SGI: Development

commodorejohn wrote: Linux/the major desktop environments in particular seems to have gotten so invested in the idea of taking over for Windows that they've started copying everything it's doing wrong

and never came even close to getting serious market shares in that regard which even more makes that a total shot in the bucket

wenp wrote: I've finally accepted that's never going to happen. Even if I make a comfortable setup in NetBSD or OS/2, it's like living on a desert island when practically everyone I might want to exchange software with is on Windows. I've basically resigned myself to using software whose design is repulsive but objectively allows me to get more work done. Is that wisdom or the defeatism of old age?

Man, it's not even about purity of design or anything, it's just so. Much. Hassle . From my first PC running Windows 95 up through my most recent XP installs, I've been able to establish and maintain a consistent workflow for just about everything I do; even where later versions made irritating changes, dealing with it was as simple as finding a couple options in the system settings to revert to the old behaviors and there you were. Ever since Vista, though, not only have they been slowly strangling backwards compatibility and making stupid changes in the UI, they've been removing all the options to fix the stupid things, because somebody in the High Church of St. Sinofsky has a bug up their ass about people not appreciating all their retarded design decisions.

So my workflow of over a decade (at the time) was broken, and it only continued to get broken-er, for no other reason than that somebody at Microsoft decided that users should no longer get to have any say in how their OS behaved. My choices, then, were: to adapt to the new version and hope that subsequent changes didn't make things any worse (they did); to keep using XP indefinitely, trusting that a decent antivirus would keep me safe when the security updates ran out and hoping that manufacturers would continue to provide drivers for their hardware (this is mostly what I've done since that time); or, to attempt to move to an alternative that, while it had a higher initial learning curve, would allow me to basically be over and done with the pointless-changes treadmill after that (which I've tried repeatedly over the years, but have yet to really manage to stick with.)

(And, of course, all that time I've had the pleasure of repeatedly being told that I'm a horrible unreasonable stupid no-good Luddite for wanting to just be able to learn one way of doing things and then stick with it by countless people on the Internet, to which I reply: why is it my job to waste my time adapting my workflow to suit someone else's demands? Isn't the whole point of personal computers for them to serve the user , rather than the manufacturer? Ha ha, no, of course it isn't, that's why everything is getting locked down now.)

And this is why I've settled on just using MacOS X. The downside being you need to spend a fortune to get any reasonably performant hardware versus what you get in commodity PC land, but the OS is coherent and fast and has the benefit of being able to drop to a shell at any point, and run X11, and all the other UNIX or GNU Linux tools you love. It truly is the best of both worlds, and honestly for me, is by far and away my favourite OS right now. And you have the advantage of being able to get native versions of the Microsoft Office suite, and Adobe applications, and plenty of other stuff that you might ordinarily only be able to run on Windows.

I know Apple always divide opinion though..

Ditto everything chicaneuk says except on price. Apple is so cheap compared to any other unix vendor, even linux-based OEMs, it's a no-brainer. You can get a good laptop or workstation for at or under 2k USD, and a very good one for not much more. Maybe the exchange rates aren't favorable right now ? They are way cheaper than SGI ever was...

If you compare a macbook to (say) thinkpad, not only is the apple cheaper, but then you don't have to worry about silverfish, etc I think that fiasco put me off peecees again for a while to come just when I had started looking at them again.

I was an OS X user for 8 years from 2005 to 2013. Why did I stop? I had an epiphany that the OS sucked ass because in the final years of using it I had various problems with the post 10.5 releases, the new x86 Macs are garbage in terms of quality ( they fucking glue batteries in the laptops! ) have higher failure rates, the OS has become more iOSified and the Aqua interface is like drinking a Shirley Temple: looks nice, works fine, but has virtually no refined functionality. I personally like CDE, Magic Desktop and other old school UNIX desktop environments because they are mature, functional and coherent. I also like E16 and i3wm, but you sacrifice amenities with those and become a Luddite.

