System configuration. Everyone has to configure the OS at some time. Ubuntu wants you to scroll through a bunch of icons on the System dropdown menu, which is so old-school that it’s almost laughable. Good luck finding the right applet. Kubuntu has gotten away from the overly-complex but complete KDE Control Center in favor of the simplified and very Mac-like System Settings. Both solutions unify the control panels into one interface, with System Settings providing a user-friendly search function that definitely takes its inspiration from Leopard’s System Preferences. The main problem with System Settings is that not every control panel applet is designed to fit inside the container’s window, leading to scrolling and confusion when the user needs to authenticate into Administrator mode.
Apple’s System Preferences contains the control panel applets in a unified window, with a super-smart search box that highlights the preferences that best match the function you want to perform. The main window expands and contracts as needed to fit the functions, and those applets that were problematic in earlier versions of OS X (Network, for instance, was needlessly complex) have been fixed. With a little more work, though, KDE’s System Settings could match or even exceed Apple’s System Preferences.
FIGURE: Apple’s System Preferences
Web browser. Ubuntu ships with Firefox as the default browser, Kubuntu uses Konqueror, and Leopard has Safari. Of course, you can download and install Firefox on both Kubuntu and Leopard, which is a good thing. Konqueror and Safari are both decent browsers (and they share the same code base), and the most recent releases are very good indeed, but Firefox still offers more in the way of customizability and extensions. And its cross-platform nature means that users only need to learn one Web browser to use on Linux, Mac OS, and even Windows. My informal testing shows, though, that Safari truly is faster at rendering pages than Firefox and Konqueror, so I tend to use it quite a bit on my Mac.
Email and PIM. Ubuntu’s default is Evolution, which is actually a Personal Information Manager (PIM) that provides email, calendaring, contacts, to-dos, and notes. It sports impressive support for a number of different kinds of servers– POP3, IMAP, and Exchange just for starters– and its parts are well-integrated.
Kubuntu uses Kontact, which is also a PIM that supports everything Evolution does. The difference is that Kontact is really a unifying wrapper around the various components that make up the PIM, so you can run KMail, for instance, or KOrganizer (the calendar) separately. This is more in line with Apple’s method. Leopard provides Mail for email, iCal for calendaring, and Address Book for contacts. Separate apps, but they all work together. If you can get beyond that, and you’re cool with using different programs for different functions, then you’ll find that Leopard’s programs are very good, at least as good in many ways as Evolution and Kontact.
This isn’t to say that each solution is without annoyances. Mail in Leopard won’t allow you to specify a file for your signature; you have to actually type one in and that’s it. The new HTML email templates that Apple has provided in Leopard should never have seen the light of day, since HTML email itself is just evil. KMail has occasional problems with IMAP and really should integrate a Bayesian spam filter, while Evolution is just ugly and sometimes chokes on random messages. But overall, they’re all very good programs that work well.
Office apps. OpenOffice.org comes with Ubuntu, and it’s a nice, free office suite. In fact, if you want to run OpenOffice.org on your Mac, you can– it’s just called NeoOffice, and it’s still a nice, free, powerful office suite. If you buy a new Mac, it comes with iWork, Apple’s office suite made up of Keynote for presentations, Pages for word processing and document layout, and Numbers for spreadsheets. If you buy Leopard to upgrade an existing Mac, you have to buy iWork separately for about $80. I’ve used OpenOffice.org a lot, and I’ve also used iWork a lot. I understand both suites well, and I know the strengths and weaknesses of each.
If you’re typing a complicated document, OpenOffice.org Writer wins hands down. No argument here– use it. If, on the other hand, you’re trying to create a flyer, brochure, or fancy book report, Pages rocks the house, as its page layout features are top notch in a consumer-level app.
When it comes to big spreadsheets, OpenOffice.org’s Calc is great, and it will give you all the power and features you need. If you’re creating a pretty spreadsheet, without gazillions of rows and columns, Numbers would work splendidly, and will easily produce the nicest looking spreadsheets you’ve ever seen. When it comes to speaking in front of a group, it’s an easy win: Keynote is the best presentation software I’ve ever used on any OS, and I refuse to use anything else. It does everything right, and makes hard things so easy to do, while providing the little adjustments and help that make easy things even easier, that having to use Impress just feels like punishment. On my Mac, I go between NeoOffice and iWork as needed; on my Ubuntu box, I use OpenOffice.org unless I have to create a presentation, in which case I switch to Leopard.
