Mac OS X: Is it the best of both worlds?

OS X - still needs work
I hear what you're saying. I'd guess I feel the same way if someone drastically changed the way I was used to doing thing.

My prespective is a little different though. For desktop work, I was a diehard Linux user running VMware (Windows emulation). The Windows emulation was used for a better GUI then what is avail in the Linux world. Linux, because if the power of a Unix command line.

I now do have the best of both worlds. A Great GUI and BSD only a click away.

BTW, I had not touched a Mac since the Apple II and I had no real problems getting up to speed very quickly with OS X. If fall else fails, I can go to a terminal prompt and do what I need.

"Convert" from Linux/BSD
Not really a "convert", I still use OpenBSD on my DSL router and Linux on my digital VCR.

I recently purchased a PowerBook G4 667MHz. Since I don't use Winondows I was able to pick the best designed notebook out there. And of course I was intrigued by MacOS X! Nice GUI and a lot of applications to chose from plus all the tools and power of Unix I am used to. What could be better?

I am still very much into free software but iTunes and iPhoto are just so simple to use and come with the hardware. This way I can use those applications and forget about them. This Gives me time for the interesting stuff like IPSec, etc.

Marcus

More like OS X, not more like OS 9!
OS X mostly cures the dumb things about OS 9 and earlier. Examples: OS 9- had App menus at left, App menu at right; Apple menu at left, disk drives at right; control panels in a floating annoyance, er, I mean strip; lack of memory management, application binding by creator, rather than generic file type viewer, etc. etc.

It doesn't yet go far enough at bringing in Unix/Internet standards. Examples: no Finder support for FTP (should be just like AppleShare); no Xwindows support for graphics sessions on other hosts; etc. etc.

We'll get there someday, I have no doubt...

TomEM

OS X - still needs work
My first new mac was a Mac Classic; what a screamer :-)

I have been using OS X since the test of willpower called the public beta.

You are absolutly correct.

But another consideration is that many Mac users income depends on their Mac working for them. It is OK to be a bit peeved about having to release old habits and learn a NEW operating system. OS X is gorgeous to look at and it has a few familiar icons, but this puppy is not is any real way like the classic OS.

But like you said "there's no going back."

OS X - still needs work
This seems to be typical of the long time Mac user. The old UI was "logical", "easier"... I think the correct adjective is "familiar". I guess that's inevitable. If you are used to it, it's "easy". If it's new it's "hard".

OS X is new and *is* different. But I think it's better than Mac OS 9 in the ease-of-use dept for the new user. By new user, I mean new to the system. I figured out OSX a *lot* faster than I did OS8/9 having come from a Unix, PC, AppleII background. My Dad did too coming from *no* computer background.

I think another part of the deal is that many OS9 users have had the ease-of-use superiority thing driven home by themselves and even the PC press, that they came to believe every aspect of the OS9 experience was easier or better.
The Chooser, WindowShade, File Dialogs, Extensions, Special Menu, File menu layout, OS folder layout, and all that screen clutter... well, certain Mac users think that stuff is just the cat's meow. They really really love 'em. And I look at that stuff and just want to gag.

d

PS:
I get a kick out of someone complaining (w/ a straight face) about OSX ease-of-use relative to OS9 while manually setting memory levels for PhotoShop -- or rebooting.

PPS:
I also think it is harder to go from a mostly crash-proof OS to a non-crash-proof one. Once you enjoy the stability of Unix or even Windows2000, you just cannot go back to Win98 or OS9. Since the longtime Win98 or OS9 user has never experienced what this is like, they don't know what they are missing and so don't value it as much for the incredibly HUGE plus that it is. All they can think to do is ask: "where's my Apple Menu"?

OS X - still needs work
As a long-standing Mac user, and as someone who is very familiar with Windows and Amiga operating systems, I view OS X with mixed blessings.

The reason I chose MacOS many years ago was because of the attention paid to workflow. My productivity using the MacOS is seamless, and I am able to work on graphics or design websites without a hitch. Certainly, for ease of use, the Classic MacOS is unparalleled.

