Microsoft Buys Transgaming, will move Windows to Open Source

In a startling announcement, Microsoft's Steve Balmer announced that the Redmond company has purchased Transgaming Inc., for an undisclosed amount. Microsoft also announced that it will be moving its basic code base to Darwin, shocking the global computer industry.

"Today marks a new era for Windows. We have purchased Transgaming Inc., and will use their Cidar technology to power legacy and future Windows applications as we migrate to an Open Source code base for Windows. This code base will be shared across everything from Windows Mobile to Windows 8 and Windows Servers." Mr. Balmer said.

Mr. Balmer when asked why the sudden change, "Frankly, this has nothing to do with the Internet Reboot scheduled for today as some of you have speculated. I'm tried of being compared Apples to Oranges with our friends from Cupertino. For Windows 8, we will be moving our basic code base to Darwin, which is open source and which coincidently is the foundation for OS X. Make no mistake that the entire User Interface and User Experience stack will be familiar to Windows users everywhere."

Michael Dell when asked how this will affect Dell Computers, simply said, "We asked Apple once before if they will licensed OS X to us. Now, Microsoft has anted up. Windows 8 will look great on future Adamo notebooks!"

Industry pundits point out that this too is a shot across the bow for Linux. Now that the world has gone Unix, industry insiders said that it will be an interesting few years.

Apple declined to comment. Microsoft stock rose 5% in after hours trading on news of this purchase.

Hello, Leopard!

Two Weeks! That's how long it took to migrate from Tiger 10.4.11 to Leopard 10.5.1. And no, it wasn't Apple's fault.

My road to leopard began when apple kept sending all those email about Leopard demonstrations coming to a Mall near me. I had already decided not to move rapidly to Leopard because I argued the down time it would take to backup every piece of data was just a bit rich for my taste. Since I've been running FileVault (encrypted file system) for the good part of 2 years, my mac needed some extra tender loving care, what with all the horror stories about FileVault being an issue with Leopard upgrades. But i was weak! a quick trip to the nearest Apple reseller and boom! I was a happy man, rushing to get back to my mac and transform it from Tiger-strips to Leopard-spots.

Sliding the dvd to my slot drive, a minute or so and my superdrive coughed out the Leopard

like me eating some really bad sandwich. That was the part where I got to say, "Houston, we have a problem." Mounting the dvd on my Linux server revealed that indeed the media could be read, though it only showed the boot camp parts of the install. The odds were quickly moving to hardware failure and not bad media. A quick call to the reseller and they quickly responded if i could take the Mac in for some differential diagnosis. It wasn't like i could pry the machine apart myself.

Being fourth in line to be served while the local resident genius solves other problems can be nerve wrecking. You think of all sorts of things that could be wrong and hoping that the problem was simple as bad media. After all, i tried loading my tiger dvd and it still mounted. It was a good half an hour before I finally got served. The Genius popped in all sort of dvds, including his copy of leopard and my copy of tiger. my mac threw them all out.

This is the part where I thank my foresight to buy AppleCare. My mac is nearly 2 years old, been with me at the hospital while I was sick (had it smuggled in). It goes were I go and she hasn't acted up or anything like that. I was surprised that it was a broken dvd drive. the boys and girls from the reseller took my mac in, and promised she'll be all nice and better after 2 weeks. fourteen days later, my mac was coming home with me.

Fourteen days without the Mac was like taking a fourteen day vacation in hell. I was stuck using the home Linux box, which is basically used as my home-server, and family computer. I built it using gentoo Linux and it works great as an AFP (apple filesharing protocol) server and as a NFS box. It was like being a druggy on withdrawal symptom. For instance, what was I to do without QuickSilver? Oh, sure KDE offered katapult as a QuickSilver-like app but it wasn't the same. And what was I to do without iTunes and podcasts? for those fourteen dark days, I was relegated to listening to Twit for instance, streamed via the web. my ipod of course could not be sync'd with my Linux box.

Vacation was over. Nevermore my Mac was back! A quick trip to the reseller and I got the mac back home. applecare took care of everything and for someone who has been fixing his own computer since the old age of 10, it was a nerve wracking experience letting some other person play their hands inside my machine but everything was how i left it, except the part where the drive's fixed and now accepting DVDs.

So what else was there to do but pop in the Leopard DVD? the disc mounted perfectly and once the reset button was clicked, the mac rebooted off Tiger for the last time. An hour or so later,

Leopard was booting!

First impression? It looked great!

