# my stance for macs.



## solrac (May 29, 2002)

From someone bagging on macs, my reply below his...



> Haha, ok the cute thing was a cheap shot, but I will stand to my point and I'm sure you'll stand to yours.  You say you use the Unix features of OS X because you're learning them, but that to me doesn't really constitute for actually having a use.  Yes, you are technically running programs and learning command line functions, but you really are not doing anything else but learning.  I can simply partition my HD so I dual boot any flavor of *nix I want, even FreeBSD.  When I think of using FreeBSD or the like, I think of what it was normally intended for, webservers to be the main one and then servers/workstations in a LAN/WAN environment.  You will rarely or never see OS X do these things because it is just not a good idea.  In that department, *nix variants or even WinNT/2k will be the top choices.
> 
> Your only solid point is what you probably really use it for.  Photoshop and Flash(though I don't think programming flash really makes a difference in either platform).  As a person who does photo/video editing as a profession, I'm sure the Mac is the choice platform, but you have to understand, that is a very slim percentage of computer users.
> 
> ...



Well that's the beauty of mac: I got to learn unix stuff (FreeBSD technically) WITHOUT having to partition anything, it just is part of it, and at the same time, have this SUPER easy to use interface.

And I'm not JUST learning UNIX. I've actually learned some stuff and successfully used it. Especially FTP, File browsing, searching files with advanced tags and even regular expressions. All great stuff to learn. I actually think the greates thing is that I can do all this WITHOUT a dual boot system. (I can still make this a dual boot system, by the way, and put Linux on it if I wanted to learn that for example.)

And like you said, Photoshop and Flash is what I use it for. And more. Actually, it's Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, After Effects (soon), Word, Excel, all the main web browsers (for testing), Illustrator, and InDesign.

Now, all those programs are ONLY available on Mac and Windows. There is no other choice. Mac used to **** as an OS. Windows used to ****, too, in different ways. The only really good OS was a *nix. But none of the above software =(

Now... windows ****s a lot less as an OS, but Mac is AWESOME as an OS.

In fact, Mac is truly the best OS in the world. Because it is a true *nix, with the ease of use known of Macs (their only greatest asset), and all the software.

And one more thing macs have hands down, that M$ is trying to catch up with. Multimedia for the people. Apple has iPhoto (digital camera), iTunes (digital music), iMovie and iDVD (digital movies), these all link together to any device you plug into the mac, and makes the whole digital world really easy, simple, and awesome for n00b computer users. It's even good software for professionals! And anyway, that's what Apple needs, n00b users, to gain market share, but they keep the professionals happy too, ALL the time.

It's true that PC architecture is currently faster if you buy the best ****. Like think of a dual 2.53 GHZ P4 system. That will rock any mac right now because the fastest mac is a dual 1 GHZ G4. But the dual 1 GHZ will still be faster than a dual 2.53 GHZ in certain tasks. And even then, if we are talking average users here, they will NEVER EVER EVER NEVER tap all that power. Not even close.

One thing you PC people never understand, is that the chip speed and hardware make very little difference. It's the software that counts.

Look at flash player. On Macs, it ****s. Animation is SLOW. Very slow. It's simply bad software. Now, take a Pentium 2 266 mhz computer. OLD ****ING ****. Now, LOL, put flash player on it. It's WAYYYY Faster than the dual 1 GHZ mac!!! Now you can't say that's a faster computer. It's not. It's a Pentium 2 266 mhz. It's the flash software that just WORKS on PC, not on mac.

Mac has way better software. It's a true *nix OS with the Mac ease of use, it's got Apple's digital collection, it's got better pro tools for video and audio (don't forget audio, macs RULE in audio), AND it has M$ Office and all the Adobe **** you can get on PC like Photoshop, etc. Meaning equal or better software.

Yes PC has more software. A lot more, but quantity means nothing. Mac has like 5 audio converting utilities. PC has like 500. But they all do the same ****. So the 5 on mac are just as good as the 500 on PC. The only thing PC really has more of is games.

Now it's very easy for a PC to come out seeming like a better workstation at your work. Older macs ****, especially if they do NOT have OS X. But try this. Go to your work, and try using (if there is) a brand new fast top of the line mac, with OS X, lots of RAM, and the right software on it. You'll see it's just better to use than the PC if you're willing to learn the software.

And one more thing.... you talk about webservers and servers/workstations in a LAN/WAN environment to be rarely or never seen used on OS X because it is just not a good idea. You say that in that department, *nix variants or even WinNT/2k will be the top choices.

But that's just a false statement. First of all, Mac OS X is a fully POSIX compliant *nix variant. Second, why is it not a good idea? Since it is *nix it is actually a very good idea. And Apple sells Mac OS X Server OS. And it is better than windows. (Same reason, it's *nix, and has the mac ease of use.) Also, apple just released XServe, their rackmounted server solution. It's a GREAT start and a badass server. Within the next year or two, you will see Apple getting a lot of business in the server market and eventually you'll hear people say "Oh yeah, you know what. That Mac server is actually pretty damn good." Also, currently the ONLY server provider that sells a server AND hardware AND the OS ALL from the same company is Sun. Sun makes its own hardware, they make their hardware, and they make their own OS (IRIX, etc.). Now, Apple is the second. The only other company that makes the hardware, makes the OS, and provides the server.

You'll see Apple's image turn around totally. In 5 years, this whole "Oh mac ****s. It's overpriced, ****ty OS, no software...."

Oh my god that is so gonna be in the past. Very much so. Give it a chance, dude.


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## Nummi_G4 (May 29, 2002)

wow dude. congrats on the largest post ever   You are too smart for me    If you talk to a peecee lover like that... their head will explode.


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## homer (May 29, 2002)

I agree with you.

There is one flaw, however:

You cite Flash as being bad software for Mac, and then you say that Mac has "way better" software.   I know it's a little thing, but still. . . .


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## uoba (May 29, 2002)

On the web server point, this alone makes me prey in the direction of Cupertino every morning. 3 macs... 3 webservers for testing, thank you Jobs.

This will swing web designers/companies back to OSX (if Apple market this fact a bit more)!!

Nice work, did he give a reply?


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## solrac (May 29, 2002)

i didn't get a reply yet.
Here is my friend's reply. He is a network admin and programmer, and web developer.



> You don't have to have a different partition to run Linux on a PC running
> Windows either. There are distros that install right on top of Windows.
> 
> Learning UNIX to FTP, file browse, search files and regular expressions are
> ...


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## solrac (May 29, 2002)

my reply to marco (above) since this stupid UBB won't allow this many characters in one post  

I didn't mean to say Windows couldn't install linux distros. Of course it can. Just that other dude in the first post seemed to say u could not install Linux on a mac, or something like that.

I used UNIX to learn more the ftp, file browse, etc. I know that's not the power of UNIX but I am learning these commands and CLI and the fact that OS X is *nix is what even made this possible. But the point to OS X is that it is protected memory, pre-emptive multitasking, symmetric multiprocessing, dynamic memory handling, etc. etc.. Basically more crash proof than windows now. (If you want to get into the power of UNIX thing.)

You say that Apple only pulled this new OS because: it got all the code from an already good OS. All they had to do was to put an interface on it. EXACTLY!!! THAT WAS F'IN GENIUS!!!! They ****ed as an OS company anyway. Their best success was at the interface. (The so called legendary mac ease of use.)

And, since the core of OS X is open source, Apple constantly implements the newest updates and changes to the kernel and its BSD layer, all the time. You make it sound like Apple is not open source at all. It is. That's why they made that whole "come on in, it's open" logo. As updates are released in the community Apple will definetely include them in frequent software updates.

And I don't buy your whole OS X is a Microsoft OS BS. Just because M$ owns a bunch of Apple stock? Whatever... So if I buy a buttload of Apple shares it is now an enola technologies OS hehehe.

Now I must repeat again, YES ONLY SOFTWARE MATTERS. Yes, I'll grab a G3, and you get a quad Xeon, and give them to two equally stupid users, and tell them to set up their email. Guess who will have it up and running first. The Mac. So the G3 is better for that, because of the software on it. That's why Sega lost out to Nintendo after the video game wars of so long ago, because even though Nintendo's hardware was less powerful, the games were more fun. SOFTWARE!!! Flip it around. Give me a Dual 1 GHZ Mac and you get a Pentium 2 266 mhz. Let's both play a flash animation. You're gonna WIN BIG TIME. Because the software for that on the PC is much better. Ironically, you're right. The de facto POS software on the mac IS flash player, and it IS the exception, not the rule. That's what I'm saying. Every other software on the mac, just about, is damn good. (To homer, who posted above, that's what I meant, it was not a flaw in my post.) And the best OS no longer runs on PC, it now runs on mac. Unless you think that Windows OS is better than a *nix??

And yes, I do agree with you that Adobe, Macromedia, etc. software is the same on PC. That's why I said EQUAL or better software.

And yes, 500 different choices for the same kind of software on PC is just as good as 5 or 10 choices on the Mac. But not just one. PC is just overloaded with software. I like having 5 - 10 different choices. I get different features, programming style, etc. Having 500 choices on PC is just overkill. I'll NEVER go through 500 audio players, for example. I'll probably go through 5 or 10, lol. I don't agree with the "just one" thing, I hate M$ for trying to be the only one, no other choices, too!!! The only reason there's so many choices on PC is because there's so many developers that are just used to writing software on PC. Mac has to be getting out to more developers, and Cocoa is a very good platform. I disagree with you if you say it's not.

Now you say that based on my point of view, I can get a $500 PC and it's as good as XServe. Well not really. Now we're talking servers and servers need good hardware, because they have to serve to many many users. But yeah, the $500 PC is probably just as good as an XServe box if it's gonna be for a single user that needs word, excel, internet, and email.

So you say mac lacks the software to be a successful server. Well it has Mac OS X. So it can do more than run Apache and PHP as you say. It's a true *nix system, and all that. It has very good security. It's nothing new dude. It's the BSD kernel, pretty good security actually by what I've read about it. Ease of use DOES matter. Not for just sitting there and not crashing, but what about setting it up??? And is Windows POSIX compliant??? Or did you screw up when you said that???

True, being a newcomer is not good in that business, but at least it makes the business possible. That's what Apple needs, more business. That's why I said it'll take a couple years or more for Apple to get in there. But every journey starts with one step.

You say "Wanna make Mac really good? Open the source code and give programmers a decent license. Then you'll see what happens." How would this be done? Isn't it already like that? How could more so??

Well anyway the only point you have, that I can't argue with you, is when you say Mac is not a good development platform. I don't know why really. It's got its native Cocoa language (obj-C), and Project Builder from apple, or Metrowerks CodeWarrior. For web dev, you got PHP, Perl, etc. built in. Oracle is now working with Mac even to get its **** on there. Of course you can't do .NET stuff and M$ DB stuff but that's cuz it's M$, who cares. What makes mac a bad dev platform? Just wondering.