I am of course thrilled that OS X has BSD underpinnings, which translates to multithreaded and multitasked operations, but OS X feels slow to me. God-awful slow. I am in OS X now, trying to get more familiar with it, and my G4 'supercomputer' which rolls right along on OS 9 suddenly feels like an LC II again. Apple really needs to address this issue. AmigaOS proved that you don't need a lot of CPU power to run a multi-tasking,multi-threaded OS. I really think Apple is paying more attention to glitz than it is to functionality.

Speaking of functionality - and the workflow that I mentioned earlier - Apple has chosen to make OS X dissimilar to OS 9's proven GUI. This translates to time wasted hunted for common things. You've got a new kernel, which is great, but the functionality and simple clean and LOGICAL interface of OS 9 is now gone. I believe Apple should spare no effort in making OS X behave more like OS 9. To do otherwise is wasting a tremendous opportunity to truly have the best of both worlds.

Ditto on Java
I would gladly plunk down my money for an oreilly book on programming Java in OS X.

Just make sure it covers Apple's Project Builder IDE equally to terminal-style programming, and target it for intermediate users (some prog knowledge expected) and it'd be a hit.

~Phi

My first experience with Apple
Last month, I bought an Apple iBook G3 500mhz laptop from a Circuit City that was closing down. It was a deal I couldn't pass up. Before the debut of OS X last summer, I had never really considered Apple products because of their 'toy' operating system. I had always found their hardware to be cool though.

I gave up on Microsoft around 1994 and switched to OS/2 Warp 3. I ran OS/2 until about 1997 when I made the switch to Linux. I continue to run Linux at home and work. Linux showed me the power of Unix.

When I heard that OS X was based on the BSD kernel, I became intrigued. Now that I have my iBook, I have to say that it is probably the best all-around OS out there. I recommend Linux to the "average" PC users I know, but I am now recommending to people that they get an iMac instead of a PC.

OS X has all the development and command line tools I am accustomed to. Perl, Apache, gcc, ssh, grep. And its got a great desktop to boot. I only wish I hadn't built my wifes PC last summer. I would have already ordered her an iMac with the superdrive in it!

My Mac Experience
My first computer was an Atari 8-bit I received as a gift in 1983. I've used many different architectures and operating systems since then. Early on, I didn't have any complaints about the systems I used. Buying a different computer was mostly about learning a new system to program, rather than being about leaving the old one behind. But, after trading in the last of my trusty 8-bit computers (an Apple //c) for an MS-DOS box, things started to take a turn for the worse.

At first, DOS was fine. Except for the Terminate and Stay Resident programs that would sometimes cause crashes, it was OK . . . as long as you had a good memory manager to free up as much below-640K RAM as possible. Oh, and programming it was OK . . . as long as your programs were small and didn't need to get into near/far pointers and the other fun of the segmented memory model.

Then along came Windows 3.1. When I "upgraded" to that, for the first time my computer actually behaved less quickly after an "upgrade" than it did before. And it started crashing more. So, I mostly stuck with MS-DOS and left Windows for the occasional weekend jaunt. It was pretty, but it wasn't somewhere I could do real work.

When Windows 95 came out, once again, my computer got slower. In fact, at the time of Windows 3.1 I had an 80386SX-16 with 4 MB RAM, while my first Windows 95 box was based on the far more powerful 80486DX2-50 with 16 MB RAM - yet the latter was more sluggish under Windows 95 than the former was with Windows 3.1 - let alone MS-DOS! Oh, and in addition to getting slower, my computer got a lot more buggy with the Windows 95 upgrade. All of a sudden, things like uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, programs, and even the operating system became something to do routinely to resolve instability (although the resolution was only temporary, of course).

Finally, in 1997 I gave up on Microsoft and started using Linux. Over the years, I tried many different Linux distributions, plus FreeBSD and OpenBSD. While I found that I liked the stability and power of UNIX-style operating systems quite a bit, none of those particular implementations was perfect for me. Sure, they were a lot better than Windows in many respects, but setting up new hardware or software was sometimes just as difficult as Windows' driver and .DLL hells could sometimes make it.

