Moving to Macintosh

I'm been using Linux as my primary operating system for more than 13 years, and on and off before then. However, some of the recent changes in the way the desktops are being designed and other factors got me thinking. If the Gnome Desktop is looking more and more like OSX, maybe I should look at OSX. So after 6 months of research, using the equipment in stores, and trying things out I decided that I would get a Mac as my next computer. I also think I was ready for a change in my personal computing.

So when the new Macbook Pro's were released in October I figured it was time to make the move. I ended up getting a MacBook Pro 13 with a 2.8Ghz i7, 16GB of RAM, and the 512GB SSD (yes, I am now broke for awhile). The hardware that Apple makes is really excellent, and I figured if I really hated OSX, I could always put Linux on the machine. So I have used the machine for a couple of weeks now. And I have to say that while I am not fond of a few things (the menu bar at the top and Spaces just don't work that well compared to virtual desktops), I am finding that I can just use the computer and I am getting used to these changes. It is also nice that when buying hardware and software, I now do not have to spend a few hours researching if it will work in Linux. I can usually just look at the box and know.

I am also having to get used to paying for software again. I have to admit that being able to install OpenOffice on the Mac was a big reason to consider it. I'm not sure I could fork out another $500 in software for the Mac, so that cost of buying into the Mac is pretty low after purchasing the hardware.

I also have to admit that this is one of the fastest machines I have ever used for day to day activities. Even faster than some of the massive servers I have used less than 3 years ago. I think the SSD is a big part of that as the CPU clock speed is not all that different.

Does this mean I have given up on Linux as an operating system, definitely not. I still use it as my primary OS on my work laptop (RHEL 6.3) and I think as a server OS there is nothing better at the moment. I will probably always have a Linux box somewhere in the house, unlike Windows 8. Also a side note here is that Windows 8 is probably one of the main reasons that I started looking at Mac. I know that I don't use Windows personally, but others in my house do and after having a loaner machine here it made us all think that Windows 8 was not for us, at least on the desktop.

So what does this mean, it means that I need to find someone to take over some of my Linux projects. Over the last year I have not had much time for them anyway due to my work schedule (I travel a lot more now). And it is time the projects had someone focusing on them.

Preliminary gnome-mplayer and wayland testing

On my Fedora 19 machine wayland is available and so I thought it would examine what might be needed to make gnome-mplayer run in this configuration. GTK 3 will support wayland, but what I am not finding is a way to embed mplayer into a GTK window. The current code uses the GTKSocket and passes the XID of that window to mplayer for embedding. I am also not completely sure that the GTKPlug/Socket API is going to work on Wayland. According to the GTK 3 manual I see this note

The GtkPlug and GtkSocket widgets are only available when GTK+ is compiled for the X11 platform and GDK_WINDOWING_X11 is defined. They can only be used on a GdkX11Display. To use GtkPlug and GtkSocket, you need to include the gtk/gtkx.h header.

So the current method of embedding mplayer may be a no go on Wayland/GTK3.

However, I believe I may have a workaround for all this. I think if we compile gnome-mplayer in GTK2 mode and then use XWayland everything should "just work". It is also possible there will be a way that XWayland is launched for applications that are linked to Xlibs or we may just need to but a wrapper script around gnome-mplayer to ensure it is launched properly even in GTK3 mode. Not the cleanest solution, but better than nothing. Once Fedora 20 is released and Wayland and XWayland are available I will do some more testing and see what needs to happen.