A few people online have been disliking the new transparent menu bar. it isn't so bad. it's not intrusive at all. it changes really with the wallpaper and my wallpaper settings is a folder filled with images from people i know to hot babes to comic book covers that i like.

The dock is nice with the 3d look. a number of people dislike the absence of the old black tiger marking for apps that are on. It is now like a point of light under each app that's on. I don't mind it. it is all right in my book.

One of the biggest thing that i've been enjoying on Leopard is spotlight, which is spot on. in Tiger that damn thing just wasn't useful or could be used at all. I dunno if Apple had to change the lightbulb or the batteries running the thing, but Leopard's Spotlight works excellent!

I like QuickLook coverflow-like thingy on finder, very itunes, which is great. Spaces, i've been enjoying. Setting specific workplaces for things like Adium and Safari and Mail as opposed to more work related space. It is a good way to get organized.

Time Machine, I haven't tried since I don't have an external drive (my home linux box is my archive-server) but for most people, I think Time Machine would be great.

FileVault, I will not try again ever. maybe until it becomes better. It has been more trouble than it was worth while I was using it for 2 years. It slowed down system performance considerably. I'm happier now without it.

the screensaver when set to mosaic kept on crashing and for some reason, i couldn't use the screensaver now. anyway the bug report has been filed and sent apple's way. Maybe by 10.5.2 it'll be fixed.

My biggest problem with Leopard so far is the firewall. I'm just not a big fan of app-based firewalling. I know, i know, most folks don't care about that sort of stuff and can't even begin or want to wrap their brains around firewall settings, what ports tcp or udp to turn on. it makes perfect sense to go that route but darn it apple, would it have been too hard not to include an "advanced" preference page for people like me who want to set tcp/udp ports that i want open?!

From a user point of view, I don't see any noticeable difference in speed between 10.4.11 and 10.5.1. Leopard 10.5.1 is just as springy as good old Tiger with a lot new stuff. I know much of the change in Leopard isn't appreciated by the masses, like under the hood changes but the ones that people will and do notice--- the new look and feel for instance, is more than worthwhile to upgrade. Tiger had a great run. Leopard is arguably the next iteration to an already great OS! Hello, Leopard!

Second Star to the Right

The space above Ossus burned, blazing with dancing Dogs of War.

Three Warbirds dove in to strike like angry Raptors of the ancients and their turbolasers were claws with murderous light pounding on the shield of the Imperial flagship, Nevermore. As the mighty ship rocked from the onslaught, a hooded figure stood before the massive displays that wrap around the Flag Bridge. He staggered and nearly fell, the storm was fierce and unrelenting.

In near inaudible whisper, the hooded man spoke to the young woman a step below the forward command platform. "Padawan," he paused. "Order the forward batteries and torpedo launchers to concentrate fire on the lead ship."

Four feet tall and nearly nine years old, a young Jedi stood behind a station normally reserved for the ship's first officer. Her hands flew swiftly across the panel and as the lead Warbird came about to launch yet another attack on the Flagship, every forward weapon system coordinated their vicious attack, breaking the lead ship's forward shields. Five minutes later the Warbird Aka'gi blew in a screaming rage and scattered across the stars.

The Aka'gi's sister ships, the T'sar and the T'Rex rallied and combined their assault pounding unforgivingly on Nevermore's bridge shield. The klaxon screamed loudly. An officer called from his station "Hull breach! Intruders detected off the main bridge---!" Suddenly the blast doors of the Command Bridge blew as four Assault Droids collided and overloaded the blast door's shields and armor.

If a ship could feel, Nevermore would have writhed in pain.

Walking over the broken and melting fragments of what was once were Heavy Assault Droids who gave their existence to breach the Command Center, was a hooded Human Sith Lord, Nhyl. There were no pleasantries exchanged except the blurred cobra-like strike of a crimson Sith saber colliding with an Emerald Green blade and a Pink one. The universe seem to shrink, focusing on that one moment. The command center was bathed in the cold-light of blades.

The Sith Lord Nhyl collided with The Jedi Lord Taiyu expecting the Jedi Master to meet him head on. Instead the Jedi absorbed the ferocity of the Sith Lord's attack, locking with him and with a powerful push from the Force dragged both of them to an awaiting Escape pod. In a blink of an eye, Master Taiyu had shot himself and Lord Nhyl into the cold depths of space, blacking out from sheer force exhaustion, leaving an eight year old human Padawan on the bridge of the Republic's Flagship and in command of the Fleet.

