Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 11:51:00 -0400 From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Powerbook Setup Message-ID: <200410191151.00604.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20041019102120.GI42527@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <16710656779.20041018233408@synchron.org> <200410182229.07373.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20041019102120.GI42527@iconoplex.co.uk>
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On Tuesday 19 October 2004 06:21 am, Paul Robinson wrote: > On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 10:29:07PM -0400, John Baldwin wrote: > > FWIW, I'm reading and replying to this e-mail via kmail running over an > > X11 ssh tunnel on my powerbook. My Dell laptop just about falls apart in > > my hands now due to cheaper construction and cannot be safely used as a > > mobile machine anymore. > > I could have told you before you bought it not to buy a Dell. Did my > original post say buy a Dell? Or any other Intel-laptop other than > Thinkpad? It did not. Thinkpads are solid, last well beyond their years > and can take a far greater kicking than any other laptop I've dealt > with. I've owned about 8 lpatops over the years, and the last 3 were > Thinkpads. I'm not planning on changing any time soon. Thinkpads are quite expensive, more so than other PC laptops, so that pretty much cancels out your argument about powerbooks being too expensive. I do agree that Thinkpads are very nice, but I'll probably never be able to buy one myself. Also, you completely ignored 1) comments about the Alienware laptop, and 2) the fact that the powerbook I have is already several years old and has _zero_ signs of stress. (No cracks, etc.) > If anybody tries to argue that Apple have contributed more to open > source, open standards and progression than FreeBSD, they're trolling. Umm, note that the powerbook is just one of the machines I use. I also have an Alienware laptop running FreeBSD, as well as my server, a desktop machine, my several test machines, etc. You keep assuming I'm somehow selling out to Apple. Perhaps you didn't notice, but I'm a FreeBSD core team member and very prolific kernel developer. I kind of get the whole open source thing. Different tools are good at different things, and I am quite comfortable with FreeBSD + KDE, but I also like OS X as a desktop. The fact that I can fire up X11.app and then ssh in and run kmail, etc. over ssh just as in FreeBSD is quite handy. It also has native p4 binaries and xemacs in darwinports allowing me to even do kernel development on the powerbook when I'm at home. > > As far as OS X goes, it's handling of multiple displays (like TV out or > > VGA out plus LCD) is phenomenal and very intuitive. The power management > > is also quite good and actually works. (The BIOSen on both of my PC > > laptops is busted such that they report capacity but don't properly > > report the usage and charge rates so I never get remaining battery time > > in FreeBSD.) Also, suspend/resume just works. > > All of that "just works" on my FreeBSD machines as well, but that might > be because I know what I'm doing with XF86Config. I know what I'm doing > because I took the 20 minutes it required to read the documentation. As > a result, my laptop can do everything yours can, but cost me less than a > five hundred dollars(*) and I have free software upgrades to the OS for > life. Umm, I'm not exactly a moron with X, but X does not have the feature of popping up a dialog box on each display letting you tune the resolutions independently and on the fly detach and attach displays properly. Xorg and XFree86 4.4 are better than older releases, but they still have a long way to go. Also, as someone who actually works on the code to get suspend/resume to work on some laptops (my Dell is now finally able to do S3 and S1 for the past half year at least in part due to work I helped with for PCI and other parts of the kernel) it still doesn't work completely (my Alienware can't come back from S3 yet because the kernel doesn't properly handle DPMS yet so the LCD never gets turned back on). That means that I can appreciate how well OS X does handle the power management angle. I've also spent several hours trying to see if I could get my laptops to properly report remaining battery time, but to no avail thus far. > > As far as the "brain drain" claim: I'd be very careful what you say > > about that. One of the biggest "drains" has probably been Mike Smith. > > However, he still participates in side conversations every once in a > > while and still shows up for the occasional conference in which he still > > provides excellent input. Also, FWIW, if it weren't for Mike (and a few > > others) talking me into coming out to California to give WC/BSDi a try, I > > would probably have spent the last few years working on industrial > > monitoring embedded systems instead of the FreeBSD kernel. Granted, if I > > weren't around the work would still have gotten done, but I think its a > > fair statement that my (and others') current contributions are due at > > least in part to Mike, Jordan, and others. > > OK, here's a big part of my beef. Apple wants to be the MS of Unix. As a > community, we appear to be helping them. I don't want to pay for OS > upgrades, nor do I want to hear about how much "better" OS X is. I want > people to find the flaws in what we have and work toward fixing them. I > don't see the flaws much, so I suppose I'm not the best person to try, > but if people just jump ship to OS X as an easy way out, potentially > we're losing the impetus and momentum to fix what it is we have. If > somebody sees a flaw in FreeBSD, I think most of us would prefer they > became involved in trying to address that flaw instead of change OS. Well, all I can say is that given that I personally know some of the people who now work on OS X that used to work on FreeBSD, I think you are just spouting random opinions without any basis in fact. > > Also, Apple has given back to the BSDs. Their modifications to existing > > BSD code have been released under the BSD license resulting in bug fixes > > to msdosfs and smbfs for example being merged back into FreeBSD. There > > is lots more in Darwin for enterprising individuals to merge back if they > > wish as well. > > Last guy I spoke to who looked at Darwin started looking pale. I don't > know why, and I'm not sure I want to know why. Perhaps a productive > swing to this conversation would be if people can identify those bits of > Darwin that would be useful to have merged back into FBSD. Have you > examples? I already pointed out MSDOSFS. There is still more work there to be merged back. Also, Apple funded much TrustedBSD work on Darwin that is now going to be brought back into FreeBSD and can be done so because the Darwin effort was funded. -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/
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