Why I'm choosing Linux (yes, it's Apple whining)

First I would like to say that I'm a 'Switcher'. I have been using a Mac for the past three years and I haven't looked back. I like the ease of use of the Mac interface yet I still have the ability to mangle the Unix (BSD) underpinnings.

I've owned my second Mac for only a short month or two before Steve Jobs dropped his bombshell at the World Wide Developers Conference announcing Apple's switch (pun) to Pentium processors. Jobs all but admitted that PowerPC processors are better and the main reason they were switching was because of power comsumption (Yeah, right). Meanwhile the Mac Zealots were upset about losing the (better) processors but will buy one because they hate Microsoft, and the Apple Lemmings could care less and as long as it had a chromed Apple logo on the case they are going to buy it anyway. The news obviously came as a surprise to me and the first thing I thought about was 'They better drop the fucking price of their PowerMac's by $1000'. My issue's are more of practicality than any sort of brand loyalty. If a computer company expects me to support them they have to support me too.

Now don't take this as a rip on Apple's OS X. I love OS X and it's the number one reason that I switched with hardware coming in at a distant second. So what's the problem you say? You're still getting the OS so what's the big deal? Again, Price. I don't have that big of a problem buying a $3000 Dual G5 übercomputer, but I do have a huge problem with buying a $3000 Pentium 4 computer of any make. It's just not worth it to me and I bet it's not worth it to a lot of other people too (unless you fall into the latter two categories).

Where do I go from this point? Right now I'm still going to wait and see Apple's pricing scheme. I hope they will drop the prices of their Mac's down to a comparable Dell (or even lower but that's not likely to happen). If not it's time to start looking for a new operating system with hardware that I want (like an Athlon 64 X2).

Windows is the first to come to mind. Do I switch back to Windows? No because I just don't want to. I don't care for it, there's too much spyware, virus', and crap software. I don't have a problem with running it because I know how to take care of my boxes (I have seen morons ruin(!) OS X because they don't have a damn clue as to what they're doing). I also choose not to use Windows because it's over priced, product activation is total BS, and frankly it's a little boring. If Microsoft released Vista for $120 for a full release (meaning upgrade or fresh install) without product activation I would buy it. It still wouldn't be my main OS, but I would still pay for it.

Darwin x86 - Darwin is OS X, or at least the kernel but no beautiful Aqua GUI... Something to play with, but no good hardware support, etc. Honestly, it just doesn't interest me.

FreeBSD - The next on my list was FreeBSD. FreeBSD as well as the Mach Kernel from Next is the base for OS X. Why not go to the next closest free and open operating system? Well FreeBSD is a great OS, solid and dependable but a little out of my learning curve and I'm just plain lazy. PC-BSD which is FreeBSD with a nice installer and the KDE Desktop built on is available for the beginner. It's nice, but the OS X GUI is why I want to stay with Apple to begin with. At this point I can go to any *nix and have the same desktop environment and common apps.

Linux (General) - Ah Linux! Linux has the ear of some big corporations like IBM, Novell, Sun Microsystems and even Microsoft (though not in a good way). With support from big companies and having a large developer community is why I've decided to go with it. Linux is also becoming more main stream, with native apps from Skype, AVG, Adobe, Real, and Macromedia it's not hard to have the bells and whistles of a Windows desktop. 90% of my unix experience comes from using Linux and I'm comfortable with it.

Gentoo Linux (Specifically) - Gentoo is a source based distribution that is structured much like FreeBSD. Gentoo's Portage is very simiiar to FreeBSD ports which allows a user to download software from a repository, compile and install it. Gentoo has no installer (but excellent documentation), and I learned a great deal about how a Linux system works from the initial install and configuration. A minor negative is the time it takes to install a complete desktop worthy system due to the long compile times. It took me a solid two days to get Gnome running (using 'emerge gnome' after first boot on an Athlon XP 1800+ w/768Mb RAM) and over 24 hours of compile time alone getting openoffice.org to run (on a PIII 866MHz w/128Mb RAM). After the wait time from the initial setup it's just like any other distro and having an OS natively compliled is a big boost in speed and stability.

Lastly, if I wasn't going to use a source based distribution I would use Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is a Debian based distro that is user friendly, doesn't load a lot of useless software on a default install and has an uncluttered Gnome desktop. I highly recommend this distro to new users.

This post was far larger than I ever expected it to be...

'Health Chips' Could Help Patients in US (Big Brother Alert!)

I'm not even going to make my usual comments through this article. If you can't see how incredibly bad this is going to be than you're a fucking idiot. Let's face it, if this is required by the gov't in the future, what's to stop them from putting anything else on the chip? So much for privacy...


Jul. 31--President Bush's former health secretary Tommy Thompson is putting the final touches to a plan that could result in US citizens having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip inserted under their skin, The Business has learned.

The RFID capsules would be linked to a computerised database being created by the US Department of Health to store and manage the nation's health records. It could be the precursor to a similar scheme in the UK.

The president's budget for 2006 continues to support the use of health information technology by increasing funding to $125m (70m, E103m) for pilot schemes.

Thompson, now a director of Applied Digital Solutions, the company that makes the chips, intends to publish the proposal in the next 50 days, by which time he plans to have had a VeriChip inserted in his arm. Thompson believes the capsules could help save thousands of lives every year.

VeriChip spokesman John Procter says around 98,000 people die needlessly in the US every year after being given inappropriate treatment because their medical history was not available.

"There is a vast range of people who could benefit from having an RFID chip inserted under their skin as insurance against an accident. People with adverse reactions to certain medicines such as penicillin, people with pacemakers, people with allergies, people with weak hearts, would be made safer by a process that costs around $200 per person. In fact, virtually everyone could benefit from having a chip inserted."

The company intends to lobby the UK health authorities to inject the chips into British patients.

According to Procter, the chips can also be used for financial transactions. In Europe, the Baja Beach Club chain has introduced chipping in the Netherlands and Spain.

The VeriChip is inserted at the club and means club-goers will no longer have to wait in line to pay to get in and will be able to use the chip to pay their bar bill.

Civil liberties groups such as Caspian in the US fear that the need for increased security in the wake of terrorist attacks could act as a catalyst for a more widespread use of VeriChips.

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