I’ve been doing some investigation on what it would take to move my main work environment back to Linux (Ubuntu specifically).
For a bit of history, I moved off of Windows in 1997 and on to Linux – Debian mostly (Wow, I haven’t used Windows as my main OS for 10 years!). Back then it took a lot of tweaking to get Linux to work right. I don’t mean customizing, I mean tweaking to get it to even work.
While tinkering under the hood was educational and fun, it was a bit of a pain when it was time to do some actual work. I frequently found myself spending time working on getting my environment to work before I could do any work. I couldn’t get much work done that way so I moved to Mac about three years ago – specifically for the work flow, ease of use, and stability.
Now, however, Linux just works (in so much as Mac and Windows “just work”). Ubuntu installs easily, supports most hardware (WPA wireless with no tweaking on my part!), and comes with a slew of free programs.
It is not my intention to bash Mac or Leopard. I think they are both amazing feats of engineering and craftsmanship; however, Leopard isn’t working for me. I find it unstable, buggy, and disk thrashing – I want to use it I truly do, but it doesn’t want me to. It’s the nicest looking OS I have ever seen, and the improvements are theoretically cool, but for day to day work, it’s failing horribly for me.
So I have a few choices. Wait for an unspecified amount of time for bugs that are unacknowledged to be fixed, downgrade to Tiger, or peruse other options. Number one happens by default and number 2 and 3 are such a pain in the behind, that I might as well look at number 3 just to see (in case this kind of situation is going to become a trend).
To cut off suggestions that I am over reacting, or making things up, here are a few things that have been happening since Leopard:
* Everyday at least one application crashes while I am working on something. This was unheard of in Tiger, and one of the main reasons I moved off Windows 10 years ago. I haven’t lost this much work since I used Windows.
* Sometimes every application crashes. It’s the darnedest thing, but every couple of days every single app will crash at the same time. The OS doesn’t crash, just every running program. I get an array of “Would you like to send…” windows, then everything starts working again (for a while).
* My account got removed from the admin group for no reason.
* My iPhone now only syncs 30% of the time (I suspect USB code changes, but I have no proof). The rest of the time iTunes beach balls and I have to force quit. Sometimes I have to reboot the OS just to get my very expensive phone to sync (and that is only good for one sync, then I need to reboot again).
* My firewire iSight doesn’t work with some programs anymore.
* The hard drive starts thrashing every once in a while causing the beach ball and I can’t work. I have to sit there and wait. Sometimes it lasts 20 seconds sometimes 4 minutes (one time 15 minutes).
* Sometimes in Mail.app the create new message button doesn’t do anything, and I have to quit and restart the app just to send a message.
* My wifes keyboard on her MacBook randomly stops working. 10.5.1 seemed to fix this for her.
I have clean installed the OS four times (twice on my Powerbook, twice on my PowerMac), and both computers exhibit these behaviors. Odds are if it is happening on two computers it’s not just me.
It is important to note that I have more problems on my G4 computers then my wife has on her intel computer. So it could have something to do with that, but I can’t spend another $2,000 to buy a new computer when the two I have fall well within the specs for running Leopard.
I tried to install Ubuntu 7.10 on my PowerBook G4 as a test. Sadly this didn’t work out very well. After a bit of messing around, I got it to install; however, it had some random problems – the worst being that it lost all network interfaces after apt-get upgrade (NetworkManager seems to get horked after the first security update).
Some quick tips for anyone trying this:
* You’ll probably need to be wired when you install because the network card needs proprietary drivers. I used a netgear pcmcia card I had laying around.
* When you first boot the livecd, you’ll likely have to boot the kernel with flags. What I used was (enter this at the boot: prompt):
live-nosplash-powerpc resolution=1024x768 vga=795 video=ofonly
* If you get it to install (I had the computer freeze once during install), to right click press the F12 key. You can setup ctrl+click = right click by editing /etc/default/mouseemu and uncommenting out the lines:
MID_CLICK="-middle 125 272" RIGHT_CLICK="-right 29 272"
and then:
$sudo /etc/init.d/mouseemu restart
(via viraj.org)
* The cool effects (comp-biz or whatever) worked very well on my PowerBook G4 with 1.25GB RAM.
* The Apple function keys seem to work fine (volume, brightness, eject, etc)
* There is no Adobe Flash support for Linux on PowerPC
Installing Ubuntu on an Apple PowerBook G4, for me, was like it was installing Debian back in the late 90s. It is not as easy as most other installs with Ubuntu, and not everything is going to work (You wont be able to just close the lid and have the laptop go to sleep anymore, you’ll have to shutdown every time). Prepare for a lot of file tweaking.