Terminal. Kubuntu provides the full-featured and powerful Konsole, while Ubuntu has the anemic Terminal. Apple’s contender is also named Terminal, and it sucked in Tiger. In Leopard, it’s finally gotten good, with movable tabs, transparency, and window grouping. Since I always have a terminal open, I can now say that as long as it’s Konsole or Leopard’s Terminal, I’m quite satisfied.
Text editor. KDE goes overboard with the text editors (yes, I know they each serve a different audience, but still) and gives users three to choose from, while GNOME proudly provides Gedit. If you want limited options and stripped down features, then Gedit will probably fit your bill; if you want features and power, then try out KDE’s Kate. Leopard’s TextEdit is a bit of an odd beast to a Linux user. It’s basically an RTF editor that will also work with ASCII, and in a complete shocker from Apple, it will also read and write Word 2007’s so-called OpenXML format as well as OpenDocument text files. Whoa! So while Gedit and Kate are true text editors, TextEdit is a stripped down word processor that can be used for ASCII editing. However, real* nix users open Vim when they want to edit text, and since Vim runs on Ubuntu and Leopard, we’re covered.
Instant Messaging. This one’s easy– if your main goal is connecting to as many different IM networks as possible, then Pidgin for GNOME or Kopete for KDE, is your ticket. If you want extremely cool effects and excellent sound and video as well as text, and you don’t mind being limited to AOL, Google, and Jabber for your IM networks, then Leopard’s iChat will do the trick. Besides, you can always install Pidgin on Leopard, or better yet, Skype runs on Leopard and Ubuntu if you need secure IM and VoIP.
Music Players. GNOME’s Rhythmbox is just an Amarok wannabe at this point in time, so in that match-up, it’s no contest. Amarok vs. iTunes? Hmmmm. iTunes has some nice features, and it’s undoubtedly the better choice for working with iPods and iPhones (sorry, but it is), but it still makes OGG a second-class citizen for no good reason, and its inherent desire to rename and move your MP3s into new folders really annoys me. I have to give this one to Amarok. It’s the program I trust to manage my 55,000 song music collection, and that should tell you something right there.
Pictures. F-Spot is OK in its early stages, but it’s still pretty rough and lacks features. And requiring users to click inside a dropdown menu to choose each tag repeatedly is just sheer torture. On the KDE side, digiKam is slightly better than F-Spot, but it repeats the same tagging trick, and while it offers up far more features than F-Spot, it’s still not as smooth as iPhoto. iPhoto is easy to use, with very good integrated editing tools, but it makes one huge blunder: in Tiger, your pix were stored in the file system, but in Leopard, they’re stored in a pseudo-file that is somewhat inaccessible to other programs and the file system itself, forcing you to rely on iPhoto to view any photos that you’ve imported in iPhoto. A pox on all their houses!
Movies. When it comes to viewing movies, I’ve found Totem Movie Player for GNOME to be buggy and problematic. Kaffeine for KDE is much better in terms of stability and capabilities, but both will play far more formats than the stock version of QuickTime Movie Player in Leopard. If you install a couple of codec packs, like Perian and Flip4Mac, you’ll suddenly find that you can play just about anything in QuickTime Media Player, which is a polished, smooth player. If you spring for QuickTime Pro, you can also grab QuickTime movies that are embedded in Web sites and even perform some simple edits on the movies you’re viewing. When it comes to DVDs, QuickTime will play’ em, but it prevents you from taking screenshots and fully supports the DRM the movie studios want to cram down our throats. In cases like that, go with Linux and support your freedoms.
As for editing movies… well, Leopard’s iMovie is excellent for the kinds of simple jobs most people want to perform. There’s really no equivalent in Ubuntu in terms of ease of use and quality.
What’s missing in Ubuntu? Leopard has a few features and programs that simply do not exist as built-in options in Ubuntu. Quick Look is a new feature, introduced in Leopard, that allows users to select a file and then press the spacebar for a yes, quick look, at a larger view of the file. It’s a great way to tell quickly if a file contains the text or pictures you need.
Front Row allows Mac users to view movies and photos, and listen to music, from across the room utilizing the included remote control that now comes with virtually every Mac. Think of Front Row as an easy to use media center that works smoothly (Yes, I know there’s MythTV, but it’s still a bear to set up, and it’s not included by default with Ubuntu). Finally, due to Apple’s control of both the hardware and software, things like the built-in wireless support and videocamera just work flawlessly. Generally, this is something beyond the control of Ubuntu, since Canonical doesn’t make hardware, but now that deals are starting to appear with the Dells of the world to include Ubuntu as a pre-installed option, we hope to see improvements in these areas.