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## klamps (May 29, 2002)

Before I start talking again, I just want to clarify that I'm not, BY NO MEANS, defending Windows! I hate Windows just as much as anyone that uses it. I just think that the whole "Mac is the best thing in the world" is bs. Mac users are know for that.

Windows XP does have better memory management and multitasking. But it has that stupid interface as default. At least you can change it back. What makes Windows crash so much is what's called "DLL Hell", where a new program updates a library file and old programs crash. They're solving this problem with the new .NET framework. With .NET, different assemblies can co-exist using different "environments".

The core of OS X is open source, but what about the interface? Correct me if I'm wrong, but is Apple giving back to the community? I don't think so.

If Enola Technologies buys a truckload of shares from Apple and M$, it'll own BOTH!

On the software issue. You're referring to the interface, but that's not what makes the computer run. Even a stupid user can setup their email using Outlook Express, it's very easy. So if you take a Mac and a PC, running the same (relatively) hardware and software, they should perform the same. If not, then one of them is better than the other. But what caused it to be better? The hardware or software? Actually, I'm confused.

Mac runs one flavor on *nix, PCs run many. And each one of them has it's own cons and pros.

Cocoa is not a platform. It's just an interface. And there are many Windows and *nix programs out there because developers are encouraged to do so. That's not true with Apple. Everybody knows that.

I'm gonna repeat this. Mac OS X IS new software. Even though it runs BSD, it had to be modified somehow. If I take a Linux kernel and modify it, it's considered new software. What if I modified something that made some software crash? You can't assume it's exactly the same thing just because I used a Linux kernel. That's what I mean when I say that Mac OS X is an unproven platform. Besides it's cheaper to go with a free *nix variant. But on a environment where uptime is everything, responsible people will go with what's proven to be secure.

Ease of use does NOT matter on a server environment. We're talking about skilled people. Not end users. They're supposed to know the OS inside out. That's part of the problem with M$ server systems. You control the server using wizards and sometimes you just need complete control over it. That's why *nix uses text files. You can see and modify everything right there. Is it hard? Hell yeah! But that gives you the confidence to know that your system is setup to YOUR specifications, not what stupid M$ thinks is right.

Novell had a huge share of the NOS market. Not anymore! So what makes Apple a good candidate?

Windows is not POSIX compliant by default, but there are emulators. But that doesn't matter because it has it's own API.

I'm not familiar with Apple's licensing system, but does it allow you to take Aqua and modify it?

The reason why Mac doesn't have a good programmer's base is because Apple doesn't want it. They don't like outside developers and everybody knows that.

- Marco Machado


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## solrac (May 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by klamps _
> Before I start talking again, I just want to clarify that I'm not, BY NO MEANS, defending Windows! I hate Windows just as much as anyone that uses it. I just think that the whole "Mac is the best thing in the world" is bs. Mac users are know for that.



I'm not. I say that anything pre OS X is pure crap. Pure, liquid crap to be exact. But I say Mac OS X is the best OS because it is a true *nix, AND has an easy to use interface for the novices, AND has all the software. No other OS in the world has that combination.



> Windows XP does have better memory management and multitasking. But it has that stupid interface as default. At least you can change it back. What makes Windows crash so much is what's called "DLL Hell", where a new program updates a library file and old programs crash. They're solving this problem with the new .NET framework. With .NET, different assemblies can co-exist using different "environments".



That sounds cool. But sounds complicated, too. I'm sure Windows will come up with some framework that works a LOT better than it used to but I don't think it will ever be as rock solid and proven as a true *nix core. And who cares, it's M$ stuff anyway.



> The core of OS X is open source, but what about the interface? Correct me if I'm wrong, but is Apple giving back to the community? I don't think so.



No the interface is not open source, but how does that make apple take away from the community? That makes no sense. Anyway, Mac OS 9 you could change the interface and make all these crazy colors and shapes using Kaleidescope. That's not a big deal. Anyway, most people don't want to change the interface, they want to get their work done quickly and predictably. Changing the interface is cool, but just a toy, and anyway, you can change the interface in OS X if you really want to. Later on, Apple will make it easier, but that's just a toy.



> On the software issue. You're referring to the interface, but that's not what makes the computer run. Even a stupid user can setup their email using Outlook Express, it's very easy. So if you take a Mac and a PC, running the same (relatively) hardware and software, they should perform the same. If not, then one of them is better than the other. But what caused it to be better? The hardware or software? Actually, I'm confused.



I'm saying where there's 2 computers with both different software AND hardware. Where the hardware on one computer is 10000000 times better, but the software is worse, it renders the hardware USELESS. Just like a 2 billion dollar scanner is useless without a driver. All that matters is software. Hardware is secondary. People think that hardware is important because that's how you build a computer with hardware. But it's not. Without software, hardware is just plastic and sand. But how about two computers, with different hardware and equal software? Then one will be much better. But there's no such thing. The software is always different when comparing Mac to Windows. And usually mac software is better. But now you can compare OS X to other *nix boxes with EQUAL software. You see, this is a very good thing. Mac software used to be its own world. Windows its own world. And *nix its own world. Now there is no more mac OS. It's just *nix and Windows. That gives Windows a much harder beast to fight and it's time for Windows to die anyway. So back to the point. The only scenario here will be a computer with both different hardware and different software. The Mac (today) has slower hardware with better software. I'll take that any day over a Quad Xeon with bad software. And the mac hardware is not even that much slower if you buy the $$$$$ one.



> Mac runs one flavor on *nix, PCs run many. And each one of them has it's own cons and pros.



False. I can install Yellowdog Linux and LinuxPPC on my mac if I want. I can run XWindows (X11) something like that on here too, side by side with OS X. I'm sure there's other *nix I can install on PPC too.



> Cocoa is not a platform. It's just an interface. And there are many Windows and *nix programs out there because developers are encouraged to do so. That's not true with Apple. Everybody knows that.



I don't know that. What's the proof Apple hates developers? Why do they host the WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference). Cocoa is not just an interface. It means the whole development using Obj-C. To create your interface in Aqua you use another tool called Interface Builder.



> I'm gonna repeat this. Mac OS X IS new software. Even though it runs BSD, it had to be modified somehow. If I take a Linux kernel and modify it, it's considered new software. What if I modified something that made some software crash? You can't assume it's exactly the same thing just because I used a Linux kernel. That's what I mean when I say that Mac OS X is an unproven platform. Besides it's cheaper to go with a free *nix variant. But on a environment where uptime is everything, responsible people will go with what's proven to be secure.



Yes but it's modified very very little. In fact, it's almost not modified at all. What if I quit the Finder and all applications and just run in single user (command line) mode? It's basically an untouched FreeBSD. The interface is just applications running. These applications modify the config files in the BSD layer, which you can modify by hand also if you'd like. Which leads to where you say...



> Ease of use does NOT matter on a server environment. We're talking about skilled people. Not end users. They're supposed to know the OS inside out. That's part of the problem with M$ server systems. You control the server using wizards and sometimes you just need complete control over it. That's why *nix uses text files. You can see and modify everything right there. Is it hard? Hell yeah! But that gives you the confidence to know that your system is setup to YOUR specifications, not what stupid M$ thinks is right.



Same in OS X. It's not wizards. It's software Apple made to run the system more easily. But all the config files are there. You can open and edit using vi, or emacs, or TextEdit or whatever you want. This is not a "modified" or "unproven" "new" system. It's BSD, dude, with some changes to make it run on a G4, and some apps which create this interface, and the quartz layer for graphics. None of that stuff messes with the OS kernel in any major way.



> Novell had a huge share of the NOS market. Not anymore! So what makes Apple a good candidate?



I don't know anything about Novell but Apple is a good candidate because the hardware is good, the software is the best (true *nix with great interface and even photoshop, yay!). And it's using STANDARDS. Standards in the OS. Standards in the hardware. Standards everywhere. And Apple is doing it open source, too, in the best way it can.



> I'm not familiar with Apple's licensing system, but does it allow you to take Aqua and modify it?



Again, you don't want or need to modify Aqua. But if you really want to you can. It's your system so if you want to change all the buttons to green or something Apple doesn't care. For the new Xserve, you get an unlimited use license of Mac OS X Server. That's pretty cool.



> The reason why Mac doesn't have a good programmer's base is because Apple doesn't want it. They don't like outside developers and everybody knows that.



You always say that but I don't know why. I don't see that image. It just sounds like you're mad about something in the past. Apple is changing its whole company around to fix all its problems and keep what it had good. So think of Apple and developers only as far back as 1 year at the MAX. Why would you think this of apple, I'm curious.


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## klamps (May 29, 2002)

> *
> That sounds cool. But sounds complicated, too. I'm sure Windows will come up with some framework that works a LOT better than it used to but I don't think it will ever be as rock solid and proven as a true *nix core. And who cares, it's M$ stuff anyway.
> *


*

FYI, *nix uses shared libraries just like Windows do. And they do conflict. I've encountered several problems with this. Sometimes you need to upgrade a shared library and it breaks another program.




			No the interface is not open source, but how does that make apple take away from the community? That makes no sense. Anyway, Mac OS 9 you could change the interface and make all these crazy colors and shapes using Kaleidescope. That's not a big deal. Anyway, most people don't want to change the interface, they want to get their work done quickly and predictably. Changing the interface is cool, but just a toy, and anyway, you can change the interface in OS X if you really want to. Later on, Apple will make it easier, but that's just a toy.
		
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Apple IS taking away from the community because it's using a *nix kernel, it developed a cool GUI, but they didn't release that back. Of course they don't have to, but it would've been nice. But they know that if they do that, people are going to take it, put on top of their favorite distro and **** Apple!




			I'm saying where there's 2 computers with both different software AND hardware. Where the hardware on one computer is 10000000 times better, but the software is worse, it renders the hardware USELESS. Just like a 2 billion dollar scanner is useless without a driver. All that matters is software. Hardware is secondary. People think that hardware is important because that's how you build a computer with hardware. But it's not. Without software, hardware is just plastic and sand. But how about two computers, with different hardware and equal software? Then one will be much better. But there's no such thing. The software is always different when comparing Mac to Windows. And usually mac software is better. But now you can compare OS X to other *nix boxes with EQUAL software. You see, this is a very good thing. Mac software used to be its own world. Windows its own world. And *nix its own world. Now there is no more mac OS. It's just *nix and Windows. That gives Windows a much harder beast to fight and it's time for Windows to die anyway. So back to the point. The only scenario here will be a computer with both different hardware and different software. The Mac (today) has slower hardware with better software. I'll take that any day over a Quad Xeon with bad software. And the mac hardware is not even that much slower if you buy the $$$$$ one.
		
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OK. What if you have the same software? Then the most powerfull computer will prevail right? Software won't matter here. And you can't just take any software and run on a Mac. You can't take Apache for Red Hat and run on Slackware. They're different platforms. It's true that it's Windows and *nix, but *nix has it's own branches and they rarely run the exact same software. Something is going to be different.




