Category Archives: Geek

Geek stuff

OS X… unworthy of respect?

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Jorge had an interesting post today about OS X and open source advocates. It got me thinking, and when that happens, well… stuff like this shows up.

Yeah, OS X users do get a “Get Out of Jail Free” card in comparison to Windows users. I started wondering why this was, and here’s what I came up with:

  • For the technically capable, OS X is a choice that says, “I looked and decided this was the best choice for me.” Windows though, well… I’m just going to assume that you’re one 31337 k1dd13.
  • Open Source kernel. Flame the, “BSD underpinnings” remarks if you will, but the kernel is open.
  • Availability of open source utilities. OS X has stuff built in (openldap, gcc, etc) and it has plenty more easily available to it. Running them isn’t like getting Cygwin on Windows.
  • Command line… Windows doesn’t have a fully functioning command line. I’m sorry, but if I need to do something important, I want a command line with a text based login. Who knows where I’ll be and whether or not I’ll have the bandwidth to use a fancy GUI remote use package (RDP, terminal services, whatever)..
  • Security, OS X has it by default. Viruses, what are those?
  • Stability.
    elayne:~ kyle$ uptime
    23:31 up 28 days, 54 mins, 2 users, load averages: 0.44 0.37 0.53

    My laptop has been up a month… enough said.

  • Sane application installs. Hey look, the program is all in one file as far as the user is concerned. Granted, this is really only an advantage over Windows, I prefer Linux package management via apt. Then, I don’t even have to care where something gets installed to.

    • So, why don’t OS X users get ostracized like Windows users? An operating system is ultimately about choice. At ~5% of the market share, OS X is a choice, Windows is a default. Also, while Jorge says the goal wasn’t originally, “Linux on the Desktop,” maybe, just maybe it should be. Maybe people want usability out of their machine. I know that is where Ubuntu is headed and I sure as hell like what that group is using.

    My name is Kyle, I use both OS X and Ubuntu Linux; I believe the goal of Linux should be making it usable as a Desktop.

    Sad iPod

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    My iPod has given up the ghost. I’ve been fighting with it for a while now and today, I was squarely beaten. I was listening to a couple of Beethoven’s symphonies today (3rd and 7th if you want to know) and turned it off when I got to class. As usual, I put it in my pocket for the rest of the day. This was at noon.

    Fast forward to 4:30pm. I just got out of my last class for the day and am sitting in my car. The iPod goes in the cupholder, the FM transmitter is attached. I use the menu to navigate to a song in my playlist of rock music and the iPod freezes. I mentally groan and am annoyed to have to fuss with it before I head home. I reset it and it goes through its booting menu… this time though, I’m not greeted by the normal menu. Oh no, I get this:

    Sad iPod

    I’m still within the standard one year warranty (I didn’t buy AppleCare for my iPod) so I’ve submitted the web form to get a replacement. It turns out, since I’m past 6 months, I have to pay shipping, to the tune of $30. Oh well, that’s $30 for a new iPod, it’s better than $299.

    Hopefully the turn around is less than a week, I’m already missing it.

    MythBusters

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    Adam and Jamie from MythBusters came to Tech and gave a talk about who they are, what they do and how they got started. They fielded questions from the audience and even gave a demonstration that involved audience members drinking beer.

    Mythbusters

    After going, I love the show even more. They’re two down-to-earth guys who love what they do and say what they think.

    Rock on.

    Hard Drives

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    Well, tonight I finish my migration to all Seagate hard drives. The drive that I thought was failing (and thus the reason I purchased a replacement for it two weeks ago) failed again tonight. It’s not a huge deal for that one, but it is my music and backups drive.

    I’ll be pulling it out and copying the backups I made of all that data to it in about half an hour. After that, I’ll use the computer my brother sent up for his girlfriend to use in the fall to stress test the drive. Speaking of that computer, he did something that was pretty dumb. See if you can spot it:

    Hmm...

    That’s right, he replaced the stock power supply with a better one and the holes do not line up. Apparently his old one didn’t have a power switch. The part that boggles my mind is that he didn’t dremel a new hole for it before he sent it up here with me.

    EDIT: Apparently this is actually his computer that he moved from a different case and hadn’t finished working on before I took it up. I was wondering why the dvd burner and 3 hard drives were inside.

    ATI Drivers Part Deux

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    The alternate title for this entry is: ATI Drivers for Linux Suck More Than a Crack Addicted Harlot.

    Well, I’ve recovered from my initial excitement and joy that came with actually managing to get my 3D drivers installed. Now I’ve come to realize how bad the ATI drivers for X.org actually are. This past weekend, one of my housemates, another friend and I went on an Unreal Tournament 2004 gaming spree. Now, I’ve played this game quite a bit in the past, and I remember it running quite well on both Windows XP and Xfree-86.

    Now though, I’ve been playing things all on the lowest settings (where before everything had been cranked up as high as it could go) and… well, pictures are worth a thousand words they say:

    Guess when I was playing?

    UT2k4 CPU Usage
    UT2k4 Load Average

    That’s right, it pegs out my CPU and takes my load average up to 2 (through an oddity of how it graphs it isn’t 6).

    ATI, thanks for sucking.