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Comment by wwweston | Hacker News Reader

Yep. JWZ used to say that Linux is only free if you don't value your time.

OS X has many merits on this front, but since 10.3 I've found that the first few dot releases of OS X have the same caveats often enough (both in terms of bugs/hazards and in terms of gratuitous UI "progress") that it usually seems better to wait past .x.4/5.

Now there's this, of course.

Since the problem showed up in 2011, maybe I should go back to Snow Leopard; I can't think of a single valuable change to OS X since then...

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> JWZ used to say that Linux is only free if you don't value your time.

My reply to that has always been that Windows is only $300 if you don't value your time. (Preserving archaic cost of Windows to match JWZ quote.)

The implication that the one system is free and time-consuming and the other moderately in price but not time-consuming is entirely false. At the time, for many requirements, configuring and administering a Windows machine would have been more time-consuming than for Linux. It's also glossing over the fact that you can't horizontally scale your $-per-cpu/server solution once you do have the configuration worked out, without going back to the well for more money.

This amusing and glib quote also deliberately glosses over the "freedom" part of free software, which is essential. For example, I wonder if Google would exist today if not for a free unix workalike.

Same thing when people say if you're not the customer, you're the product. That is a logical fallacy because you are still a product even if you pay for the software.

here we see - in their natural habitat - the elusive yet ever present ARGUMENTUS SELFICUS EXEMPLITICUS. A rare treat, indeed.

The point is when you include your time your comparing ~10k products and there purchase price is a rounding error, not that Linux is inferior because it's free.

Linux desktop is and has been second rate for a long long time. Turns out unless there are corporate sponsors paying for development, open source software sucks. The OSS community is pretty much in denial about that.

Funny, I'm watching a talk about issues with software quality on free software right now. Perhaps some members of the community are in denial, but not all of them.

https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libby/m/mako/

I used to find Linux desktop second rate a few years ago but adopting it again recently I've found Gnome 3 better than OSX in many ways, at the very least comparable. Plus Arch Linux has been incredibly stable whereas in the past it also used to break often.

That's funny, because I haven't managed to find a desktop OS that is up to par with Linux for me. Preferences may vary, but second rate in your book is the only viable contender in mine. Also turns out that Linux does in fact have corporate sponsors, like oracle, red hat, etc. so I'm not sure I follow. Is closed source software top notch without corporate sponsorship?

The sad truth is that most software sucks, regardless of the license, there's just a lower barrier to entry, use, and discoverability with OSS so it's more visible. At least with OSS we can fix the issues instead of just accepting the suckage.

I'm probably biased.

After a year I find the only advantage of OSX are browser with touchpad gesture experience and windows edge handling. Haven't tried any distro ever since switching to MBP, wayland might have a better chance of replicating the experience. Hoping for the camera driver to be done.

In Linux everything else is better, fuller implementation of base tools, customizability, no crap like /var/folders..

"In Linux everything else is better"

This is entirely subjective; it is not a wise comment to make because it is better FOR YOU, not for everyone. For me, I liked the configurability in Linux desktop land but there comes a time when you want to sit in your office and get stuff done instead of spending all the time moving the furniture around and decorating; OSX doesn't let you do any decorating or move the furniture, so you're forced to do work (to some extent).

I daily use Linux, yet my day-job is to write software on OSX and Windows, so I get to use every system every day. They're all pretty much a muchness.

Is your comment saying 'linux is amazing, I just can't stop ricing it and get to work! OSX is better because it doesn't let me customize it'?

No, it's saying both are great but Linux constant desktop change and rewriting of underlying systems to break upgrades between OSes isn't for me at the moment (as a desktop system). It may be great for someone else though.

Great for servers.

Basically, each to their own. None is "better".

>The implication that the one system is free and time-consuming and the other moderately in price but not time-consuming is entirely false.

Haven't found that to be the case. And I'm an old UNIX hat, using SUN OS, HP UX et al in the early nineties and Linux from around 1998. My two observations:

1) Linux, even the most modern distro like Ubuntu, is a huge time sync for anyone that's not just content to browse the web and check mail in a system setup for them.

2) More users that we think are in that category (besides the proverbial "grandparents" perhaps).

You got a video from your wedding you need to edit? Might or might not work. You got a hobby that requires you to use a specific peripheral (like a soundcard) or software? Do you feel lucky? You got a new phone you need to sync? Prepare for an adventure...

Things I've encountered frequently:

1. "I need to do X in Linux." Web search for software.

2. Try to install it. Find out I need Gnome 3.44 and I'm not running Gnome at all.

3. Find something else. This doesn't seen Gnome.

4. I try to install it. Wait, I need a newer version of a library.

5. I grab the latest version of that library. Wait, idiot, that version is TOO NEW!

6. So I find the exact version and install it and oh son of a cow now everything is broken.

And at each step there's a different sub-community telling me I'm a complete idiot. ("Why don't you use Gnome?" "Why don't you use package manager X?" "Why the fuck are you using that package manager???!")

