On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 1:59 AM, Ramnarayan. K <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi > > Am interested in user experiences of Ubuntu (and other Linux OS) on > Apple Macs-particularly MAC books - both the positives and negatives. > > also interested in why one should / should not buy a a macbook and run > gnu/linux on it, > > ram >
you raise some interesting questions, quite a few i've been pondering over. given that gnulinux runs comfortably on macbooks, should i buy one for myself? a) apple has some licenses which are approved by fsf, even though not everything from apple is copyleft. b) apple is supportive of the foss community, the foss community tends to be supportive of apple. yet apple is also a very smart company, plucking the fruits of some foss endeavours for its own good, like the 'apple shake' video-compositing software, and more recently, CUPS, the unix printing system. c) apple has pushed the ugly, greedy, vicious music-industry, kicking and screaming, to online music as a service, and even pushed it to consider selling music without DRM. however, and that is a capital HOWEVER: d) apple severely punishes its own customers, should they attempt to hack their legally-owned iPods, to the extent of even bricking their devices, or legally threatens anyone who tries to offer a muft and mukt version of their iTunes software. google for 'fairplay'. e) getting the latest generations of apple ipod to work under gnulinux is not so much a technical issue, as apple's extreme reluctance to work with the FOSS community and allow fair enduser rights for all customers. e) apple is even more harsh and vengeful with customers who wish to hack and customize their iPhones. web-search for 'brick iPhones'. f) iPhones, as with ipods, are tied-in with online services. unlike with an ipod, that you could legally use without purchasing any music from apple, an iphone ties you in with contracts from companies apple has tied-in with in turn. why is the iphone locked in the first place? so, in purchasing a macbook, do i wish to convey my support with dollars, to a company whose business practices are at times quite anti-customer? nevertheless, i do have a few points on why i feel compelled to purchase a macbook running ubuntu, ubuntustudio, and debian, for myself. regards niyam -- niyam bhushan -- ubuntu-in mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-in
