If you won, what would you use to view the JPEG prize?

 The MacBook Pro, or the Sony laptop?

 (They didn't say which 15" MacBook Pro it was, though - Apple lists two 15" ones).

I'd probably go with the MacBook, but that's because the alternative is the Sony. I've had Sony laptops before, and Apple's ad on bloatware is correct at least for Sony. My UX-380 UMPC with a 40GB hard drive had 7GB dedicated for recovery, and 10GB free on first boot. Full of crapware like QuickBooks trial, Office 2007 Trial, Paint Shop Pro Trial, etc. Ugh. (Neverminding the Sony apps themselves as well - their media player, media center, etc, with associated MS SQL Server installation...). Right now, I reinstalled, and have just under 10GB free. With Office, various games, Cygwin, Half-Life 1 & 2 (and games I got from Steam) and a bunch of other apps. Whoa.

I'm confused..... "If you won"?

WHEN I win, I will probably view the highly valuable JPEG on a MacBook Pro. 

Although I've used them fairly frequently back in college (pre OSX days), I've never owned a Mac. I figure it's time to rectify that. :)

I'd never *buy* one, they're far too expensive. But free.......

 

If I won? Hmm, I would choose the macbook pro cause it gives you the possibility of using win,osx and linux on the same machine. This is nice for testing system-independend applications (real apps, no WTFs ;-) ). In Addition the Sony's display is a bit too small!
 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.:

I'd never *buy* one, they're far too expensive. But free.......

Agreed. Although i will add in a dualboot with Kubuntu to view the JPEG in... (I can't seem to  get my head into liking OS X)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.:

Although I've used them fairly frequently back in college (pre OSX days), I've never owned a Mac. I figure it's time to rectify that. :)

I'd never *buy* one, they're far too expensive. But free.......

Same here. I'm going to get the Mac so that I can finally learn about Macs.

GeniusDex:

Agreed. Although i will add in a dualboot with Kubuntu to view the JPEG in... (I can't seem to  get my head into liking OS X)

 

Really? 'Cause the few times I've played with OSX, I've felt it was heads and shoulders above KDE and Gnome.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.:

GeniusDex:

Agreed. Although i will add in a dualboot with Kubuntu to view the JPEG in... (I can't seem to  get my head into liking OS X)

Really? 'Cause the few times I've played with OSX, I've felt it was heads and shoulders above KDE and Gnome.

I'd probably qualify as a KDE fanboy though ;) I'm confident that KDE 4 will indeed be a very decent thing to work with, and that Kubuntu will be able to combine supreme software with ultimate ease of use. But part of getting the mac will be playing with OS X for more than an hour in total....

Worf:

If you won, what would you use to view the JPEG prize?

 The MacBook Pro, or the Sony laptop?

 (They didn't say which 15" MacBook Pro it was, though - Apple lists two 15" ones).

I'd probably go with the MacBook, but that's because the alternative is the Sony. I've had Sony laptops before, and Apple's ad on bloatware is correct at least for Sony. My UX-380 UMPC with a 40GB hard drive had 7GB dedicated for recovery, and 10GB free on first boot. Full of crapware like QuickBooks trial, Office 2007 Trial, Paint Shop Pro Trial, etc. Ugh. (Neverminding the Sony apps themselves as well - their media player, media center, etc, with associated MS SQL Server installation...). Right now, I reinstalled, and have just under 10GB free. With Office, various games, Cygwin, Half-Life 1 & 2 (and games I got from Steam) and a bunch of other apps. Whoa.

Wait, you don't reformat your computers upon buying them?

 I got an Asus G1 with Vista.  I didn't even boot it up; I wiped it and installed XP and Ubuntu on the first day.
 

Dark Shikari:

Worf:

If you won, what would you use to view the JPEG prize?

 The MacBook Pro, or the Sony laptop?

 (They didn't say which 15" MacBook Pro it was, though - Apple lists two 15" ones).

I'd probably go with the MacBook, but that's because the alternative is the Sony. I've had Sony laptops before, and Apple's ad on bloatware is correct at least for Sony. My UX-380 UMPC with a 40GB hard drive had 7GB dedicated for recovery, and 10GB free on first boot. Full of crapware like QuickBooks trial, Office 2007 Trial, Paint Shop Pro Trial, etc. Ugh. (Neverminding the Sony apps themselves as well - their media player, media center, etc, with associated MS SQL Server installation...). Right now, I reinstalled, and have just under 10GB free. With Office, various games, Cygwin, Half-Life 1 & 2 (and games I got from Steam) and a bunch of other apps. Whoa.

Wait, you don't reformat your computers upon buying them?

