“Apple’s much-touted new operating system, OS X Leopard, is in some ways worse than Windows Vista, says the founder of the Linux open source project, Linus Torvalds,” Nick Miller reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. “Torvalds was in Melbourne last week for the linux.conf.au conference and was invited to pass judgement on OS X versus Windows Vista in a wide-ranging interview.”
“‘I don’t think they’re equally flawed – I think Leopard is a much better system,’ he said. ‘(But) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary,'” Miller reports.
Miller reports, “He poured scorn on the modern trend to treat a new version or update of an operating system as a cause for major celebration and marketing. ‘An operating system should be completely invisible,’ he said. ‘To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment … to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “bioness” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Apple is methodically making their move to ZFS. Filesystem changes must be carefully considered for platforms with large user bases – which is something that Torvalds has absolutely no experience with on the desktop. The fact is, the performance of Linux on the desktop is, to turn a phrase, “complete and utter crap.” In January 2008, Net Applications’ measure of operating system usage share online put Linux at 0.67%. Ouch, just 0.67%, after all of these years! Apple’s Mac OS X, even with its filesystem that so concerns Linus, but which also happens to work perfectly well for users, stands at 7.57%, more than 11 times that of Linux. In fact, Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch already hold 0.17%. Apple’s Wi-Fi mobile devices will likely surpass Linux on the desktop this year. Linux users, and Torvalds himself, should give up the ghost. Linux on the desktop is a pipe dream. (Linux in the server room is a totally different story.)
As for an operating system being completely invisible, Mac OS X does a much better job of getting out of the user’s way than Windows or the various Linux flavors, which, from what we’ve seen, all seem hell-bent on making ugly clones of the Windows UI failure in what seems to be some desperate attempt to keep the delusional fantasy of Linux on the desktop alive.
Hey, brother, we didn’t ask for a war, but we’re well-prepared to fight, if you insist.
Apple has shareholders and employees and infrastructure. It’s a company, not a commune. To criticize them for charging for their work is disingenuous and/or naive. Obviously, if Mr. Torvalds has proven anything, it’s that you can’t get world class user interfaces from disorganized, disconnected, and unfunded ragtag bands of volunteers. The money Apple makes goes into perfecting the experience for the end user. Linux has so much to learn in the area of UI – the most important area for people who use computers, by the way – that it’s impossible to quantify. Even Windows is better.
Mr. Torvalds won’t like to hear this (and perhaps that’s why he’s lashing out), but, usage figures prove that, of the roughly 10% who are informed about what they are buying, almost all of us would rather pay for Mac OS X than have Linux for free on the desktop.
Now, all of that said, in a way we do kinda sorta agree with Torvalds on this general concept: The perfect world has no place for the very flawed Windows, the “choice” of the uninformed.
Our perfect world? Mac OS X on desktops, notebooks, and mobile devices (in the hands of users) and Mac OS X Server and/or Linux in the server room.
[UPDATE: 2:56pm EST: Attempted to clarify in the Take that most Mac users have made an informed choice (so have Linux users), while most Windows users have not (or they wouldn’t be using Windows, they’d be using Macs). Read any random bunch of independent OS reviews and Apple Mac is the clear choice. Much more than software lock-in, Windows depends on ignorance to survive (and even thrive) today.]
Linus Torvalds and Linux are like Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party.
Take that any way you like.
Ubuntu (the most popular linux OS) is actually pretty easy to use. You just use the add/remove feature to search for programs and install it with a click. It’s easier to use than XP imo.
That said, I was disappointed that OS X 10.5 didn’t come with ZFS. I was also disappointed that full disk encryption isn’t built into OS X.
IDon’t:
You’re mistaken. “Rip off” means stealing (like Microsoft did with Windows).
For starters, Unix is not an OS, but more like specification. Any OS compliand with the POSIX specification and certified by the Open Group can use the UNIX label. Examples: Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, SCO, and Mac OS X.
