After another phone call to TNT this morning, they arranged to deliver my package between 2pm and 5pm this afternoon, and even rang me to say it was on its way. From the sounds of it the address label had come off the package so perhaps it was delivered to the wrong place yesterday. Then again it might have just been a poor excuse for messing up previously, but overall I think they have redeemed themselves and now I have my parcel I don’t care either way. 🙂
Anyway, as you may have guessed from the title the contents of the package was a shiny new 15” Apple Powerbook. “Hang on!”, you might say, “what on earth is Mr Mac Basher doing with a Powerbook?!” Well, if you’ll indulge me for a moment I will explain…
Ever since I bought my first issue of Linux Format (Christmas 2000, although I had read other Linux magazines occassionally before then), I’ve been playing around with various distributions because I was sick and tired of Windows crashing on me every five minutes (ok, that’s a bit of an exagguration—it was more like every 10 minutes :). After using most of the major ones, I finally settled down with Gentoo some time in 2004 and thought that would be the end of it.
Unfortunately, whilst Linux is a great operating system and has a lot of things going for it (especially for people like me who like to tinker endlessly and run development tools), it isn’t quite ready for the desktop yet. Hardware detection is good, but not polished enough for the majority of end users. I know Lewis has offered several times to install things for me (including FreeBSD), but on my existing laptop I didn’t have the time to mess about trying to get my Centrino wireless card working and I couldn’t afford to do anything too complicated because I relied on the machine being available all the time for my university and freelance work.
So, what I wanted was something with the stability and power of Linux (including the development tools for programming) but that also had the ease of use that I enjoy in Windows (although over the past 6 months I’ve found my productivity nosedives when I boot any operating system originating from Redmond). The only system that I have found that fulfils these requirements is OS X. The GUI is also fantastic, but I could make KDE work in a similar way if I really wanted to and I like fluxbox so it wasn’t a deciding factor.
At the moment I’m still getting used to the Mac and don’t feel quite comfortable enough to throw away my x86 laptop (apart from anything else, I haven’t moved all my data over yet). However, the long time plan is to use the Powerbook for pretty much all my work, because it does exactly what I want from an operating system.
For those of you who think I’m a nutcase for not sticking with Linux, do not despair. I will still have at least two Linux systems available to me for development purposes. The great thing now is that I also have every major platform and browser to test my work in (code, web sites etc), although from the looks of things my sites all present themselves reasonably in OS X already.
Anyway, I’m going to be gradually learning how to use the Mac properly over the next couple of weeks. If you have any great tips for using OS X, please let me know!
P.S. Did I mention that it’s also the sexiest computer I’ve ever seen? 😉
Getting wireless working on FreeBSD takes about two minutes 😛
And I wonder if you have seen my laptop? It’s waaay sexier than a PowerBook 😛
You have to get FreeBSD installed first though in order to setup the wireless. 😛 Having said that, once I have moved all my data across I may ask you to help me tri-boot Windows (still need it for some things unfortunately), FreeBSD and some form of Linux on my other laptop so that I can play around with it.
I’ve seen your small laptop, and it is quite cute, but I don’t like anything less than a 15” screen.
I can’t believe I’m talking about how cute/sexy computers are though, I really need to get a girlfriend… 😉
I’m not sure I agree with you being able to get KDE/Fluxbox to work like the OSX window manager, i’m still yet to see to see anything whcih does it as well as OSX. Its damn fine, the keybindings are well designed and it just works damn well.
The thing about OSX is that it just works, you get all the beauty power and functionality withouth teh hours of tinkering for no good reason. There are also an exceptional amount of good useful app’s out there.
Notable apps being Adium (the best IM client i’ve ever used, based on libgaim, beautiful, immensly functional and a generall expandable joy) and Desktop Manager.
I’m not entirely sure its fair to rule that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop, I just dont think it integrates as well as OSX, you also don’t have good alernatives to things like iTunes yet. Just before I got my mac mini I had my Linux desktop runngin as I liked it, the consisentcy of Gnome, with Openbox, also realplayer 10 working.
But some things in OSX are just damn fine, i’m yet to see an alternative to iSync and address book, combined with the pairing of bluetooth devices.
I could talk about this all day.. but you just need to try and see what is so great.
>I can’t believe I’m talking about how cute/sexy computers are though, I really need to get a girlfriend… 😉
I was just going to point that out 😉
>>I cant believe Im talking about how cute/sexy computers are though, I really need to get a girlfriend 😉
>I was just going to point that out 😉
Whoa! Is that an offer? 😛
Well, to be fair you can’t get KDE to look and feel exactly like OS X, but there are themes and a dock emulator that get you pretty close. Obviously it won’t be the same, but it’s a good enough approximation for anyone who doesn’t want/can’t afford to buy a Mac.
Well, it’s
HallmarkValentine’s Day on Monday, you never know… although based on previous years the chances of me getting a card are zero. 🙁Is the Pope an atheist?
I think you are missing the fundamental advantages of the OSX window manager for functionality.. I mean the dock is more of glorified start menu style thing (and I did use an enlightenment version and it sucked royally).
Expose and the whole mac use of a standard menu has some very good hiden advantages, everything is always clsoe by and easy to get to. Rather than teh physical thing you see.
Also.. all you need is a girlfriend who aprechiates the beauty of the mac, and its not hard with the powerbook :S
I think the people who work on X.org are trying to get something resembling Expose working on Linux—given the amount of volunteer effort I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before they catch up. 🙂
Hmm, Powerbook as a pulling device, hadn’t thought of that one… good thinking Batman! 😉
I’m not so sure, I think expose is something where apple exploit their hardware control. Plus consistent GUI design is not a new concept, and yet has not really become apparent on X-style gui’s
Expose exploits the hardware control through Quartz I think, haven’t looked into it in much detail though. I don’t think there will be a similar feature in X.org for some time yet, but I do believe it will come eventually.
The problem with open source is that no-one can enforce consistent GUI design, and there will always be enough people on either side of the argument to cause a split on the issue. Apple on the other can can say “this is how GUIs will be designed on OS X” and enforce those rules to an extent, especially with their own developers.