Whatever. Linux is a kernel, not an operating system.

The linux kernel is all Linus has control over. He certainly doesn't control the rest of the software bundled by Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc.

In that case, Linux is to MacOSX as a carburetor is to a car. There is no correspondence by which a valid comparison can be made. Ditto for his comparison to Windows.

I'm a software developer, albeit it Java, and I'll venture that the average developer is never going to be exposed to the file system fundamentals. In otherwords, ÑŒbergeeks like Linus might care about such things, but your run-of-the-mill geek will not.

I probably agree with Torvalds that the filing system is the weakest aspect of OS X. I have never really become used to it (coming from OS 9 and previous Mac OS's as well as Windows 95). But looking at OS X's faults in the context of Linux is a little silly. Linux is a total mess. A colleague of mine, who always would praise and promote Linux, recently outside a meeting threw up his arms it total disgust and basically said, "That's it. I've had it with Linux." Linux had just eaten up all his email files. Great filing system! I rather have a so-so filing system (that is highly predictable) than a digestive one...

Overall, Mr. Torvalds' assessment of MacOSX was generally positive. But ultimately, who really cares what he thinks about it?

I'm going out on a limb here because I've never used Linux, but based on what I've read, there seem to be many aspects of Linux on the desktop that are "complete and utter crap". As a user, I'll take the pitfalls of HFS+ over the hassles of tinkering with Linux any day.

Also, I'm not a programmer, but aren't the developer tools at least as critical to how easy it is to program for an OS as is the file system? Again, I'm no programmer, but I've never heard Mac developers complain about HFS+. Maybe it's just that I don't hang out in the right places..

edit: typo, must have been that crappy HFS+

"I think OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways, but neither can hold a candle to my own (Linux). It's a race to second place!"

There's a point where self-confidence descends from feistiness breezes past braggadocio and ends up ignominiously in the ridiculous. Linus Torvalds, from the few interviews I've read struck me as a humble, level-headed fellow. I'm surprised at this statement for he has certainly gone beyond the ridiculous on this one.

Maybe it's Fake Linus Torvalds.

"I don't care how it works inside", is usually followed by "It just lost my last two years of data, I hate computers".
Care or not about file system internals it does matter to the end user in performance and reliability. Apple should have put there GUI on top of the Linux kernel. I'd probably even buy it in that case.

I have been a multiple OS user as long as I have been using computers (the mid 90's). I do agree that Windows and Mac OSX both have some issues, but the Linux world is "complete and utter crap". There is no consistency, the growth is chaotic and sporadic, with a random distribution gaining the spotlight ever 6 months and being "the best" when it is really just the "new popular kid in the lunch room" as my daughter put it. HFS+ is old and weak, but we do know what to expect of it, and when it is replaced we will know what to expect of whatever comes from ZFS. With linux and the constant changes of the half dozen plus file systems that each flavor can use dependent on the choice of the admin of that system and the dependences and updates and blah blah blah... I'd much rather play 52 variable pick up with OSX/Windows/*BSD/Solaris if something goes wrong, then that worn out 10,000 variable pick up that is linux when something goes wrong.

I think most points here are valid, I have used all of the operating systems, I only rum mac in my house, PC for business. I have tried almost every flavor of linux and unix, and hands down it sucks to work with unless you are an "ubber geek"! Even then it sometimes sucks. When I buy an OS it is not to spend countless hours building software to run, of trying to figure out why the fu** my wireless network card won't work under kernal X. I have been programming for going on 15 years and not once have I stopped to think about... "Gee, I wonder if this FS is any good". Point being, if you are going to knock a company, pick something that is relevent. I believe the expression is "Can't see the forest from the trees".

How about a follow up as to WHY the file system is "complete and utter crap" in his ever so humble (not) opinion.

I remember reading a quote from Linus in 2001 when he said: The Mac will cease to exist within 5 years, and Linux will have 15-20% share on the desktop. OOPS! it looks like it may be the other way around on the desktop.

i know jon schwartz (sun) stated that ZFS was slated to be leopard's primary operating system. i'm of the opinion that apple really is moving in that direction, but just weren't able to execute it in time for the already delayed leopard. HFS+ is getting pretty old. i'm sure a modern file system could do wonders for os x.

i'm an os x fanboy, through and through, but i generally appreciate a lot of what gnu/linux people have to say.

