The posts title sounds very “final,” which is really not my intention… but, here goes.
I’m writing this from a new computer sitting on my desk. It’s just a little larger than a CD case in size, and it’s at most 2 inches tall.
It looks like this:
Yes; it’s true. I went and bought a Mac.
This is actually something I’ve threatened to do for quite some time now, and it just turned out that I was able to do it right now.
Now, I’m not moving away from Linux, and I still expect Linux to continue to get better and better on the desktop. However, Linux, the way I’ve been running it — usually with the most bleeding edge version of each software package — is not stable. I don’t mean that “Linux” is not stable, because it is very stable. But the way I run it… I spend a lot of my time fixing things that I broke myself. Honestly, I’m getting older, busier, and I’m tired of it.
I just installed Gentoo Linux on my main PC here again, so I’ll continue to run that. Now, however, I have the luxury of having another computer… so, I can break things with impunity and not feel that I need to stay up until 3 in the morning fixing it.
A few thoughts:
- Could Apple get any “cooler”? It’s nice, but it’s almost annoying. You open the box, and the first think you see, as in every other product I’ve ever bought from them, are the words
Designed by Apple in California
in a crushingly clean font on a smashingly hip blank space.
Wow. It’s very cool, but you also know that they know it’s very cool, and they intend it to be very cool, and that when they designed this they sat around the table and said to one another, Look, when they open the box, this will be the first thing they see, and they will all say, “Wow. That’s cool.” You almost feel manipulated, coerced, cajoled, and bewitched by the sheer coolness of it. It’s almost self-consciously cool.
And it’s not just that, but each successive thing that comes out of the box, even the Styrofoam packing and the little plastic wrappers around each component, which all peel off nicely and have little “Peel here” tabs printed in that same crushingly clean font, to the 2 free Apple stickers and the user guide and the whole install/setup process… it is all calculated to be solidly, homogeneously, stupefyingly, overwhelmingly cool.
Like I said, it’s a little annoying.
But it is still very cool.
- I miss Beryl. Max OS X, 10.4 specifically, is very nice. But visually speaking, Beryl blows it away. I do have high hopes for Leopard, but I guess we’ll have to wait for that. Also, I find that I am unable to say or write the word “Leopard” without thinking of a Monty Python sketch whose content and context otherwise escape me.
- I also miss my Gnome desktop. I like it. I miss being able to change the theme engine and the window border (yes, I realize that constantly changing your icons, window borders and various other bits of eye candy is only a few steps removed from playing with dolls… I prefer to think of it as customizing my computing environment).
- I like the setup and installation process. Besides being mind-numbingly death-defyingly cool (did I mention that already?), it is definitely a beautiful thing to behold the system starting up, and practically configuring itself. When one considers the man-hours that must have gone into perfecting this process, one almost wants to weep. But not quite.
- I’m going to have to learn new keyboard shortcuts. In many places on the Mac, the HOME and END keys do not work like they do on Linux. (Or that other OS.) Instead, to jump to the beginning of end of a line, you can use Apple-left or Apple-right (on a Windows keybaord it’s the Windows key), and to jump by word it’s Alt-left and Alt-right. To highlight as you go, you still add a SHIFT key to the combination. It’s not hard so much as it is hard to let go of old habits.
- My old keyboard was a PS-2 (still!), so I had to get a new keyboard (the mini is USB only).
I went to WAL*MART and got the only cheap USB keyboard they had; bad idea. It makes the horrific decision to alter the near-canonical US keyboard layout. The most annoying side-effect so far is because the “insert” key is now where I am used to finding the “delete” key.
This error is compounded by the fact that the “insert” key seems to automatically raise the Firefox help menu in the Mac version of same. If you scan everything you’ve read so far, and imagine the Firefox help window appearing out of nowhere about half a dozen times while I tried to write it, you will have an idea how much fun that was.
This is not Apple’s fault, I feel compelled to add, but it’s there, nonetheless. I may need to get a new keyboard.
All things considered, I’m happy with my decision. I can keep using Linux without needing to treat it with kid-gloves lest I make it explode. And the mac OS really is very, very nice.
Let the flames begin! ;-)
Tanks full *check*
Nozzle clear of blockage *check*
Asbestos suit *check*
/me switches on the mighty thrower of flame
;)
Mac keyboard shortcuts annoy the hell out of me. I have a friend with a Mac, and I hate it. Why do they need to be different? I guess it’s a legacy thing, but it’s still a PITA.
