iBook

Frank Shute frank at esperance-linux.co.uk
Tue Jan 4 00:33:16 GMT 2005


On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 09:24:17PM +0000, Paul Robinson wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 08:38:08PM +0000, Frank Shute wrote:
> 
> > Sorry to hear this iBook is a bit of a disappointment to you, I
> > thought with a nice architecture and low power consumption it might
> > make a decent machine. 
> 
> It's slowly growing on me, but only because it's becoming more and more
> customised. List of gripes so far I've had to 'correct':
> 
> * Keyboard shortcuts disabled by default
> * Once keyboard shortcuts turned on, half of them relying on function
>   keys need to be reassigned as on an iBook they're doing sound, screen
>   brightness, etc. and OS X gets confused
> * The other half make little sense, so I've reassigned those too.
> * Half the time the Ctrl, Fn and Apple keys actually do much the same
>   thing when you're using pgup/pgdn etc. which is all the more fun when
>   you use the wrong modifier and delete half your work

I can imagine that there's nothing much worse than an unfamilar
keyboard and even on this PC I've got various mappings to suit me.

> * One reinstall of the entire OS was down to OS X getting _really_
>   confused after playing with DNS settings. Yes, I had to reinstall the
>   OS because DNS wasn't working. I'm not making this up.

That's not good. Although to be fair to the machine, it probably
wasn't designed to have it's DNS settings fiddled around with by some
unix geek :)

> * Safari only becomes useable once you've bought Saft.
> * Speaking of buying software, 99% of the code you'd want isn't freeware
>   and it is Apple tradition to fork out cash for very small, albeit useful
>   utilities to put things in place that should be there by default

Paying for software would put me right off, I've become too accustomed
to paying nothing.

> * Power Management needs coaching to be sensible IMHO
> * Way too bloody hot when on knee and when compiling

Does it have a fan?

> * Compiling? Oh yes, even once you have installed Apple's X11 you're
>   going to need to let tools like fink compile their own version just to
>   complete a package dependancy list...
> * And you'll find tools that are out of date too. Ruby was 1.6.8 ... no,
>   really, it really was the Christmas release from 2002
> * Don't forget software you build yourself will end up in /sw
> * ... sometimes

It sounds like the platform hasn't attracted enough people to maintain
the free stuff.

> * Just because you can't see something in ps aux doesn't mean OS X isn't
>   hiding it somewhere, about to throw it back into action, ready to
>   destroy the work you're just trying to do

That would make me a bit nervous. There isn't some cron jobs running
that are interfering with things?


> * When you get a problem with wireless, the quickest and easiest
>   solution to fixing it is to change the SSID of your AP. Everything
>   else you might try is just putting off renaming your SSID.
> * Just because something looks right in /etc and OS X put it there,
>   doesn't mean that's what is being used or that OS X isn't hiding
>   something from you
> * You might be occasionally attempted to try out the Location feature in
>   the Networking System Prefernces. Unless you *really* need to, don't.
> * If you're a ruby hacker, like me, even once you've got something
>   current installed, expect to be confused a lot
> * WEP. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah... errrmmm... 
> * If you have a trackpad, don't enable clicking on it, unless you're
>   delicate about what you're doing. I've got used to it now, but I know
>   I have to be careful with my thumbs down there or work can and will be
>   lost. Really.
> * No LEDs telling you anything about what the hardware is doing at all
> * The only way to turn wireless/airport or bluetooth off is in software
>   which makes it entertaining in certain environments. Remember this
>   before getting on a plane.
> * Xcode needs to be installed to do half the stuff you or I would want
>   to do. The default install is crap - you need more than the default
> * Just because you have Quicktime, Windows Media Player and Real
>   installed, don't expect to actually play about 40% of the content out
>   there.
> 
> ... and the list goes on. Yes, some of these are easy to fix. Some of
> them aren't particularly important. But if all you're hearing is "Wow
> these Apple boxes are so ace and aren't they just perfect" they might
> act as a useful counterpoint.

That is all I've been hearing but then I haven't heard from any
FreeBSD users who have poked around with one in anger, hence your review
is very interesting.

> 
> Right now, the pluses are starting to put it ahead, but each day feels
> like another little battle right now. I suppose half of it is learning.
> It is actually a reasonable machine, and once you get used to all of the
> above, it can become a useful environment to be in. I'm now about 30%
> more productive now I've stopped trying to use Apple's default keyboard
> shortcuts and set them to something more similar to what I would expect
> in XFCE or KDE.

If I think about this FreeBSD workstation, it was pretty unusable when
I first installed. Lot of time first spent copying over dotfiles,
installing and configuring various ports: 333 last count ... I've got
a feeling I might die or something when it reaches 666 ...

> 
> I just can't fucking stand people telling me this is something more than
> a computer and going on smugly about how Apple are perfect. It's a tool.
> It's a tool that does some things better than other tools. It's a tool
> that has some software that isn't available elsewhere, and it lets you
> bring tools from elsewhere here. It's got a reasonable battery life and
> doesn't need things plugging in to get wireless and bluetooth, although
> remember there are no pcmcia slots so it's a good job.
> 
> Even so, it's still, just a fricking tool. Not a lifestyle choice.

I think for a lot of people it does represent a "lifestyle choice"
though, in much the same way a brand of car might and they're
tremendously proud of their ownership. I suppose we all have
weaknesses.

> 
> > the stage were computer geeks are going to have to go around
> > incognito.
> 
> I know the feeling. 
> 
> > used a *nix before? I've made some progress with my mother using mutt
> > and vim but not a lot with TeX/LaTeX (but having used Wordperfect, she
> > likes the idea of the "reveal codes" though). 
> 
> Sorry, you've got your *mother* using vim? Wow. She's going to leave you
> out of her will for inflicting cruelty, but good going... :-)

Nonsense! If I'd made her learn Emacs then I would have been left out
of her will and probably entirely disowned by the family, but since I
made her learn vim I fully expect to receive her entire estate on her
demise. w00t!  :-) 

> 
> > BTW, have you looked at or installed Fink? And when are you going to
> > wipe off OSX and put NetBSD on it?!
> 
> My problem is that I don't really want it as a unix machine. 

Are you /sure/ about that statement Paul? ;)

> I want it
> as a reasonable word processor, web browser and being able to do some
> ruby and the occasional bit of unixy coding.
> 
> It is growing on me. Slowly.

I'm sure once you find work arounds to the niggles it will be OK. At
least you haven't got all the spyware, trojans and all the rest of it
to deal with.

> 
> Fink is troublesome at first, but once you get it working, most useful.
> 

That's good to know.

-- 

 Frank 


echo "f r a n k @ e s p e r a n c e - l i n u x . c o . u k" | sed -e 's/ //g'

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