The next thing the Jedi Lord Taiyu knew was an excruciating pain coursing through him as tendrils of the Force prickled and coursed through his body. The depths of his soul cried out in pain. In his ear a blode beauty with the sweetest voice whispered enticingly in his ear. "You will join us," Then the pain grew more intense.

The gentle chime of the ship woke Lord Taiyu. Sweat rolled across his forehead. It was another nightmare. "Yeah?" He spoke to the wall. A blue hologram appeared before him. It was the manifestation of the ship's Artificial Intelligence.

"I am sorry to disturb your sleep cycle, Lord Taiyu. You have an incoming message from Republic High Command."

"Understood. Pipe it through." Before him stood the image. His Flag was being summoned home. Expedite return. Refit to commence immediately. Tzu Taiyu knew what the message meant. The war had nearly bankrupted the Republic. Had there been no war, Nevermore would have been scheduled to be transferred to a new superstructure. He knew this because he designed it himself. Sleek and powerful, far more mobile with more teeth than the white Imperial-III-Class starframe of his current ship's superstructure. There was still war to be fought and the Republic needed all hands on deck. His Krayt-Class WarDragon would one day rise, Tzu Taiyu knew with certainty.

Tzu Taiyu clipped his lightsaber and donned his Master's robe and strode to the bridge. As the doors parted to reveal the Command Bridge, he saw Jheytee, his now ten year old Padawan on the Command Deck and she was patiently waiting for him.

A holoprojection of Nevermore appeared beside his Padawan. Today, his ship's persona wore an ornate costume, intricate with the black and gold stripes of the Tiger. She already knew what Fleet Command wanted. If she was human, she'd know fear. It was akin to hating injections.

"If I were human, I believe my response would be... Go to Hell." Taiyu looked at Nevermore, raising an eyebrow. "If I were human," Nevermore stated.

"People can be very frightened of change." His Padawan noted.

"Some people think the future means the end of history. Well... We haven't run out of history quite yet." Taiyu quoted.

It was Nevermore's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Course heading, Master?" His Padawan asked.

Tzu Taiyu stood before the stars and knew the dangers that lurked behind the natural splendor out there. He looked at Nevermore then at his Padawan Jheytee and the courageous crew of his ship who braved hell to rescue him from the dark abyss of Korriban. Taiyu turned to his young apprentice.

"Padawan: second star to the right... and straight on till morning".

"As you command, Master". Turning to the ship's crew, rattled orders and the crew went about their work.

Tzu Taiyu stood before the stars. He let his mind woolgather. He knew his ship and trusted his Padawan and his crew to carry out their orders. In a moment of introspection, whispered to Nevermore who had now stood beside him gazing across the stars.

"Captain's Log, 30ABY.12.19: This is the final cruise of Nevermore running under Tiger. This machine and her history will shortly become the care of another Operating System: Leopard. To Leopard and her posterity will we commit our future. We will continue the voyages we have begun, to face the challenges of tomorrow and journey across the galaxy, boldy going where no machine, where no one... has gone before."

I hope the mixed metaphors didn't give you a headache. This is my way of blogging that I am beginning my upgrade towards Leopard. See you after Tiger retires.

Edit: first image is a image i took using iSight of my copy of Leopard and the second is a screen shot of an email i received from Apple about demo dates in Asia.

Apple's New Cat Has Sharp Claws

If Andy Ihnatko's "What's Leopard really worth?" quantifies in cash terms how much the individual pieces in Leopard is worth and the likes of Mossberg: Faster, Easier than Vista, Pogue's Apple Offers New Goodies in Leopard System and Snell's Leopard Macworld Review and others across the web what Leopard is for the masses, then Ars Techica's John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: The Ars Technica Review is for those who want to know how sexy Apple's new kitty cat purrs under the hood.

Leopard: ROAR!

It's official! The countdown has begun--- literally. Apple has a nice countdown to keep us all in the loop. Leopard gets out of the cage October 26.

*image is a screenshot of Apple's Homepage.

Tux and OS X

Some say the world should be Tux,
Some said of Big Cat OS X;
"what the heck", I said, "both're of Unix stock,"
Thus, I first favored Tux;
Years pass, Tux desktop disappoint,
Though without doubt, great on a server can,
Now that I know enough of OS X to pen:
'tis got great (Core) Foundation plan,
Big Cat is the desktop on my 802.11 LAN!

