Eric Day

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The Big Mac Dilemma

July 28th, 2008

Last week I was at OSCON (more on that later) and I was surrounded by a mix of laptops – most of them running Ubuntu or OS X. This caused an internal dilemma I’ve been having for years to resurface: is using a Mac “selling out” from your OSS ideals? I still use a PowerBook and last fall I purchased an iMac (guilt included). Previously I had been running Slackware Linux on a wide range of desktops and laptops (this was since 1995). I switched because I was tired of dealing with all those little pesky hardware compatibility issues, especially on laptops, and I thought the time saved there would be a good tradeoff for new development. Well, I don’t think I can use that excuse anymore. Ubuntu is pretty slick and takes many of those issues away. A few laptop manufacturers are even shipping with Linux now. There is even an argument using OS X for development is more difficult now (try compiling large applications like MySQL or Drizzle). How do you fellow Mac users who are also OSS supporters justify the proprietary buy-in now that Linux is pretty much ready for prime-time laptop use?

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11 Responses to "The Big Mac Dilemma"

Mike says:

July 28, 2008 at 9:26 pm

Believe me, the hardware problems are far from over, even with Ubuntu.
Using a Mac is “selling out” « MySQL-HA says:

July 28, 2008 at 9:56 pm

[...] Posted in Uncategorized by mtaylor on the July 28, 2008 I was just reading The Big Mac Dilemma, who asks: is using a Mac “selling out” from your OSS [...]
Brian says:

July 28, 2008 at 10:24 pm

I agree with Mike. Ubuntu *is* slick, but it can only do so much. To my knowledge, nobody has been able to convince the hardware vendors that providing hardware specs or working drivers for Linux folks is worthwhile. I’ve run Ubuntu on various hardware (including multiple laptops) since it was created, and the improvements are app-level. Under the covers it’s the same old flaky or non-existent drivers. Suspend/resume/hibernate works on almost no hardware I’ve ever seen in the wild, wireless is better, but not great, and that has nothing to do with Ubuntu vs any other distro. Video is ok if you don’t need anything overly fancy. Don’t expect any special buttons to work out of the box, or any other model-specific functionality to be ready to go. That windows sticker on the laptops isn’t just marketing, evidently. Sad but true.

While I do run Linux or UNIX on every server I touch, all of my desktop work is done on a macbook pro, and I have a dual G4 as well.
Giuseppe Maxia says:

July 28, 2008 at 10:25 pm

Hi,
My dependency on Linux is so high that even in my Mac I use a virtual machine to run Ubuntu. However, traveling to open source events and meetings is a relevant part of my job, and still Ubuntu laptops have a few hardware related problems:

* sound trouble with phone over IP applications.
* wireless detection and connection
* suspend and resume by closing/opening the lid

All the above problems have workarounds and you can use Linux. However, when your work depends on them quite frequently, it becomes a mighty annoyance.

Apart from that, the main productivity boost I had from using a Mac instead of Linux is Apple Keynote. I have used OpenOffice Impress for years, and I wasted countless hours creating and adjusting my presentations. If you do one or two presentations per year, you can probably cope. This year alone, I have had 23 presentations in 12 towns (Orlando, Melbourne, Naples, Milan, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Trento, Rome, Portland) and four online events. For every one, I could spend time working on the actual contents of the presentation, with no time wasted on composition problems.

My Linux laptops have been traveling with me less and less frequently in the last two years. I don’t see a change coming anytime soon.

Giuseppe
Ronald Bradford says:

July 29, 2008 at 1:23 am

Yes, I choose a Mac for the “it just works principle”, moving from my work T60 with ubuntu I had to give back.

I’m sick of it, particularly the UI and dependencies. I just found out you can install Linux natively on the Mac, so I’m going to try this (dual boot first)

Maybe I can run Ubuntu natively and then get Mac OS/X under virtualization. That would work for me.
Eric Herman says:

July 29, 2008 at 2:52 am

Yes, as a Mac user I can say without flinching, “I’ve sold out.”

While it may be that “Linux is pretty much ready for prime-time laptop use” … like Giuseppe, I find that I have many more tiny issues, and more importantly I spend A LOT more time doing administrative tasks of all stripes on my linux laptop.

The value proposition is obvious: at home, on my time, freedom is a thing I value deeply. On my work’s time, they want me to spend as little time on system admin stuff (and as much time on development) as possible. Of course, that’s why my *work* computer is a mac and my *home* computer is Linux From Scratch: http://cross-lfs.org/view/1.0.0/

Perhaps one day, I will work for a company which has a different view of things, and puts heroic effort into ensuring that _all_ of their employees are running on all Free Software. However, I don’t think that is likely because I don’t think it will make good business sense any time soon:

The true cost of non-Free software is the cost of switching when you’re clearly in jail. We’ve seen that the “costs” of switching from MS Word to Open Office can be much larger than expected. If OS X really puts us in jail, I expect the cost of switching away to be higher than expected, too.

Still, I’m not sure that it is good business sense for companies to say, “work on a Mac today, but keep your data in open formats, so our linux users can work, too.” As long as a company is willing to have some of the employees running on totally FOSS systems, they retain the assurance that if needed, they can switch everyone.

Eric
Nils says:

July 29, 2008 at 4:17 am

I had used a Macbook for longer time, because it just works out of the box as opposed to linux with all the hardware problems. I still get a full blown shell, Unix or GNU userland (kind of) and don’t have to deal with Windows, which I think is far inferior from a usability experience. The real problem with that thing was that you can’t code with that keyboard layout, especially when using the german layout. Granted that I’m used to PC Keyboards, but needing 3 keystrokes to get [? And most characters aren’t even printed on the keyboard, so the guessing starts when you don’t use it regularly. It’s a pain in the ass. I’ll try Ubuntu next. Good that I’m not on the road that often.
eduo says:

July 29, 2008 at 12:42 pm

I have a problem with two arguments in this discussion. I would’ve replied in HA but I’d rather not register for a comment and it may be more relevant here, where less bigotry and senseless vitriol is being flung.

The first one is about considering the handling of dependencies and package managers as something normal or even desirable to have. I know this may be reason to be kicked out of the Linux camp but I haven’t been able to see package managers as anything other than crutches to make up for the utter mess of libraries in Unix and the differences among distros.

It may be that I remember when package managers HAD to be invented because tracking dependencies was becoming ridiculous but they are, in reality, a patched-up solution to a made-up problem consequence of our original sloppy practices.

The second argument is precisely to believe that an operating system that doesn’t provide one of these package managers is evil (HA’s comment on RH makes this very clear). To believe not only that package managers are normal but that OSes that don’t include one are somehow faulty.

There’s some mention about how Fink and Ports are not complete solutions (which is not surprising, considering how they try to bolt on Linux rules on a non-linux environment, one for which X11 is an extra, not a given).

Mac OS X has methods for dealing with dependencies in package installations, has bundles which go a long, long way into simplifying handling of libraries making even “static” libraries behave like dynamic ones by using scope domains and has its own system of library storage and presentation to applications which just happens not to be like the normal unices. This is the same reason GNUStep hasn’t got one either (last time I checked, although one made for GNUStep would be portable to OSX).

I find it amazing that converting a fault which forces everyone to use a program to make things transparent (ergo easier) for users because they’ve become un-humanly-manageable into an advantage others are fools not to follow is the wors type of argument.

Windows’ Add/Remove Software exists for the same reason than apt does: To try and make it easier to handle the mess behind the scenes.
blair christensen says:

July 29, 2008 at 1:08 pm

I happily use several MacBooks both at home and at work because a) they work and b) they fit my needs. Computers are tools, not a matter of religion.
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