By the time Mac OS X came out, I was sick and tired of spending my time tinkering with my computer. Ever since I'd switched to MS-DOS, I'd spent more and more time maintaining my computer when all I wanted to do was use the darned thing. I kept wondering, "Why can't today's computers be as simple to use as the supposedly humble 8-bit computers I used so many years ago?"

Well, Mac OS X is that simple. Yet it's also got the power of UNIX. When I install an application, I just drag its icon to where I want it. When I uninstall it, I just drag the whole thing to the trash. And when I hook up hardware, it just works. There's no "Windows is detecting new hardware...". And there's no "Please insert the driver disk". I just plug it in, and it works. And when I want to grep through some text, or ssh in to the server at work, the UNIX command line is there for me. And, of course, the stability of UNIX is always there, in the background, making sure that no matter how buggy of a program I run, only the application will crash, not my machine or other apps.

So, now I have a powerful computer that doesn't require me to spend hours tinkering with it. And, beyond that, it has a wonderful programming API in Cocoa, coupled with the truly great Objective-C programming language. As a C programmer, I was able to get up and running with Cocoa/Objective-C in a very short time. Having struggled with Microsoft Windows and X Windows API's over the years, it amazes me how powerful and elegant Mac OS X's programming environment is.

True power, and true simplicity. I actually spend all my time at my computer using it now. And using it is a pleasure, whether programming, writing, gaming, or just browsing the web.

And that's why I'll never go back to any of those other systems.

Regards,

Joe Walsh

It's all about Java
Hi,

I'm a 6-year Java programmer, and I moved to OS X for it's Java support. I'm also a UNIX user, so I wanted something more powerful than Windows, but less cumbersome than Linux. I want to be the admin of my own UNIX machine, but I didn't want all the responsibility of a UNIX admin.

It's simple for my wife to use, who is a not technical (which means, she'd be spreading Kelz and Nimda if she was using a Windows machine).

Having all that said, I would like to see a Java on OS X book, because I would NOT have gone to Os X if the Java support was left out.

Thanks,

Bruce

A world of its own
I'll admit to being a convert.

Years ago I had to use little Mac Classics at school, and frankly, I didn't think much of them (I was running OS/2 3.0 on my home PC at the time).

However, since then, I've worked a lot with various Unices, and a fair amount of Windows and Novell.

Last year we decided to by a laptop for my wifes Web Design business and I suggested we get an iBook. The price was roughly the same as an equivalent PC based laptop and I had been reading about OS X and the upcoming (then) 10.1 release. So I managed to talk her into it ;)

I've never looked back since. If I could afford the hardware, I'd replace my desktop PC with a Mac running OS X. It has all the advantages of a pretty GUI but all the usefulness of a Unix machine.

Recently I've been seconding the iBook for my use at work (I'm a Firewall Admin, working on Sun and HP boxen). The ability to change IP profiles with out rebooting, the plethora of network diagnostic tools and the ability to run X11 apps right alongside my OS X apps has made it an invaluable tool. I've even ordered a USB to DB9 Serial adapter so I can connect to the console port of my firewalls, thus making it the ultimate admin tool (If only CheckPoint would provide a MacOS X or Java based GUI for Firewall-1).

I now eagerly await 10.2

No Reason to look elsewhere
I'm not a Mac convert. I've always had a Mac in my home (my mother is an elementary school teacher), so it is my native computing environment.

Now, I'm a computer science student at a university whose professors don't even know that OS X is Unix! I'm constantly asked why I'm a Mac user. It's simple...I've never had a reason to change and even less reason after OS X. I can do anything unixy that I need to, and I still have a great GUI that I can run the important stuff in. When I have time, I enlighten my fellow students...the more open-minded of them usually start to drool. It's a user-friendly, yet powerful computing environment with strong support from the graphics, unix and general public–it doesn't get much better (well, Microsoft could shut down everything except the MBU).

