Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Poll

What is your OS? (operating system)

Windows PC/Surface/Phone
[ 8 ] (25%)
Mac/iThingy
[ 2 ] (6.3%)
*nix/BSD
[ 12 ] (37.5%)
Android/GoogleOS
[ 7 ] (21.9%)
Blackberry
[ 0 ] (0%)
Other
[ 3 ] (9.4%)

Total Members Voted: 17

Topic: What is your OS? (operating system) (Read 29352 times)

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #75 –
I had to finish a project about eight years ago. My laptop had broken and I was able to borrow someone's Mac to do it. At the time it felt faster and more responsive than Windows Vista on the same hardware (first release of Boot Camp). Is that still relevant? Given how my six-year-old computer is a speed monster in Linux and comparatively a bit of a slug in Windows 7, I should think so. This makes the experience subtly preferable in a way that it's hard to put your finger on. It's kind of the same way in which Windows Phone and iPhone offer a superior experience to even the most powerful Android phones, or of course how Opera is traditionally more pleasant to use than all other browsers.

The rest you've been able to experience in Unity. It's pretty much a direct Mac clone, and where it isn't (like the global menu not appearing until you hover) it's almost invariably for the worse. This means you've got an application-centric model of working, which I don't care for too much. First switch to the application you want and then to the document within that application which you want. Perhaps it's just because I've been using the "Windows" model of Alt+Tab for two decades.

Similarly, Photoshop on Mac OS works like GIMP — or rather the other way around. Your documents are individual windows, rather than all contained within one window. This is probably better for multi-monitor setups. On Windows it'd be a nightmare. In Linux you have workspaces; in Mac OS you have "Spaces".

The whole window thumbnail thing which I despise because only the document name differentiates one text document from another — it actually works fairly well while you're editing graphics.

So what do I like? You've typically got a more consistent and (by default) much better looking GUI than in Windows, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Apple contributes to this situation by making e.g iTunes for Windows look like a freaking Mac app. Also, back on Windows, all else being equal, I went with the most native-looking app, so as a user you play an active role in the matter.

The hardware is good, like I said. It's hard to find 16:10 aspect ratios and their "HiDPI" or "Retina" displays are a joy to look at. I wouldn't mind putting the iMac 5k on my desk. On the flipside, Apple mice and keyboards are atrocious. Also don't forget about stuff like color profiles, which especially on Linux is a bit trickier to handle with printers and displays (luckily I don't really care about it at this point in time). There are all kinds of small things along those lines which Apple pays attention to, while on Windows they are left to incompatible, weird, and often just plain awful individual hardware drivers.

So why don't I own a Mac? Eh, the display is tempting. Other than that, it's just not worth its price tag for me. Debian Xfce as my main OS is close to perfect. The only thing "missing" (I miss it like a toothache) is Microsoft Office 365, but I can run that in VirtualBox.

Edit: and here's some supposedly pretty decent Mac-only software (for Adobe isn't the be all and end all):
http://www.pixelmator.com/
http://bohemiancoding.com/sketch/

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #76 –
I have roughly the same reasons for never having bought a Mac, even though in my case I have begun buying computers only very recently, just a few years ago. Until then other people had things I could use, so I didn't need to buy my own.

Once upon a time during G3 era I was thinking about buying this one, but the price was too high.


In Apple stores I have admired the displays of iMacs, but the keyboards and mice are ridiculous. And I know now from Ubuntu Unity that I could not work too long in the interface. If iMac came without OS, it would have a chance of being bought by me.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #77 –
Peppermint Linux OS , based on Lubuntu 14.04.  I had this guy using only 183 megs ram when first installed. After adding some of my own stuff, including Dropbox, it uses 300 or so on after first booting up.

Huh, the forum makes understandable mistakes when identifying the browsers and OS. The first one is already mentioned and this is Chromium, not Chrome.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #78 –
You can see the UA if you hover over the icon.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #79 –
Quote from: Sanguinemoon on

Peppermint Linux OS , based on Lubuntu 14.04.  I had this guy using only 183 megs ram when first installed. After adding some of my own stuff, including Dropbox, it uses 300 or so on after first booting up.

What is the desktop? Their website doesn't say. LXDE?

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #80 –
It does say. :P

Quote from: http://peppermintos.com/about/
The default desktop environment for Peppermint is LXDE (literally, "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment") which has shown itself time and again to be user friendly, easy on the eyes, and wicked fast.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #81 –
Oh, I didn't notice. My search skills are getting ever poorer. At least I guessed right.

