[Cialug] OT: mac-mini?

[David Champion]

Bryan Baker wrote:
> 
> On Oct 20, 2005, at 3:50 PM, David Champion wrote:
> 
>> Don't mean to sound all RMS here, but...
>>
>> The new version of Linux and / or Firefox didn't cost me anything. 
>> That alone might be enough to justify not buying a Mac. How much do 
>> those incremental MacOSX updates cost?
> 
> Large feature upgrades cost. Just like any other for pay OS. $129 is the 
> current retail on it, and it's a full new licence, NOT an upgrade. You 
> can donate it, or put it on another machine legally. Last I heard you 
> were a paying Mandriva "club" member. That's admirable, but it is 
> costing you $$. I know you have the option to freeload, and that's fine, 
> but geeeze, these folks have a product and they want to eat too.
> 
> Security, and bug fix updates (service packs) are (beer) free.
> 
> You are also perfectly free to install Linux or *BSD on that box if you 
> want.

The Mandriva Club Silver membership I have costs $132 / year. There's a 
lower level one for $66 / year. I do it to be supporting a company that 
does a lot of OSS development - they maintain several OSS projects and 
actively contribute to others like KDE. I could find other ways to 
donate to OSS development, but this sounded like a good way to do it 
that spread the money around, and gains me some benefit as well.

You can find this info here:

http://www.mandrivalinux.com/en/club/

Mandriva has a "delayed release" schedule, similar to a Slashdot 
subscription, where you can get the same distribution, just a week or so 
after the Club members.

They also provide some non-free distributions, software and services to 
Club members, but non-club members can also buy that software it they'd 
like.

Anyone can get a fully functional Mandriva Linux OS, or any one of 
dozens of other Linux / BSD OS's for no cost. Not so with OSX or Windows.

>> Microsoft doesn't even charge for those - once I purchased WinXP, I 
>> get incremental updates (as in SP2, and security releases) for no 
>> additional charge. Dang, now you've got me sounding like a MS fanboy...
> 
> But did you did pay if you wanted to go from 95 to 98 (or even se as I 
> recall) or to ME or to 2k... just because Apple are actually releasing 
> products worth paying for, doesn't mean MS updates are free - I bet you 
> won't get Vista™ for free either.

I get functionality updates from MS to things like IE and Media Player. 
I don't use either of those much because the suck, but I didn't have to 
pay for an OS update to get them.

I pay for the MS OS at home because I want it to play games that are 
only available on that platform. If I could get those games to run 
reliably on Linux, I would. Other than that I have no reason to need or 
want Windows at home. Hopefully either game developers will start 
releasing more Linux versions, or WinXP will be sufficient for those 
needs for a while, and I won't have to buy Vista.

p.s. Get your Quake 4 Linux Client : 
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/20/1831234&tid=112&tid=10

Either way, I have to pay for Windows, and you have to pay for MacOSX, 
so the amount really just accounting.

>> MacOSX is a nifty / pretty *nix, but it's:
>>
>> a. Proprietary (read today's comments on /. regarding OO.o and Carbon)
> 
> ooh, it's on slashdot so uh, it must be true.

Oh. So there's already a MacOSX native port of OO.o 2.0 that nobody 
knows about? I don't know all of the semantics, but if I understand 
correctly there's an ugly(?) X11 port, but the native OSX port is a bit 
behind.

I don't currently see the comment there, it may have gotten modded down 
below my threshold. Anyone with an opinion on /. is obviously a troll. ;)

Apple chose to use a proprietary WM / envirionment / whatever you want 
to call Cocoa / Carbon... and Mac users have to wait for things like 
OO.o to be ported to it. I'm sure there are benefits to it, but it's no 
fun to point those out! :)

>> b. Not OSS (would follow a. then, wouldn't it?)
> 
> uh, no. you loose, thanks for playing. there are elements of the OS that 
> are totally proprietary (IIRC I think several Linux distros include some 
> non-free tech) but there is a core of tech (OpenDarwin) that is roughly 
> equivalent to a normal BSD/Linux that IS definitely OSS - by OSDL 
> standards. You're just wrong there Dave.

You are correct that some Linux distros, including Mandriva, do contain 
some closed code. For instance, they distribute the proprietary nVidia 
drivers. However, I can use the free

OpenDarwin is the commodity part of the OS, that has little to 
differentiate itself from BSD or Linux. Without the proprietary stuff, 
there's no reason for me to want OSX.

For instance, I could install OpenDarwin and run an apache server, but I 
couldn't run Photoshop in it, right?

MacOSX != OpenDarwin.

Saying that MacOSX is a little bit proprietary is like saying someone is 
a little bit dead.

Apple does a lot for OSS - like the Rendezvous / zeroconf thing. But 
they also do a lot of proprietary and downright unfriendly things. Ask 
any one of the many people who've been sued by them.

>> Uh, end rant.
> 
> uh, end rant rant.

End? That's no fun!

I would argue that most of the useablity issues remaining with a Linux 
desktop system relate to issues like what we were fighting at the 
meeting last night with Dave Swagler's Gateway laptop... which ties back 
to my comments earlier this week with hardware vendor support for Linux 
drivers, or at least providing specifications for someone to develop 
them. (BTW, Barry got the Broadcom wifi driver loaded, but it's not 
connecting to the WAP yet).

Installing Linux on hardware that's a year or so old is usually fairly 
simple. It's new / exotic cutting edge hardware that causes headaches, 
unfortunately.

Once a Linux system is up and running, it's very user friendly. I have 
had non-technical people using a Linux desktop for web browsing, word 
processing and other common tasks, and they often don't even notice that 
it's Linux until I point it out. My fairly non-technical parents were 
using a Linux desktop system for about a year for web surfing and word 
processing.

Using a USB drive, or my digital camera, or my MP3 player in Mandriva 
Linux is just as easy as it is in Windows or I would assume a Mac. I 
plug them in, and they work.

In the end, we all have the choice to use whatever OS we want (as long 
as we can afford it)... and I personally think it's great that we have 
so many choices. For instance if buying a Mac Mini will keep your wife 
happy, then by all means, buy one. But this is ostensibly a Linux F/OSS 
User Group, so I think it is our responsibility to support the F/OSS 
alternatives to proprietary systems.

-dc