			False. I can install Yellowdog Linux and LinuxPPC on my mac if I want. I can run XWindows (X11) something like that on here too, side by side with OS X. I'm sure there's other *nix I can install on PPC too.
		
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That's about it. The *nix world has many, MANY variants. Many of them only available to the i386 platform.




			I don't know that. What's the proof Apple hates developers? Why do they host the WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference). Cocoa is not just an interface. It means the whole development using Obj-C. To create your interface in Aqua you use another tool called Interface Builder.
		
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The proof is on the number of developers it currently has.




			Yes but it's modified very very little. In fact, it's almost not modified at all. What if I quit the Finder and all applications and just run in single user (command line) mode? It's basically an untouched FreeBSD. The interface is just applications running. These applications modify the config files in the BSD layer, which you can modify by hand also if you'd like. Which leads to where you say...
		
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So you're saying that you take a FreeBSD program and compile under Mac OS X with no problems?




			Same in OS X. It's not wizards. It's software Apple made to run the system more easily. But all the config files are there. You can open and edit using vi, or emacs, or TextEdit or whatever you want. This is not a "modified" or "unproven" "new" system. It's BSD, dude, with some changes to make it run on a G4, and some apps which create this interface, and the quartz layer for graphics. None of that stuff messes with the OS kernel in any major way.
		
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So tell me why I should run a Mac OS X server instead of a FreeBSD server that runs on much cheaper hardware?




			I don't know anything about Novell but Apple is a good candidate because the hardware is good, the software is the best (true *nix with great interface and even photoshop, yay!). And it's using STANDARDS. Standards in the OS. Standards in the hardware. Standards everywhere. And Apple is doing it open source, too, in the best way it can.
		
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You're getting confused. A server doesn't need Photoshop. And if you want the best integration of hardware and software, there's Sun with alot more experience than Apple.




			You always say that but I don't know why. I don't see that image. It just sounds like you're mad about something in the past. Apple is changing its whole company around to fix all its problems and keep what it had good. So think of Apple and developers only as far back as 1 year at the MAX. Why would you think this of apple, I'm curious.
		
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Programmers are very busy people. They need tools to help them develop software better and faster. Apple doesn't offer that. I don't have a problem with it, because I don't write software for Macs. Even Microsoft helps developers in a variety of ways. As a programmer, I would love ways to port software to Mac. You know that. I already mentioned to you that I would like to make my program run on all platforms, but that's not an easy task. Maybe I should spend more time on the Apple Dev section and find out more of what's going on. Maybe I'll even like it. Who knows.*


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## solrac (May 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by klamps _
> 
> FYI, *nix uses shared libraries just like Windows do. And they do conflict. I've encountered several problems with this. Sometimes you need to upgrade a shared library and it breaks another program.



Well I'm no expert at that stuff, but anyway the point is that *nix is better than Windows, it's just a fact in today's industry. Of course anything can happen in the future.



> Apple IS taking away from the community because it's using a *nix kernel, it developed a cool GUI, but they didn't release that back. Of course they don't have to, but it would've been nice. But they know that if they do that, people are going to take it, put on top of their favorite distro and **** Apple!



Actually it would be cool if that happened. Then people would put Aqua on Slackware, and SuSe, and RedHat, and OpenBSD, LOL, that would rock. And everyone would know that was Apple's thing. And they'd still have to go through Apple to get the newest updates to it. But for now, in the marketplace, that kind of thing is not necessary.



> OK. What if you have the same software? Then the most powerfull computer will prevail right? Software won't matter here. And you can't just take any software and run on a Mac. You can't take Apache for Red Hat and run on Slackware. They're different platforms. It's true that it's Windows and *nix, but *nix has it's own branches and they rarely run the exact same software. Something is going to be different.



Sure if you have equal software then hardware is what matters, but software is always different. So it comes down to the better software. But maybe in some place they got equal software on different boxes, with equally proficient users. Then it's just a matter of hardware, but that's the easy part.



> The proof is on the number of developers it currently has.



No that's only proof that Apple used to have a very unique OS that dates back to 1984 which was actually a very lame OS in the late 90s, and developers didn't really care to write code on a lame OS.



> So you're saying that you take a FreeBSD program and compile under Mac OS X with no problems?



Yup. I read about some scientists who ported some analytical tools on their *nix boxes to OS X in just a few minutes. They did have to change some stuff in the source, like line endings or something, but it only took a matter of minutes, then a standard recompile. Sometimes it might take hours for something more complicated but I think it's only a matter of changing line endings or something? I'm no expert in this, but I know its VERY easy to port to Mac OS X.



> So tell me why I should run a Mac OS X server instead of a FreeBSD server that runs on much cheaper hardware?



That's what Apple needs to answer to sell more Xserves. I think maybe in a company where the admins don't know the software like super experts, they may find an Xserve to be easier and less of a hassle. Then slowly the coolness of Apple will spread over the years and Apple will gain market share. They make some good hardware and software, dude. But totally... some guy can put FreeBSD on his custom built box, master it, run it all through CLI, and have it run way better than a Mac OS X Server, but only because he's a better computer user. And that's cool. It's cool to see some BSD box running beautifully. But even that guy might get an Apple just cuz he's interested and thinks it's cool to play with. Then he might find something he really likes about it and order another one. It'll take a long time, but Apple will slowly become cool as a server.



> You're getting confused. A server doesn't need Photoshop. And if you want the best integration of hardware and software, there's Sun with alot more experience than Apple.



Yes but now Apple is here, and they admitted... they need to gain more customer service experience in this server market. But in terms of speed, software, hardware, tech support, they got it down. Nice competition for Sun. And I know it doesn't need Photoshop, I was just saying that it is cool that it has sooo much software. Mac OS X has more software than any *nix system now. It is also now the most widely distributed *nix system on the planet.



> Programmers are very busy people. They need tools to help them develop software better and faster. Apple doesn't offer that. I don't have a problem with it, because I don't write software for Macs. Even Microsoft helps developers in a variety of ways. As a programmer, I would love ways to port software to Mac. You know that. I already mentioned to you that I would like to make my program run on all platforms, but that's not an easy task. Maybe I should spend more time on the Apple Dev section and find out more of what's going on. Maybe I'll even like it. Who knows.



But you're wrong! Apple DOES provide this now! The Obj-C libraries and interface libraries... are all very good. Developers are loving how fast and easy it is to put an application together. Apple offers a lot of support and documentation too!! As for making a program that runs on all platforms, well there's Java but that *****. But good cross-platform development is still a ways off I think. But you should check out what the Apple dev section really has. I hear there's some really good stuff going on there.


----------



## xaqintosh (May 29, 2002)

I think this thread wins "The thread with the longest posts" award


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## klamps (May 29, 2002)

> Well I'm no expert at that stuff, but anyway the point is that *nix is better than Windows, it's just a fact in today's industry. Of course anything can happen in the future.



Agreed.



> Actually it would be cool if that happened. Then people would put Aqua on Slackware, and SuSe, and RedHat, and OpenBSD, LOL, that would rock. And everyone would know that was Apple's thing. And they'd still have to go through Apple to get the newest updates to it. But for now, in the marketplace, that kind of thing is not necessary.



Hell yeah! That WOULD be cool, but it can't be because Apple is an egoist beyotch. And that IS necessary. What's the only thing that prevents mass acceptance of other *nix flavors? The GUI. From the end user point of view, of course.



> Sure if you have equal software then hardware is what matters, but software is always different. So it comes down to the better software. But maybe in some place they got equal software on different boxes, with equally proficient users. Then it's just a matter of hardware, but that's the easy part.



See beyotch?



> No that's only proof that Apple used to have a very unique OS that dates back to 1984 which was actually a very lame OS in the late 90s, and developers didn't really care to write code on a lame OS.



They don't seem to care about it now either.



> Yup. I read about some scientists who ported some analytical tools on their *nix boxes to OS X in just a few minutes. They did have to change some stuff in the source, like line endings or something, but it only took a matter of minutes, then a standard recompile. Sometimes it might take hours for something more complicated but I think it's only a matter of changing line endings or something? I'm no expert in this, but I know its VERY easy to port to Mac OS X.



Why don't you try and let me know?



> That's what Apple needs to answer to sell more Xserves. I think maybe in a company where the admins don't know the software like super experts, they may find an Xserve to be easier and less of a hassle. Then slowly the coolness of Apple will spread over the years and Apple will gain market share. They make some good hardware and software, dude. But totally... some guy can put FreeBSD on his custom built box, master it, run it all through CLI, and have it run way better than a Mac OS X Server, but only because he's a better computer user. And that's cool. It's cool to see some BSD box running beautifully. But even that guy might get an Apple just cuz he's interested and thinks it's cool to play with. Then he might find something he really likes about it and order another one. It'll take a long time, but Apple will slowly become cool as a server.



Admins that don't know the software they run are NOT real admins. They're just playing. Coolness will NOT win market share. Besides you can't expect the market to freeze and wait for Apple.



> Yes but now Apple is here, and they admitted... they need to gain more customer service experience in this server market. But in terms of speed, software, hardware, tech support, they got it down. Nice competition for Sun. And I know it doesn't need Photoshop, I was just saying that it is cool that it has sooo much software. Mac OS X has more software than any *nix system now. It is also now the most widely distributed *nix system on the planet.



You're seriously mistaken. Mac OS X does NOT have more software than any *nix. RedHat does. If there's a program for *nix, there's a port for Red Hat. How can Mac OS X be the most distributed *nix system on the planet? You're obviously forgetting about Red Hat. It's FREE! You can login to ftp.redhat.com right now and get a copy. Can you do that with Mac OS X?



> But you're wrong! Apple DOES provide this now! The Obj-C libraries and interface libraries... are all very good. Developers are loving how fast and easy it is to put an application together. Apple offers a lot of support and documentation too!! As for making a program that runs on all platforms, well there's Java but that *****. But good cross-platform development is still a ways off I think. But you should check out what the Apple dev section really has. I hear there's some really good stuff going on there.



Maybe now more people will write software for the Mac OS X. Let's see. And don't even mention Java. It runs even on my coffee mug, but what a pain in the arse.

So resuming everything:

- F-U-C-K Apple for stealing open source code
- Red Hat is the best OS in the planet
- M$ suc ks blue whale's balls
- I just wasted my whole day doing this, which shows how stupid, therefore unqualified to do this,  I really am ...


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## klamps (May 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Nummi_G4 _
> *wow dude. congrats on the largest post ever   You are too smart for me    If you talk to a peecee lover like that... their head will explode. *



I still have my head in perfect condition (if you call this perfect). And I'm ready for more ! bring it on Solrac !!!


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## klamps (May 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by xaqintosh _
> *I think this thread wins "The thread with the longest posts" award *



OMFG !!! I actually clicked on this guy's website link. It's SOO KOO! Specially because he talks about giraffes. Too bad it wasn't flying giraffes, but we, eNoLa, are the experts on the flying giraffe business.

If you would like to talk more about FG's, please email sam eNoLa.


