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red harThis article is part 8 of an ongoing series of articles on this site comparing Apple Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" to Red Hat Linux Fedora Core 4 (FC4). (The previous article is here.) The point of this comparison is not to say that one OS or the other is "better" but rather to point out the differences and indicate where an artist who previously used Mac OS X 10.4 would find Linux to be easier, harder, or the same to use as the Mac. See the introduction article for more information and links to the other articles in the series. Although the focus of this series is on the needs of designers, artists, and content creators, the content should be relevant to any number of Mac users or Linux users.
This time around we're going to look at what it takes to update the operating system and the bundled software. After all, part of keeping a system secure, current, stable, and bug-free is the ability to apply the latest software updates from the operating system manufacturer.
Mac OS X Software Update
Mac OS X includes a "Software Update" program that greatly simplifies the process of downloading and installing the latest patches for Mac OS X. The Software Update program is accessible from the command line as well as from the Apple Menu. Since we're mostly focusing on GUI-based tasks, we'll look at what it takes to obtain and apply the latest OS X updates using the GUI Software Update tool.
After launching Software Update on Mac OS X, the computer will contact Apple to see what updates are currently available:
If no updates are currently available from Apple, Software Update will tell us that:
But if updates are indeed available, it will tell us that also:
Updates that Apple recommends for all users are automatically checked as shown here. Other updates are optional and can be selected by the user. It is also possible to tell Software Update to "ignore" updates we don't care about (for example, the iPod software update if we don't own an iPod).
If we aren't sure what an update is, clicking its name in the list will display a brief description of what the update does:
Once we've selected the updates we want, we can click the "install" button to get them downloaded and installed. Since OS X is a proprietary OS, the software updates it provides often require us to agree to some sort of license. If so, a license agreement screen like the following will be displayed:
After "Agree" is clicked on this screen, Software Update will download the relevant updates and begin installing them. 
Once the updates are installed, Software update will return to the list if the updates don't require a restart. If a restart is needed, Software Update will prompt the user to perform that restart:
It is often a good idea to run Software Update more than once because it is possible that a current update is not showing in the list because other updates need to be applied to the system first. Fortunately, these pre-requisites and dependencies generally sort themselves out automatically with no real "thought" required by the user. Red Hat Software Update Just like Mac OS X, Red Hat includes a software update functionality as well. Given the complexity of the Linux environment relative to OS X (I'm speaking here of application dependences primarily), the Red Hat software update functionality has a bit more to accomplish. Not only must it determine the Linux updates needed for an application to function, it must also make sure the right underlying libraries (used to build the application) are there, are compatible versions, etc. In Red Hat, if you go to the Application menu, choose System Tools, and then "Red Hat Network" a wizard similar to the following will appear: 
Clicking "Forward" continues the update process, with Red Hat displaying the "channels" of software which can be updated: 
Once the desired channels are selected, clicking Forward causes Red Hat to scan those channels to determine the updates currently available:
Once the list of updates is obtained, it fetches information about the available updates:
 As with OS X's Software Update, it is possible to flag update packages to be "skipped" in future updates. Red Hat now displays a list of packages that will be skipped unless selected by the user: 
After the desired updates are selected (or if none of these updates is desired), clicking "Forward" continues the process. 
Again, as with the OS X Software Update, the user may click on the name of a package to receive a description of what the package is and what the update offers. (Note that Red Hat's update offers more than just updates to the packages that ship with the operating system. The latest updates to a variety of open source applications are available here. This is comparable to having OS X's Software Update provide the latest Microsoft Office patches and Norton Antivirus for Macintosh updates.) After selecting the desired packages to be updated, the user may click "Forward" to begin downloading those packages. Before applying an update, Red Hat checks to see if the package has a valid digital signature If not, Red Hat warns the user that the update might not be "safe" to apply: 
(Although it could be transparent to the user in OS X, it does not appear that packages shipped down as updates are digitally signed.) If the user chooses to accept the packages without a digital signature, Red Hat begins retrieving those packages from the Internet: 
Once the desired packages and their dependencies are downloaded, Red Hat begins to install them: 
Once all the desired updates are complete, Red Hat notifies that user that the update process was successful (or displays error messages if it was not). Even considering the relative complexity of updating a wide range of packages in the Linux environment and keeping their dependencies straight, this software update process remains as simple and intuitive as that in Mac OS X. Because it includes packages that didn't necessarily ship with the OS originally, it is in effect a more functional tool than Apple's Macintosh Software Update. Something that takes this value a step further is the Red Hat Software Update Alert Notification Icon. This icon appears in the task bar and can tell a Linux user at a glance if the system requires any updates. For example, here is what the icon looks like on a system that is up to date: 
The white checkmark against the blue circle tells the user that the system is not missing any critical updates at htis time. If critical updates were needed, the checkmark would change to an exclamation point ("!") and the circle would turn red. The icon would also "pulse" softly to draw the user's attention quickly:  Upon seeing this, the user would know that important updates are needed and could apply them immediately or at the user's earliest convenience. OS X does this also, but in my opinion its notification process is much more "in your face" (which is a good thing if you tend not to be paying attention to your machine a lot, or a bad thing if you're simply trying to get some work done and it's throwing warnings in your face). Conclusion As with many of the issues in this series of articles, both OS X and Red Hat offer essentially the same functionality. It is debatable that either of these could be said to be "better" than the other. Apple's takes a few less screen captures to illustrate, but it also isn't doing as much behind the scenes as Red Hat is. Red Hat's is more comprehensive, including "third-party" packages in addition to OS updates, but requires the user to go through a few more steps. From the point of view of a graphic designer using each platform, I'm inclined to think that the Linux approach is slighly better, ONLY because it includes updates to products that Red Hat itself didn't develop or necessarily include in its distribution originally. As such, it would update more of the software a designer was using than Mac OS X would. Aside from that point, I'd say they're approximately equal.
Come back for the next installment in this series, which will look at the Mac OS X "Finder" (file explorer) and the Red Hat Linux file explorer.
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