In the end, I think if you’re looking to move to Ubuntu, sell the Apple hardware on eBay and buy new computers with the money you get from that.
(For example, I am running Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T23, and it works flawlessly).
The one thing I learned from this, is I am currently locked into Apple stuff. I didn’t quite realize it until now though – it never really hit home. For example, if I moved back to Linux I would have no way of syncing my iPhone. I also have an Airport Extreme, and near as I can tell, I can’t edit any of the Airport settings from Linux. Let alone my iTunes purchases. Wow, I am toast.
I always imagined I could just install Ubuntu on my Apple hardware if it ever got down to it, but it seems that it is not that easy. By the way, hats off to the open firmware guys and yaboot – I was impressed that Ubuntu actually could install on and support most Mac hardware.
If you are running intel hardware, you are not likely in this same boat. You can probably use boot camp to easily dual boot or use vmware.
My lesson learned here is – single vendor lock in is limiting on your personal maneuverability, no matter how cool the products seem to be. If the company you are hooked in with starts putting out stuff you don’t like, the economy takes a dump and you can’t afford their stuff, or you disagree with something, your options are limited.
(Written on my Ubuntu Thinkpad T23 while I am installing Leopard for a third time on my Powerbook. Holding to the hope that the problems I am having were things I somehow did wrong.)
I ’switched’ two years ago now I guess and haven’t regretted it since. I occasionally have to use my wife’s WinXP machine to do something but that is infrequent at best. I’m not sure if this is from moving to Ubuntu or streamlining more of my workflow around web centered applications…
I’ve always liked the idea of the Mac but was always wary of the lock-in aspect.
It’s interesting but since Leopard – I’ve seen a lot of disgruntled Mac posts so something must be wrong.
This is probably a long shot, but when you mentioned *all* applications quitting it rang a bell. A few months ago that happened in Tiger due to a corrupt font I installed. I don’t know if you have any custom fonts, but it might be worth looking at. It’s a bit sad that a single font could do so much…
Hi Kyle,
Thanks for the tip. I haven’t specifically installed any fonts myself, but that doesn’t mean one of the applications I use didn’t. That’s a good hint, I’ll check that out
I believe Parallels and VMWare Fusion will both allow you to install Ubuntu. Why not create a virtual machine for Ubuntu on your Mac? You can work in Ubuntu and use the Mac OS for stuff that you can’t do any other way.
By the way, Leopard has been pretty stable for me. I did a clean install of the OS and only loaded applications that are “Leopard Ready.”
Hi Paul,
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t both of those products Intel only?
Take a look at this site
http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/
It has some interesting hints on installing Ubuntu in apple computers
Yes, sorry. I somehow missed that you were not running Intel.
I have used Macs since the early 90s. Tiger was great. I haven’t experienced the number of crashes with Leopard that you have — so far firefox has crashed 3 times and each time my computer has totally frozen. Apple need to have a good hard look at themselves regarding the amount of bugs in Leopard. The most obvious is that printing is broken for many printers (google this and you’ll see it is a ubiquitous problem). A lot of other smaller irritations exists. Each day I check for updates hoping a new update will be released to make Leopard as solid as Tigers was. I’ve thought about re-installing Tiger but for now I’ll persevere.
Ok,I strongly believe your problem with Leopard is due to PPC platform. I have 4 Intel Macs with Leopard, and I have only about twice OS crash in 2 of them. In general, I feel Leopard is actually more stable than Tiger (at least in my experience).
Have you ever think about staying with Tiger until you got the $$ to buy an Intel Mac? I am a long time Linux user (since Slackware), but once I found OS X, I know it’s the best desktop for me. I still use Ubuntu a lot, but mostly for servers and development stuff.
Hi, I am also an ubuntu user but seeing how much you like Macs, I wonder what the real reason is for looking at Ubuntu. The fact that the new version is very buggy should not be too much of a surprise. It’s almost always the case with new versions that are more than just continuous evolution (look at Vista, all previous versions of windows, I don’t know too much mac history so can’t say for these).
A better approach for work equipment would be to keep what’s working until the new stuff has had at least 1 or 2 years of existence and the most glaring problems are solved. Why don’t you just revert to Tiger? I wanted to buy a Mac for my parents and had no experience with these. Started looking around on forums for comments on the new models. Seeing the loads of problems people were having, I bought a recent used one (white plastic, no aluminium, looks nicer too I think) off ebay with Tiger and it is great! Besides, you could always double boot your machine with Ubuntu (as another poster suggests) and thus get acquainted with it progressively.
