I'm not quite sure what the point of this article is. He's quite clearly not the target market, and is shocked and enraged by this. This is clear right from the get-go:
>Be customisable. I want to be able to replace any part of the system I would like
So you're going to use a closed-source OS that's notorious for enforcing homogeneity wherever possible?
>Be transparent in its workings
Again, so you're going to use a closed-source OS?
He then complains about a lot of optional features that can be turned off in a few minutes (Gestures, SIP) and have clear use cases for the remaining 99% of the system's users. His complaints about SIP are particularly bizarre. It's obvious what the utility is, it's trivial to disable, and yet it's "the sort of decision that is endemic to a system which is designed to lock you into a software prison"?
Indeed - one of the main selling points of OSX has always been its UI (where swipy gestures are rather handy), simplicity, and 'it just works' appeal. If you don't care about any of those things it's clearly going to lose a lot of it's appeal. Personally I ran linux for years before deciding I had wasted altogether too much of my life recompiling kernels and got a mac, where I can do Unix-y things with better hardware and less headaches.
Yes, it's fairly obvious that the author wasn't go to like osx from the start. However, I really do appreciate him giving it a go for a week. It's mind-blowing how many supposedly open-minded people refuse to try something before knocking it. Seriously, this is Green Eggs and Ham level stuff: try it try it, and you may. But geeks are some of the most stubborn people out there. Good for him for giving it a whirl, even if it was inevitable that he was going to hate it.
Is transparency and customisability really so fundamentally incompatible with closed source software? The fact that the source code is not available does not prevent the availability of clear documentation detailing system functionality (whether or not you can verify whether the two correspond is another argument). Detailed documentation can allow for customisability by swapping out closed-source defaults.
I agree that the OP was never going to be happy with OS X, but were his expectations really so misguided? His requirements were not unreasonable.
Also, how is OS X not transparent in its workings? Underdocumented, yes. But Linux's man pages aren't exactly a model of consistency and clarity, either.
Man there's a lot of FUD in that article, but this one in particular:
I mentioned this earlier, but most developers use virtual machines
in order to properly use OS X. The very notion that your operating
system is so lacking that it is easier to just run a virtual
operating system to fill the gaps shows you that there is clearly
something very wrong with this model.
No, the reason to run a virtual machine is that I'm not running OSX on my production servers, so why would I develop against a different target than my deploy target? You could pretty easily run nginx, node.js, golang programs, dbs, etc. on a Mac, and some people do, but if you're running VMs its because you want to mirror your deployment system architecture into dev and reduce a slew of corner-case bugs that might crop up otherwise.
Or clang, OpenCV, boost, ocaml, &c. All of which build and run natively, and are no less well packaged and accessible on OS X than they are from any Linux distro, short of nixos.
For me OSX gives one very clear advantage over Linux. Time.
Running Linux I found myself constantly wasting time on fixing WiFi card drivers, etc after every update. I don't have time for that shit. A Macbook may be more expensive out of the box but the extra time I can spend on stuff that is important (and fun) is worth it.
Out of curiosity, when did you experience the issues with the drivers and such? I know that was a problem in the past (and I fought with it as well), but for at least the past 4 years, I have found linux to work "out of the box" on several machines, without any fiddling of that nature. I suppose there could still be some problematic hardware, but lately, I have found linux to be much quicker to get up and running. I used an iMac for ~4 years of my PhD, while using a linux laptop alongside it. I found it was easier and faster to use the linux machine's package manager to get up and running for python coding, compared to the package managers for Macs (I tried several).
I see this argument a lot, yet I have not spent one second customizing a linux driver for anything in the last 8 years.
Maybe, if I'm running games or 3d software, I'll update to the proprietary drivers, but I've not touched anything else (wifi or otherwise) in a very long time.
It's not 2002 anymore, it used to be like this before but it's been a long long time since I had to do this. On my case, using Linux over OSX is also about time, I could use OSX but you need to install a lot of stuff to make it usable for a development environment (which is pretty normal, I'm not the target audiance).
If you're willing to buy specific pieces of hardware in order to make sure your wireless works under OS X, why not buy known good hardware for Linux? You could buy a nice Zareason with support for less.
There's nothing wrong with liking OS X, but Linux is far better than it with hardware in general, and nearly equivalent if you are willing to only buy from a tiny range of hardware.
I'm also an Arch user (not use Linux that much now, but my VMs and servers are all Arch, as well as my netbook before I tried to install Plan9 on it the hard way, now it's waiting for some OS) and OSX user. After reading what the OP wants from an operating system, then bashing OSX for not being that is like wanting a spoon, getting a knife and complaining about what a shitty spoon a knife is.