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## solrac (May 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by klamps _
> Hell yeah! That WOULD be cool, but it can't be because Apple is an egoist beyotch. And that IS necessary. What's the only thing that prevents mass acceptance of other *nix flavors? The GUI. From the end user point of view, of course.



no it's just that by keeping it Apple only, they can sell more copies of Mac OS X, not cuz they are egoist beyotches. Hahhaha this stupid UBB can't filter out the word beeyotch can it??? HAHHAHAHAH beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch



> They don't seem to care about it now either.


But they do. But the new Apple is brand new. Give developers time to realize that it's actually becoming great.




> Why don't you try and let me know?


I don't know where to find the info. Just use google. Look for "porting unix or linux software to Mac OS X, and it's problems and its easiness" or whatever lol



> Admins that don't know the software they run are NOT real admins. They're just playing. Coolness will NOT win market share. Besides you can't expect the market to freeze and wait for Apple.


They are real admins if they're getting paid to do something. Maybe they're not real GOOD admins. Heheheh. But Apple will use any method it can to get its Xserve boxes in the marketplace.



> You're seriously mistaken. Mac OS X does NOT have more software than any *nix. RedHat does. If there's a program for *nix, there's a port for Red Hat. How can Mac OS X be the most distributed *nix system on the planet? You're obviously forgetting about Red Hat. It's FREE! You can login to ftp.redhat.com right now and get a copy. Can you do that with Mac OS X?


OK, what I meant is that Mac OS X has more software than any *nix over ALL. Red Hat may have more commands in /usr/bin or whatever, but Mac OS X has Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, etc. etc. That's what I meant by more software. And there are tons of *nix ports coming out for OS X all the time. One cool one i think they are gonna work on is this tool called midnight commander. Anyway, Mac OS X is more widely distributed than Red Hat. Remember, Apple is a HUGE company, and within a year they surpassed Red Hat's distribution numbers. There are more Mac OS Xs out there than Red Hats, unless what I read was false. Yes there are more Mac OS X even though it is not available on an FTP server. Only a carracho server heheeheh j/k.



> Maybe now more people will write software for the Mac OS X. Let's see. And don't even mention Java. It runs even on my coffee mug, but what a pain in the arse.



I hope so. It's pretty predictable.



> So resuming everything:
> 
> - F-U-C-K Apple for stealing open source code
> - Red Hat is the best OS in the planet
> ...



LOLOLOLOL You can't steal open source code!!!!!! HAHAHAH That's funny though. That's like stealing a free newspaper and putting cool graphics on it and selling it??? HAHHAHAHAHA

Red Hat ***** cuz the interface is hard to learn and harder to install and you can't get photoshop. Heheheheheh.

M$ suc ks mucho blue whale's balls but not as much as Azteca.net

I waste EVERY day doing this, so, um nevermind


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## klamps (May 29, 2002)

> no it's just that by keeping it Apple only, they can sell more copies of Mac OS X, not cuz they are egoist beyotches. Hahhaha this stupid UBB can't filter out the word beeyotch can it??? HAHHAHAHAH beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch beyotch



So they can't make money without keeping the GUI? How come Red Hat makes money then?



> They are real admins if they're getting paid to do something. Maybe they're not real GOOD admins. Heheheh. But Apple will use any method it can to get its Xserve boxes in the marketplace.



Hmmm ... sounds like M$.



> OK, what I meant is that Mac OS X has more software than any *nix over ALL. Red Hat may have more commands in /usr/bin or whatever, but Mac OS X has Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, etc. etc. That's what I meant by more software. And there are tons of *nix ports coming out for OS X all the time. One cool one i think they are gonna work on is this tool called midnight commander. Anyway, Mac OS X is more widely distributed than Red Hat. Remember, Apple is a HUGE company, and within a year they surpassed Red Hat's distribution numbers. There are more Mac OS Xs out there than Red Hats, unless what I read was false. Yes there are more Mac OS X even though it is not available on an FTP server. Only a carracho server heheeheh j/k.



Nah beyotch. I'm not talking about command line commands. I'm talking about actual software. Go look at FreshMeat or SourceForge for example. Now the fact that OS X runs the other stuff like you mentioned only proves my point that Apple modified the kernel. How else would it run?



> LOLOLOLOL You can't steal open source code!!!!!! HAHAHAH That's funny though. That's like stealing a free newspaper and putting cool graphics on it and selling it??? HAHHAHAHAHA



Exactly! Why do you think they used BSD? Because of it's license! GNU/GPL requires you to give back to the community, and Apple doesn't want to do that.



> Red Hat ***** cuz the interface is hard to learn and harder to install and you can't get photoshop. Heheheheheh.



It has The Gimp which is FREE! So you don't have to resort to carracho's servers.



> M$ suc ks mucho blue whale's balls but not as much as Azteca.net
> 
> I waste EVERY day doing this, so, um nevermind



Nothing su cks more than Azteca.Net.

Since you waste everyday doing this, that makes you ultimately brain-dead.


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## RacerX (May 30, 2002)

I'm only jumping in to correct the more annoying of the mistakes and some of the weaker point in the arguments (from *all* sides) that has been posted so far. I'm not going to post who said what (you guys know who you are) and I'm not trying to take sides anyway.

Let the water shed begin. 



> *Also, currently the ONLY server provider that sells a server AND hardware AND the OS ALL from the same company is Sun. Sun makes its own hardware, they make their hardware, and they make their own OS (IRIX, etc.). Now, Apple is the second. The only other company that makes the hardware, makes the OS, and provides the server. *



This statement does not ring completely true. You do have Sun (which uses Solaris, not IRIX), Silicon Graphics (they use IRIX), IBM (which uses AIX), and HP (which uses HP-UX). Apple is actually one of many.



> *Apple only pulled this new OS because: it got all the code from an already
> good OS. All they had to do was to put an interface on it.*



That good (I would say great) OS was OPENSTEP, which was the last (NeXT) developed OS of the NEXTSTEP series (OPENSTEP was version 4.x, Apple did continue on with Rhapsody which was version 5.x). I would point out that NEXTSTEP predates FreeBSD (something you guys often forget).



> *Mac is not a good idea for a server environment because, again, it lacks the
> software. You think that because you can run Apache and PHP on a Mac, you
> have a server sitting in your desk? NO! A server is not defined by the
> computer's ability to run a web server. Even Windows 3.0 can do that. There
> ...



Anyone who is using IIS has no business talking about security. If security is one of the criteria of for being a _server_, then Microsoft has yet to produce a true server (but hey, I think we all knew that one already )



> *True it has UNIX on it's veins, but it's not a proven platform.*



In almost every way (with the notable exception of the Carbon APIs) Mac OS X is a proven platform with a longer history than both Windows (even considering that the Windows NT/2000/xp line started with OS/2) and Linux.



> *And yes, I do agree with you that Adobe, Macromedia, etc. software is the same on PC.*



Yes, I'll agree to disagree with you guys on that. The way Windows is set up requires most apps to run rooted in a single window. This means that apps like Photoshop actually feel very different on Windows than on Macs (or SGIs for that matter, I have Photoshop running on my Indy, and it feels more like the Mac version than the Windows version).



> *The core of OS X is open source, but what about the interface? Correct me if I'm wrong, but is Apple giving back to the community? I don't think so.*



In a recent review of streaming media server solutions, Quicktime streaming server running on Darwin not only out performed the Real and Windows Media solutions, it bettered them in price (Apple has made both Darwin and Quicktime streaming free). Sounds pretty giving to me.



> *Cocoa is not a platform. It's just an interface.*



Actually it's a cross-platform programing environment based on Yellow Box, which was based on OpenStep, which was based on NeXTSTEP APIs. Though Apple has not used it in that way, Cocoa could be used in the same way that Java (inspired by OpenStep) has been. In fact NeXT and Sun worked together to make OpenStep's runtime environment portable to other operating systems (including Solaris and Windows). I currently have Windows NT 4.0 with Apple's Yellow Box installed that lets me use many _Mac only_ apps in Windows (if the developer wrote them to be portable that is). Examples would be TextEdit, TIFFany3 and Create.



> *I'm gonna repeat this. Mac OS X IS new software. Even though it runs BSD, it had to be modified somehow. If I take a Linux kernel and modify it, it's considered new software. What if I modified something that made some software crash? You can't assume it's exactly the same thing just because I used a Linux kernel. That's what I mean when I say that Mac OS X is an unproven platform. Besides it's cheaper to go with a free *nix variant. But on a environment where uptime is everything, responsible people will go with what's proven to be secure.*



You really should try not to repeat that. The combination of the Mach kernel and the BSD interface was started by NeXT back in the late 80's. I'm not sure what your definition of new is, but in the computer world that would be as far from being _new software_ as you could get.



> *I'm not familiar with Apple's licensing system, but does it allow you to take Aqua and modify it? *



Aqua is not open source, and is a unique Apple product. It is not required to run Darwin, so it does not effect Darwin's licensing. As an end user, you may do what you want to Aqua, but you may not make it available to others.



> *The reason why Mac doesn't have a good programmer's base is because Apple doesn't want it. They don't like outside developers and everybody knows that.*



That could not be any further from the truth. If Apple didn't care about developers, Rhapsody would have been released as Apple _next generation_ operating system back in 1999. It was because Apple wanted to make sure people would develop for the Mac (specially classic Mac developers) that Apple put the OS on hold while it developed a new application environment, Carbon, that would make moving to Mac OS X easier for developers who already had a large investment into their current apps.

Also, Mac OS X comes with the developers tools needed to create Mac apps. I would point out that these same tools for OPENSTEP were an additional $4999 on top of the price for a single user license ($799) for the operating system. The only thing Apple could possibly do to make life easier for developers would be to write the applications for them.



> *I'm not. I say that anything pre OS X is pure crap. Pure, liquid crap to be exact.*



I would say that that is an inexperienced point of view (and I can say that as it is quite clear that I have more experience).



> *Apple IS taking away from the community because it's using a *nix kernel, it developed a cool GUI, but they didn't release that back. Of course they don't have to, but it would've been nice. But they know that if they do that, people are going to take it, put on top of their favorite distro and **** Apple! *



As I pointed out earlier, Apple has more than given back. Darwin can be use on both PPC and i386 systems, and can be set up in much the same way that OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux can. Aqua receives nothing from open source, so Apple doesn't owe Aqua to the open source community.



> *So tell me why I should run a Mac OS X server instead of a FreeBSD server that runs on much cheaper hardware? *



FreeBSD as a server is a _build it yourself_ system. That type of system requires an experienced admin who is going to cost a ton of money on an on going basis. Mac OS X Server can be set up by an experienced admin, who can actually leave much of the normal admin tasks to someone who already works for that business. This has been the beautiful part of AppleShare IP and it has transferred over to Mac OS X Server very nicely. 

