tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post6181891830441314033..comments2023-07-31T22:43:20.565+08:00Comments on NUS School of Computing: Why OS X user shouldn't switch to Linux?SoChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15024081993832459666noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-47948483654971252692010-05-15T22:47:33.297+08:002010-05-15T22:47:33.297+08:00Very nice article... I've never thought of usi...Very nice article... I've never thought of using ctrl-number for spaces, feels so much easier now (though I am one with "gigantic" hands as you say, I can press ctrl-arrow with my left hand alone, though it's not something I'd prefer to do if I have a choice)<br /><br />I am still stuck to OS X because of photoshop/indesign/office:mac/iWork/iLife. Sadly, linux doesn't have any program that suits me, yet... and unlike in SoC, most lecturers in engineering prefers to create their lecture notes in powerpoint/word using some weird graphics and animation that just doesn't show up right in anything but MS own version of office. And iWork loads faster than office:mac or open office.<br /><br />I guess linux will never reach that level of user-friendliness, since the whole idea of linux is for people who know how to compile the kernel, etc. Not that I can't, but isn't it a little tedious compared to just inserting the disc and going through the setup? Unless you can remember all the commands without always resorting to the man pages...<br /><br />Hope one day we can indeed move over to linux. I need at least Adobe to be there...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10924616290949400286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-29833014294966266572008-10-09T23:03:00.000+08:002008-10-09T23:03:00.000+08:00ruiwen: thanks for the comment. (: this flame war ...ruiwen: thanks for the comment. (: this flame war turns out better than i thought.<BR/><BR/>simon: it's okay to laugh at things i wrote. i'm not concerned about having people laugh at what i thought anyway.<BR/><BR/>of course i'll be happier if we could have constructive criticisms so that i could learn more. that's how i learned from my mistakes. i've made enough shares of mistakes too, as much as i want to deny them.<BR/><BR/>btw, i'm actually having a good laugh reading your comments, so we're entertaining each other. (:chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-75715236759041339122008-10-09T22:44:00.000+08:002008-10-09T22:44:00.000+08:00I see you do write about your opinion too, Simon. ...I see you do write about your opinion too, Simon. But really, this isn't the place for personal attacks like that. <BR/><BR/>This blog is for the sharing of ideas, so why resort to demeaning others? If you disagree with a point that's been made, feel free to rebut it. I'm sure your opinion will be valued in that case.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-51118852476251266512008-10-09T16:17:00.000+08:002008-10-09T16:17:00.000+08:00Chris, please, you are embarrassing yourself. We'r...Chris, please, you are embarrassing yourself. We're having a ball laughing at it/you/NUS. <BR/><BR/>If you want to blog, write about stuff you know, opinions, whatever.<BR/><BR/>Blogging nonsense and evangelizing half-truths on behalf of "NUS School of Computing" is doing you and your school a disfavor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-300000312866174552008-10-08T22:55:00.000+08:002008-10-08T22:55:00.000+08:00Haha, I find using Ctrl+1, +2, +3, +4 more conveni...Haha, I find using Ctrl+1, +2, +3, +4 more convenient now (even with 6 spaces, the max I've ever gone with, Ctrl+6 is much better than Ctrl+Arrow). Unfortunately not, you need to at least click and hold mouse button on title bar. You can use Ctrl+Number to shift those windows though, at least no dragging needed.<BR/><BR/>My gripe is the difficulty of adding new shortcut, not changing existing shortcuts. e.g. I'm used to Ctrl+Shift+L to start screen saver and lock screen. The best I can do now is a Dock shortcut for screen saver engine. Fortunately, that's a very small price to pay for all the other stuffs I'm getting.<BR/><BR/>Most great software in Mac is fortunately free. The one super worth it software to buy is Fusion/Parallel, which is not *that* expensive. (Alternatively, Boot Camp, though it's not as effective as VMs.)chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-18041759203716048472008-10-08T14:36:00.000+08:002008-10-08T14:36:00.000+08:00chris: Heh well actually you could change it to Cm...chris: Heh well actually you could change it to Cmd-Arrows too if you wanted it one-handed. Though, I'd really much rather be able to customise it to use whichever keys I want (I'm partial to Ctrl-Tab/Backtick for going back and forth between desktops.) (Oh, btw, do you know if there's any keyboard shortcut to move windows between spaces? I find using the mouse rather annoying.)<BR/><BR/>And yup, I can do without the installers (doubleclickdoubleclick-nextnextnext, doubleclickdoubleclick, etc) and for-cost software too. I can't afford to pay too much, and I don't want the guilt of pirating software either.<BR/><BR/>I guess we're opposites then, Chris =) I was happy with Linux.. then I got a Mac.. and now I'm back in Linux again. <BR/><BR/>Not that Linux doesn't have its flaws, of course, just that it works better for me =) (<A HREF="http://elliotth.blogspot.com/2008/09/desktop-linux-suckage-index.html" REL="nofollow">Link</A> for some Linux-hating rants =)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-48801545346918714612008-10-08T14:13:00.000+08:002008-10-08T14:13:00.000+08:00P.S. btw, ATI (i think it's ATI) will soon move to...P.S. btw, ATI (i think it's ATI) will soon move to multichips (multicore?) GPUs. there's a hell lot of prediction that GPUs are going to be more general-purpose (like CPU). thus allowing people to bypass DirectX and OpenGL API and write their own rendering software in general-purpose language (or maybe in nvidia's CUDA). i think it's a lovely development that's totally inline with what i thought should happen.