What’s missing in Leopard? Every Linux distro today comes with built-in support for BitTorrent, but not Leopard. This is a major drag for those of us who rely on BitTorrent for a variety of needs. And why, oh why, doesn’t Leopard support SSH and SFTP support in Apple’s default GUI apps? I can use the Finder to access machines via AFP (Apple File Protocol) and FTP, but who the heck uses FTP any longer? SSH is available via the terminal in Leopard, so why in the name of all that is nerdy isn’t it available to me in the Finder and elsewhere? C’mon, Apple!
Advantages and Disadvantages
Let’s look at a few final advantages and disadvantages that each OS brings with it. In the case of Ubuntu, APT– and its GUI tools like Synaptic and Adept– is far beyond anything other operating systems have to offer. The fact that I can install any of more than 19,000 packages easily and quickly, and then get updates to any of those packages automatically every day, is a tremendous and beautiful advantage that Ubuntu has over Leopard. Sure, Leopard has Software Update, but that’s only for Apple’s stuff. It works, but it ain’t no APT!
Another advantage Ubuntu has: read AND write support for NTFS. If you work with Windows at all, you need this. Leopard can read NTFS, but it can’t write, unless you install 3rd-party apps. It’s great that such functionality is built directly into your Linux box.
Finally, Ubuntu is almost entirely open source, and this is important, for all the reasons that open source is important. Yes, Ubuntu includes proprietary, closed drivers where it has to, and yes, Leopard’s core is open source, but clearly the open source advantage lies with Linux here. At least both are UNIX.
The update schedule is worth noting, too. While Apple takes years to release an OS, Ubuntu happens every six months like clockwork. Linux users don’t have to wait years for new features in browsers, terminal apps, mail clients, instant messaging clients, and so forth.
Leopard’s strong advantage is that you can easily run any major OS on it that you want to. Now that Macs are Intel-based, you can dual boot using the built-in Boot Camp, or choose from several software packages free (VirtualBox and Q) and commercial (VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop) that will let you run Windows and Linux in virtualized environments.
If you want to run X11 apps, just use the X11 included with Leopard, thus opening up almost the entire world of UNIX programs. If you want GNOME or KDE apps, or even more UNIX toys, install Fink or MacPorts, and the world is your oyster. On my Mac, at any time, I can basically run the best software for the job at hand, no matter if that software was written for Bash, Mac OS X, X11, GNOME, KDE, or Windows. You can’t say the same about Ubuntu. Sure, Linux has virtualization solutions aplenty– more than for the Mac, easy! — and you can dual boot all you want, but you can’t legally run OS X on a Linux box. Of course, it’s unfair to ding Linux for this, since it’s Apple’s choice to restrict users to their hardware.
Finally, the stereotype is true. For working with multimedia, there’s nothing like a Mac. Graphics, audio, and video work better on Leopard. Again, as I’ve said so many times already, things are getting better on Linux, but at this time, Macs rule this space.
A Clear Winner?
So does Leopard eat up Ubuntu? Or does Ubuntu trounce Leopard? It depends on your needs. If you’re a student with no money, go for a decent cheap PC and put Ubuntu on it. If you value freedom above all else, then it’s obvious– Linux is the only way to go. If you’re heading into a future in multimedia, you’re gonna want a Mac. If your life revolves around your iPod and your iPhone, you need a Mac.
Ideally, though, you’ll have both, since each offers features the other lacks. I use both every day. If you have the money, I would recommend buying a Mac with at least 2 GB of RAM and then immediately installing a virtualization solution that will let you run Ubuntu (and Windows, for when you just have to run Windows), as well as any other Linux you desire. That way, you can run two of the world’s best operating systems at the same time, on the same machine, and bathe yourself in yummy UNIX-y goodness. And that, my friends, is just amazingly cool.
