Mac OS X turns 10

[flynn]

On the 13th of September Mac OS X turned 10. Happy birthday OS X!

MacWorld article (http://www.macworld.com/article/154036/2010/09/osxorigins.html?lsrc=nl_mwweek_h_cbstories)

[Rolf N]

And what a system it is. You already need third-party software to merely get your mouse cursor moving properly.

[Blazkowicz]

but at least you might be able to run Gnome on it, contrary to the situation with Windows.

[Arwin]

And what a system it is. You already need third-party software to merely get your mouse cursor moving properly.

Not an issue for me and my Magic Mouse ... ;) I personally just hate two things: the fonts for anything 12pts or smaller, and the lack of 'resize anywhere' on the windows. Other than that I think it's pretty good.

[Scott_Arm]

I've never needed any third party software for the various mice I've used. What does the software do?

I think OSX is a nice operating system, and its held up well over the years. I imagine it can't be too much longer before we see OS 11.

[Florin]

And what a system it is. You already need third-party software to merely get your mouse cursor moving properly.

I don't get it. What are you talking about? :neutral:

[Snyder]

I don't get it. What are you talking about? :neutral:
The excessive mouse acceleration ramp. While it's great for the touchpad (with its inherent lower precision for slow movements), I too simply can't stand it for mice. (And believe me, I've tried.)
Thank god there's a simple solution: Use a MS mouse, you can adjust it in their drivers. (Yeah, there's steermouse, but seriously, twenty bucks? I can get a new mouse for that...)

[Scott_Arm]

Weird. I used a standard 3 button PC mouse with my Mac, and never noticed it, but I don't do anything that requires precision, like photoshop or anything.

[Rolf N]

I meant the borked mouse acceleration on Snow Leopard. I don't know if other releases have the same feature-not-bug. I used USB Overdrive (shareware) to correct it.

Also, having a proper package management system with dependency tracking in place would go a long way. Picture the situation where you've just updated your X-Code to the latest version (1GB+ download) via the built-in check for updates (Mac system menu). Then you go download the latest iPhone SDK and it makes you download the same X-Code version you already have installed all over again, from some 50kB/s tar pit of a server.

Someone at Apple HQ needs exposure to Debian/Ubuntu, and badly.

[Vadi]

Isn't that the same acceleration issue I noticed in Linux? There you have to lower "sensitivity" in xorg.conf - I searched a lot before finding that option.

[Florin]

Hmm well I use various Windows/Mac and Linux PCs interchangeably and I hadn't noticed anything odd about the behaviour of OSX. I do use a Microsoft mouse on my main Mac. Didn't install any extra drivers for it though.

[Rolf N]

Isn't that the same acceleration issue I noticed in Linux? There you have to lower "sensitivity" in xorg.conf - I searched a lot before finding that option.The issue with X.Org is that the configuration options to slow down high-dpi mice are not immediately intuitive. To make a high-dpi mouse go nice and easy, you have to use the acceleration curve to "accelerate by", say 0.5 "after" a threshold of 1, which means always, at the first captured increment of movement. It's weird nomenclature. I do have a nice GUI widget to configure this out of the box on Xubuntu though.

The issue with (after some research) Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.6 is that it only does "cliff edge" acceleration for mice (touchpads unaffected), where effectively only two speeds apply to the mouse cursor in a binary fashion, with no discernable gradations in between. All you can do with the config options is make the cliff less steep, maybe go to flat movement altogether, but the transition between base speed and accelerated speed will always remain harsh.

[Mize]

?? I use multiple 3-button mice and do CAD...what problem am I not mad about now?

[Mize]

Back to the thread issue, I like OSX but like gnome a bit better on top of Ubuntu. That said most of my day to day is OSX or W7.

[Arwin]

Back to the thread issue, I like OSX but like gnome a bit better on top of Ubuntu. That said most of my day to day is OSX or W7.

Running Ubuntu 10.4 (as well has OS/X and Win7, my wife has Vista and my work laptop is still XP), I found the desktop a bit sparse though I like some of its ideas (the social stuff built in, and also noticed that you can actually resize windows from anywhere ;) ).

But now I realise I may not have the most optimal desktop for it. Does Ubuntu 10.4 come with Gnome by default? And if it does, I'm guessing the default theme isn't the best - what theme would you recommend that takes some of the best features from both OS/X and Win7?

[Mize]

there are lots of great desktop enhancements for Ubuntu...even faqs on how to make it look nearly identical to OSX if you like (but still able to resize from anywhere). try googling ubuntu osx or some such.

[Otto Dafe]

there are lots of great desktop enhancements for Ubuntu...even faqs on how to make it look nearly identical to OSX if you like (but still able to resize from anywhere). try googling ubuntu osx or some such.

Macbuntu! (http://sourceforge.net/projects/macbuntu/)

[rpg.314]

With the new unity interface, these aren't really needed.

I'd love to try out the unity interface on an eyefinity setup.

[Grall]

You can pretty much have eyefinity on a Mac nowadays... The 27" iMacs have two thunderbolt/mini displayport outputs, allowing a pretty awesome 3-monitor desktop.