I feel about Mac OSX the same way I do about Windows - it’s a proprietary OS, and thus I’d rather avoid using it. The fact that it’s even more tightly tied in to the hardware is a negative point, IMO. It’s almost _more_ proprietary than Windows *gasp*
I’m also saddened by the vast number of pro-open source people who, since the release of OSX, seem to have decided that they’re not pro-open source, but rather they’re anti-microsoft.
I won’t be upset with you about this if you install Linux on your Mac. Otherwise I’ll have to get out my flamethrower.
@mrBen … sigh. Yes, the mac keyboard shortcuts are annoying as heck; I’ll get used to them, but…. oh well.
As far as the proprietary OS… I need to be totally honest, but Open Source and Free Software is not a moral issue for me. I could not care less if someone decides not to open their source code. In some sense, I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by cutting off a great community of open source developers, but if someone wants to keep their software closed, I think that’s their prerogative.
I don’t consider myself anti-microsoft, except in the vague, generic sense that almost every person who has ever touched a computer has a gripe against Microsoft. ;-)
I’m in favor of getting things done. And like I said in my post — due to the way that I run Linux, always the latest versions, upgrading various things all the time — I tend to break Linux a lot. I’m tired of it. Sure, I could use a distro like RHEL4 that uses an older kernel, and older version of Gnome, an older version of everything, all in favor of a more “stable” system… but I don’t really want to. Ubuntu is good — very good — but I still have a lot of issues that I’m frankly sick and tired of troubleshooting. I troubleshoot PCs for a living. I don’t always want to come home and do more of it.
Gentoo is the best system I’ve ever used, but talk about time-intensive… This past weekend I installed it, working on it off-and-on it took about 3-4 days to get into X … with compositing and Beryl, of course. I still need to fix fonts so they look nice, and I haven’t even installed things like OpenOffice on it yet. Or CUPS. Or… I don’t even know what else. Running Gentoo is great, but it’s like having a part-time job that you don’t get paid for.
I’ve no intention of ceasing to use Linux. I just want a system that can stay up and running, that I can leave my schoolwork and other important development work on, without it needing to be rebuilt all the time. Honestly, if someone has a “moral” problem with OS X from a “Free Software” standpoint, that’s not my concern. ;-)
On OS X I still have /bin/bash, which was pretty much my favorite feature of Linux anyways… the other being the desktop environment. I’m happy to say (like I said in the original post) that I actually think Gnome Beryl (or a different WM, if one prefers… xfce4 is nice) is better than OS X from a GUI standpoint. (Now the Mac people will hate me, but it’s true.)
So, yes. I “switched,” but I don’t really feel like I switched. I just added a new PC that still has bash and happens to be an Apple. It also took 10 minutes to set up. And beyond that, as soon as I grab a cheap KVM, I expect to continue using Linux as much or more than I use OS X.
@Brian… I don’t know yet. I want to, but I went as cheap as possible; I got the bare bones minimum mac Mini. Only a 60GB hd, and only 512MB of RAM. Who am I kidding? I’ll probably install Linux on it at some point… but since I have a whole box dedicated to Linux and I’ll have them both on a KVM, I don’t know if I’ll really need to, other than out of curiosity.
Part of your problem, of course, is that you are a compulsive tweaker. The main reason that Mac OSX suits you is because you _can’t_ fiddle with it, because it’s not open like Gentoo. If you could withstand your urge to tweak, I bet you could “Get Things Done” on a Linux system too (although that does depend, I realise).
That is true; I am a compulsive tweaker.
And you’re right; when I have a system that I’m satisfied with, I can (and have) cruised along with Linux for months at a time. Inevitably, a new version of Gnome comes out, or Beryl comes out, or… etc… ;-)
I still need to find a cheap KVM that supports USB… as soon as I have that, I’ll be using both PCs.
In retrospect, I would change my statement that I’ve “moved to” Mac to be that I have “added a Mac” to the other computers I use… The Mac will just be the system that I trust for boring things (schoolwork, etc) that I don’t want to be moving all the time.
The word “trust” there is loaded; I trust Linux as well. It’s me who keeps breaking it.
Here’s to breaking things! As the captain said… I aim to misbehave…
re: KVM - thought about using Synergy? Or do you only have the 1 monitor?
A good idea — but I do only have the one monitor. That would be an interesting option, though — I’ll have to remember to test that software if I have the chance.