Comments on: Why I won’t be buying a new Mac any time soon

By: scruff

scruff — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 02:31:59 +0000

If the Hollywood guys are demanding Intel and other processor vendors put DRM-style solutions into the chips, why on earth do you think that a ‘Linux hardware’ solution would be any different? All this would mean is that your Hollywood movies would not play on your Linux hardware — hardly a ‘just works’ scenario.

By: dtoliaferro

dtoliaferro — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:36:54 +0000

Isn’t this more of an Intel problem than an Apple problem? Windows-centric PC users will have to deal with this as well.

By: Jim Fisher

Jim Fisher — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:46:22 +0000

“…smart consumer market for some Linux hardware that Just Works?”

Yes:

http://zareason.com/shop/home.php

http://www.system76.com/

Now all they need is support.

By: Chris Beiser

Chris Beiser — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:43:03 +0000

It’s been my experience that Ubuntu is easier to use for those not in the know than iOS, OS X, AND Windows, by far. Two minutes of explanation, and people know it’s better. I’m bound for the present to OSX software, but I’m certainly not buying another Mac, now that the developers are forced to switch to Apple’s closed distribution platform or starve.

I’ll post some blueprints on launchpad for what’s wrong with the interfaces of the applications I absolutely need (and you probably need them too), and hope some generous coder will implement them before my Macbook dies.

By: FarMcKon

FarMcKon — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:46:21 +0000

Apple has come pretty far downhill from days of the Apple ][, where they encouraged people to build their own board, expansions, and use anything they could. Hording a platform is a good short term way to squeeze a lot of value out of something.

I’m curious to hear what problems with ‘linux that just work’ folks have had. For the last 2-3 years I’ve has a lot of Linux (ubuntu and Debian mostly) system that just work. I have Ubuntu ~4 machines, each of which was a 5 minute install with a 10.10 startup disk. From there installing software is a one-click process from the Package Manager window.

By: Hmmm

Hmmm — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:17:54 +0000

“some Linux hardware that Just Works?”

I’d love to see that, too, but they haven’t been able to do it in the last 2 decades, so don’t hold your breath. A crippled processor kinda sucks, but a system that’s fundamentally broken, like the Linux desktop, isn’t going to get people to switch. Complain about Apple all you want, normal people are still going to buy them. Normal people are *not* going to hand-edit text files to change their hostname or get Photoshop to work.