My greatest problem is with printers. I have installed my two network printers and got them to work at least five times. However, out of the blue they stop working and I get the beach ball of hell. It makes me reinstall the printers to get them to work again. Random app crashes are there too. I hate working with pages and see my work dissappear after a crash. Tiger was just too perfect, I wish going back was easy enough.
Hi wwwpanda:
“Have you ever think about staying with Tiger until you got the $$ to buy an Intel Mac?”
No. I have no reason to buy a new $2,000 computer. The ones I have do a good enough job (3 Macs). If it didn’t work on PPC they shouldn’t sell it saying it works. At this rate, I am not buying a Mac next go round. I’ve been looking at Dell’s Ubuntu systems lately as I am beginning to really resent Apple.
The farthest thing from my mind at this point is how I can spend more money on apple stuff.
Hi jacques:
I actually moved from Debian (7 year user) to Mac a few years ago so I wouldn’t say I was a fan of anything aside from a nice working, well put together system. I would be going _back_ to Debian (Ubuntu is more or less a friendly version of Debian).
I spent $130 dollars on a piece of software that was supposed to work with my computer. My computer falls well within the specs of Leopard’s minimum requirements.
My trust / support of Apple has severely been shaken. To the point I am not recommending their stuff – I have specifically told many people to not buy or use Leopard.
I will not be downgrading. If 10.5.2 doesn’t fix these problems I am selling my Macs and going back to Ubuntu (probably a $895 Dell).
I am sorry that you feel so disappointed with Leopard (and Apple). But I think we as a potential customer for any products, should better read others review before go ahead and buy a product. Yes, I know your PowerPC Macs actually suits the minimum requirements of Leopard, but if you read more on many PowerPC users’ problems, you may not make the buying decision of Leopard at all.
Anyway, Gutsy is a really good alternative, just that you need to work harder to make it works for you, good luck!
Hi, I switched over to OS X about the same time you did (10.3.x). The upgrade to Leopard on my 1.25ghz Mac Mini was flawless. It has been running for a couple of weeks now and I haven’t had any issues with application crashes. It makes me very curious what could be causing the problems you are experiencing.
I’ve used Linux since 1995 and since then have never had a Windows machine for more than a couple of months (before realizing each new release was just more of the same).
I’m also a Unix/Linux administrator by profession. I tried running Ubuntu on my PPC mac mini but frequently ran into things that got in the way such as the lack of the Flash plugin, java weirdness, etc. Most seemed to be centered around web plugins. Pretty much anything that is not Free Software will not be available on the PPC platform. Native linux applications were pretty solid, although they still have their own usability issues. Printing on Linux is a mess regardless of the hardware. I tried converting back to Linux for a while before giving in to the cost of the Leopard upgrade. If I were going to switch back to Linux on my home computer I’d replace the PPC system with a well supported Intel system like the Shuttle XPC computers. Even though I really like my Mac I’m careful to keep my data in open formats so I’m not tied to any particular platform should I choose to make the jump in the future.
I am sorry to hear you are having this much trouble with Leopard.
I have been running it on my Intel based Macbook pro since Day 1 and have not had any issues. It is my main work machine (I do Linux and Unix administration).
I have actually got a few of my co workers to swap as well as my parents and they have not had any of these issues.
I have ubuntu installed on a Toshiba M5 laptop and I have had nothing but issues with it. So much so that I am going back to Gentoo.
I read someplace that apple is releasing new compilers and some pretty big changes in the next two updates, hopefully that will take care of your issues.
wwwpanda:
(Not that I am important in any way, shape, or form, or that people even listen to me, but I am one of the guys who writes those reviews.
I am on the Apple Developer network (payed), I had incremental versions of Leopard, and I had the final version of Leopard at noon on release day.)
You are either not very experienced with computers or are yet another very biased anti-Apple individual. Leopard is a great OS, far far more stable, secure and quick than anything that comes from open source. I once tried Ubuntu under parallels, but it was absolutely horrible. The UI doesn’t make any sense, it tries to copy Apple all over the place but fails miserably at even the most basic tasks.
Wow, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but never “not very experienced with computers” or “anti-Apple individual”. Thanks for that Josh that made me laugh :)
I have dualbooted Debian and Mac OS X in the past, it’s possible. You’ll have to first partition the disk, install Mac OS X on the first partition.
And then Debian in the other partition(s).
That way you could get to your AirPort Extreme settings, etc.
There is also something called: MacOnLinux I didn’t try it at the time though.
Looking at the MoL pages, it could be you’ll only be able to use Tiger, but that’s not a big problem, if it’s not your main working environment I guess.