*images are from here: Linux (left character) and Leopard (right character)

Mac Speak: the Computer will Listen and Obey

Ever been envious of those guys on Science Fiction shows (like star trek) and movies that talk to their computer? One of the little known and equally unused feature of Mac OS X is the user's ability to command the computer to do a thing by just speaking to it.

screenshot of my system preferences

In your OS X, open up system preferences and you'll see a mic icon labeled speech. click on that and you'll find the speech recognition options. in there you can set your computer by clicking on certain commands--- for me i usually swap between setting it to option+esc or choosing the computer to "listen" actively. you can even set it to follow commands after a certain keyword is evoked, like your computer's name.

it is quite fun really, when you're reading a web page and you just utter "move page down" and the page goes down. Or "move page up" and the web page goes up. You can also evoke apps like "switch to parallels" or "switch to neooffice" and the computer will open the app for you. It impresses the kids when you say "switch to photobooth" and their favorite photobooth application rises.

Macworld has tips on how to "bookmark" a page in safari--- and when you issue your voice command, the browser will open the page for you. Macworld uses safari but really, if your default browser is camino or firefox, it will open the page in that browser. pretty neat when you're coming in the morning (i set the system to "wakeup" at a certain time of day so when i do slip into my home office it's primed and ready to play), sipping coffee and your system is idle. utter "open my browser" and followed by "open google reader", takes multi-tasking to a higher plane.

does the novelty wear off? I mentioned earlier that this is a little known and equally little used feature. how come? See, it is fun and useful but 90% of the time it doesn't work. most especially when the environment is quite noisy and the computer can't understand you or when you find yourself working and listening to iTunes at the same time (or when kids are in the area). Which is why i switch to using a keyboard shortcut to enable speech recognition during those instances or just shut it out entirely.

Linux Desktop Done Right

Is having too many choices, limiting? Cruizer, awhile back, sent me an email on this article: what apple gets right and why linux keeps slipping behind. theosib makes some interesting points in that post: 1) applications on linux are scattered all over the place, like in unix. 2) configuration files are hell to maintain (believe me, if you're not careful maintaining this on a gentoo system--- you might very well trash a completely running system), 3) applications don't inter-operate: i.e. copying from the clipboard can be hell, and lastly theosib said, ego.

First of all--- as a recent switcher (from linux to mac, a year ago), i was simply amazed at how apps are installed. It's like this, for you non-OSX users: you download the "installer". You know how you put in a flash drive in and it suddenly appears on your computer? the disk image is like having a flash drive, but not physically having it--- it exists as a file on your computer and "mounting" is the thing that happens when you plug it in. you just double-click the dmg and it mounts itself. then you find the installer. For most apps on the Mac--- you simply drag files off your dmg to a folder called "Applications". (see this cut out from my finder window, above-left)

So what happens next? What do you do next?

Well go to your Applications fold and double click the file and enjoy your new app. that's it.

where did the install wizard go? for most apps that you'll be installing? nada. the dmg has all the files it needs to run. Apps don't expect you to be downloading this or that lib or .dll file. it doesn't expect you to be a geek that you have to know where program files is or that. it just works, out of the box. just like that. it doesn't let most people think.

certainly, there is no stopping most people to find out that where /Applications is--- physically or that in a Mac OS X drive will have /usr, /var/log in there. For you Unix/Linux geeks--- be calm, breathe in, breathe out: they're all in the same places, we know and love.

i've come to appreciate this simplicity. to be sure, it hasn't stopped me from getting fink or darwinports to fetch my latest unix app. to be quite honest, i found just downloading the source file for wget for example and compiling it by hand--- is simpler. sure i miss looking at the single place for all unix apps--- like what portage does, or for you Ubuntu/Debian folks: apt-get repositories. i don't think it really is all that needed on a mac.

I did find that having an app that installs php+mysql+apache by just downloading dmg files is great for development purposes or having the same "magic" happening similarly for ruby on rails through locomotive. yes, there is no substitute for compiling these apps by hand and configuring it specifically for you, and you should do that if ever you're in the business of going production or running a data center--- but in most cases like development work, like testing, this way is the easiest way to get started working right now. no thought as to how this or that works, no thought at how the systems administrators do it. just getting down to work, right now: hassle free (or as close to it as conveniently possible).