<BR/><BR/>you can argue this does not equal to killing GPU completely, but wouldn't GPU capable of general-purpose programming be very similar to a CPU? (except with extra stuffs like vector calculation.. wait.. hey.. don't Intel SSE has similar ops?)chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-52143526125476792008-10-08T14:04:00.000+08:002008-10-08T14:04:00.000+08:00ruiwen: umm, you brought one of the most annoying ...ruiwen: umm, you brought one of the most annoying OS X non-feature... can't argue against that, OS X doesn't really allow customizing of shortcuts well. (who the heck think of having Ctrl+Arrow for spaces anyway!? don't they notice that Macbook Pro doesn't have right Ctrl button? that means can't use one hand to use Spaces shortcut, unless you have one gigantic hands.) fortunately though, there's this free OS X apps called Quicksilver. It helped a lot when I was using Tiger (don't use it much now though).<BR/><BR/>unique to it? friendly UI, great choice of software (albeit most come with installers), excellent third-party software (some are not free, but hey, some of them are really, really nice). plus you can do everything a linux can do! and a windows too.<BR/><BR/>jason: that can be explained simply.. it's because GPU has not become as fast as CPU yet. the technology to manufacture it already exists (the CPU manufacturing technology). GPU is facing the same problem CPU is facing (heat, limit on how many transistors you can squeeze, etc). another reason is because gamers are more than willing to spend tonnes of money on it.<BR/><BR/>now that's not gonna last forever. right now games are needing more and more powerful hardware, but that demand is going to slow down (the same with what happens with software as CPU got faster). CPU is still going to go faster and faster (actually more and more cores), up to the point that there will be enough excess capacity for games to utilize processors to do most of the rendering. only the highest end games would need extra hardware, then, GPU might evolved into Physics engine, where computations are much harder than graphics rendering and can be optimized using special low-level ops.<BR/><BR/>now i might be wrong, of course. looking at the amount of money that gamers spend on highest end graphic cards, nvidia and ati will not let graphic cards die so easily. so only time can tell. i'm leaning towards returning all computation back to CPU though, since it will help with portability of render-based software.<BR/><BR/>btw, i was happy with linux too, until i got a mac. d: to me, a mac is like an upgrade from linux; i was able to run everything a linux machine can do with more +++.chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-17321204007950747272008-10-08T13:48:00.000+08:002008-10-08T13:48:00.000+08:00Something interesting I found when reading a 2004 ...Something interesting I found when reading a 2004 paper by someone then in Microsoft Research:<BR/><BR/>"The performance of these cards is growing at a much faster rate than CPUs, at roughly Moore’s law cubed [4]. Soon the computational power of these graphics processing units (“GPUs”) will surpass that of the system CPU."<BR/><BR/>Maybe this is what simon's referring to?<BR/><BR/>Can't say much about OSX until I actually can afford a mac :D But I know I'm very happy with what I'm getting from linux, primarily because of the feeling of freedom and power it gives me over my own computer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-79501574620397662072008-10-07T14:50:00.000+08:002008-10-07T14:50:00.000+08:00Haha well, between the two (OS X and Linux) I'd ac...Haha well, between the two (OS X and Linux) I'd actually go Linux. <BR/><BR/>I'll agree with Edwin above. The Compiz-Fusion effects are way more customisable that anything Leopard has. From window effects to keyboard shortcuts (who's bright idea was it to restrict keyboard shortcuts for a certain action to only certain keys anyway? Spaces, I'm looking at you.) It's not about eye-candy, it's about usability and productivity.<BR/><BR/>Besides, if I'm running a Linux distro, I get all the apps I need/want right out of the distro's repos. YMMV, of course, but if works fine for me. I don't have to jump through hoops to run software I can get of the box, and so far OS X doesn't appear have anything unique to it that would make me want to stay in that environment =)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-25945671217553863862008-10-07T14:30:00.000+08:002008-10-07T14:30:00.000+08:00ahh, i think i understand what you mean by the tag...ahh, i think i understand what you mean by the tag line.<BR/><BR/>But you should read between the line. No it's not an issue, I think all OS X users know that it's pointless to switch to Linux already. The aim of this post is that 80-90% readers who don't use OS X yet and still stuck with a remnant from the 90s. But I don't want to frame this post as OS X v. Windows, since that would be boring (and hard to write for me, as I haven't been using Windows regularly for several years).chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-77367568376449222882008-10-07T14:13:00.000+08:002008-10-07T14:13:00.000+08:00Yeah sure... But we like to argue. And it's fun fo...Yeah sure... But we like to argue. And it's fun for us. You can take it like defending your favourite sports team (though it may suck a lot), or your favourite liquor. They are idiotic for other people, but for the people who love that sports team or that liquor... that's another matter.