(5 votes, average: 4.6 out of 5)
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17 Comments 
Really What is so special about Ubuntu, WHAt?. I have a few costumers that wanted to try Linux because they have heard of it online or at the store where they bought there computer. Since they know that I run Linux on my systems they ask me about it and if I can help them installing it. First question is which is better Ubuntu, Opensuse or fedora. For this what I do is that I install the one they have heard of first, which is Ubuntu, then after they have been playing with it for a week I let them my laptop(IBM T20 with a pentium 3 and 384 of memory) “in both cases there is no compiz active” running fedodra 7 GNOME on the desktop then after a day or to I let them play with my other laptop (HP pavillion, pentium 3 and 256 of memory) running Opensuse KDE and GNOME. All of them want me to install Opensuse on it because of this reasons: It looks and feels way more organize and it looks different even dough is the same GNOME gui and they can find things better and faster plus everything they try to run on it just works. Now on those systems that have good graphics I activate the compiz-fusion and thats when they go bananas, they dont want to look back. My point is that even dough Ubuntu is an advance OS and is making a big difference with potential users, is still the same desktop over and over again the only thing is the background color. No this is not coming from me, is actually coming from this want to be Linux users that really wants to change over, that said, have you guys or will you guys give and compare other Linux distros that are as ready as Ubuntu (or even more ready) a chance too!
You have done a very good job of comparing the strengths and weakness of these offerings, but your account has demonstrated one of the problems with trying to pin Linux down: There is such a range of choices it’s all but impossible to keep track of them.
Specifically, I’d draw your attention to Tasty Menu, a Kmenu alternative of substantial merit. It can be found on the KDE site. Another product worth mention is Mythbuntu, a Ubuntu variant which eases creating a K/Ubuntu installation with MythTV enabled.
Apples and oranges. Nice try, but this side-by-side comparison just doesn’t work because Apple supports only its own hardware.
Calling Ubuntu and OSX unix-based is probably a bit of a stretch because Ubuntu is Debian GNU/Linux based and as we all know “GNU’s Not Unix”, Apple is BSD-based and BSD is Unix-based so you could say (and Apple loves to say it) that OSX is Unix-based, but that’s taking it all the way back to the dark ages of 1970. This is why its become more appropriate to call these operating systems “Unix-like”.
And what’s this baloney about glacial performance on ubuntu with 256 MiB of ram? My Ubuntu PC has 128 MiB of ram and it performs just fine, well alright it is a little sluggish but not bad (no compiz obviously).
Also, you forgot to mention the single most important aspect of Ubuntu. It’s hard to imagine how you could miss it. Of course I’m talking about the community. With an Apple computer you might feel like you part of some elite community, but with GNU/Linux you actually are. I had a problem with my Evolution mail client the other day so I reported the bug, talked with the developer responsible for that section of problem code, followed the progress of the bug on bugzilla, compiled the application from svn and I was back in business. Where else can you find a community like that? Certainly not in the Apple camp.
So yes, the choice is not clear and it does depend on what you need out of your OS, but comparing OSX to Ubuntu, especially when you’re talking about device drivers is like comparing two homes built by two contractors. One contractor was allowed to see the blueprints and the other was forced to build it blindfolded. Thankfully there’s a big community out there to help you when your house isn’t absolutely perfect.
Give me a break about the Ubuntu commumity. Half the time your post languishes with no response and the other half someone emails you an unintelligle mish-mash of sudo commands.
To the person that said linux is not unix-based: Not sure what you’re thinking, but linux is definitely of the unix family. Linus Torvalds consulted “The Design of the Unix Operating System” by Maurice J Bach while writing the early linux kernel, and any seasoned unix user that logs into a linux box immediately says, “Hey, this is unix”.
Legally, linux can’t be called “UNIX ™” thus the cute recursive motto “gnu’s not unix” but neither can bsd legally be called “UNIX ™”.
Clearly, however, both linux and bsd are “unix”, technically speaking.
I for one am TIRED of everyone comparing Ubuntu to everything. What governing body made Ubuntu the defacto standard by which all other things must compare? Who CARES! Are the authors stretching for topics of conversation? Move on people… Nothing here to see……
I have absolutely nothing derogatory to say about Ubuntu. I have, in the past used this distro and for the most part I enjoyed the experience. But what really gets to me is the fact that when you have Distro VS. Distro or Distro VS. comparisons, what are you comparing. For the most part they all use the same open source products. So what’s the deal???
Why not educate people on what Open Source Software is doing in the Enterprise or how educators are utilizing OSS in the classrooms.
UBUNTU VS. Bah! Can we say in unison… Who Cares……
Some remarks about your review.
Personally, I don’t dislike the top and bottom panel on gnome (and I’m sure im not the only one), and I find them useful. If you think about it, you also have 2 different areas on osx (the dock and the top bar). And the best thing about these two bars on gnome are the fact that they are totally customizable. Yes, new users might not care about it, but we advanced users, do. If you know how to separate things it’s totally great to have those two bars. Also, although this is not default, you can add an applet (main menu) to the panel that shows you the applications/places/system menus in only one menu. And I prefer to keep my most used apps on panel icons than having to click through a menu (like on openSUSE).
