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Why UNIX and Mac OS X Beat Windows

I personally prefer OSX over windows.  Except for the game part. 

I really wish they had managed to get a strong community founded around Darwin. That would have been epic.

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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A lot of power users depend on OS X actually. Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech and John Siracusa of Ars Technica, just to name a few.

 

I'd include myself in that list but I'm not qualified to be with the likes of them. I am what you'd call a power user though.

Allot of people in who are in the same AVG group as me use OSX.  They say it just works and its not OSX as an operating system its that Apple makes it stable due to the limited hardware it can function on it allows Apple to make OSX really stable.  I've never once had a problem with OSX, except for the games. 

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I really wish they had managed to get a strong community founded around Darwin. That would have been epic.

Yeah.  There aren't even any Apple stores here.  So imagine how I feel. 

 

Although, its interesting how a bunch of developers use OSX.  My Uncle uses OSX, hes used the same OSX for about 7 years, no problems.  But he translates for a big software company, and he says OSX is best for when you need to get work done and you have no time for any problems. 

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TL;DR

apple is a locked-down user-friendly OS for old people.

 

Nothing about OS X is really locked down...iOS is, but OS X? Please give some examples as to how it is more locked down than Windows...

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Technically speaking, it's less limited because it's fully UNIX compliant. 

Except for the closed-source parts of OS X. Then again, there are some closed-source components of Linux, but that depends a lot on the distribution - some are fully open-source and don't use proprietary drivers or binary blobs. 

 

Looking at the licensing though, Apple uses mostly the BSD license for their open-source components, which is less restrictive than GPL, iirc. 

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I haven't read this whole thing yet (skimmed some parts), but I will at some point. I have wanted to learn more about Unix and other "power user oriented" things for a while. 

My only qualm with OS X will always be hardware related. I want to be able to manually upgrade my stuff because that's what I enjoy. In part, I can with some Mac systems, and yes, hackintosh's are things, but that's a lot of work on top of actually building the systems and such. Maybe I'm just imagining it to be more than it is, but eh. 

Still, good write up. :D

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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OSX is a, not physically but technically a more "Limited" distro of Linux. Perhaps for people who dont want to learn how to use Linux can use something more basic like OSX.

 

Tell me how it is limited or what you really miss from the things you can do with other Linux distros.

Because it isn't as easy to switch desktop environments or window managers?

Because Auqa isn't X11 based?

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Getting real tired of all the windows hate. It's getting old.

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A lot of power users depend on OS X actually. Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech and John Siracusa of Ars Technica, just to name a few.

 

I'd include myself in that list but I'm not qualified to be with the likes of them. I am what you'd call a power user though.

 

Yeah i did post in my comment, there are some powerfull apps and software apple specific, so naturally you speak the truth. But that's being a professional needing pricey professional software. Home users profit from simplicity and safety more than these things.

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If unix supported a lot of games i would use it for sure

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If unix supported a lot of games i would use it for sure

 

OSX is getting there. I've 319 games in my steam library 191 having Mac versions on steam. I say on steam because many of the 2K, and id software games I own on steam do have mac versions. Although thanks to publisher shenanigans those versions aren't on steam for some reason.

Never mind GOG, Humble, the Mac App Store, Game Agent, GreenManGaming, GamersGate and so many other places. You know consoles have it bad when even Macs have more games , than most consoles combined. Along with good ole backwards compatibility to the 80's for games, DOS, and of course emulation.

 

The thing OS X lacks the most are "AAA" games, which we all know are hardly even B  for quality some times. Although Aspyr, and Feral Interactive have been porting those in increasing numbers over the years. Thanks to Aspyr, Civilisation Beyond Earth will launch on both OS X, and Linux later this year. The Linux team is around 2 people, with some Mac devs often jumping in as well.

 

The main reason the *nix systems have lacked games was Direct3D's prominence( MS also played some dirty tricks and spread some FUD ), and OpenGL's inability to actually remove legacy garbage, and get a consolidated, and updated version out. Now with version 4.4 it's ahead of Direct 3D again, and recently AMD have given the Khronos group all of Mantle to implement. They were already working with Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA to drastically reduce driver calls for improved performance.

NVIDIA, AMD, Intel Explain How OpenGL Can Unlock 15x Performance Gains

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/opengl-gdc2014/

 

Sure at the moment Windows is still the dominant OS for gaming, but times are a changing, and with Steam OS also slowly crawling out, and engines such as Unity, and Unreal 4 the competition can only benefit us all.

 

EDIT: Whoops forgot the folks behind Kingdom Come : Deliverance are even porting Cryengine to OpenGL, which only benefits everyone, and the game is coming to Mac OS X and Linux. :)

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Great post Builder. Didn't really know that Mac OS had anything to do with Linux.

LTT's unofficial Windows activation expert.
 

