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Comment by mseebach | Hacker News Reader

This, and the app-store debacle, is the kind of stuff that makes me think that Apple isn't in it for the long haul.

Why doesn't MacOSX ship with native GTK? And Qt? Why hasn't OpenOffice worked seamlessly from day 1? Or at least day 5? Why don't Apple embrace the huge community that worships their products, instead of becoming the next Microsoft? What have they got to loose?

If getting my favourite Linux apps to run on my MacBook had bees as easy as apt-get, heck, even as easy as under Windows, I'd still use Mac OS X.. now it's running Kubuntu, and I'm regretting not getting a ThinkPad.

I'm disappointed, I REALLY wanted to like MacOSX.

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Because Mac OS X has Cocoa/Aqua for its UI instead of GTK/Gnome or QT/KDE. If you want GTK/Gnome or QT/KDE, use Linux. If you want Cocoa/Aqua, use Mac OS X.

If you looked at something like MacPorts or Fink, you would see that installing $randomPackage is as simple as "sudo (fink/port) install packagename"

Oh, and last i checked, NeoOffice worked fine (And OpenOffice is finally getting around to finishing a native Mac port). So, um, it has been supported since day one. If you bothered searching and finding it. But it's not Apple's fault OO.o doesn't advertise their product in a way to get on your radar.

> If you looked at something like MacPorts or Fink, you would see that installing $randomPackage is as simple as "sudo (fink/port) install packagename"

We both know the amount of packages available in Fink pales in comparison to the average Linux distribution. To state otherwise is disingenuous.

I wouldn't say it pales. OK, this is kind of like comparing apples and oranges, but still:

Leopard:

    port list | wc -l
    5038

Tiger:

    fink list | wc -l
    8111

Ubuntu 8.04:

    apt-cache pkgnames | wc -l
    33720

So the number of packages is 5-6x smaller, but most common/useful packages are present. Also you should take into account that many packages present in ubuntu don't mean anything in OS X. And for example there are for example tons of python packages in Ubuntu, all/most of which can be easily installed through easy_install :-)

Let's compare how up to date the packages are:

    port info cmake
    cmake 2.6.1, devel/cmake (Variants: universal)
    ...

    apt-cache show cmake
    ...
    Version: 2.4.7-1build1
    ...

So based on sample of 1 package we can see that MacPorts is more up to date than Ubuntu. Joking aside, cmake really matters to me...

Not to mention that both Fink and (to a lesser extent, lately) MacPorts tend to crap out on every fourth or fifth package you ask them to install...

These package managers are a far cry from a decent Linux, dependencies are handled poorly, installing an innocent looking library sometimes takes hours. If you do a search you will find a lot of painful stories or long pages with tons of magic to install a simple piece of code. Duh.

KhmGENTOOkhm

If you like, you can use Portage from Gentoo on OS X. It's not up to date for Leopard (which is why I didn't mention it before), but the option is there: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/bootstrap-ma... - Though it requires slightly more then basic knowledge of a Bash (or $insertYourPreferredShell) to set up. There's also way's to use rpm5's on OS X - And there's patches to get dpkg working on OS X if you fancy apt.

But, again: Mac OS X is not Linux. Setting Portage up is a huge hack to hold things together though. So if you have the time to set a .deb or .rpm-based system up, you should really just get a Linux box to use instead and then take the time you saved and do something productive. At least thats what my experience tells me.

The reason Apple is very successful is because there are few choices. A lot of hardcore hackers don't get this, but people don't like a lot of choices, and they especially like uniformity and consistency. I like that for my Ubuntu setup, all the apps have the same look and feel whether it be GTK or KDE, I keep them separate. I like that for Mac OS X they all have a common look and feel. I don't like that on Windows everything looks different.

So by bringing in all this extra crap, they loose that consistent look and feel, and that is basically what separates their platform to most people. They have a lot to loose.

Sounds like you REALLY wanted MacOSX to be Linux.

It also sounds like he REALLY isn't apple's market anyway.

Most software developers want that - or, more specifically, all the benefits of Linux with mainstream hardware and application support. What's wrong with that?

Is GTK really a benefit compared to Cocoa?

Yeah, Cocoa is hot and all, but just try getting that nice shiny Cocoa app of yours running on all three of OS X, Linux, and Windows...

If you want to write a cross-platform app, I argue that GTK is still not a very good solution. I wonder how Adobe is progressing with their cross-platform Cocoa-based CS5.

You'd probably be better off with wxWidgets or Qt than GTK.

Uh, What? Mainstream hardware support from OSX?

Not only does it have poor support for common hardware, it has artificially restricted support. What it does support, it supports reasonably well, but that hardly qualifies OSX as a system that supports mainstream hardware.

OS X does provide most of the benefits of Linux, except for large portions of the OS being closed source.

You get a terminal with bash or whatever shell you wish, which works great (none of the Cygwin crap). You can compile most non-GUI Linux apps for OS X (and many GUI ones). Etc.

I rarely run into things that I can do on Linux that I can't do on OS X.

No. But the other threads in this discussion are about Gaim/Pidgin and Gimp.

Why has it been a dead-simple 5-minute thing to install those apps on Windows for years, but still tricky on MacOSX?

Why did it take, what 7 years, from the launch and immediate celebration of OSX, to get native GTK?

So, without knowing the answer to the above, I guess you could say I'd like it to be more like Windows (ducks).

Native GTK is not the Apple problem. GTK developers could use Mac application paradigms instead of Windows's and embrace GNUStep/Objective C for GIMP and GNOME instead of implementing their own toolkit. They made the choice of going Windows-like way, not Apple. That's the reason of why "on Windows for years, but still tricky on MacOSX".

Volunteer time/interest.. not enough people want to scratch the itch.

The need for multiple binaries - (OS X 10.4/10.5) x (PowerPC/Intel) x (32/64 bit, maybe) - is also a pain. You can cross build, and you can munge multiple builds into a "universal binary", but it's not obvious enough to avoid the same discussions happening on every open source project's mailing list.

>Why don't Apple embrace the huge community that worships their products, instead of becoming the next Microsoft? What have they got to loose?

I think for Shareholder Value, they DO want to be the next Microsoft. Technically uninteresting but raking it in for generations.

macports gives OSX a decent enough package management system; port install ocaml, port install erlang, what more could you ask for? I guess using system libraries would be a bonus, but it's really quite usable as-is.

the erlang port was broken for a while, actually...don't know if that's still the case, but anyway it's not hard to build from source.

Uhm... So why did you get a Mac again?

I don't even have a Mac, but if all I wanted to do was run Linux shit (and you clearly did), I'd pick up a cheap Dell laptop instead of overpriced Mac hardware.

Perhaps an initial understanding that OS X could do everything Linux could. Otherwise, an appreciation of Johnathan Ive's industrial design.

An initial FALSE understanding.

I believe you meant a misunderestimation.

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