> JWZ used to say that Linux is only free if you don't value your time.

Used to say? How long ago was that?

Ubuntu and many other distros are incredibly easy and effortless to use. I know devs using apple products who spend more time mucking about with brew and other tools trying to accomplish things that are very easy to do on the most popular linux distros.

As far as I can recall, it was in the 90s.

1998: http://www.jwz.org/doc/linux.html.

I prefer and run Linux. However, troubleshooting Linux issues, even on Ubuntu is a pain in the ass. The fact that Google's page rank favors older stable pages in search results is a factor. A forum post from 2004 is not the best source of information in regards to dual monitors (and xrandr). 2007 instructions for changing the default boot will be based around Grub. I shouldn't adjust ~/.bash_login in 14.10 despite what the internet says. I should use the configuration tool.

My point is that Ubuntu is complex [as is Windows] and when something doesn't run quite right, the right answer is usually hard to find and hard to recognize because it will be embedded in a culture of highly technical cross referencing. The tradeoff for going down the rabbit hole is that Linux is really powerful and flexible.

I'm loving me some Xmonad this week, but I had to root around in xkb and xmodmap and write a little haskell and read about out how to switch layout engines in Ubuntu [and then translate that into xfce based Ubuntu Studio]. It's non-trivial and requires reading stuff on the Arch Linux Wiki. Ubuntu isn't really self contained in the way Windows is.

On the Google search results page, click "search tools", and change "any time" to e.g. "past year".

Exactly this. I've found (on OSX) that an Alfred custom search to quickly do a Google Last Year only search is incredibly useful.

That's exactly the sort of situation I am talking about. When there is a problem with some piece Ubuntu's ecosystem, the answer is "It's not Ubuntu's fault, RTFM for <other software>."

Knowing that information about Ubuntu goes out of date and that changing the search criteria helps: [1] doesn't make Ubuntu less complex [2] prevents it from being as user friendly as Windows for a broad audience.

Mate I just thought you didn't know that feature and it might help you.

I don't use Ubuntu.

I agree with the UI "progress". Lion and Mountain Lion were the biggest changes for me; Mavericks and Yosemite are alright to my eyes (although they took some getting used to).

I have a USB disk with Snow Leopard on it that I can boot on my work's 2008 Mac Pro but that kernel panics on my 2012 MacBook Pro due to the i7 "from the future" according to Snow Leopard. It's a pity because it'd make a really great test system (I would like to check that my software runs on 10.6 OK).

Does anyone know of a way of booting Snow Leopard from disk inside a VM without many kernel kext kerfuffles? Parallels tells me that I stink if I try and install OSX inside it (I have the regular DVD, not the server edition)

> maybe I should go back to Snow Leopard; I can't think of a single valuable change to OS X since then...

I wish I had that option, but I'm an iOS developer, so I upgrade when Apple forces me to, and right now their forcing Mavericks and up.

> Linux is only free if you don't value your time.

Amazing how the largest server farms on earth are all run by administrators who don't value their time...

There's a large difference between linux on the server and on your (personal) desktop.

Not knowing how to operate a server, I have to assume it's harder and you have to know everything it does and the CLI to use it. Not the same for mint or any other pre-packaged distros.

There's a lot less strange issues and hardware incompatabilities are not really a thing. No massive complicated daemons such as X either.

But yes, the CLI is a requirement.

The largest server farms on earth are all run by administrators who are extremely well paid for their time. Linux isn't free for the companies who hire them.

"Linux isn't free for the companies who hire them"

Actually, Windows isn't free for the companies who hire them. And you need to hire a lot more Windows admins than Linux admins if you want to keep your server farm running. But Windows admins are cheaper than Linux/Unix admins, so the phb can crow about that.

> Yep. JWZ used to say that Linux is only free if you don't value your time.

Yeah, like installing drivers for all your peripherals on Windows never takes time, right?

He uses OS X. Rantilly.

http://www.jwz.org/blog/tag/mac/

I don't think I've ever had to install a driver manually on Windows 7.

So you don't have a GPU card I guess?

With XP this was valid, but from Windows 7 onwards you don't need to do it anymore unless you actually want to play a game - the majority of users would never need to at all.

I think Windows updates my video driver for me. If I ever had to do anything manual, it was long enough ago that I don't remember it.

if you have a Nvidia or AMD Catalyst driver, i don't think Windows updates them to the latest versions available automatically.

Windows is able to get drivers itself over the network. Unless the ethernet driver is missing to, which happens most of the time.

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