Subject: Re: OSX vs. YDL - new
From: Dr. Alfonso F. Agnew (aagnew@fullerton.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 03 2001 - 19:20:04 MST
Hi Mark,
Perhaps my experience will be helpful to you. First of all, I think it
is very hard to determine what is meant by a "newbie". I have been
tinkering with linux on my wallstreet pbg3 since fall 1999, and in the
last 4 months, a 400MHz agp "sawtooth" with 17" Apple studio CRT can be
added to the wallstreet for computers I run linux, OSX, OS9.2.1, and
fink/gnu-darwin on.
However, I still consider myself a newbie for a few reasons. One is
that I have virtually no programming experience, and I had no prior
unix/dos/other nonmac-gui experience. This makes it very hard for me to
troubleshoot things like installation problems. It also sometimes makes
it a bit difficult for me to understand solutions posted in the
archives, since I just don't have the same conceptual and experience
base as most people on the list. My job/expertise has little to do
computers, outside of using email, www, technical typesetting, and other
"nonessentials(?!)" such as cd burning, mp3 playing, tinkering, etc.
As an example, I wanted to install linux on my sawtooth when I first
acquired it. The default resolution is 1280x1024 (vmode:20). I was
used to 1024x768 resolution, for which there is evidently no vmode to
accomplish this for my monitor. To solve this problem, one needs to
know, or be able to obtain, a modeline to put in the /etc/XF86config
file to get the 1024x768 resolution. I sought some modeline calculators
that couldn't accomplish this, and the standard X configuration programs
(Xautoconfig4, Xconfigurator) were either broken on my distro, or
couldn't get the desired resolution. In sum, I couldn't accomplish a
relatively simple and common configuration task with common hardware.
What did I do? Actually, I got very used to the vmode 20 resolution on
my monitor (1280x1024) and now use it whatever OS I am in.
Since I've upgraded to OSX.1, the performance has been stellar for what
I use it for: no crashing or long spinning wheels, nor other former
criticisms I've had or have heard about. This is simply my factual
experience. Also, putting Xwindows and many standard linux apps on the
Darwin component of OSX was a breeze with fink. On the other hand, I
still can't burn cd's unless I switch to OS9. That said, I still love
my YDL linux for reasons both objective and subjective (especially it
being truly open source), even though I don't really take advantage of
its full power or many parts that may be noticeably superior to OSX. I
enjoy learning with linux. I try to support all unix-like efforts for
Apple hardware.
Now, there's been a lot of linux vs. OSX mail on this list recently, and
having technical discussions about OSX performance vs linux performance
and sub/objective discussions about why one prefers one over the other
is fine and (hopefully) helpful. But linux and OSX can and should
coexist, and so should their proponents. Let's not turn such issues
into a divisive pie-throwing contest as if no alternatives are worthy to
exist. I for one am so very glad that all these choices exist, and I'm
not going to promote my preferences by slamming the alternatives.
There's enough of that in U.S. presidential debates!
CHOICE IS GOOD.
My 2+ cents.
Alfonso Agnew
On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Mark Philip wrote:
As you may have read from my previous posts, I am a newbie when it comes
to Linux, having only used Red Hat Linux on a PC Notebook. I would like
to know, just out of interest, why would anyone install Linux (eg. YDL)
on a G4 machine when they can install OSX?
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