I tried OS X for about the last year and a half on my primary work machine(s) whilst ssh'ing into remote Linux boxes and using Vagrant locally. Finally plopped a dual-booting Xubuntu partition on the drive and I'm happy as a clam. I understand and acknowledge that I'm not the target market for Apple products, but what I fail to understand is why other developers like the Apple ecosystem so much. It would be one thing if I were writing iOS and OS X apps, but usually I'm writing native binaries for Linux servers or at least interpreted code intended to be run on Linux. The OS X development environment for this kind of stuff is plain nutty to me and I've yet to find many people defend it without saying "just use boot-to-Docker or Vagrant or Vagrant with Docker or ssh into a VM in the cloud or an ESX cluster". No one seems to say "yeah, writing C or Go that links in C libs or Python that uses native modules on OS X is a pain, but here's why I prefer that to Linux..."
It's a usability mindset thing. Apple's software is great if you can live within their vision. Microsoft aims at everyone from newbie to an elite power user. Linux, well, you can do anything you want but it's on your head if you screw it up (or it screws itself up).
To view it from a political perspective, it's a scale from authoritarian (Apple) to libertarian (Linux). Those who are used to surviving on their own probably don't appreciate the rules (like putting up with superfluous visual effects).
I switched from Linux to OSX after I found I was spending more time fucking with configs to get simple things like Skype working than I did actually working. Bummer for me, huh?
Fortunately, there was another system out there that satisfied my needs. And I didn't even have to write a rageface blog post about how sucky the one that didn't meet them was.
Arch is clearly the OS of choice for dragon-fighting free thinking Athiest scientists who don't have time for artsy pursuits and their associated mind-numbing animations.
I don't get this kind of posts either, and am not at all sure it's newsworthy. I run minimalistic Linux desktops _all the time_ (even gone as far as setting up a Docker image for one I can instantiate on the fly[1]) and like them for testing and debugging stuff I need to run as native ELF binaries, but OS X has saved me _decades_ of frustration.
I can't really imagine a client describing "I want to be able to replace any part of the system I would like, and it should be easy to replace" as an exceptionally simple requirement and being taken seriously. In fact, I think only some open-source operating systems even come close to that goal.
tl;dr: he did give a chance to OS that clearly and obviously doesn't match his explicitly stated expectations from the get-go and it didn't impress him.
Terrible post IMO. I've been using both OS X and GNU/Linux (Arch) for several years (OS X since 2006, several GNU/Linux distros since ~2000), so I think I can weigh in. I'll quote a few interesting parts.
> Be customisable
Valid reason. But he perfectly knew he was getting a proprietary OS, not Arch.
> because if you follow the Unix philosophy, each component is modular and replaceable
Who told him OS X follows the Unix philosophy? Also I don't understand the obsession with applying the Unix philosophy to everything. Give me a good full-featured browser and email program, keep your Surf (http://surf.suckless.org) and mutt if you want.
> Make it easy to compile, test and run any kind of software I'd like
Yes, like you can do already on OS X since forever. Obviously if you're going to do Linux kernel development OS X is not ideal and I think everybody can agree on that one. But for UNIX/POSIX software it's pretty much the same. You can get GCC from MacPorts and I guess Homebrew too, pretty much any version you want, if you don't like Clang (which is the default compiler in FreeBSD too btw).
> Be transparent in its workings, be easy to understand in principle
100% agreed on this one.
> Should be a separate entity. It should not rely on some third-party service in order to function properly. If I can't access the internet (or choose to airgap the machine eternally), it should be possible to run all of the software I'd like (and to use all of the features I'd like to) without needing access to online services.
I really don't understand this one. This is OS X, not Chrome OS. You don't need an Apple ID to update the OS itself. You can get programs from the internet or your favorite package manager without ever logging in with your Apple ID on the App Store.
> A package manager is useless if it doesn't manage all of the packages on a system
I wouldn't call it "useless", but I guess if you prefer a package manager for everything then MacPorts/Homebrew are not for you.
He then mentions that OS X has a "horrible development environment" without giving any actual reason, and mentions too "filesystem pollution" because OS X separates most GUI tools from the BSD tools (so he considers a logical separation between the BSD subsystem and the rest of the system "pollution". I think it's the opposite).