So, Leopard on your PPC mac barely works at all and
Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T23, works flawlessly..
Yeah… I believe that, sure.
I don’t mean this to sound insulting, 小罗, but a lack of experience with Apple computers or an anti-Apple bias are the only ways to explain these bizarre problems you are claiming that no one else has experienced. Saying that Ubuntu is better than Leopard gives it away, as none of the dozens of people I’ve switched to OS X from the garbage that is Linux could claim such a thing with a straight face.
Ok Josh, I am going to assume you are not a troll, and respond.
1) I’ve been programming computers for 10 years, 3 exclusively on Mac. If you have a look around this web site you’ll find several Mac applications, and a several widgets I’ve written. I’ve also done a few jobs as a network administrator, and I build IT infrastructures for startups in silicon valley – I am not sure what your definition of “lack of experience with computers” entails, but if I fall into your definition then you must only respect the opinions of the gray beards (with whom I get to hang out with (on occasion))
2) The only way you can call me anti-apple is that you found this on some thread on some other site, clicked the link and just commented without finding anything out about me (or reading any other posts). You know nothing of me, where I have worked, or who my friends are / have been. I’ve been called anti-Microsoft before, but if you were to call me anti-Apple at a conference or event where people know me, they would laugh at you for long periods of time.
The third option in your black and white take on the situation is I am right and there is a problem with Leopard. There are many people having problems (look on forms) a lot of whom are very “experience with computers”. And I’ve seen many problems on several different types of systems.
In closing, I am not sure what you hope to accomplish with your condescending, uninformed posts about me or my “experience with computers”, but I believe it’s having the opposite effect. In fact, I’ve never actually seen the famed “fanboyism” until this very day – and Ubuntu is looking even better now.
Thanks for stopping by.
Do not worry about josh and his kind. They always blame the people with problems. It is never Apples fault. Apple are blameless. Apple is a God, and gods are always flawless.
My family have dumped all Apple machines for work (we keep a couple around for safe surfing) because we cannot stand josh and other religious fanatics like him.
Apple can produce good products, when they need to prove a point, unfortunately with so many arse licking sycophants like josh who accept any rubbish Apple produces, Apple does not need to prove itself often. Thus, apples products are normally mediocre at best. We don’t blame Apple, we blame josh and co.
If you have a PowerBook and another Apple PPC machine, I suggest you try Fedora. You will have to do some tweaks for your wireless and maybe iSight, but Fedora supports PPC, Ubuntu plan to discontinue its support. Soon, IcedTea (Java environment) will work on PPC, but flash…. its another history. Fedora has a wide range of apps and is pretty solid, no crashes on me in ppc in years. In fact, runs better than Intel version (I have 1 intel mac too). Fedora 8 is nice too.
HTH
I switched from a Mac to Ubuntu (dual-booting with Windows) about 2 years ago, and I have finally completed the switch by buying a new computer with just Ubuntu.
I read about the “being removed from the admin group” problem elsewhere – do a Google and you’ll find it. The trolls here should take note that for Mac users to complain about Leopard, they’d have to be pretty darn angry. There have always been serious fundamental problems with Mac OS X that are part of the reason why I moved away from the platform. Now they are really biting Apple’s customers.
I also had a fair bit of trouble with lock-in, but time will heal it.
For the record, the computer I bought had parts chosen specifically for their Ubuntu capability. Literally everything worked “out-of-the-box”, just like on a Mac. And this computer has wireless. It’s a fairly powerful machine with overclocking ability for under $1,400 Australian – you cannot touch that for a Mac!
I’m a computer tech myself as well as a MCSE and service many hundreds of windows pcs and the headaches with vista is enormous so I can understand the woes that may be occuring with Leopard coming from Tiger… hopefully not as bad as vista from XP.
I use many flavors of linux myself and have no experience with mac although since osx 10 is unix based I presume it is similar.
Although knowing a single OSs architecture does not mean it will work flawlessly once an app is intruduced into the mix. No two machines or configuration are the same so it’s impossible to say that if I don’t have a problem with my computer then you shouldn’t either.
The biggest problem with forum or blog comments I find these days is that people just don’t read anymore.
It has been mentioned at least twice that this guy has a ppc not intel based mac and yet people are continually telling him to dual boot.
I say if you use windows, mac, linux, unix or a commodore 64, it’s all good as long as it does what you need it for.
Dan
I am Full-time GNU/Linux user and ubuntu enthusiast. I understand why some people use Mac OS X but rarely do they understand why I use GNU/Linux. Lately, however more and more Mac users have been expressing interest!
