7 157 2004-09-03T07:17:10-04:00 $Date: 2005-09-11 10:27:02 -0400 (Sun, 11 Sep 2005) $ NormanWalsh 2004Norman Walsh Linux or OS X? Who cares! It’s the apps that matter! I’m not sure that’s going to help much, but it’s worth a shot. I’m finding this laptop decision making process terribly painful. GeoffArnold suggested I should quibble less about the OS and worry instead about the apps I run. I’m not sure that’s going to help much, but it’s worth a shot. I need bash, ssh, gpg, cvs (maybe soon, svn), and the standard suite of Unix utilities plus Perl and Python. I expect all of those to be available on both platforms. My top three applications are emacs, emacs, and Firefox. I say “emacs” twice not simply for emphasis, but because I always have two copies running, a general edit anything copy and a copy running gnus in which I read all my mail. (Sorted and collated with SpamAssassin and procmail.) In any event, no worries there, I expect. I also rely on a bunch of Java apps (JAXP, Saxon, Xerces, catalog resolvers, etc.) but they should be no problem (WORA, baby!). I need pilot-link to sync my Palm with XML using Perl. I run OpenOffice when some bozo sends me that sort of goop. I must have virtual desktops. I’m getting that with Fvwm today, but I used a commercial tool (Perfect Screens) when I had to run Windows and there appears to be a commercial tool (VirtualDesktop) for OS X. There may be others, and free ones too, I haven’t looked that hard. After that, I want a multi-protocol IM client. I’m using gaim now, but I’ve used others in the past. I need a decent IRC client, like XChat. I run GKrellM to monitor the status of a few things (I would miss Sun Clock if I couldn’t continue to use GKrellM, but I can’t really call that a show stopper) and xconsole to watch the console messages. I expect those are all functionally available on both platforms. As I said, my browser of choice is Firefox and I run the Apache web server and the WWWOffle proxy cache. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, and I usually build things with gcc of the 2.9x vintage when I do. None of those should be a problem. I run the ImageMagick tools and Gimp to edit photographs. I use XPlanet to make a background on one of my desktops and for travel maps. I use the Internet Printing Protocol to communicate with the printer on the server in my closet. And wifi, of course (802.11b today, “g” tomorrow). That’s about it. At least, that covers everything running right now and all the things I can think of off the top of my head. I may have forgotten a few things, I suppose. I will say there are some interesting sounding things for OS X that I don’t (yet?) use. The Rendezvous stuff with apps like SubEthaEdit looks interesting. And most folks seem to say good things about the iLife apps. I just don’t know.