After just reading Ten Things Linux Distros Get Right That MS Doesn’t, I thought to myself, I could easily come up with a Top 10 Mac vs Linux.
For those who read my blog on a regular basis, know that I am as pro-Linux as they come. However, I have to admit that Mac OS X has Linux beat in a number of areas. Here’s my list:
10. Virtually bug-free BSD kernel. Linux has yet to get this right. Although the Linux kernel may contain less than 10% the bugs that Windows NT kernel contains, it’s astronomically more than the *BSD-based distributions, which are virtually bug-free. As such, this makes Mac OS X a viable solution to stability, reliability and dependability.
9. Consistent regular releases. There are a couple Linux distributions that get this right, but as an overall whole, Linux vendors have missed the mark in this area. Gnome has a release schedule of every 6 months, and Ubuntu follows Gnome closely making sure that the latest release of Ubuntu contains the latest release of Gnome. However, the vast majority of distributions overlook the importance of regular releases, and as such, share minimal success in the Linux market.
8. Feature-packed releases. When Mac OS X produces a release, it is far superior to it’s prior versions. The features that each release contain make you want to spend the $129 to upgrade to the latest version. Currently, the latest release is Tiger with such features as Spotlight, Automater and Dashboard. Leopard, due out early next year improves Tiger with homemade Dashboard widgets, Spaces and Time Machine. I have yet to see a Linux distribution equal the feature impact that Apple puts out year after year.
7. iLife. Need I say more? There are some great tools on Linux for editing photos and movies and sharing your digital life, but nothing in the Linux arena holds a candle to what iLife brings to the table. Just the other day, my wife made a full-scale DVD movie in about 3 hours. Complete with a custom soundtrack, loaded with extra features and goodies, and widescreen to boot. Watching her drag ‘n drop pictures and videos around to create the movie was truly incredible. Doing anything like that on Linux? Yeah, right.
6. Eye candy. Linux has come a long way in this area, especially with the help of KDE, but Mac has eye candy done right. The Aqua interface is beautiful. The way windows swish across the screen, the Dock and its magnification and even the sounds are all done right. It took Linux 6 years to catch up to this level of performance with the advances of XGL, Compiz and Beryl, and even then, it’s still not 100% there. Too much dependency on the command line and in config files, to get the eye candy you want, keep Linux from competing in this area with Mac OS X.
5. Hardware is done right. This is the Achilles’ Heel of Linux. Linux faces the problem of porting the kernel and various distributions to many different architectures. As such, many models of laptops, printers, network cards, touchpads, video and sound cards, etc. just don’t quite work right, if work at all, out of the box. This is due to the philosophy to keep the drivers open, and many hardware companies just won’t release the specs, so development is slow. With Mac, if you want to run OS X, you run it on Apple hardware. No questions. That’s just how it is. As such, all the drivers for all the hardware just works. And now with Apple moving to the Intel chip, OS X will run on your x86-based PC, and even then, the hardware just works.
4. Wireless freedom. This is one BIG area that turns a lot of users away from Linux, even Ubuntu. Wireless just doesn’t work for the majority of cases, and wireless hardware vendors aren’t interested in releasing the specs of their hardware, as such, Linux is faced with, again, creating open alternatives. Ndiswrapper helps in this area, which is probably the greatest strength, and a Broadcom spec was reverse-engineered, but other than that, wireless just isn’t up to par with Mac OS X. This includes Bluetooth.
3. Ease of use. Mac OS X is a powerful powerful operating system. On Apple’s website, they claim it as “the world’s most advanced operating system”, and I won’t argue with them. Mac OS X has a BSD Unix core, and yet, when I am on my wife’s iBook, I rarely need to touch the terminal. It just isn’t a crutch as it is with Linux. And I am no stranger to the terminal. Linux just depends too much on the command line and configuring applications through config files. No need for Mac, at least, not near as much. This makes OS X extremely easy to use.
2. Full system integration. Everything from iLife to the Aqua interface is fully and tightly integrated with each other. Everything on Mac OS X just seems like they were meant to work with each other. The look, feel and interoperability make Mac OS X a tight, pleasant operating system. With Linux distributions, although some see this as a strength, there are too many choices and alternatives to get the same job done. As such, for example, KDE applications don’t integrate well with Gtk and vice-versa. Even applications within Gnome don’t integrate all that well with the Gtk interface. As such, a Linux system with all it’s running applications feels hacked together. Even the look and feel varies from application to application.