"I remember reading a quote from Linus in 2001 when he said: The Mac will cease to exist within 5 years"

And you know, he was spot on. There's nothing left of the old MacOS Classic. Mac OS X traces its lineage back to BSD and NeXT, not the old MacOS.

His point was the old MacOS operating system had reached the end of its life and had become unmanageable. Apple agreed and shifted their GUI to something else.

"and Linux will have 15-20% share on the desktop"

Won't be too far off, if the OLPC and eeePC sales meet expectations in the next 6 months or so .

Well, he's right about that, I'd say. HFS+ is definitely showing its age, not to mention its firm roots in the Classic Mac OS way of doing things... we haven't needed stuff like resource forks, type and creator codes, etc. for years, and I definitely hope the ZFS thing is true. (It certainly appears that way; hopefully we'll see it become the default OS in 10.6.) ZFS looks like quite a fine filesystem.

As for Linus's claim that neither OS X nor Windows "hold a candle to my own" -- I'd say that's pretty arrogant, and factually inaccurate. He's responsible for the kernel; it sounds like he's taking credit for the whole package. A reasonable comparison would be between Mach/XNU, NT, and Linux.

We could say plenty of bad things about NT, of course... XNU is solid but unremarkable, I'd say. They had the chance to do something really innovative with the Mach core -- present the first consumer-ready operating system with the industrial-strength stability and extensibility of a clean, well-designed microkernel -- but instead they basically took some core Mach services, and then threw the entire BSD kernel on top of it as a single service. Certainly there are implementation challenges in designing a microkernel-based system really well (hence why the GNU Hurd has been in development with no release, nor even a remotely usable snapshot, for 18 years). But if Apple wasn't going to bother trying, one must wonder why they'd bother using a microkernel at all. Using a plain BSD kernel would probably have worked just as well, as would have, I daresay, Linux. (Okay, okay, I know why they stayed with Mach: Avie. But he's left Apple now, so maybe 10.7 or something can start a transition to a more logical kernel design. )

As for Linux itself, I certainly appreciate the years of work put into it by so many thousands of talented programmers around the world, but I'm not a fan of how gigantic and monolithic it is. I would very much prefer a kernel (micro or not) that comes with a small core that can load powerful extensions for a variety of tasks. Without having to recompile the kernel every time, by the way. Even if its build system were less hateful. But it works. The positive side of its trying to be everything to everyone is that it actually succeeds, in a great deal of situations. It's an excellent basis for server OSes, embedded systems, etc. But if Linus is suggesting that typical (or even the best) GNU/Linux distributions are better than OS X as a desktop system, then he's delusional. The best of breed, I'd say, is Ubuntu -- I could see it being used by normal humans, and I actually think it's probably at least as easy to learn and use as Vista is -- but its default desktop system configuration still doesn't "hold a candle" to OS X.

Well, anyway. In conclusion, Linus is pretty much right that HFS+ is "utter crap", but the next sentence he spoke was itself utter crap.

I have just read the whole Q & A session at http://tinyurl.com/34u8q4 and believe too many people are hung up on the above part of it.. the complete Q & A session is very well worth reading!

in response to torvalds' candle comment..

a friend of mine recently described linux as "the angry, basket case kid off in the corner".. i think that's an overly negative simplification, but it does illustrate a valid point. while i think this was just an instance of an author showing pride in his own work, in general, linux users tend to believe that their system is more ace just because they're generally smarter than everyone else. however, intelligence can often lead to ignorance.

torvalds is a big enough nerd that he doesn't realize that his operating system is a pain in the ass for the average person to use. ubuntu has made progress as far as ease of use goes, but i still can't ever see myself putting my mom on a linux box.

i don't mean to insult nerds, because i am one, but there comes a point where i have better things to do than sit around and screw with my os all day long. os x lets do those things.

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ata wrote:
we haven't needed stuff like resource forks, type and creator codes, etc. for years

I beg to differ!

Resource forks are still used widely, and offer the only good way to add application-specific data to application-independent file types (for example, storing window location and selection status of a plain text file). They're also used for file icons. Resource forks are rightly discouraged for vital content, but even that use has not disappeared (see clippings, for example).

