OSX and Linux status update

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:24 pm

not against the whole, Symbiote, but against the part that claims to be able to offer an 'alternative' desktop OS

Got a book with a DVD that contained 5 or so 'Linux live' distributions.
Yes, it did boot - nice, I thought.
Though declared different, 3 were almost identical and 2 deviated a little, but not fundamentally. Not so nice false labeling, but no big deal...
Yes, you can easily make your favourite (distro) permanent to HD
No, that did not work so well

I certainly tried (because I didn't want to have the cash shelled out for nothing), but obviously it was an 'install from scratch' (impossible from that live thingy) or nothing at all.
As you may have guessed the content of the book turned out to be as thin as that of the DVD...

downloaded free BSD, which only partly installed because it got in a circular reference loop with some dependency errors in some obscure font stuff. It was pretty clear that it didn't deal with error at all - it only reported it without naming a clear source or offering an alternative.

Ok, probably from experts for experts...
I downloaded a more recent version - same error. I would have needed to read a lot in this case.
After a (shuddering) peek into another Linux (that didn't cost extra as it was sticked to a mag) I finally surrendered...

... to get me a 'commercial' distribution, SUSE to be precise - you have to pay for your tools, don't ya ?

This one finally installed - of course, they had a pretty big app to deal with the installation.
No complaints from this side so far...
But honestly - that distro exists since the time I've started to sell Macintoshes in a former life, >20 years ago today.

If THAT's all they could achieve in this time, then they truely deservere the attribute 'lamers'

as mentioned, the Apple version of that OS runs as smooth as a cat... (did they choose those names intentionally ?)
On Linux or BSD you're constantly confronted with tech items, you just CANNOT avoid them.
No problem for dudes maintaining servers and setting up databases, but for 'regular' folks ?
That sh*t is advertised 'user-friendly' - in fact it's confusing.
Why is it different with Apple ?
This IS a question the 'wanna-be-an-alternative' community has to ask itself.
It's embarassing imho.
Anyone could do it (even at Apple they use nothing but water to boil), if he or she would be motivated to create something original in advantage of the user...
instead they 'me-too' the graphic output of a $$ corp.
I admit that this constant view of bad copies was the worst part of that linux experience.

I don't question that there are coders (or even teams) writing brilliant lines of code for a server (or whatever) - but as far as the overall design of the OS is concerned it reminds me on the many chefs spoil the meal proverb...

cheers, Tom

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:26 pm

It's 2005 and Linux only recently got real threads. Mac OS and Windoze only recently got real fault protection at the kernel level. Modern operating systems are all garbage.

I do like SFP as an OS though. It has lots of faults as OS's go, but as far as modern operating systems / approaches to software development, it is superior in concept to the others IMHO. If nothing else, it is modular and modularity is something the Gnome / KDE / Aqua / Win idiots continue to ignore.

My suspicion is that SFP is not all that easy to port to Mac OSX or Linux. And that the project is dead. I hope I'm wrong on both counts.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:39 pm

Sorry Tom -- you posted my thoughts in a much more eloquent fashion while I was typing. You can download SuSE and Red Hat Fedora off the web, by the way, for free. And even Red Hat Enterprise Server is available for free under the name "CentOS", a few months after Red Hat releases its Server edition.

Anyway to back up Tom's points: the company I work for recently:

1) Installed Fedora Core 4 on a new machine. In order to get the CD to boot the system -- before it's even installed -- for certain hardware, you have to type some garbage in at the startup prompt. Yes, garbage. If you type in anything meaningful, the boot will fail.

2) Installed Fedora 4 AND SuSE 9.3 on a new machine. Fedora refused outright to recognize the video card (some ATI/ASUS thingamabobber -- same ATI model as the first machine, but different distributor (ASUS)), no matter what we did. SuSE eventually worked, but it took a programmer who has been working on mainframes and UNIX machines and Linux for 30 years a whole week to install the ****ing OS. All this for a desktop workstation!

