Reasons to use Linux over OSX??
- Thread starter bjc112
- Start date
It's a matter of taste personally.
Most peolpe get woo'ed over to OS X due to the purty interface, and their tight control over hardware makes it easy as cake to install and get everything working.
But if your carefull to select hardware that is developed by Linux-friendly manufacturers then Linux is going to be almost as easy.
On a purely technical basis, and ignoring personal taste or bias, advantages of Linux over OS X.
1. Open Source (I know that you said to ignore this, but it actually is a technical advantage for everybody that isn't working for Apple)
2. Runs on and supports a much wider veriaty of hardware. Linux actually supports more hardware then Windows does, but it's usually not stuff that matters to desktop users. Plus linux runs on both x86 AND powerPC, as well as other platforms.
So you can build or buy a computer that runs linux fine, but out-performs similarly priced Apple hardware by a wide margin. For instance I could go to Newegg and get a nice 300 dollar Tyan motherboard (with AMD chipset), slap a couple Opterons in there, stick on a gig of ram in each memory bank, buy a nice Nvidia video card, nice sound card, 3-4 SATA harddrives and still come out ahead $-wise of a person that would buy a top of the line Power G5 and outperform it by a wide margin for the majority of tasks I would need a computer for.
Not that the powerG5 aren't nice computers. They are and I would love to have one, its just that there are more cost-effective setups out there. The situation is the same as you go up and down the line-up Apple computers... Except maybe the Mac mini, which is pretty snazy.
3. If your using a distro with good software repositories then installing AND keeping your software up to date is much easier on Linux. For instance take a look at Debian or Ubuntu. Dozens of thousands of software packages are aviable for you to install. The main caveat is though that is has to be software that is legally distributable by linux projects.. Software that has distribution restrictions won't be aviable by this and you'd have to install stuff manually and it would be more difficult then OS X software installs.
Most peolpe get woo'ed over to OS X due to the purty interface, and their tight control over hardware makes it easy as cake to install and get everything working.
But if your carefull to select hardware that is developed by Linux-friendly manufacturers then Linux is going to be almost as easy.
On a purely technical basis, and ignoring personal taste or bias, advantages of Linux over OS X.
1. Open Source (I know that you said to ignore this, but it actually is a technical advantage for everybody that isn't working for Apple)
2. Runs on and supports a much wider veriaty of hardware. Linux actually supports more hardware then Windows does, but it's usually not stuff that matters to desktop users. Plus linux runs on both x86 AND powerPC, as well as other platforms.
So you can build or buy a computer that runs linux fine, but out-performs similarly priced Apple hardware by a wide margin. For instance I could go to Newegg and get a nice 300 dollar Tyan motherboard (with AMD chipset), slap a couple Opterons in there, stick on a gig of ram in each memory bank, buy a nice Nvidia video card, nice sound card, 3-4 SATA harddrives and still come out ahead $-wise of a person that would buy a top of the line Power G5 and outperform it by a wide margin for the majority of tasks I would need a computer for.
Not that the powerG5 aren't nice computers. They are and I would love to have one, its just that there are more cost-effective setups out there. The situation is the same as you go up and down the line-up Apple computers... Except maybe the Mac mini, which is pretty snazy.
3. If your using a distro with good software repositories then installing AND keeping your software up to date is much easier on Linux. For instance take a look at Debian or Ubuntu. Dozens of thousands of software packages are aviable for you to install. The main caveat is though that is has to be software that is legally distributable by linux projects.. Software that has distribution restrictions won't be aviable by this and you'd have to install stuff manually and it would be more difficult then OS X software installs.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
- 30,672
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Freedom and convenience. OS X isn't free, the Darwin core may be but the majority of the system isn't.
Personally if I bought a Mac I would be trying to come up with reasons to use OS X over Linux on it, not the other way around. And with Mac-on-Linux I should be able to run OS X inside of Linux if I absolutely needed OS X. Basically I'm more comfortable with Linux and I don't see any advantage to using OS X if I'm just going to be using unix tools. And I'd rather trust native Debian packages over things like fink.
Personally if I bought a Mac I would be trying to come up with reasons to use OS X over Linux on it, not the other way around. And with Mac-on-Linux I should be able to run OS X inside of Linux if I absolutely needed OS X. Basically I'm more comfortable with Linux and I don't see any advantage to using OS X if I'm just going to be using unix tools. And I'd rather trust native Debian packages over things like fink.
I agree with that %100.
But considering I got my Mac Mini for free, the hardware part isn't QUITE as important.
OP
#1 reason is definitely wireless networking support.
Trying to get my laptop to work through WiFI USB/PCMCIA is virtually impossible.. ( For the most part
) What tasks would that be? Now, I'm not contending that you could build a machine of similar power as the top dual 2.7GHz Power Mac for much cheaper - of course you can -, but I would like to know in what tasks a dual opteron outperforms it with a wide margin.
I haven't seen any 2.7GHz review/comparisons yet, but this site has some decent testing:
http://www.barefeats.com
And here's a link to a quick set of tests with the 2.5GHz:
http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html
Joe
Heh. A Mac head?
Ya, sure with specific tasks you can get a bump up with the G5's Altivec unit, but that's about it. Internally The Opteron and the Power970 stuff is similar, both are mostly 'risc' with added logic to keep the ISA standard with their respected platforms.
I don't know if you realise it or not, but the Opteron was developed using technology exchanges between AMD and IBM. Silicon on Insulator, for instance, is directly from IBM.