Those Unix use different kernels: BSD, SVR4, Mach (NextStep, OpenStep), and its derivate, Darwin (Mac OS X)
Linux is just another kernel, based on MINIX. It’s a 100% POSIX compliant kernel. The only reason why Linux is not Unix is because it never went through the Open Group’s certification, since it was never part of its roadmap.
Since POSIX is an open specification, there’s no ripoff on building a POSIX compliant kernel. In fact, I believe BeOS was also POSIX compliant.
He [Torvalds} poured scorn on the modern trend to treat a new version or update of an operating system as a cause for major celebration and marketing.
“An operating system should be completely invisible,” he said. “To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment … to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.”
Sigh. This is where Linus goes off the tracks. Linus is a kernel guy and limits himself to kernel issues. A file system has major kernel implications, so it is part of Linus’s expertise. He is right about the file system IMHO, but ZFS will finally correct that problem and put Mac OS X in a leadership position on that score.
The Linux community lacks a cat herder to make its OS and the Open Source Software it runs “just work”. SJ is a cat herder, who has taken open source code — before it was called that — and made it “just work,” by carefully providing the needed capabilities in other layers. Linux will remain a follower unless it can find a trustable cat herder, who also scraps the socialist zeitgeist peddled by many key players in the Linux community — or is that “commune”. Good luck with that.
I ran linux for years on my HP laptop.
I had so much fun fighting my OS to properly update, dealing with dependency hell, fighting my graphics card, attempting to get DVD playback and trying to get wireless working.
I felt like the member of a community though, as I spent hours pouring over the web forums trying to find answers to my questions usually to no avail.
I loved having to repeat this as new problems popped up after every kernel update.
OS X came out, I dropped linux like a sack of dirt and have not looked back.
“So I guess since Windows has better market share then OS X, Windows is better? Be careful when talking down to Linux based on desktop market share, you’ll end up praising Vista!”
and
“So from MDN’s perspective Windows must be superior to Mac OS just because it has a larger share of the market. MDN needs to word their arguments a little better when trying to defend Apple/Mac OS.”
Not sure that it is a bad argument from MDN. A user has to go out of his way to use either Linux or Mac OSX. Windows is the default on most of the hardware out there that people buy, either due to price, ignorance or stuck at work. Unless you are a creative professional it takes a little bit of going against the stream (but not for much longer) for some to choose to either buy a Mac or take the trouble to install and support something other than Windows on their PC.
That more people are seemingly switching and buying a whole new system (Mac), rather than just installing free software on their existing PC probably does say something for usability and preferability of Mac OS X over Linux.
OK, Linus is a bit “over the top” in a couple of ways. Sure, English is not his native language. Yes, he is a kernal coder. What is t about any of these things that we can’t relate to? The first point, I guess, is the only thing most of us have in common with him. Some of the most abrasive people I’ve known in my 40+ years of employment have been those who dealt with kernal code. Not bad people, not stupid, not evil, just … abrasive. And often right … if you understand their premise. And, perhaps, agree?
Our file system could be better. But it isn’t “crap”. That’s just the perfectionist spewing.
Our OS is much less “visible” than anything I’ve seen in Linux. But, that’s GUI vs GUI … their CLI is almost identical to OSX’s!
10.5 (and 10.4, AND 10.3) have not required equipment less than 5 years old – like Linux, unlike Windows Vista.
As for Linux on the desktop … an excellent choice for IT pros. Not much better than OSX – EXCEPT, that it will run on a 5-year-old $500 PC good for nothing else these days.
MDN … no need for a pissing contest just because this expert doesn’t bow down at your preferred altar.
Dave
In the LINUX world, the OS and the UI (a.k.a desktop) are two different beasts. Linux gives you the option to run the desktop you choose to run (Gnome, KDE, ICE etc.) and the OS is behind the scenes running everything.
When you buy Vista or OSX, you get the two bundled together and with linux you can upgrade the underlying OS many times and never change the look and feel of the desktop that you chose.
