So I want to shutdown my Macbook Pro. I hit the power button, choose “Shutdown” and close my lid. Poof ! OSX decides its a great time to go to sleep. And after a few hours I open my laptop again in a hurry to start it before a meeting and what do I see ? The computer waking from its sleep, only to resume its shutdown process. Drat, let me boot it back. Sorry, ran out of battery sleeping all this while !
I realize I am not the loving Apple fanboy who gazes fondly at his Mac for a full minute after initiating a shutdown. No hell, I am an impatient bastard and I like to close the damn lid the minute I am done with the miserable machine. All right, so let me atleast change this behavior so that no action is taken when I close the lid. I search all over system preferences and I find nothing. Maybe I am just a spoilt linux kid who is used to customizing every bit of my operating system? But wait EVEN Windows lets you control the lid-close behaviour.
I am tired of the stupid looking Panic screen that doesn’t give a clue why the system panicked. Was it my bluetooth mouse ? Was it the new application I installed. Or was it DTrace doing something crazy ?
I am tired of a “Unix” system that doesn’t come with a standard compiler suite and needs the whole universe to be compiled to get the latest version of the tools I need.
I am tired of the Stupid Dockbar that needs so much extra effort to launch a new instance of terminal.
I am tired of the innumerable times OSX goes to sleep and refuses to come back up and I need to force power down when ZFS is not the root filesystem.
I am tired of working 12 hours on linux with the close button on the right side and trying to fumble on OSX to close a window.
I am tired of seeing ancient egyptian symbols on the keyboard shortcuts menu which for god-knows-why are not labelled on the bloody keyboard. Not to mention the inability to modify shortcut sequences.
The Mac is easily the most irritating computer I have ever used. I loathe it for one reason – it thinks I am an average dumb piece of ass that can use the default configuration, drool at the glassy looking windows and say “Oooh …. this is from Apple. If something is unusable its because my brain is broken”. Sorry to break the bad news ladies and gentlemen, but the Emperor is stark naked.
I have no problem if there is a default configuration that is unsable (Ubuntu’s default desktop configuration is probably the worst out there). But I need a system that puts me in control of what I want. I need the ability to change all the things I don’t like about the system. I don’t want to buy a closed, propreitary system for $3400 to find out its only as good at doing what I want it to do as it is at wiping my a$$ and that I am stuck with it.
If you are a Unix programmer and somebody out there told you that the Mac is the system for you – DTrace, ZFS and the great Apple UI, you should think before you buy the story. Try using a friend’s Mac for a short time. My fellow Unix hackers at work, (2^10) times more 1337er than me share my hatred of Macs. And if you are a seasoned BSD/Linux/Solaris user, there is a good chance that you would too … 
Filed under: General, Mac, Operating Systems
http://mirror.lupaworld.com/ubuntu/releases/dapper/ubuntu-6.06.1-desktop-powerpc.iso
I understand your rant about the odd way mac is set up but that is what Mac fan boys like..its different!!? Think the dock is good idea and in my view Apple did a good job in developing it from the Sun’s open source project “project looking glass” which is still a future concept before its time.Mac has a place and competition is good after the dominance of MS for so long.This spurs every O/S to do better.
Oscar Wild would have said “it’s better to have tried it than to never have tried it at all”.
Well i am no linux hacker but a typical windows spoilt kid still struggling to completely shift to linux……….. But I still found the Mac OS irritating when i tried it for about half an hour before i asked it to go to hellllllll…………. So I am with you there………
Haha… same story here man.
I am forced to using a mac coz apple’s iphone sdk (dont ask me why I am working with that) wont work on anything other than xcode. My productivity just dropped to 10% because I cannot do most things without the mouse. Fckers dont have a alt & ctrl key for the right hand. Imagine typing in Emacs without that.
Every day I just grow hating the mac more than the day before. I dont understand how people like it.
Funny. Actually one of my friends, who rushed to buy OSX had the same problem. When I searched all over, I found that there is a system variable called lidwake. I thought I found the solution. Then only I came to realize that this lidwake value was just to ensure that the Mac wouldn’t wake up accidentally when the lid was shut!!!!!!
I don’t understand why Apple decided to make this sleeping as an immutable property, when the lid is closed. But they admit that there is a possibility of “accidental” wake-up. I tried my a$$ out in vain to see how I could force this “accident”, when the user actually shuts down the system and closes the lid.
They are just selling that piece of sh*t through some superfluous marketing campaign (remember Mac Vs. PC ads) showing their fancy GUI. But unfortunately most of the laptop buyers are bird-brains, who buy “gadgets” and start loving it because it allows you to watch movie and browse Internet. And there are many of the movie stars in Hollywood and Bollywood who pose with Mac to show that they are technically inclined. Nuts!!!
I hate macs. Worst piece of Garbage EVER!!!!
Maybe my grandma would like it. But it is not suitable for a knowledgable, proffesional programmer.
Period.
BTW, I use OpenSolaris, Solaris, FreeBSD, and ArchLinux, so that you know where I’m coming from.
Hey Ananth,
Relax…. take the Linux pill… or OpenSolaris for that matter…:-)
being “different” is no excuse for sucking… be “different” when “different” means better. Not when it means worse.
Why dont you try installing your favorite flavor of Linux or Solaris on that Macbook Pro?
Before you refute…
http://www.felipe-alfaro.org/blog/2006/08/19/installing-ubuntu-linux-on-a-macbook-pro/
Well I’m using Mac powerbooks for years, and am quite happy with them.
-I never shutdown the thing (why would you need to?). I just close the lid to make it sleep (in my latest powerbook, it hibernates to save power)
-Never had any crashes (since 10.2) but true some 3rd party hardware with bad drivers can make the kernel panic.
-Terminal is the app I use the most. emulation is really great. Not slow at all here (event on a G4!)
Maybe your OS is damaged or your computer is a lemon.
I would suggest to:
1. Install latest combo update from Apple
2. Try an archive and install of the system DVD
My powerbook is a tool I use to connect to Solaris systems, browse the web and read my mail. It has never let me down in years.
@ Michel,
Dude, I work with a hundred other people who choose Mac over Windows – almost every single one of them hates it as much or more than I do – It has nothing to do with third party drivers or bad hardware (Top of the line $3000 Macbook pros)
I don’t care so much any more – I almost exclusively use Ubuntu on VirtualBox inside the mac.
I wonder what’s more painful: Mac or Windows + Cygwin…
Are these not contradictory in some sense?
“I am tired of seeing ancient egyptian symbols on the keyboard shortcuts menu which for god-knows-why are not labelled on the bloody keyboard.”
and
“I loathe it for one reason – it thinks I am an average dumb piece of ass”
Those symbols assume you are not
In some sense the macintosh is similar to the mini cooper automobile, they have secret nifty codes, rights of passages, and pride of ownership. Surely its worth a little effort to get in?
@ Neeraj,
I whine about the keyboard because there is *no* feckin way to customize shortcut sequences. I don’t give a damn if Steve Jobs thinks its consistent to have uniform keystrokes across applications. Let the fanboys have them by default. I want to customize them at my whim and wit. Lets just say I want to “Think Different”.
Why not just install OpenSolaris or Linux or Windows(Arghhh…!!!) on Apple hardware. Best of both the worlds…