File type/creator codes are sadly no longer used by most programs, but where is the suitable replacement?! There is none, really. OS X's method of file association is a bit of a mess. It would be much better if creator codes were still mandatory (even without type codes it would be an improvement).

Even if these things really were useless, so what? They're not hurting anything.

HFS+ also supports a virtually unlimited number of arbitrary metadata attributes. You can create these yourself for your files if you're handy with the command line. Apple hasn't really made use of this feature, but the file system supports it.

Just saying "it sucks" is not an argument. In what way does HFS+ suck? Is it slow? Buggy? Unresilient? And what Linux file system are we using for comparison? There are several common ones, all of which have their own unique problems. (Not that I really blame Linux for his passing comment; any lengthy explanation would have been inappropriate in context.)

ZFS certainly offers some cool new features, but that's not even standard in Linux yet.

pwned.

good point about the metadata.

Windows, MacOS, Linux Distros... every one has a strong part of it.

I mean, you can play decent games on Windows (or just buy an xbox or something), And Windows is more accessable for the average user. Plus, the Microsoft Office software range is really good at what it does, nothing else on that scene comes near. (Personally I think open office is a load of crap, and Office 2004 for OS X is useless and *SLOW*)

Linux (and all the software written for it) is a good choice for server environments (and it's good to play with), but I'll prob never use it for everyday things due to the lack of decent sofware (excluding the odd piece like The Gimp) and uncompatibility issues with third party software. (such as the CS3 suite).

MacOS X, I personally think, is a design system, no two ways about it. It's a dream to work on with photos and multimedia. CS3, for one, is lightning fast on CS3.

But then again, all of this is only my opinion.

Constant Meiring

And, technically, compared to ReiserFS v3/4, commonly used on Linux systems, HFS+ is very very very very slow. Don't know how the comparison looks with EXT3 and HFS+, coz I don't use EXT3. Aparently, it's very stable tho...

Constant Meiring

HFS+ is great for startup partition, Mac application support (Read as Adobe etc.). OS X is a commercial OS from a commercial company. They _have to_ support things like Resource forks, creator codes. DTP professionals use such features for ages. In some publishing houses, you may have 6 different versions of Quark on same volume.
When you want a true Unix/Next experience, you format a partition/external drive/secondary drive as UFS, happily use it. If you want a pure open source experience, there is Darwin, Yellow Dog Linux or any Linux/*BSD with PPC/Intel support.
If you want to work with huge files on a professional environment, you go with XSan.

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Guest wrote:
And, technically, compared to ReiserFS v3/4, commonly used on Linux systems, HFS+ is very very very very slow. Don't know how the comparison looks with EXT3 and HFS+, coz I don't use EXT3. Aparently, it's very stable tho...

Constant Meiring

I don't know. On my aging Pismo with a G4 processor, and running a rather bland hard drive, when I'm running it under my Ubuntu partition--regardless of whether I'm using Gnome, KDE or Xfce, the hard drive doesn't feel any faster--slower, in fact. I have not at all been happy with ext3, as far as performance is concerned.

I _like_ HFS+. I like the resource forks, etc. It can still do stuff you don't see on other file systems (ext3). Plus, it's journaled to boot, nowadays. The only other file system as flexible that I remember is the old Be OS file system, which was, in reality, a relational database (kind of like the Newton soup structure).

I think Linus' problem is that it is unfamiliar to him--plus, he had to say _something_ to knock OS X. I guess it was an easy target for him--albeit not a great one to knock.... In other words, if all he had negative to say about the Mac OS was this... Maybe a closet Tiger user?
(I think I need to go read the entire interview now)
-Jon

OK. I read the article. but he sounds like he's being inconsistent--basing his opinion on a personal, emotional position.

I quote something he says positive about Linux:

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But these commercial entities tend to write white papers on suggested guidelines for common themes, so that two different programs written by two different teams end up looking somewhat the same.

Some of that comes naturally as the infrastructure has grown up a lot. There are common toolkits - things are starting to look more and more common. It allows developers to concentrate on what their application is all about instead of all the stupid bits and pieces that people take for granted like opening a file.