Best of both for Mac users, too
As a long time Mac user, i come at this from a somewhat different perspective, but feel the same way.

I've always wanted access to things like MySQL and PHP, and i've installed Linux on my machines on several occasions. In the end, the abysmal desktop environments, configuration nightmares (i could never get xconfigurator to give me any resolution above 640X480), and awful directory layout left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that i rarely booted it more than a couple of times.

With OS-X, i have a user interface and configuration abilities that are almost as good as OS-9's were, with full access to all the Unix applications i could want. Because i don't have to dual boot and can get real work (Photoshop, MS Office) done in the same OS as the Unix tools, i've wound up spending more time with Unix than i ever did with Linux.

Very cool stuff.

JT

It is. Oh, it is.
It is. :-)

Take an example. Privacy and security are neglected at best. Yes, technology exists to aid in improving things, but seems to be out of most peoples' reach. Enters Mac OS X; and, using the wonderful development tools, the richness of the API, and the fact that this beast actually *has* a user-environment that isn't just slapped-on cosmetics, you get something like SSH Agent[1]. And suddenly, advanced SSH-wizardry is available to the most disinterested, the most lazy.

Another example. There's nigh nothing that comes close to TeX in the realm of typesetting. However, it has a steep learning curve, and is a pain to get and keep up and running in such a way that it meets your personal publishing needs. Enters Mac OS X, and suddenly there's TeXShop[2].

Yet another example. Within minutes after receiving their iBook, students are up and running; sharing their stuff over the wireless network, attaching DV-camera's to them, editing digital footage, streaming it, embedding all that in PHP-driven websites developed on the Apache on their own iBook, while using Office to ease some of the painful legacy problems the world suffers.

Yes, it's that. Best of both worlds.

Notes:

[1]
[2]

It's the best of 3 worlds
Betsy,

It's not only the best of the Unix/Mac worlds, it's also the best of the Open Source world:

1) The core is open source; it may not be GPL, but I can get it and do what I want with it. So, a large number of people are contributing to it, and their changes are going into the main releases.
2) Most (all?) of the good Linux stuff compiles over. It's just as easy to compile for OS X as it is for a different flavor of Linux or BSD. So, the whole world of the open source Linux goodies are available.
3) It truly is a great user interface; it's much better (IMHO) than KDE or Gnome. At least it is shipping and being advanced!
4) Because of its market presence, lots of mainstream apps are being ported to it. Stuff like Office, Adobe's suite, games, etc. You're not likely to see this on Linux or any other *nix in the near future.
5) It is a great server, having the important attributes of any good *nix: speed, reliability, reliability, speed, and reliability.
6) Lastly, something that is very, very important: a large company tests it and makes sure it works on all of the hardware. You don't have to wonder if you can get or modify a driver for that new whizbang peripheral, like you often do on Linux. It just works!

Mike

Best of Both Worlds
As a recent Mac OS X convert, I would have to say that I agree with your
position on this one. I have never been a Mac user, I come solidly from
the Unix world (of the BSD variant). Having felt increasingly marginalized
in the mid-'90s (lack of applications, digital media support, etc.), I was
encouraged by the success of Linux. Soon, however, it became clear
that the fragmentation and politics of the Linux crowd would never
congeal the way that I hoped they would. Having all but given up, I began
to hear about OS X and its BSD underpinnings. I became interested
over time, particularly once I saw my first Titanium PowerBook. I was
encouraged at how easy it was to get to a terminal window when I
stopped by an Apple Store and played with one. Once I realized how
good the Java support was (although some will debate that claim) and
the emergence of main stream application support, I jumped and have
never looked back.

Not only am I having more fun than I've had using a computer in years, I
am getting more done. For the most part, things just work and I don't
have to waste my time on minutiae (which isn't the case using either
Windows or Linux).

There are clearly warts that Apple is moving quickly to address, but I
personally could not be happier.

I appreciate O'Reilly's support of the platform as well.

Thanks,

Brian Sletten
System Architect
Parabon Computation, Inc.