In windows, there are similar ways on how this happens. don't ask me how because i've never done more than installing postgresql and an apache on an xp machine and it was an academic exercise more than anything really. my experience--- i don't know if it has changed in the year and half since i last done that, nothing beats the OS X experience in installing an application.

theosib talked about how configuration files are hell to maintain. he is correct. i once had a gentoo system that wouldn't boot properly because i messed up the network configuration script. i had to restart the lan--- to my surprise it wouldn't because i remember migrating from an old net configuration to a new "pristine"/default.

In Linux, all these configuration files can all be found in one place. usually, it is in /etc. now, redhat will have its way to manage itself. as does ubuntu, as does gentoo and there are as many variations as there are distros. it always peeved me that being a gentoo user, the /etc for the other distros is all over the place. Take for example, Redhat (at least when i used to use it WAY back when): /etc/xinet.d will have most of boot scripts. I forget where Ubuntu keeps its stuff but in gentoo, it's either in /etc/conf.d (for most of the boot stuff like net device configuration, clock, ntp-client, etc.) and /etc for your .conf needs.

For most people--- who the hell cares where /etc is? Take the clock: keeping time is the clock right? and when you adjust the clock in gnome or in kde--- it should properly reflect in the configuration file (whether or not it is in /etc/conf.d or in /etc or /var or /whatnut), so that when the next time you log on to the machine, the changes will be made right? It isn't really the case is it?

I always set the linux clock using vi on /etc/conf.d and installing ntp to keep it in sync. people shouldn't have to do that on their desktop right?

Networking: i blogged about this a while back in "Why I Made the Switch" and "Will You Enlist". It is what makes our world go around now. Just about every computer on Earth is connected to the Internet. Why is it in this day and age, Linux Network Management on the client/desktop side is SO archaic, it makes Windows' Networking look like a brand new luxury car? Zeroconf, NetworkManager--- so many different things, doing exactly one thing: managing the network.

Then, there is the whole debacle on Gnome and KDE. Honestly, I'm a Gnome person: i find it more intuitive than kde and i also find kde to be so much like windows not just in the look and feel but how it does things. Other than the time I ran a machine using Sabayon (a few weeks ago), i've never used KDE for years. Here you have essentially two user interfaces essentially competing against each other. are they any different? in how they do things, yes but their end goals are the same. they both benefit from beryl. they both benefit from xorg. they both exist on that space between X and the user. so why can't we have just one?

people will chose between gnome and kde, based on individual preference and based on where they get trained into using first. with respect to both the gnome and kde developers--- you guys do a hell of a job, but seriously, isn't it about time to form one single unified linux desktop?

That is the heart of the matter isn't it? Has having too many choices-- having so many parallel development created a whole mediocre ecosystem?

Don't get me wrong: Linux is robust. Its performance as a kernel is well known. It is a great kernel and the distros--- all of them do a great job of delivering great software. Technically speaking, Linux is superior technology. But I must ask: hasn't the proliferation of so many distributions--- essentially the same thing, with slight variations, almost quirk like hampered a combined effort to build the true Linux Desktop Interface?

Anyone can build a linux distribution. Every gentoo box is compiled from source and theoretically you can configure it to follow your own quirk, and from that stand point is unique. As a linux user, i don't care if i have to run VLC off a command line for instance. Or MPlayer. i don't care if by popping a DVD into the drive, i have to manually type into the command line the mount command and issue the mplayer command to play the DVD.

on the other hand, the keyboard is often the quickest way between two points and why do you think apps like Quicksilver on the Mac is such a great productivity tool?

Put this way, as geeks: we don't care if the car has a cupholder, we just need the car to go really fast. My point is that Linux is a geek thing and often things like User Interfaces get lost in the translation: "normal" people don't necessarily can follow what comes easy for most geeks. Linux, inherits this from Windows because Windows' greatest failing is that it tries to apply a geek thing to what normal people do.

OS X's human-centric user interface brings a little humanity to computing.

People rave about how great Feisty Fawn is, that Linux is finally getting to be user friendly. If by user friendly you mean you can install apps as easy as you do in windows, may I submit that is still not the best way to do it? Still, it has done a remarkable job.

By being Linux users, we've changed the world. We've challenged the technological domination of mediocre technology like Windows, with all it's holes and quirks and problems and is slowly turning the tide. Windows for all its fault is in this rat hole (not just because it wasn't ready for a networked world) because it was a victim of it's own successful ecosystem.

May i submit that we may be exchanging one dog for a similar one? For all the technological greatness of linux under the hood, it still is that roadster you built. it isn't in that level of user-ready sophistication. it is still, so very geek and not elegant. i will trust an e-commerce site to run great on linux. i will trust a production database to run great on linux or the network (dhcp, firewall) to linux or as an OS for a supercomputer.