He didn’t really make that clear in his statement, but I do agree. For the average user, the underlying OS should be invisible. The user interacts with the desktop. Did base you decision to upgrade to Leopard on whether threads are user level or kernel level, or did you base you decision on changes to the way things looked and acted on the screen?
People take these things too personally. He is not trying to sell more linux boxes, and he was blunt as to his assesment on how HFS+ works, but he knows the failure points of HFS+, do you? If HFS+ is all that needs to be fixed, then great! Apple is already focused on fixing it.
@Military Police
I could not agree more. I have professionally used more OSs than any one I know (around 15 or so, not including version numbers). At home I have Leopard, Vista 32 and 64, and XP. Every time I put Linux on a system, I tinker with it for a while and then load an OS that I can actually use. I am not saying that Linux is a bad OS, just not useful for the stuff I want to do at home (gaming, iTunes, multimedia and entertainment). These are all the major consumer applications that are available on these OSs.
As for Linus Torvalds, he is clearly out of touch and full of himself. He has not learned anything from the success of the iPhone. The iPhone has taken 28% of the smartphone market primarily because of the OS and the software that is on it.
The personal computer market is driven the same way. I buy Windows based hardware because I want to play games. I buy Apple hardware because I want a better integrated home entertainment system. The hardware that these two systems use is basically the same. The major difference is the software and how I use them. If I was to replace the OS on any of these systems with Linux, I would remove their usability.
So Mr. LinuX Torvalds has talked about OS X and Windows.
Next is Ballmer talking about Linux and OSX
And just maybe (yeah right..sarcasm) Mr. Jobs will talk about Linux and Windows…
“‘Utter crap’ might be a slight exaggeration.
HFS+ is no worse than any other mainstream file system from the previous decade …”
Says you. Apple makes some very desirable products, but just give the ignorant Apple fanboyism a rest, because — ahem! — the filesystem is in Linus’s rather tactless phrase “crap” — and everyone whose informed about the matter, including Apple, knows that. It doesn’t come from the BSD side of OS X at all. It’s been grafted onto OS X from the horrible old Mac OS. You didn’t think the BSDs were using anything so creaky, did you?
Miss the data-loss bug in Leopard, did you? That wasn’t merely some one-off bug; there were underlying reasons for it: the crappy filesystem APIs. HFS+ is a creaking mess. It requires secret directories hidden from the users where God knows what goes on even to function. And by “secret directories” I don’t mean the normally hidden Unix “dotted” files. And I’ll bet my bottom dollar you didn’t know about this little game:
http://rixstep.com/2/4/20080124,00.shtml
Yep, that is, as Linus puts it, “scary”.
Fact is, HFS+ is creaky, is more than due for replacement, and has bitten plenty of users. And it’s damn lucky it hasn’t bitten more.
Leopard as a whole, GUI and bundled programs thrown in, is very nice indeed. (I’d say it’s the best working environment out there and by a long way myself.) But Torvalds didn’t say it wasn’t. He said the reverse, actually, as you’d see if you actually read the transcript of his interview. He said he liked it and it was better than Vista (in the main) He was commenting on the OS not the apps or the GUI or the frameworks. Specifically he was commenting on the filesystem, and he said it has a poor filesystem. He’s right: it has.
And MDN doesn’t know anything about the matter. MDN isn’t written by software engineers.
I love OS X and prefer using it to using Windows or GNOME or KDE, but MDN are out of order here. Linus Torvalds knows what he’s talking about, and MDN doesn’t. And Linus may just have been “having fun”, as he puts it himself, but he’s done more for the world than MDN ever will.
Linus Torvald quote;
“I’m a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I’m a nice guy, and the fact is that I’m a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn’t care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system. And I’m not just saying that. I’m really not a very nice person. I can say “I don’t care” with a straight face, and really mean it.”
Ballmer/Gates is right, but follow this link instead: http://www.wsanchez.net/papers/USENIX_2000/
on “The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments”
It makes for interesting reading, if you understand it.
