Linus Calls Apple File System "Utter Crap"
Eponymous Linux dood Linus Torvalds let loose on Apple during a recent interview in which he conceded that OS X is indeed a "much better system" than Vista but "in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for."
Those ways come straight from the OS X file system, apparently, both HFS and HFS+, which Torvalds described as both "complete and utter crap" and "scary." So there's that. Linux, he countered, is an "obvious choice for anything from full-blown PCs to phones or video players."
I'm gonna go ahead and be neutral on this for the moment. Anyone?
Torvalds pans Apple with 'utter crap' putdown [Sydney Morning Herald]
[via Engadget]
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Posted to Hot Stuff, In the News on 5 February 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: apple, linus torvalds, linux, mac, os x
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The pic's caption: "Hey, look at that printer!"
Well, I think the most important part about this is who linus is and what he does/has done. It pretty much explains why he would want to tout Linux over Macintosh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
As someone who has used all three operating systems he discusses, I'd have to say that while linux is certainly an option, just because it's free, doesn't mean it's good. Linux has a long way to go before consumers can use it. That is to say, it's kind of difficult to actually do anything in linux if you are a mainstream computer user.
Um. I don't think this is really Linus putting down the MacOS, in fact he says it is better than Vista. He's talking about one aspect of the OS.
The filesystem of choice for the MacOS has been HFS/HFS+ for a while. I was there during the struggles of Sequoia and I must say I think they are kind of crappy too. Mostly HFS+ was some sort of reaction to all of the rumors that were flying around about NTFS (and its future versions) back in the day. Post-Steve and well... pre-Steve too.
Just a reminder for everyone - MacOS X is *nix. It is a polished version with an apple spin. The more important questions here would be what are his issues with HFS+ and why? I'm pretty sure his concerns are valid or are coming from some experience.
Instead of food for the tantrums of raging fan-boys this should be seen as an opportunity to review the problems others might also have with the base file system. File systems and their various merits a like politics and religion, often they are the causes of wars and trolling. Instead of fighting about it this would be a great opportunity for apple to review it. Improving on the existing FS or supporting other common ones directly could certainly help with the adoption of the XServe in the enterprise market. It has been growing and I think that is the market that would care about these issues, the average user or developer isn't going to be impacted by this issue directly.
The last time I checked I could kludge together something to support zfs, ext2, ext3 on OS X but it wasn't easy or Apple supported.
PS - This post has made it apparent to me that somewhere along the line being the nerdiest gay in the village became a life goal. :/