By way of comparison, it took me a few days to install Windoze XP on a recent machine with SATA drives. Pain in the butt, I couldn't believe how archaic the install process was and how tedious it was to sit there waiting to hit "Escape" at just the right second, in order to install SATA drivers.

And of course Mac OSX doesn't interoperate with any hardware that wasn't built by Apple, outperformed and underpriced by every competitor -- so Mac is stuck in 1950s mode... But at least it (finally) "works".

All of this leads me to yearn for the days of Yggdrasil Linux, or even SlackWare, when installation was well-documented and meticulously built so as to avoid catastrophic failures. And also in those days (early 90s) the hardware manufacturers were not deliberately making hardware obsolescent every month. It was a great time to be a computer hack: cheap generic hardware + free robust (Linux) software.

*removes rose-tinted glasses*

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:05 pm

well, I guess you're right about linux having lots of underground momentum in the early 90s, people throwing together networks of unwanted 386s, later 486s.. and putting together processing networks and stuff..

I've always felt some sort of potential in the linux environment.. it's just sad because I usually give it a swing every one or two years, and most of the time seem to never get beyond the installation! Most of the time my machine doesn't have the right hardware. (namely, the audio hardware) And I still can't figure out how the hell I'm supposed to install additional software! It's over complex for the X11 environment in OSX.. sudo this sudo that.. what the hell? I'm studying Obj-C Cocoa and that's probably easier to understand than installing X11 software..

So, agreeing with Tom, it's a marvel that apple got it right... and to be honest, OSX is a damn stable system. My XP machine recently has had zero problems tho, because now I strictly only use it as a DAW. Everything else happens on my powerbook, and it's running slick as hell.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:14 pm

(EDIT: no it had nothing to do with unwanted 386s or 486s. The distributed computing fad did not start until about '98 / '99.)

X11 used to be easy to figure out. I mean you had to be able to RTFM. But it wasn't mixed up with the Gnome / KDE / RedHat system configuration / YAST crap that it is today. You would edit a configuration file, tweak the "demo" settings, and in a few hours you had a system up and running from scratch. It was waaaaay more stable than Windoze or Mac OS 9, it was more powerful too! (C Sound was the most powerful audio software I could find in those days, and it was free.)

OSS / Linux was cutting edge back in the mid-90s. ALSA has struggled to keep up with the manufacturers' cards -- understandably so, there are too many, almost all of them crap -- but the ALSA documentation sucks and there's no excuse for that. OSS always had excellent documentation. (I say this as both a part-time audio user and a part-time audio programmer.)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: blazesboylan on 2005-10-14 22:15 ]</font>

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:52 pm

On 2005-10-14 21:39, blazesboylan wrote:
...And of course Mac OSX doesn't interoperate with any hardware that wasn't built by Apple, outperformed and underpriced by every competitor -- so Mac is stuck in 1950s mode... But at least it (finally) "works"...

it runs on Intel meanwhile - which btw was the bloody reason for me to 'wanna see it myself'

and it does run (10.4) on a PowerMac from 94 here.
The latter is in no way supposed to work by Apple - yet it does. Ok, it requires a hack to fool the installer - but this hack works as expected and you don't have to care about it's internals.

your words are a big comfort, Johann - I was already afraid I'm starting to get old...

cheers, tom

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:31 pm

You should still be afraid Tom because I *know* I'm getting old! Not to mention that I'm grouchy, I can't remember a damned thing any more, my hearing is shot, myopia is setting in, my back is sore, and I yearn for the good ol' "vintage" days... 94 was a good year, eh?

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:48 pm

Well, SGI, HP, Sun and IBM are now putting their reputation behind Linux =P. But yeah, still quite techie and not ready for regular folks. Mind you, I don't consider installing an operating system to be "regular folks" stuff either. Any OS can end up being pretty simple or pretty complicated to install, especially if you are not familiar with it.

Someone who doesn't know your trick to install OSX on the computer you are talking about would get frustrated at it not working and would call it garbage for not installing on perfectly acceptable hardware. Same with BSD/nix. Definitely necessary to check for hardware support before trying to install.