MDN/Jack is a funny but a very childish guy. Like …he bashes some non-apple entity on a daily basis but is ready to declare war when somebody dares to say something negative about any Apple product.
The sad part is that Linus is actually right on this matter HFS+ *is* crap as Gill Bates and Beve Stallmer so well explained.
Well I guess we all know what MDN thinks about Linux ..
100% on MDN!
AND Linus’ dad can kick Steve Jobs’ butt!
“Everyday people on the street don’t give a crap about programming, only about usability.”
It could explain the lack of Mac developers though. In some ways going from Linux to Windows is easier than going from either Linux or Windows to Mac. At least you don’t need to learn Objective-C. Maybe that was what Linus was getting at when he said OSX is worse for programming than Windows.
@ Software developer:
If I want Gnome or KDE(God why?) on my Mac-I can run them. If there is a piece of unix software I need-chances are I can run it on my Mac.
OS X is based on Free BSD and through the use of something like fink or fink commander, I have access to 8265 packages of open source programs.
All without Linux.
Don’t be angry with Linus, he’s an Asperger-Syndrome poster boy. His Gnome screed proves this.
Linux. For people that act like cats on a burning boat. Go to the Linux download site. There’s MORE than 100 versions of Linux. Whatever. But, they’re all free. This Linux is too hard, and this Linux is too…
Uh, yeah…The price of everything, the value of nothing…
If a Windows PC is for cheapskates, too cheap to buy a Mac — even though it’s more expensive than Mac OS X. [$329 for an OS that’s not subsidized?] Then, Linux is for cheapskates too cheap to buy Windows. Did you ever notice that Linux looks like and behaves like Windows?
WAIT! I correct myself, Linux is Windows for cheapskates too lazy to steal Windows!
Linus makes Ballmer look normal. And Ballmer is fscking power hungry nuts.
. … …..
Oh dear, oh dear. I sure hope my English translates well!
Not just in Washington…
I want ZFS or some other modern file system for the Mac OS.
I do not give a damn about 3D docks, cover flow in the finder, stacks, stationary in e-mail or other BS that should be left to the aftermarket. I want what was promised, a solid and stable OS that is not built on a creaky old foundation.
Fanbois aside, the larger your database or file system the worse HFS+ is. This problem will only get worse as large digital media databases become more common among consumers. The quickest way to lose switchers is to burn them with catastrophic data loss or regular data woes.
Note to Cupertino-
I’ve been a Mac user since the first Macintosh and stuck with it at work and at home, but I’ve bought my last boutique OS upgrade. It’s time to do what any honest expert will tell you and fix the file system. Torvalds was just telling the truth and knows what he’s talking about. He wasn’t selling anything- just offering his expert take.
The only reason UBUNTU Is thriving more or less today is due to the fact that its not INVISIBLE like most others …
MDN trying to act like they know more about filesystems than Linus? Now that’s hilarious! And that goes for all the other people on here criticizing Linus. Had he said “FAT32 is crap” you’d all be agreeing with him.
@linux user
Whats wrong with objective C, it’s just like programming in C with slight differences, and that it’s object orientated much like java…
Blah, blah blah. Linux is feeling the heat from Mac OS X on the desktop and Solaris in the data center.
Well… doesn’t anyone find it odd that you can replace an entire directory with a file in OS X? (Quickbooks anyone?) Or that in Leopard a file, when written to, is first destroyed then a new file is created in it’s place (creating another inode: you know the other way a Mac was magically able to keep track of a file despite its name changing). Or how about the fact that if had a USB device go offline while you were _moving_ a file to it, that it would be lost on both devices (‘Massive data loss bug’). Or that folder copies aren’t complementary (merging) but instead destroys the folder of the same name and all its contents? Has everyone been ‘thinking different’ so long we’ve forgotten there COULD be better/other ways of working with files than Apple has given us? Honestly. Can we be contemplative and not so reactionary? Thanks.