Benchmarks:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,pg,8,00.asp
http://www.aceshardware.com/SPECmine/top.jsp
http://www.theandyzone.com/computer/shootout/shootout.html (opterons are only in one graph)
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000284
There aren't very many comparisions aviable. And I am sure you know about the Doom3 benchmarks, which mac-fans try to blame on Id rather then lack of performance from Apple.
See here:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/G5.ars/8
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2229
I went thru the trouble of specing out a Dual-op machine from Newegg.
2 2.4ghz opterons, FOUR gigs of RAM, 3 200gig harddrives (which i'd run on Raid5 with Linux MD), Nvidia 6800 card, and a very nice M-audio delta 410 (with the linux-friendly Via envy24 chipset). A name-brand dvd burner and a 550 watt enermax power suply.
This came out a bit under 3200 dollars... with shipping. With the PowerG5 I could bump the ram up to 1gig and get it, with shipping, for around the same price.
Now Apples are nice.. (I should know. I own one.) But 4 gigs of ram and 400gigs of harddrive space is nice, too. You see it's not just CPU speed, which the powermac has more then enough of, but the whole computer.
It's not just that OS X is expensive, it's that you have to keep paying over and over again for every update. Needless to say, free unixes don't require that.
I agree. when a new version of KDE comes out you can download all of the packages and install them for free. with some new releases, its almost like getting an entirely new desktop environment. Some ditros of linux will even perform the upgrade for you just as windows installs its own service packs with minimum work from the user.
Can you run most MAC programs that run on OS X with a different version of Unix for the MAC? Or no, are they not the same?
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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Depends on the hardware. A friend of mine has a Quicksilver Mac and Ubuntu (via the orinoco driver) started up the wireless all by itself, I'm not sure about the Extreme (802.11g) stuff though. I have a PCMCIA 802.11b card that I use on my x86 laptop because it's prism2 based and I can use kismet, hostap, etc with it without any hassles.
It's Mac. MAC is something else entirely.
If the program uses the aqua gui, then you need Mac OS X.
I know it's MAC. I was talking about Unix for the MAC. Do most programs written for MAC OS X use the aqua GUI? If they don't, can you run the same programs on any Unix version for the MAC? Is the aqua GUI the part of MAC OS X that is NOT open source?
The "MAC" is something other than an Apple Macintosh. You probably have a MAC, and are utilizing it RIGHT NOW.
Aqua is not open source. Most applications that the general Apple fan base will use require Aqua.
I am refering to Apple Macintosh when I say MAC. Are you refering to the MAC address on networking devices? I know that is something other than MAC computers. But when I said MAC, this time I was refering to Apple computers.
MAC means Media Access Control. It is not short for Macintosh. The short form of Macintosh is not all capital. I understand what you mean, I'm just trying to help you use the correct terms. It's painful when computer people use the wrong terms. You should be smarter than that.
Close! You capitalize the word (because it is a name), but you don't capitalize every single letter like you do in in MAC or ISO or NORML or anything else that is an acronym. MAC as in your MAC address should more properly be spelled M.A.C. (though NO ONE would!) for Media Access Control, which is one part of one the seven layers (DLC layer) that make up networking as most of use know it.
To be honest, depending on what I'm doing and how much attention I'm paying (or NOT!) I have been known to have Mac in all caps or all lower.
Joe
You know, you reply like I somehow claimed that the G5 was more powerful than the opteron, when in fact I didn't make that claim (and wouldn't). Furthermore I agreed that you can build/order an opteron based machine for less cost than a similar spec'ed Apple G5, as you've clearly demonstrated. No argument there.
But what I asked about was the notion (as I understood your first post) that a top of the line opteron (not taking quads, or clusters for that matter, in to account) would somehow outperform a top of the line G5 by a wide margin in the "majority of tasks". You've provided some benches but it's pretty hard to conclude anything other than G5s and opterons are generally on par performance wise clock for clock on the hardware level. But also that opteron - and indeed most intel/AMD based machines are of course better value measured in hardware specs.
ehmm, what exactly are we arguing here?
Meh,
I have tried numerous cards 802.11 G and B with no luck. Seems a bit harder to find a prism chipset.. I believe some broadcom chipsets work as well.
I have also tried ndiswrapper as well with no luck ..
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
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"Reasons to use Linux over OSX??"
Since the op never said anything about Apple Computers:
Do you know how to get OSX running on an x86 machine?
Seriously, I assume you meant Linux versions for Apples.
I would have to agree with everyone else about price.
But lets be honest, if you buy a Mac, you get an OS with it. You may as well use that OS. Anything else is just for fun.
Its not like dealing with Windows where a bunch of people hate Microsoft and Bill Gates and would rather use anything else.
I'm not big on them but the Mac OS is the best thing to use on a Mac.
Since the op never said anything about Apple Computers:
Do you know how to get OSX running on an x86 machine?
Seriously, I assume you meant Linux versions for Apples.
I would have to agree with everyone else about price.
But lets be honest, if you buy a Mac, you get an OS with it. You may as well use that OS. Anything else is just for fun.
Its not like dealing with Windows where a bunch of people hate Microsoft and Bill Gates and would rather use anything else.
I'm not big on them but the Mac OS is the best thing to use on a Mac.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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prism stuff is hard to find now, I bought mine a few years back. But if you get stuff that uses a chipset from Atheros or RaLink(sp?) you should be alright, I will never buy anything that used a broadcom chipset as long as I have another choice.
And ndiswrapper is ass.
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