Article:		Why Install Linux on Your Mac?
Subject:		Same reason I installed Linux on x86
Date:		2004-12-01 15:11:22
From:		gilest
Response to: Same reason I installed Linux on x86
Thanks for that, nathanh. That's just the kind of plain-spoken answer to the original question that I was hoping to hear!

Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

• Same reason I installed Linux on x86
  2004-12-02 05:24:26  bitjockey [View]
  
  
  Hmph. Sometimes a car is just a car, and in this case the Mac for me is just a Mac. I feel fine running BSD with a Mach Kernel on my G3 and dual G4s.
  
  I'm not hard to please. I like the Mac's personality. It gets what I need to have done, and when my PowerBook was stolen it was able to tell me where it was with what I wrote for it.
  
  You folks are welcome to worship at the temple of Linux, but I am sick and tired of paying attention to product cycles! I hear this tone in these replies of arrogance, as if we are playing a giant game of "MY STUFF'S BETTER THAN YOUR-RS!"
  
  We're not. Maybe you need to rebel, but I just need to pay my bills and taxes, talk to my friends around the world and stuff like that. OS X works, and I'm using it. After all, I DID pay for it!
  
  Do you want me to put my business on hold and try out a product that's STILL not ready for prime time? Shoot, the hardware model for the Mac is sooo much simpler than the PC, why aren't all the pieces there yet?
  
  In other words, throwing away my investment in hardware and software is ridiculous, like buying new furniture, then buying a house to put it in and throwing the new furniture away. Maybe you can find drivers for the iSight & other periphs, but that's EXACTLY why I started using a Mac in the first place: to get away from the driver wars.
  
  My Mac is an appliance. I bought it to be an appliance. I'm not gonna put any form of Linux on it unless vendors of the stuff I use are supporting it. Even then, OS X would have to old and senile, leaving it's teeth everywhere it goes and wandering off in the night!
  
  I'm so happy with my Mac the way it is, I'll probably skip the next two X releases! Shoot, I could really go back to Jaguar and be happy, but only if my Book needs open heart surgery...
• Same reason I installed Linux on x86
  2004-12-02 08:48:50  bairdcarr1 [View]
  
  
  I agree, OSX works! Mostly, anyway. Unfortunately, I have had to upgrade it 3 times already. That's fine at work, I'm not spending my own money, and there really isn't an alternative in Linux. Without insulting your favorite OS, let me explain why I use Linux.
  
  It's free, I can install it on as many computers as I like with no thought given to licenses or restrictions. No product keys to keep track of!
  
  It's incredibly easy and fast to install.
  
  It installs with all the software I need to do my work already included. No keeping track of extra software cd's and their respective licenses and product keys.
  
  Unlimited free upgrades to the OS and ALL the programs installed on it.
  
  VERY easy to install and update software (Synaptic frontend to apt). Over the internet! Click on the the software name, click install, that's it.
  
  I can't tell a difference in performance between my old Pentium 3 laptop and my new Pentium 4 laptop, they are both fast!
  
  The major open source programs are updated frequently, with vast improvements in a short amount of time.
  
  KDE (my choice of Window manager) has immense networking capabilities, unrivalled in any other OS (still trying not to be insulting here).
  
  Software to do everything I want to do already installed. CD/DVD burning, scanning, digital camera interfacing, graphics, MS compatible office suites, remote access to work via ssh, control of remote Windows and Mac systems using VNC and Remote Desktop. Financial software. Tons more.
  
  I don't use Linux just because it's better, I use it because I'm lazy! I hate to read that I'm a thief because I install my one copy of <some Commercial software> on a few hundred of my friends computers. I don't have to worry about some company going out of business and not supporting their product anymore. Or losing the install cd's to my favorite software and having to buy a new copy.
  
  I can buy $100 used no-OS systems and put a fully legal, fully functional OS on them for free. I'm outside the normal upgrade cycle, yet can benefit from everyone elses upgrades.
  
  Linux is just simple and easy. I don't really care if you use it or not, I just do not understand people dismissing it offhand. It's not like it costs you anything to try.
  
  
  
• Same reason I installed Linux on x86
  2007-01-30 00:13:20  JayTee [View]
  
  
  Pardon me for asking, buy since when did you need a "product key" to install OS X? I'm up to 10.4.8, and have never needed one.
• Facing the facts of upgrades
  2005-01-25 08:28:26  lvirden [View]
  
  
  >I agree, OSX works! Mostly, anyway. Unfortunately, I have had to upgrade it 3 times already.
  
  The basic problem is that the only software which isn't being upgrades is abandoned software. Otherwise, people are fixing problems and making improvments.
  
  So, I suspect the real problem for you isn't that you had to upgrade, but that you had to pay for upgrades. Am I right?
  
  That's probably the primary argument that would sway me to run a BSD or Linux instead of MacOS - to be able to afford to keep up to date.
  
  I'm not even able to afford the Mac hardware - the macs I have are all ancient hand-me-downs. None of them right now are even PowerPCs (I don't think). About the only PPC hand-me-down I would expect to get is something so old, and so slow, that even Linux would crawl.
  
  Given that things are so bad, the issue then becomes this - on what platform do I expect that, if I were able to run it, I could afford to keep the applications on it up to date, or to fix them.
  
  Certainly a good portion of MacOS X apps are available in source form, so I could keep those up to date. However, when it comes to management software, the cost of buying upgrades would be prohibitive to me.
• Same reason I installed Linux on x86
  2004-12-03 01:00:04  bitjockey [View]
  
  
  This isn't about X being my favorite OS. Unix version 7 is my favorite OS.
  
  It's about I spent my money, and I'm satisfied with my investment. If the day comes when I need what Linux has, I'll get it and use it. Now, could I make that decision by dismissing Linux out-of-hand?
  
  As for being free: don't you value your labor? Have you nothing better to do than install a new OS on your computer(s)? I do, so the time I'd spend playing with Linux is worth more than nothing.
  
  Listen, we'll never persuade each other to change, so I'm outa here, okay?
  
  Peace