BSD/Linux could benefit from the "regular folks" perspective if more regular folks used it and made interface suggestions/design etc, but they don't get involved because..... it's too techie! So you have to wait until someone like Apple finally does something bright and throws millions at putting a nice interface over it. SGI/HP/IBM are all Linux-kwak now, but they do mostly servers stuff, so that's probably where they throw their monies.

But about the drivers, it's more a hardware vendor issue than anything else. Windows XP or OSX without proper drivers isn't terribly useful either. The companies usually will not release API/programming informations to let open source software support their hardware. Some release binary drivers, which are often incomplete and/or (usually and) instable. So the drivers have to be reverse-engineered, which takes longer and is often not really legal.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:33 am

Symbiote: I agree with your last paragraph -- though I think lack of "openness" is an issue for the 80s, and Richard Stallman has created a throng of horrible programmers who are obsessed with open source for all the wrong reasons (not even coinciding with Stallman's original reasons) -- but that aside -- I agree with you, the hardware manufacturers have held computer technology back even as they promote their latest shiny tinsel-coated made-in-Bhutan crap.

However the issue here, in my view, is not lack of familiarity with *nix. It is lack of forward movement in a longer perspective of OS development.

The Linux world has / had the best recent opportunity to come up with a new concept of operating environments of all the OSes discussed here. The corporate restrictions were non-existant (until recently). The development community is huge. Unfortunately, as they say, a million monkeys sitting at a million typewriters are always doomed to re-create Shakespeare's works. Not that the operating system community has had any Shakespeares in the past 30+ years (since 1971). Far worse, we have had a steady stream of Margaret Atwoods. But Linux developers -- including at the application layer (which often is part of today's OS) -- have been re-creating yesterday's crap over and over, withuot innovating. I would even go so far as to say that the few innovations in the Linux community that I've seen have been stifled and left behind.

I spend 90% of my computer time on Linux. (The other 10% is using CreamWare, under Windoesn't XP.) I still think Linux is the least bad operating system to work on, play games on, make music on. The applications aren't all there, mind you, but at least the core is somewhat logical, and the applications *should* be there. I would shoot myself before work under a Windoze or Mac environment. Sorry but Mac OSZzzzzzz does not have anywhere near the sheer power or stability or scalability of a standard Linux distro. And compared to the IBM AIX and HP-UX and SGI IRIX OSes of yesteryear? Ummmm... Linux please. Nevertheless I can't believe how far backwards Linux has moved over the past decade. And moreover I can't believe how unremittingly stupid developers, people like Stallman and his Gnu hordes, are. Continuing to insist that we build monolithic garbage as "open source" when the biggest problem/bottleneck facing computer users today is *not* proprietary technology but the complete lack of interoperability between software. Everyone wants to build a monolith and share their horrible monolithic ugly code with the world. What a blight on the spirit of *nix Java, Perl, XML, ICE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Gnome, KDE, are.

(Yes all of them. If you have ever tried to get any two of the above to interoperate you know what a pigsty it all is. The world of computer science is at an all-time low in my books, especially considering the potential of what came before us -- in the 70s and some of the relatively minor developments of the 80s and 90s. I suspect a lot of brilliant developers are rolling in their graves right now.)

34 years ago Bell Labs came out with an innovation in operating systems: a secure, *modular* and fault-tolerant environment. Everyone important -- Linus included -- has been trying to do away with it ever since. What a shame.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:36 pm

Apple finally got it right? Took too long. I can't afford to replace everything and learn a new OS, alright that part would probably be easy. I'm still waiting for the Apple partition on my hard drive, when it's legal.

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:00 pm

SFP amiga drivers! now!!!

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 12:03 am

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:21 am

On 2005-10-18 16:36, braincell wrote:
Apple finally got it right?...

well, if you mean 'right' in the sense of camouflaging a highly technical thing to make it useable by idiots, then YES, they fully succeeded.
I wrote useable - it's neither configurable nor maintainable by the average Joe. Your only option is to re-install from the distribution media if something goes wrong...