I totally agree with you when you say that overall things are too inconsistent and fractured, but I also understand that it’s a price to pay for all the “freedom”. Some new users I’ve known end up understanding that as well and they like it.
Oh, and you can actually install Konqueror on OSX. Seriously, just google for it and you’ll find it.
About the system configuration, you have a gnome control center on ubuntu, it’s just not activated by default. Back on the feisty beta, it was activated by default, but looks like some people didn’t like it (i still don’t understand why) and they moved it back to the old school menu. This control center is very much like the OSX one. I use it and I love it.
Oh and believe me when I say that gEdit is powerful. You just have to activate or install the right plugins (and most of the ones I use come on the official extra plugins pack).
And that’s about it. Nice article.
Overall I found this to be a balanced review, and an interesting read. I’ve used Linux exclusively at home for the last 10 years or so until buying a MacBook Pro about 6 months ago, so I don’t think I have any particular . That said, I wanted to comment on a few things you said:
You complained about iTunes’ “inherent desire to rename and move your MP3s into new folders”. You can turn this behavior off simply by unchecking two checkboxes in the Advanced tab in Preferences. In fact iTunes used to ship with these options turned off, but apparently Apple found that enough people WANTED iTunes to manage their music files that they started making that behavior the default.
Your comments on iPhoto in this respect are also incorrect. In the advanced tab of iPhoto’s preferences you can uncheck the “Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library” option, and it’ll leave your files in their original location. Also, even if if you have this option checked, it still stores all the images as separate files with their original names, and just organizes them under its own directory structure, so I’m not sure what you meant by saying ” in Leopard, [the iPhoto photos are] stored in a pseudo-file that is somewhat inaccessible to other programs and the file system itself”.
For OSX movie players you mentioned QuickTime but didn’t mention DVD Player, which is pretty nice and is also included. You’re correct that both of these players will obey DRM restrictions, but mplayer is just a “port install mplayer” away from being available on your Mac; you don’t need Linux for that.
The fact that OSX doesn’t come with a Bittorrent client already installed seemed too trivial to even mention, let alone label as a “major drag”. It’s kind of like claiming in a car review that one car is better than another because it includes an air freshener right off the showroom floor. Just google for “osx bittorrent client” and you’ll find a bunch. Personally I like “Transmission”.
Other than these points, I liked the review and found your comparisons interesting. Thanks for the review.
Several here have forgotten that the comparison was suppose to be “out of the box” systems. What my mom would get if she did it herself or had the guys at the computer shop did it for her.
Great review. Have not spent too much time with Ubuntu but he is spot on with the Mac and I have a hard time finding needed accessories that are more useful than flashy.
To pick nits with the whole “unix-based” comment, Linux wouldn’t qualify for the label of Unix-based. It’s a clean implementation to be UNIX-LIKE. Unix-based would imply there is some code lineage carried over from SysV or BSD, which was the crux of SCO’s argument that there was some cross-pollination(or more appropriately contamination) of copyrighted “UNIX” code. I think Apple was riding on a technicality with the previous usage of UNIX-based in the past. IIRC NeXTSTEP which is the basic for Mac OS X, has some roots in the original BSD tapes. Mac OS X 10.5 on Intel machines is now an official card carrying certified UNIX and their site has dropped reference to the “UNIX-based” and states it plainly as UNIX. In all fairness though, I don’t think it would be much of a stretch for Linux to pass the UNIX certification process but there isn’t any one to cough up the funds for the certification process itself since every distro would have to probably pay and certify separately. I’m sure someone like CentOS would’t be able to ride RedHat’s coatails if RH certified RHEL with the Open Group.
“Kubuntu provides the full-featured and powerful Konsole, while Ubuntu has the anemic Terminal.”
You are aware that you can install Konsole in Ubuntu from the Synaptic Package Manager, right? That’s the beauty of Linux: you don’t have to settle for what you’re given out of the box.
Whether or not it functions fully outside its native environment, I have no idea.
