Psystar Open Computer Notes, Benchmarks and Video 304
Engadget has had a chance to play around with Psystar's Open Computer and has a few things to say about the controversial machine. "Okay, so we've been playing with the Psystar Open Computer for a few hours now, and we've formed some early impressions and put together a short video of it in action. We haven't really tried to stress the system yet, but based on our other experiences with OSx86 machines, we're expecting things to generally go smoothly. That said, there are some definite rough patches and issues, all mostly having to do with the fact that OS X isn't really built for this hardware."
One small problem... (Score:5, Informative)
So you have to go into preferences and renew your dhcp lease every 15 minutes or you have no internet? Yeah, these'll sell well.
Re:Psystar- cheap, but is it a deal? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"it just works" (Score:2, Informative)
Move windows between Spaces: Hit your spaces key, and drag the windows between spaces. Easy peasy.
Automatically change desktop wallpaper: right-click (or control-click) on desktop, select "Change Desktop Background". I have a folder of Digital Blasphemy pics, so I hit the + button at the bottom of the left hand side, and navigate to that folder. Then I check "Change Picture", select "Every Hour", and check Random Order.
I have a feeling that Spaces is "supposed to" separate things by application, not necessarily by window. Linux and Windows throw all windows into one huge Alt-Tab clusterfsck, where Apple says: Command-Tab is for switching applications, and Command-` is for switching windows within an application.
Menubar at the top of the screen? Ever hear of Fitt's Law? [wikipedia.org] Rather than the fiddly wasted screen space of dozens of menu bars repeated in every window, I've just got one.
Uninstalling Garage Band? Just delete the folder. No uninstaller application needed.
Just because something is different doesn't mean it's broken
Re:"it just works" (Score:3, Informative)
Well if you got new iMacs, they are Intel iMacs. PowerPCs programs would not necessarily work unless they were compiled for Universal.
I acutally have the opposite experience. I have Windows and Linux machines at home. It takes only a few clicks to turn on Windows Sharing and share files. Windows unfortunately makes me reboot if change the workgroup.
To uninstall any application drag it to the Trash.
Yes that is slightly annoying. However any USB mouse pretty much works on a Mac so you plug in a multibutton Logitech or MS mouse if you want.
For OS X, you can only drag windows by clicking on the titlebar.
I would say that it seems some of your issues are because you are a power user. You have expectations on how it should work because they worked that way in Windows and Linux. Unfortunately your experience with Linux and Windows does not translate. It's not that it doesn't just work. It doesn't just work the way you would like it to work.
Re:Apple Upgrade Tax (Score:3, Informative)
Fink is essentially not being maintained actively. I'm on the developer mailing list, I receive maybe 10 mails a day. The software in the repository is very much out of date. I also have terrible experience with missing packages.
MacPort is for those who have a spare Mac to do their compiling on. I don't have that. Ever tried compiling the Gnome or KDE libraries? I've done my share of 24h compiling stretches when X11 was young, I thought we had moved beyond that, but no, apparently.
So when I need something non trivial like a new version of emacs or TeX, this is scouring the net time and searching for a precompiled version somewhere. Thanks to everyone who provide them!
This is why I have a spare Linux machine, which costs less than a mac, for these times when I need new software not yet available.
For F/OSS, Apple Macs are a second class citizen, simple as that.