The post is a series of exaggerations and inaccuracies mixed with actually valid criticism.
yay, another rant into the OS wars. and like all of them, flawed from the outset - this guy is happy with Linux or BSD, and nothing will ever top that.. alas, this is not the final flaw in this article;
swipey bullshit - can be disabled. explore system preferences.
why customise perfection - bullshit with a hint of straw man. OS X is not perfect, i think there are few people that claim that. perfection would preclude any more work on the OS. want GCC? install it. it's not hard. proof,
% uname && gcc --version
Darwin
gcc (GCC) 4.9.2
Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
botched package management - OS X doesn't have a native one, yes. in my experience, they all suck. and for someone that wants to know everything that's going on, i'd be surprised if he didn't build from source for everything.
horrible developer workflow - what? firstly, it's so similar to linux, what is he talking about? i don't know any OS X users that build on a virtual machine, unless they are wishing to replicate the exact running environment of a system. in which case, people do that on linux too.
filesystem pollution - aha! the first almost valid complaint! although it's in a compliment sandwich kind of format - bullshit, valid complaint, more bullshit. System is for OS X internals resources and libraries. Library is common resources for applications. done.
but here it comes, a valid complaint! yes! HFS+ is terrible. apple very nearly did switch to ZFS a long time ago, alas it fell through for some unknown reason. shame. HFS+ is case sensitive, although the default option for Apple is to disable this behaviour. whilst i do not like this, when you consider that they're aiming for windows converts.. well..
hardware - all EFI firmware is proprietary. apple don't have an open-source update tool, but so what? most UEFI motherboards have an auto-updater built into their firmware. good luck finding the source for that.
this guy loves linux. so stick with it. have your hidden partition of OS X on a removable drive (because you can do that) for firmware updates. or use a regular laptop. the article had as much content in as an article titled "i ate a faal curry.. and it was too spicy for me!"
This silly zealot never intended to be objective to begin with.
> I care about feeling the power of a modern operating system
I'd say OS X has this one covered. It could even be said to be the most "modern" OS out there. But of course, however he'd define "modern", it wouldn't be favorable for OS X.
> and being able to build any software I want. I cannot do either with OS X
What can't he build on OS X? I have no idea.
But can he really not live without whatever esoteric thing might not compile on OS X? Especially considering OS X does look nicer, and things do just tend to work..
[+] [-] 542458|10 years ago|reply
>Be customisable. I want to be able to replace any part of the system I would like
So you're going to use a closed-source OS that's notorious for enforcing homogeneity wherever possible?
>Be transparent in its workings
Again, so you're going to use a closed-source OS?
He then complains about a lot of optional features that can be turned off in a few minutes (Gestures, SIP) and have clear use cases for the remaining 99% of the system's users. His complaints about SIP are particularly bizarre. It's obvious what the utility is, it's trivial to disable, and yet it's "the sort of decision that is endemic to a system which is designed to lock you into a software prison"?
[+] [-] mangecoeur|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jscheel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ianvdl|10 years ago|reply
I agree that the OP was never going to be happy with OS X, but were his expectations really so misguided? His requirements were not unreasonable.
[+] [-] jfb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattkrea|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] awinder|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zongitsrinzler|10 years ago|reply
Running Linux I found myself constantly wasting time on fixing WiFi card drivers, etc after every update. I don't have time for that shit. A Macbook may be more expensive out of the box but the extra time I can spend on stuff that is important (and fun) is worth it.
[+] [-] privong|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Intermernet|10 years ago|reply
Maybe, if I'm running games or 3d software, I'll update to the proprietary drivers, but I've not touched anything else (wifi or otherwise) in a very long time.
What hardware are you having problems with?
[+] [-] realusername|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|10 years ago|reply
There's nothing wrong with liking OS X, but Linux is far better than it with hardware in general, and nearly equivalent if you are willing to only buy from a tiny range of hardware.
[+] [-] RBerenguel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robmccoll|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epmatsw|10 years ago|reply
This is why we end up with software that is painful to use.
[+] [-] evils|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justuk|10 years ago|reply
To view it from a political perspective, it's a scale from authoritarian (Apple) to libertarian (Linux). Those who are used to surviving on their own probably don't appreciate the rules (like putting up with superfluous visual effects).
[+] [-] rosser|10 years ago|reply
Less flippant response:
So OSX doesn't work for you. Bummer, I guess?
I switched from Linux to OSX after I found I was spending more time fucking with configs to get simple things like Skype working than I did actually working. Bummer for me, huh?
Fortunately, there was another system out there that satisfied my needs. And I didn't even have to write a rageface blog post about how sucky the one that didn't meet them was.
[+] [-] JosephRedfern|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcarmo|10 years ago|reply
I don't get this kind of posts either, and am not at all sure it's newsworthy. I run minimalistic Linux desktops _all the time_ (even gone as far as setting up a Docker image for one I can instantiate on the fly[1]) and like them for testing and debugging stuff I need to run as native ELF binaries, but OS X has saved me _decades_ of frustration.
If you have nothing nice to say...
[1]: https://github.com/rcarmo/docker-templates/tree/master/deskt...