Also on OS X it is a clusterfuck of garbage design, launchd, Mach, Aqua, and it can't even decide if its GNU, BSD or Darwin, come the fuck on did the engineers spend half their budget on blow or something?

I'm forking FreeBSD if it gets anymore of Apple's overengineered crap. Clang was fine, but launchd and many other Apple subsystems and components proposed by Jordan Hubbard and his Apple cronies are not. I think they're still bitching because OS X is a terrible server OS which is why Apple stopped their rackmount lines. Go find some other OS to ruin.

TeamBlackFox wrote: I was an OS X user for 8 years from 2005 to 2013. Why did I stop? I had an epiphany that the OS sucked ass because in the final years of using it I had various problems with the post 10.5 releases, the new x86 Macs are garbage in terms of quality ( they fucking glue batteries in the laptops! ) have higher failure rates, the OS has become more iOSified and the Aqua interface is like drinking a Shirley Temple: looks nice, works fine, but has virtually no refined functionality. I personally like CDE, Magic Desktop and other old school UNIX desktop environments because they are mature, functional and coherent. I also like E16 and i3wm, but you sacrifice amenities with those and become a Luddite.

Also on OS X it is a clusterfuck of garbage design, launchd, Mach, Aqua, and it can't even decide if its GNU, BSD or Darwin, come the fuck on did the engineers spend half their budget on blow or something?

I'm forking FreeBSD if it gets anymore of Apple's overengineered crap. Clang was fine, but launchd and many other Apple subsystems and components proposed by Jordan Hubbard and his Apple cronies are not. I think they're still bitching because OS X is a terrible server OS which is why Apple stopped their rackmount lines. Go find some other OS to ruin.

the sad thing about this is that there's no alternative for the desktop. windows is a joke and serious software support for linux never happened so hello osx

What serious software are you working with on OS X that doesn't run on BSD, UNIX or Linux? They both have Firefox, Chromium, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, so that covers most office needs of browser, email, calendar, office suite etc. IDEs? Well IDEs are a joke, if the BSD projects don't need an IDE for their code, then I don't know what necessitates an IDE.

As far as other applications go there is not as much variety on BSD, UNIX and Linux vs OS X or Windows but there is in 90% of cases an application that does the job to some degree. Linux I can understand not wanting to use, but BSD or Solaris or its free derivatives is pretty good for a workstation OS.

Lenovo, the company I use for laptops and desktops does have the problem with spyware, but even the Windows users I know reimage their devices, only morons use a Windows OEM install. Since I'm using BSD or Solaris on the systems their spyware has no bearing on me, the user, and their hardware refurbs are good and new and usually competitive in pricing especially compared to the non-expandable rubbish bin Mac Pro, or the Macbook Pro with a glued in battery.

I think the fact you can get actual Microsoft Office for the Mac makes it very popular. Hobbyists such as us can bang on about freeware alternatives such as Thunderbird, LibreOffice and so forth but with the way Microsoft are going integrating the suite with things such as Office 365 (which has email, SharePoint like portals, team document sharing / productivity) it puts LibreOffice and the ilk in a difficult position and really does leave them quite a ways behind.

Besides, I don't personally consider it 100% compatible either with Microsoft Word / Excel, etc type documents. I don't blame that on the LibreOffice developers necessarily and I'm sure there's quite a lot of effort in Redmond to make their products NOT play completely nicely with open source alternatives, but taking a moral stand on the evils of closed source software to explain why you corrupted some collaboratively worked on documents or your reports don't render correctly, probably isn't going to wash.

Ultimately though it depends on your environment, what sort of productivity applications you actually need to use. In our place people are reasonably free to use what they like. The web development team & networks guys all use Linux, most other people use Windows, and there's steady growth in Macs (myself included).

chicaneuk wrote: I think the fact you can get actual Microsoft Office for the Mac makes it very popular. Hobbyists such as us can bang on about freeware alternatives such as Thunderbird, LibreOffice and so forth but with the way Microsoft are going integrating the suite with things such as Office 365 (which has email, SharePoint like portals, team document sharing / productivity) it puts LibreOffice and the ilk in a difficult position and really does leave them quite a ways behind.