It would be quite difficult to have stuff on it (yes, that includes Sony crap) if it isn't formatted.

Worf:

If you won, what would you use to view the JPEG prize?

 The MacBook Pro, or the Sony laptop?

 (They didn't say which 15" MacBook Pro it was, though - Apple lists two 15" ones).

I'd probably go with the MacBook, but that's because the alternative is the Sony. I've had Sony laptops before, and Apple's ad on bloatware is correct at least for Sony. My UX-380 UMPC with a 40GB hard drive had 7GB dedicated for recovery, and 10GB free on first boot. Full of crapware like QuickBooks trial, Office 2007 Trial, Paint Shop Pro Trial, etc. Ugh. (Neverminding the Sony apps themselves as well - their media player, media center, etc, with associated MS SQL Server installation...). Right now, I reinstalled, and have just under 10GB free. With Office, various games, Cygwin, Half-Life 1 & 2 (and games I got from Steam) and a bunch of other apps. Whoa.

 Um, what stops you from throwing out the hard drive (or better locking it up somewhere for warranty reasons) and putting your own hdd with your favorite linux distro or whatever you like? A 40GB laptop hdd goes for less than $100 nowadays.

Or just image the one you get, but you might get problems if something goes wrong with hardware and Sony won't look at it except with original software pre-installed. 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.:

GeniusDex:

Agreed. Although i will add in a dualboot with Kubuntu to view the JPEG in... (I can't seem to  get my head into liking OS X)

 

Really? 'Cause the few times I've played with OSX, I've felt it was heads and shoulders above KDE and Gnome.

As a UI it is, but the underlying system is disappointing and frustrating compared to a modern GNU platform - to the point where most macosx developers end up installing most of GNU onto the thing, usually via Fink (much like what happens to Solaris systems that get used by developers). It is obvious to anybody who has spent significant time using the thing that Apple put all of their effort into the top layers of the system, and just didn't try that hard at getting the unix layer right.

To those of us who wouldn't use KDE or Gnome anyway (personally, I use a stripped down installation of xfce), macosx has very little to offer.

So you've used OSX? What's it missing?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.:

So you've used OSX? What's it missing?

Full suite of GNU tools, vim (some version of vi is installed by default, but I don't think vim is), multiple workspaces, fast kernel, full OSS GUI stack, two button mouse, pure terminal emulator mode, firefox, LaTeX.  Probably some more stuff too.  Does it have a tabbed terminal?   That's my killer app.  If you don't have a good tabbed terminal emulator, your OS sucks as far as I'm concerned.  (And I'm not even the most curmudgeony, Unix luddite on my team at work, some of the other guys make fun of me for using KDE... And no, they're not using Gnome, or even Xfce.)


This is not to say that Apple has done a bad job, just I am not their target user.  Some of the other guys at work are you'll-have-to-pull-my-MacOSX-from-my-cold-dead-fingers types, and that's fine.  Use what makes you most productive.  For me, that's Slackware Linux.  It's fast, full featured, and I know how to reconfigure it in my sleep.  I install, I setup, it stays that way, and I get work done. 

 

phaedrus:

Does it have a tabbed terminal?   That's my killer app.  If you don't have a good tabbed terminal emulator, your OS sucks as far as I'm concerned. 

Pffft.  All you need is 'screen', it's way faster than any tabbed terminal application :P :). 

 

*(gentoo/fluxbox user.  But if I win the mac, I'm keeping osx.  It's pretty, and I don't mind installing the GNU stuff I'll miss.)

th0mas:

phaedrus:

Does it have a tabbed terminal?   That's my killer app.  If you don't have a good tabbed terminal emulator, your OS sucks as far as I'm concerned. 

Pffft.  All you need is 'screen', it's way faster than any tabbed terminal application :P :). 

 

*(gentoo/fluxbox user.  But if I win the mac, I'm keeping osx.  It's pretty, and I don't mind installing the GNU stuff I'll miss.)

See, the thing is, I never got into screen.  I started using Linux from the console, and just boosted the number of virtual consoles setup by init when I found that 6 wasn't enough.  So, I've got the CTRL-ALT-{left|right} to switch terminals burned into my brain, and Konsole uses Shift-{left|right}, so it fits my traditional workflow.  Also, I can see what I've got open with a glance to the top of the window (I'm sure there's a quick way to do it in screen, no need to point it out, I'm just outlining my use pattern).

screen is great for those who are into it.  It does have the huge advantage of being able to detach and reattach, but I've never really felt the need for that particular feature.

Overall point?  There's more than one way to do it.  Someone will always do it differently.  Apple probably simply can't make a computer that will make everyone happy all of the time.  And that's ok. 