I haven't used LXDE (not knowingly anyway). How does it compare with Xfce?

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #82 –
I have installed Debian LXDE on a netbook, taking only 90 MB RAM after boot and login. :D
I have used LXDE for a long time. I haven't used Xfce ever, but I know a little how LXDE compares to Gnome. LXDE is light and fast, and its UI resembles Windows classic desktop. Its text editor is very basic and its file manager has some annoyances (keyboard shortcuts are poor and it's not easy to open files in Samba shared folders). Access to system settings is poor and somehow bugged. As a whole, it pleases me. If I need to accomplish some task that's not supported in LXDE, I switch to Gnome for a while.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #83 –
Quote from: Barulheira on

I have installed Debian LXDE on a netbook, taking only 90 MB RAM after boot and login. :D

Sounds great. My Openbox, generally considered a lightweight window manager, on a netbook is 140 MB with some autostart goodies, such as Tint toolbar with icons, Conky, Compton, Parcellite, Thunar, etc. But at least I never miss another desktop environment when I work in it. Particularly keyboard shortcuts are perfect(ly customisable).

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #84 –
As someone who never had much attention on Macs, a basic question occurred to me.

It's said that Mac OS X is UNIX-based. Does this mean that when you open up the command prompt or terminal emulator, you can operate it like a UNIX?

And does any of you Mac users actually do it?

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #85 –
Quote from: ersi on
It's said that Mac OS X is UNIX-based. Does this mean that when you open up the command prompt or terminal emulator, you can operate it like a UNIX?

Mac OS does not come with the GNU Core Utilities by default, but its shell is Bash and I imagine it comes preinstalled with equivalents for common things like grep.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #86 –
Quote from: ersi on

As someone who never had much attention on Macs, a basic question occurred to me.

It's said that Mac OS X is UNIX-based. Does this mean that when you open up the command prompt or terminal emulator, you can operate it like a UNIX?

Yes. It comes with a mostly BSD-ish userland and at least up to 10.4 also included an Xserver, nfs client and so on.
Some things like administration and stuff that normally goes to /etc are different but that's mostly NEXTSTEP heritage.

Quote from: ersi on

And does any of you Mac users actually do it?

I used to when I still ran OSX.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #87 –
Quote from: Macallan on

It comes with a mostly BSD-ish userland and at least up to 10.4 also included an Xserver, nfs client and so on.
Some things like administration and stuff that normally goes to /etc are different but that's mostly NEXTSTEP heritage.

That's interesting to know. Unfortunately I don't have much clue about BSD and NEXTSTEP either. Insofar as Mac has deliberate differences from BSD, it seems not worth the effort to learn it.

Quote from: Macallan on

Quote from: ersi on

And does any of you Mac users actually do it?

I used to when I still ran OSX.

I will wait for Jim's and Oak's statements too. (Not really waiting, just giving them an opportunity I know they will never use.)

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #88 –
Quote from: ersi on

Quote from: Macallan on

It comes with a mostly BSD-ish userland and at least up to 10.4 also included an Xserver, nfs client and so on.
Some things like administration and stuff that normally goes to /etc are different but that's mostly NEXTSTEP heritage.

That's interesting to know. Unfortunately I don't have much clue about BSD and NEXTSTEP either.

IIRC the GNU userland is based on early BSD. If ps -aux gives you a list of all processes you're using something BSD-ish. The standard shell is bash, but it comes with tcsh, sh, ksh and so on.

Quote from: ersi on

Insofar as Mac has deliberate differences from BSD, it seems not worth the effort to learn it.

The differences are almost all administration and library handling ( they're not using ELF binaries ). In my experience it's not much weirder ( compared to Debian or *BSD ) than Solaris or AIX.

In fact I used to cross-build NetBSD on a G5 running OSX 10.5 with sources mounted via nfs. The only thing to watch out for was the fact that by default the filesystem will be case preserving but insensitive. Up to 10.4 OSX supported a modified BSD filesystem ( Apple UFS ) which behaves like, well, UFS, and after that HFS+ can be case sensitive.

Re: What is your OS? (operating system)

Reply #90 –
Quote from: Macallan on

The standard shell is bash, but it comes with tcsh, sh, ksh and so on.

sh is also something pre-installed on my machine. Great![/quote]
I have yet to see any UNIX-ish OS that didn't come with at least sh and csh. Most include ksh as well. Some commercial UNIXes have rather ancient versions though, Solaris for example.