So, as I read this, he is praising recent moves in the Linux community to standardize user interface elements, and common toolkits/widgets, etc... as well as how to achieve them in development (kind of like the dialog boxes in Hypercard) Yes, this is a good thing, I think we can all agree...

And then, he turns around and says this:

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A: An o/s should never have been something that people (in general) really care about: it should be completely invisible and nobody should give a flying f*** about it except the technical people.

It's stupid - when you make a big deal about something like Vista or Leopard a lot of it is about things I don't consider to be the operating system. It's about the visual shell around it.

So, he's saying that the user shouldn't see the actual operating system? Like DOS? a bare command line? or something more? Now, I can understand saying that the underlying OS/kernal is a separate entity from the user interface, and even the argument that it should be. But even he recognizes above, that having a common human interface is essential to the proper workings of a system--it is precisely _that_ that users care about! I can understand that he, as the mechanic, might not care about the interior of the car, or whether or not it has A/C or leather seats, or what kind of stereo is in it, but tell me the average user doesn't care!

Sure, he might like the thought of the flexibility of, say, putting Toyota seats in a Caddy brings to him, but I doubt your average user would take it that far, however. But this seems to be something he is implying....

But the real problem, as far as I'm concerned, and where he shows his blind bias, is in the next quote... and shows the source of his problem.

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To Microsoft and Apple the o/s is important as a way to control the whole environment, from a marketing and money-making standpoint, to force people to upgrade their applications, and your hardware.

So, the user interfaces are nothing more than an opportunity for control for Apple and Microsoft.... Sorry, but while I may be a Microsoft-hater, I don't buy that it's only that... There are lots of simpler ways to acheive that without all the eye-candy. The final analysis, IMO, is that he has a false perception of these commercial entities, and won't give them any credit, even where it's due!

The truth is, both companies have devoted millions of dollars to researching their respective interfaces (though, far to often, in Microsoft's case, it was probably the purchase of a copy of the Mac OS, and paying the engineers to decompile/deconstruct it and imitate it)

But the truth is, _all_ of the user interface elements on Linux are nothing more than simply copies of elements from either Windows or the MacOS, and since so much of Windows came straight from the Mac, one could argue that Linux has done nothing but imitate, and downright rip off Apple's hard work right from the start! Now, granted, I'm showing my own bias here, but I'll be honest, it is my perspective. I've done a lot of working in Linux now, and at the user level, I can't find anything that the Mac hasn't done first--with some oddly notable exceptions that are Windows innovations (multiple button mice, most notable, and multiple "spaces" to use the Leopard term--but I believe that Spaces are redundant on the MacOS with its Dock/windows management and Expose). The only real innovation in Linux is the X11 windows server that allows remote control of an environment, and even _that_ isn't Linux. Sorry, but there is nothing that Linux has that the Mac didn't pioneer...

And I know somebody will yell out that Xerox had it first, and Apple stole it--but that is an argument from ignorance. Xerox had nothing but a hodgepodge of ideas and concepts. Worse, it was doing nothing with them! Apple first partnered them, and then just left them behind. It was Apple that turned these vaporous concepts into a genuinely innovative product(s)(let's not forget the Lisa, may she rest in peace), that were a far cry from the ideas at Xerox.

In any case, I fear that Linus has shown his blind spot.

-Jon

Funny, I don't recall having to tinker with my Ubuntu Feisty install at all today, or yesterday either.

Try interpreting Linus's praise of linux in the context in which he spoke it: at a linux conference. In the presence of linux enthusiasts. Calling that arrogant is like calling a coach arrogant for saying "we're no. 1" at a pep rally. If you aren't up to using linux, relax - he wasn't talking about you.

He meant that his OS - I have no problem calling it his - is best for those of us who like to build and configure our own systems, and most of all do so without being limited by proprietary technology and corporate ignorance of what we really want out of a computer. In particular I find both windows and Macintosh OS's paternalistic and condescending, and the corporate-made applications they run follow the same trend. They are designed as though the default user is a little child. This may be a side effect of their attempts to increase accessibility, but they are both entirely saddled with it, whereas linux users can pick and choose their OS from a full spectrum, ease of use on one side, configurability and versatility on the other.

A better comparision would be to compare Solaris and Leopard. Solaris is a very robust system, while Apple has the better windows environment.