1. Installing and uninstalling applications. If you’ve ever used a Linux system that gives you dependency hell (all the source-based and rpm-based distributions), then you know what a pain it is to install and remove software on Linux. Heck, even the apt-based distributions have their problems. With Mac OS X, to install an application, Firefox for example, you just drag ‘n drop your application… wait for it…. into the Applications folder. To remove the application, just delete it from the Applications folder. It couldn’t be easier. Linux distributions could learn a valuable lesson from Mac in this area.
{ 14 } Comments
Not to burst your bubble, but OS X doesn’t run on a BSD kernel. The OS X kernel (xnu) has a BSD subsystem, but the core of it is a Mach derived kernel. Just thought you’d like to know.
[Reply]
I thought OSX ran on Darwin, which was based from the BSD kernel and license? No?
I think the APT system is just as easy as the OSX system. Find the program you need in add/remove or synaptic and you’re done. Uncheck to remove. You can’t get much simpler than that.
System integration is something that is killing Microsoft. They want to integrate the programs but all they’ve ended up doing is creating pathways for security flaws to completely overrun the system. Is integration really the best idea?
[Reply]
You’ve got some good points, but some of them are just a little off.
#9. Consistent Regular Releases… 10.0 to 10.1 was 6 months, 10.1 to 10.2 was 11 months, 10.2 to 10.3 was 14 months, 10.3 to 10.4 was 18 months, 10.4 to 10.5 is up to 20 months and counting. I’ll give you frequent to start and less so now, but I’m not sure I see consistent and regular there.
#5. Hardware Done Right… OS X will not legally run on your x86 pc, it will run on the x86 box you buy from Apple, with the same stringent controls on hardware as the Apple PPC boxen had.
#4. Wireless Freedom… How many wireless chipsets does OS X support out of the box? I think its only one (broadcom/Airport Express), maybe two. Yes, I know you can get an open source driver for Prism based chipsets also but it sure doesn’t ship with the OS and those chipsets work _perfectly_ on Linux and FreeBSD.
[Reply]
I think that you hit the nail on the head with your #1. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…you’re not going to see Linux distros everywhere until this gets fixed. Dependencies and the tracking down of them is the ruin of my experience with Linux on the desktop.
[Reply]
#6 Do you know about Beryl? My Ubuntu Edgy + Beryl makes look a MacOs Tiger like a pussycat…
#5 Allow me to laugh… ROTFL
Just one of many examples I had witnessed myself…
#1 Agreed that “some” Mac applications can be installed very easily. What about the countless applications you can not install on a Mac because there’s only Windows or Unix development?
[Reply]
Madre-
All hardware has it’s issues. I’m aware of that. The link you provided is the exception to the rule, which, again, is the case with all hardware. Overall, Mac gets hardware right, mainly because they control it, where Linux needs help.
[Reply]
“#1 Agreed that “some” Mac applications can be installed very easily. What about the countless applications you can not install on a Mac because there’s only Windows or Unix development?”
mac is posix adherant for its part
[Reply]
Isn’t the “Spaces” feature coming up on Leopard just a dandified version of the workspaces that Linux distros have had forever?
[Reply]
its an apples and oranges comparison. look at their markets.
mac meets the market of the “average user” and linux meets their market of “computer geek”.
thats why we like linux.
[Reply]
#10 - As someone else stated, it doesn’t use the BSD kernel at all.
#9 - Mac OS X hasn’t been released on a consistent regular basis. Besides, adhering to deadlines, IMO, creates bugs. PCLinuxOS and Debian are released on a proper schedule: When they’re ready!
#8 - Every new release of PCLinuxOS has brought major new stuff. This time, it was Beryl/Compiz. Next release, will be the new Compiz Fusion. The following release after that will probably contain KDE 4.0. Those are major new features.
#7 - You’ve got me on that one. I’m blown away by Apple’s software, and iLife is no exception.
#6 - Have you even used Beryl? It makes the Mac OS X eye candy look silly. It might as well be sporting the Windows 3.0 eye candy next to Beryl.