So tell me, which is better: hiring someone like me to set up Mac OS X Server and coming in when real problems actually occur (my best client only paid me $2500s last year, and only about $500 of that was for actual server admin tasks that I needed to perform), *or* buy the cheap hardware and FreeBSD and hire a full or part time admin at from $30,000 to $100,000 a year. Think about this really hard, I think the answer is very clear.



> *You're getting confused. A server doesn't need Photoshop. And if you want the best integration of hardware and software, there's Sun with alot more experience than Apple.*



Sun is mainly a server maker who also makes workstations. Apple is mainly a desktop/workstation maker who also makes servers. Beyond a certain point Sun, IBM, and many others would be a better choice than Apple, but Apple has just moved that point quite a ways higher than it used to stand.



> *So they can't make money without keeping the GUI? How come Red Hat makes money then? *



Where did you get the idea that Red Hat has been making money? If Red Hat was doing so great why did they sell out to AOL?



> *Now the fact that OS X runs the other stuff like you mentioned only proves my point that Apple modified the kernel. How else would it run? *



As I said earlier, none of this is actually new, and it work before Apple acquired NeXT. If it isn't broken, they most likely didn't fix it. Changes made by Apple: the BSD interface layer of Darwin was originally based on 4.4BSD, with the additions of libs and apps from OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD, but Apple started to use more and more aspects of FreeBSD. This is still not that different from the kernel used for NeXTstep 0.8 back in 1988.



> *Exactly! Why do you think they used BSD? Because of it's license! GNU/GPL requires you to give back to the community, and Apple doesn't want to do that.*



As I stated many times, the use of BSD was a choice made by NeXT back in the late 80's long before GNU/GPL. To pretend that there was any other reason only shows that you have not actually studied this subject.

Considering the amount of corrections needed, neither of you is in a position to call the other _ultimately brain-dead_. There is a rich history to all this stuff guys, take some time to learn it.


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## mdnky (May 30, 2002)

Reply to Marco Machado's statement...

Biggest advantage is not crashing constantly like those d@%^ Windoze computers do.  I run a 300mhz G3 with OSX (1997/1998 technology) and have VERY LITTLE (maybe once a month) problems with it.  However, when I run the Dells at a remote location (866 PIII and a 1.6 P4) we have nothing but problems.  Every 10-20 minutes Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, or InDesign will cause the M$ Windoze (98 & ME) to crash. Not only is this time wasted in a business enviroment, it is a royal pain in the a$$!  My stress levels are 300 times less, while my productivity is 100 times more on the Macs.

As far as ease of use, it's been proven to the Mac's advantage before.A network admin had his but kicked by a 12 old in a machine set-up, and configuration test between Windoze and Mac machines.  The veteran took 45 minutes to setup the Windoze machine and get it online...the 12 year old got the mac up and online in 10-15 minutes.  Now which was easier to setup?  Oh, did I mention the Windoze machine crashed when the guy finally got it online...embarrasing eh?

The ony reason Windoze seems better for home users is that that's all they know.  I started on a Commadore 64, progressed to a 386DX33 (WIN 3.1, later 95), a P-100 with 95 & 98, and finally my Mac 300 G3 with 8.6, then the 9 series and X series.  *All future purchases will be Macs*.  I spent most of my time online through a freenet using lynx from a 2400 modem dialup on a Unix provider.  That was in 93.  later to the smoking 14.4, and the killer 56k.  Now it's a 768k DSL line.  Sometimes I wish we were back in the days of text only, at least you could find what you're looking for.  I'd rather my computer work correctly and efficently...the mac does, the Dell doesn't.


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## solrac (May 30, 2002)

RacerX, you rule!!! You're now my favorite member here heheh. I still must requote you and say more crap on my part!!!



> This statement does not ring completely true. You do have Sun (which uses Solaris, not IRIX), Silicon Graphics (they use IRIX), IBM (which uses AIX), and HP (which uses HP-UX). Apple is actually one of many.



Steve Jobs said it himself at the Xserve demo: Sun is the only company which provides the hardware, its own software (OS), and the support channel, all from the same company. Apple is now the second.




> That good (I would say great) OS was OPENSTEP, which was the last (NeXT) developed OS of the NEXTSTEP series (OPENSTEP was version 4.x, Apple did continue on with Rhapsody which was version 5.x). I would point out that NEXTSTEP predates FreeBSD (something you guys often forget).



This is very cool info. Did Apple develop NextStep from scratch???



> Anyone who is using IIS has no business talking about security. If security is one of the criteria of for being a _server_, then Microsoft has yet to produce a true server (but hey, I think we all knew that one already )



Good point!!!



> In almost every way (with the notable exception of the Carbon APIs) Mac OS X is a proven platform with a longer history than both Windows (even considering that the Windows NT/2000/xp line started with OS/2) and Linux.



Wow, this is true. Yes everyone forgets about NextStep and NeXt and all that stuff goes back to like 1988 or more....



> Yes, I'll agree to disagree with you guys on that. The way Windows is set up requires most apps to run rooted in a single window. This means that apps like Photoshop actually feel very different on Windows than on Macs (or SGIs for that matter, I have Photoshop running on my Indy, and it feels more like the Mac version than the Windows version).



True but the stability and functionality of the apps is about the same on mac and PC. Even though PC has the rooted window stuff, that's just a different feel, analogous to having different colors on different OSes. I personally don't mind the Windows implementation but I'm more used to the mac's floating windows, which I do like better.



> In a recent review of streaming media server solutions, Quicktime streaming server running on Darwin not only out performed the Real and Windows Media solutions, it bettered them in price (Apple has made both Darwin and Quicktime streaming free). Sounds pretty giving to me.



This is true. It's great, free, stuff.



> Actually it's a cross-platform programing environment based on Yellow Box, which was based on OpenStep, which was based on NeXTSTEP APIs. Though Apple has not used it in that way, Cocoa could be used in the same way that Java (inspired by OpenStep) has been. In fact NeXT and Sun worked together to make OpenStep's runtime environment portable to other operating systems (including Solaris and Windows). I currently have Windows NT 4.0 with Apple's Yellow Box installed that lets me use many _Mac only_ apps in Windows (if the developer wrote them to be portable that is). Examples would be TextEdit, TIFFany3 and Create.



Very cool!!!



> You really should try not to repeat that. The combination of the Mach kernel and the BSD interface was started by NeXT back in the late 80's. I'm not sure what your definition of new is, but in the computer world that would be as far from being _new software_ as you could get.



Yes, once more, proving that Mac OS X is not a completely new system. It has been tried and tested and proven since the late 80's. It's Apple's fault for not publicizing this on their Mac OS X page and their XServe page. That's a big selling point!!!



> Aqua is not open source, and is a unique Apple product. It is not required to run Darwin, so it does not effect Darwin's licensing. As an end user, you may do what you want to Aqua, but you may not make it available to others.



Right, that's what I was trying to say about Aqua.



> That could not be any further from the truth. If Apple didn't care about developers, Rhapsody would have been released as Apple _next generation_ operating system back in 1999. It was because Apple wanted to make sure people would develop for the Mac (specially classic Mac developers) that Apple put the OS on hold while it developed a new application environment, Carbon, that would make moving to Mac OS X easier for developers who already had a large investment into their current apps.



Yes I agree this whole "Apple hates developers" thing is a very poor argument.



> Also, Mac OS X comes with the developers tools needed to create Mac apps. I would point out that these same tools for OPENSTEP were an additional $4999 on top of the price for a single user license ($799) for the operating system. The only thing Apple could possibly do to make life easier for developers would be to write the applications for them.



Yes, free Dev tools rock. And klamps, isn't the .NET project builder thing like a lot of money??? Heheheh. Apple is pretty much su cking developer's cocks right now to show them how much they are appreciated and needed.



> [about mac os 9 being pure liquid crap] I would say that that is an inexperienced point of view (and I can say that as it is quite clear that I have more experience).



Yes you do have more experience obviously. I am totally respecting you right now. I am RECKA'NIZING!!! But.... I don't change my opinion that OS 9 is pure crap. As an end user, it was horrible for me. It would crash twice a day. Even on a clean install after formatting a drive with 0s and no viruses and only standard programs, it would always end up crashing like twice a day or more. Sometimes it would last the whole day without crashing and I'd be like "coooool." Horrible OS with a great interface.



> As I pointed out earlier, Apple has more than given back. Darwin can be use on both PPC and i386 systems, and can be set up in much the same way that OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux can. Aqua receives nothing from open source, so Apple doesn't owe Aqua to the open source community.



Klamps just got beyotch-slapped!! HAHAHA



> So tell me, which is better: hiring someone like me to set up Mac OS X Server and coming in when real problems actually occur (my best client only paid me $2500s last year, and only about $500 of that was for actual server admin tasks that I needed to perform), *or* buy the cheap hardware and FreeBSD and hire a full or part time admin at from $30,000 to $100,000 a year. Think about this really hard, I think the answer is very clear.



Yes you are right. But klamps comes from the point of view of starting your own company, where you are your own server admin, so he was not actively thinking about an employer who needs to hire a guy, and choose a box.



> Sun is mainly a server maker who also makes workstations. Apple is mainly a desktop/workstation maker who also makes servers. Beyond a certain point Sun, IBM, and many others would be a better choice than Apple, but Apple has just moved that point quite a ways higher than it used to stand.



Yes, exactly... they entered into the marketplace.. and like I said, it will be slow, but soon Apple will be mentioned in every day conversations among server dudes and stuff.



> Where did you get the idea that Red Hat has been making money? If Red Hat was doing so great why did they sell out to AOL?



Yeah I heard Red Hat was having $$$ problems. Sure they have public stock but that doesn't mean much. Still, I'm sure they have more money than Azteca.net, and Vmatrix HAHAHAHAH.



> Considering the amount of corrections needed, neither of you is in a position to call the other _ultimately brain-dead_. There is a rich history to all this stuff guys, take some time to learn it.



Trust me, klamps is definetely ultimately brain dead because he has eaten too many jumbo jacks and smoked too many cigarettes. Wait, actually the reason is because he hangs out with Jobby too much. HAHAHHA. Why is jobby not posting in this thread?????????

Thanks for the history lesson and info RacerX, but I did challenge you on at least 2 of your points above (the OS 9 thing and the Apple and Sun thing)... let me know what you think


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## RacerX (May 30, 2002)

I hate to see Steve wrong as much as the next person, but if he said (and I don't remember hearing him say that, but I was working on some stuff during the presentation) that Apple was second behind Sun in the server market on companies that produce both the hardware and the operating system, then there isn't much else to say. Lets look at some examples:

*Sun Microsystems:*

_operating system:_ Solaris
_hardware:_ not only makes their own, they make their own processors (UltaSPARC)
*Apple Computer:*

_operating system:_ Mac OS X Server
_hardware:_ makes their own
*IBM:*

_operating system:_ AIX
_hardware:_ not only makes their own, they make their own processors (PowerPC)
*Silicon Graphics, Inc. :*

_operating system:_ IRIX
_hardware:_ makes their own, owns one of the companies that makes their processors (MIPS)
As for Mac OS 9, I have had uptimes of weeks without crashes. Any system that crashes as much as the one you were talking about has other issues (most likely hardware). I test systems by starting Photoshop on a task (usually a 15 minute rendering filter), while the system is working on that I start up a few more apps, fire up the default browser of the person who's system I am working on, go to Apple's quicktime site and watch some trailers while waiting for Photoshop to finish. If a system can't handle that type of load, then I haven't finished fixing it yet. 