[quote="Anonymous"]Funny, I don't recall having to tinker with my Ubuntu Feisty install at all today, or yesterday either.

Try interpreting Linus's praise of linux in the context in which he spoke it: at a linux conference. In the presence of linux enthusiasts. Calling that arrogant is like calling a coach arrogant for saying "we're no. 1" at a pep rally. If you aren't up to using linux, relax - he wasn't talking about you.[/qun, ote]

Funny, because I _do_ recall having to tinker with Feisty just to get it to run in full-screen on my Pismo. Oh, and I had lots of fun tinkering to get sound working--still do, in fact. It frequently flakes out, and now that I have to use the iMic to get sound out, it _really_ doesn't like it! But OS X just takes it and runs with it. I plug the iMic in, and suddenly hear sound coming out my speakers. Unplug it, and sound out the internals. So Linux _does_ need tinkering the Mac OS doesn't need... but that's beside the point, because you put it later--Linux is for those that _love_ tinkering... but more on that in a moment...

I don't fault Linus for singing the praises of Linux--it is his namesake, after all. My comments, at least--and I think most peoples' comments, were more along the lines that this was a lame complaint! If that's the worst he has to say, then that alone tells us something... (closet Mac fan, perhaps?)

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He meant that his OS - I have no problem calling it his

Man, that's really not fair to Richard Stallman (who did the yoeman's work of designing the rest of the system that came to be known as Linux or maybe, more properly, Gnu-Linux. All GNU lacked was the kernel, and Linus provided that--and no more. He says so himself... It's not really his system--he is just the great enabler... And, I would add, this does nothing to detract from his achievements! Stallman's group _still_ doesn't have a working, reliable kernal, to the best of my knowledge.

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whereas linux users can pick and choose their OS from a full spectrum, ease of use on one side, configurability and versatility on the other.

All of which means that Linux users have the flexibility to make their Linux boxes look and run as close to Windows and Mac as possible. And don't deny it! One of the first things I did on my Linux box was find Gnome and xfce and KDE themes that brought back my Aqua--I can't stand the ugly, Windows-like themes that come with these environments, and needed something more subtle and less glaring. I was _shocked_ to find how much was out there to help people to get their boxes to look like and act like both Windows and Mac OS--turorials galore!

-Jon

JonGI, one thing worth keeping in mind when talking about the difficulty of Linux is hardware support. Consider that OS X has very limited hardware support, too — the difference is that Apple makes it so it won't run on anything else! If you try to install OS X on a non-Apple machine, you'll have similar problems. You can't expect Linux to perfectly support all hardware just because it won't completely refuse to work with it.

Also, consider that Ubuntu is not even officially supported on PowerPC. You might have better luck with a more Mac-centric distro such as Yellow Dog. Debian (which Ubuntu is based on) may be better as well, since at least the PPC version is officially supported.

If you were to have these problems on a machine built for Linux (the way Macs are built for OS X), then that would be another matter.

I've had a ton of problems using Debian on my G4 Mac Mini, but most of them might be due to incompatibility with my Mac stuff (hardware, file systems, etc.) It's hard to say when I have no other Linux system to use for comparison.

HFS+ is indeed utter crap, and is showing its age. Why Apple decided to go with it when introducing OSX -- based on FreeBSD -- is beyond me.

In regards to the file systems available for Linux, he's very much correct: the advancements made there far exceed anything available in either Windows or Mac, since a good portion of them actually came from the Unix world. (These, however, are not the most common: Ext2, Ext3, and Reiser are the most common, and all are Linux-native.) He calls them his own because support for these has to be implemented into the kernel, and how the kernel handles them is an important part of how the file system works with the rest of the system (things like journaling capabilities, for example). A file system without good kernel support is a very dangerous thing. Just ask anyone who's used XFS when it was still bleeding edge.

What most people don't see is that the big difference between Linux and Mac is this:

Linux follows the engineers' philosophy of "Make it work, then make it pretty," so Linux programmers tend to make the most awesomely feature packed applications on the planet before they actually get to the usability part. They've made it work, but it usually isn't all that pretty.

Mac follows a different philosophy: "Make it work, but make sure it's pretty in the process." Sure, it may not have all the features -- in fact, it doesn't -- but all the features it has are beautiful, and if they're not there then you probably don't really need them anyway.