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Except for the closed-source parts of OS X. Then again, there are some closed-source components of Linux, but that depends a lot on the distribution - some are fully open-source and don't use proprietary drivers or binary blobs. 

 

Looking at the licensing though, Apple uses mostly the BSD license for their open-source components, which is less restrictive than GPL, iirc. 

No, the whole thing is Unix Single Standard compliant. Keep in mind that the original UNIX was completely closed source, the idea of an open Unix came to being with GNU.

 

And yes, BSD is less restrictive. It's non-copyleft, which you can read about at the link I posted in the OP.

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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Tell me how it is limited or what you really miss from the things you can do with other Linux distros.

Because it isn't as easy to switch desktop environments or window managers?

Because Auqa isn't X11 based?

You'll not get much sympathy from me for attacking Linux, Linux is really quite miraculous and it definitely has a place that OS X doesn't, specifically servers and supercomputing.

 

However xorg has a Mac version, allowing you to run most x-based Linux applications after a relatively simple recompile. You can also change window managers and windowing systems on OS X, my favorite is called Hydra and can be found here: https://github.com/mjolnir-io/mjolnir

 

Great post Builder. Didn't really know that Mac OS had anything to do with Linux.

It was really only tangentially related, but OS X was born of the free software movement and that time period, so I thought it prudent to include.

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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You'll not get much sympathy from me for attacking Linux, Linux is really quite miraculous and it definitely has a place that OS X doesn't, specifically servers and supercomputing.

*confused* Did you quote the wrong person or am I misunderstanding things?

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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TL;DR

apple is a locked-down user-friendly OS for old people.

 

you are thinking of Windows XP there.

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it's stupid.  - Albert Einstein

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*confused* Did you quote the wrong person or am I misunderstanding things?

I didn't quote you?

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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I didn't quote you?

No, but following the quotes back, it looks like you meant to quote who MrSuperb quoted and not MrSuperb. *confused still*

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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No, but following the quotes back, it looks like you meant to quote who MrSuperb quoted and not MrSuperb. *confused still*

No, that was the quote I intended. There are plenty of great reasons to use Linux, which is why I don't think it's acceptable to attack Linux users and compounded with that he was just wrong about a few things.

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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No, that was the quote I intended. There are plenty of great reasons to use Linux, which is why I don't think it's acceptable to attack Linux users and compounded with that he was just wrong about a few things.

Then yeah, I guess I am just confused since I don't use OSX at all and Linux barely. Because it looks like Superb is asking how OSX is limited compared to Linux. Then lists things OSX can't do that Linux can. So I don't see how it's attacking Linux.

But again, it's probably because I'm not familiar with the two OSes.

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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Then yeah, I guess I am just confused since I don't use OSX at all and Linux barely. Because it looks like Superb is asking how OSX is limited compared to Linux. Then lists things OSX can't do that Linux can. So I don't see how it's attacking Linux.

But again, it's probably because I'm not familiar with the two OSes.

He was saying that OS X isn't limited because the things Linux users like are pointless and stupid, essentially. He was wrong about a couple of points, regardless of being incorrect overall. What's more important is that you don't get stuck using Windows.

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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What's more important is that you don't get stuck using Windows.

 

I wouldn't go as far as to say someone is stuck using windows. Win 8 and 8.1, for all their bad stuff are highly optimized software and generally great. BUT, it's always good to be knowelegeable in oother os-es. If you never tried, you can't tell if you like them better

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I wouldn't go as far as to say someone is stuck using windows. Win 8 and 8.1, for all their bad stuff are highly optimized software and generally great. BUT, it's always good to be knowelegeable in oother os-es. If you never tried, you can't tell if you like them better

Highly optimized? At what, being impossible to use?

 

Windows 8.1 is bloated as hell, a 64-bit install requires nearly 20GB of install space ALONE. The user interface sucks, badly. It just doesn't make sense, (inb4 GoodBytes says it does), especially not compared to the other Windows OSes. I've used Windows for awhile, I would know. Windows also uses a file system that requires defragmentation, and doesn't support RAM compression. Along with that it contains no open source components and is not designed for modularity the way any UNIX-derived system is. In OS X, I can change the windowing system, window manager, file system, and a host of other core system utilities to suit my liking. This is even more true for GNU/Linux in which almost anything can be exchanged for something else. 

 

Windows is a black box that doesn't even have the redeeming quality of being familiar anymore. Who knows, maybe Windows 9 will introduce some open source components, make the install size under 5GB, support RAM compression, alternate filesystems, and suddenly become modular. But Microsoft has shown that they can't even make minimal let alone radical changes to system internals in three years, so I strongly doubt the above will happen.

 

Really the only reason to use Windows these days is if you're a AAA gamer, because most other games have been ported to Mac and Linux. Humble Bundle, for instance, insists on multi platform support.

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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Okay, I think it's time to unfollow this thread.

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