Right in context of 'appropriate' is almost nonsense.
From the 'user' viewpoint their custom OS was way more sophisticated because it really did provide an interface to the OS level that any idiot could interact with. I'm not talking about the file system btw

The original 'Inside Macintosh' documentation is still a valid reference for anyone starting out on operating system, imho.

To say it with the android in 'Alien' ... I like the purity of it's concept... and it's this concept what gave applications like Photoshop the chance to be developed and grow at all.
It's not an Adobe invention btw - Adobe just filled the application framework that Apple provided with content... (still a demanding task nevertheless)

That sh*t ran successfully on a CPU clocked at 25MHZ and had to use virtual memory to process images far larger than it's application Ram.

Regarding networking..., well since 1986 you could hook the original Mac to an IBM mainframe and in fact those sales to departments known as 'strong' IBM domains were somewhat strange...
The programmers simply loved Macs, which could cut-and-paste-edit their mainframe apps, something the IBM terminals couldn't do

Apple delivered their very own version of an affordable LAN (for small office use) including a peer-to-peer network more than 20 years from today.
It was capable to autoconfigure within a couple of minutes and add (or remove) devices and services on the fly.
Win3.11, Netware configs, anyone... ???

From my humble experience I'd say they always got their stuff right, but as we all know business rules are a different cup of tea...

With a fraction of what they pumped into OSX Apple could have completed THE perfect user OS - with the result that some million happy Mac users had bought their last piece of equipment in 2001 and never plan to change or upgrade, as it's just running perfectly...

cheers, Tom

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:21 pm

Did you hear that Apple is trying to get Intel to release the next generation of their chips to Apple first? The execs at Intel are saying "Dell sells 20 times more computers than you do; so tell us again why we should release it to you first?". Somehow you have to think the maniac Steve Jobs is behind this. Now he is practically peeing in his pants because iTunes is selling 3 inch videos of "Lost". Who the hell is going to buy that? I guess you can never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:21 pm

On 2005-10-19 05:21, astroman wrote:
From my humble experience I'd say they always got their stuff right, but as we all know business rules are a different cup of tea...

With a fraction of what they pumped into OSX Apple could have completed THE perfect user OS - with the result that some million happy Mac users had bought their last piece of equipment in 2001 and never plan to change or upgrade, as it's just running perfectly...

Tom I agree with you about the application layer of Apple's OS's. I don't know enough about it to compare it to X Windows (which, sensibly, is a layer on top of the OS -- the only way to do it, behind the scenes, IMHO). But I suspect X was always far far more powerful (and more bloated!) than Apple's application layer libraries.

I'm just guessing on that one though.

What I know for sure is that the Mac OS did not become stable until OS/X.

It wasn't until they adopted the Mach UNIX-like operating system that they achieved security in the kernel. (Mach 3 was really simple and elegant, by the way. Unlike Linux.) As far as application developers go, Apple has always been top-notch. But until recently they wouldn't known a real OS from a hole in the ground.

(Microsoft has been in the same camp for the past 5-6 years -- focusing on application layer and only recently becoming interested in developing "server" operating systems -- which are really just their first attempts at *real* operating systems.)

Anyway, all of the modern GUI conveniences are courtesy of Xerox, IMHO. SGI and other UNIX companies helped out and pointed to potential futures, but we *still* have not started developing GUIs in a state machine-based environment like OpenGL, despite the persisten proofs over the past 10-25 years that it is an efficient and easy (i.e. logical) way to program. The glitz and prettiness of today is largely thanks to Commodore, Atari, Apple. But I consider it all skin-deep. And piss-poor programming, to boot.

I hope that there will be a revolution in computer science at some point, and that companies like CreamWare -- with their modular, state machine-based interfaces -- will come into the fore.