In many ways what has made Linux so successful--- it's technological prowess is stifling it. Where is our creativity?

Then again, is it still true that hackers rule the kernel? Take this blog on Who wrote Linux 2.6.20? How large is the community? Are they not mostly being paid now by corporations to help in this? hackers need to be paid for their efforts of course, my point really is why can't the same organizations and the communities band together and focus on building a humanized, next generation user interface?

The whole cathedral and bazaar thing--- we've proven that indeed, it works. Linux being the poster child of Open Source is the best example that it works. Heck, this whole open source thing is being replicated across the world in things like the Open Architecture Network, and they want to improve the living standards of millions of people.

Linux is on every little space on the planet. It is being supported by Companies around the world, who are making a profit off the open source model. why shouldn't they? it's a good idea. Linux can be found on phones, on huge computers. it is on the top 500 computers on the planet. What linux has failed to capture is desktop space. it has eluded it. Yet why?

Apple has a Unix-based operating system as well and it is found in at least 20 million computers across the planet and it is based on open source. small number, sure, but linux can easily dwarf that, right? Windows is so bug-filled that you expect the computer to restart, several times in a day (because it is starting to be that it isn't the case anymore). And the viruses, worms and trojans--- huge problem that an entire industry has grown up both to prevent and another to use as vehicles for their nefarious schemes.

There isn't really a lack of applications on Linux, not anymore. With wine, you can run Photoshop on Linux or go Gimp. PDF readers are all free on linux. it comes with both Gnome and KDE. OpenOffice is relatively good enough for most new documents--- it's your old word docs that really is the problem and of course interoperability with just about everyone else.

Linux is "free", compared to Microsoft's Windows or Apple's Mac OSX. For one thing, you don't need to pirate something that retails for US$0.00. You don't need specialized hardware to be running Linux like Mac hardware (yes, they're still somewhat specialized in light of the Intel-switch). But people will pirate Windows and pay a few dollars for a pirate copy of it because it works with their PC and its devices.

So what gives?

people tend to forget that Linux is just a kernel. it's a brain that can coordinate the eyes, the ears, the hands, the skin. it is a great piece of software that can be ported to just about every space there is. Embedded, done. Supercomputing, done. Video Recorder (PVR/DVR), done. Desktop, you bet. technically speaking, it is possible that everything and anything can be built on top of the linux kernel. this configurability, this ability to customize is the most power feature of Linux.

don't believe me?

just look at wine. it is a Linux implementation of the Windows api. long story short it translates your windows' applications instructions to the computer into linux speak so that it can run under any linux distribution.

what is to stop Microsoft from doing what Apple has done with rosetta? Microsoft in a heartbeat can build their next generation operating system around the linux kernel or a bsd one. it may take a few years to do it, and several billion dollars but it can. What better weapon is there than to use your enemy's knowledge (i.e. open source) against them? (it can happen, no one would have thought apple would go intel.)

In the same vein--- you can basically build a whole new user interface around the Linux kernel: a single unified user interface. After all, linux is just a kernel.

Distros need to standardize more on common functionality, we should stop re-inventing the wheel. In doing so, would it still be the same diversity that distros now enjoy?

As I explained in my post, Why I Made the Switch, it wasn't because Linux is open source that I use it. Or windows isn't Open Source, why I don't use windows:

"The deal breaker for me why my primary machine is OS X was the ability of Apple to put together this Unix-based desktop workstation that had grace, flexibility and it had power: that's why i made the switch"

At a time when the cost of Apple Macs and Windows PCs are at par, and unless you're really going for that budget (i.e. total lowest acquisition cost) machine--- why would you go linux, when you could find the perfect unix desktop already in Mac OS X?

Mac OS X is the Linux Desktop without having to go through all the headache and heartache of making your computer work because hint to developers and manufacturers: just works, no longer works.

Apple showed us that an Open Source operating system can be beautiful, elegant, and powerful piece of software. They were able to build, what is now without doubt: the reigning gold standard in user interfaces. What Linux needs, if it wants to rule the world is to build a humanized, unified user interface that makes the computer work for us, and not the other way around. It can. It should. it can jump over existing User Interfaces and "wow" us (and i'm not just talking about eye candy like beryl, which by the way is good). it is a higher level of creativity that we need to cultivate for the next user interface. Today, Mac OS X is Linux Desktop done right.