www.birdhouse.org/macos/beos_osx -> birdhouse.org/macos/beos_osx/
It's been pointed out that Apple is now, or will soon be the world's largest vendor of Unix systems. Creating a user-friendly Unix has been something of a holy grail for decades, and is of course the goal of many Linux developers. The fact that Apple (and, to a lesser extent, Be) succeeded in providing the power of Unix to those who want it while not requiring the average user ever to think about it is an example of what I was saying earlier -- that good user experiences don't tend to flow easily from the open source development model. Creating a good user experience requires that everyone working on a project be on the same page -- something that is decidedly not the case in the open source community. I made this point again and again through the years I was writing about BeOS, and the new Apple experience underlines its truth. Be and Apple have been able to create good user experiences alongside the Unix shell with far fewer developers and years than the open source community has put into the various X11 window managers. Providing the power of Unix to general consumers carries with it a certain level of responsibility to know how and where to separate userland shine from the grimy nuts and bolts. Because /etc is hidden from the Finder by default and requires an admin password to edit, it's safe from non-savvy users. On the other hand, those same users can dish up pages from a world-class web server without ever opening a Terminal window or tweaking a single Apache directive. PHP was pre-installed and configured to work with Apache, and MySQL was a simple download with clear, fail-safe installation instructions. In contrast, the lack of mmap() in the BeOS kernel means that it's still not possible to install MySQL for BeOS. Apple also includes a built-in FTP server configured to work with user directories, as well as the ability to mount Samba, AFP, and WebDAV shares. Be's built-in FTP server accomodates only a single login, and gives access to the entire filesystem. While OS X's networking is already more advanced than Be's ever was, it's not yet perfect, and more advanced users have run into some problems. Irfon-Kim Ahmad offers these notes: If running Apache and SSH servers is a top priority, it's excellent. If you want to connect up to your workplace's VPN as a client, however, go find a Windows box. There are some pptp tools, but little by way of documentation, and I haven't been able to actually get any of them working yet (although I've just started trying recently). Many people I've spoken with have had troubles with their passwords to their wireless networks being spontaneously 'forgotten' on a regular basis by Keychain, although I haven't had that problem since I reinstalled the OS. One MAJOR minus to OS X that I only discovered this weekend that pertains to networking: If all of your DNS servers are down, you might as well forget it -- OS X will take 10+ minutes to boot, and then act flaky. Overall, the foundation for world-class networking is present in OS X. If we were comparing to Linux networking, Linux would win. But in comparison to BeOS, OS X takes this round hands-down. However, there's no reason to think that in the future OS X won't become fully competitive with Linux/BSD as a world-class server OS as well. For now, people who want to run an ISP from a Mac should choose OS X Server. CD Burning, Disk Images Everywhere I look in OS X, smooth integration is the operative phrase. Stick in a blank CD and OS X asks if you want to make an ISO, HFS+, or audio CD. If you choose ISO or HFS+, the disc mounts on the desktop. Drag what you want onto the volume, then drag it toward the Trash. As soon as you begin to drag, the Trash icon turns into a burn icon (thus mitigating the old complaint that it makes no sense to trash a volume you wish to eject). If you want to make an audio CD, iTunes is launched automatically. Drag stuff from your music library onto a playlist entry, click Burn, and that's it. While Be's CDBurner application shares pretty much the same ease of use when creating audio CDs, burning data CDs in BeOS was never a particularly elegant affair. And I never succeeded in making anything but coasters in Linux, either with the GUI tools bundled in Mandrake or with the command line cdrecord, use of which I had already mastered in BeOS. The process was useful in some instances, but far from painless. With OS X, Apple has "institutionalized" the use of disk images. It's an elegant way for developers to distribute software, and for users to create backups of disk volumes, including CDs they own. By masking the complexities of disk image creation, mounting, and unmounting, Apple's DiskCopy utility makes it easy to generate bit-perfect copies of hard drives, data CDs, and audio CDs (regardless of file system). One inconsistency worth noting: To burn a data CD, you drag the volume toward the Trash. The reason is that iTunes doesn't show the mounted volume. PDF Everywhere One of the more interesting innovations in OS X is the fact that PDF technology is pervasive in the operating system -- the Quartz display engine is built on top of Display PostScript, as was NeXTStep's. This means it's possible to output from any application that can print directly to PDF. The document is rendered to PDF and displayed in the built-in Preview application. No need to purchase or install Acrobat, and no need for 3rd party software to integrate with particular applications. The 11 printable version of this document was created with this technique. Applications I've heard pundits say that OS X still suffers from a lack of apps. While it's true that Photoshop still had not been Carbon/Cocoa-ized, far more -- and more mature -- applications have been released for OS X in its first year of existence than appeared in the seven or so years since BeOS was released. Like I said, we BeOS users are accustomed to begging for software crumbs, grateful for anything that dribbles our way. What looks to some like a dearth of apps appears to me as a great wealth of code. And virtually anything that hasn't yet been Carbonized runs fine in Classic mode*. Since I don't own a pile of old Mac software, I don't spend much time in Classic mode. When I do, it works just fine (except for the annoying fact that Classic apps can't open files residing on Samba shares, where I keep most of my images and documents). Others have complained that a variety of audio applications and games in particular give Classic mode fits. However, Apple has just released an update to OS 9 designed to improved Classic mode compatibility. Most of this applications section isn't really about operating systems, but about the apps available for the operating systems, so you might want to skip it if you're just looking for the OS comparisons. However, I believe that the applications landscape is an integral part of the total OS experience, so included it here. The combination of the database-like file system (BFS), Be's extremely efficient media handling capabilities, and the exceptionally flexible 12 SoundPlay make for an unbeatable combination. As an MP3 addict, I soon went hunting for MP3 functionality to match Be's. Because attributes are indexed automatically, search results are instantaneous, regardless the amount of data to be searched. In essence, the file system itself serves as a database. Side note: Microsoft is in the early stages of moving to a model where all of their applications and the operating system itself will sit 13 on top of a common data store, based on SQL Server. If they're able to pull it off, this will be one of the more significant changes to the Windows product line in Microsoft history. Building an OS around a virtual database has implications for userland functionality throughout the OS, and MP3 storage is just one example (more later). MP3 encoding tools for BeOS store meta-data not just in ID3 tags, but in the file system itself, and this meant I was able to create customized playlists unlike anything possible in Windows or Linux (without being locked into the use of tertiary tools). For example, creating a playlist of all tracks written between 1978 and 198...
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