I don’t know too much about Mac because I had not the opportunity to meet it in Romania where I am from. About Ubuntu I must say the following in march 2007 I just started a CISCO academy curse and my PC with 384 RAM get a deadly virus on windows so.. knowing nothing about linux I was forced to tried it. I got and try the following distributions Fedora suse mandriva slakwhere and last choice ubuntu. As a newbie ubuntu was built in a way that made me learn it in 1 week how to configure it as network printer not listed as known an all main utilities. Since then I cant let it go. I works very well for my needs an it seems to be the perfect tool. More I want to tell ypu that it has a IRC client already configured to enter on unbutu help area and there are a number of permanently people that can be asked anything abt ubuntu. There i got fast, helpful and straigh answers for my problems. in the others distributions i had only to read helps and search on net abt what i need.
conclusions… be my guest to make them.
I have found the Mac OS a nice and stable system.
All my close family members use Macs, most on my recommendation. My older (15) daughter is starting to complain about the MacOS straight jacket and does for example not use iPhoto. The younger(9) uses VLC to play videos on the Mac. Both of them use my Linux system without comment.
I use free software but find the integration to the Mac desktop is problematic. Also I find that opening a web page to download an application and returning to that page to upgrade not functional.
Add/Remove Applications and Synaptic give me access to a huge selection of software. With the Mac you have versiontracker.com
As a network administrator I found the Mac versions of many tools out of date. I moved back to linux to get access to the newest and up to date tools.
Apple does not like to credit free software. They do what they can to NOT use or promote the concepts of freedom and the GPL. On www.apple.com you find the words “free software” mostly used for updated you do not pay for. Apple would like us to call it freeware. Apple would like to sell you the free software they are using but do not show the respect to credit the free software community.
So the support for free software is limited. They could so easily provide or support an install/update service for a large selection of free software and so become a active members of the community. So why not?
Apple probably thinks this is dangerous.
But the danger from free software does not go away by not supporting it. In fact, the large selection of integrated free software in Linux is what makes it better for me.
Better support for free software on the Mac would be good for Apple.
You were on the right way to say “You can install Leopard on any computer made by Dell, HP, Lenovo, or…” but you get scared and said “just kidding!”.
Why people on the web is scared to say “Yes you CAN or maybe you MUST install Leopard on your home PC”?
Don’t mislead the readers!!! Teorically you must not install any Mac OS X on your business PC as some audit to your office may rise legal consequences. However the license agreement that is bundled with Mac OS X just request to be installed on a “Single Apple-labeled computer” at a time. The license use does not state a requirement for an official Apple label with an Apple Hardware Serial number, so again don’t mislead the readers!!!
Then what means a “Single Apple-labeled computer”? It will only be defined by layers if you are issued by Apple. So maybe you can avoid be issued if you apply an Apple sticker to the external case of the PC and argue that you are meeting the usage clause.
Even if this is not legal, is not probable that Apple go to your home to audit your home PC (don’t be a bad boy so cops don’t go to your home). The only disadvantage is that the installation process can be a little tricky and newbies may not successfully install it and obviously not all the hardware is compatible.
Hi,
I think the article is quite good, because I myself never had a chance to have a good look at a MAC OS. I just don’t have the money to buy a MAC, not to mention pay for an operating system when I can find that it does not suit my needs. I cannot afford to buy aomething I will not like to use. As we can see, it’s really hard to find a perfect operating system, even MACs are not perfect. There also a lot of things that will improve in Linuxes and there so many things now working out of the box, that I simly don’t see any other operating system offering so much flexibility.
To me it doesn’t matter if the Ubuntu was taken as an example. I used Mandriva for many years and now I have a Gentoo/Sabayon installation, this for sure is not a very easy to use system for a newbie, so I can understand why Ubuntu was taken as an example. I did have a look at Ubuntu thanks to a few live CD’s. As for me, personally I would not choose Ubuntu. I also tested PCLinuxOS. What I see is that Linuxes are making really huge steps ahead in easy installations, setups, etc. I recently started a wireless connection in not time, where as on a Windows XP belonging to one of my collegues - it took me two hours of browsing through documents to get things started.
What I like about Linuxes is the way I can easly configure a Linux environment (I use only KDE). I can configure virtually everythhing - fonts, colours, schemes, buttons. When I look at Konqueror, this has become my absolute favourite. I can set up everyting, change the icons, add menu items. Konqueror gives me access to every part of the system without any hassle - it’s a tool almost for everything. I have easy access to folders, home location, system folder, medias, web pages, just one click on the right sidebar…. Moving my files - absolutely all is there what I need, browsing pictures, videos. And this just one tool has improved a lot in the recent few versions.
Amarok - I cannot find any other tool that suits my needs, easy access to all my files, 500 radio stations. And what I like is that this program does not try to think what I would like to do, instead let’s me do it by myself.