I would also like to comment on what a great series of posts this is— very balanced (with the obvious exclusion of josh), with a very consumer-centric attitude. I read hundreds of posts a day, and rarely do I find a mac/linux conversation that actually gets somewhere. What the internet needs now is more conversation, more listening. Good job everyone.
I feel you. I bought an intel mac but got sick of the os itself after a while. Imagine how i felt when i found that this macbook refused to run linux (could not get it to work in a satisfactory way despite considerable tweaking). I eventually sold the thing and bought a dell and i haven looked back since. What in trying to say to you is that you’ll be vendor-locked even with an hotel mac. Good luck with your future pc. :)
“What in trying to say to you is that you’ll be vendor-locked even with an intel mac.”
Even with boot camp or Parallels? I have several friends who run both Mac and WIndows on intel boxes with no problems. I don’t personally know anyone boot camp’ing Linux, but quite a few running in in Parallels – they seems to be ok.
Where you totally wiping the box and trying to just run Linux?
[...] Moving from Mac to Ubuntu [...]
[...] quick search brought up this great post by 小罗 w which while sharing many of my views on Apple recently also has some great [...]
[...] some reading I found this post at http://robrohan.com/2007/12/10/moving-from-mac-to-ubuntu/ which helped and on my Powerbook G4 (Machine Model PowerBook5,2) the following works well across [...]
I had a 15in MacBook pro but I sold it and got a a Powerbook 1.33 G4 12in and it started giving me fits with Leopard. Found out it was my harddrive. I replaced it (abot at 20 min procedure) and now it runs with no crashes except in Macsword which is a fault in Macsword.
Here are my main programs
Firefox – A G4 optimized build available at http://firefoxmac.furbism.com/ – I use the point releases not the nightly builds i.e. 2.0.0.14
iScroll – The main reason I could never switch back to windows I must have 2 finger scrolling.
MacSword – ead and search Bible for Mac
NeoOffice 2.3 – Takes a minute to open, but wow this program is great.
Word 2008 – Use to crash then they released an update and all is well. Still I set the autosave to 1 minute you can never trust MS
iMovie 08 – Works slowly but great – http://www.teksanity.com/iMovie/iMovie_08_on_G4/Intro.html
iMovie 06 – It is just easier for some things
iPhoto 08 – use to crash but after latest update all is well.
MailPlane – There is just no way to describe te way that this program simplifies e-mail in OS X. Seein is believing.
Terminal.app – Yeah like 60% of my digital time is spent troubleshooting networking. OS X is my far the most stable network client and server.
[...] one of my previous posts, I got a bit upset about getting my OS locked in to one vendor (Apple). However, I had to go buy a new laptop for a gig I was doing a few months [...]
@Paul
“I believe Parallels and VMWare Fusion will both allow you to install Ubuntu. Why not create a virtual machine for Ubuntu on your Mac?”
Parallels only enables one core + a limited amount of memory to be allocated to each virtual process. I saw some significant performance gains when using bootcamping into ubuntu.
Also at my workplace, Leopard kernel panics more frequently than Windows 98/ME ever did. It potentially has something to do with lsof. Anyways we got rid of the code that uses lsof and it kernel panics “only” 2-3 times a week now.
@Brian @Paul :)
I can’t speak to the Leopard kernel panics (I’ve actually not had that happen on Leopard, only once on Panther), but to add to the bootcamp bit…
I just got an Intel Mac and now run Ubuntu 8 in VMWare, but the cool UI effects don’t work. They did, however, work fine on the G4 dual boot setup. That alone lends a bit of ammo to bootcamping performance gain.
Vendor lock-in is a hard problem, and as i see a lot of companies are actualy trying nowdays to lock in people. And nor the People, nor the Companies understand that using formats like PSD, EPX (or what), DOC, XLS, etc. WIll incrase the costs of switching by a horrible amount. Where i work we are now planing an MSO > OO.o switch, and it looks like that our most resource expensive task will be to convert and review every single document we have. I have to admit that back then there where not a lot of alternatives, but it is 2008, and Open Formats are a big buzz. Just this buzz just does not tuch the CEOs of our partner companyes. I tend to belive that in a perfect world there would be a bunch of people designing and standardilizing formats. And every single company will obey the rules. And that once the programmers will yet again write applications, not solutions. And theese problms are old as hell… just look at the text files… i mean .TXT plaintext stuff… with all the encodings and i dont know what. People should sit down and make a format that supports every language in an easy to process way (constant 4 bytes / char) it will not take a lot of diskspace. And some compression will just make all the size difference disapear.