Pine dates back to 1989, where it doubtless ran on some industrial UNIX, or maybe a *BSD. Thus whether nano is considered to predate or post-date Linux is something of a matter of interpretation.

Linux has offered more to Mac OS then you could imagine. Take all the open source tools that have been ported to Mac to expand the functionality of command line. nano, wget, even programs like cd and ls. Hell, GCC which is used by Mac OS to compile was birthed on Linux.

I’m not sure about nano and wget, but all the others definitely did not come from Linux (and predate Linux quite a bit). In fact, you could validly say that it is GCC that birthed Linux (but not the other way around)! Note also that the BSD kernel on which MacOS is based (aka. Darwin) has a lineage that is older that Linux.

That said, Linux was the birthplace of several important open source projects that MacOS X now benefits from. Samba is one, and I believe Apache and MySQL are too.

Look you stupid Mac fanboy, Linux has offered more to Mac OS then you could imagine. Take all the open source tools that have been ported to Mac to expand the functionality of command line. nano, wget, even programs like cd and ls. Hell, GCC which is used by Mac OS to compile was birthed on Linux.

“I think I was being generous when I said that Linux is teetering.”
Well you better hope to your God that it doesn’t teeter off the edge, cause if it does then you’re in big trouble. Lots of the GNU software that is created on Linux will stop being developed. This will mean many of the applications and services that Mac OS relys on will end up becoming old and unsupported and this will affect you.

It’s obvious you don’t know how much Linux has influenced Mac OS. BSD has played a large role, but Linux has played and equal or larger role.

Get the facts, and I’m referring to the Microsoft campaign, get the real facts. Fanboy.

T [...]

I wouldn’t worry about Apple dropping support for PPC within the next five years. People are still able to run some 68k apps (running in Classic) because of the 68k emulator that’s built into PowerPC chips. Apple hasn’t made a 68k machine since 1995 – 1996, so they’ve been supporting 68k running on PowerPC for at least the last ten or so years. I’m willing to bet that Rosetta will continue to be a part of OS X running on Intel long after most of the apps have been updated to be either Universal or Intel-only.

The Apple Blog, Dispelling a few Intel Myths:

As to your suggestion that Apple give us a choice between x86 and PPC, whilst of course it is technically possible, it’s probably less viable economically, and it’s rather impractical. Developers don’t want to be compiling software for and, more importantly, compiling device drivers for both architectures forever.

John,
I think you’re being overly paranoid. :P I’m not famililar with the technical niceties of either the PowerPC and the x86 – not at that level anyway – but I genuinely believe that Apple is fed up with IBM’s failure to deliver faster chips. And the Pentium M in a PowerBook is too good a proposition to pass up on, especially when you have nothing else.

Jeffrey,
I don’t know what your wife’s usage requirements are but is the “five years of upgrades” thing an absolute prerequisite? A lot of Mac users tend to use their Macs until they are well and truly dead, no matter the operating system etc., and I see no reason why your wife would not be able to do this if she has the tools she needs to begin with.

By way of empirical example, I still manage over 17,000 photos in iPhoto on an old iMac G3 400. It’s slow, but it keeps going.

Remember: this isn’t the Wintel world – it’s a tool that does the job that it’s supposed to do, like a fridge or a lawnmower. It’s not something you upgrade.