MacOS Network Utility

[stam]

The perceived condescension was about 'Linux is not an OS' remark

Erm… the exact comment was “as if Linux was a single platform somehow” alluding to the fact that there are many different “Linux” OS’s and what runs one one doesn’t necessarily run on another.

I never said Linux wasn’t an OS, I said Linux wasn’t a SINGLE entity, but we always generalise to “Linux” and seem inordinately permissive when things don’t work.

Anyway, that’s by the by.
Glad you found a solution that works.

[richmond62]

seem inordinately permissive when things don’t work.

Probably because most Linux distros are FREE, and unless one it totally naive one realises that something that is FREE is likely to be shaggier round the edges than something one pays for.

Or put another way: if you pay for something you have a good reason to expect a certain level of service that you wouldn't from a free thing.

Oh, and if you really like living in Edge City you might like to have a look at this:

https://www.redox-os.org/

[stam]

Probably because most Linux distros are FREE, and unless one it totally naive one realises that something that is FREE is likely to be shaggier round the edges than something one pays for.

Or put another way: if you pay for something you have a good reason to expect a certain level of service that you wouldn't from a free thing.

Remind me how much you paid for MacOS?


(And please don’t conflate the price with hardware prices).

[richmond62]

Remind me how much you paid for MacOS?

Nothing.

But I paid a fair whack for the hardware to run it on: I'd be hard put to run MacOS on some of what Tim Cook and Co. obviously think of as heaps of old junk: on which I run several Linux distros without a backward look.

So, stating that MacOS is 'free' is a load of old nonsense.

I have a 'heap of junk' that is 24 years old on which I am running Xubuntu 24.04: I have a funny feeling that I will not be able to run MacOS 16 on my 2018 Mac Mini: I do not doubt that my 24 year old box will run Xubuntu 25.04.

The heap of junk cost me 25 Euros 12 years ago.

The Mac Mini cost me $699 in 2018 (when I got my son to buy it at a reduced rate when he was working in San Diego).

[stam]

You purposefully confuse hardware and software.
Windows laptops can easily cost more than a MacBook but you still have to pay for the OS.
Because funnily enough, hardware <> software.

I knew you would answer in exactly this way, and requested you not use that ridiculous analogy.

Never mind, it is purely my fault for engaging with you.
I should know better. It won’t happen again.
I’ll leave you to your Linux-built hardware that is free too.

[richmond62]

Surely the cost of computing comes down to both the cost of the hardware and the software.

After all, the cost of running our 14 year old Toyota Auris is not just the insurance and the fuel: two months ago I changed all the filters, the oil, and the freon.

Now, I could run a 40 year old Lada which would require an oil change every 5 years, has no air filters, and the insurance is about 20% of the Toyota.

Mind you, try going up the motorway at 140 kph (which I did today) in the Lada.

________

And as you obviously enjoy being belligerent:

I paid NOTHING for MacOS. See no hardware mentioned.

_________

A bit of thinking might make one think the high price of a Mac computer pays for the development of the OS as well as the hardware.

[PaulDaMacMan]

The perceived condescension was about 'Linux is not an OS' remark

Erm… the exact comment was “as if Linux was a single platform somehow” alluding to the fact that there are many different “Linux” OS’s and what runs one one doesn’t necessarily run on another.

I never said Linux wasn’t an OS, I said Linux wasn’t a SINGLE entity, but we always generalise to “Linux” and seem inordinately permissive when things don’t work.

Anyway, that’s by the by.
Glad you found a solution that works.

It's hard to tell 'tone' in text, and maybe my detector is overly sensitive. No worries.

I'll be switching to (a) Linux full time (eventually, when I retire), and then I'll never have to worry about what Apple is doing to my once favorite OS again. I know I've seen a very similar network info UI on Linux (might have been Elementary OS, can't recall).

[stam]

Hmmm… I could never get Elementary OS to recognise my older laptop’s WiFi card and even though I paid a contribution for it because I really liked its look in the end it was utterly useless to me.

I ended up installing Linux Mint which worked nearly out of the box and continues to do so. Basically a Win7 type desktop but it’s OK.
I remain unconvinced that it is any better than the latest MacOS I could install on that 2010 MBP. In fact I’m going to say not - but haven’t yet reverted that machine to MacOS.

A new version of Mint is out but I can’t bring myself to upgrade because it again goes through the cycle of downloading the ISO, making a bootable USB, trying to install without accidentally deleting all my data and/or apps and hope I can get things running again. Erm… No. Life is too short.

Outside of installation pains, the issue I have with all Linux’s (and ChromeOS) is that almost none of the software I enjoy using exists, or if it does, it looks like piss.