My livelihood depends on making Mac OS 9 work better than any other system (that can run QuarkXPress natively). I would love to have more clients move to Mac OS X, but currently what they need is Mac OS 9 with the best performance they can get. *All* of my clients I've gotten by word of mouth. If I couldn't keep Mac OS 9 up and running, I would be out of a job.

Then again, I'm not earning any money when Mac OS 9 is not crashing and I'm not getting any calls for weeks at a time either. I currently care for 57 systems (43 of which are Macs running Mac OS 8/9), if they were crashing as much as your system was, I would be working all the time. Yesterday I didn't have any calls, today I upgraded an AppleShare IP server to handle FileMaker Pro 5.0 server and installed ATM deluxe on someone's system, tomorrow I'll go see Star Wars for the 5th time (and 6th time if I don't get any calls  ). I spend the last few weeks hunting down viruses on a half dozen Windows systems (which also required me to install Windows 2000 twice and Windows ME once while trying to get these systems productive again). As my wife would be very happy to point out, I am not over worked.


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## solrac (May 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by RacerX _
> *I hate to see Steve wrong as much as the next person, but if he said (and I don't remember hearing him say that, but I was working on some stuff during the presentation) that Apple was second behind Sun in the server market on companies that produce both the hardware and the operating system, then there isn't much else to say. Lets look at some examples:
> 
> Sun Microsystems:
> ...


*

Hmmm, true. But watch the Xserve quicktime presentation. Steve Jobs said it!! But he listed 3 things, I believe. I think he said that only Sun and Apple make their own hardware, their own OS, and all through one support channel. Maybe he said some other sly little adjective to make it true.




			As for Mac OS 9, I have had uptimes of weeks without crashes. ... [RacerX proceeds to give a long list of how OS 9 is stable and his clients never call him to fix OS 9]
		
Click to expand...


Well I already argued the hell out of this in another thread from months ago. My conclusion was that YES... you have succesfully run OS 9, with stability, for weeks. I, however, have not. Why? I don't know. It's not hardware. My computer in question is a G3 we bought in 1999. (Then top of the line.) Several months ago I installed Mac OS X for my mom on it, with only Photoshop, Office, and Netscape, and AOL. That's it. (Same as she used in OS 9). She doesn't even use Photoshop, actually. Since the install, months ago, the computer has not crashed once. Only explorer heheheh.

So here we have the SAME EXACT 3 year old hardware, and when it had OS 9 it was crashing constantly, even on a clean install after formatting the drive with 0s and only standard apps. Now with OS X it has yet to crash once. So it's not a hardware problem.

My conclusion is that OS 9 works sometimes, and sometimes doesn't. In your case, it worked. In my case it didn't. That makes it an unstable platform. OS X will work for everybody, pretty much equally across the board, with no problems.

Oh yeah, and I had a question, RacerX. I asked if Apple developed OpenStep or NextStep or whatever the original thing was from scratch???? Thanks 

edit: also, if I was one of your clients, RacerX, I would not call you when OS 9 crashed. I learned to accept it as a way of life and that the only solution was to restart, then everything was fine. It almost became an inborn instinct, hitting restart. I'd time the crashes so I could take a dump or go make a sandwich or something hehehe. So you wouldn't be getting any call from me during the crashes. Maybe you should monitor a couple of your OS 9 clients whether or not they call you and see how often it crashes.*


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## RacerX (May 30, 2002)

> _ pointed out by solrac_
> *My computer in question is a G3 we bought in 1999. (Then top of the line.) Several months ago I installed Mac OS X for my mom on it, with only Photoshop, Office, and Netscape, and AOL. That's it. (Same as she used in OS 9). She doesn't even use Photoshop, actually. Since the install, months ago, the computer has not crashed once.*



Wow, actually I would now be almost willing to bet money that it was hardware. I have retired (pulled everything but the motherboard and power supply) three 1999 G3 Blue & Whites because of a flaw in the motherboard (part no. 661-2104, the problem did not appear in part no. 661-2194 used in later Blue & White G3s, and Apple's current replacement part would be part no. 661-2253, the motherboard from the PCI G4s). It may not be effecting Mac OS X to the same degree, but it can (and does, I've seen it) crash Mac OS X from time to time.

From that (without any further information and not having seen the system in person), I would conclude that your ill feelings towards Mac OS 9 are actually based on bad hardware that could be fixed (if you wanted) by upgrading the motherboard.



> *edit: also, if I was one of your clients, RacerX, I would not call you when OS 9 crashed... So you wouldn't be getting any call from me during the crashes. Maybe you should monitor a couple of your OS 9 clients whether or not they call you and see how often it crashes.*



My clients are as picky as they come. They would consider any crashing (and in fact any minor problem long before crashing) to be worth a service call. These are publishing companies which are constantly fighting to meet dead lines. With most, I have keys and passcards so that I can effect most of the major repairs during off hours (it is not unusual for me to do a quick fix in the middle of the day to get someone productive again and then come back later to do the complete fix at night. And yes, I have spent hours on site (full day yesterday helping the FileMaker Pro consultant with networking and workstation configurations stuff), and not one crash (7 hours, pushing dead lines, 9 systems running Mac OS 9).

I don't know what most people would consider an _okay_ crash, but my clients consider anything that causes them to lose their work while fighting a dead line to be completely unacceptable... and so do I.



> *Oh yeah, and I had a question, RacerX. I asked if Apple developed OpenStep or NextStep or whatever the original thing was from scratch???? Thanks*



No... Yes... sorta... 

When Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple, he took a number of Apple best engineers with him and started NeXT. Shortly after starting NeXT they hired one of the original designers of Mach from Carnegie Mellon named Avadis " Avie " Tevanian. Over the next couple years they developed an operating system (funny, but it really was second in importance to hardware for Jobs) to run on NeXT hardware based on Mach with a license for 4.3BSD (which made the whole system very expensive) to be used as the primary interface to the kernel, and a fully object oriented framework for the GUI and application environment based on Objective C (which at the time was actually easier to use than C++, which was not being used mush at that time because C++ programs were so much slower than programs written in C). These APIs used to create programs in NEXTSTEP were what really made the computer world sit up and take notice. Within a short period of time (with the help of Sun) NeXT was able to make a portable runtime environment that would run a portable version of NeXT soft on almost any platform (though they only actually created these environments for Solaris and Windows NT). This portable environment was called OpenStep, which they (both Sun and NeXT) completely over used that name. NeXT changed the name of their operating system from _NEXTSTEP_ to _OPENSTEP for Mach_, The runtime environment was call _OpenStep for Windows_ or _OpenStep for Solaris_, and Sun (who wanted to replace CDE as the default Window manager on Solaris) called their NEXTSTEP based GUI _OpenStep Solaris_ which would run on Solaris 2.4, 2.5 and maybe 2.6 (but I haven't actually seen that so I'm not sure).

So here we were, 1996. Sun and NeXT had a major partnership, CDE had one foot in the grave at Sun, Sun bought Lighthouse Design and their suite of office apps (sorta like they would later do with StarOffice), everything was going great. 

Apple buys NeXT.

All plans are off. Apple has there own designs for NeXT's operating system and application environment that has nothing to do with Sun. CDE remain as the default environment on Solaris until GNOME replaces it in 2002 with the release of Solaris 9. The only thing that didn't stop right away, Apple continued to sell OPENSTEP (and even released OPENSTEP 4.2 in early 1997) as enterprise software (which is why www.next.com redirected you to www.apple.com/enterprise/ up to about a year ago). After another name change and some changes to the GUIs feel Apple released Rhapsody 5.0 as _Rhapsody Developer Release_. There would be 6 more versions (Rhapsody 5.1 to Rhapsody 5.6, aka _Mac OS X Server 1.2_, only Rhapsody 5.2 was not release outside of Apple), and part way through a change in direction leading to what we call Mac OS X today.

Considering that NeXT was for the most part a group of rogue Apple people, considering that Apple is now being run by those same rogues after NeXT acquired Apple in 1996, it is hard not to consider in some way that some part of Apple had developed it from scratch. I don't look at NeXT as being different from Apple because of who was where, who started where, who ended up where, and where we are now.


_Note: edit was to correct the part numbers for the motherboards_


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## QuackingPenguin (May 30, 2002)

Ok. i have one problem with something one of you said on the first page.


> All it has to do is sit there and not crash. Windows
> can do that too.


Actually. No, it can't. I go to tafe, and they use ibm pcs there. everyone else there uses pcs at home. i am ALWAYS hearing about how this happened or that happened. my friend recently went from win98 to win2k on his pc. guess what. the first release of win2k DIDN'T SUPPORT AGP. What's that you say, server OS. IT WAS PROFESSIONAL EDITION. ya know, the one that was SUPPOSED to replace win98 on desktops. I will admit right here, that i do not like having to use linux. i am not used to it, and sometimes things seem kinda backwards. but i would prefer to live my entire life having to use linux badly than using windows at an expert level, because no amount of know-how can stop windows from crashing. today i heard a story of someone's pc not booting to XP because they installed a burning program. thats right. clone-cd made XP hang at the loading screen. i admit that Macs have faults. even X. i had to re-install it today because it was bein stupid and the partition had some funky error. it still isnt quite right. i have had a couple of scary screens at bootup with text saying kernel panic, and we are halted. but because it is unix, i know it is happening for a reason, not because it's some dodgy microsoft ****. and now i can say two people have tried to tell me that MS owns Apple. funny thing is, the last guy was full of **** too.
have a good day all.

QP


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## serpicolugnut (May 30, 2002)

> the first release of win2k DIDN'T SUPPORT AGP. What's that you say, server OS. IT WAS PROFESSIONAL EDITION.



Actually, it does. I have Win2000 Professional running on a PIII800, and it has AGP. 

I really hate it when I have to stick up for Microsoft. But, to be fair, WinNT and especially Windows2000 are very solid OSes. Still prefer OS X, but I'd rather use Win2000 than OS 9 anyday.


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## klamps (May 30, 2002)

> Anyone who is using IIS has no business talking about security. If security is one of the criteria of for being a _server_, then Microsoft has yet to produce a true server (but hey, I think we all knew that one already )



Agreed. As I said on the beginning, I'm NOT defending M$ and it's products. That's why I run Linux on my servers.



> In a recent review of streaming media server solutions, Quicktime streaming server running on Darwin not only out performed the Real and Windows Media solutions, it bettered them in price (Apple has made both Darwin and Quicktime streaming free). Sounds pretty giving to me.