I think the article is a nice peace of collected information. If I would have to choose to pay for a stable system I guess maybe a MAC OS would be the first system I would try to look at, but after reading this article - I know I am going to stay with Gentoo/Linux for quite a while. MAC OS? Not thanks…
I also know what is the benefit of a Linux disto. We have so many distros, which may cause confusion, but there is a positive point of using an Open Source operating system. All distos try to take advantage of all the good ideas from each other. When I saw the OpenSUSE meny I could only say - brilliant. So in the end a MAC or Widnows OS - thay lack the flexibility and are all a closed product, so we have to wait ages to have any new ideas implemented, where as in Linux all we have to do is wait 3-6 months and we can expect a lot of new features not available in other OS within a short time.
Regards,
Richard
The Macintosh operating system cannot be compared to other operating systems. It fills a computing niche that has long since disappeared. The reason that Apple moved to FreeBSD, with the operative word being Free, was because Apple could not extend its own code base into a modern networked programming world any more than the old Windows before NT core came along. The old, old Windows crap was single user to the core and had to be replaced with NT core, which is a heavy duty server core OS designed to take on the Network big boys at Sun and IBM.
In order to deal with a fully wired and networked world Microsoft went with NT core to replace all its old code base and to make sure that their OS would stay modern. The old Windows core died with windows ME and nobody cried at all since with its death went all the single user problems that had been hammered into the code base over ten years. Apple went to FreeBSD as its core since the BSD license said that they could use it in any way they wanted to use it Apple got a fully functioning core OS from the FreeBSD open source programmers and the open source programmers fixed all of Apple’s core OS problems for them. So ask yourself this, when Novell and other groups are done putting a pretty face on Unix how well is Apple going to look then? Until recently, the Compiz/Beryl groups were working at odds but now they are united and Ubuntu and all the other linux variants are putting in the Compiz-Fusion which is now out there and maturing at a blazing pace. Check back next summer or next year at this time and tell me what you see then? Right now, the movement to a much better presentation foundation for Linux is just starting. KDE 4 may or may not be worth writing home about when it comes out but it will be one of over a dozen different graphical front ends that will run on any hardware out there.
Windows won the OS wars because it did not do Vendor hardware lock down like all Microsoft’s competitors did. Leopard is locked down to the hardware from Apple and in spite of moving to an intel core base Apple can’t make money selling Leopard at all as an OS all by itself so in order to use Leopard you have to have all the vendor lock down from Apple instead of the freedom to have whatever hardware you want to run. The reason that Apple can’t make money selling its OS in a free and open market is because Apple would then have to do what Microsoft and now Linux did, which is get hardware agnostic and it would take about twenty times the money already spent on Leopard to make it totally hardware agnostic.
In the hardware agnostic world we don’t have smoothly integrated hardware and software from a single vendor and yet both Vista and Linux are superb general purpose workstations that anyone can go buy or install for free. You mentioned at least ten odd ball things you did not like in Leopard and you probably will never get fixes for those things in the proprietary world of Apple, ever. Apple seldom, if ever, listens to its customers and its designers don’t seem to be in sync with their customer base at all.
Apple is not to be admired but dumped. It is everything the Linux world is against and is the last of the hard core vendor lock down computer companies left for the Penguin to eat up. That time is not too far away. Right now, I can run any version of Unix or Linux on my Vista box as a virtual machine and I have my XP copy running on Ubuntu in VMWare virtual machine.
You can do the same thing on the Mac, use virtual machines to run other operating systems but the problem is that nobody can run the Mac software without having a Mac. The really sad part is that the Mac would not be there if it were not for all the work done in the open source world for them. The older, single user core Macs were horrible. Why did it take Apple so long to get a winner here? They have had only one architecture to work with at a time. Is Apple just hardware churning to get business? Of course they are. Their OS is no more intuitive than any of the Linux front ends out there and in fact the Linux front ends are pretty easy to learn and use on a daily basis.
Gnome is rather odd to me and I definitely agree that the Gnome front end in OpenSuse should be adopted in all the Gnomes. The KDE front end in OpenSuse I do not like, though. The usability studies done by Microsoft for Vista showed that the OpenSuse Gnome front end was a winner and this design and practices is in Vista. Vista also moved the most likely to be used elements int the Vista start button and organized the file system around the same elements of usability that Novell did with Gnome.