#5 - It ‘just works’ with Apple hardware. Wow… That’s a big feat… Linux works on lots of hardware. You have to be conscious when making hardware purchasing decisions, but so do you when you have a Mac. It installed on my system with everything working from the word ‘go’ except for 3D, which was a driver installation away.
#4 - Wireless freedom with Airport… It doesn’t work out of the gate with just any wireless network. This is a limitation, not something to tout.
#3 - If you think you need to use the command line to configure a lot of stuff, you haven’t used a good Linux like PCLinuxOS. Ubuntu may have its fans, but its automatic script and command line happy. PCLinuxOS, and other similar Linux distros like Mandriva and Suse, give you nice control center applications to do just about everything inside a comfortable GUI.
The Mac is easier to setup, but that’s because of the limited amount of hardware it will work on. This is a limitation of the Mac, not something to be proud of.
#2 - Except when you install X Windows and run Unix applications on it. If all I ran were KDE applications, this would be true of Linux, too. Likewise if all I ran was Gnome applications.
#1 - First of all, it doesn’t matter if a distro is source based, RPM, or DEB based. Package management has nothing to do with the package type. Apt works with RPM and DEB packages and works great. Add Synpatic and everything is a snap with full GUI access to everything. Just about every distro has done away with dependency hell by using either Apt/Synaptic or something very similar like URPMI/RPMDrake or Yum/Yumex. Those days are long over with. With those types of applications, I can delete apps, install apps, and upgrade apps all at once, and in the process, upgrade every application in my system. Can the Mac do this? Not without a VersionTracker subscription…
[Reply]
BTW, Oakgop, I’m not a geek at all. I’m a “regular Joe” that has found Linux, learned my way around it in the very same way I would if I’d switched from Windows to Mac or vice versa, and find it very refreshing to use. It’s got its limitations, but those are disappearing rapidly. I don’t know why everyone thinks Linux is for geeks. Many things, seem to make far more sense than they do in Windows, once you’re accustomed to the new environment. I think those that say Linux is for geeks are people that never have installed Windows from a disk and probably just go buy a new computer when Windows inevitably starts acting up.
[Reply]
I have to agree with you on this one. I have been a Mac/Linux user for some 14-13 years now. I prefer to use my Mac stuff because it is the basis of my Graphic Design career. I also dabble in a bit of Debian GNU/Linux because it was at least simple to install on my older PC. I’d love to see Linux vendors attempt to tackle the near flawless application package format that Apple Inc. uses in OS X Applications. Basically, a Mac OS X App is no more than a special folder that has all its components built into it. Needless to say, all one has to do is either control + click or right click the application to bring up the contextual menu and choose “Show Package Contents” to view the guts of the Mac OS X app. Being the graphics dude that I am, I messed around with the icon image files that were inside the resources folder inside the Front Row application on my Mac Mini. I also changed the sound scheme of the application to and as far as using a command line is concerned, I only use the OS X Terminal for quit and dirty FTP access to my tgi-media.com ftp webserver.
[Reply]
As a user of both (first used Linux back when MKLinux for the mac was released, it ran ontop of a mac kernel, I like to think I played a small role in urging Mac to go the unix route) I will say that both have the advantages. In a hobby network linux is alot of fun and APT is great tool (running debian on all my linux boxes… Apple Only of course)… that being said Mac OS X is just simply easier to use. No way around it. Most people aren’t interested in running a terminal.
Cool article.
[Reply]
I use both Mac OS X (10.5.3) and *nix. When it comes to getting things done, OS X is the best way to go (in most cases). When it comes to having fun, go for *nix and make a home file server for important files. If you want to learn technical skills, *nix is also the way to go. I hated OS X for a while, for example, as I expected to have an internet-ready FreeBSD install, but was disappointed to find no compiling software and terminal package-management. I also hated OS X at first because I wanted to do my Unix stuff, but that darn Aqua UI was distracting me from doing my work on Unix. Mac OS X is good for the following reasons though; internet efficiency, 3D GUI stability (unlike Compiz Fusion), elegant interface and experience, and pre-installed Apache. Both are very nice, in my opinion. Thanks for writing this article!
[Reply]
Post a Comment