<BR/><BR/>Same thing here. I'm replying to Ruiwen's post on Why Linux with another one that supports OS X (we both have the same ends in mind though, getting people away from Windows).<BR/><BR/>We agree at one thing, NUS SoC should do a better job at educating Singaporeans. Not just technically, but psychologically. The thing that makes schools like MIT far better than SoC is not just the curriculum or the profs, but their students and their mentality.<BR/><BR/>And there's nothing idiotic about CPU v. GPU, what's your view about it? No view? It's been predicted since a decade ago that sooner or later, GPU will become obsolete. From my point of view, that's good, because you can rely less on proprietary API like DirectX (or the open equivalent OpenGL) and program in more portable manner. In what way is that idiotic?<BR/><BR/>Well, to each his own. Your pov is pretty nice addition to the other povs here. (:<BR/><BR/>P.S. Not all UNIX is the same. Not all software can be ported between different *NIXes easily. I know that one of my boss at SoC would argue vehemently that Solaris is better than Linux. Does the fact that Solaris is as POSIX-complient as Linux stops him from arguing that way? It's an open question really, but I doubt so.chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-39109596065797690872008-10-07T13:43:00.000+08:002008-10-07T13:43:00.000+08:00Excuse me... is the tag subject even an issue???MA...Excuse me... is the tag subject even an issue???<BR/><BR/>MAC OS has always been powered by a POSIX-compliant UNIX OS (early BSD variant), masqueraded with a user-friendly Cocoa-based front-end. Just start X11 from app/utils and you get a perfectly functional UNIX workstation. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, Cocoa arguably dumbed things down too much, eg: focus on mouse hover, single window manager, for instance.<BR/><BR/>Each OS has their niche strengths, exclusive powerhouse apps, and market demographics. Arguing which is better is pointless and passe.<BR/><BR/>NUS School of Computer Science really ought to do a better job educating your kids with a broader knowledge of mainstream systems -- i.e., knowledge that matters. <BR/><BR/>Oh, and that CPU versus GPU comment is laughably idiotic...<BR/><BR/>N'uff said.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-31812172520884991842008-10-07T11:18:00.000+08:002008-10-07T11:18:00.000+08:00Yeah, sure. Debian repo (as I mentioned earlier) h...Yeah, sure. Debian repo (as I mentioned earlier) has like 13,000+ packages. Macports only have what, a few hundreds? But the most important tools you'd probably use in Linux are all there in Mac. Plus more.<BR/><BR/>I'm sure there are other OCR (probably better, though might have to pay) software for OS X. You can code Common LISP pretty well with emacs.<BR/><BR/>The best part, you can install terminal based Linux on Parallel/Fusion (so that you don't spend much memory to run windows manager) and `ssh -X` to the virtual machine. You can then use OS X built-in X11 to run whatever software you can run in Linux, within OS X itself. (:chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-89484666760669460952008-10-07T10:54:00.000+08:002008-10-07T10:54:00.000+08:00There are some apps that are not available on Macp...There are some apps that are not available on Macports. Recently, I had to use an OCR software called ocropus and it would only compile on Linux. It wouldn't even compile on a BSD machine.<BR/><BR/>Other applications include "ABLE" which is a Common Lisp editor.<BR/><BR/>So I have a Linux partition now. I also love Beryl more than the OS X effects because it is customizable.Edwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00479562867101526549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-66213583750716172332008-09-28T00:48:00.000+08:002008-09-28T00:48:00.000+08:00Yeah, that's true. (:It's good that we're probably...Yeah, that's true. (:<BR/><BR/>It's good that we're probably going to move away from GPU-based rendering back to CPU-based now that CPU is getting too powerful. That will obsolete DirectX and OpenGL. d: Making games more portable. Heh heh.chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-67505215906055649452008-09-25T16:18:00.000+08:002008-09-25T16:18:00.000+08:00Another good reason for Mac OS, is that all games ...Another good reason for Mac OS, is that all games worth playing, (usually Blizzard games) runs on Mac seamlessly, you dun even have to bother about "D*r*ctX" issues with hardware....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-4479027854028179452008-09-23T23:31:00.000+08:002008-09-23T23:31:00.000+08:00Yes it does! (:In Gnome (I have Gnome running and ...Yes it does! (:<BR/><BR/>In Gnome (I have Gnome running and handy, but you can find the same options in KDE and XFCE), go to Desktop > Preferences > Windows. Tick the first option (Select windows when the mouse moves over them). d: It's my favourite feature.chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09324410876842900131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1826763292433146941.post-57027408856420994072008-09-23T17:15:00.000+08:002008-09-23T17:15:00.000+08:00"Linux has this awesome feature where you can just..."Linux has this awesome feature where you can just hover your mouse over to another window for it to gain focus, instead of clicking"<BR/><BR/>- it DOES? O_O *goes to look for it*<BR/><BR/>nice read btwJason moofanghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00144194912414739188noreply@blogger.com