey -- purgatory is less severe than hell. It's not insurmountable, but it's there, nonetheless. The problem has mostly to do with the fact that Gnome has created a huge base of shared object dependencies and many library developers change APIs or their functions in incompatibile ways.

This crops up a lot more under non-Linux Unices than under Linux itself, because, as I feared years ago, people are now developing for Linux and not for Unix. And it seems the quality of the average Unix open source software developer has gone way downhill in the last 10 years.

The problem has mostly to do with the fact that Gnome has created a huge base of shared object dependencies and many library developers change APIs or their functions in incompatibile ways.

Ah ok. So if a moron developer decides to change an API and not make it backwards compatible and not deprecate it and not warn anybody, that's going to break apps that use those API's in strange, unpredictable ways. That's just the price of dynamic linking. I think the benefits of dynamic linking far outweigh the times this happens, don't they?

As for developing for Linux and not for UNIX... I'm assuming this means that developers are taking shortcuts when they write apps such that they run on Linux, but don't run on other flavors of UNIX. Isn't that just a fact of life when your average open source developer has a Linux box at home rather than a Solaris or AIX box?

if a moron developer decides to change an API

But that pretty much describes why Windows DLL hell happens, doesn't it? (Note that I'm not blaming Gnome, per se, but it seems to have been the harbinger of this sort of thing.)

And as for having a Linux box at home, they could spend $45 and get Solaris x86 which would likely run on their PC. But a lot of it has to do with a lack of knowledge about portable programming. I understand why, as they haven't had a lot of experience, but that excuse doesn't make it okay. Even if a mechanic can work wonders on your Model T, would you want him working on your BMW 745Li if he hadn't had any experience or, hell, even training? (Or vice versa -- I don't mean to cast aspersions on Linux here.)

Solaris x86. Riiiiiight...

I love Solaris, and use it every day at work. The fact is that Linux, due to everything being open sourced, is attracting new developers. Proprietary UNIX isn't going away, because we all want something backed by a real company, and not subject to the latest fads in open source development.

But if someone wants to write an application right now, the best thing they can do is write it so it will work on Linux AND the various proprietary UNIXes. But if they do take a shortcut, shouldn't they take the shortcut that works on Linux and breaks the UNIXes, and not the other way around?

I'm not advocating taking shortcuts, but sometimes portability isn't worth it for the developer. It's easier to say "sorry, $APP doesn't run on $YOUR_FAVORITE_UNIX" than it is to deal with the bugs that come from porting it. Where does it end? What about poor schmucks who are still on SunOS?

I would agree, if Gnome weren't being supported by Sun and touted as their new GUI. It's currently a nightmare to build on Solaris. This is certainly partly Sun's fault, although CDE is as much of a nightmare as Gnome, for greatly different reasons.

And what's your problem with Solaris x86? It's basically identical to Solaris Sparc as far as application developers are concerned. I'll admit that its hardware support can be a little lacking, but it's a great OS.

I'd say that application developers should be interested in making their application available to as many people as possible. Otherwise, why bother making it public? As to how far in the future to support an OS, I'd say to support it as long as there are a good number of people using it. How many folks are using SunOS<5 or Ultrix or DGUX? Very few. How many people are using Solaris, even Solaris x86? Lots.

Which, of course, avoids my point that Sun is putting money into Gnome and Gnome still seems to have little interest in making it run well on Sun's platforms.

I'll admit that its hardware support can be a little lacking, but it's a great OS.

I think Sun bit off more than they can chew with Solaris x86. Hardware is way too varied on x86 platforms. I agree that the internals of Solaris are great on both platforms, and I have never had problems taking things I've written on SPARC machines at work and getting them working on Solaris x86. But as a viable option, given the wide range of hardware options people have on x86 PC's, I think Solaris x86 doesn't have a chance.

I agree that developers should try to make their software run on everything, but it's all about cost/benefit. Lots of people are using Solaris on SPARC machines, many fewer are using Solaris x86. If I'm writing a brand new desktop application, I'm not really inclined to spend much time making it work on Solaris. Who uses Solaris as a desktop OS?

Who uses Solaris as a desktop OS?

I'm looking at one right now.

The thing about Solaris x86 is that you can have an enterprise class OS running on almost-commodity hardware. As long as you find something that works, it works great -- better than it would under Linux, dare I say. And that's not really an issue for a company, as long as they can find a vendor with reasonable return policies, which, I think, is where Solaris x86 should be directed. Companies who want a supported Unix, but can't quite afford to spend 10 times as much for supported hardware. Plus, the Solaris Hardware Compatilbility Lists won't ever tell you that something works when it doesn't, really, which is more than I can say for my experience with Linux's similar lists.

Solaris x86 is now, I think, going to only be guaranteed to work on Sun's x86 hardware, although it should continue to work on other stuff. Part of the problem with Solaris x86 was Linux developers getting in a snit when Sun used their hardware drivers. I suppose they should have used BSD stuff instead, but I think that was before BSD was as big as it is now, and didn't have much more hardware support than Solaris did (or does).

Note that I'm not totally badmouthing Linux here -- I run it in several places. However, to me, it's the equivalent of the empeg fire sale. It let a lot more people have one, which is good, but it also let a lot more people have one that shouldn't.

It let a lot more people have one, which is good, but it also let a lot more people have one that shouldn't.

Okay I agree with this statement except the second part, which is really elitist. A lot of the newbies that got Empegs in the fire sale have become knowledgable about Linux when they would have never had the chance to otherwise. I think more empegs in more peoples' hands is a good thing, and saying that they shouldn't have them because they somehow lack the technical knowledge to use it doesn't sit right with me.

The only part that bothered me was that I paid $1599 and $699 for my empegs and people were getting them for $200.

But just as in this example, having more people using a non-Microsoft OS is a good thing. Just because they're not grizzled old veterans of another more traditional UNIX flavor doesn't mean they should be denied the opportunity to pick it up and learn it. So yeah, some of them are going to write bad code and release it to the community. But if you have dealt with Sun's support people like I have (especially with iPlanet Web Server issues) you begin to realize that Sun has its own share of unskilled developers. Can't blame Linux for that.

In reply to:

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It let a lot more people have one, which is good, but it also let a lot more people have one that shouldn't.

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[outrageous french accent] Alright, but I don't think he'll be very keen. He's already got one.[/outrageous french accent] snicker...

It's not lack of experience that is the reason some people shouldn't have it. It's the lack of ability to learn and the propensity to think that they have.

And I didn't say that there weren't bad software engineers before -- only that the percentage of the whole seems to have gone up. It's not as if they sprang fully formed from Torvalds' head.

I came across this Mac switching parody ad.

Note that I'm not bashing the Mac, just thought it was pretty funny and figured I'd share it.