In usability studies done a long time ago and in the present Vista wins hands down in ease of use and for new users. Microsoft pretty much owns the notions of making windows useful and once you run one Windows program you pretty much have them all learned was by design at Microsoft and not accidental at all. The usability guidelines for Windows developers are ancient and still with us. Vista can and will take user front ends into a more web like user experience using the Expression tools for Vista.
The era of desktops being the reason for computers is long over. The winners in the modern era are still going to be the operating systems that can be used on any hardware and the operating systems that make it possible to do workstation tasks will continue to win here in the future. Linux ate up all the old school unix vendors like Sun and even IBM because it is free and better on all measurements than their very rich cousins in the main frame world. This was done by volunteers who are, even on a bad day, far more responsive to end users than Apple or any of the old vendor lock down pros ever were.
Microsoft, though, is equally smart and a hard competitor. The Mac is the computing world’s weak sister and deserves derision instead of praise. Open up the Mac and make it work on all hardware and lets see how well Apple does as a competitor on just any old box like Microsoft or Linux does. The code base in the Mac should be working a whole lot better than it does considering they have no cost for the core OS and are using off the shelf hardware what happened? Why are there still problems with the Mac? Well, their code base is why. In order to churn hardware they have had to constantly re-work and re-do their software and their software base has been shown to be very buggy. Vista had about twelve critical issues last year but Apple averaged ten a month. This means that if you want a secure and problem free computing experience you have to go with the workstation pros at Microsoft. Linux software is also constantly being monitored and updates fly fast and furious but Apple is the one that lies about its competitors and lies about how buggy its code base really is. But they were caught out in their lies about Vista since Vista is much better for day to day work and Vista and all the Linuxes run on damn near any hardware you can imagine and still works better and is more bug free than a single architecture OS like the Mac the Mac users should just dump their Macs and go with either a commodity Windows box at half to one third the cost of a Mac and get far better performance out of them.
I have Vista on a core two duo but it runs like a raped ape. I also have it on a single procesor with just a gig of ram and it also runs well. I add in an extra meg of memory stick ram and it runs even better. So explain to me why I can get world class performance out of XP class boxes using XP, Vista 32 or Linux and explain to me why the Mac look and feel some how trumps the power of the operating systems you are dissing here? Now, take the Mac OS and run it on the same low end hardware you ran Ubuntu on and tell me who wins? What, you can’t get Leopard to run on anything other than Apple hardware? It seems to me that if you are going to compare these OSes the least you can do is run them all on the same hardware. If you run Vista on the Mac using boot camp you will find it not only runs faster but is far more dependable and has a much larger software base at over 100,000 plus applications for Windows. Linux also runs over 30,000 applications and the Mac, even using FreeBSD software, only has 20,000 applications written for it. If you take out the open source software for the Mac you will find you are down to roughly five thousand native Mac applications.
You did mention this weakness in Windows and in Linux, the over abundance of software and choices. These choices can mean the difference between your company succeeding and failing or your kids succeeding or failing in school. The Linux and Windows world allows for right sizing and if you don’t have money then you can easily get the free software you need or the very lost cost Windows software you need if you do have enough money to pay for software. But if you go out today and check you will see that you can buy your family three computers for the cost of a single Leopard equipped computer and if you go with open source you can even go with 50,000 software tools and suites in the Linux world. You can certainly compare Apples and oranges but all you are going to get is that they are both round. FreeBSD is quite ugly and needs a face lift but Linux is getting that face lift now and this time next year you will probably be wondering why you thought the Leopard crap was so cool after you realize how much of it was stolen directly from the open source world it will make you wonder why anyone can support Apple for any reason.
You can’t sell fashionistas freedom. I tried outside the Apple store in SF. One hepster chickadee wanted to do a ‘trade up’ {which is a consumeristic social experiment} for a piece of machinery that only runs on a Windows-like environment (i.e. Windows or Mac). Though I was willing to ‘trade up’ free software that I had burned to CDs she couldn’t get to the idea that what I was offering for her status symbol was actual freedom [’…there are three different Linux Operating Systems in this bundle of free CDs] Though I was willing to lower myself by accepting her proprietary cookies crumbs all she could think of was a pricetag to define freedom ‘How much is it worth… In dollars?’
I finally set the whole kit-n-kaboodle up against the Windows of the MAC store and headed back through town.
The reason for this story is I’m kinda done with trying to talk people into doing things that are good for them. The whole GNU/Linux is the best thing that could possibly happen for the modern computer realm and the World. The European community, various Asian communities, the Central and South American communities know this to be true. Come on, folks. Put your egos away and apt-get yourself some individualistic freedom today.