Besides, I don't personally consider it 100% compatible either with Microsoft Word / Excel, etc type documents. I don't blame that on the LibreOffice developers necessarily and I'm sure there's quite a lot of effort in Redmond to make their products NOT play completely nicely with open source alternatives, but taking a moral stand on the evils of closed source software to explain why you corrupted some collaboratively worked on documents or your reports don't render correctly, probably isn't going to wash.

Ultimately though it depends on your environment, what sort of productivity applications you actually need to use. In our place people are reasonably free to use what they like. The web development team & networks guys all use Linux, most other people use Windows, and there's steady growth in Macs (myself included).

Of course Open Office and Libre Office are not 100% compatible with MS Office/365, but they're generally good enough for most use cases, and I worked in a corporate environment ( Dell ) and I used Libre Office with ZERO issues. Granted I wasnt doing any Power Points (which are overused as is) The few times I was sent files that broke, I had the people send me a PDF with little to no complaints - they were fully aware as a part of the RMA system that it was impractical for us to use Windows ( I used RHEL 5, and later, Solaris 11 successfully ) Also Office 365 has a web component as does Google Docs, and between those two I can make use of what I need.

Apple is worse than Windows, and I say this because I've worked with Windows Server and I would rather support that, Exchange, IIS and everything else than have to support OS X.

TeamBlackFox wrote: What serious software are you working with on OS X that doesn't run on BSD, UNIX or Linux?

everything audio related for example and of course the always popular adobe bunch. yes, for the latter there're some alternatives but they're no real replacements

From what I see the audio tool situation is best on Windows, when I produce with Vocaloids I will be using a Windows machine for that, and an Octane as the mixer/mastering system and such. OS X lacks FL Studio, and many other DAWs so the first point is null. The second point is a valid one however, but I find their new subscription model ridiculous as it stands, so not even going to bother.

TeamBlackFox wrote: ...on OS X it is a clusterfuck of garbage design, launchd, Mach, Aqua, and it can't even decide if its GNU, BSD or Darwin

[with a glance in the rearview mirror at the OP topic falling behind]

People keep telling me OS X is Unix with a polished desktop ecosystem. Sounds wonderful. And when I first saw someone typesetting mathematics on a Retina display, yeah, I heard angels singing. Sometimes I think I would buy a Retina MacBook just for that one use case.

Unless you are counting Android, though, I'd say OS X is the least Unixy Unix-like system out there. You have a case-insensitive filesystem, no /proc, different organization of system libraries, a unique method of linking shared libraries, an entirely different I/O framework, and scant control over the interface. X11 apps are very unstable on OS X -- no clipboard integration, mouse driver locks up, spontaneous loss of focus.

Sure the development environment is very integrated, but also rigid, slow, and bloated. Forget about cross-platform development unless working entirely in a VM. The range of dev tools is limited compared to Unix/Linux. In general, OS X has much fewer applications ported to it than Linux or FreeBSD.

The OS X API has been no more stable than Linux and not as well documented or as neatly organized. (Hard to believe I just used Linux as an example of better organization.) The community is just as dominated by fanboys as Linux was at its worst, and in my brief experience no more helpful on technical matters.

[whoa...glanced again and I see the OP tailgating me now]

I should qualify my rant by saying that I develop apps for workstation use, and practically everyone I care about is on Windows. So for me, using another system as a dev environment is purely for my own satisfaction. Eventually, I have to build everything for Windows.

TeamBlackFox wrote: They both have Firefox, Chromium, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, so that covers most office needs of browser, email, calendar, office suite etc.

How about Safari, Mail, Microsoft Office...