Everybody knows that Real is a poor excuse for a streamming solution. At least anyone that ever had to deal with it. You can't expect M$ to be good either. Quicktime just rules.



> You really should try not to repeat that. The combination of the Mach kernel and the BSD interface was started by NeXT back in the late 80's. I'm not sure what your definition of new is, but in the computer world that would be as far from being _new software_ as you could get.



I'm not a Mac user, as anyone would've guessed, and I based my point on info given by solrac and news. So as I far as I knew, OS X was based on BSD.



> That could not be any further from the truth. If Apple didn't care about developers, Rhapsody would have been released as Apple _next generation_ operating system back in 1999. It was because Apple wanted to make sure people would develop for the Mac (specially classic Mac developers) that Apple put the OS on hold while it developed a new application environment, Carbon, that would make moving to Mac OS X easier for developers who already had a large investment into their current apps.



I'm a not Mac developer, but why is everybody else complaining? If what you say is true, then why people talk **** about Apple? I'm talking about Mac developers.



> So tell me, which is better: hiring someone like me to set up Mac OS X Server and coming in when real problems actually occur (my best client only paid me $2500s last year, and only about $500 of that was for actual server admin tasks that I needed to perform), *or* buy the cheap hardware and FreeBSD and hire a full or part time admin at from $30,000 to $100,000 a year. Think about this really hard, I think the answer is very clear.



Actually, I manage servers (Linux and Windows) myself. I have servers that run without any problems, including Windows servers. So it doesn't really matter what kind of server it is, as long as you know what you're doing. So I could get a PC, install Linux, configure the network and leave it alone. They just need to call me when the computer crashes, which is not very often. Unless, of course, the hardware is faulty. Which can happen to a Mac as well. So it really depends on what kind of activity you have going on that server. Therefore, the answer is not that clear.



> Where did you get the idea that Red Hat has been making money? If Red Hat was doing so great why did they sell out to AOL?



Because they only have a couple of products. They made money only by offering support and other minor activities. I never said they were doing great. But they did hang for quite a while.



> Considering the amount of corrections needed, neither of you is in a position to call the other _ultimately brain-dead_. There is a rich history to all this stuff guys, take some time to learn it. [/B]



That's an inside joke that I wouldn't expect you to understand. Solrac is my personal friend. I will, however, take your advice and learn some more.

- Marco Machado


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## klamps (May 30, 2002)

> Biggest advantage is not crashing constantly like those d@%^ Windoze computers do.  I run a 300mhz G3 with OSX (1997/1998 technology) and have VERY LITTLE (maybe once a month) problems with it.  However, when I run the Dells at a remote location (866 PIII and a 1.6 P4) we have nothing but problems.  Every 10-20 minutes Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, or InDesign will cause the M$ Windoze (98 & ME) to crash. Not only is this time wasted in a business enviroment, it is a royal pain in the a$$!  My stress levels are 300 times less, while my productivity is 100 times more on the Macs.



Any computer can crash. That's due to how computers work. My Windows doesn't crash very often either. I run Windows 2000 and I know that 98/ME is just crappy. I'm not saying that 2000 is perfect, but is alot better than 98/ME. Solrac used to have major problems with a G4 (OS 9)before, just as I had problems with 98. So you see, Macs can crash just as often as PCs.



> As far as ease of use, it's been proven to the Mac's advantage before.A network admin had his but kicked by a 12 old in a machine set-up, and configuration test between Windoze and Mac machines.  The veteran took 45 minutes to setup the Windoze machine and get it online...the 12 year old got the mac up and online in 10-15 minutes.  Now which was easier to setup?  Oh, did I mention the Windoze machine crashed when the guy finally got it online...embarrasing eh?



I know that Macs have a history of being easy to use. That's why M$ copied (poorly) Apple back then. A person that takes 45 minutes to configure a machine that crashes, cannot be called a veteran. This doesn't sound like a real story either. If both computers were brand new, freshly out of the box, I would expect both to take about the same time to setup. I recently bought a Sony laptop PC and I had it running in about 10 minutes. And no, it didn't crash.



> The ony reason Windoze seems better for home users is that that's all they know.  I started on a Commadore 64, progressed to a 386DX33 (WIN 3.1, later 95), a P-100 with 95 & 98, and finally my Mac 300 G3 with 8.6, then the 9 series and X series.  *All future purchases will be Macs*.  I spent most of my time online through a freenet using lynx from a 2400 modem dialup on a Unix provider.  That was in 93.  later to the smoking 14.4, and the killer 56k.  Now it's a 768k DSL line.  Sometimes I wish we were back in the days of text only, at least you could find what you're looking for.  I'd rather my computer work correctly and efficently...the mac does, the Dell doesn't.



I never said that Windows is better for home users. As you said before, and I agree, Macs are easier to use. Funny thing, my second computer was a Commodore 64. I still have it. Altough it does run that good anymore. Seems that they didn't use good silicon for the memory chips. The only way to make it run is to have a super-fan on top of the chips. Anyway, if you say that you run Macs, how can you say that Dell's ****? My PC seems to run just fine for me, and I built it myself.

- Marco Machado


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## klamps (May 30, 2002)

> Steve Jobs said it himself at the Xserve demo: Sun is the only company which provides the hardware, its own software (OS), and the support channel, all from the same company. Apple is now the second.



Read RacerX's first reply. He claims that there are other companies that do the same thing, and I have to agree. It didn't come to my mind when I replied to you, but those companies DO offer hardware and software on their own. So who's right?



> This is very cool info. Did Apple develop NextStep from scratch???



Wait! Did Apple develop NextStep? I though it was Jobs' other company.



> Yes, once more, proving that Mac OS X is not a completely new system. It has been tried and tested and proven since the late 80's. It's Apple's fault for not publicizing this on their Mac OS X page and their XServe page. That's a big selling point!!!



Funny. This is the first time you say this. Did you forget about this before?



> Yes I agree this whole "Apple hates developers" thing is a very poor argument.



Sigh. Then Apple developers are talking out of their a$$es.



> Yes, free Dev tools rock. And klamps, isn't the .NET project builder thing like a lot of money??? Heheheh. Apple is pretty much su cking developer's cocks right now to show them how much they are appreciated and needed.



VisualStudio.NET costs money, but you can download the SDK for free.



> Yes you are right. But klamps comes from the point of view of starting your own company, where you are your own server admin, so he was not actively thinking about an employer who needs to hire a guy, and choose a box.



But it's basically the same thing. You still have to do it. So you can have an idea of how much it would cost.



> Yeah I heard Red Hat was having $$$ problems. Sure they have public stock but that doesn't mean much. Still, I'm sure they have more money than Azteca.net, and Vmatrix HAHAHAHAH.



Considering that Vmatrix actually paid my $59.80 and Mario, well ... Yes they do have more money. =)



> Trust me, klamps is definetely ultimately brain dead because he has eaten too many jumbo jacks and smoked too many cigarettes. Wait, actually the reason is because he hangs out with Jobby too much. HAHAHHA. Why is jobby not posting in this thread?????????



That's actually not true. Even though I had some jj's last week, I had not eaten a single jj this week. I do smoke lots of cigarettes though. And I haven't seen Jobby since monday. And he's not posting because he's too lazy to create an account.

- Marco Machado


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## klamps (May 31, 2002)

> Actually. No, it can't. I go to tafe, and they use ibm pcs there. everyone else there uses pcs at home. i am ALWAYS hearing about how this happened or that happened. my friend recently went from win98 to win2k on his pc. guess what. the first release of win2k DIDN'T SUPPORT AGP. What's that you say, server OS. IT WAS PROFESSIONAL EDITION. ya know, the one that was SUPPOSED to replace win98 on desktops. I will admit right here, that i do not like having to use linux. i am not used to it, and sometimes things seem kinda backwards. but i would prefer to live my entire life having to use linux badly than using windows at an expert level, because no amount of know-how can stop windows from crashing. today i heard a story of someone's pc not booting to XP because they installed a burning program. thats right. clone-cd made XP hang at the loading screen. i admit that Macs have faults. even X. i had to re-install it today because it was bein stupid and the partition had some funky error. it still isnt quite right. i have had a couple of scary screens at bootup with text saying kernel panic, and we are halted. but because it is unix, i know it is happening for a reason, not because it's some dodgy microsoft ****. and now i can say two people have tried to tell me that MS owns Apple. funny thing is, the last guy was full of **** too.



I don't suppose you read my other replies. I hate Windows. But is something that I have to use because of my work. I develop for the web and there are no good tools for Linux. I'd rather run Linux on all my computers, but I simply can't. Sometimes I have to connect to a M$ SQL server, and they only have tools for Windows. So you see, you're wrong about me.

Problems can happen to any computer. Remember the iPod issue?

But you can't deny that M$ does own Apple shares, and that saved the company some years ago. Hey! I don't like AOL owning Red Hat either. But ....

- Marco Machado


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## RacerX (May 31, 2002)

> *I'm a not Mac developer, but why is everybody else complaining? If what you say is true, then why people talk **** about Apple? I'm talking about Mac developers.*



I think that is very vague. Windows developers complain far more than Mac developers (with better reason, considering the number of Windows software companies that Microsoft has forced out of business). And I assume that you use Linux for your desktop, and anyone who has written for X-Windows (specially if they have been around for more than ten years) knows just how broken that system has become, but in that case, the developers need only look to them selves for not sticking with standards. I think I can sum up my feelings for X-Windows and what it has become with the following:


X-Windows: ...A mistake carried out to perfection. 
X-Windows: ...Dissatisfaction guaranteed. 
X-Windows: ...Don't get frustrated without it. 
X-Windows: ...Even your dog won't like it. 
X-Windows: ...Flaky and built to stay that way. 
X-Windows: ...Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. 
X-Windows: ...Flawed beyond belief. 
X-Windows: ...Form follows malfunction. 
X-Windows: ...Garbage at your fingertips. 
X-Windows: ...Ignorance is our most important resource. 
X-Windows: ...It could be worse, but it'll take time. 
X-Windows: ...It could happen to you. 
X-Windows: ...Japan's secret weapon. 
X-Windows: ...Let it get in *your* way. 
X-Windows: ...Live the nightmare. 
X-Windows: ...More than enough rope. 
X-Windows: ...Never had it, never will. 
X-Windows: ...No hardware is safe. 
X-Windows: ...Power tools for power fools. 
X-Windows: ...Putting new limits on productivity. 
X-Windows: ...Simplicity made complex. 
X-Windows: ...The cutting edge of obsolescence. 
X-Windows: ...The art of incompetence. 
X-Windows: ...The defacto substandard. 
X-Windows: ...The first fully modular software disaster. 
X-Windows: ...The joke that kills. 
X-Windows: ...The problem for your problem. 
X-Windows: ...There's got to be a better way. 
X-Windows: ...Warn your friends about it. 
X-Windows: ...You'd better sit down. 
X-Windows: ...You'll envy the dead.
Um, yeah... you were saying something about Mac developers not liking Apple or something like that?