Those who think they can just install Linux on the MacBook if they dislike OS X, should take a look at the procedure and a list of problems you are likely to encounter. Sound doesn't work, for instance. MBPs also used to suffer from numerous battery problems; see forum. I think most of those have been fixed through a recall since then. The battery life is still relatively low, at about three hours. The Vaio, by contrast lasts for 5.6 hours. Linux also seems to support all of Vaio's gadgets, as described here (the same series, but not the same model; I could find nothing more specific). All things considered, I think I'd take the Vaio.

Chemisor:

Those who think they can just install Linux on the MacBook if they dislike OS X, should take a look at the procedure and a list of problems you are likely to encounter. Sound doesn't work, for instance. MBPs also used to suffer from numerous battery problems; see forum. I think most of those have been fixed through a recall since then. The battery life is still relatively low, at about three hours. The Vaio, by contrast lasts for 5.6 hours. Linux also seems to support all of Vaio's gadgets, as described here (the same series, but not the same model; I could find nothing more specific). All things considered, I think I'd take the Vaio.

Dude!  Sounds like fun!  Of course, if you've seen my solutions to other problems on this forum...

Also, it's not like the sound works on my current laptop (IBM Thinkpad A21m). 

If I won, i'd get the MacBook and give it to my wife because she finds her iBook G4 slow when running the OS X OpenOffice port (whatever its called... NeoOffice?).

 

I'd then have the iBook for myself and use it alongside my Acer XP laptop and my beloved Amigas. 

Here's a function I put in my readme file in case I won... probably won't work, since I've never programmed in C++ before, but whatever...

 
void TonyWins(*winner){
    //Veni
    string PrizeChoice = "15\" MacBook Pro";
    
    //Vidi
    string AcceptanceSpeech = "I'd like to thank the Academy, Alex for this nice JPEG, and everyone of my friends, who have made life so incredibly boring that I have nothing better to do than WTF-programming contests.";

    //Vici
    *winner = "Tony <My last name>";
}

Atrophy:

*winner = "Tony <My last name>";}

Other than being wrong, this wouldn't even compile ;-)

 

phaedrus:

Full suite of GNU tools, vim (some version of vi is installed by default, but I don't think vim is), multiple workspaces, fast kernel, full OSS GUI stack, two button mouse, pure terminal emulator mode, firefox, LaTeX.  Probably some more stuff too.  Does it have a tabbed terminal?   That's my killer app.  If you don't have a good tabbed terminal emulator, your OS sucks as far as I'm concerned.  (And I'm not even the most curmudgeony, Unix luddite on my team at work, some of the other guys make fun of me for using KDE... And no, they're not using Gnome, or even Xfce.)

I said "what's it missing", not "what of my favorite programs doesn't it have" -- I hardly expect OSX to come with Photoshop, now do I? Specifically, what GNU tools are missing, as as asuffield implied? Does it have a decent BASH or KSH? Can I get around under the covers, if I need to?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.:

phaedrus:

Full suite of GNU tools, vim (some version of vi is installed by default, but I don't think vim is), multiple workspaces, fast kernel, full OSS GUI stack, two button mouse, pure terminal emulator mode, firefox, LaTeX.  Probably some more stuff too.  Does it have a tabbed terminal?   That's my killer app.  If you don't have a good tabbed terminal emulator, your OS sucks as far as I'm concerned.  (And I'm not even the most curmudgeony, Unix luddite on my team at work, some of the other guys make fun of me for using KDE... And no, they're not using Gnome, or even Xfce.)

I said "what's it missing", not "what of my favorite programs doesn't it have" -- I hardly expect OSX to come with Photoshop, now do I? Specifically, what GNU tools are missing, as as asuffield implied?

None of the GNU tools are present - all you get is the base tools from freebsd. So you start with the usual set of annoyances like not having gawk or GNU make functions, few of the features of readline, and none of the plethora of options that you're used to from the GNU versions (and you get the variant of tar with the Byzantine syntax restrictions). Then you're missing all the 'optional' stuff, like interdiff, dict, aspell, etc - if it's not listed in the posix spec, macosx probably doesn't have one. In this respect it feels a lot like windows ("You call this an operating system? It's just an empty room! Where's my sack of hammers? How am I supposed to get any work done with just this?")

 

Does it have a decent BASH or KSH?

Until recently it was tcsh (yuck). After much shouting at them by everybody who used the thing, they replaced it with one of the Bourne shells - I'm not sure which offhand.

 

Can I get around under the covers, if I need to?

Yes, but it's like getting around in an attic where there aren't any floorboards - you have to make sure you put your feet on the rafters, or you'll go through the ceiling. Unlike a real unix, it was not built from the ground up with this sort of thing in mind.