TeamBlackFox wrote: Lenovo, the company I use for laptops and desktops does have the problem with spyware, but even the Windows users I know reimage their devices, only morons use a Windows OEM install. Since I'm using BSD or Solaris on the systems their spyware has no bearing on me, the user, and their hardware refurbs are good and new and usually competitive in pricing especially compared to the non-expandable rubbish bin Mac Pro, or the Macbook Pro with a glued in battery.

Re-imaging takes time, you have to have a valid windows license AND media. I have some panasonic toughbook peecees in the shop and at other facilities; if you don't want to use panasonic's image, you have to buy an additional windows license. At least how parent company's IT explained it to me. The mac pro has six thunderbolt sockets, expandable!, and now that laptop batteries outlast a typical working day, what is the point of being able to swap one out. I've always preferred an extension cord, anyway. Not saying these aren't valid points, just giving the counter-argument.

Besides, some of us want a computer that matches our new watch I'm personally kinda bummed that the new macbook, despite having eliminated "all but one" port to rule them all, still has a headphone socket. W-T-F? Bluetooth headphones have been mainstream for many years now... Also slightly bummed that it isn't a lightning socket but USB. Perhaps a good thing but I did lose a small bet... losing magsafe was not a wise change IMO, either.

TeamBlackFox wrote: Apple is worse than Windows, and I say this because I've worked with Windows Server and I would rather support that, Exchange, IIS and everything else than have to support OS X.

I see it differently because for our very limited use a combination of OSX server and a dropbox account does everything we need. Besides, I am an the engineer and do limited IT support on weekends. Our corporate office (parent company) has a bigger IT department with two people working full time, but they have their own work to do. So any additional help from them can take a month or more. It's just easier if I can do it all myself. I honestly don't know much about windows beyond using it, my wife knows more about windows than me and she has nothing but retail and entertainment experience (no IT), I just avoid it so I don't think I would be comfortable administering anything on that level. (could be room for improvement) I've been playing with unix in some capacity for 15 years. I actually started with debian, used it for a few years, then tried PC-BSD when it was in its infancy, etc. Moved me to freebsd for a while but something about the box I had was incompatible, perhaps the wifi?? Did the gentoo thing, and then irix, before switching to mac. So I am very windows-poor but unix-rich and as long as apple keeps mac OSX around I'll keep using it. If they decide that iShinyThings are more important, well, I'll probably do a hamei and keep using it, anyway. It's a doomsday that will probably never happen, at least not for several more years.

TeamBlackFox wrote: OS X lacks FL Studio, and many other DAWs so the first point is null.

on the contrary, osx has logic, fl studio is in the process of being ported to osx which however doesn't matter much because that's more like a hobby user toy. the only serious daw missing on osx is sadie but that's no real loss given that all other heavy weights are available.
for some companies osx even is the first choice. a bunch of high end stuff is only available for osx and with some other products it's clear that their main focus lies on osx as well.
also the daw is only the start, then it comes to plugins and that is a wasteland on linux let alone bsd and solaris

I find their new subscription model ridiculous as it stands, so not even going to bother.

me too so i stick to older versions but sadly depending on the project you just gotta have some adobe stuff at hand

foetz wrote: windows is a joke and serious software support for linux never happened so hello osx

The relative stability of Mac and Windows has long been a contentious issue. In the days of Mac OS, I knew a university sysadmin who would brandish his logbooks to show that Macs took twice as much maintenance time. Nowadays, you can find some discussion of the "it just works" reputation of OS X, the gist of which is that when you get down to specific cases, Macs are really not more reliable.

