[KLUG Advocacy] Re: [KLUG Members] Mac OS X

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> Two days after getting KDE installed on someone's iBook, I find an
> article on going all the way:
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3596

Interesting article.  And a little surprising, but I'm not stunned.
-
Under the TTI (Teacher Technology Initiative) lots of school teachers
were given laptops, and the iBook promoted over the 'comparable' Dell,
so lots of them went with that.  Guess who has leanred alot more about
Apple recently (if you guessed me, your're on the money).
--
1. Performance is TERRIBLE!  My AMD K6-2-300 runs GNOME 2 faster than
these iBooks run OS/X, it is like swimming in a vat of 80W-90.  The low
end hardware Apple sells (or sold) is not up to the task of running its
own software, which seems disengenuous.
--
2. It is certainly NOT more intuitive to a true computer neophyte. They
are just as lost as they would be if given a Win32 box.  You still have
to have fundamental concepts as: file, path, connection, etc...  Whether
you represent these things with names or cute little icons.  This isn't
really a critisism of Apple, just many of its pundits.
--
"To be honest, I only really wanted to play with Apples for the
hardware. Apple hardware is, in my opinion, the best manufactured and
designed hardware bar-none. Macs are sexy, cool and hell, they last for
years."

3. Please!  In my reckoning the iBook is the crappiest laptop ever
made.  I've seen keys fall off, *KEYBOARDS* fall off, displays that need
to be propped open, power supply connects that have to be wiggled till
"Oh! The little lightning bar appeared. Pheeew!".  And the iMac?  I'm
sorry but this claim is totally bogus;  Apple hardware is cheap and
crumby.  I've been REALLY disappointed.
--
"I had forgotten to hold down the 'C' key as the machine booted up. (did
I mention I'd only been using my iBook three months? ;-)"

4. Speaking of intuitive... A PC says "Press <F2> to enter setup" during
the initial part of the boot sequence.  I had to call tech support to
find out HOW TO BOOT FROM AN ALTERNATIVE DRIVE.  Would a "Hold the 'C'
key to manually select boot device" message be that difficult?  That is
what I call intuitive, telling me what I need to know when I need to
know it.