Re: OS X packaging is an embarrassment

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From: Bill Page
Subject: Re: OS X packaging is an embarrassment
Date: 20:14 on 20 May 2006
maybe you shouldn't be a unix faggot, you dickhead*

*may have been written at 4:44 am on sunday morning
will rely on others to fix this problem without one noticing

On 5/21/06, Luke Kanies <luke@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
> So I picked up a MacBook yesterday, for various reasons but mostly becaus=
e
> my 12" powerbook feels really slow these days.  After getting my accounts
> moved over, which took a while (mostly because I have 45GB of music), I w=
ent
> about making it resemble the *nix workstation I know and love.
>
> These days, that mostly involves getting X11 installed and then getting R=
XVT
> working.  I tried Apple's Terminal for a while, but I can't change the AN=
SI
> colors and the defaults suck when having a dark background, and it's
> difficult to automatically tile them, which I always do.
>
> So, I install X11 and DarwinPorts.  Hmm, nothing works.  Ah, DarwinPorts
> can't find a compiler.  Ok, go into XCode and install the compiler.  Or,
> well, install both of them.  Nope, still doesn't work.  Ok, link gcc-4.0 =
to
> gcc.  Nope, still doesn't work.  Look at the build log, realize it's miss=
ing
> "as".  Do some searching, realize that I need another package.
>
> This is where I realize, OS X is an embarrassment.
>
> See, the DarwinPorts package was a normal OS X package.  If OS X had a re=
al
> packaging system, then the DarwinPorts package would have been able to sa=
y,
> hey, this won't work, you're going to need these 7 packages.
>
> Instead, because OS X's packaging is basically a glorified tarball, you j=
ust
> have to try it, and then figure out the failures yourself.
>
> Of course, it's not just in the Unix world where OS X's packaging falls f=
lat
> on its face.  "Just drag it into the applications folder" is a nice insta=
ll
> method, but it sucks from then on.  What packages do I have installed?  H=
ave
> they changed?  Are there updates available?  No idea, no way to find out,
> unless maybe it's an Apple package directly.
>
> And, of course, even though my motivation for buying this machine was
> because my 12" feels really slow, this machine feels just about as slow.
> Particularly, if I am doing more than one thing at a time -- say, Firefox=
 is
> loading a tab, and I switch workspaces -- then the whole machine bogs dow=
n
> just as badly as my 12" did.  I/O seems to just kill OS X.
>
> I'd love to think that OS X could be free of software hate, but I don't s=
ee
> it happening any time soon.  Give me apt and a decent package manager, an=
d
> then a kernel that doesn't somehow manage to make a dual-proc 2ghz machin=
e
> feel dog-slow, and then we'll talk.
>
> --
> I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. Wh=
en
> people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane.
>     -- Ray Bradbury
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Luke Kanies | http://reductivelabs.com | http://madstop.com
>
>

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