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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: The Pure KDE Desktop
From:       "Luke Chatburn" <lchatburn () isset ! org>
Date:       2002-10-13 15:32:33
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Hi Chris...

The thing is, though, Macs cost quite a lot more than an x86 machine. People
buy them because:

- They want a pretty box
- They want to use OS 9/OSX (and certain Mac apps)

And no matter the benchmarks from a few photoshop filter tests, modern x86
machines will spank Macs in performance terms.

As a home user, I do think that Jaguar at $129 is expensive for a bug fix
release; granted, it does add a few features, but those are things like
springloaded folders, which should have been in OSX but weren't finished :-/

In anything other than a small business, it is hard to put a case for
non-x86 desktop hardware, unless you are looking at something dramatically
more powerful and expensive.

If you wish to run Linux on such at platform, by all means, feel free to
try, but be aware that the proportion of people brought their Mac so they
can run OSX. To be honest, in hardware terms, the modern Mac is increasingly
like a modern PC. The motherboard is different, and you need a modified
video card in many cases, with the display adapter, but other hardware is
identical. It bears the same chance of failure as an equivalent PC. Which
leaves you paying for the box and the OS.

Mandrake do quite a lot of custom packages for their PPC versions, and
things through the MandrakeClub, which allow you to request an rpm, and they
will do it, and apparently this is finding good reviews with Mac users. As
it stands, though, Mac users are a tiny proportion of their overall
userbase, and they can't focus 50%+ of their development time on it. That
would probably be the only thing that might truly suit what you said about
putting all effort possible into the ppc platform.

However, that said, Mandrake and Yellow Dog seem to generally run very well
on Macs, and most users have a good experience, without your hardware
problems, which in fairness, is due to the newness of your iBook.

I'm sorry to be harsh, but Linux on Macs is always going to lag behind x86
release qualities, especially when hardware changes. You just have to wait
and see, really. It's not anyone's fault, it's not because they aren't
putting reasonable effort in, and as with x86 distros, things will keep on
improving over time, but it is a case of waiting, I'm afraid.

-Luke

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Molnar" <molnarc@pandmservices.com>
To: <kde-devel@kde.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: The Pure KDE Desktop