But unfortunately your idea of "average joe" users, which craves prettiness above function and automation, will most likely squash any revolutionary movement for some time to come. Even in the infinitely unlikely event that Apple or Microsoft come out with a revolutionary operating system, it will be crushed with the force of 18 billion paper-shuffling morons screaming "WYSIWYG" and "web design" and "MP3 player skins".

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:47 am

Mm anyone have an Atari Falcon and willing to sell it to me? =P

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:08 am

2 years too late

dehuszar · Post by **dehuszar** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:11 pm

Well, having dabbled with Mandrake, SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mepis, LinSpire, Windows 3.1-XP, and OSX, I can safely say that if your paradigm for computing is entirely grounded in any one OS, you WILL feel functionally retarded switching to a different OS.

I find that Linux is no more or less difficult, stupid, bloated, or confusing than Windows. The difference is that if you are inclined, it's pretty easy to figure out what went wrong. And of course, unless you're updating the kernel, you never really have to reboot. I've had 2-3 kernel panics EVER. I can't say that for Windows.

In fact, I have to say that as a consultant, Windows makes me a lot of money, and I can save a lot of money for my clients by showing them free software which have Windows ports.

Between the Linux distros, Ubuntu and SuSE rule. SuSE I use as a Lotus Notes server platform, and I use Ubuntu for my laptop workstation. LinSpire is really great for the parents or newbs, but you won't be able to take it quite as far as a free-wheeling Linux distro. Fedora is shit. I don't know why people latch on to it. I've never had a good experience with RedHat since they split their distro into enterprise and guinea pig versions.

I think most people's issues with Linux and OSX comes from the fact that the UNIX paradigm is in fact quite different from your average user's computing experience and as such requires some brain-bending to get on the level. But I think OSX is a bit of a mess. If you are approaching it from the "I feel functionally retarded when I use computers" then OSX definately excels, but I can't tell you how many hipster friends of mine have been reduced to tears when their Mac behaves in an unexpected way.

Of course, once you hit the command prompt, it's all *NIX. I've fixed many a Mac issue from the shell.

Aside from Pro-Audio drivers, if Linux were to beef up it's scanning and OCR options (god would I be happy if ABBYY released a FineReader Linux port), and PDA options Linux would meet a lot more people's needs. Well-- mine anyway.

My $.02.
Sam

MBSound · Post by **MBSound** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:57 pm

Seems that there a lot of people on this forum, having lots of experience with different OS's ... I'm just thinking ... what is it that this topic was about? I tought it was 'OSX & linux status update'. So, on topic ... does anybody have any real info what the status is??????!!!!!! At the moment I'm just thinking, should I put my Pulsar II & luna 8in8out-box up for sale tomorrow or wait another month. (hoping that CWaudiopeople are reading this to) I have an G4 setup with Logic runnning on it. My 1.67GHz laptop is running logic version 7.0 and my Powermac 867MHz dual processor is running 6.4.1 under OS9.2 as CWAudio is restricting me to update to OSX, which does work better with logic (I know because of my laptop, not my studiosetup however) Recently I've investeted in a Mackie Control Universal, as I've discovered it doesn't communicate with logic properly, because the unit itself (setup in logic modus ofcourse) has a firmware version that is just to new for logic 6.4.1, tried to update to 6.4.3, but that's not working.

Anyways hoping to update to OSX tiger soon with or without CWAudio, ... to bad for the nice synth's, effect's and ofcourse the samplers, but I've seen some nice soundcards with good routing capabilities that do support OSX.

So just asking, ... would € 1000,- be a realistic price to ask for the Pulsar 2 and the luna 8 in 8 out?

cheers Marius

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:34 am

well, if you supply each and every plugin from CWA and a few top 3rd party ones... possibly.

otherwise that's roughly the price of that gear from a shop

check it yourself:
6 DSP Scope FX 798 Euro, the box has been as low as 150 (it's a sell-out item)
Luna bundled w. box 555 + Scope home 369 (same # of DSPs plus a couple of xtra IOs

good luck, Tom
ps I will not repeat the mountitinarackoruseanoldpowermacblah...