> *Actually, I manage servers (Linux and Windows) myself. I have servers that run without any problems, including Windows servers. So it doesn't really matter what kind of server it is, as long as you know what you're doing. So I could get a PC, install Linux, configure the network and leave it alone. They just need to call me when the computer crashes, which is not very often. Unless, of course, the hardware is faulty. Which can happen to a Mac as well. So it really depends on what kind of activity you have going on that server. Therefore, the answer is not that clear.*



So your saying that managing tasks on Linux is as easy as on Mac OS X Server? That you could leave a server configured in the hands of someone without admin experience and you would not be needed again after that. I make it a point to make sure that if I fall off the face of the Earth tomorrow, that my clients systems aren't going to cost them an arm and a leg to get someone else in their to figure out what I have been doing up to that point (seeing as I have been in that position far too many times). I feel I should _only_ be there for _real_ problems, not because the only way to perform a task is via command line (when the task is not that complex and a GUI would let almost anyone do it).

Most terminal jockeys live to keep people in the dark. They want to be the _only_ solution to _any_ problem (no matter how small). I believe this is not the way to do good business, and Apple has produced a product (and AppleShare IP and Mac OS X Server 1.x where just as good) that does what is best for the consumer. 

You, for yourself, can and should do what you want. I just hate to see people who need solutions being held hostage by people who really don't need to be there. Command line servers are going the way of the DOS desktops, most people are smart enough to solve problems when they aren't hidden in cryptic commands, and Apple has made strides towards that type of server solution.

Like I said, it is very clear (just not to those it would adversely effect  ).



> *Solrac is my personal friend.*



That's good to know, I was worried about some of the harsh comments.



> *Even though I had some jj's last week, I had not eaten a single jj this week.*



Ive had to go 5 years without a Jumbo Jack... life is hard here in Siberia.

Oh, and I think I forgot to mension that Windows NT was designed to be POSIX compliant originally (versions 3.1, 3.51 and 4.0) but I dont know if Microsoft kept it up through to 2000 and xp.


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## phatsharpie (May 31, 2002)

That according to Red Hat's latest SEC filing, its 2002 adjusted fiscal net income was -$140,000,000. In other words, RH *lost* $140 million last year.

They are not making money.

And the decision for Suse, Caldera, TurboLinux, etc. to united together to create UnitedLinux is as much a fiscal one as a technical one. The truth is that none of the Linux distrubitors have been able to make money via the open sourced model as of yet. This bothers me a great deal, because I think Linux is a great alternative on in the Intel world. However, to think that any of these companies are in a comfortable position is a major mistake.

RacerX, you rock!!! Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if OpenStep followed its course with Sun... Oh well.

P.S. Link to RH's SEC filings... http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=RHAT&script=700


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## klamps (May 31, 2002)

> I think that is very vague. Windows developers complain far more than Mac developers (with better reason, considering the number of Windows software companies that Microsoft has forced out of business). And I assume that you use Linux for your desktop, and anyone who has written for X-Windows (specially if they have been around for more than ten years) knows just how broken that system has become, but in that case, the developers need only look to them selves for not sticking with standards. I think I can sum up my feelings for X-Windows and what it has become with the following:
> Um, yeah... you were saying something about Mac developers not liking Apple or something like that?



I'm not a X-Windows developer nor I use Linux on my desktop. But I would like to. I simply can't because of my work, as explained on a previous reply.



> So your saying that managing tasks on Linux is as easy as on Mac OS X Server? That you could leave a server configured in the hands of someone without admin experience and you would not be needed again after that. I make it a point to make sure that if I fall off the face of the Earth tomorrow, that my clients systems aren't going to cost them an arm and a leg to get someone else in their to figure out what I have been doing up to that point (seeing as I have been in that position far too many times). I feel I should _only_ be there for _real_ problems, not because the only way to perform a task is via command line (when the task is not that complex and a GUI would let almost anyone do it).



Yes. Linux, specifically Red Hat, DO have administrative tools on the X environment. Graphical tools. I take you are a very good sysadmin, therefore your hourly rate is not cheap. But I would expect another person to able to offer the same services for the same price. So, if you don't cost an arm and a leg, why would anybody else?



> Most terminal jockeys live to keep people in the dark. They want to be the _only_ solution to _any_ problem (no matter how small). I believe this is not the way to do good business, and Apple has produced a product (and AppleShare IP and Mac OS X Server 1.x where just as good) that does what is best for the consumer.



I agree with you. I never leave a customer in doubt and I encourage them to learn what I've done. I drove many times to customer's locations to do something real simple. Every single time I explained what caused the problem and the easiest way to fix it themselves.



> That's good to know, I was worried about some of the harsh comments.



Don't worry. We do that on a constant basis. =)



> Ive had to go 5 years without a Jumbo Jack... life is hard here in Siberia.



That's one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Can't imagine life without JJs.

- Marco Machado


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## [Scizo] (May 31, 2002)

> Windows is not POSIX compliant by default, but there are emulators. But that doesn't matter because it has it's own API.



Hmmm... as for the Windows API it's basicly just a big load of cr*p!!! ... I'll take GTK+/Gnome programming over it _any_ day...

Ever wonder why the Windows API documentation ships on a DVD rom ?? ..  it's your DLL h*ll all over again.
I havent had the time to study the Cocoa API yet.. (just bought my first Mac last week).. But from what i can tell the API is pretty small, which is good because it allows you to learn it / get familiar with it very quickly, and thus produce better bug free code. (fewer functions == better understanding)


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## lonny (May 31, 2002)

And welcome onboard!


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## charmkat (May 31, 2002)

Are you guys just plucking this stuff out of the air?

First off, MS doesn't own any of Apple, and hasn't for a long time, they sold their shares for a healthy profit years ago.  When Apples shares went from the high teens to the mid 70's.  And the only reason they did that wasn't to "Bail apple out" as many think, but as a gesture to cement their good intentions with Apple back in 1997.  In return, apple dropped the lawsuits against MS for stealing the mac os GUI.

Anyway, I digress....

As for OS X being open source, it is.  To a point. BSD is an open source operating system.  MAC OS X isn't.  Apple has a team of engineers that work on the open source foundations of the operating system. Any changes they make, (Legally) they have to share with the open source community.  Aqua, Carbon, Cocoa, Classic, and all those other things, are not open source, they are apple owned intellectual property. that is why you arne't able to modify Aqua, or change the Carbon Development environment for your own needs. They are provided as tools and or the GUI for Mac OS X, which is "Based" on an open source operating system.

So I hope this lays that part of this drawn out argument to rest.

As for the quote that was made regarding Apple not caring about developers, that is totally untrue. Perhaps in the dark days of Gil and Scully, but since 1997 when Mr Jobs returned, Apple has been agressively marketing itself to developers.  That is why they have such a good Developers program.   Apple knows that to survive they need developers to write new software to keep the platform valid.  Apple doesn't want to write ALL of its own software.  If they did, they wouldn't be courting developers.  The reason apple makes software such as iTunes, iMovie, Final Cut Pro etc., is because they are wonderful showcase products.  Apple is a Hardware company and makes the majority of their revenue from hardware sales, not software.  They make these great products becasue they showcase their hardware the way they want it to be.  iMovie is a great program because it has to be, same with Final cut Pro.  and iDVD.  It is basically saying.  "Look what our systems are capable of!"

All this other stuff is so subjective.  Arguing about which OS is better and whose hardware is better is stupid.  Use whatever makes you most productive and which one you enjoy using.  I personally worked in a company that used only PC's and I was fine with that because PC's did what we needed them to do. However, we could have used mac's.  We used all cross platform software (photoshop, flash, director etc.) They jsut chose PC's.

I personally prefer Apple because of the innovation that always comes out of the company.  When new hardware nad software is announced it is actuallyl exciting.  How many Dell rumor sites are on the net?  I can't even think of 1. That's because Dell/HP/etc. make the same product with a different name. They have no intellectual property. The only way Dell is innovative is because they developed a really good sales and production strategy that keeps them making money.  Apple however actually owns intellectual property. They developed FireWire, they have an OS (2), 3 if you count Newton's, their own programming environments, a world renowned industrial design department, as well as a bunch of really , really, great software.

So as much as I love Apple Hardware, these debates over which one is better is stupid and repetative.  People who hate Apple now, could one day come to love our platform.  My uncle used to tease me all the time saying "oh what a cute little toy " or "Apple is going out of business".  Now is he trying to find a deal on a new G4 system becuase he has found Mac's to be much better to run ProTools on for music, and he is really, really excited about buying one.  

So, arguing is stupid, each platform has their strengths and weaknesses.

Just enjoy the platform you enjoy and leave it at that......

****ing contests are a big waste of time because the guy you are arguing with is never going to just stop and go "wow you are right, I'm gonna get myself a PC/Mac today..."  it just isn't going to happen...


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## ex2bot (Jun 1, 2002)

Get both (Mac and PC)

I have both. I like my OS X better. I like my PeeCee games. I always thought it would be fun to have:

a NeXT
a Unix box
NT
a laptop
a home LAN


Now I have them all. 

You can have them all.

You simply must have them all.

quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Blah blah blah

Why spend money on Mac?
We hate Windoz.
*nix is for U
Steve Jobs wears women's underwear.
Don't buy a Mac. Geeks will laugh at you.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Brilliant points!  


Doug

(Add Compaq to my computer list below. I'm so proud. By the way, What the H*LL is Windows ME?)


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## solrac (Jun 2, 2002)

My argument is that Mac OS X is the best OS in the world, when applied to the most amount of people: meaning, OS X would be the best choice for the highest number of people. That's very exciting, and I could never say that about Apple's OS before.

Now that it is Mac OS X, it can fulfill the needs of Apple's professional users, as it always has (video editing, graphics, print, etc.), AND it's better for home users (stability, no crashing, easy to use, etc.), AND it works within the UNIX environment and can be a server, and use standard awesome tools such as Apache and PHP, etc. etc. It's EVERYTHING, and does it better.

The only things macs are not just plain better for:
1) Web browsing in a browser, especially flash playback.
  - this will be mostly fixed when 10.2 comes out and quartz rendering is much faster, and also when Chimera/Navigator matures and becomes the fastest stable browser for macs, unless IE 5.5 renders 100x faster. Either way, this drawback will be fixed soon. As for flash playback, that may never be fixed unless Macromedia does something about it.

2) Development in certain areas
  - I heard there's no good editors for PHP and the like. I know of many but they do not seem as good as some you can get on Windows.  Even if there's editors I haven't heard about, when a developer is really used to his set up and software, it's really hard to switch platforms, and I don't think the mac is just plain better for this. And of course if you're a .NET guy or an M$ developer you can't use a mac.

3) Games
  - Currently some of the most popular games are not out for mac, like Half-Life/Counterstrike. Soon, hopefully, this will no longer be the case. But for now it is.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. For everything else, Mac OS X is the best OS there is, to the most people, but of COURSE, not for everyone.


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