Herein lies the difference between the ads: as far as the ads, he's right. They're all about the GUI, really. Since this is what 95% of people ever see, it's the only thing that matters to most. His comments are geared more towards the 5% who actually get their hands dirty with the internals, who actually ever open up a terminal window, and who know more than just "cp" and "ls".

Most people don't see what he's talking about and therefore don't really care, incorrectly then discounting it as a geeky blowhard's ruminations. The fact is he knows exactly what he's talking about.

FYI: I've used Linux for years--Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, Mandrake, Mepis... you name it, I've used it--and have just recently switched to Mac OS X (I bought a MacBook). I love Mac OS X because it lets me do my work without getting in the way, something Linux and Windows can't really say they do. However, there is a certain level of freedom to do not just what I want, but HOW I want that is intrinsic to Linux and isn't available on the Mac. (For example, workspaces: I love the Beryl/Emerald combo, which allows me to view 4 desktops, at once, translucently, allowing me to view multiple items in the same space simultaneously. Mostly, this is so I could watch movies full screen while I write, but it has other uses.) While I recommend the Mac for most people, I don't hesitate to recommend Linux anymore, though instead of Ubuntu I usually recommend Freespire or Linspire.

- Gnorb

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Anonymous wrote:
Freespire or Linspire.

The last two words of your post destroyed any creditability the previous thousand gained.

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DrShakagee wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
Freespire or Linspire.

The last two words of your post destroyed any creditability the previous thousand gained.

Spoken like someone who's never actually had to deploy Linux to home users uninterested in anything other than getting things to "just work" without having to bother reading any of the fine documentation out there (and uninterested or unable to get a Mac). I know they're not popular with the Linux community -- I slammed them myself when they first came out -- the pure fact is that they do well enough what they're meant to. For those comfortable downloading codecs and installing programs, I'll usually recommend Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS, if they want something somewhat familiar and useful. (Xandros gets the familiar right, but not the useful, not for the home user, at any rate.)

(FYI: I have my in-laws -- 69 and 71 -- using Freespire, while my mom, sister and niece use Ubuntu. I don't care to do tech support for them, and while I sometimes have to answer tech support calls with the Ubuntu system, I've yet to get a call regarding the Freespire system.)

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I haven't registered yet wrote:
HFS+ is indeed utter crap, and is showing its age. Why Apple decided to go with it when introducing OSX -- based on FreeBSD -- is beyond me.

OK I'll play your little game. If HFS+ is utter crap, and I infer from your intensifier "utter" to mean that it is virtually unusable, explain why I have had no detectable serious errors on any of my Macs over the last eight years.

I am not the sort of geek who gets inside kernels. The number of those who need to do that is vanishingly small. The rest of us just get on with using our computers, whatever the OS, and assume that they're going to work. I do use the terminal app, all the time, and I do know what an inode is (in simple terms at least). But I'm not aware of the sort of bomb that you are implying by your phrases "utter crap" and "without good kernel support" mean.

Just saying that something is crap doesn't make it so - please expand.

Well, gnorb, you may be proud of all these Linux file systems, but riddle me this: How much time does HFS+ spend to record exact times of every access to every file, and how much does Linux spend?

(As far as I know the answer is zero for HFS+, and an estimated 10 percent for Linux).

Linus is mad because his child, whom he bore, wrote, and debugged, has failed him. Wasn't the whole point of linux to be a free open source operating system to escape the evils of the corporation? Instead people used it for gain and even the free versions of it are not even used as much as the poor mac that he predicted would see its demise soon. In fact the system whose death he predicted has almost tripled its market share and grown more popular since he uttered gloomy words of its death. Now im an impartial judge, i have used 13 "flavors" of linux all the windows except for anything before 95, and apple classics to imac g3's to emacs to 6080k's to my shiny new intel imac. i have done it all. Also another of Linux'es flaws is the "flavors". regular users who try it out have no clue what the hell they are supposed to do. It's like the choose a vista mac ad times dos(spanish for two not the cli os).

Certainly there is a correspondence to be made. Linus is saying that his carburetor is better than the carburetor in either the Apple or Microsoft car. Fair enough.