> Right, and I agree with your 100%, but as a user who has made an
> investment in hardware, or as an employer who has made an investment in
> hardware... do I care about the excuses, or do I just want something to
> work? I want something that works..... OS/X does, most of the ppc
> builds do not (or at least not well).
>
> Also, while I know that Mandrake 9.0 x86 is almost a perfect package, I
> run it on a few machines here - and have purchased it as well, I do not
> believe that Mandrake is putting all the effort it possibly can at the
> ppc platform. With all the advertising Apple is doing on "switching" it
> would be a good time to piggyback on that effort and say "Yes, switch
> hardware, but run Mandrake".
>
> The people doing the distributions and doing the actual development are
> NOT the problem....  Again, I know about the moving the goal posts and
> such , but any talk about the Linux desktop for the mainstream user has
> to come from a users point of view. If a user can not close a notebooks
> cover without it starting to beep and then shut down (not nicely) a
> user will not use the software that causes this. It is a lot easier to
> spend 129.00USD on a package called Jaguar and then update the patch
> with a 4 minute download, then to spend 900.00 on a new x86 PC that is
> not as well built (hardware wise) than the iBook and then spend another
> 99 to 129.00 on software and so on.
>
> My comments where not from a developers or a Linux advocates view but
> me as the business user who really likes the MAC hardware, and likes
> Unix security.
>
> -Chris
>
> On Sunday, October 13, 2002, at 09:46 AM, Luke Chatburn wrote:
>
> > Hi Chris...
> >
> > With respect, that has always been the issue with Apple. If they
> > produce new
> > hardware, as they frequently, that leaves everyone else trying to play
> > catch-up. The only people who know what is going to be in the next
> > product
> > and can adapt for that are Apple.
> >
> > As a very serious point, to be honest, these problems would be far
> > fewer if
> > they would be nice and just open source the essential stuff, such as
> > drivers
> > for iPods, etc. All the people writing the Linux Apple drivers, etc.
> > are
> > doing a very fine job, but it would be far easier and better for the
> > user
> > experience, if Apple would return code to the community which it took
> > an
> > entire OS from. No, the BSD licence doesn't say that they have to, but
> > there
> > should be a degree of social responsibility. Things such as their font
> > rendering stuff (patented and well and truly out of reach to OSS),
> > Quicktime
> > and many other technologies would be nice, and require very little to
> > open
> > source.
> >
> > To be honest, I run Mandrake 9.0 and it handles all sorts of exotic
> > hardware
> > that I can throw at it, these days. TV cards, usb scanner, printer,
> > mouse,
> > webcam, digicam, and the list goes on. USB hotplugs and works just
> > fine. In
> > short, x86 is fine.
> >
> > But Macs are a strange platform, and Apple move the goalposts, and to
> > be
> > honest, there are a lot of very good people working on it, but it is
> > hard to
> > build a distro for that environment. A cynical person might think this
> > was
> > intentional so.
> >
> > Seriously, though, it isn't the fault of the people building the
> > distros...
> > They are trying to do the best they can, for little or no monetary
> > response.
> >
> > :-/
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Christopher Molnar" <molnarc@pandmservices.com>
> > To: <kde-devel@kde.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 2:26 PM
> > Subject: Re: The Pure KDE Desktop
> >
> >
> >> Steve,
> >>
> >> I have a few comments here and I am afraid a few of my friends who
> >> work
> >> for the distributions may not agree, but they need to hear it.....
> >>
> >> The Linux desktop actually has come a long way - in the raw form, but
> >> the distributions have made it increasingly difficult to stay updated
> >> and build a native desktop.
> >>
> >> About six months ago I bought my first iBook that came loaded with
> >> OS/X. After a few weeks of playing around I started to think "OK lets
> >> re-install Linux and see if everything works " . I had never played
> >> with the ppc distributions and wanted to give it a try.  I asked
> >> around
> >> and several people told me to try SUse - I tried to find it but it is
> >> not even available in CompUSA to buy. So I looked at Mandrake (I still
> >> love what they do with the desktop - so much thought for the end user
> >> look and feel), I could never get it to install and also discovered
> >> they have missed a few releases with the ppc product. So, I got
> >> YellowDog - I defiantly was not happy, it is not a smooth install, I
> >> have newer hardware, a lot is not supported and when I asked on a list
> >> I got a relatively snotty answer  to tell Apple to stop changing their
> >> hardware. This is unacceptable. So I re-installed OS/X.
> >>
> >> After Apple released OS/X 1.2 with a bunch of bugs that broke a bunch
> >> of apps and caused numerous lock-ups I installed Mandrake 8.2 ppc. The
> >> problem was that KDE is way old in that distribution and I couldn't
> >> even import my maildirs into kmail. OK, in my past life I had packaged
> >> for Mandrake so it should be no problem to rebuild the KDE3 RPMS from
> >> the 8.2 i586 distro updates to work on ppc -  right? WRONG.... I spent
> >> 4 days building the dependencies in -devel rpm's that where not
> >> released for the ppc distro (though they where in the SRPMS) and then
> >> got into a circular dependency with ALSA that I could not get through.
> >> I gave up. I actually had almost rebuilt the entire Mandrake 9.0 tree
> >> for ppc. I could have saved a lot of time by just installing cooker,
> >> but I need the machine for work and could not risk an unstable build.
> >> I
> >> also had a significant problem with power management on the mac and
> >> spent a whole bunch of time running fsck when the machine shut itself
> >> down for unexplained reasons - additionally toys such as my iPod, my
> >> USB Camera, my Scanner would not work. Printing left a lot to be
> >> desired as well, to the point a customer noticed that I no longer
> >> produced the crisp and clean logos that I was producing on OS/X.
> >> (Strange both apps use cups as the print system, one is just cleaner).
> >>
> >> Anyways, the average user would not have gone this far. Why should
> >> they? OS/X is Unix (BSD) based, it is secure, it has all of the
> >> features of unix, it has software available, it has support, it has
> >> updates, you can run X and most of the X apps, I can run KDE, I can
> >> use
> >> all of my tools. What am I missing? For users to stay with a Linux
> >> desktop you have to keep it current, you can not say "donate 100.00
> >> USD
> >> and then we may possibly have the time to release a new distribution"
> >> -
> >> and you must leave the users a way to easily update an app when a new
> >> version comes out.
> >>
> >> While I was busy trying to get a good KDE build for my 8.2 install,
> >> Apple released an update that fixed 99.9% of the lockups and made OS/X
> >> 1.2 again a stable build. So now I run KDE on top of OS/X and am happy
> >> with both worlds....
> >>
> >> just my 2 cents worth....
> >>
> >> -Chris
> >>
> >> On Friday, October 11, 2002, at 12:31 AM, Steve Hutton wrote:
> >>
> >>> Some of you may have noticed there is a lot of noise lately
> >>> days about Unix desktops.  First, Red Hat has finally dared to
> >>> say publicly that a Linux based desktop is possible, and
> >>> of course they have released a version of their distribution
> >>> that attempts to present a "unified" look and feel.  From the
> >>> KDE perspective, it's a bit disapointing (though not at all
> >>> suprising) that this look and feel is not the KDE look and feel.
> >>>
> >>> Secondly, there has been quite a lot of press lately [1, 2] about Mac
> >>> OS X, including stories about Linux users jumping ship.  I find
> >>> this particularly troubling - when highly technical users are
> >>> giving up on the free Unix desktop, what hope do we have at ever
> >>> making the average user happy?
> >>>
> >>> So, how does KDE fit into all of this?
> >>>
> >>> In his original project announcement [3], almost exactly 6 years
> >>> ago, Matthias Ettrich wrote:
> >>>
> >>> "Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux.
> >>> But still a consistant, nice looking free desktop-environment is
> >>> missing."
> >>
> >>
> >>>> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to
> > unsubscribe <<
> >
> >
> >>> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to
> >>> unsubscribe <<
> >
>
>
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