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Mac OS X "Tiger" vs. Linux, Introduction

Written by Michael Salsbury

Friday, 23 September 2005

This article is intended to serve as the beginning of a comparison of Mac OS X vs. Linux (specifically, Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" vs. Red Hat Linux Fedora Core 4). The point of the comparison is to help answer the following question: "Could an artist, designer, or other creative professional employ the Linux platform for their work if it were necessary or economically required to do so?"

Because there are a variety of Linux distributions (distros) out there, along with a wealth of additional open source software applications that don't necessarily ship with a specific distribution, readers should recognize that this comparison is by its very nature incomplete. The point of my work here is merely to take a sort of "snapshot" of both operating systems in their default configuration and provide feedback both to Apple and Linux developers on where their offerings might fall a little short of one another. I'm not here to insult, degrade, or otherwise malign either operating system and I won't intentionally do so in these reports. However, I will try to be "brutally honest" when it comes to comparing functionality.

Toward that end, we begin with a list of the functionality found in a complete installation of both Apple Macintosh OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") and Red Hat Fedora Core 4 ("FC4") Linux. I've tried to include functionality that should encompass everything that 90% of Mac OSX and/or Linux users employ in their OS. Therefore I acknowledge that it isn't an exhaustive or 100% complete listing. However, it should give a pretty good idea where the two operating systems differ at a general level. In the chart below, where you see a link on the right, that link goes to a later article in this series which discusses that functionality in more detail, or (if the functionality is something not bundled with Red Hat FC4) it's a link to the project working on that functionality.

Currently the following articles in this series have been released:

As additional articles are published, they'll be linked here as well, to make this page an easy one to bookmark in order to keep up with the project as it continues.

Mac OS X Feature/Component/Functionality		Red Hat FC4 Feature/Component/Functionality
Activity Monitor		System Monitor
Address Book		KAddressBook, Evolution Calendar
Calculator		Calculator
ColorSync		Not done at OS level, but some apps manage color, such as Scribus
Dashboard		No equivalent built-in but there are similar tools available for Linux
Dictionary		Dictionary
Disk Utility		Disk Management (mount/unmount), Logical Volume Management, various command line tools
DVD Player		Totem (bundled with Gnome) Ogle and others are available free of charge
iTunes		CD Player, Helix Player, Music Player, Sound Juicer CD Ripper
Mail		Evolution, Mail
NetInfo Manager		At least some of the non-Mac-specific functions are present in the Authentication Configuration and Users and Groups GUI tools
Network Utility (incl. GUI ping/traceroute/etc.)		No GUI tool found but command-line tools are available through Terminal and there is probably a free tool that functions similar to this.
ODBC Administrator		KDict
Printer Setup Utility		Printer configuration tool which supports locally connected printers, CUPS/IPP printers, UNIX LPR/LPD printers, Windows SMB printers, Novell NCP printers, and Networked JetDirect printers.
Sherlock		"Search for Files" function for local files and network mounted volumes, nothing specific for the other kinds of Sherlock searches
Spotlight		<not available, though some applications provide a similar functionality for their data>
Stickies		<not included> Comparable functionality is under development in the Gtknote project on Sourceforge
System Preferences Panel		Desktop->Preferences Menu
System Profile		Hardware Browser
TextEdit		TextEdit
Apple Menu		Red Hat Applications menu, similar to Windows Start Menu
Dock		Gnome Panel, similar to Windows Task Bar KXDocker is a clone of this functionality
Software Update		Red Hat Update Agent
Graphical Desktop/Finder		Graphical desktop and file explorer
Go To Server...		Connect to Server...
Desktop icons for mounted disk volumes		Desktop icons for mounted disk volumes
Drag and drop file movement		Drag and drop file movement
Terminal		Terminal
Support for HFS+ disk format (Read/Write)		Not included but currently in alpha testing
Support for NTFS disk format (Read-only)		Read-only NTFS support included (R/W option available)
Support for FAT16 disk format (Read/Write)		Support for FAT16 disk format (Read/Write)
Support for FAT32 disk format (Read/Write)		Support for FAT32 disk format (Read/Write)
Preview for viewing PDF files, other graphics		KPDF, Kwikview, KGhostView
Grab (screen capture utility)		Ksnapshot
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		OpenOffice.org (office suite similar to MS Office)
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		KcolorEdit (color palette editor)
Character Palette in the Finder		Character Map
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		KDVI viewer for TeX DVI files
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		Kfax G3/G4 fax viewer
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		Kooka scanner interface
Safari		Firefox, Konqueror
UNIX-style security model		UNIX style security model
UNIX shell scripting capabilities		UNIX shell scripting capabilities
VNC-based Remote Desktop		KRDC Remote Desktop (allow others to remote control your machine across the network or Internet)
<some similar functionality in Mail and iCal>		KOrganizer PIM application
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		KGpg encryption tool for email and files
		Dia Diagrams (diagram drawing tool)
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		Karm time tracking tool
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		KhexEdit hex file editor
		KpalmDoc (Palm Pilot synchronization tool)
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		Inkscape (drawing tool similar to FreeHand)
		KolourPaint (paint tool similar to MS Paint)
<no such software built into OS X 10.4>		Kruler (on-screen ruler)
		IM (instant messaging client)
		IRC (internet chat client)
AirPort tools		KwiFiManager
		Video Conferencing
QuickTime Movie Player		Totem (bundled with Gnome)
Keyrings		Keyring Manager

It should be obvious from this list that there are no significant functionality deficiencies between Red Hat Linux FC4 and Mac OS X "Tiger" from an operating system standpoint.

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