Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:20:19 -0400 From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Powerbook Setup Message-ID: <200410191520.19743.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20041019163138.GW42527@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <16710656779.20041018233408@synchron.org> <200410191151.00604.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20041019163138.GW42527@iconoplex.co.uk>
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On Tuesday 19 October 2004 12:31 pm, Paul Robinson wrote: > On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 11:51:00AM -0400, John Baldwin wrote: > > Thinkpads are quite expensive, more so than other PC laptops, so that > > pretty > > See eBay. A Celeron-based Thinkpad with bluetooth shouldn't cost you > more than $600. How much are iBooks and Powerbooks again? Even > second-hand? I must confess that all of my laptops thus far have been purchased by my=20 various employers (even the very old Thinkpad I borrowed in college), but=20 when I've looked at pricing replacements the Thinkpads seem very expensive.= =20 However, I haven't trawled ebay yet, so there are probably deals lurking=20 there. > See, at work I look after a 6-way Windows 2003 cluster. I think it rocks > at what it does. I've signed off on purchases of Microsoft Content > Management Server, SQL Server, etc. and I *know* that the =A3500k that > went down that hole *could* have been better spent helping fund work on > an open source CMS and back-end tools like MySQL. Problem is, there were > other major political forces in my way. I know there was a > double-standard on my part there, and I know my support of that Windows > architecture shows duplicity in my own beliefs, but I want to try and > get to the bottom of the OS X crowd who are splitting from FreeBSD. What > are the actual factors involved in their decision, and are they really > as vacuous and empty as excuses as I suspect they might be? I want to be > proven wrong here. Well, one thing is that I know that working on FreeBSD can be very tiring=20 after a while. Occasionally I go through slow periods in my FreeBSD work d= ue=20 to burnout and some folks just burned out more completely after longer=20 stints. If people burn out, then they are not going to be working much on= =20 =46reeBSD regardless. Working on OS X can provide a fairly familiar=20 environment for folks who want to work on something new. Since open source= =20 developers tend to be a bunch of geeks who don't always have the best socia= l=20 skills I think there is an even larger tendency for frustration and getting= =20 burned out in an open source community than at a job where the social=20 interaction mixture is more diverse. > > Different tools are good at different things, and I am quite comfortable > > with FreeBSD + KDE, but I also like OS X as a desktop. The fact that I > > can fire up X11.app and then ssh in and run kmail, etc. over ssh just as > > in FreeBSD is quite handy. It also has native p4 binaries and xemacs in > > darwinports allowing me to even do kernel development on the powerbook > > when I'm at home. > > OK, but what would it take for you to see FreeBSD + X + whatever is > better than OS X? I say it already is, but seriously, what would it > actually take to get there? A different theme in KDE? What is the actual > point of OS X if you already have FreeBSD? OS X is great if you're used > to System 9. I don't see the upgrade path from FreeBSD. Can somebody, > somewhere, please explain it to me beyond the vacuous details of how > their Powerbook "looks neat" or that they like the fonts or the bouncing > icons or whatever. Please? Well, when I plug in the VGA output for a projector, it just turns on and l= ets=20 me pick the resolution from a pop box independent of the main LCD display. = =20 It lets me do mirror or separate displays with a simple click, and it is al= l=20 through a simple and intuitive GUI rather than reading man pages and hackin= g=20 on text config files. The fact that out of the box you plug in a digital=20 camera and iPhoto just pops up with the pictures downloaded is another=20 example of where the folks at Apple have put effort into the UI. FreeBSD=20 definitely has room for improvement here. Also, the work they put into the= =20 idea of "locations" that define network configurations is done well and=20 integrated into the UI well. It's not so much grand sweeping changes as mu= ch=20 as lots of details that have been addressed that can save time if all you=20 need to do is surf the web, pop up some terminals or xemacs, etc. (IOW,=20 desktop use.) Oh, and "switch user" from panther. My wife and I often sha= re=20 the same FreeBSD + KDE machine at home and when I'm not using a laptop we=20 have to keep logging out to let the other person use the machine. Having=20 switch user for KDE would be very, very nice. > > XFree86 4.4 are better than older releases, but they still have a long > > way to go. Also, as someone who actually works on the code to get > > suspend/resume to work on some laptops (my Dell is now finally able to = do > > S3 and S1 for the > > I have to admit I wasn't aware of that, but one reason cited for Apple > kit and OS X being "better" than FreeBSD laptops to me, was that > suspend/resume "just work". But for me, it's "just worked" since like, > well... since forever. Unfortunately suspend/resume mostly doesn't work on PC laptops nowadays. := =2D( Things like ACPI are supposed to help but many vendors don't always put ful= l=20 support into ACPI and require vendor specific drivers for what should be AC= PI=20 functions (e.g. battery time remaining on both of my laptops and on early=20 Vaios). > > Well, all I can say is that given that I personally know some of the > > people who now work on OS X that used to work on FreeBSD, I think you a= re > > just spouting random opinions without any basis in fact. > > You've just said it. Some people claim there is no brain drain, yet you > yourself admit that there are people out there who USED to work on > FreeBSD who no longer do so, because they're off playing with OS X. I > don't have a real complaint with them, but shouldn't we be trying to > stop this, or do we all just pack up now and just make 6.0 a link to > Darwin and advise everybody to go out and but Apple gear instead? > > Wouldn't it be nice if instead of accepting defeat we were able to find > ways of funding those people who used to work on FreeBSD full time to > come back? I'm not saying it can be done, I'm saying is that not better > than just having a mass exodus to somebody else's OS? Well, I don't think there is a mass exodus. Also, I think that it is actua= lly=20 good for FreeBSD for there to be at least some turnover in the developer=20 base. We want to be in the position where the Project doesn't go down the= =20 tubes if someone gets run over by a bus. I don't think that it has harmed= =20 =46reeBSD to have some of the folks go work on OS X instead. In fact, in s= ome=20 ways the relationships there are helpful. As I said earlier, I still talk = to=20 Mike occasionally to ask him for advice, etc. Also, having Apple fund=20 TrustedBSD work has been a big help to getting that work done sooner. Ther= e=20 also have been several minor bug fixes in libc and a few other userland=20 places merged back from Apple to FreeBSD. > That's nice and everything, but what I meant was, is the biggest draw to > Darwin over *BSD the MSDOSFS stuff? Is there anything else in there that > is worth porting? I accept TrustedBSD, but I thought most of that was > now done? No, the draw to OS X is the UI and a lot of the non-Darwin stuff. The stuf= f=20 in Darwin that they've fixed is out there sitting for anyone to go look at= =20 and try to integrate back into FreeBSD where appropriate. =2D-=20 John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/
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