Mac OSx – What fanboys ignore [update]

If you trust those Apple Fanboys, then OSx must be THE ultimate OS.

It is true that Mac OSx has the best Window Manager and some smart details that makes it easy to use.

But you loose your freedom of choice, OSx comes with a Window Manager that you have to use, you can’t change the layout like you would on any X11 WM. So you can’t make your desktop personal besides changing the Wallpaper.

The default layout is fine for me so that does not bother me. Something i was very surprised to hear is the FS support. You will ofc have HFS/HFS+ support and also Fat and Fat32 but thats it. Yes you can read NTFS, but you can’t write to it. EXT, ZFS or  RaiserFS are not supported at all. Unless you would like to run your FS Driver in userspace(fuse).

Now what i like with OS x is that you get a unix shell, the default one sucks (bash) but i installed the z shell that runs smoothly <3.

On Linux I loved the package managers, just run one command and you have the software. Mac is Freebsd based so they have “copied” the port system. Let me explain how the port system works.

The Freebsd port system works with makefiles, so say “make config” and then you can choose the compile options like support for bluetooth, in that way you get nice and small binaries. In most Linux distributions you would have a package manager that just installs binary packages. That is fast and fits most people. So why would you compile from source? To be able to choose, and customize the software to your needs.

Now with Mac ports you compile the source, but you can’t config pre compilation. (if you can somehow please leave a comment) So why would i ever want to compile if i just get the default config?

The management ability from mac ports is limited to the Software installed with MacPorts. So if i want to update all my Software i would need to open the Software and let the Software search for updates. I miss my package manager.

One more thing, I like to lock my Desktop, so people can’t go on my Facebook and write shit or change my Wallpaper to some sort of nasty porn picture. On Windows it’s easy (Windows key +L) on Linux (ctrl + alt + L) on Mac you need to go to the keychain preferences and tell to show a tray icon, then you need to go there and click on “Lock screen”. WTF!? give me a hotkey for that.

Oh Yeah, you can make one of your own (someone give me the path to the screensaver). Right now i have one for fast User switch but that is not fast as i would like it to be.

Now before you Fanboys get angry and start a flamewar. I like OSx, else i would not have spend money on it, but those things do really bother me i would wish them to be fixed.

[Update]

As I was informed, OSx has a build in shortcut for that ctrl+shift+eject.

Follow these instructions if you would like a hotkey for locking your Desktop:

http://artofgeek.com/2009/09/08/lock-your-macs-screen-like-in-windows-snow-leopard-edition/

but instead of the path shown use:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/
ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine

Don’t forget to go to

System Preferences –> Security –> Generell

and tell em to ask for the password immediately.