[nicklaforge]

I have to laugh at hose of you who fault Rob for following anything but the most mainstream recourse in resolving his crisis as proof that he's to blame, didn't do his homework, etc. Consider this: despite the (somewhat strange, in my mind) phenomenon of various Plan 9 alumni (and Google employees in general) using Macbooks for daily use, the fact that these folks are proven experts at bringing up ports of their own research operating systems on new machines from just their hardware documentation should key you into the fact that these Apple products were purchased with all the expectations of an appliance! I.e., not things to be mucked around with, but the result of a commercial transaction that ought to be judged on its capacity to perform as advertised and supported if necessary.

Getting a closed, commercial product (with a baroque unix base) to bend over backwards to perform basic functions like backup and installation is not a Plan 9 user's of fun. I would hazard a guess that the greatest reason Rob got burned could have been the naive expectation that programs will perform their designated task simply and correctly?

Considering Apple's user-base, on the other hand, idiot proofing the system seems to be a much higher priority. Which is the main reason why I still don't understand why Plan 9 people can stand to use Macs.