In certain areas of software, though, I agree Macs really have an edge. Graphics and video/audio seem to be much better. As for Windows versus Linux, I have been surprised at some of the things I find myself still going to Windows for. For example, there still isn't a hex editor for Linux to compete with the likes of 010 Edit.

wenp wrote:

foetz wrote: windows is a joke and serious software support for linux never happened so hello osx

The relative stability of Mac and Windows has long been a contentious issue. In the days of Mac OS, I knew a university sysadmin who would brandish his logbooks to show that Macs took twice as much maintenance time. Nowadays, you can find some discussion of the "it just works" reputation of OS X, the gist of which is that when you get down to specific cases, Macs are really not more reliable.

i didn't mean stability nor macs. i was referring to the usage of osx which since based on unix is lightyears ahead of windows. same goes for linux of course but there you have no apps hence the only one left is osx.

guardian452 wrote: and now that laptop batteries outlast a typical working day, what is the point of being able to swap one out.

Because batteries wear out and lose their ability to hold a charge, that's why. When the battery in my ThinkPad wears out, I can shell out $20-30 on eBay and get a perfectly satisfactory replacement, rather than having to shell out for a whole new laptop.

(Of course, given that almost everybody making laptops these days builds cheap shit that begins falling apart the minute the extended warranty period expires, I suppose there's less call for that now. Still, if I were paying upwards of $1000 for a laptop, I'd damn well want to be able to replace the battery at least.)

I'm personally kinda bummed that the new macbook, despite having eliminated "all but one" port to rule them all, still has a headphone socket.

That's because you're mentally ill. Failing to discard useful features is not a shortcoming.

when your business model is selling $10,000 digital watches, useless $1500 toy computers are child's play.

foetz wrote: i didn't mean stability nor macs. i was referring to the usage of osx which since based on unix is lightyears ahead of windows. same goes for linux of course but there you have no apps hence the only one left is osx.

It's hard for a UNIX based system be lightyears ahead of Windows, given that UNIX is basically an implementation of an OS taking ideas from the 60s and Windows is based on ideas from the 70s. At core, both are multiuser (though Windows has slight edge with its RDP), multitasking with memory protection, network OSs. Its just shows how irrelevant the differences have became. If you take Tanenbaums book and check how concepts he describes are implemented in moderns OSs, you'll see, that they are doing all the important things (case-insensitive paths are cosmetics) the same way.

guardian452 wrote:

TeamBlackFox wrote: Lenovo, the company I use for laptops and desktops does have the problem with spyware, but even the Windows users I know reimage their devices, only morons use a Windows OEM install. Since I'm using BSD or Solaris on the systems their spyware has no bearing on me, the user, and their hardware refurbs are good and new and usually competitive in pricing especially compared to the non-expandable rubbish bin Mac Pro, or the Macbook Pro with a glued in battery.

Re-imaging takes time, you have to have a valid windows license AND media. I have some panasonic toughbook peecees in the shop and at other facilities; if you don't want to use panasonic's image, you have to buy an additional windows license. At least how parent company's IT explained it to me.

Ask Microsoft about it and I'm more than sure it's not like how it works. Here are OFFICIAL recovery images:
Windows 7: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery
Windows 8: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... resh-media
On a notebook you shouldn't even have to enter the product key - they have embedded them in BIOS. On my ThinkPad T530 I can install either Windows 7 or 8 and they don't ask for product keys and just activate.

GL1zdA wrote: It's hard for a UNIX based system be lightyears ahead of Windows, given that UNIX is basically an implementation of an OS taking ideas from the 60s and Windows is based on ideas from the 70s. At core, both are multiuser (though Windows has slight edge with its RDP), multitasking with memory protection, network OSs. Its just shows how irrelevant the differences have became. If you take Tanenbaums book and check how concepts he describes are implemented in moderns OSs, you'll see, that they are doing all the important things (case-insensitive paths are cosmetics) the same way.

you've clearly never worked as an admin

but even as a normal user simple things like useless errors leaving you with nothing to go on or something as simple as backing up your settings are a nightmare thanks to things like the registry and other brainfarts. somebody right here once said that windows is defective by design and that nails it
i'll spare you the 253321879 other "accidents" i witnessed with windows; stuff that leaves nothing else but shaking your head so yes, in terms of usage (and not only that) windows is lightyears behind unix