[+] [-] kybernetyk|10 years ago|reply
That's fine and all. But why is this submission so high on the frontpage?
[+] [-] _pmf_|10 years ago|reply
The expectation gap after reading fanboy blogs for years is pretty huge. OS X is a pretty luke warm experience.
[+] [-] MatthewWilkes|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Phr34Ck|10 years ago|reply
Different things behave differently (shocker). You're not gonna like Y after using and getting used to X for god knows how many years.
[+] [-] JustSomeNobody|10 years ago|reply
I have been using Linux since the mid 90's. I love it. I too am a developer. Pretty good one too.
I also love my rMBP.
(Also, using loads of curse words is a cop out for trying to find a more expressive way of saying what you wish to say. Just saying.)
[+] [-] jfb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keymone|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlosrg|10 years ago|reply
> Be customisable
Valid reason. But he perfectly knew he was getting a proprietary OS, not Arch.
> because if you follow the Unix philosophy, each component is modular and replaceable
Who told him OS X follows the Unix philosophy? Also I don't understand the obsession with applying the Unix philosophy to everything. Give me a good full-featured browser and email program, keep your Surf (http://surf.suckless.org) and mutt if you want.
> Make it easy to compile, test and run any kind of software I'd like
Yes, like you can do already on OS X since forever. Obviously if you're going to do Linux kernel development OS X is not ideal and I think everybody can agree on that one. But for UNIX/POSIX software it's pretty much the same. You can get GCC from MacPorts and I guess Homebrew too, pretty much any version you want, if you don't like Clang (which is the default compiler in FreeBSD too btw).
> Be transparent in its workings, be easy to understand in principle
100% agreed on this one.
> Should be a separate entity. It should not rely on some third-party service in order to function properly. If I can't access the internet (or choose to airgap the machine eternally), it should be possible to run all of the software I'd like (and to use all of the features I'd like to) without needing access to online services.
I really don't understand this one. This is OS X, not Chrome OS. You don't need an Apple ID to update the OS itself. You can get programs from the internet or your favorite package manager without ever logging in with your Apple ID on the App Store.
> A package manager is useless if it doesn't manage all of the packages on a system
I wouldn't call it "useless", but I guess if you prefer a package manager for everything then MacPorts/Homebrew are not for you.
He then mentions that OS X has a "horrible development environment" without giving any actual reason, and mentions too "filesystem pollution" because OS X separates most GUI tools from the BSD tools (so he considers a logical separation between the BSD subsystem and the rest of the system "pollution". I think it's the opposite).
The post is a series of exaggerations and inaccuracies mixed with actually valid criticism.
[+] [-] foxhill|10 years ago|reply
swipey bullshit - can be disabled. explore system preferences.
why customise perfection - bullshit with a hint of straw man. OS X is not perfect, i think there are few people that claim that. perfection would preclude any more work on the OS. want GCC? install it. it's not hard. proof,
botched package management - OS X doesn't have a native one, yes. in my experience, they all suck. and for someone that wants to know everything that's going on, i'd be surprised if he didn't build from source for everything.horrible developer workflow - what? firstly, it's so similar to linux, what is he talking about? i don't know any OS X users that build on a virtual machine, unless they are wishing to replicate the exact running environment of a system. in which case, people do that on linux too.
filesystem pollution - aha! the first almost valid complaint! although it's in a compliment sandwich kind of format - bullshit, valid complaint, more bullshit. System is for OS X internals resources and libraries. Library is common resources for applications. done.
but here it comes, a valid complaint! yes! HFS+ is terrible. apple very nearly did switch to ZFS a long time ago, alas it fell through for some unknown reason. shame. HFS+ is case sensitive, although the default option for Apple is to disable this behaviour. whilst i do not like this, when you consider that they're aiming for windows converts.. well..
hardware - all EFI firmware is proprietary. apple don't have an open-source update tool, but so what? most UEFI motherboards have an auto-updater built into their firmware. good luck finding the source for that.
this guy loves linux. so stick with it. have your hidden partition of OS X on a removable drive (because you can do that) for firmware updates. or use a regular laptop. the article had as much content in as an article titled "i ate a faal curry.. and it was too spicy for me!"
[+] [-] tbolt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillygeese|10 years ago|reply
> I care about feeling the power of a modern operating system
I'd say OS X has this one covered. It could even be said to be the most "modern" OS out there. But of course, however he'd define "modern", it wouldn't be favorable for OS X.
> and being able to build any software I want. I cannot do either with OS X
What can't he build on OS X? I have no idea.
But can he really not live without whatever esoteric thing might not compile on OS X? Especially considering OS X does look nicer, and things do just tend to work..
[+] [-] zongitsrinzler|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]