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Comment on "BitRot on Mac OS X"
by Uli Kusterer — Nov 29
My thoughts:

Virtual desktops are available via at least three open-source applications. The Mighty Mouse might not have been available back then, but OS X supported *any* USB mouse with two buttons right from the start. For opening files without an extension, all he'd have to do is use the "Open with..." option (right-click or "Get Info..." panel).

From what I heard, NetInfo is actually more modern and safer than /etc/passwd & Co. Similarly, Linux' monolithic Kernel is *one* of the reasons people keep having to recompile their Kernel on Linux just to install a driver. In addition, NetInfo is very easy if, instead of using the command line, he'd just use the NetInfo Manager GUI app, or the "Accounts" panel of System Preferences.

The argument *against* the Microkernel could also be raised against his request for X11. On X11 systems, every application has to use a very complicated, high-overhead protocol just to talk to the X11 server *on the same computer* (the protocol ensures certain non-native byte ordering and number size conventions). That's a huge bottleneck when trying to do any graphics-intensive stuff, and one of the reasons why most Linuxes have problems supporting OpenGL-acceleration on graphics cards.

The problem he has with no remote login is simply due to different usage patterns. If the computer in front of you really is used as a "work station", you want it to be one of a dozen terminals hooked up to the same central server. But the Mac is *a PC*. As such, most people only have one, so that remote-login stuff is pretty useless for them and the overhead involved undesired.

If he's in a local network, he can use Fast User Switching and a recent version of OSXVNC to run all his stuff on a 'server' while another user can still be logged in there.

He's completely right about the drag/copy/alias inconsistency and the activation click trggers/is ignored stuff, though. That's actually gotten worse in OS X than it even was on OS 9 (e.g. copying a disk makes an alias, not a folder with a copy...)
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