Every now and again I’ll go into a cycle of installing other OS’s but it all comes back to this: I will use whatever gives me good access to the software I want to use. And only MacOS does that for me.

I personally don’t see a point in migrating to Linux and while I have grievances with Apple (the system settings is a prime example), there is no beating the ease of installation/upgrade, app ecosystem, user experience or privacy/security in my opinion (your mileage obviously varies...)

[PaulDaMacMan]

Hmmm… I could never get Elementary OS to recognise my older laptop’s WiFi card and even though I paid a contribution for it because I really liked its look in the end it was utterly useless to me.

I ended up installing Linux Mint which worked nearly out of the box and continues to do so. Basically a Win7 type desktop but it’s OK.
I remain unconvinced that it is any better than the latest MacOS I could install on that 2010 MBP. In fact I’m going to say not - but haven’t yet reverted that machine to MacOS.

A new version of Mint is out but I can’t bring myself to upgrade because it again goes through the cycle of downloading the ISO, making a bootable USB, trying to install without accidentally deleting all my data and/or apps and hope I can get things running again. Erm… No. Life is too short.

Outside of installation pains, the issue I have with all Linux’s (and ChromeOS) is that almost none of the software I enjoy using exists, or if it does, it looks like piss.

Every now and again I’ll go into a cycle of installing other OS’s but it all comes back to this: I will use whatever gives me good access to the software I want to use. And only MacOS does that for me.

I personally don’t see a point in migrating to Linux and while I have grievances with Apple (the system settings is a prime example), there is no beating the ease of installation/upgrade, app ecosystem, user experience or privacy/security in my opinion (your mileage obviously varies...)

Oh yeah, Mint is very good, even installing on some pretty old hardware with and semi-obscure chipset. The biggest problem for the Linuverse may be that there are actually too many choices. I like having choices, but it does makes it difficult to support for all of the possible different OS configurations.

Maybe the coolest alternative to macOS I've tried is helloSystem (https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/), based on FreeBSD/Darwin, so not a Linux ( but it does have a 'Buntu compatibility thing ), which I really liked but it's not quite ready for regular use. None of them are macOS and never will be, but at least with some work you can tweak every aspect of Linux OSes to your needs, or even for just-enough-OS single purpose optimization (Kodi Media Center/LibreELEC OS for example). I can usually tweak the File Manager key-combos, add in a 'Plank' (Dock), etc. to make it macOS enough for me that it's not completely annoying. There's a few Distros that provide a very good starting point for doing that, that is they're geared towards OS 'switchers'. And if you like Objective C there's even GNUStep one could install and have macOS-mini-Cocoa-like Frameworks to build apps against.

But I hear you on the quality software availability front. I can't even really fully switch until I retire unless I virtualized macOS or something. But the quality of some of software that is available has improved quite a bit over the years, albeit at a much slower pace than commercial counterparts. Particularly in the Media / Graphics Creation and DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) arena, which are the sort of software I'm most interested in.

[richmond62]

Personally I have used Xubuntu as my main Linux distro for some 17 years as it is easy to use and allows one to upgrade/update without having to blank anything.

[thatkeith]

I remember reading a Blog by Kai Kraus (the genius behind Bryce) about 24 years ago . . .

He decided to take a year 'off' and packed a suitcase of CDs of Bryce 2, and set off. When he landed in Indonesia (? might be wrong, 24 years is quite a time), he said everyone said, "Oh, we've already downloaded that." He wrote that he was so happy that people had been empowered by his software he really didn't care that they had not paid for it.

Long-delayed thread revival: I remember watching Kai Kraus at a press event in the 90s, back when I was tech ed at MacUser. He literally told people to give his software away, saying 'give it to your Uncle, your friends.' He followed up by adding "if someone makes money with it, then they should go buy it."

I was standing at the back of the room next to his PR agency team, and they were absolutely cringing!

k

[thatkeith]

Those "nice" people at Apple have removed Network Utility from MacOS 11 onwards.

Take a look in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/ – you should find Network Utility there, along with a few other utilities that used to be more surface level.

k

[thatkeith]

Hmm. I should have checked further. It IS still there as of macOS 12.7.5, but the utility's window just says it's deprecated and to use Terminal or Wireless Diagnostics (this one's also in that 'buried' directory).

[richmond62]

Not in MacOS 15.1:
-

[thatkeith]

Oh well, that does make sense. I had used the 'hidden' one a few times a while back, but after seeing it is now basically a splash screen saying "nope" I'm not surprised it's gone in the latest macOS. Shame though; while everything I used it for can be done with Terminal, I do generally prefer a gui.